Showing titles in Art & Literature

Brought to you by Penguin. In this collection of profiles, essays and travel stories, Chatwin takes us to Benin, where he is arrested as a mercenary during a coup; to Boston to meet an LSD guru who believes he is Christ; to India with Indira Ghandi when she attempted a political comeback in 1978; and to Nepal where he reminds us that 'Man's real home is not a house, but the Road, and that life itself is a journey to be walked on foot'.  

Joining us at Audible Studios is Alex Bertie, YouTube vlogger of his transgender journey and author of Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard. When Alex was born, doctors took one look and put an 'F' for female on the birth certificate, based on genitals. When Alex was 15 he realised he was a transgender man, through many years of struggling with identity. After coming out to family and friends, Alex battled the health-care system in order to take male hormones, have surgery, change his name and grow a beard.

What happens within us when we read a novel? And how does a novel create its unique effects, so distinct from those of a painting, a film, or a poem? In this inspired, thoughtful, deeply personal book, Orhan Pamuk takes us into the worlds of the writer and the reader, revealing their intimate...

Omar El Akkad joins us in the Audible Studios to discuss his debut novel, American War. Having spent 10 years as a journalist reporting on subjects such as the war in Afghanistan and military trials in Guantanamo Bay, Omar has turned his attentions to dystopian fiction in American War. Set in 2074, the novel portrays a world where climate change and political uprisings have transformed everything as we know it - and civil war has broken out in America.

'A stunning self-portrait of a woman trying to make sense of the misogyny and sexism she has faced throughout her life.' - TIME Magazine In early 2021, popular artist Anna Marie Tendler checked herself into a psychiatric hospital following a year of crippling anxiety, depression and self-harm...

New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik and sociologist Malcolm Gladwell revisit their debates about healthcare, education, media, and a variety of other subjects. The event, introduced by Daniel Sullivan, general consul of Canada, and Simon Center director Henry Timms is followed by an extensive Q&A.

C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the twentieth century. Many readers know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain...

A quasi-memoir written from the perspective of Gertrude Stein's lifelong partner, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is a lively, playful account of the literary giant's vibrant life in the early twentieth century. Captivating and characteristically self-assured, this glittering memoir recounts Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas's artistically rich life in Paris.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE POL ROGER DUFF COOPER PRIZE* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE* A Book of the Year in the Times; Telegraph; Spectator; Financial Times; Observer; Waterstones and Daunt Books A dazzling new biography of young Tennyson by...

अपनी कहानी सुनाना मेरे लिए उतना आसान नहीं होगा, क्योंकि पिछली ज़िंदगी के कई ऐसे पीड़ादायक प्रसंगों/अनुभवों को दोबारा झेलने के लिए ख़ुद को तैयार करना पड़ेगा जिन्हें मैं भुला चुका था या कम-से-कम भुला देने की कोशिश करता रहा था। सच कहूँ तो उनमें से कई बातों का ज़िक्र तो मैंने अपने निहायत क़रीबी जनों से भी नहीं किया है।

During the 1930s at Oxford, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams - remarkable friends, writers, and scholars - met regularly to discuss philosophy and literature and to read aloud from their own works in progress. Calling themselves the Inklings, their circle grew. It was in this company that such classics as The Lord of the Rings, The Screwtape Letters, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first found an audience.

Miss Dior paints a portrait of the enigmatic woman behind the designer Christian Dior: his beloved younger sister, Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his vision of femininity. Justine Picardie's journey takes her to Occupied Paris, where Christian honed his couture skills while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance, until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück.

Brought to you by Penguin. This audiobook has received a Grammy nomination for 'Best Audiobook, Narration, and Storytelling Recording' A beautiful celebration of Dolly Parton’s iconic sense of style through entertaining personal stories, interviews with friends and family, music, and archival...

When Roxana Robinson’s definitive biography of O’Keeffe was first published in 1989, it received rave reviews and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. This new edition features a new foreword by the author, setting O’Keefe in an artistic context over the last thirty years since the book was first published, as well as previously unpublished letters of the young O’Keeffe to her lover, Arthur MacMahon. This book also relates the story of Robinson’s own encounter with the artist.

The making of a writer Ruskin Bond's first full-fledged autobiographical book covers his formative years,' till the age of twenty-one. The world of Anglo-India, with all its conflicting pulls, comes alive as he tells his story. His earliest memoirs are bitter-sweet, and relate to Jamnager where...

This is Annie Ernaux’s account of her passionate love affair with A., a man some thirty years younger, when she was in her fifties. The relationship pulls her back to memories of her own youth and, at the same time, leaves her feeling ageless, outside of time—together with a sense that she is living her life backwards. Amidst talk of having a child together, she feels time running its course and menopause approaching. The Young Man recalls Ernaux as the “scandalous girl” she once was but is composed with the mastery and the self-assurance she has achieved across decades of writing.

In The Trip to Echo Spring, Olivia Laing examines the link between creativity and alcohol through the work and lives of six of America's finest writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. All six of these men were alcoholics, and the subject of drinking surfaces in some of their finest work, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to A Moveable Feast.

His books have sold millions and include classics like Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Yet C. S. Lewis was not always a literary giant of Christian faith. How did he evolve from staunch atheism to become one of the most beloved and renowned Christian authors of our time?

William L. Shirer was a CBS foreign correspondent and renowned author of New York Times best-selling nonfiction about World War II, and this is the first part of his three-part autobiography. A renowned journalist and author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer chronicles his own life story in a personal history that parallels the greater historical events for which he served as a witness. 

This is perhaps one of the best-loved of all journals. William Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy, began it in May 1800 and resolved to keep it for a short time. She continued it for nearly three years. In it, she brought the Dove Cottage years to vivid and intimate life. She noted the walks and weather, the friends, country neighbours, and travellers on the roads. She set down accounts of the garden, of Wordsworth's marriage, their concern for Coleridge, and the composition of Wordsworth's poetry.