Acclaimed for her exquisitely elegant novels and superb biographies, Penelope Fitzgerald was one of the finest British authors of the last century. Published here for the first time are her collected letters. An unparalleled record of the life of this greatly admired writer, these letters reveal her most important family relationships and friendships, and paint a clear picture both of herself and of her correspondents. They show how she managed her own career—according to her own convictions—and how determined she was to put her world view across. A fascinating portrait of Penelope Fitzgerald as a mother, a friend, and a writer, these letters will give readers the same pleasure they gave to those who first opened them.

So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald

Biographies & Memoirs

Fitzgerald, Penelope

Arts & Literature

Fourth Estate Classic House

An Irresponsible Age

An Irresponsible Age’, Lavinia Greenlaw's extraordinary new novel, is set in London in 1990, with Thatcher still in power but the country unwilling to 'abandon an idea just because it proved to be a bad one'. In these hesitant times we follow the life of Juliet Clough and her three siblings, all of them interdependent in a not-quite enviable way, clinging together after the death of a brother and the retreat of their grieving parents. When Juliet, the focus of them all, is drawn into a complex love affair with the enigmatic Jacob, the others, too, find themselves falling in love, and then evading the consequences. None will admit what they are doing, or why.

Literature & Fiction

Greenlaw, Lavinia

Literary

The Lights of Alborada

When Nino, an Italian World War II POW in a Texan camp, receives word that his love, Zita, is set to marry another man in just 40 days, he vows to escape from the camp and return home before the marriage can take place. Idealistic and ambitious, Nino sets off on a breathless chase across the U.S. and is soon joined on his odyssey by an enigmatic Army lieutenant and a young prostitute. Together they face a series of extraordinary dangers, from wild forest animals to unexploded mines, and, as their journey progresses, Nino finds himself assailed by doubts and questioning his own motives—as well as those of the people around him. At once a romantic adventure and a thrilling wartime escape story, with a colorful cast of characters, this is also the story of a spiritual quest and a heartrending exercise in nostalgia.

Riotta, Gianni

Genre Fiction

The British have a relationship with their food that is unlike that of any other country. Once something that was never discussed in polite company, it is now something with which the nation is obsessed. But are they at last developing a food culture or are they just going through the motions? This entertaining, detailed, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek observation of the British and their food, cooking, eating, and behavior in restaurants, covers such topics as dinner parties, funeral teas, Indian restaurants, dieting, and eating while under the influence. Written in Nigel Slater’s trademark readable style, Eating for England highlights the nation's idiosyncratic attitude towards the fine art of dining.

Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at the Table

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Slater, Nigel

Cooking Education & Reference

Pynter Bender

Pynter Bender is a child of the cane fields of Grenada, the second smallest independent state in the world. This extraordinary debut novel tells of a boy born blind but whose eyes are healed, allowing him to see great beauty. The story charts the painful awakening of a rural population, essentially organized around serfdom, into a raw and uncertain future that can only be achieved through fighting—a civil war that Pynter is drawn in to. Pynter's father leaves him to be brought up by the Bender women, a close-knit group of aunts and cousins, and Pynter's early life is shaped by these women. He begins to understand a world beyond them when his uncle, Birdie the Beloved, the best baker on the island, occasionally returns to the family on his brief periods out of jail. When Pynter comes to love a woman, and later flees his family to hide in the canes from the marauding soldiers, he can no longer ignore the violent world beyond the yard where he lives. Pynter Bender is about the conflict between the world of men and women, men who walk away from their families and from the cane fields, and their women who forbear.

Ross, Jacob

Rose explores affordable and easy good food with the 200 completely delectable and original recipes in this inspiring new book. She unlocks a larder of new and unfamiliar English ingredients from cobnuts to red Duke of York potatoes to watercress, and also shows how eating local can mean good eating at the same time as being good for the environment. She explains how and where to shop and introduces a rhythm of cooking, identifying which foods are right for everyday meals, and which for the occasional feast. She shows how to make the most of costly ingredients—traditional breeds, organic produce, and handmade foods—recycling leftovers for yet more delicious meals. Leftovers from a roast beef joint, for instance, become an aromatic salad with toasted green pumpkin seeds and herbs, or, simmered with fungi and red wine, a rich braise to eat with mash or buttered ribbons of pasta.

The New English Table: 200 Recipes From the Queen of Thrifty, Inventive Cooking

Prince, Rose

Regional & International

An unconventional tome about climate change, this activity kit—packed with posters, postcards, stickers, letters, and notebooks—is a one-stop resource for taking on the climate crisis. As the biggest challenge humankind has ever faced, climate change is the result of humans consuming more than can sustainably be afforded and polluting faster than it can be cleared up. With this kit, designed to be taken apart, poked, cut, stuck, stretched, and destroyed is to motivate thinking—and doing something—about the climate crisis.

Acme Climate Action

Business & Money

Provokateur

Economics

Told in momentary snapshots by the master British comedian himself, this is the extraordinary life story of comic legend Denis Norden. Containing reminiscences of a career stretching back to the golden age of the radio, through the heyday of cinema, and the early pioneering days of television comedy, Denis Norden's creative genius is showcased at its very best. Told with Denis' hallmark flashes of brilliant humor and sharp observation, the extraordinary life of this enduring humorist is unraveled through his private recollections of the ways things used to be, back then. Denis' school-day musings, dry witticisms, and old-time sayings unearthed from days gone by, combined with remembrances of collaborations with famous figures of the day, from Eric Sykes to Bill Fraser, will sweep you back instantaneously to the magical gags, lively characters, and laughter of the past. Flitting between Denis' East End childhood and early career in Variety as a cinema manager for the Hyams Brothers, to his post-war work as a scriptwriter on the groundbreaking radio shows Take It From Here and In All Directions, to the phenomenally successful television comedy Whack-O!, (all written with long-term collaborator Frank Muir), to his years as a solo writer, performer, and presenter on programs such as the much-loved It'll Be Alright on the Night, it is easy to see how Denis' comic appeal has endured for decades, to make him one of the greatest British writers and performers to date. Brimming with Denis' unique wit and personal warmth, this is a rich and compelling mix of anecdote and autobiography from a very special entertainer.

Clips from a Life

Norden, Denis

Shooting the Cook

As the producer behind the phenomenally successful Keith Floyd and Rick Stein BBC cookery programs, David Pritchard tells the tale of the ascent of the celebrity chef. Twenty-five years ago, no one could have foreseen the incredible popularity commanded by food programs on television today. Now we have a whole army of chefs representing virtually every single personality trait from sexy to aggressive, to young and experimental. But back then, when Floyd was found, he was the only onethe chef to start it all. Charismatic, with a slight erratic edge, always happy to have a slurp of wine or two, and not afraid to say exactly what he thought on air, Floyd was a revelation, a chef that television had not seen the like of before. Shooting the Cook divulges the stories of what went on behind the scenes of the groundbreaking television programs that inspired the event of modern television chefs as we know them today. David Pritchard shares the overwhelming excitement that went into making the early Floyd seriesfrom sitting down to a silver service dinner aboard a tiny fishing trawler heading out of the Plymouth Sound, to attempting abortive hot-air balloon adventures over Alsace. Tangled up amid the tales of the bust-ups, the botched camera shots, and the exquisite regional food are reminisces about David’s life growing up in ration-starved, post-war Britain. Also containing snapshots of life behind the scenes of sixties television-making and spanning the era from when avocados were virtually unheard of to a time when the term "foodie" has gained an almost cult-like status, this is an outstanding memoir from the producer who single-handedly changed the face of food as we know it today.

Pritchard, David

Humor & Entertainment

The rip-roaring and hilarious memoir from Stanley Johnson—the father of London mayor Boris Johnson—begins with a loud bang when Stanley's father, an RAF pilot in World War II, crash-lands a Wellington bomber on a Devon airfield. A few years later Stanley's parents buy a sheep farm on nearby Exmoor, where Stanley does much of his growing up. Stanley would keep his links with this much-loved rural idyll throughout his life—while going on to become an explorer, author, occasional politician, and also one of the world's first environmentalists. A sparkling raconteur and experienced thriller writer, in Stanley tells great stories in great style. On leaving school in 1958 Stanley traveled alone through South America—hitching rides across the jungle on Brazilian Air Force planes—and shortly afterwards he rode a motorcycle 4,000 miles from London to Afghanistan, tracing the route of Marco Polo with two friends. After winning Oxford University's poetry prize with a love poem—written following a hilltop tryst in the West Country—Stanley went on to do various adventurous jobs, before working for the billionaire John D. Rockefeller III, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the European Union. Stanley married and started a family young—Boris was born in New York when his father was 23—and while Boris would go on to become big news, the family's forbears also provide quite a story, as Stanley finds out. For the Johnson family's roots are not just in the West Country, but in Turkey too—where, as Stanley discovers, his politician grandfather Ali Kemal was torn to pieces by an angry mob. Stanley visits a Turkish village where the locals are blonde—later he learns that he and Boris are direct descendants of George II.

Stanley I Presume

Johnson, Stanley

Leaders & Notable People

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