Showing titles in Letters & Correspondence

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS POPULAR NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014 A laugh-out-loud true story of the trials and tribulations of being a live-in nanny in 1980s London and inspired a major TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. ***** In 1982 Nina Stibbe, a 20-year-old from Leicester...

The Bookshop in Wigtown is a bookworm's idyll - with thousands of books across nearly a mile of shelves, a real log fire, and Captain, the bookshop cat. You'd think after twenty years, owner Shaun Bythell would be used to the customers by now. Don't get him wrong - there are some good ones among...

Dear Listener, Using letters, emails, tweets and telegrams I will show you how the things in your life that make you sad, low or anxious can soon appear trivial, insignificant and like a fish. In short, I will butter your parsnips. Life is hard. We are a bombarded generation: Facebook...

'Dear Mama, I am having a lovely time here. We play football every day here. The beds have no springs . . .' So begins the first letter that a nine-year-old Roald Dahl penned to his mother, Sofie Magdalene, under the watchful eye of his boarding-school headmaster. For most of his life, Roald...

Seeing self-possession as the key to an existence lived 'in accordance with nature', the Stoic philosophy called for the restraint of animal instincts and the importance of upright ethical ideals and virtuous living. Seneca's writings are a profound, powerfully moving and inspiring declaration of the dignity of the individual mind. 

Judy Montagu spent her late teenage years and early twenties directing anti-aircraft defenses during the Second World War as a Captain in Gunnery for the British Army. Demobilised in 1946, she set out in search of fun and freedom in America and found herself swept into a bright and glamorous social circle. She soon counted Joe Alsop and the Cushing Sisters among her new friends and even began to consider becoming a US citizen. In 1949, determined to understand America more deeply, Judy embarked on a three-month tour of the country by Greyhound bus.

John Lennon was a writer as well as a musician. It was entirely natural for him to put pen to paper whenever he had an idea, a thought, a reaction or a desire to communicate. He lived - and died - in an age before emails and texts. Pen and ink was what he turned to. John wrote letters and...

Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should be an idyll for bookworms. Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who don't understand what a shop is, home invasions during the Wigtown Book Festival and Granny, his neurotic Italian assistant who likes digging for river mud to make poultices.

Brought to you by Penguin. Calming, thought-provoking, poetic and honest, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm is a collection of writing and musing by documentary-maker, environmentalist and author of Waterlog, Roger Deakin. For the last six years of his life, Roger Deakinkept notebooks. In them, he...

Forty-five episodes from Series 1-8 of the Sony Award-winning BBC Radio comedy show, hosted by Rufus Hound. In this hilarious and revealing show, host Rufus Hound invites his guests to revisit their formative years by dusting off their intimate teenage diaries and reading them out in public for...

Unpublished for 90 years, Agatha Christie’s extensive and evocative letters from her year-long round-the-world trip to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and America as part of the British trade mission for the famous 1924 Empire Exhibition. In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a...

For almost fifty years Michael Harding has been crafting words in a bid to express himself and explore truths about the human condition. But even still he found himself unable to say certain things he really wanted to. Then, while in recovery from surgery, he travelled to a cottage on the Atlantic coast and thought again about life and the people who had profoundly affected him; mentors, lovers and old friends. There at the ocean he wrote letters, with an intimacy not previously risked. Letters that were never posted, but that appear now in this audiobook.

Inspired by the viral Reasons to Stay project, this powerful collection of letters brings together messages of hope and connection from strangers across the world. Through uplifting stories and words that radiate reassurance and positivity, this book serves as a reminder that you are not alone...

John le Carré was one of the greatest novelists of his generation but also had an extraordinary life, from his childhood with a con man father to his inimitable career as a writer. From his involvement in the Cold War, time in Berlin, travels to Vietnam and engagement with world leaders, his experiences were truly remarkable. This collection of letters reveals John le Carré—the man, the writer and his world—for the first time and most intimately.

Letters of Note, the book based on the beloved website of the same name, became an instant classic on publication in 2013, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. This new edition sees the collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring and unusual letters updated with 14 riveting new missives and a new introduction from curator Shaun Usher.

Celia Paul has felt a lifelong connection to the artist Gwen John. There are extraordinary parallels in their lives and work. Both have always made art on their own terms. Both were involved with older male artists. Both worked hard to keep themselves and the sacred flame of their creativity from being extinguished by others. Letters to Gwen John is Paul's imagined correspondence with Gwen John, whose life and work have loomed so large in hers. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson is arguably the most influential, acclaimed scientist on the planet. As director of the Hayden Planetarium, and host of Cosmos and StarTalk, he has dedicated his life to exploring and explaining the mysteries of the universe. Every year, he receives thousands of letters – from students to prisoners, scientists to priests. Some seek advice, others yearn for inspiration; some are full of despair, others burst with wonder. But they are all searching for understanding, meaning and truth.

After her mother, Brenda, passed away and her father sold the family home, broadcaster and writer Emma Kennedy found herself floundering, unable to make peace with the complex, charismatic woman who had been her mum. And then they found the letters. This heartbreakingly funny book about the impact of discovering lost letters is a celebration of correspondence; those lost acts of penned love, the vivid snapshots in time scattered back through a life.

Nostalgic, witty and filled with characters and situations that people of all ages will recognise, Dear Lupin is the entire correspondence of a Father to his only son, spanning nearly 25 years. Roger Mortimer's sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching, always generous letters to his son are packed with anecdotes and sharp observations, with a unique analogy for each and every scrape Charlie Mortimer got himself into. 

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” Jane Austen at her witty, observant, intelligent, and sympathetic best, in this collection of her letters written to family and friends. Compiled by her niece Fanny Knight’s son Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen (the first Baron Brabourne), and edited by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, this collection includes a preface written by the editor and notes from Lord Brabourne. It was originally published in 1892.

A sparkling collection of the major works of the ever-adored Oscar Wilde, with incredible casts including Judi Dench, Martin Clunes, Michael Sheen, Miriam Margolyes, Ian McDiarmid, Joely Richardson, Penelope Keith, Martin Jarvis, Diana Rigg, Simon Russell Beale, Sheila Hancock, Ian McKellen and Stephen Fry.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Things My Son Needs to Know by Fredrik Backman. From the 13 million copy internationally bestselling author of A Man Called Ove. 'You can be whatever you want to be, but that's nowhere near as important as knowing that you can be exactly who you are'...

Across the world the number of refugees and exiles, the dispossessed and displaced, the politically homeless and the economically excluded is growing. In the decade since she left her own home, Ece Temelkuran has been a political Cassandra, warning those convinced it couldn't happen in their country that fascism is coming. Now, as oppression spreads and temperatures rise she has written Nation of Strangers: a series of letters from one stranger to another.

A meditative and inspiring diary of Derek Jarman's famous garden at Dungeness. In 1986 Derek Jarman discovered he was HIV positive and decided to make a garden at his cottage on the barren coast of Dungeness. Facing an uncertain future, he nevertheless found solace in nature, growing all manner of plants. While some perished beneath wind and sea-spray, others flourished, creating brilliant, unexpected beauty in the wilderness. Modern Nature is both a diary of the garden and a meditation by Jarman on his own life.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, read by Max Deacon and Dan Stevens. At the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex...

When the Call the Midwife series became best sellers Jennifer Worth received mountains of letters - not only praising her books, but also from people who remembered the world her books described; life in the East End of London during the late 1940s and early '50s. Often her books touched her audience and they felt moved to write, or they wanted to share their own memories.A prolific letter writer herself, Jennifer always corresponded and this book includes some fascinating letters she received.

Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover's paradise? Well, almost... In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky.

This is Christopher back to his original and best - exploring the downright creepy correspondence with murderers, serial killers and psychopaths behind bars, with exclusive scans of letters and eerily designed envelopes.

'Enthralling and gloriously honest' SUNDAY TIMES The captivating letters by the most idiosyncratic, witty and irrepressible of the notorious Mitford sisters. Here's what readers are saying: 'It is both laugh-out-loud funny and enthralling' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'A wonderful record of a remarkable...

John Keats' letters paint an unforgettably vivid and moving picture of the richly productive but also tragic final years of the poet's life. As he ponders on the nature of the writer's craft, he must first confront his brother's death from tuberculosis and then the imminent prospect of his own, tormented by the fear that he will not live to consummate his relationship with Fanny Brawne.

Everyone knows who you find in bookshops: people who want to buy books. But, as Shaun Bythell reveals, that's really only half the story. Join Shaun as he introduces us to seven bookshop characters, from the Person Who Doesn't Know What They Want (But Thinks It Might Have a Blue Cover) to the harried Parents Secretly After Free Childcare and all the way over to the erotica section, where we'll meet The Person Who Is Up to No Good.