Literary essays

A collection of Terry Wogan's best TELEGRAPH columns, with his trademark wry take on life.

Eclectic and illuminating, these essays are the last that Maugham published.

Collected Essays contains nearly eighty essays, reviews and occasional pieces composed between novels, plays and travel books over four prolific decades.

Since the early 1970s, Marina Warner has been one of the most challenging, subtle and profound commentators on the culture of past and present, unravelling our webs of images, ideas and beliefs, and making new and provocative connections.

FROM THE ONE-OF-A-KIND IMAGINATION THAT BROUGHT US SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5 AND CAT'S CRADLE 'Kurt Vonnegut is either the funniest serious writer around or the most serious funny writer' Los Angeles Times Book Review An 'autobiographical collage' of speeches, stories and essays, in Palm Sunday, Kurt Vonnegut writes beguilingly about everything from country music to George Bush, his favourite comedians to his mother's midnight mania, and bittersweet tributes to a dead best friend and a dead marriage.

According to statistics, one in three people in the UK today is likely to be involved in a step-family at some point in their life.

In Hooking Up Tom Wolfe ranges from coast to coast, observing the 'lurid carnival actually taking place in the mightiest country on earth in the year 2000' - everything from teenage sexual manners to how genetics and neuroscience are changing the way we regard ourselves.

Among Stephen Jay Gould's many gifts was his ability to write eloquently about baseball, his great passion.

A captivating collection of pieces about the art of narration by Britain's finest biographer, Michael Holroyd

In this collection of pieces, Michael Holroyd reflects on the eccentricities of the art of writing about others.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEREdited by two-time National Book Award winner and Women's Prize shortlisted-author Jesmyn Ward, a timely and groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race in AmericaIn this bestselling collection of essays and poems, Jesmyn Ward gathers a new generation of writers and thinkers to speak on race.

How do you clothe a book?

_______________'One of the most inventive, original and disturbing writers of her generation' - Daily Telegraph'Diski does not do linear, or normal, or boring In Gratitude amounts to the inner monologue of a highly intelligent, furiously funny, traumatised woman' - Helen Davies, Sunday Times'She deserves our unfeigned admiration, not for her bravery or her struggle, or any irrelevant tosh like that, but for writing so well' - Guardian_______________In August 2014, Jenny Diski was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and given 'two or three years' to live.

________________'This anthology will help turn your intellectual understanding of oppression into an emotional one' - New Statesman'Thanks for being who you are and for giving us such exposure to wonderful people.

_______________'A passionate love letter to language and to Italy .

The author of this volume was present during the final decade of the Soviet empire, first for Reuters, then for the "e;Washington Post"e;.

'We're lucky to have him' Jonathan Franzen'A morally passionate, serious writer' Zadie Smith'Here's something I know to be true, although it's a little corny, and I don't quite know what to do with it: What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

The collected essays of one of the world's greatest writers and thinkersBooker wining novelist, playwright, essayist, poet and critic - even admirers rarely know John Berger in all his literary incarnations.

John Berger writes: 'The pocket in question is a small pocket of resistance.

'Those who read or listen to our stories see everything as though through a lens.

______________'A beautifully poised series of dialogues about literature, music and politics, and they're a testimony to the enormous gifts and courage of both men' - Tom Paulin, Guardian'A marvellous eavesdrop on the discourse of exchange between two great intellects' - Nadine Gordimer, TLS'An extraordinary meeting of minds in troubled times' - Financial Times'A fascinating exchange of ideas on music, politics and literature' - Classic FM Magazine______________Israeli Daniel Barenboim, one of the finest musicians of our times, and Palestinian Edward Said, eminent literary critic and leading expert on the Middle East, were close friends for years.

Caroline Paul was recovering from a bad accident (she had been flying a plane when it happened) and thought things couldn't get worse.

From time immemorial, Mexico's legendary beauty has been matched by intense historical drama.

'In a book this good, in the company of a mind this judicious and fine, the reader is left wanting more' TelegraphPoetry, poker, mountaineering, novels - a sparkling collection of essays from Britain's best-loved man of letters________________________Al Alvarez's writing career has come in many guises.

Throughout his career as a novelist, William Boyd has never stopped writing non-fiction, providing a fascinating counterpoint to the world of his novels.

Few writers have so consistently taken stock of the society in which they have lived.

Nadine Gordimer's life reflects the true spirit of the writer as moral activist, political visionary and literary icon.

'Any new book on Jane Austen raises the urgent question, Would I get more pleasure from reading this than from re-reading my favourite Jane Austen novel?

_______________'Part memoir, part rant and part joke .

He was born in the year Dr Johnson died, and died in the year A.

Il n’existe pas d’écrivain plus argentin que Borges : il s’interrogea comme nul autre sur la forme de la littérature dans une des périphéries de l’Occident.

Philip Hoare, in his biography of Coward described Semi-Monde as his "most daring play to date.

An important, urgent book of essays from Britain's most challenging dramatist: ".

An important, urgent book of essays from Britain's most challenging dramatist: ".

"We are not short of good playwrights in Britain, but I know of none with Nichols' power to put modern Britain on the stage and send the spectators away feeling more like members of the human race" (Irving Wardle, The Times).

"We are not short of good playwrights in Britain, but I know of none with Nichols' power to put modern Britain on the stage and send the spectators away feeling more like members of the human race" (Irving Wardle, The Times).

Writers-Files is an important series documenting the work of major dramatists of the last hundred years.

Writers-Files is an important series documenting the work of major dramatists of the last hundred years.

A captivating study of the plays, literature and writings about private and public theatrical spectacle during the Victorian Age

By the 1890s the British theatre had transformed itself into a world where spectacles and public shows were aimed at the widest audience possible.

A captivating study of the plays, literature and writings about private and public theatrical spectacle during the Victorian Age

By the 1890s the British theatre had transformed itself into a world where spectacles and public shows were aimed at the widest audience possible.

Franz Kafka spent eight months at his sister's house in Z rau between September 1917 and April 1918, enduring the onset of tuberculosis.

For his first book, AJ Jacobs read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.

The Vagrant Mood is a brilliantly varied and colourful collection of essays.

From 1892, when he was eighteen, until 1949, when this book was first published, Somerset Maugham kept a notebook.

As readers, we seem to be increasingly fascinated by studies of individual lives.

«Emocionant.

After the Cold War, the 'Hot War' has made its comeback in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Martin Amis was one of the pre-eminent novelist-critics of his generation.