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W. Somerset Maugham

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PAUL THEROUX 
 
Somerset Maugham's success as a writer enabled him to indulge his adventurous love of travel, and he recorded the sights and sounds of his wide-ranging journeys with an urbane, wry style all his own. The Gentleman in the Parlour is an account of the author's trip through what was then Burma and Siam, ending in Haiphong, Vietnam. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham's vivid descriptions bring a lost world to life.

The Gentleman In The Parlour

Václav Havel

Václav Havel’s remarkable and rousing essay on the tyranny of apathy, with a new introduction by Timothy Snyder 
 
Cowed by life under Communist Party rule, a greengrocer hangs a placard in their shop window: Workers of the world, unite! Is it a sign of the grocer’s unerring ideology? Or a symbol of the lies we perform to protect ourselves? 
 
 Written in 1978, Václav Havel’s meditation on political dissent – the rituals of its suppression, and the sparks that re-ignite it – would prove the guiding manifesto for uniting Solidarity movements across the Soviet Union. A portrait of activism in the face of falsehood and intimidation, The Power of the Powerless remains a rousing call against the allure of apathy. 
 
'Havel’s diagnosis of political pathologies has a special resonance in the age of Trump' Pankaj Mishra

The Power of the Powerless

Nancy Mitford

This gossipy account of Louis XIV is a clear and fascinating historical biography from Nancy Mitford. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY STELLA TILLYARD 
 
During his reign Louis XIV was the most powerful king in Europe. He presided over a golden age of military and artistic achievement in France, and deployed his charm and talents for spin and intrigue to hold his court and country within his absolute control. The Sun King's universe centred on Versailles, a glittering palace from where Louis conducted his government and complex love affairs. Nancy Mitford describes the daily life of this splendid court in sumptuous detail, recreating the past in vivid colour.

The Sun King

Maurice Herzog

One of the finest mountaineering books. A phenomenal tale of strength and valour. 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOE SIMPSON 
 
In 1950, no mountain higher than 8,000 meters had ever been climbed. Maurice Herzog and other members of the French Alpine Club resolved to try. This is the enthralling story of the first conquest of Annapurna and the harrowing descent. With breathtaking courage and grit manifest on every page, Annapurna is one of the greatest adventure stories ever told. 
 
As well as an introduction by Joe Simpson, this new edition includes 16 pages of photographs, which provide a remarkable visual record of this legendary expedition. 
 
The distinguished French mountaineer Maurice Herzog was leader of the 1950 expedition to Annapurna. He was one of the two climbers to reach the summit.

Annapurna

The First Conquest of an 8000-Metre Peak

Konstantin Paustovsky

Discover one of Twentieth-Century Russia's most lauded lost classics, now in a remarkable new translation. 
 
'Outstanding... A sparkling, supremely precious literary achievement' Telegraph 
 
'One of the great Russian autobiographies, as fresh now as the day it was written - and the day it was lived' Julian Barnes 
 
In 1943, Konstantin Paustovsky, the Soviet Union's most revered author, started out on his masterwork - The Story of a Life; a grand, novelistic memoir of a life lived on the fast-unfurling frontiers of Russian history. Eventually published over six volumes, it would cement Paustovsky's reputation as the voice of Russia around the world, and see him nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. 
 
Taking its reader from Paustovsky's Ukrainian youth, struggling with a family on the verge of collapse and the first flourishes of creative ambition, to his experiences working as a paramedic on Russia's frontlines and then as a journalist covering the country's violent spiral into revolution, The Story of a Life offers a portrait of an artistic journey like no other.

The Story of a Life

Volumes 1–3

Graham Greene

UPDATED AND EDITED WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JUDITH ADAMSON 
 
Whether reporting from the London cinema, Cotswolds villages, second-hand bookshops, war zones or political trouble spots, Graham Greene's novelistic gifts for detail, drama and compassionate curiosity provide unique and resonant insights into his life and times. To know war on any continent, read ‘A Memory of Indo-China’; to glimpse high political chicanery, read ‘The Great Spectacular’; to feel the flush and aftermath of revolutionary change, take up his pieces about Cuba. Reflections provides an extraordinary mirror on the twentienth century from one of its greatest observers.

Reflections

With superb skill and feeling, Graham Greene retraces the experiences and encounters of his extraordinary life. His restlessness is legendary; as if seeking out danger, Greene travelled to Haiti during the nightmare rule of Papa Doc, Vietnam in the last days of the French, Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. With ironic delight he recalls his time in the British Secret Service in Africa, and his brief involvement in Hollywood. He writes, as only he can, about people and places, about faith, doubt, fear and, not least, the trials and craft of writing.

Ways Of Escape

Diana Cooper

Lady Diana Cooper was a star of the early twentieth stage, screen and social scene. This first instalment of her sparkling autobiography tells of her upbringing, her beautiful artistic mother and aristocratic father, her debut into high society and the glittering parties - 'dancing and extravagance and lashing of wine, and charades and moonlit balconies and kisses' - which were interrupted with the outbreak of the First World War. This volume ends with Diana's marriage to the 'love of her life', diplomat and politician Duff Cooper.

The Rainbow Comes and Goes

Luis Bunuel

A master filmmaker, inimitable, and unrelenting in his assault on bourgeois values.  Bunuel's method is free from all artifice, and his honesty and humour are to extreme to accept any compromise in exposing our deceit and our decadence.  Like Pasolini, his work offers a remarkably sophisticated political analysis, but remains based in the essentially peasant values of storytelling, and the purposefully unsystematic supervisions of laughter.

My Last Breath

Richard Davenport-Hines

Auden's dedication as a writer was matched only by his commitment to challenging the received view of political and personal life.  The definitive biography goes beyond a study of the great poet to create a vibrant and masterful commentary on Auden's work, ideas and life within the context of the wars, ideologies, spiritual quests and sexual attitudes of this century.

Auden

Roland Barthes

The only autobiography by the great Roland Barthes, philosopher, literary theorist and semiotician. 
 
This is the autobiography of one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. As idiosyncratic as its author, Barthes plays both commentator and subject to reveal his tastes, habits, passions and regrets. No event, relationship or thought is given priority over any other; no attempt to construct a narrative is made. And yet, via a series of vignettes, Barthes's life and views on a multitude of subjects emerge - from money and love to language and truth. 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ADAM PHILLIPS

Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes

Yuval Noah Harari

Yuval Noah Harari’s bestselling phenomenon now in a beautifully packaged new special edition. 
 
 Planet Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it. Us. We are the most advanced and most destructive animals ever to have lived. What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens? 
 
 In this bold and provocative book, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here and where we’re going. Sapiens is a thrilling account of humankind’s extraordinary history – from the Stone Age to the Silicon Age – and our journey from insignificant apes to rulers of the world. 
 
 'Unbelievably good. Jaw dropping from the first word to the last' Chris Evans, BBC Radio 2 
 
PATTERNS OF LIFE: SPECIAL EDITIONS OF GROUNDBREAKING SCIENCE BOOKS

Sapiens

A Brief History of Humankind: (Patterns of Life)

Anna Politkovskaya

Twenty years ago Putin's fiercest critic was gunned down. 
 
Anna Politkovskaya was one of the great, heroic investigative journalists of the modern era. Shining a light on Russian state corruption, human rights abuses, and the brutal conflict in Chechnya she was renowned for her unwavering commitment to exposing the harsh realities of life in Russia under Vladimir Putin's regime. That was until her violent murder in 2006. 
 
In this collection, published ahead of the twentieth anniversary of her death, the raw, unflinching prose that defined Politkovskaya's career is brought together to provide an unparalleled look at the complexities of modern Russia and the enduring fight for human rights within it. Through vivid storytelling and courageous reporting, Politkovskaya delves into themes of political oppression, the struggle for justice, and the resilience of the human spirit. 
 
The Essential Anna Politkovskaya is not just a tribute to a remarkable journalist, but a crucial reminder of the power of the written word to challenge authority and inspire change. 
 
WITH A FOREWORD BY HELENA KENNEDY AND AN AFTERWORD FROM NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER, SVETLANA ALEXIEVICH

The Essential Anna Politkovskaya

Emmeline Pankhurst

The great leader of the women’s suffrage movement tells the story of her struggles in her own words. 
 
Emmeline Pankhurst grew up all too aware of the prevailing attitude of her day: that men were considered superior to women. When she was just fourteen she attended her first suffrage meeting, and returned home a confirmed suffragist. Throughout the course of her career she endured humiliation, prison, hunger strikes and the repeated frustration of her aims by men in power, but she rose to become a guiding light of the Suffragette movement. This is the story, in Pankhurst’s own words, of her struggle for equality.

My Own Story

Inspiration for the major motion picture Suffragette

Arthur Koestler

The first volume of the remarkable autobiography of Arthur Koestler, author of Darkness at Noon. 
 
In 1931, Arthur Koestler joined the Communist Party, an event he felt to be second only in importance to his birth in shaping his destiny. Before that point, he lived a tumultuous and varied existence. He was a member of the duelling fraternity at the University of Vienna; a collective farm worker in Galilee; a tramp and street vendor in Haifa; the editor of a weekly paper in Cairo; the foreign correspondent of the biggest continental newspaper chain in Paris and the Middle East; a science editor in Berlin; and a member of the North Pole expedition of the Graf Zeppelin. 
 
Written with enormous zest, joie de vivre and frankness, Arrow in the Blue is a fascinating self-portrait of a remarkable young man at the heart of the events that shaped the twentieth century. 
 
The second volume of Arthur Koestler's autobiography is The Invisible Writing.

Arrow in the Blue

The Living Room. The Potting Shed. The Complaisant Lover. Carving a Statue. The Return of A. J. Raffles. The Great Jowett. Yes and No. For Whom the Bell ChimesIn these eight plays Graham Greene, one of the great writers of the twentieth century, demonstrates his considerable skills as a dramatist. Each of them explores themes that were of fundamental importance to Greene, and together they exhibit a daring wit and an exhilarating sense of experiment.

The Collected Plays

This last volume of Lady Diana Cooper's memoirs covers the years of the Second World War and its aftermath, when her husband Duff Cooper served as Minister of Information and then in various diplomat posts around the world. We accompany the Coopers on their travels from the Dorchester Hotel during the breathless days of the Blitz, to a happy sojourn farming in Sussex, to Singapore and Algiers and eventual retirement to France, all told with Diana's unique perspective and enchanting style.

Trumpets from the Steep

John Aubrey

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RUTH SCURR 
 
John Aubrey was a modest man, a self-styled antiquarian and the man who invented modern biography. His ‘lives’ of the prominent figures of his generation and the Elizabethan era, including Shakespeare, Milton and Sir Walter Raleigh, have been plundered by historians for centuries for their frankness and fascinating detail. Collected here are all of Aubrey’s biographical writings, a series of unforgettable portraits of the characters of his day, still more alive and kicking than in any conventional work of history.

Aubrey's Brief Lives

Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe's debut collection of essays - a brilliant, form-bending dive into the future of America as it careened through the 1960s 
 
In 1965, Tom Wolfe dropped like a bomb onto the American literary scene with his first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, an incandescent panorama of American counter-culture, its dances, bouffant hairdos, customised cars and rock concerts. Capturing the energy of the age in its portraits of Phil Spector, Cassius Clay, Las Vegas and the Nanny Mafia – as well as asking, why do doormen hate Volkswagens? – Wolfe’s flamboyant essay collection remains one of the great, revolutionary landmarks of modern non-fiction. 
 
'Journalism, it is said, is the first draft of history. Nobody exemplifies the dictum better than Wolfe, the cultural observer and social critic par excellence' Daily Telegraph

The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby

John Keats

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DIRECTOR JANE CAMPION 
 
John Keats died in penury and relative obscurity in 1821, aged only 25. He is now seen as one of the greatest English poets and a genius of the Romantic age. This collection, which contains all his most memorable works and a selection of his letters, is a feast for the senses, displaying Keats' gift for gorgeous imagery and sensuous language, his passionate devotion to beauty, as well as some of the most moving love poetry ever written.

Bright Star

The Complete Poems and Selected Letters

Derek Jarman

'What started as a book on the frustration of funding led to the writing of an autobiography at forty... I had so little to do in the daylight hours, I stayed up late unbuttoning Levis in back rooms.' 
 
In 1984 at the age of 40, the polymath film-maker Derek Jarman began to write his journals. In the first of these diaries, Dancing Ledge, we see his origins as a young artist, written with Jarman's distinctive immediacy, curiosity, and candour. Behind-the-scenes of his first controversial films and stage designs, at glamorous launch parties with friends like David Hockney, Ossie Clarke and Patrick Proktor, to the trials of securing funding, Dancing Ledge is a coming-of-age memoir for all fledgling artists. 
 
Dancing Ledge also chronicles a unique time in British history, capturing gay nightlife from the end of the war to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

Dancing Ledge

Journals vol. 1

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was a key figure in helping to secure the abolition of slavery in America – discover his Narrative this Black History Month. 
 
 A masterpiece … [Douglass] was not only self-educated, with a love of language which should still be an inspiration; he was also self-created’ New York Times 
 
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818. After his escape in 1838 he became an ardent abolitionist, and his autobiography was an instant bestseller upon publication in 1845. In it he describes with harrowing honesty his life as a slave – the cruelty he suffered at the hands of plantation owners; his struggles to educate himself in a world where slaves are deliberately kept ignorant; and ultimately, his fight for his right to freedom. A passionately written, intelligent and highly emotive indictment of slavery, his principle preoccupation was that slavery could be eradicated only through education. This text was key in helping to secure its eventual abolition.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Yanis Varoufakis

VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
How do we choose between what is fair and just, and what our debtors demand of us? Yanis Varoufakis was put in such a dilemma in 2015 when he became the finance minister of Greece. In this rousing book, he charts the absurdities that underpin calls for austerity, as well as his own battles with a bureaucracy bent on ignoring the human cost of its every action. Passionately outspoken and tuned to the voices of the oppressed, Varoufakis presents a guide to modern economics, and its threat to democracy, like no other. 
 
Selected from the books And the Weak Suffer What They Must? and Adults in the Room

Austerity

Vintage Minis

Henry Green

Henry Green wrote his autobiography in 1940, aged only thirty-five, because he was convinced he wouldn't survive the war. The result is a delightfully wayward and incisive portrait of English society and of the man himself. From reminiscences of a childhood spent among the gentry, to searing descriptions of Eton and Oxford, to reflections on the author's first experiments with prose and with sex, all Green's unique talents as a writer are on offer here, at their most dazzling and accessible.

Pack My Bag

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY KATE WILLIAMS 
 
Frederick II of Prussia attempted to escape his authoritarian father as a boy, but went on to become one of history's greatest rulers. He loved the flute, and devoted hours of study to the arts and French literature, forming a long-lasting but turbulent friendship with Voltaire. He was a military genius and enlarged the borders of his empire, but he also promoted religious tolerance, economic reform and laid the foundation for a united Germany. Nancy Mitford brings all these contradictions and achievements to sparkling life in an fascinating, intimate biography.

Frederick the Great

Isaiah Berlin

‘He becomes everyman’s guide to everything exciting in the history of ideas’ New York Review of Books 
 
Isaiah Berlin was one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century, and one of the finest writers. The Proper Study Of Mankind selects some of his best essays in which his insights both illuminate the past and offer a key to the burning issues of today. 
 
The full (and enormous) range of his work is represented here, from the exposition of his most distinctive doctrine - pluralism - to studies of Machiavelli, Tolstoy, Churchill and Roosevelt. In these pages he encapsulates the principal movements that characterise the modern age: romanticism, historicism, Fascism, relativism, irrationalism and nationalism. His ideas are always tied to the people who conceived them, so that abstractions are brought alive. 
 
EDITED BY HENRY HARDY AND ROGER HAUSHEER AND WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY ANDREW MARR

The Proper Study Of Mankind

An Anthology of Essays

Kahlil Gibran

The original self-help book: bestselling The Prophet takes the reader on an unparalleled spiritual and philosophical journey 
 
The time has come for the revered Prophet to leave Orphalese. Before he departs, people gather around him and ask him to speak his wisdom. Divided into twenty-eight chapters covering sprawling topics such as love, marriage, children and friendship, The Prophet forms a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual and inspirational. The book was an instant bestseller on publication in 1923 and since then has been translated into more than 50 languages. 
 
‘Book of a lifetime…I have loved many books over the years, but the one I would never be parted from and read again and again is The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran’ Independent

The Prophet

The second volume of the remarkable autobiography of Arthur Koestler, author of Darkness at Noon. 
 
Taken together, Arthur Koestler's volumes of autobiography constitute an unrivalled study of a twentieth-century life. The Invisible Writing picks up where the first volume, Arrow in the Blue, ended, with Koestler joining the Communist Party. This second volume goes on to detail some of the most important, gruelling and electrifying experiences in his life. 
 
This book tells of Koestler's travels through Russia and remote parts of Soviet Central Asia and of his life as an exile. It tells of how he survived in Franco's prisons under sentence of death and in concentration camps in Occupied France and ends with his escape in 1940 to England, where he found stability and a new home.

The Invisible Writing

Raymond Williams

Acknowledged as a masterpiece of materialist criticism, this book delves into the complex ways economic reality shapes the imagination. Surveying two hundred years of history and English literature – from George Eliot to George Orwell – Williams provides insights into the social and economic forces that have shaped British culture and society. Provocative and revolutionary in its day, this work overturned conventional thinking about the development of a common British mentality.

Culture and Society

1780–1950

Coleridge to Orwell

Andrew Turnbull

Scott Fitzgerald follows the life of one of America's most enduring authors, from his early years in St Paul and at Princeton to New York in the twenties, the French Riviera, Baltimore, and finally Hollywood. Andrew Turnbull tells the story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise, revised and finally published when he was twenty-four, making him instantly famous, and his tender love affair with Zelda Sayre, from their glittering early life to the years Zelda spent in and out of sanatoriums. A literary generation, too, comes alive, including Ernest Hemingway, Edmund Wilson and Edith Wharton. Fitzgerald lived on Turnbull's family estate in Baltimore in the early 1930s and there befriended young Andrew, then aged eleven. Turnbull's personal relationship with Fitzgerald and the hundreds of interviews with those who knew him elegantly capture the dramatic, tragic story of F. Scott and the glow and pathos of his flamboyant life.

Scott Fitzgerald

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