Beautifully written yet highly controversial, An Image of Africa asserts Achebe's belief in Joseph Conrad as a 'bloody racist' and his conviction that Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness only serves t...
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the world's most celebrated poet, novelist, critic and thinker and this is the best way of knowing him. Today his name is echoed as that of a 'great man' alongside Pl...
In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood a...
What are Kafka's stories about? Are they dreams? Allegories? Symbols? Things that happen every day? But where and when?In this remarkable book, Roberto Calasso sets out not to dispel th...
WINNER OF THE 2023 LOCUS AWARD FOR NON-FICTIONWINNER OF THE BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION AWARD FOR BEST NON-FICTION'Always readable, illuminating and honest. It made me mis...
We, the black and the white, deeply need each other here if we are really to become a nation'James Baldwin's impassioned plea to 'end the racial nightmare' in America was a bestseller...
In this collection of wise, witty and fascinating essays, Borges discusses the existence (or non-existence) of Hell, the flaws in English literary detectives, the philosophy of contradictions, and ...
In 1960, when he was almost sixty years old, John Steinbeck set out to rediscover his native land. He felt that he might have lost touch with its sights, sounds and the essence of its people....
Travels with Herodotus records how Kapuscinski set out on his first forays – to India, China and Africa – with the great Greek historian constantly in his pocket. He sees Louis Armstron...
Anyone who wants to understand the twentieth century will still have to read Orwell' Timothy Garton Ash, New York Review of BooksWhether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittil...
A marvelous book . . . I just loved it all, and have a permanently marked-up, dog-eared copy on my shelf for the next generation.Tom Hanks Simply, a masterpiece. Here, An...