Christmas 2025: Essays

From the publisher:
A manifesto for the importance of books and a guide to expanding your reading horizons by the much-loved writer, critic, poet and translator who has read it allThis is a book about books, about the subversive power of reading and the…

From the publisher:
A timely, moving, and piercingly intelligent essay collection from one of our finest contemporary writersThe first collection of Booker Prize-winning writer Anne Enright's non-fiction writing about culture, literature and her own life'Anne…

From the publisher:
‘Enchanting’ Stephen FryDid you know:– Lord Byron sold more books in a day than Jane Austen did in her lifetime– During the First World War there were more women poets published than soldier poets– A…

From the publisher:
FROM PRIZE-WINNING CULTURAL HISTORIAN – AN UNMISSABLE ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT AND ETHICS OF SANCTUARYSanctuary is an ancient right. But what does it mean today? Drawing on a lifetime of engagement with literature, myth, history and…

From the publisher:
Edited by So Mayer and Sarah ShinWhen Ursula K. Le Guin started writing a new story, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World presents a selection of these images by the celebrated author, many of which have never been…

From the publisher:
Transcendence for Beginners examines life writing and philosophy across certain European and Indian traditions, exploring questions of childhood and mortality, art and religion, beauty and loss. Informed by her experience as a…

From the publisher:
The weird and disturbing history of the cult of yoga'Namaste, fascists! An original and entertaining analysis of the dubious origins of the Western middle class's favourite postural exercise' - The TimesThe practice of yoga promises peace,…

From the publisher:
Old Songs fuses short stories, histories, lyrics and illustrations in an enthralling reimagining of traditional folk ballads. Sunday Times Bestselling historian Amy Jeffs and Illustrator Gwen Burns combine forces to create a rich…

From the publisher:
A beautiful clothbound pocket edition of Sir Terry Pratchett’s essay on why we all deserve a life worth living and a death worth dying for.With a new Afterword by Peter Serafinowiczand an updated Introduction by Rob Wilkins'Eloquent…

From the publisher:
From the climate crisis and the pandemic to trends in masculinity, a stellar collection of Rebecca Solnit's most recent thinking exploring the power of activism.This book's title, No Straight Road Takes You There, is an evocation and a…

From the publisher:
The Good Story may be every story you write, but the Good Story is also not your story. Dog Days considers why we tell stories the way we do, and how we might tell them otherwise. Combining memoir and essay, cultural criticism and…

From the publisher:
I can change the story because I am the story.With her execution looming, a woman is fighting for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. One Aladdin Two Lamps cracks open the legendary…

From the publisher:
'The best book about reading I have read for a very long time' STEPHEN FRY'A glittering gem of a book' NATALIE HAYNESA joyful and enlightening masterclass in how reading attentively can change our livesAs an English literature…

From the publisher:
There is no such thing as a safe wordIn Bad Language, So Mayer blends memoir and manifesto as they explore the politics of speech, while looking at how language has been used – and abused – in their own life. What is the…

From the publisher:
An illuminating new essay collection from one of the most distinctive, exciting and acclaimed writers of her generation, Zadie Smith'Zadie Smith is a wonderful essayist. She is a natural. She writes as she thinks, and she thinks crisply and…