Literary Life

In The Literary Life, critic Van Wyck Brooks delivers a sharp examination of the conditions facing American writers in the early twentieth century. Brooks argues that the United States possesses abundant talent but too often fails to nurture it. Writers are pushed toward popularity, commercial...

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF DYMOCKS BOOK OF THE YEAR A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2021 A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK WINNER OF THE INWORDS LITERARY AWARD ‘Sheer joy' Graham Norton ‘Utterly beautiful … filled with hope’ Joanna Cannon, author of Three Things About...

Fifteen years after graduating from Harvard, five close friends on the cusp of middle age are still pursuing an elusive happiness and wondering if they’ve wasted their youthful opportunities. Jules, already a famous actor when she arrived on campus, is changing in mysterious ways but won’t share what is haunting her. Mariam and Rowan, who married young, are struggling with the demands of family life and starting to regret prioritising meaning over wealth in their careers.

The official biography of Australian poet and writer Dorothea Mackellar, author of the celebrated poem ‘My Country.’ 'I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains…’ Though many Australians know lines from Dorothea Mackellar’s classic poem ‘My Country’ by heart, very little...

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale. What if...

The most authentic novel of gangster family life ever written, from the No. 1 bestselling author. The Bailey brothers are gangsters determined to make their mark in the world. Peter and Daniel are chalk and cheese in many ways - Peter's calm exterior belies his ruthless nature, while Daniel's...

‘A superb satirical novelist’ WASHINGTON POST In a provocative novel addressing contemporary immigration by the sharply observant Lionel Shriver, a New York family takes in a Honduran migrant – who may or may not be the innocent paragon she claims to be. ‘An incendiary provocateur’...

A writer's search for inspiration, beauty and solace leads her to birds in this intimate and exuberant meditation on creativity and life—a field guide to things small and significant. For Vladimir Nabokov, it was butterflies. For John Cage, it was mushrooms. For Sylvia Plath, it was bees. Each...

Brought to you by Penguin. From the eminent philosopher, an authoritative exploration of the great questions of how to live 'There is a question everyone has to ask and answer - in fact, has to keep on asking and keep on answering. It is, 'How should I live my life?' meaning, 'What values shall...

Equal parts pep talk, reality check, and cocktail party confessional, Life is Lifey is a humorous and inspirational guide to unapologetically and authentically figuring out life’s messy middle. Join Sarah Shahi as she cannonballs into the magical chaos of life—marriage, divorce, kids, career...

Imprisoned by walls of their own construction, here are three people, each in midlife, in midcrisis, forced to make choices - after the rules have changed. Elizabeth, with her controlled sensuality, her suppressed rage, is married to the wrong man. She has just lost her latest lover to suicide. Nate, her gentle, indecisive husband, is planning to leave her for Lesje, a perennial innocent who prefers dinosaurs to men.

Jenna Fischer's Hollywood journey began at the age of 22 when she moved to Los Angeles from her hometown of St. Louis. She was determined, confident, and ready to work hard. So, what could go wrong? Uh, basically everything. The path to being a professional actor was so much more vast and competitive than she’d imagined. It would be eight long years before she landed her iconic role on The Office, nearly a decade of frustration, rejection, and doubt. If only she’d had a handbook for the aspiring actor. Or, better yet, someone to show her the way. Jenna wants to be that person for you.

The Flattery sisters were plunged prematurely into adulthood when their parents died in tragic circumstances. Now in their thirties – all single, all with PhDs – they are each attempting to do meaningful work in a rapidly foundering world. The four lead disparate, distanced lives, from classrooms in Connecticut to ritzy catering gigs in London’s Notting Hill, until one day their oldest sister, a geologist haunted by a terrible awareness of the earth’s future, abruptly vanishes from her work and home.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST ...

Bloomsbury presents Shakespeare is Hard, but so is Life written and read by Fintan O'Toole. The works of Shakespeare have become staples of literature. They are everywhere, from our early schooling to the lecture rooms of academia, from classic theatre to modern adaptations on stage and screen...

Bloomsbury presents The Loves of My Life by the legendary author Edmund White, a stunning, revelatory memoir of a lifetime of gay love and sex. Read by Joel Froomkin. A VULTURE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “In his panoply of sexual encounters, Edmund White’s love of sex makes us proud to be human...

Two great loves. A world in chaos. And a life that never lands in order. Discover the long-awaited sequel to the bestselling phenomenon, The Time Traveler’s Wife. Alba De Tamble is a time traveler, slipping unpredictably through decades like her father before her. But the hardest thing she...

Felix Mordaunt, recently released from prison, steps from a flashy red sports car onto the estate of his youth. But there is a new family living in the drafty old house: descendants of the late world-famous scientist Adam Godley. Felix must now vie with the idiosyncratic Godley family, with their harried housekeeper who becomes his landlady, with the recently commissioned biographer of Godley Sr, and with a wealthy and beautiful woman from his past who comes bearing an unusual request.

The gripping and emotional novel from the million-copy bestselling author of PS, I Love You. She knows your secrets. Now discover hers… You’ve never met anyone like Alice. She sees the best in people. And the worst. She always seems to know exactly what everyone around her is feeling: a...

Jill McCorkle’s first novel in 17 years is alive with the daily triumphs and challenges of the residents and staff of Pine Haven Estates, a retirement facility now home to a good many of Fulton, North Carolina’s older citizens. Among them, third-grade teacher Sadie Randolph, who has taught every child in town and believes we are all eight years old in our hearts; Stanley Stone, once Fulton’s most prominent lawyer, now feigning dementia to escape life with his son; Marge Walker, the town’s self-appointed conveyor of social status, and many more colorful characters.