Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

Evelyn Waugh

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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

Vintage Minis

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

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