Booklist

David’s Spring Picks 2023

Selected by David Lea


Song (both human and avian), beachcombing on the Shetland shore, biographies of an iconic swimmer and the 20th century’s greatest poet collide with a hash-fuelled thriller set in the jazz world of 1960s New York.

From the publisher:
'Wondering and wonderful. The nature book of the year.' JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL'This lovely book is almost as thrilling as the bird's immortal song - balm for a troubled soul and a glimpse of paradise.' JOANNA…

From the publisher:
Accustomed to being centre stage, international award-winning singer Ian Bostridge, like so many performers, spent much of 2020 and 2021 unable to take part in live music. It led him to question an identity previously defined by…

From the publisher:
'Modern, revealing and restorative, a coastal treasure' Amy Liptrot'Like its talismanic title, Huband's voice is distinct and singular. A gorgeous reckoning with the sea, islands and mythology' Sinead Gleeson'A wild melding of body and…

From the publisher:
The definitive biography of beloved author, Roger DeakinRoger Deakin, author of the immortal Waterlog and Wildwood, was a man of unusually many parts. A born writer who nonetheless took decades to write his first book, Roger…

From the publisher:
From 'Best of the Booker' winner Salman Rushdie, an incisive and inspiring collection of non-fiction essays, criticism and speeches that takes readers on a thrilling journey through the evolution of language and culture.'One of the greatest…

From the publisher:
This is the first full-scale biography of Osip Mandelstam to combine an analysis of his poetry with a description of his personal life, from his beginnings as a young intellectual in pre-revolutionary Russia to his final fate as a victim of…

From the publisher:
'Wish I Was Here is a masterpiece. Formally inventive, constantly surprising, M. John Harrison has written an archaeology of fragments that shivers with wholeness. It's exquisite' Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk'As always with M.…

From the publisher:
For fans of Colson Whitehead and Chester Himes, Viper's Dream is a gritty, daring look at the vibrant jazz scene of mid-century Harlem, and one man's dreams of making it big and finding love in a world that wants to keep him…

From the publisher:
What does it mean to be a politically committed writer?Through a close reading of the lives and works of some of the greatest intellectuals of recent times, Adam Shatz asks: do writers have an ethical imperative to question injustice? How…

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