Abie Longstaff is the eldest of six children and grew up in Australia, Hong Kong and France. She knows all about squabbling, chaos and bossing younger sisters around. So she logically began her career as a barrister. She started writing when her children were born. Her favourite childhood books were Hating Alison Ashley, A Little Princess, Maura's Angel and The Black Stallion and she sneakily reads them again sometimes. Abie lives in Hove with her family.

Abie Longstaff

Abi Falase is a Black British writer and director, reimagining fundamental societal concepts in inventive new worlds. Abi has written and directed a number of plays, including The Village and Rush with the Almedia Theatre, as well as Rift for Immediate Theatre and was shortlisted for the BBC Scriptworks ‘A Thousand Stories’ scriptwriting competition in 2021.

Abi Falase

Abi Elphinstone grew up in Scotland where she spent most of her childhood running wild across the moors, hiding in tree houses and building dens in the woods. After being coaxed out of her tree house, she studied English at Bristol University and then worked as an English teacher in Africa, Berkshire and London. She is the bestselling and multi-award shortlisted author of RUMBLESTAR (first in The Unmapped Chronicles), SKY SONG &amp; THE DREAMSNATCHER TRILOGY, published by S&amp;S. When she's not writing, Abi volunteers for Beanstalk, speaks in schools and travels the world looking for her next story.

Abi Elphinstone

Abi Titmuss

Andy Day is one of the best-known stars of preschool television. Andy is the star of multiple children's programmes, most notably his Andy's Adventures, which span from dinosaurs, safari, aquatic, and global, and he is excited to be currently filming brand new adventures, which are going to be dinoriffic! Alongside this he is also the star of 'Andy and the Band' which features Andy's real-life pop band Andy and the Odd Socks, who have played hundreds of live shows, and released over three albums. Andy won a BAFTA for his performance in ‘As You Like It at Shakespeare's Globe’. Andy is also the author of the bestselling Dino Dad young fiction series, illustrated by Steven Lenton, and his first picture book, Dylan the Dino Boy Saves Christmas, illustrated by Alex Patrick, will be published in October 2025. Instagram: @andyday81 | X: @AndyDayTV

Andy Day

Andre Hue

Andy Cave

Andy Bull

Andy Weir built a two-decade career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, The Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing full-time. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail. He lives in California.

Andy Weir

Andy Lane

Andy Watt, a graduate of Warwickshire School of Art has spent the last two decades illustrating columns, articles, and editorial pieces for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent. His work has featured in many other magazines in the U.K and USA. He has illustrated several books, worked on advertising campaigns, and created character designs animated on television. 
 
Andy has an irrational fear of restaurants, but has twice eaten in Jamie Oliver's restaurant ‘Fifteen' in Cornwall which he describes as 'very nice’. Thank you Jamie, please don't take offence at my silly drawing.

Andy Watt

Andy King is a Lecturer in History at the University of Southampton. Among his many historical interests are the studies of castles, military culture and Anglo-Scottish relations in the late medieval period.

Andy King

ANDY HALL grew up in the shadow of Denali. He is the former editor and publisher of Alaska magazine. He lives in Chugiak, Alaska.

Andy Hall

Andy Webb worked as a reporter for BBC Television for more than 15 years, appearing daily as a front-of-camera reporter, first on BBC News then as a reporter and presenter on primetime shows including the BBC’sWatchdog, before embarking on a career as an award-winning director of documentary films. It was his journalism over a 15-year period which first revealed the truth behind the infamous BBC Panorama interview with Princess Diana and so exposed the greatest scandal in the history of the BBC. Since breaking the story in 2020, Andy Webb has been invited to write on the story for a range of leading publications, including the Times, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Sunday Telegraph, and has also been interviewed many times on television, radio and podcasts both in the UK and overseas. Andy is married, with four children, and lives in West London.

Andy Webb

Ivo Andric was born in 1892 in Travnik, Bosnia of Croat parents and grew up alongside Orthodox Christians, Moslems and Roman Catholics in Višegrad, the town on the banks of the Drina where his book is set. Until 1941 he served as a Yugoslav diplomat, then, placed under house arrest in Belgrade by the occupying Germans, Andric turned to writing. In 1961 he was awarded the Noble prize for literature. He died in 1975.

Ivo Andric

LJ Andrews is a USA Today bestselling author of fantasy romance. She mystically brings to life worlds of dark Nordic and Viking myths bound by conflicts that bring together impassioned heroes and heroines. In her non-author moments, she is courageously corralling her four children to the myriad of life activities that involves, along with spending time with her favorite hero, her husband. Add two high maintenance dogs and a sassy conure to the mix and that sums it up. She thrives spending time in the Rocky Mountains where she lives in Utah.

LJ Andrews

Andrew Fox

Andre Gide

Andre Sólo is a researcher, and co-founder and editor-in-chief for Highly Sensitive Refuge. He has co-authored a number of scientific papers and his writing has appeared in Psychology Today, The Huffington Post and Quiet Revolution. He has been interviewed by The Telegraph, Vogue and the BBC. Andre is based in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Andre Sólo

André Gide

Andy Clark is a Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at the University of Sussex, and at Macquarie University, Australia. He is the author of six books including Supersizing the Mind, Natural-Born Cyborgs and Surfing Uncertainty. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy, and is an occasional Academic Consultant for Google, UK.

Andy Clark

From the day he was found in a carrier bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital in London, Andy McNab has led an extraordinary life. 
 
As a teenage delinquent, Andy McNab kicked against society. As a young soldier he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh. As a member of 22 SAS he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years – on five continents. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, 'will remain in regimental history for ever'. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS. 
 
Since then Andy McNab has become one of the world’s best-selling writers, drawing on his insider knowledge and experience. As well as several non-fiction bestsellers including Bravo Two Zero, the biggest selling British work of military history, he is the author of the best-selling Nick Stone and Tom Buckingham thrillers. He has also written a number of books for children. 
 
Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK, works in the film industry advising Hollywood on everything from covert procedure to training civilian actors to act like soldiers. He continues to be a spokesperson and fundraiser for both military and literacy charities.

Andy McNab

Andy Goram

Andy Hixon lives in Sheffield. He works with clay, photography, digital media and animation.

Andy Hixon

Andy Sloan

Andy Riley

Andy Neill

Veronica Park (VP) Anderson (she/they) is a neurodivergent, queer, feminist millennial writer with a resume that Victor Frankenstein would disown for being “a bit much.” V’s previous job titles include: award-winning community theater actor, professional lecturer on cruise ships, indie film producer, literary agent, and creative project manager; however, “writer” is the title that always fits. 
 
V plays competitive flat track roller derby as “Scarlet Five” #55 and prefers the pivot role, aka “surprise jamming.” Born in Alaska and raised in Oregon, she currently lives with her partner in Upstate NY and has two cats named Skeletor and Bo-Catan.

V.P. Anderson

Mark Andrew

Peter Andre

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Jane Austen

Why do we set so much store by marriage? Jane Austen was fascinated by this question, subjecting it to her forensic eye and wonderfully ironic wit again and again. Here are stolen glances and nervous advances, meddling parents and self-important cousins, society whisperings and the fluttering hearts of young lovers. All of them have their own views and expectations of marriage, and Austen’s are the wisest of all. 
 
Selected from the novels Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen. 
 
 VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human

Marriage

Vintage Minis

Margaret Atwood

Can we ever be wholly free? 
 
In this book of breathtaking imaginary leaps that conjure dystopias and magical islands, Margaret Atwood holds a mirror up to our own world. The reflection we are faced with, of men and women in prisons literal and metaphorical, is frightening, but it is also a call to arms to speak and to act to preserve our freedom while we still can. And in that, there is hope. 
 
Selected from The Handmaid’s Tale and Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood. 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human

Freedom

Helen Simpson

Enjoy Helen Simpson’s sharply funny, humane take on the everyday joys and struggles of motherhood in this perfect Mother’s Day gift. 
 
 Welcome to motherhood – a land of aching fatigue, constant self-sacrifice and thankless servitude, a land of bottomless devotion, small hands and feet like warm pink roses, and velvet kisses. Here is a land where men and women, once carefree and engrossed in work and sex, now try to solve age-old arguments and search fruitlessly for another hour in the day. Perhaps you know this land well, or perhaps you’re entering it for the first time – either way, you need these honest funny humane stories from an expert guide. 
 
Selected from Helen Simpson’s short story collections Dear George, Hey Yeah Right Get a Life and Constitutional 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Language by Xiaolu Guo 
Fatherhood by Karl Ove Knausgaard 
Eating by Nigella Lawson 
Drinking by John Cheever

Motherhood

F. Scott Fitzgerald

‘I want to give a really bad party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there’s a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see.’ 
 
The crackle of gin on ice, the first chords of the band, the low hum of gossip– whether you love or loathe parties, Fitzgerald writes them like no one else. From glittering occasions complete with an orchestra and dancing girls to a fist-fight at the end of a toddler’s birthday, this is a dazzling collection of party pieces from the master of celebration. 
 
Selected from The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night and Flappers and Philosophers 
 
 VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human

Parties

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

Charles Dickens

‘Wealth and beggary, virtue and vice, repletion and the direst hunger, all treading on each other and crowding together’ 
 
Could any writer portray London better than Charles Dickens? Dickens knew the city inside out, walking the streets day and night, in all weathers, and drawing inspiration from everything he saw. The fog, the mud, the churning river, the clamour of church bells, and at every corner schemes of business or pleasure – this is Dickens’s London in the company of some of his most memorable characters. 
 
Selected from the work of Charles Dickens 
 
 VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
 Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Murder by Arthur Conan Doyle 
Power by William Shakespeare 
Independence by Charlotte Bronte

London

Sebastian Faulks

A soldier falls asleep on duty and is threatened with being court-martialled. An officer lies in mud, fighting for his life and the life of his men. A young man walks across Waterloo Bridge, explosives in his rucksack, heart pounding. In this powerfully moving book, Faulks shows us the true face of war. These are stories of death and survival, of hope and despair, and of ordinary people whose lives will never be the same again. 
 
Selected from the books Birdsong, A Possible Life and A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Home by Salman Rushdie 
Fatherhood by Karl Ove Knausgaard 
Work by Joseph Heller 
Dreams by Sigmund Freud

Simon Schama

‘Great art has dreadful manners… 
 
…The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock and proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality.’ In inimitable style, our greatest historian and master storyteller Simon Schama makes an irresistible case for the power of art and its necessary place in our lives, examining art through the prism of the troubling life and works of Italian master painter, and murderer, Caravaggio. 
 
Selected from The Power of Art 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis 'Great Ideas' series: 
Religion by Karen Armstrong 
Science by Ian McEwan

Nigella Lawson

In this inspiring, witty and eminently sensible book, Nigella Lawson sets out a manifesto for how to cook (and eat) good food every day with a minimum of fuss. From basic roast chicken and pea risotto to white truffles and Turkish Delight figs, Nigella brings the joy back into the kitchen. 
 
Selected from the books How to Eat and Kitchen by Nigella Lawson 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Drinking by John Cheever 
Home by Salman Rushdie 
Summer by Laurie Lee 
Liberty by Virginia Woolf

Eating

Karen Armstrong

‘Because "God" is infinite, nobody can have the last word’ 
 
What is this thing, religion, supposedly the cause of bloodshed and warring for centuries? What is ‘God’ and do we need ‘Him’ in our modern world? Karen Armstrong looks again at these questions in a refreshing and startling way. God is not to be ‘believed in’ as a child believes in Santa Claus; religion is not a story to be proven true or false, but a discipline akin to music or art that answers a deeply human need, and can teach us to discover new capacities of mind and heart. 
 
Selected from A Case for God, Fields of Blood and The Lost Art of Scripture 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis 'Great Ideas' series: 
Art by Simon Schama 
Science by Ian McEwan

Religion

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie, a self-described ‘emigrant from one place and a newcomer in two’, explores the true meaning of home. Writing with insight, passion and humour, he looks at what it means to belong, whether roots are real and homelands imaginary, what it is like to reconfigure your past from fragments of memory and what happens when East meets West. 
 
Selected from the books Shame, Imaginary Homelands and East, West by Salman Rushdie 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
 Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
 Love by Jeanette Winterson 
Liberty by Virginia Woolf 
Race by Toni Morrison 
 Sisters by Louisa May Alcott

Home

Rose Tremain

What is the secret to true friendship? Is it really love’s quieter relation or something stronger and more profound? And where does the line between the two lie? Rose Tremain looks at two unlikely lifelong friendships, which – though tested – prove unbreakable. Thought-provoking and life-affirming, this is at once an examination and a celebration of friendship in all its glorious complexity. 
 
Selected from the books Restoration and The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Love by Jeanette Winterson 
Language by Xiaolu Guo 
Desire by Haruki Murakami 
Freedom by Margaret Atwood

Friendship

Anne Enright

Babies: our biggest mystery and our most natural consequence, our hardest test and our enduring love. Anne Enright describes the intensity, bewilderment and extravagant happiness of her experience of having babies, from the exhaustion of early pregnancy to first smiles and becoming acquainted with the long reaches of the night. Everyone, from parents to the mildly curious, can delight in Enright’s funny, eloquent and unsentimental account of having babies. 
 
Selected from the book Making Babies by Anne Enright 
 
 VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
 Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Fatherhood by Karl Ove Knausgaard 
Motherhood by Helen Simpson 
Drinking by John Cheever 
Sisters by Louisa May Alcott

Babies

William Shakespeare

‘Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? 
And, live we how we can, yet die we must’ 
 
What is the true meaning of power? Are some simply born to it or can it be acquired like a skill? Does it always breed corruption and greed or can it be a force for good? From kings to prisoners and from battle-fields to courts, Shakespeare’s peerless understanding of power and its repercussions remains as pertinent today as it has ever been. 
 
Selected from Macbeth, Julius Caesar, A Winter’s Tale, Measure for Measure, Henry V, Richard II 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
 Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Independence by Charlotte Bronte 
Injustice by Richard Wright 
Money by Yuval Noah Harari 
Love by Jeanette Winterson

Power

Charlotte Brontë

‘To myself alone could I look’ 
 
Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe are heroines who depend upon no one but themselves. In the face of hardship, from small sacrifices to great heartache, they cling resolutely to their principles of self-reliance. Lucy's energy and enterprise take her to Belgium and a career in teaching, whilst Jane’s honest, intelligent mind draws declarations of love. Both are the unforgettable creations of the deeply independent and brilliant Charlotte Brontë. 
 
Selected from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Villette. 
 
 VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
 Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
 Sisters by Louisa May Alcott 
Freedom by Margaret Atwood 
Marriage by Jane Austen 
Liberty by Virginia Woolf

Independence

Laurie Lee

How do you remember the summers of your childhood? 
 
 For Laurie Lee they were flower-crested, heady, endless days. Here is an evocation of summer like no other – a remote valley filled with the scent of hay, jazzing wasps, blackberries plucked and gobbled, and games played until the last drop of dusk. Lee’s joyful and stirring writing captures the very essence of England’s golden season. 
 
Selected from the book Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee 
 
 ‘An enchanting book, an exquisite farewell, not only to childhood, and boyhood, but also to an England that has vanished’ J.B. Priestly 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.

Summer

Mark Haddon

‘Family, that slippery word, a star to every wandering bark and everyone sailing under a different sky’ 
 
Where do you go if you can’t feel at home in your own family? When the people who made you can’t fathom who you become? In these three tales of quarrelling clans and fraught reunions, Mark Haddon shows family in its frank, unsparing yet frequently absurd light, and, in doing so charts a stormy course into the crucible of the self. 
 
Selected from The Pier Falls, The Red House and A Spot of Bother. 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Discover the in the Vintage Minis ‘Head Space’ series: 
 
Recovery by Helen Macdonald 
Therapy by Stephen Grosz

Family

Arthur Conan Doyle

‘Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days’ 
 
Sherlock Holmes: the quintessential British hero and the world's most popular detective. Through his powers of deduction, and with the help of his faithful companion Dr Watson, Holmes takes on all manner of devious criminals and dangerous villains – and wins. But the cases involving murder are the most dastardly of them all… 
 
Selected from The Complete Sherlock Holmes 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
 Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
 Power by William Shakespeare 
 Independence by Charlotte Bronte 
London by Charles Dickens

Murder

Sigmund Freud

VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
Have you ever dreamt you were naked on stage, or woken having failed an exam? In these fascinating, pioneering essays, Sigmund Freud plunges into the recesses of our minds, and awakens the hidden meanings behind our most typical and surprising night-time fantasies. From dreams of violence and death, to the more prosaic moments in our dream-life, Freud shines a light on the darkness we are often happy left consigned to night. 
 
Selected from the books The Essentials of Psycho-Analysis and The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of the Sigmund Freud, Volume IV: The Interpretation of Dreams (First Part) by Sigmund Freud

Dreams

Yuval Noah Harari

Selected from the books Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari 
 
How did money come to be invented? Why does it now have such significance in our lives? Does it make us happier or unhappier? And what does the future hold for it? With brilliant clarity and insight, Yuval Noah Harari takes the reader on a journey from the very first coins through to 21st century economics and shows us how we are all on the brink of a revolution, whether we like it or not. 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Home by Salman Rushdie 
Babies by Anne Enright 
Eating by Nigella Lawson 
Drinking by John Cheever

Money

Louisa May Alcott

Your sister might be the kindred soul who knows you best, or the most alien being in your household; she might enrage you or inspire you; she might be your fiercest competitor or closest co-conspirator, but she'll always share with you a totally unique bond. Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy are four of the most famous sisters in literature, and these stories of the joys and heartaches they share are a touching celebration of the special ties of sisterhood. 
 
Selected from the books Little Women and Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Fatherhood by Karl Ove Knausgaard 
Motherhood by Helen Simpson 
Babies by Anne Enright 
Love by Jeanette Winterson

Sisters

Oscar Wilde

‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility.’ 
 
Is lying simply an uncomfortable truth about life or something to be celebrated? In these dazzlingly witty pages we find deceptions of all kinds. From false names to imaginary friends to fictitious engagements, Wilde proves himself to be a connoisseur of creativity and argues that lying may be an art form in itself. 
 
Selected from The Importance of Being Earnest, The Decay of Lying and The Picture of Dorian Gray 
 
 VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
 Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
 Murder by Arthur Conan Doyle 
 Power by William Shakespeare 
 Jealousy by Marcel Proust 
 Ghosts by M. R. James

Lies

Virginia Woolf

Why should one half be free to live, while the other is doomed to watch silently from the sidelines? In this visionary collection, Virginia Woolf leads us on a transformative journey through the liberating powers of the mind. From an exploration of why women were barred from writing and under what conditions they might break free, to the solace derived from haunting London's streets, these essays and stories present Woolf at her most impassioned, rendering the pursuit of liberty one of life's most poetic adventures. 
 
Selected from the books A Room of One's Own, The Waves and Street Haunting and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Love by Jeanette Winterson 
Home by Salman Rushdie 
Language by Xiaolu Guo 
Race by Toni Morrison

Liberty

Richard Wright

VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
How to go on in a world where everything is set against you? With hope? In fear? Or, in violent struggle? In this gripping and disturbing book, Richard Wright weaves his own childhood recollections with those of Bigger Thomas - a young black man trapped in a life of poverty in the slums of Chicago, and unwittingly involved in a wealthy woman's death - to paint a portrait of insurmountable oppression. Through the strange pride Bigger takes in his crime, Wright brings us to confront the systems of justice we blindly assume are always on our side. 
 
Selected from the books Black Boy and Native Son by Richard Wright

Injustice

Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh, 'poet laureate of the chemical generation', exposes the seamy underbelly of rave’s utopian dream. Lloyd, our permanently pilled-up protagonist, pushes his weekends to breaking point and beyond in this frazzled trip through Scottish clubland. He experiences the vertiginous uppers and downers of the Second Summer of Love, dabbles in a spot of disc jockeying and closes in, gradually, on some kind of redemption… 
 
Selected from Irvine Welsh's novel Ecstasy. 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Home by Salman Rushdie 
Dreams by Sigmund Freud 
Eating by Nigella Lawson 
Work by Joseph Heller

Rave

Helen Macdonald

The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life. 
 
 How do we carry on when someone close to us dies? Is it simply a case of putting one foot in front of the other in a bleak new world or do we need something more? Reeling with grief after the sudden death of her father, Helen Macdonald found herself turning to the wild for comfort. With breathtaking honesty and insight, she recounts her months spent taming a goshawk and how, finally, this strange kinship led her to the first tentative steps to recovery. 
 
 Selected from H is for Hawk 
 
 VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human. 
 
 Discover the Vintage Minis ‘Head Space’ series: 
 
 Therapy by Stephen Grosz 
 Family by Mark Haddon

Recovery

John Cheever

What’s the worst another drink could do? John Cheever pours out our most sociable of vices, and hands it to us in a highball. From the calculating teenager who raids her parents’ liquor cabinet, only to drown her sorrows in it, to the suburban swimmer withering away with every plunge he takes, these are stories suffused with beauty, sadness, and the gathering storm of a bender well-done. Seen through the gin-lacquered looking glass of Cheever’s writing, your next drink may have you reaching for a lime and soda instead. 
 
Selected from the book Collected Stories by John Cheever 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Swimming by Roger Deakin 
Eating by Nigella Lawson 
Calm by Tim Peaks 
Love by Jeanette Winterson

Drinking

Toni Morrison

An exploration of race from one of the twentieth century’s primary chroniclers of the African American experience. 
 
Is who we are really only skin deep? In this searing, remonstrative book, Toni Morrison unravels race through the stories of those debased and dehumanised because of it. A young black girl longing for the blue eyes of white baby dolls spirals into inferiority and confusion. A friendship falls apart over a disputed memory. An ex-slave is haunted by a lonely, rebukeful ghost, bent on bringing their past home. Strange and unexpected, yet always stirring, Morrison’s writing on race sinks us deep into the heart and mind of our troubled humanity. 
 
 Includes selections from the books Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Beloved by Toni Morrison 
 
‘She gave me permission to be unapologetically Black. She informed me of the power that resided in me. She validated me when the world questioned my humanity’ Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give 
 
 VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
 Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
 Sisters by Louisa May Alcott 
 Love by Jeanette Winterson 
 Babies by Anne Enright 
 Language by Xiaolu Guo

Race

Stephen Grosz

‘I want to change, but not if it means changing,' a patient once said to me in complete innocence 
 
 What do we do when we find ourselves trapped by our own thoughts or behaviour? Drawing on his twenty-five years’ experience as a psychoanalyst, Stephen Grosz ushers the reader through the door of his consulting room and into the minds of his patients. In these beautifully told cases we find compulsive liars, deceived spouses, violent children and delusional adults but we also find ourselves and in doing so, understand a little more about what it is to be human. 
 
 Selected from The Examined Life. 
 
 VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
 A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Discover the Vintage Minis ‘Head Space’ series: 
 
 Recovery by Helen Macdonald 
 Family by Mark Haddon

Therapy

Aldous Huxley

Could drugs offer a new way of seeing the world? In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed. His account of his experience, and his vision for all that psychedelics could offer to mankind, has influenced writers, artists and thinkers around the world. 
 
The unabridged text of The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Drinking by John Cheever 
Swimming by Roger Deakin 
Eating by Nigella Lawson 
Desire by Haruki Murakami

Psychedelics

Meg and Mog

Ebb and Flo

Lucy and Tom

Ink and Iron

Topsy and Tim

Tuck and Tina

And Other Lies

Pizza and Taco

Emma and James

Sarah and Duck

Chaos and Flame

The Lost and Found

Jack and Millie

Anders Knutas

Charlie and Lola

From the bestselling novel I'm Travelling Alone, two dynamic characters are born. 
Police investigators Holger Munch and Mia Krüger work together to solve the most complex crimes in Oslo, catching serial killers before they strike again but their personal lives are not simple either. As people, they could not be more different but as they battle their own demons their unlikely pairing make Munch and Krüger the best kind of classic detective duo.

Munch and Krüger

Lizzie and Lucky

George and Flora

Gods and Warriors

Faith, Hope and Glory

Wizards and Robots

Noughts and Crosses

Malorie Blackman's ground-breaking, award winning series charts the lives and loves of generations as it takes on race and equality with breathtaking drama and heart wrenching sadness. Set in an alternate reality, where the inferior Noughts live as second class citizens in a world run by Crosses, the four books explore the violent politics of a unstable world, and the ordinary lives caught up in in its terror. Beginning with Noughts and Crosses - and the romance of Seph and Callum - and ending with Double Cross, it is a gripping sequence, and an important, relevant story for our time.

Noughts And Crosses

The Knight and Her Emperor

Swallows And Amazons

Key Words with Peter and Jane

Harry and the Dinosaurs

Peter Rabbit Slide-and-Seek

The Snowman flies again . . . In the middle of winter, a little boy's Snowman and Snowdog come to life and take him on a breathtaking and magical adventure.

Showing results for: ‘Abie Longstaff’

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