Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Literary History & Criticism

Rhyme and Reason takes you from a medieval accountant (called Chaucer) trying to entertain his lord, past a doomed love affair in the Tower of London, through adoring sonnets and notebooks filled with dirty poems, through Byromania and the Victorian hearth, understanding why people simply enjoyed poetry. From the poems of housemaids to the rhymes of kings it's the history of Britain through the poems that people read, recited and loved.

High heels, movie deals, wagon wheels, shoes, reviews, having the blues, builders, babies, families and other calamities.... Many think that Marian Keyes leads a glitzy life of limos, television, and showbiz parties - but she would argue that she spends the majority of her life writing alone, wearing her PJs, and eating bananas with a laptop on a pillow in front of her. Under the Duvet is a wide collection of her journalism and stories - all personal, closely observed, and painfully funny.

Penelope Lively has always been a keen gardener. This audiobook is partly a memoir of her own life in gardens: the large garden at home in Cairo where she spent most of her childhood, her grandmother's garden in a sloping Somerset field, then two successive Oxfordshire gardens of her own and the smaller urban garden in the North London home she lives in today. It's also a wise, engaging exploration of gardens in literature, from Paradise Lost to Alice in Wonderland.

The creation of the Oxford English Dictionary was a remarkable achievement, and a story of determination, hard work and inspired research. Simon Winchester, with his characteristic gift for bringing history to life, charts the fascinating life of the OED leading up to the appointment of the first editor, James Murray, in 1879, through to the OED's triumphant publication in 1928 and beyond. The Meaning of Everything is a must for anyone with an interest in language and words.

For over 10 years, Sue Townsend has written a monthly column for Sainsbury’s Magazine, which covers everything from hosepipe bans and Spanish restaurants to writer’s block and the posh middle-aged woman she once met who'd never heard of Winnie the Pooh. Collected now for the first time, these columns from one of Britain’s most popular and acclaimed writers are funny, perceptive, and touching.

In the 1700s, an Irish noblewoman, on discovering her husband has been murdered, drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary poem. Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill s Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, famously referred to by Peter Levi, professor of poetry at Oxford University, as 'the greatest poem written in either Ireland or Britain during the eighteenth century'. In the present day, a young mother narrowly avoids tragedy. On encountering the poem, she becomes obsessed with its parallels with her own life, and sets out to track down the rest of the story.

When rare books dealer Rebecca Romney found an emerald clothbound edition of Evelina by Frances Burney, she was happy to discover that she'd stumbled across a novel by one of Jane Austen's favourite authors. Inspired by the connection between the two writers, she returned to Austen's books with a new lens, picking out clues sprinkled throughout her works that pointed to the writers she had admired.

Haruki Murakami's myriad fans will be delighted by this unique look into the mind of a master storyteller. In this engaging book, the internationally best-selling author and famously reclusive writer shares with listeners what he thinks about being a novelist; his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians.

With deftness and skill, journalist Lili Anolik uses Babitz, Babitz's brilliance of observation, Babitz's incisive intelligence and, most of all, Babitz's diary-like letters, as the key to unlocking Didion. Franklin Avenue was the making of one great American writer: Joan Didion, a mystery behind her dark glasses and cool expression, her marriage to John Gregory Dunne as tortured as it was enduring. It was also the breaking and then the remaking - and thus the true making - of another great American writer: Eve Babitz.

She said she wore a blindfold at all times. She said she didn't know who she was really having sex with. Two former best friends face each other in court at a sex offence trial. Miss X, making the accusation, claims she was tricked into queer sex, many times, by a best friend pretending to be her boyfriend. But that friend, Gayle Newland, tells a different story. They were secret lesbians, she says, lovers in the closet. The boyfriend was imaginary, and part of a role play that had been going on for years.

Join any Pride march and you are likely to see a glorious display of papier-mâché unicorn heads trailing sequins, drag queens wearing mermaid tails and more fairy wings than you can shake a trident at. But these are not just accessories: they are queer symbols with historic roots. Queer as Folklore is an exhilarating journey across centuries and continents which reveals the unsung heroes and villains of storytelling, magic and fantasy.

Slide "Further Under the Duvet", get yourself comfortable, and let Marian take you places you've never been before. Places like the Irish air-guitar championships, a shopping trip to Bloomingdales with a difference, and Cannes with a chronic case of Villa-itis. Along the way you'll encounter knicker-politics, fake tans, sticky-out ears and passionate love affairs both with make-up and Toblerones.

Based on diaries that she kept from 1920-1932, the most famous du Maurier probes her own past, beginning with her earliest memories and encompassing the publication of her first book and her subsequent marriage.

From a dancing automaton running amok at a ball, to a prehistoric beast lurking in the depths of a Yorkshire cave, this anthology explores the nature of the ‘old weird’, and unordinary stories which go outside the boundaries of everyday life. The anthology includes not only stories by well-known writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jerome K. Jerome, but also by long-forgotten authors such as D. F. Hannigan and Reginald Bacchus.

Sarah Churchwell examines one of the most enduringly popular stories of all time, Gone with the Wind, to help explain the divisions ripping the United States apart today. Separating fact from fiction, she shows how histories of mythmaking have informed America's racial and gender politics, the controversies over Confederate statues, the resurgence of white nationalism, the Black Lives Matter movement, the enduring power of the American Dream, and the violence of Trumpism.

An informative and entertaining look at royal weddings through English history. The excitement surrounding the marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton has prompted four of Britain's top historical biographers to look closely at Royal Weddings.

A fascinating tour through the curious history of Western civilization told through its most emblematic invention–the book.

How many times have we heard that reading builds empathy? That we can travel through books? How often have we were heard about the importance of diversifying our bookshelves? Or claimed that books saved our lives? These familiar words—beautiful, aspirational—are sometimes even true. But award-winning novelist Elaine Castillo has more ambitious hopes for our reading culture, and in this collection of linked essays, she moves to wrest reading away from the aspirations of uniting people in empathetic harmony and reposition it as thornier, ultimately more rewarding work.

What is it about Middle-Earth and its inhabitants that has captured the imagination of millions of people around the world? And why does Tolkien's creation continue to fascinate and inspire us eighty-five years on from its first appearance? Beginning with Tolkien's earliest influences and drawing on key moments from his life, Twenty-First-Century Tolkien is an engaging and radical reinterpretation of the beloved author's work. Not only does it trace the genesis of the original books, it also explores the later adaptations and reworkings that cemented his reputation as a cultural phenomenon.

The truth weighs nothing… Klara Walldeen, orphaned as a child and brought up by her grandparents, is now a political aide in Brussels. And she has just seen something she shouldn't. On the other side of the world, an old spy hides. Once, he was a man so dedicated that he abandoned his daughter. Now the only thing he lives for is swimming. Then Klara is thrown into a terrifying chase through Europe. Only the Swimmer can save her. But time is running out.