Literature: history and criticism

‘Enlightening, moving’ SIR IAN MCKELLENFrom the acclaimed and bestselling biographer Jonathan Bate, a luminous new exploration of Shakespeare and how his themes can untangle comedy and tragedy, learning and loving in our modern lives. ‘The web of our...

Agatha Christie’s Complete Secret Notebooks brings together for the first time Secret Notebooks and Murder in the Making, two volumes that explore the fascinating contents of her 73 notebooks. This includes illustrations, deleted extracts, unused ideas,...

A charming collection of quotes about cats from our favourite authors, accompanied by artwork in the trademark style of Paul Magrs (author of The Panda, the Cat and the Dreadful Teddy). ‘I love them, they are so nice and selfish’ – L.M. MontgomeryThis...

A look at 100 inspiring novels that have left a significant mark on the world of literature and popular culture. Before the novel, the world of books was dominated by scientific tomes, religious tracts and histories of the victorious in war. There had...

Build your brain and blitz through the canon with Literature in 30 Seconds of Less!, a collection of illuminating synopses of the great works.Bursting with illuminating synopses of humanity’s great works, you no longer have to lower your gaze when...

From Voltaire to Verlaine and from Hugo to Hemingway, these are the Paris locations that have influenced modern literature. The book is an elegant photographic stroll around the bookshops, famous literary restaurants and storied streets of Europe’s...

A celebration of all the weird and wonderful books to be found at an antiquarian bookshop. Books have the power to enrich the soul, to enliven the senses, to expand our horizons… and others are simply mad. This wonderful celebration of the oddest books...

C. S. Lewis offers a magisterial take on the literature and poetry of one of the most consequential periods in world history, providing deep insight into some of the greatest writers of the age, including Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, William...

A charming, clever, and original collection of more than 100 spine poems–a popular form of found poetry composed by arranging book spines—illustrated with 110 full-color photographs.Easy to create and share online, spine poems—also known as collage...

The New York Times bestselling author of the beloved classic How to Read Literature Like a Professor teaches you how to write everything from a report for your community association to a meaningful memoir in this masterful and...

‘An absolute belter of a biography’ MARINA HYDEA Times Literary Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2022An LA Times Best Book of the Year 2022An intimate, revealing and profoundly moving biography of Jean Rhys, acclaimed author of Wide Sargasso Sea. An...

A dazzling biography of two interwoven, tragic lives: John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald.‘Highly engaging … Go now, read this book’ THE TIMES ‘For awhile after you quit Keats,’ Fitzgerald once wrote, ‘All other poetry seems to be only whistling or...

‘One of the greatest writers of our time.’ Toni Morrison‘You Don’t Know Us Negroes adds immeasurably to our understanding of Hurston … her words make it impossible for readers to consider her anything but one of the intellectual giants of the 20th...

The enduring appeal of Jane Austen’s fiction is captured in this pocket-sized collection of quotations taken from her celebrated works. The novels of Jane Austen are famed for their ability to perfectly convey the nuances of social interactions in the...

A unique, moving and dazzlingly researched exploration of the places, people, musicians, writers and filmmakers that inspired David Jones to become David Bowie, what we can learn from his life’s work and journey, and why he will always matter. When...

As featured on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 5 Live Selected as one of the Independent’s 10 best pregnancy books for expectant parents Birth is a feminist issue. It’s the feminist issue nobody’s talking about. For too long women have been told, ‘a healthy...

'If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood.' Frank McCourt The international bestseller, reissued and with a new introduction. A witty, entertaining, impassioned guide to perfect punctuation, for everyone who cares about precise...

Take a stroll through some of the most influential pieces of literature of all time with Read the Classics. From Aristotle and Plato to Kerouac and Tolstoy, don’t just read the classics, learn why they hold such a time-honored place in the...

FOREWORD BY ALI SMITHWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FRANCESCA WADEWho better to serve as a guide to great books and their authors than Virginia Woolf? In the early years of its existence, the Times Literary Supplement published some of the finest writers in...

An amazing guide to some of the most beloved, original, inspiring, hysterical, heart-warming, compelling, rude and downright scary books that have enchanted children the world over. In 100 Children's Books That Inspired Our World, author Colin Salter...