The late CB specialized in identifying patterns (eg The Seven Basic Plots). Here he examines three sets of ‘in-group’ attitudes that he believed to be increasingly pervasive, and dangero... read more
Conversational, elegant and subtle essays on art, literature, urban life in war-time Shanghai and Hong Kong by the admired Chinese-born American novelist, screenwriter and cultural critic. F... read more
A memoir by this most communicative classicist about her own experiences of suicide, and how she found consolation and understanding of herself and her family through close readings of clas... read more
A compelling personal introduction to the life and work of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz by his compatriot and fellow exile Eva Hoffman. The predominant themes here ar... read more
Iridescent, funny, subversive, endlessly surprising, sharp as a wind cutting in from the North Sea: many will know Barker's startlingly good writing from her only novel O Caledonia. Here are... read more
A sharp scrutiny of the recent literary phenomenon by the emeritus Professor of Modern English at UCL makes clear the distinction between responsible warnings and censorship, as well as expo... read more
The Chinese-born novelist moved to Britain and then to the US. Her memoir glints with her fascination with the West as well as her nostalgia for the East.
Do the pram in the hall and other domestic tentacles make a life of intellectual fulfilment impossible? The author unravels the work of Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Elena Ferrante, Zo... read more
This book of seven essays describes the Nobel laureate's intellectual journey from the "Marxism and Sartrean existentialism of my youth to the liberalism of my mature years." Adam Smith, Hay... read more
Entertaining and intriguing - if the dear reader can be persuaded to overlook the fatuous and needy title and its horrid, self-promoting exclamation mark.
A sequence of lively anecdotes from a mercurial mind: Gekoski has led several careers, as a publisher and more recently as a fine novelist; he is also the doyen of dealers in rare modern fir... read more