Written while Abbey was working as a ranger at Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, Desert Solitaire is a rare view of one man’s quest to experience nature in its purest form.Through prose that is by turns passionate and poetic, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness and the future of a civilization that cannot reconcile itself to living in the natural world as well as his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey’s cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book was written.

    She begins with an introduction to the enchanting village of Nelson, where she first meets her house. Sarton finds she must “dream the house alive” inside herself before taking the major step of signing the deed. She paints the walls white in order to catch the light and searches for the precise shade of yellow for the kitchen floor. She discovers peace and beauty in solitude, whether she is toiling in the garden or writing at her desk.This is a loving, beautifully crafted memoir illuminated by themes of friendship, love, nature, and the struggles of the creative life.

    The week before she began high school came the news of Emmet Till's lynching. Before then, she had "known the fear of hunger, hell, and the Devil. But now there was...the fear of being killed just because I was black." In that moment was born the passion for freedom and justice that would change her life.An all-A student whose dream of going to college is realized when she wins a basketball scholarship, she finally dares to join the NAACP in her junior year. Through the NAACP and later through CORE and SNCC she has first-hand experience of the demonstrations and sit-ins that were the mainstay of the civil rights movement, and the arrests and jailings, the shotguns, fire hoses, police dogs, billy clubs and deadly force that were used to destroy it.A deeply personal story but also a portrait of a turning point in our nation's destiny, this autobiography lets us see history in the making, through the eyes of one of the footsoldiers in the civil rights movement.

    This fictional memoir, the first of an autobiographical trilogy, traces a self professed failure's nightmarish decent into the underside of American life and his resurrection to the wisdom that emerges from despair.

    

    But in that year, Quentin Crisp made the courageous decision to "come out" as a homosexual. This exhibitionist with the henna-dyed hair was harassed, ridiculed and beaten. Nevertheless, he claimed his right to be himself—whatever the consequences. The Naked Civil Servant is both a comic masterpiece and a unique testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

    Restored to its original form, Sculptor's Daughter gives us a glimpse of the mysteries of winter ice, the bonhomie of balalaika parties, and the vastness of Christmas viewed from beneath the tree.Published in a deluxe hardback edition for Christmas 2013, to mark the centenary of Tove Jansson's birth (1914-2014)

    Born in London in 1922, son of the composer Eric Coates, he combined the early part of his writing career with work as a colonial administrator, diplomat, and adviser on Chinese affairs. He left government service in 1962, and has since resided mainly in Hongkong.

    In his own words, Shankar describes his transformation from a young traveling dancer to a Grammy Award-winning, internationally known musician. An autobiography, a history of Indian classical music, and a manual on how to play the sitar, this book is about music as a both a lifestyle and an art. It embodies Ravi Shankar’s unique approach to his craft.

    Cleaver writes in Soul on Ice, "I'm perfectly aware that I'm in prison, that I'm a Negro, that I've been a rapist, and that I have a Higher Uneducation." What Cleaver shows us, on the pages of this now classic autobiography, is how much he was a man.

    The sequel to his famous Garden Open Today (with its open invitation to readers everywhere to come see his garden for themselves), this is his final garden book and the summation of a long career spent enjoying and writing about gardens. Being Beverley Nichols, however, he cannot confine himself to a narrow discussion of gardening for long and provides entertaining asides on cats - including a hilarious critique of feline "ballet" performances - psychic phenomena, and the use of plants to commit murder.

    She was twenty when he swept out of her life, leaving her love-lorne and in the grips of a passionate obsession. The search to recapture the love of her life, and the Russia he had planted within her, takes her to Siberia and beyond, journeying deep into the romantic terrain of the mind's eye.

    S. Pritchett, available for the first time in a single volumeA Cab at the Door, originally published in 1968, recalls his childhood in turn-of-the-century and World War I London with the urbane subtlety and wry humor that have marked his other works. For the wild and eccentric Pritchett family, life is a series of cabs waiting at the door to transport them to a succession of ten-bob-a-week lodgings, in their flight from creditors and the financial disasters of their father. A Cab at the Door also captures the texture and color of the working-class side of Edwardian England.Midnight Oil (which Wilfrid Sheed called a "little Rolls Royce of a book" when it came out in 1972) opens in 1921: Pritchett arrives in Paris to commence with a literary career. Gradually, his creative sensibilities emerge as he travels as a reporter to Ireland, Spain, and America. Midnight Oil provides an intimate and precise record of a writer's discovery of himself and his art. "Pritchett is one of the great pleasure-givers in our language," said Eudora Welty.

    Her sister Katherine walked the block to her grandparents house to announce the new baby. Life was spacious, serene, and comfortable through the winters when skates rang on Jamaica Pond. Children played, studied and traveled to dancing school and other destinations behind a horse. Summers were spent at Iron Bound, an island in Frenchman's Bay, where her grandparents ran a hospitable house.Later, Miss Andrews came out at a festive party which was to change her life. For her aunt had put on the list for Katherine a certain young Mr. Kent who came from Vermont and was working in Boston as an editor. He was a tall and distinguished bachelor.It would be wrong to tell the whole story here, but right to say it is one of the nicest, longest and most happily-ended love stories imaginable.

    Her beautiful descriptions of the places they visit make you feel like you get a glimpse back in time. Very well-written.

    She lived through the war in Germany, as a German citizen, under the horrors of Nazi rule and Allied bombings. Closely associated with resistance circles, her husband was arrested after the failure of the plot against Hitler's life on 20th July 1944, and she herself was interrogated by the Gestapo. Not only do we meet her friends whose tragic bravery shines from the book, but dozens of everyday Germans, from the simple-minded Nazi official who was also her odd-job gardener, to the good-hearted Black Forest villagers who sheltered her till the liberation. They are presented with humour and sympathy, allowing the reader a remarkable insight into their character. All the more haunting, then, is her night-time encounter with an SS man from Riga who searches desperately for death on the battlefield. The human dimension of her writing brings about an unforgettable portrait of an evil time.