Presents a study of the final days of the seminal author and discusses his upbringing, themes in his works, his rise as a famous writer, and the final months before his death.

'A Night at the Majestic' evokes the luxury and glamour of early 20th century Paris, the intellectual achievement of the modernist movement and the gossip, intrigue and scandal of aristocratic France.

From the bestselling and award-winning author of ‘An English Affair’, a dazzlingly original thematic biography which throws fresh light on the greatest economist of the twentieth century.

On April 14, 1912, the Titanic, a passenger liner traveling from Southhampton, England, to New York City, struck an iceberg. Its sinking brought the ship—mythological in name and size—into one-hundred years of infamy. Of the 2,240 people aboard the ship, 1,517 perished. While many accounts focus on the technical aspects of the Titanic's sinking, Voyagers of the Titanic follows the stories of the men, women, and children whose lives intersected on its fateful last day. Covering the range of first, second, and third class—from plutocrats and captains of industry to cobblers and tailors looking for a better life in America—Richard Davenport-Hines delves into the fascinating lives of those who ate, drank, dreamed, and died abroad the mythic ship. With magnificent prose, he also explores the politics behind the Titanic's creation, involving larger-than-life figures like J.P. Morgan, the ship's owner, and Lord Pirrie, the ship's builder. The memory of the ship's sinking still remains a part of the American psyche and Voyagers of the Titanic brings that clear night back to us with all of its drama and pathos.

The Karoo is big sky country; a land of vast open plains punctuated by flat-topped mountains, conical hills and secluded valleys, a land of scrubby bushes and hardy trees, where pioneers carved roads out of rock to set down roots in an unforgiving environment. Here dreams are born, legends are made, and outcasts find sanctuary. It is also an ancient place, whose story is revealed through geology, fossils and artefacts, and whose human lineage predates any written history. Today, the people who inhabit it must manifest the same fortitude that sustained those who left their footprints in the primieval mud. In Hidden Karoo you will find all this, and more. Through a series of superb photo-essays, this majestic place is revealed as a land where conservation and neglect are seldom far apart, where one town boasts splendidly restored buildings, while along a dusty back road lie forgotten villages waiting for ... something. Could it be a renewal, or a slow death? There’s nothing novel about the movement of people from country to city, and the Karoo mimics other parts of the world where rural areas become derelict as they are depopulated. Hidden Karoo presents a snapshot of the region as it is now, offering a glimpse into towns and villages, farmsteads and churches, important buildings and humble homes, all against a backdrop of awe-inspiring landscapes. Through words and pictures, it prompts us to consider what was, what is and, perhaps, what might be. One constant about the Karoo is change. A book can do no more than capture a moment in time or depict fragments of a place, but in doing so, it bears witness to the past and offers the hope that there may yet be a future for this unparalleled part of our country.

This is the first translation into English in its entirety of Marcel Proust's Pastiches et Mélanges, published by Gaston Gallimard in 1919. The first part, Pastiches, contains nine literary parodies about a fraudster, Henri Lemoine, who claimed to be able to manufacture diamonds. The pastiches are in the manner of Balzac, Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve, Henri de Régnier, Michelet, Émile Faguet, Renan and the Goncourt brothers. The second part, Mélanges, consists of four sections: the destruction of cathedrals in the First World War, the separation of church and state, a drama about madness, and Proust's love of reading. Proust is best known for writing À la recherche du temps perdu (variously translated as Remembrance of Things Past and In Search of Lost Time), widely considered to be the greatest novel of the twentieth century. The Melody beneath the Words is the first translation into English in its entirety of Marcel Proust's Pastiches et Mélanges, published by Gaston Gallimard in 1919. The first part, Pastiches, contains nine literary parodies about a fraudster, Henri Lemoine, who claimed to be able to manufacture diamonds. The pastiches are in the manner of Balzac, Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve, Henri de Régnier, Michelet, Émile Faguet, Renan and the Goncourt brothers. The second part, Mélanges, consists of four sections: the destruction of cathedrals in the First World War, the separation of church and state, a drama about madness, and Proust's love of reading. Proust is best known for writing À la recherche du temps perdu (variously translated as Remembrance of Things Past and In Search of Lost Time), widely considered to be the greatest novel of the twentieth century. The Melody beneath the Words is the first translation into English in its entirety of Marcel Proust's Pastiches et Mélanges, published by Gaston Gallimard in 1919. The first part, Pastiches, contains nine literary parodies about a fraudster, Henri Lemoine, who claimed to be able to manufacture diamonds. The pastiches are in the manner of Balzac, Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve, Henri de Régnier, Michelet, Émile Faguet, Renan and the Goncourt brothers. The second part, Mélanges, consists of four sections: the destruction of cathedrals in the First World War, the separation of church and state, a drama about madness, and Proust's love of reading. Proust is best known for writing À la recherche du temps perdu (variously translated as Remembrance of Things Past and In Search of Lost Time), widely considered to be the greatest novel of the twentieth century.

Love, sex, death, boredom, ecstasy, existential angst, political upheaval - the history of literature offers a rich and varied exploration of the human condition across the centuries. In this absorbing companion to literature's rich past, arranged by days of the year, acclaimed critics and friends Stephen Fender and John Sutherland turn up the most inspiring, enlightening, surprising or curious artefacts that literature has to offer. Find out why 16 June 1904 mattered so much to Joyce, which great literary love affair was brought to a tragic end on 11 February 1963 and why Roy Campbell punched Stephen Spender on the nose on 14 April 1949 in this sumptuous voyage through the highs and lows of literature's bejewelled past.