WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY OLIVIA LAINGIn 1986 Derek Jarman discovered he was HIV positive and decided to make a garden at his cottage on the barren coast of Dungeness.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY NEIL BARTLETT
'The life-affirming expression of an artist engaged in living to the full' The Times
Smiling in Slow Motion is Derek Jarman's last journal, stretching from May 1991 until a fortnight before his death in February 1994.
'A writer of great gifts.' - Robert Macfarlane
I now live a richly connected year, marked by seasonal events: the first snowdrop in my garden, cut and brought inside;
'When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening has been a therapy. When I don't want to talk I turn to Plot 29, or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There, among seeds and trees, my breathing slows; my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away.'
`This is my manifesto for morning.
There is an energy in the earlier hours, an awareness I enjoy. In today's world we tend to wake as late as we can, timed to when we have to work. But we don't need to chase the day.'
A deeply personal journey into Shakespeare's work that explores how it remains relevant and always has something to say about the times we are living in.
A literary quiz book with a difference, mirroring the format of the lively and popular quizzes Gary runs in the Betsey Trotwood pub in London and elsewhere. The book includes a lot of multiple-choice questions, some amusing answers, clever red herrings, little-known facts about authors and some much-loved Say What You See picture rounds.
A brilliant combination of lyrical memoir and guide to living and dying, comparable to Kathryn Mannix's With the End in Mind and Julia Samuel's Grief Works, from the author of Your Life in My Hands.