26 Literature


threatened with arrest, imprisonment and forced labour, a failed economic system, and bombarded with ludicrous propaganda - turned joke-telling into an art form, using it as a coded way of speaking the truth and coping with the absurdity of the system. 354 paperback pages, cartoons in b/w and colour, caricatures, photos and oral transcripts. $15.95 NOW £3


73348 DO-IT-YOURSELF BRAIN SURGERY: And Other


Implausibly Titled Books by Joel Rickett


The Diagram Prize was first created at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1978 and is still today awarded annually by The Bookseller magazine for that year’s published book with the oddest title. In the intervening 35 years the Diagram has been bestowed more than a few worthy


champions including Bombproof Your Horse (2004), The Joy of Chickens (1980), How to Avoid Huge Ships (1992), The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories (2002), Living With Crazy Buttocks (2003) and last year’s Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop. Here, collected for the first time are the 50 best Diagram entries, presented complete with their equally outlandish jackets. 96pp, colour.


£8 NOW £3


73640 COULD DO BETTER by Norman McGreevy


More mangled attempts to get to grips with our mother tongue from school children who have struggled with the pitfalls of the English language. Full of hilarious howlers on religion, history and the rest, surreal spelling errors, grammatical catastrophes and cringeworthy malapropisms. A cyclone is a man riding a bicycle. A fissure is a man who sells fish. Homer tells us that Greek semen ruled the Agean. France was torn apart by noble fractions. Cartoons, 150pp in paperback. £5.99 NOW £2.50


73861 THE IDLER ISSUE 39: Lie Back and Protest by Tom Hodgkinson


The Idler is a magazine that ‘celebrates freedom, fun and the fine art of doing nothing’. If our readers are of the same frame of mind, then this is the magazine for them. It is packed with features, stories, conversations and views from the sofa, philosophising and reflecting on the whole notion of protest. Corinne Maier interviews three French filmmakers producing anti-work movies. Jay Griffiths writes on missionaries. John Nicholson celebrates paradise and the magazine asks if there is any point in going to university, while Penny Rimbaud reveals the meaning of life. There are articles on the practical side of idling and advice on tree-house-building and beer-brewing and much more. 224 paperback pages. Cartoons and photos. £10.99 NOW £4


73862 YOU CAN STICK IT! by P. K. Munroe If you are fed up to the teeth with notices telling you to watch out, beware, wash your hands, stop driving if you are tired and on no account smoke, then you will be glad of the opportunity to stick these notices anywhere that you deem appropriate. We particularly loved the notice telling us to ‘Speak your pin clearly into the microphone’ and wickedly imagined the type of people who would actually do that! There are spoof Health and Safety messages, insulting gift tags, and stickers for the fridge, cash machines, public transport, books, DVDs and even your houseplants. So, stick it! Umpteen pages 30cm by 21cm in colour. £12.99 NOW £4


LITERATURE


I’ve read some of your modern free verse and wonder who set it free.


- John Barrymore 74209 STANLEY AND THE


WOMEN by Kingsley Amis Regarded as the best of all his novels, John Mortimer said of Amis that he was ‘A genuine comic writer, probably the best after P. G. Wodehouse.’ Just when Stanley Duke thinks it is safe to sink into middle age, his son goes insane. As if that wasn’t terrible enough, Stanley finds himself beset on all sides by women - neurotic,


cantankerous, half-baked or just plain capricious. One by one they gnaw away at his composure and Stanley wonders whether insanity is not something with which all women are intimately acquainted. 290pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £3.50


74280 THE ALTERATION by Kingsley Amis


Hubert Anvil is a 10 year old boy blessed with the voice of an angel. The Church hierarchy decrees that Hubert should be turned into a castrato, an alteration that could bring Hubert fame and fortune, but would also cut him off from an adult world he is curious to discover. In a dystopian world where Martin Luther never


reformed and where the Holy Office’s power is absolute, where will Hubert turn if he decides to defy their wishes? A coruscating tour de force first published in 1976 and here in Vintage Classics 2004 paperback reprint. 231pp. £8.99 NOW £3


74354 BRIDESHEAD ABBREVIATED by John Crace


Subtitled ‘The Digested Read of the 20th Century’ here is a poisonously cruel, beautifully observed kick up the


backside to some of modern literature’s most iconic works. John Crace’s ‘Digested Read’ column in the Guardian has rightly acquired a cult following. Each week fans avidly devour his latest razor-sharp literary assassination, while authors turn tremblingly to the appropriate page of the review section in fear. Now he turns his critical eye on 100 classics offering bite-sized pastiches of everything from Mrs Dalloway to Trainspotting, Le Grand Meaulnes, More Pricks than Kicks, The Bell Jar, American Psycho to the Highway Code. Witty and sharp for all who appear or actually are ridiculously well read. 353pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £4.50


74384 ISLAND: Vintage Classic by Aldous Huxley


In 1937 at the height of his fame, Huxley left Europe to live in California, working for a time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Here is one of his truly great philosophical novels with an introduction by David Bradshaw. For over 100 years in the Pacific island of Pala has been the scene of a unique experiment in civilisation. Its inhabitants live in a society where Western science has been brought together with Eastern philosophy to create a paradise on earth. When cynical journalist Will Farnaby arrives to research potential oil reserves on Pala, he quickly falls in love with the way of life on the island. Soon the need to complete his mission becomes and intolerable burden and he must make a difficult choice. 286pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £4


74383 DOORS OF PERCEPTION by Aldous Huxley


One spring morning in 1953, Aldous Huxley took four tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen, and when he opened his eyes he found everything, from flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers were completely transformed. He describes his experience with breathtaking immediacy in this book, and its sequel ‘Heaven and Hell’ in which he goes on to explore the history and nature of mysticism. Still bristling with a sense of excitement and discovery, these illuminating and influential writings remain the most fascinating accounts of the visionary, drug-induced experience ever written. With an introduction by David Bradshaw and a foreword by J. G. Ballard here is a masterpiece in Vintage Classic paperback, 123pp. £7.99 NOW £4


74196 NEW WAYS TO KILL YOUR MOTHER by Colm Toibin


Subtitled ‘Writers and Their Families’ here is a book not just confined to the sibling artists of Heinrich (Thomas) Mann, Henry and William James, Virginia Woolfe and Vanessa Bell, W. B. Yeats and Jack Yeats, but also the importance of aunts and the death of parents in the English 19th century novel. Here is the


relationship between fathers and sons and the connections between writers and their families all related with a rare tenderness and wit and with great joy of reading and rereading great works of literature. In his essay on ‘The Notebooks of Tennessee Williams’ Toibin reveals an artist ‘alone and deeply fearful and unusually selfish’ and one profoundly tormented by his sister’s mental illness. In Roddy Doyle’s writing on his parents we see an Ireland reinvented and John Cheever remarked ‘Educating an intellectual woman is like letting a rattlesnake into the house.’ Hugely insightful and enjoyable, 346pp in glamorous Penguin hardback. £20 NOW £5


74305 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: Poems


selected by James Fenton The reader of this selection of Coleridge’s poems may be surprised that the first items presented should be fragments and drafts rather than finished poems and that there are two versions of Kubla Khan, the verse letter to his lover Sara Hutchinson and the ‘Dejection’ ode created as a public version of the


private epistle. There are also two versions of The Ancient Mariner. The Pains of Sleep looks finished, but it is said by Coleridge to be a fragment. Born in Ottery- St-Mary, Devon, in 1772, Samuel Taylor Coleridge first met William Wordsworth in 1797 and a close association developed between them, issuing in their groundbreaking Lyrical Ballads in 1799. As poet, philosopher and critic, Coleridge stands as one of the seminal figures of his time and the Romantic Movement. 28 poems in elegant Faber hardback, 83pp. £8 NOW £3


74297 LORD BYRON: Selected Poems


selected by Paul Muldoon George Gordon was born in London in 1788. He succeeded to a baronetcy and, as Lord Byron, he was soon to become the most famous poet of his age, as well as one of its most notorious characters. He set a great example of the poet as maverick, joining no club that would have him as a member, at


odds with his publisher and the public alike. Byron wrote some of the most beautiful and lyrical poetry ever, as well as witty and wise works such as Beppo, featured here, in which we see him at his brilliant best. Byron was the sort of poet who reminded readers again and again that poetry can be serious without being solemn - that it might even be fun. His mature style is wonderfully discursive, ranging from Aristotle, through hitting the sack, to hitting the bottle of sack, while relishing the rhyme of Aristotle and bottle en route. This selection will leave readers wanting more. 133 pages. £8 NOW £3


74418 THREE MUSKETEERS by Alexandre Dumas All for one and one for all! Country boy d’Artagnan is desperate to join the King’s élite band of bodyguards, the Musketeers. When his fiery loyalties (which often get him into trouble) and incredible sword skills (which get him out again) manage to impress brash Porthos, foppish Aramis and melancholy Athos, the three Musketeers and d’Artagnan become friends for life. But when the four discover that the King is under threat from Cardinal Richelieu and beautiful spy Milady, can they save France from certain destruction? Penguin paperback, 673pp. £8.99 NOW £4.50


72658 THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK


HOLMES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Contents include Silver Blaze, The Yellow Face, The Stockbroker’s Clerk, The Gloria Scott, The Musgrave Ritual, The Reigate Squires, The Crooked Man, The Resident Patient, The Greek Interpreter, The Naval Treaty and The Final Problem. In the last tale, Dr Watson relates the grisly, fatal and shocking tale of how Holmes finally meets his match, encountering the diabolical Professor Moriarty in a terrible struggle at Reichenbach Falls. 259pp in Penguin paperback. Remainder mark. $14 NOW £2


73023 THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy A father and his young son walk alone through burned America, heading slowly for the coast. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. They have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves against the men who stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food, blankets, a tarp, and each other. The language is as stark as the landscape with flashes of beauty in recollection of the world now gone. An apocalyptic, questioning picaresque novel. 307pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £3.50


73037 UNDER THE SUN: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare


Bruce Chatwin was a cult writer of beautiful prose with an encyclopedic experience of people and places. In 1965 the bisexual Chatwin married Elizabeth Chanler who herself embarked on some adventurous journeys, travelling in a van to the Himalayas with Penelope Betjeman in 1971. Chatwin’s letters to his wife are among the most revealing, often expressing forthright opinions of his friends and incorporating wonderful descriptions of his surroundings. Abruptly terminating his employment with The Sunday Times (“Gone to Patagonia”) Chatwin started to move towards a novelistic career. In Patagonia was followed by The Viceroy of Ouidah, On the Black Hill and The Songlines and other literary figures who appear in this correspondence are James Lees-Milne, Gerald Brenan, Susan Sontag and many others. Paperback, 554pp. Photos.


£9.99 NOW £4


72961 ANN VERONICA by H.G. Wells 21-year-old Ann Veronica lives in a commuter suburb of London - a place of tea parties, tennis lawns and unspeakable boredom. She decides to run away to the bright lights of Bloomsbury. There she encounters a beguiling world of bohemians and suffragettes, Fabians and free love. But nothing has prepared her for the charismatic Capes, and the choice she will have to make between love and her new-found freedom. With an introduction by Flora Fraser. 256 pages. £9.99 NOW £6


72993 HISTORY OF MR POLLY by H.G. Wells


!


Concerns a day-dreaming shop boy, Alfred Polly, who is in love with a girl called Christabel. Unfortunately, after his marriage, he finds himself plagued by a failing business and a nagging wife. Balding, overweight and barely solvent. Then, in a surprise turn of events, he is forced to escape his humdrum life and take to the road - as a bachelor. Will he find happiness? With an introduction by Giles Foden. 188 pages. £9.99 NOW £6


72997 KIPPS by H.G. Wells


Tells the story of the rise and fall of a simple soul called Artie Kipps who, in the late 19th century, is catapulted out of his humble rank in life when he inherits a fortune, is plunged into high society and has to contend with playwrights, pretension, tipping etiquette and fish knives, in a world in which he can never truly feel at home - for there is a great deal more to being a gentleman that would at first appear! With an introduction by D. J. Taylor. 301 pages. £9.99 NOW £6


73741 H. G. WELLS: Set of Three by H. G. Wells


Buy all three paperbacks and save even more. £29.97 NOW £14


71206 COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE New Illustrated Edition


Introduced by Dr Warren Boutcher An exquisitely produced 9½” x 12" quality hardback with colourful, smallish type but best of all pre-Raphaelite, rich glowing colourful illustrations. Shakespeare brought to life the history and mythology of the world with 38 plays, over 150 exquisite sonnets, and a number of fine long poems. By 1594, he played an active part in The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, with leading actors of the day William Kempe and Richard Burbage. The troupe became a royal and popular favourite, establishing a tradition of theatrical entertainment and which brought him part ownership of the group plus The Globe theatre, allowing him to retire in some comfort to Stratford in 1611, five years before his death. In 1623 the most authoritative collection of his plays, The First Folio was gathered together by two of his companions from The King’s Men, John Heminges and Henry Condell. This new illustrated edition is based on their collection and many subsequent skilled editors. Over 100 beautiful paintings, woodcuts and engravings. 464pp. £30 NOW £10


73064 ARGUABLY by Christopher Hitchens Christopher Hitchens died aged 62 on 15 December 2011. Perhaps the best word to describe him would have been “contrary”. He railed against the left as much as the right, and he was consistent in his rejection of organised religion, his book God is Not Great selling 500,000 copies. This monster 788pp volume is a collection of his best articles written between 2000 and 2011 for publications such as the New Statesman, Vanity Fair, the TLS, the New York Times, The Atlantic and many others. In it he explores literary figures such as Dickens, Orwell, Larkin and Rebecca West. Politically his viewpoint is sharpened by a lifetime of travelling and reporting from places such as China, Iran and Pakistan and a deep immersion in the very midst of US politics. Hitchens will be remembered as defiant, witty, courageous and humble. £30 NOW £8


73216 500 ESSENTIAL CULT BOOKS: The Ultimate Guide


by Gina McKinnon with Steve Holland Divided into ten categories by genre or theme, such as Cult Classics, Incredible Worlds, Rebellious Voices, Walk on the Wild Side, and so on, each section has an introduction, followed by a ‘top ten’ selection of the best titles in that category, and then the ‘best of the rest’ in that genre. Each entry has a brief plot summary (for fiction) or synopsis (non-fiction) followed by a review with a star rating out of five. Whatever your favourites, be they memoirs, thrillers, science fiction, self-help, fantasy, you name it. 384 paperback pages, illus in colour.


$17.95 NOW £5 73221 DICKENS’S ENGLAND: An A-Z of the


Real and Imagined Locations by Tony Lynch This handsome, yellow, linen-bound volume is a fascinating A-Z tour of England that brings to life all those places which are associated with the life of Charles Dickens, over 200 entries in all. Here is Mr Pickwick’s Bath and London, Covent Garden where the young Dickens worked at Warrens blacking warehouse, watching the street children that provided inspiration for Oliver Twist and the boys of Fagin’s pickpocket gang, Marshalsea where his father John was imprisoned in the Debtors’ Prison, Nicholas Nickleby’s Yorkshire, the Kent of Great Expectations, the Monument, which appears in no fewer than three of his novels and the many places where Dickens lived and worked. Colour and b/w photos. Relevant quotes. 208pp. £14.99 NOW £5.50


73281 GREAT AGE OF THE ENGLISH ESSAY:


An Anthology edited by Denise Gigante By the mid-18th century, the essay had emerged as a premier literary form. Richard Steele’s Tatler gossips about current events and scandal, Joseph Addison’s Spectator observes real-life rogues and politicians, Samuel Johnson’s Rambler perambulates London, storing up thought for mental meanderings, and the romantic recluse Thomas de Quincey’s Opium Eater haunts the dark underworld of psychological obsession and physical addiction. From the oddities of virtuosos to the private lives of parrots and the fantastic horrors of opium dreams. 427 paperback pages with map of 18th century London, chronology. £18 NOW £4.50


73282 GULLIVER’S TRAVELS: And Alexander


Pope’s Verses on Gulliver by Jonathan Swift The entire unabridged text of Gulliver’s Travels, but also verses on Gulliver’s Travels by Alexander Pope. In the course of his extraordinary travels, Gulliver is captured by miniature people who wage war on each other because of a religious disagreement over how to crack eggs, is sexually assaulted by giants, visits a floating island, and decides that the society of horses is better than that of his fellow men. The author’s tough, filthy and incisive satire has much to say about the state of the world today. Voyage back to Lilliput and Brobdingnag again. 334 page paperback. £5.99 NOW £3


73288 NAÏVE AND THE SENTIMENTAL NOVELIST by Orhan Pamuk


The Nobel Prize winning novelist subtitled his study ‘Understanding What Happens When We Write and Read Novels’. Pamuk takes us into the worlds of the writer and the reader, revealing their intimate connections. Harking back to the novels of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Stendhal, Flaubert and Proust, he explores the oscillation between the naïve and the reflective and the search for equilibrium that lie at the centre of the novelist’s craft. Here he ponders the novel’s visual and sensual power, its ability to conjure landscapes, and considers the elements of character, plot, time and setting. 200pp in paperback. £12.99 NOW £3


73293 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: Poems selected by James Fenton


The reader of this selection of Coleridge’s poems may be surprised that the first items presented should be fragments and drafts rather than finished poems and that there are two versions of Kubla Khan. There are also two versions of The Ancient Mariner. The Pains of Sleep looks finished, but it is said by Coleridge to be a fragment. Born in Ottery-St-Mary, Devon, in 1772, Samuel Taylor Coleridge first met William Wordsworth in 1797, issuing in their groundbreaking Lyrical Ballads in 1799. As poet, philosopher and critic, Coleridge stands as one of the seminal figures of his time and the Romantic Movement. 28 poems in elegant Faber hardback, 83pp. £8 NOW £3.25


71683 SONGS OF INNOCENCE by William Blake


Illustrated by Charles and Mary H. Robinson with beautiful ethereal Art Nouveau colour illustrations, the original typography has been retained from the 1912 Dent edition in this classy facsimile reprint. William Blake’s 1789 classic evokes an idyllic world populated by pipers, shepherds, angels and joyful children. ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forest of the night, What immortal or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?’ Immortal words in a glorious treasury. 66pp. $15 NOW £3


BACK IN STOCK


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36