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- The three biggest challenges facing the world today, in A. C. Grayling’s view, are climate change, technology and justice.In his timely new book, he asks: can human beings agree on a set of values that will allow us to confront the numerous threats facing the planet, or will we simply continue with our disagreements and antipathies as we collectively approach our possible extinction?The solution he proposes is both pragmatic and inspiring.
- It seems like we can’t talk about anything nowadays… Whether it’s war or something utterly inconsequential, the internet is primed for furore. And the results can be horrifying – from online pile-ons and doxing to job loss and, in some cases, death. But how did we end up here?
- Silicon for microchips; manganese for batteries; titanium for missiles.The moon contains a wealth of natural resources. So, as the Earth’s supplies have begun to dwindle, it is no surprise that the world’s superpowers and wealthiest corporations have turned their eyes to the stars. As this new Space Race begins, A.C. Grayling asks: who, if anyone, owns the moon? Or Mars? Or other bodies in near space? And what do those superpowers and corporations owe to Planet Earth and its inhabitants as a whole?
- Translated from the French by Robin Buss272pp The Plague is Albert Camus's world-renowned fable of fear and courage The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr Rieux, resist the terror.An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.'A matchless fable of fear, courage and cowardice' Independent'Magnificent' The Times
- WINNER OF THE 2023 JAMES CROPPER WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITINGThe Flow is a book about water, and, like water, it meanders, cascades and percolates through many lives, landscapes and stories. From West Country torrents to Levels and Fens, rocky Welsh canyons, the salmon highways of Scotland and the chalk rivers of the Yorkshire Wolds, Amy-Jane follows springs, streams and rivers to explore tributary themes of wildness and wonder, loss and healing, mythology and history, cyclicity and transformation.
- Winner of the Costa Book Award for Best First Novel (2015)The British Book Awards Book of the Year 2016360ppThe Loney recounts the Easter of 1976 when a group of Catholic pilgrims from London journey to the wilds of Lancashire for a retreat, during which they hope to cure the narrator's mute, mentally disabled brother, Hanny.
- For centuries, the inhabitants of Barrowbeck, a remote valley on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, have lived uneasily with forces beyond their reckoning. They raise their families, work the land, and do their best to welcome those who come seeking respite. But there is a darkness that runs through the village as persistently as the river.As one generation gives way to the next and ancient land is carved up in the name of progress, darkness gathers. The people of Barrowbeck have forgotten that they are but guests in the valley. Now there is a price to pay. Two thousand years of history is coming to an end.
- After the blizzard of a century ago, it was weeks before anyone got in or out. By that time, what had happened there, what the Devil had done, was already fable. Devil's Day is a day for children now, of course. A tradition it's easy to mock, from the outside. But it's important to remember why we do what we do. It's important to know what our grandfathers have passed down to us. Because it's hard to understand, if you're not from the valley, how this place is in your blood. That's why I came back, with Kat; it wasn't just because the Gaffer was dead.Though that year we may have let the Devil in after all . . .
- Illustrated by Isabelle FollathSigned by Katherine Woodfine96ppThis beloved childhood classic by Lucy Maud Montgomery is now available in a stunning gift book edition with exquisite new art.The relatable mishaps and adventure of Anne are brought to life for a new generation in this enchanting abridgement by bestselling author, Katherine Woodfine, accompanied by Isabelle Follath's engaging and witty artwork.
- Ttranslated from the Japanese by Polly Barton464ppInspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer", Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?‘Nothing short of ingenious’ INEWS‘Ambitious and unsettling’GUARDIAN'It isn’t entirely clear whether to read the novel or devour it’ OBSERVER
- Translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith160ppAs cryptic and compelling as a fever dream... Bae Suah is one of the most unique and adroit literary voices working today' Sharlene TeoFinishing her last shift at Seoul's only audio theatre for the blind, Kim Ayami heads into the night with her former boss, searching for a missing friend. The following day, she looks after a visiting poet, a man who is not as he seems. Unfolding over a night and a day in the sweltering summer heat, their world's order gives way to chaos, the edges of reality start to fray, and the past intrudes on the present in increasingly disorientating ways.Untold Night and Day is a hallucinatory feat of storytelling from one of the most radical voices in contemporary Korean literature. '[A] highly original novel, full of unsolved mysteries, repeated motifs and startling prose… Remarkably fresh… Exhilarating… Once I finished it, much of it slipped into my unconscious. All that remains is a sense of Bae's boundless yet precise imagination' Luiza Saum, Daily TelegraphA metaphysical detective story, Untold Night and Day...draws on ideas from Korean shamanism...to venture in style and ambition far from the conventions of mystery narratives...Storylines echo one another and are braided into multilayered fictional universe with extraordinary skill… Bae’s novel complicates the boundaries between self and other reality and make-believe, night and day' Sarah Shin, Observer'Bae Suah is one of Korea’s most radical contemporary writers… Untold Night and Day is a hallucinatory novel propelled by the logic of dreams… Bae masterfully layers [her] themes into an almost hidden code beneath the novel’s meditative surface' Jay G Ying, GuardianBae Suah’s disturbing, beautifully controlled novel Untold Night and Day is a book of doubles, shadows and parallel worlds... a slim yet labyrinthine twist on a “choose your own adventure” story that disarms even as it disorients' Catherine Taylor, Financial Times
- Across the planet, the futures of young people hang in the balance as they face the harsh realities of the environmental crisis. Isn't it time we made their voices heard?The Children of the Anthropocene, by conservationist and activist Bella Lack, chronicles the lives of the diverse young people on the frontlines of the environmental crisis around the world, amplifying the voices of those living at the heart of the crisis.
- The new novel from the twice Booker Prize-nominated Sarah Hall. An electrifying novel of passion, connection and transformation from "a writer of show-stopping genius" (The Guardian)''In many ways ... Burntcoat feels like a culmination of Hall’s work and, in my opinion, it is her finest yet" - Ruth Gilligan, The Independent"You were the last one here before I closed the door of Burntcoat, before we all shut our doors. In the bedroom above her immense studio at Burntcoat, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness is making her final preparations. The symptoms are well known: her life will draw to an end in the coming days. Downstairs, the studio is a crucible glowing with memories and desire. It was here, when the first lockdown came, that she brought Halit. The lover she barely knew. A presence from another culture. A doorway into a new and feverish world." (Excerpt)"Burntcoat is a book full of wisdom about the crisis of our times" - Sarah Gilmartin, Irish Times"Burntcoat hovers somewhere between the literal truth and what, during the worst moments of the pandemic, many of us feared the truth might be" - Claire Allfree, The Times
- Sale!419ppA life-affirming and powerful coming of age verse novel that shines a light on chronic illness, who we are and how we live.
- Sale!"Marvellous and terrifying” – Sunday Times"Superb” – Daily MailSpecial Offer: We are offering this title at 50% off the publisher’s RRP
- Sale!Looking Good is Carole Coates second collection. Her first, The Goodbye Edition was published in 2005 and one of it's poems is featured in The Forward Book of Poetry, 2006. Carol Coates lives in Lancaster.Special Offer: We are offering this title at 25% off the publisher’s RRP
- Sale!Swallowing Stones is Carole Coates third collection of poetry. Her first, The Goodbye Edition was published in 2005 and one of it's poems is featured in The Forward Book of Poetry, 2006. Carol Coates lives in Lancaster.Special Offer: We are offering this title at 25% off the publisher’s RRP
- Sale!Catherine Smith's first acclaimed collection 'The Butcher's Hands' was a disturbing and exciting book. 'Lip' moves on from its grotesqueries and grand guignol to a fierce, often frantic eroticism through the language of the human body. - Google Books."A gripping collection of poems - some are moving and some are witty, but all are poems that make you think. The main theme is the relationship of women to the world and the people around them, and there's also a wonderful hint of the erotic about them too. Great stuff." ***** - Amazon"Exciting, surprising poetry - an inspiration." ***** - AmazonSpecial Offer: We are offering the title at 25% off the publisher's RRP
- ISBN 9778-1-7385714-0-622ppNature and environmentInside these pages is a text written by Claire Dean, which will take you on an historical, ecological, cartographical and fantastical journey along the River Lune in Lancashire and Cumbria, England.The text sits alongside photographs and a three metre textile (pictured in miniature in the centrefold) handmade from recycled materials by a team of activist stitchers called The Sewing Café Lancaster.
24pp
In these confident and accomplished poems, Clare Proctor explores and gives voice to the experiences of women, particularly those constrained by their context, whether historical, or through art, myth or individual circumstance. They move from the particular to the more general in considering ideas around the body, death, motherhood and family.
“This is a compelling pamphlet that delves into the mythic and the personal, weaving together themes of womanhood, power and rebellion. There is a delicious and sly darkness to some of these poems as we meet witches who keep penises as pets, and women who insist on not behaving as expected. Clare Proctor’s poetry has real emotional depth and this pamphlet announces an important addition to the ongoing lyric conversation about the female body and what it means to be a woman.” Kim Moore
Lilith Speaks is one of three pamphlets selected for publication from the 2024 Litfest/Wayleave Pamphlet competition judged by Ian Duhig and Jane Routh
Buy all three Litfest/Wayleave publications for just £18 in this three book bundle!- Sale!184ppThe electrifying novel from the Booker shortlisted author of Everything Under.'A short sharp explosion of a gothic thriller' Observer
- ISBN: 9780571264919Genre: PoetryPublisher: Faber
- Sale!202ppGoing to the Moon is SO last century, so how difficult can it be-even for a ten-year-old-to follow in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong and the Apollo astronauts? Meet Matilda, the girl who'll give it her best shot to learn everything she needs to learn in order to get there herself.
- Queer, vegan poet Dominic Berry presents his favourite poems for performance from his collections Tomorrow, I Will Go Dancing, Wizard, No Tigers and Yes Life, along with new poetry designed to engage and inspire.An extraordinary and enthralling collection exploring life, personal development and wellbeing by the Glastonbury Festival poet in residence and two-times Saboteur Award-winning Best UK Spoken Word Performer.Dominic Berry is a Manchester-based performance poet renowned for his eloquent yet uncompromising stage shows and a desire to confront inequality. His work has taken him across the continents of Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australasia. He has been Glastonbury Festival's poet in residence, and has won Manchester Literature Festival's Superheroes of Slam and New York's Nuyorican Poets' Cafe Slam. He has also twice been publicly voted Sabotage Review's Best UK Spoken Word Performer.
- 'Williffe Cunliam' was the pen name of the Burnley blacksmith and poet, William Cunliffe (1833-94). During his brief but productive poetic career Cunliffe published fifty-four poems in his local newspaper, the Burnley Free Press and General Advertiser (which became the Burnley Gazette) between 1863 and 1866. The poems lay in the holdings of Burnley Central Library for 150 years, before they were recovered during research for the AHRC-funded Poetry of the Lancashire Cotton Famine project in 2015. The project, led by the University of Exeter's Professor Simon Rennie, published a few of these poems amongst 398 pieces relating to the Lancashire Cotton Famine on a publicly accessible database, but Cunliffe's wider work is remarkably varied in its topics and styles, with dialect and standard English works providing a unique insight into working-class northern English culture in the 1860s.'Rennie pointed to one poet in particular: the wool sorter Williffe Cunliam, who wrote six of the poems uncovered to date. “I think he was a very good poet – a great poet,” said Rennie. “We don’t have enough of his work to say he was a literary star, but he was fantastic; we’ve found very high-quality work"' Alison Flood, Guardian
- Sale!What happens to Ordinary lives when international concerns intrude? What does it mean to belong when the various strands of our identity are brought into conflict? How do we survive to re-invent ourselves when we have seen the world torn apart?Special Offer: We are offering this title at 50% off the publisher’s RRP
- Sale!Edited by Jo Shapcott & Matthew Sweet"Everyone who inhabits our strange times will want to read it!" - The Guardian"An important... original anthology" - Ruth Padel, The IndependentSpecial Offer: We are offering this title at 25% off the publisher’s RRP
- Sale!"Rough Music" is an old English custom of public scapegoating. In this book of disturbing musical echoes, brilliant renewals of carol, charm, folksong and ballad explore violence, loss and belonging.Fiona Sampson is the award-winning author of many books, including A Century of Poetry Review, Common Prayer, which was short-listed for the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2007, and Writing Poetry: The Expert Guide."a very fine poet indeed" – Adam Thorpe in The GuardianSpecial Offer: We are offering this title at 25% off the publisher’s RRP
- Sale!320ppHeart-achingly funny, touching and brilliantly clever, Millions is a fantastic adventure about two boys, one miracle and a million choices.'Pure gold' Scotsman
- Sale!320ppPacked with mystery, adventure and laughs, Noah's Gold is the exciting novel from the bestselling, multi-award-winning author of Millions and Cosmic, Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Fully illustrated in black and white throughout by Steven Lenton, this is perfect for readers of 9+.
- Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann272pp'When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed.'Metamorphosis, Kafka's masterpiece of unease and black humour, is one of the twentieth century's most influential works of fiction, and is accompanied here by two more classic stories.This collection of new translations brings together the small proportion of Kafka's works that he himself thought worthy of publication. It includes 'Meditation', a collection of his earlier studies; 'The Judgement', written in a single night of frenzied creativity; 'The Stoker', the first chapter of a novel set in America and a fascinating occasional piece, and 'The Aeroplanes at Brescia', Kafka's eyewitness account of an air display in 1909. Together, these stories reveal the breadth of Kafka's literary vision and the extraordinary imaginative depth of his thought.
- Sale!Described by Anne Stevenson in Poetry Review as " a major contribution to post-war literature"Awards: Winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2004"A Brilliantly virtuosic collection of deeply felt poems” - Douglas DunnSpecial Offer: We are offering this title at 25% off the publisher's RRP
- ISBN: 0954791312Genre: FictionPublisher: Tindal Street Press
- The author of She-Wolves chronicles the lives and reigns of Richard II and Henry IV, two cousins whose rivalry brought their nation to the brink of disintegration - and back again.Helen Castor tells this story of one of the strangest and most fateful relationships in English history. It is a story about power, and masculinity in crisis, and a nation brought to the brink of catastrophe. At its heart, it is the story of two men whose lives were played out in extraordinary parallel, to devastating effect.
- In medieval England, man was the ruler of woman, and the King was the ruler of all. How, then, could royal power lie in female hands?In She-Wolves, celebrated historian, Helen Castor, tells the dramatic and fascinating stories of four exceptional women who, while never reigning queens, held great power: Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France and Margaret of Anjou. These were women who paved the way for Jane Grey, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I - the Tudor queens who finally confronted what it meant to be a female monarch.
- A Telegraph Poetry Book of the YearA Poetry Book Society ChoiceAn Arbitrary Light Bulb is Ian Duhig’s most personal collection of poems to date. It takes its title from the most common type of household bulb – yet one whose name is virtually unknown, like many people these poems celebrate.Duhig finds in the arbitrary an image for the randomness of inspiration and of life, haunted here by deaths of family and friends. He laments the lost but also responds to the glories of our existence, especially among the overlooked, with humour, technical variety and contagious pleasure.
- This eclectic gathering of Duhig’s best work draws on material from his acclaimed debut, The Bradford Count, to the present day: the book collects a number of fine new pieces, including an elegy for the late Ciaran Carson. Duhig is contemporary poetry’s social historian; he has wise and powerful things to say about the relationship between community and family, racism and justice, place and folklore, music and language.
- Sale!"Born with the gift of lyricism as natural speech" - Clive James"A virtuoso collection” – J.M. CoetzeeSpecial Offer: We are offering this title at 25% off the publisher’s RRP
- Sale!224ppTranslated by Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O’HoranNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Thrillist, The Millions, Frieze, and Metropolis JapanThe first English-language publication of the work of Izumi Suzuki, a legend of Japanese science fiction and a countercultural icon.
- These are poems on the move in the tapestry of London life – from the hospital ward to the back rows of the bus – where the desire for escape is also, paradoxically, a ‘Herculean search for home’. But & Though is a testament to the kinship ties that bind us together, however fraught they become, and a celebration of the working-class identity that defines the poet’s native south London. With a voice as spiky and irreverent as it is gentle, Jake Hawkey is a refreshing new talent in English poetry.
- This collection of poems springs from an awareness of how landscape and its history shape the way we live in it. The author's maps and charts release islands and seascapes, fells and fens, ancestors, boatbuilders, fruit growers and the odd saint. Her poems offer a different kind of mapmaking, making a different kind of sense.
- After lockdowns have swept calendars clear, leaf-fall, early sunrise and gales are Jane Routh’s measures of time, as she goes about her tasks in the hill pasture and woodlands where she has the luck to live.With sharp, lyrical description and down-to earth understanding, her poems consider the flora and fauna around her, formative moments and lifespans – as well as the dead who won’t be forgotten. Her elegant and informed writing conveys a sense of belonging in a particular place and the care for its future, carrying a universal resonance.
- Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLeanWinner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2004n the final moments of the Spanish Civil War, fifty prominent Nationalist prisoners are executed by firing squad. Among them is the writer and fascist Rafael Sanchez Mazas. As the guns fire, he escapes into the forest, and can hear a search party and their dogs hunting him down. The branches move and he finds himself looking into the eyes of a militiaman, and faces death for the second time that day.But the unknown soldier simply turns and walks away. Sanchez Mazas becomes a national hero and the soldier disappears into history. As Cercas sifts the evidence to establish what happened, he realises that the true hero may not be Sanchez Mazas at all, but the soldier who chose not to shoot him. Who was he? Why did he spare him? And might he still be alive?'This is a masterly parable of political violence, of suffering, but also, and decisevely, of the strange logic of compassion and healing . . . should become a classic' George Steiner'With irresistible directness and delicacy, Javier Cercas engages in a quick-witted, tender quest for truth and the possibility of reconciliation in history, in our everyday lives - which happens to be the theme of most great European fiction . . . a marvellous novel' Susan Sontag'He has succeeded, with one perfectly crafted book, in single-handedly redeeming the epic genre' Alberto Manuel
- Sale!A Poetry Book Society RecommendationWinner of the T.S. Eliot Prize"A zestful poet of the road... Jen Hadfield conjures poems of great spirit and imaginative daring. She is a remarkably original poet" - Andrew MotionSpecial Offer: We are offering this book at 25% off the publisher's RRP.
- 304pp'Dark, compelling, beautifully written' Andrew Michael HurleyIn this eerie, atmospheric and mysterious tale, a woman returns to the house in Morecambe Bay where she grew up in the 1960s to find it falling apart, undermined by the roots of two huge sycamores. She is unaware that she has awoken the spirits of her parents, Jack and Nettie Clifford, who watch anxiously as their daughter Annette is overwhelmed by the state of the house and realise too late how far they neglected her as a child.As their memories come alive, the story unfolds of a crucial summer when Annette was 8 and Nettie became too ill to run their boarding house. The lodgers have to go - all except the newly arrived butcher's apprentice, because he seems to have miraculous healing powers and is Jack and Nettie's last, desperate hope.'A disturbing, precisely rendered tale of charisma, misplaced faith and transgenerational trauma, with a touch of the supernatural . . . [it] brings to mind the claustrophobic, suburban world of Dennis Potter's great play Brimstone and Treacle' Alex Clark, Spectator"This marvellous novel is both haunted and haunting, as Ashworth expertly blurs the boundaries between the past and the present, the homely and the uncanny, the quick and the dead. Touching on profound questions of myth, mortality and redemption, it is both sinister and beautiful - and ultimately tender' Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent
- 304pp'Unnerving, absorbing . . . Laurie is a miraculous creation . . . Piercingly human and darkly funny' Sunday TimesOne ordinary morning, Laurie's husband disappears, leaving behind his phone and wallet. For weeks she tells no one, carrying on her cleaning job at the university, visiting her tricky, dementia-suffering father and holing up in her high-rise flat with a bottle to hand. When she finally reports him as missing, the police are suspicious. What took her so long?Laurie can't fully explain her behaviour even to herself, or the strange presence she senses in the flat. Only when she looks back on the ensuing wreckage does she begin to understand, and see how she might repair the damage.
- Sale!Three full collections from the very best young poets"Between the leaves of this book lies the mad boundless energy of the globe cracking-up under our very noses; it is a world which is harnessed in images of jazz, sex, drugs, aliens, abuse; in effective colloquial language and manic syntax; but the themes are always treated with gravity, unsettling candor and humor." (Text taken from Amazon).Special Offer: We are offering this title at 25% off the publisher's RRP
- Now long out of print and hard to find. Lovely condition, as new.Texas-born, Californian reared, Joan Jobe Smith has a fast-growing reputation for her narratives about her childhood, her marriages and the sisterhood of women who sustain each other through difficult times.
