Showing titles in Authors

Alongside her academic position at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL, where her research into the patterns of human behaviour can apply to a huge range of social problems, Fry’s expertise has also led to the development of several BBC documentaries including City in the Sky and her long-running BBC Radio 4 show, The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry. Her latest book, Hello World, was published in September 2018.

In this fascinating document, one of Japan's best known - and controversial - writers created what might be termed a new literary form. It is new because it combines elements of many existing types of writing, yet in the end, fits into none of them. The road Mishima took to salvation is a highly personal one. Yet here, ultimately, one detects the unmistakable tones of a self transcending the particular and attaining to a poetic vision of the universal.

John le Carré led a life entirely constructed of secrets—not just in his first career, as a British spy and agent runner during the height of the Cold War or in his second, as a world-renowned writer of espionage fiction, but also in his personal involvements. He guarded his private life with fierce determination, fending off all would-be biographers until his ninth decade, when he finally relented and permitted his life story to be written. But there was still one element that he insisted be excluded, even then: the women.

Acerbic, wisecracking and hilarious, this is the definitive essay collection from New York legend and satirist, Fran Lebowitz, star of Martin Scorsese's hit Netflix series, Pretend It's a City. Lebowitz turns her trademark caustic wit to the vicissitudes of life—from children ('rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money') to landlords ('it is the solemn duty of every landlord to maintain an adequate supply of roaches').

Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore? In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page.

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft.

Maddie Hickish chats to the comedian Joe Lycett in the Audible Studios. His debut book Parsnips Buttered, successfully solves all of modern life’s problems.

Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath in 1956, at the outset of their brilliant careers. Plath's suicide six-and-a-half years later, for which many held Hughes accountable, changed his life, his closest relationships, his standing in the literary world, and brought new significance to his poetry.

When Mark Twain was growing up, all he wanted to be was a steamboat man. And so Twain ran away in pursuit of his dream. Life on the mighty river for Twain consisted of paddleboats and history, poker games and gamblers, larger-than-life characters and outlandish festivals like Mardi Gras. Twain recorded it all with his keen eye for detail and biting wit.

Henry Miller was one of the most distinctive voices in twentieth-century literature. Better known in Europe than in his native America for most of this career, he achieved international success and celebrity during the 1960s when his banned "Paris" books - beginning with Tropic of Cancer - were published here and judged by the Supreme Court not to be obscene. Until then he had toiled in relative obscurity and poverty.

What is it like to be old? Diana Athill, born in 1917, made her reputation as a writer with the candour of her memoirs. In Somewhere Towards the End she reflects frankly on the losses and occasionally the gains that old age brings, and on the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. This is a lively narrative of events, lovers and friendships: the people and experiences that have taight her to regret very little, to resist despondency and to question the beliefs and customs of her own generation.

One name links Betrand Russell and Axel Munthe, Augustus John and Henry Lamb, H.H. Asquith and Duncan Grant, Aldous Huxley and Lytton Strachey. To some she was a lover, to others a confidant and adviser. To many she was a mother substitute. But wherever the phrase ‘Bloomsbury group’ is spoken, Lady Ottoline Morrell’s name is not far behind.

Other Colours is a collection of immediate relevance and timeless value, ranging from lyrical autobiography to criticism of literature and culture, from humour to political analysis, from delicate evocations of his friendship with his daughter Ruya to provocative discussions of Eastern and Western art. It also covers Pamuk's recent, high profile, court case.

When he turned 65, the playwright Simon Gray began to keep a diary: not a careful honing of the days' events with a view to posterity but an account of his thoughts as he had them, honestly, turbulently, digressively expressed. One of Britain's most amusing and original writers reflects on a life filled with cigarettes (continuing), alcohol (stopped), several triumphs and many more disasters - a record of shame, adultery, friendship and love. Few diarists have ever been so frank about themselves and even fewer so entertaining.

Best-selling author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne, is back with his most ambitious novel for adults yet. He joins Robin Morgan in the Audible Studios to tell us more.

In 2024, exactly one hundred years after his death at the age of 40, readers and listeners all over the world will reach for the works of Franz Kafka. Many of them will want to learn more about the enigmatic man behind the classic books filled with mysterious courts and monstrous insects. Who, exactly, was Franz Kafka? Karolina Watroba, the first Germanist ever elected as a Fellow of Oxford's All Souls College, will tell Kafka's story beyond the boundaries of language, time and space, travelling from the Prague of Kafka's birth through the work of contemporary writers in East Asia.

In his memoir Waypoints, Heughan digs into his Scottish heritage by hiking the West Highland Way, and along the journey he recounts the life and career events that have shaped him and his personal values. We spoke to Sam Heughan about the joys and trials of West Highland Way, his journey towards processing the absence of his dad, and how the creation of his Outlander family came at just the point he needed in his career.

Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life is the first work to explore the origins of Beatrix Potter's love of gardening and plants and show how this passion came to be reflected in her work.

The subtitle of this wonderful memoir declares its contents: this is 'my life with Harold Pinter', not Lady Antonia Fraser's complete life, and certainly not his. In essence, this is a love story and as with many love stories, the beginning and the end, the first light and the twilight, are dealt with more fully than the high noon in between. The result is a marvellously insightful testimony to modern literature's most celebrated marriage.

She was only nine when her world fell apart. The struggle to understand took a lifetime.In 1960s Bristol, Susan's family was like any other with its joys and frustrations, and fierce loyalties. Then tragedy struck and left a legacy that was to last a lifetime.Susan was only nine when her mother died. A year later she was sent away to school. She didn't want to go, and didn't understand why she had to. In her struggle to cope with an uncertain world - a world where nothing seemed to make sense any more....