Showing titles in Art & Literature

In a remarkable feat of biography, Matthew Hollis reconstructs the intellectual creation of the poem and brings the material reality of its charged times vividly to life. Presenting a mosaic of historical fragments, diaries, dynamic literary criticism and illuminating new research, he reveals the cultural and personal trauma that forged The Waste Land through the lives of its protagonists.

Joining us in the Audible Studios is radio and telly presenter, Nick Grimshaw. Known to us affectionately as Grimmy, he has been a part of our daily lives since reaching his childhood dream of presenting on BBC Radio 1 in 2007. Having hosted the Radio 1 Breakfast show, taken over the Drive Time slot, and appeared on our screens in The X Factor and Gogglebox, Nick Grimshaw has become a household name.

Making his west end debut in 1985, Ball has been a constant in musical theatre, performing many parts in Les Misérables around the country over the years, appearing in The Phantom of the Opera, Hairspray and Sweeny Todd. Ball is no stranger to the charts either: after representing the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest, he has regularly released albums. Michael has now taken to writing and we will be talking about his debut novel, The Empire.

Consisting of over 20 years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, Frantumaglia is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing. Ferrante answers many of her listeners’ questions. She addresses her choice to stand aside and let her books live autonomous lives.

The groundbreaking story of the BBC’s first Black woman broadcaster — finally brought to light. Una Marson was unstoppable—a poet whose words lit up hearts, a broadcaster who made history in 1941 as the first Black woman on the BBC, and an activist who fought fiercely for racial and gender...

The bestselling biography of Britain's 'Queen of Crime' by acclaimed historian Lucy Worsley OBE 'Every Christie fan should read this' - THE TIMES To Lucy Worsley, Agatha Christie was 'thrillingly, scintillatingly modern'. She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by...

'A huge, fizzing omnium-gatherum of a book . . . marvellous' Daily Telegraph 'Witty, wise and elegant . . . a classic of history itself' The Spectator 'Grave and witty, suave yet pointed . . . full of energy' Hilary Mantel 'An enthralling investigation . . . consistently entertaining' The Times...

The devastating and powerful memoir from a French publisher who was abused by a famous writer from the age of thirteen ‘Dazzling’ New York Times ‘A gut-punch of a memoir with prose that cuts like a knife’ Kate Elizabeth Russell, author of My Dark Vanessa Thirty years ago, Vanessa...

Tantalizing, eye-opening, and witty, Watching Porn is a provocative book about an average girl’s foray into the porn industry and the people who make it what it is, both in front of and behind the camera.

Written with White’s signature honesty, irreverence, and wit, The Loves of My Life is the culmination of a legend's life and work, a delightful and moving tour of over seventy years of being unabashedly gay and in love with love in all its forms.

Coetzee grew up in a new development north of Cape Town, tormented by guilt and fear. With a father he despised, and a mother he both adored and resented, he led a double life - the brilliant and well-behaved student at school, the princely despot at home, always terrified of losing his mother's love. His first encounters with literature, the awakenings of sexual desire, and a growing awareness of apartheid left him with baffling questions, and only in his love of the high veld ('farms are places of freedom, of life') could he find a sense of belonging.

Brought to you by Penguin. The long-awaited autobiography from beloved star of Just a Minute, QI, Have I Got News For You and Celebrity Gogglebox. There are few people Gyles Brandreth doesn't know or hasn't met - from the Queen to the Sex Pistols, Mandela and Marlene Dietrich to TS Eliot, he's...

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874-January 29, 1963) was an American poet who frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early 20th century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. The following recording is from a 1954 lecture Frost gave on poetry and writers Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Theodore Dreiser, William Faulkner, Walter Savage Landor, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Percy Shelley, and John Masefield.

In A Daughter of Isis, Nawal El Saadawi, author of Woman at Point Zero and one of the Arab world’s greatest writers, tells the story of the formative years which shaped an iconic voice in global feminism. In poignant and moving prose we learn about her relationships with her family, her traumatic experience of female genital mutilation at seven years old and escaping suitors at ten and her journey from the rural Egyptian village of her birth to metropolitan Cairo to study medicine.

A collection of insightful and uproariously funny non-fiction by the bestselling author of INFINITE JEST - one of the most acclaimed and adventurous writers of our time. A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING... brings together Wallace's musings on a wide range of topics, from his early days as a nationally...

"A haunting memoir of disarming honesty. . . a remarkable testament to the anguish and the beauty of foreign correspondence.”—Roger Cohen, New York Times Paris bureau chief and author of An Affirming Flame From award-winning journalist Jane Ferguson, an unflinching memoir of ambition and...

A leading scholar draws on fifty years of reading and studying J.R.R. Tolkien to explain how he created an entire world.

Brought to you by Penguin. FROM THE BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF THE EMPTY RAINCOAT AND UNDERSTANDING ORGANISATIONS. Over a span of seven decades, Charles Handy was, variously, a businessman, a writer, a philanthropist and a philosopher. Not even a stroke as he approached the age of 90 dimmed his...

The New York Times bestselling memoir by Pulitzer Prize-winning war photojournalist Lynsey Addario "Beautifully written and vividly illustrated . . . Addario is an artist of empathy, a witness not to grand ideas about human sacrifice and suffering, but to human beings, simply being." —The...

Including an introduction read by the author, Max Hastings. 'Much excellent gossip, some of it wildly indiscreet . . . Hastings is a brilliant reporter' – Sunday Telegraph 'The acuity of his insights make this book a wholly compelling read' – Observer In February 2002 Max Hastings retired...