A slim volume on life and thought of one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. It ranges over her dramatic life, her love affair with Martin Heidegger, exile, Eich... read more
An exploration of the friendship and rivalry of these two poets, who met weekly at the Ritz (for a while) to discuss sex, suicide, mental health and other mutual preoccupations.
Hart began a new life in a white-washed cottage in Wigtown - her Innisfree - while recovering from cancer. There she finds that swimming in a cold sea, nattering with lobster pot men, beekee... read more
Reframes an unruly passage of Lawrence's life - from Cornwall in 1915, to Italy and Central America - into a neat Dantean triptych: Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Whether you loathe or ado... read more
The magnificent Eland publisher considers his ilk through the stories and gossip of 15 generations of farmers, colonels, brewers, naval commanders and horse-lovers, as told to him by a great... read more
It should come as no surprise that Beaton's biographer, and author of many other fine books on society subjects, should himself have personal diaries to share with his readers... (Not to be ... read more
"John seemed only to float in a current of pleasure as reflected in his pictures. But hedonism, always a sturdy attribute, acquires a heroic quality with age...": Ian Collins' biography of C... read more
A memoir from one of the world's great handbag designers: a hugely successful entrepreneur, Anya is also a trustee of the Royal Academy and of the Design Museum; she's a Greenpeace ambassado... read more
Alex Renton is a journalist and writer: he uncovers his own family's slave-owning past and uses this as a means of approaching the growing debate about such legacies and contemporary consequ... read more
CN was a poet, pamphleteer and general dazzler, whose husband took the Prime Minister (Melbourne) to court for 'criminal conversation' with his wife - and lost. Old age has not dulled the pe... read more
Not Oscar (of the 'Ark' or 'List') but a Cafe in Innsbruck.... A vivid portrayal of a family's brushes with history, from the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the importance of cake.
The fiendish young man, having driven poor Verlaine out of his wits and his marriage, abandoned poetry, then Europe, setting in Aden in 1880. A reprint from Eland.
Not so much a sequel to 'The Hare with Amber Eyes', this short, superb and immensely powerful book is nevertheless complementary to his earlier book. Read it, give it, think about it; read i... read more
An understanding and enquiring look at the demon drink and what it enables certain writers to achieve, and at what cost: Patrick Hamilton, Jean Rhys, Charles Jackson, Malcolm Lowry, Dylan Th... read more
Duncan has been in politics for three decades and must therefore wot what of - and whom of - he writes. He was Johnson's deputy at the Foreign Office for two years. The diaries cover the yea... read more
Son of Edward III, brother to the Black Prince, father to Henry IV: the man with the levers of power, to whom Shakespeare gave the speech about 'this sceptered isle'.
A memoir of his time at Slough Comprehensive, aka Eton. Okwonga is a writer and journalist now based in Berlin, a city "that leaves you alone" and the location of his recent auto-fiction 'I... read more
Another scandalous woman? Well, when she went on trial at Westminster Hall for bigamy in April 1776, the story is said to have drawn more attention in society than the American War of Indepe... read more
It is 30 years since Hazel Holt's biography; many more since David Cecil and Philip Larkin championed her novels. The surprise, perhaps, is that she is read more now than when she first publ... read more
It seems that the stalwart defender of Imperial narratives and values was a compulsive and manipulative womanizer. Thousands of newly discovered letters show an unexpected side to the histor... read more