Takes you through depression, divinity, alcohol, and desire, visiting along the way famous blue figures, including Joni Mitchell, Billie Holiday, Yves Klein, Leonard Cohen, and Andy Warhol. In this book, the narrator sets out to construct a sort of 'pillow book' about her lifelong obsession with the colour blue.

A dazzling dictionary of book blurbs, filled with writing tips, literary folklore and publishing secrets

A dazzling dictionary of book blurbs, filled with writing tips, literary folklore and publishing secrets

For over 150 years, the garrets, pubs and clubs of Soho have been, according to Jeffrey Bernard, 'a lifeboat of sorts for the deserters from convention'. This book celebrates those whose style, irregular work patterns, love of intoxicants and unconventional sexual mores shaped the city, and the world, we know today.

Why do women join book clubs? What do the women discuss when they meet? to answer questions like these, Long spent years observing and participating in women's book clubs in the Houston area. She discovered that members find reading a crucial way for them to reflect on their lives.

Featuring some of the most ferocious and humorous book curses ever inscribed, this is a lively and engaging introduction to the history and development of bookish maledictions.

Major writers through the centuries have turned their minds to the subject of books, often with humour, sometimes with exasperation, always with affection. This essential anthology for bibliophiles offers a rich selection of musings on the virtues of libraries, books and 'the pleasant smell of paper freshly pressed'.

Immerse yourself in a land full of literary locations in this tour through the great books of the British Isles. Caroline Taggart's guide to statues, walks both rural and urban, literary homes and vistas which inspired great scenes from our favourite novels is guaranteed to have something for every avid reader.

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.

The New York Times bestselling essay collection about finding delight every day of your life, as featured recently on THIS AMERICAN LIFE.

The extraordinary, posthumously published memoir in letters of a Colombian artist whose writing was championed by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A bold and imaginative volume on the constituent elements of the Book, from the pre-print era through to the digital. The twenty-two chapters written by an international team delve into all elements of the book from title pages to endpapers, from dust jackets to indices, and everything else in between.

This book presents and explores a challenging new approach in book history. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the field of early modern book history as well as in a range of other disciplines.

A tribute to the enduring power of the printed word.

Every bookshop has a story.

When Lucy Mangan was little, stories were everything.She was whisked away to Narnia - and Kirrin Island - and Wonderland.In Bookworm, Lucy brings the favourite characters of our collective childhoods back to life and disinters a few forgotten treasures poignantly, wittily using them to tell her own story, that of a born, and unrepentant, bookworm.

Jeffrey Todd Knight excavates the culture of book collecting and compiling in early modern England, examining how the pervasive practice of mixing texts, authors, and genres into single bindings defined Renaissance ways of thinking and writing.

A lively introductory guide to English literature from Beowulf to the present day. The authors write in their characteristically lucid style and present the texts in relation to their social, political and cultural contexts. Clear and concise, the updated second edition now features a new final chapter on twenty-first century literature.

Bright Circle tells a little-known story of five women who contributed to the literary and philosophical movement known as transcendentalism and, in the process, inaugurated what became the feminist movement. The book relies on little-known letters, journals, and writings of women who have largely remained unknown to the broader public.

Barry Forshaw is acknowledged as a leading expert on European crime fiction, but his principal area of expertise is in the crime arena of the British Isles. Continuing the earlier success of the series with Nordic Noir and Euro Noir, he now returns home to produce the definitive reader's guide to modern British crime...