Typographic Specimans: A Natural History of Letterforms by A. W. Bainbridge

$19.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

In 1831, Reverend Jackson Whitehead served as chaplain aboard the HMS Pica, which accompanied the Beagle on its second survey expedition. Whitehead was a keen collector of fauna as well as a typography enthusiast. Upon realising that the majority of both ships' crews were either committed atheists or bu dding evolutionists, Whitehead embarked on creating a whole series of natural history specimens made up out of typographical characters. ...Show more

The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

$22.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

Shaun Bythell owns the Bookshop, 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 hilari ous 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. He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books-both lost classics and new discoveries-introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye. Hilarious, wry, and charming, Shaun Bythell's stories from his second-hand bookshop in remotest Scotland are sure to delight readers of all stripes. ...Show more

Writers and Their Cats by Alison Nastasi

$29.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

This follow-up to Artists and their Cats celebrates the special bond between celebrated writers and the cats who share their bookish worlds. Charming photographs and winsome anecdotes of 45 famous authors from the 20th and 21st centuries, all in adorable poses with their beloved feline friends, gr ace the pages of this giftable hardcover package. ...Show more

What are We Doing Here? by Marilynne Robinson

$27.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

New essays by the Orange and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Gilead, Home and Lila. In this collection, Marilynne Robinson, one of today's most important thinkers - admired by President Obama, and so many others - impels us to action and offers us hope.Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home, winner of the Orange Prize; and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America like Emerson and Tocqueville inform our political consciousness or discussing the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display. What Are We Doing Here? is a call to continue the tradition of the great thinkers and to remake political and cultural life as "deeply impressed by obligation [and as] a great theatre of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still." In our era of rampant political and cultural pessimism, we run the risk of becoming bogged down in disillusionment and of losing sight of ways out of the mire. In What Are We Doing Here?, the incomparable Marilynne Robinson offers us balm: impelling us to action, but offering us hope. ...Show more

Shakespeare's Library: Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature by Stuart Kells

$34.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

From acclaimed author and ardent bibliophile Stuart Kells comes an exploration of the quest to find the personal library of the world's greatest writer Millions of words of scholarship have been expended on the world's most famous author and his work. And yet a critical part of the puzzle, Shakespeare's library, is a mystery. For four centuries people have searched for it: in mansions, palaces and libraries; in riverbeds, sheep pens and partridge coops; and in the corridors of the mind. Yet no trace of the bard's manuscripts, books or letters has ever been found. The search for Shakespeare's library is much more than a treasure hunt. Knowing what the Bard read informs our reading of his work, and it offers insight into the mythos of Shakespeare and the debate around authorship. The library's fate has profound implications for literature, for national and cultural identity, and for the global Shakespeare industry. It bears on fundamental principles of art, identity, history, meaning and truth. Unfolding the search like the mystery story that it is, acclaimed author Stuart Kells follows the trail of the hunters, taking us through different conceptions of the library and of the man himself. Entertaining and enlightening, Shakespeare's Library is a captivating exploration of one of literature's most enduring enigmas. ...Show more

Politics and the English Language by George Orwell

$1.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language | Series: Penguin Modern Classics Ser.

'The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's reals and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are p olitical issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.' ...Show more

The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri

$16.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

How do you clothe a book? In this deeply personal reflection, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri explores the art of the book jacket from the perspectives of both reader and writer. Probing the complex relationships between text and image, author and designer, and art and commerce, Lahiri delve s into the role of the uniform; explains what book jackets and design have come to mean to her; and how, sometimes, "the covers become a part of me." ...Show more

Nganga: A Dictionary of Aboriginal Terms and Phrases by Aunty Fay Muir; Sue Lawson

$16.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and an Epic by Daniel Mendelsohn

$39.99 AUD

Category: Autobiography and Biography

From the award-winning, best-selling writer: a deeply moving tale of a father and son's transformative journey in reading-and relivin -Homer's epic masterpiece. "My favourite classicist once again combines meticulous literary investigation with warm and wrenching human emotion - books like these are why I love reading." LEE CHILD When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enrol in the undergraduate seminar on the Odyssey that his son Daniel teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world through a mathematician's unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom is his `one last chance' to learn about the great literature he'd neglected in his youth - and, even more, a final opportunity to understand his son. But through the sometimes-uncomfortable months that follow, as the two men explore Homer's great work together - first in the classroom, where Jay persistently challenges his son's interpretations, and then during a surprise-filled Mediterranean journey retracing Odysseus' legendary voyages - it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too: for Jay's responses to both the text and the travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to understand his difficult father at last. As this intricately woven memoir builds to its wrenching climax, Mendelsohn's narrative comes to echo The Odyssey itself, with its timeless themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home. Rich with literary and emotional insight, An Odyssey is a renowned author-scholar's most revelatory entwining yet of personal narrative and literary exploration. ...Show more

On Writing by Stephen King

$19.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in the vivid memories from childhood through his emergence a s a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999 - and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. There is a reason why Stephen King is one of the bestselling writers in the world, ever. Described in the Guardian as 'the most remarkable storyteller in modern American literature', Stephen King writes books that draw you in and are impossible to put down. ...Show more

A Filth of Starlings: A Compilation of Bird Collective Nouns by PatrickGeorge

$14.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

A flock of geese,a murder of crows, a parliament of owls: thsee are some of the bird collective nouns you may already know. But have you heard of a bouquet of pheasants, a chime of wrens or a circus of puffins? Then turn the pages of this book to discover a collection of lesser-known and sometimes more fanciful ones... ...Show more

Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student and a Life-Changing Friendship by Michelle Kuo

$29.99 AUD

Category: Autobiography and Biography

A memoir of race, inequality and the power of literature told through the life-changing friendship between an idealistic young teacher and her gifted student who was jailed for murder in the Mississippi Delta. As a young English teacher keen to make a difference in the world, Michelle Kuo took a job at a tough school in the Mississippi Delta, sharing books and poetry with a young African-American teenager named Patrick and his classmates. For the first time, these kids began to engage with ideas and dreams beyond their small town, and to gain an insight into themselves that they had never had before. Two years later, Michelle left to go to law school; but Patrick began to lose his way, killing a man and facing a lengthy jail sentence. And that's when Michelle decided that her work was not done, and began to visit Patrick once a week, and soon every day, to read with him again. Finely written in the very best tradition of American long-form narrative, Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo is a story of hope, redemption and the power of books to transform - and even to save - a life. ...Show more