Literature

As the daughter of Oedipus, Antigone was dealt a cruel hand at birth - even within the bounds of Grecian tragedy. When her brothers are slain fighting for the throne of Thebes, Antigone finds herself pitted against her uncle, the newly crowned King Creon. In defiance of the king, Antigone buries her brother's body, a choice she may pay for dearly.

In this new adaptation, we see Sophocles' play reignited by bestselling poet and writer Hollie McNish. Hollie's considered retelling brings Sophocles' original text to a modern-day audience, illuminating the remarkable resemblances between ancient Greek thought and the society we grapple with today.

Elegant, slippery, and provocative, Antiquity is a queer Lolita story by prize-winning Swedish author Hanna Johansson — a story of desire, power, obsession, observation, and taboo. Antiquity follows its unnamed narrator, a lonely woman in her thirties who becomes enamoured of a chic older artist, Helena, after interviewing her for a magazine. Helena invites the narrator to join her in the Greek city of Ermoupoli where she summers with her teenage daughter Olga.

At first an object of jealousy, Olga morphs into an object of desire as the pull of Helena is transposed onto her daughter and the prospect of becoming someone’s first, if perverse, lover. With echoes of Death in Venice, Call Me by Your Name, The Lover, and Lolita, but wholly original and contemporary, Antiquity probes the depths of memory, power, and the narratives that arrange our experience of the world.

'Superb, wonderful, enjoyable' Guardian'Full of delights' The Times_____________________________Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, and Logan Mountstuart's - stretching across the twentieth century - is a rich tapestry of both. As a writer who finds inspiration with Hemingway in Paris and Virginia Woolf in London, as a spy recruited by Ian Fleming and betrayed in the war, and as an art-dealer in '60s New York, Logan mixes with the men and women who shape his times. But as a son, friend, lover and husband, he makes the same mistakes we all do in our search for happiness.

Here, then, is the story of a life lived to the full - and a journey deep into a very human heart. ____________________________'A work of astonishing ventriloquistic virtuosity... brilliant' Sunday Telegraph'Wise, profound and moving' William Sutcliffe, Independent on Sunday'A terrific journey through the 20th century.

Thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable' Guardian'Astounding. One of Boyd's greatest achievements... A pleasure' Mail on Sunday'Generous, witty, sneakily profound' Evening Standard'The pleasures are endless...

Supremely entertaining' Washington Post'A fabulous book all about life. I think of Any Human Heart often - the sign of a truly great book' Fi Glover, New Statesman

The town of Winthrop has decided it needs a new name. The resident software millionaire wants to call it New Prospera; the mayor wants to return to the original choice of the founding black settlers; and the town's aristocracy sees no reason to change the name at all. What they need, they realize, is a nomenclature consultant.

And, it turns out, the consultant needs them. But in a culture overwhelmed by marketing, the name is everything and our hero's efforts may result in not just a new name for the town but a new and subtler truth about it as well.

A repugnant Amercian widow is killed during a trip to Petra... Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her. With only 24 hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he'd overheard back in Jerusalem: 'You see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?' Mrs Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he'd ever met...

Written over a period of twenty years, the poems in this collection chart the experiences of an American living in Greece. This odyssey of sorts is told in four parts, tracing a personal journey from naivete and alienation to identity and belonging. Don Schofield touches upon urban and island life in contemporary Greece that few outsiders see. Skillfully juxtaposing the old with the new, the expected with the unexpected, the historical with the modern, he entertains various themes bringing the past into relation with the present. Seemingly disparate traditions are merged - the pagan with the Christian, American literature with classical Greek. The main speaker often appears as the antithesis of the classical hero, Odysseus, willing to look foolish, lost and bewildered, and at times acknowledging his own moral weakness. Conventional interpretations of myth are redefined as personas from the archaic and biblical worlds examine the nature of desire or the experience of loss and exile on a contemporary stage. By dint of acute observation and innate sensitivity, Schofield evokes a sense of place by working himself into the psyche of the people and the landscape, thus enabling him to enr

The sumptuous, propulsive, sun-kissed follow up to the bestselling Snow, from the Booker Prize winning author'He wanted to know who she was, and why he was convinced he had some unremembered connection with her. It was as simple as that. But he knew it wasn't. It wasn't simple at all.'When Dublin pathologist Quirke glimpses a familiar face while on holiday with his wife, it's hard, at first, to tell whether his imagination is just running away with him. Could she really be who he thinks she is, and have a connection with a crime that nearly brought ruin to an Irish political dynasty?Unable to ignore his instincts, Quirke makes a call back home and Detective St John Strafford is soon dispatched to Spain. But he's not the only one on route: as a terrifying hitman hunts down his prey, they are all set for a brutal showdown. Praise for Snow:'Superb ... crime fiction for the connoisseur.' The Times'Outstanding.' Irish Independent'Exquisite.' Daily Mail'Hypnotic.' Financial Times'Compelling.' Sunday Times'Superb to the last drop.' Independent

This collection of lyric essays by award-winning poet Kim Moore explore the dynamics of performing poetry as a female poet - confronting the implications of being a female on public display, with the connotations of sexual objectification, in a context that traditionally disregards the body. Kim states "With the strides and gains made through the #MeToo movement, I believe the time is right for a book like this to make an impact. As a female poet, I know there is a need for such a book to examine the intersection between writing, performing, feminism and sexism. I wish this book had been written when I first started working as a freelance writer and I've had many conversations with other female poets who have also confirmed my thinking - that female poets are navigating these things regularly, and yet nobody is really writing or talking about them." The book draws on her experiences of writing and performing the poems in her second collection All the Men I Never Married. It is a balance of memoir, academic treatise and poetry, though the author's emphasis is on writing in a popular way and making the subject accessible to a wide audience. To achieve this her models have been Maggie Nelson's Bluets, Claudia Rankine's Citizen and Sarah Ahmed's Living a Feminist Life. The book's subjects include heckling at poetry readings and other interactions; problems with the 'male gaze' and what the 'female gaze' might look like in poetry; 'guilty for being a man': how guilt can be useful if it can bring about change; how writing poetry about sexism can shed add meaning to the term; the objectification of men and women, and 'bad faith' arguments.

An action-filled reimagining of the famous Greek myth, Jason and the Golden Fleece, brilliantly told by classicist Mark Knowles. He has come to take what is yours... Iolkos, Thessaly. 1230 BC. King Pelias has grown paranoid, tormented by his murderous past and a prophecy of the man who will one day destroy him. When a stranger arrives to compete in the Games of Poseidon, Pelias is horrified, for this young man should never have grown to manhood. He is Jason, Pelias' nephew, who survived his uncle's assassins as a child. Now Jason wants his revenge - and the kingdom. But Pelias is cunning as well as powerful. He gives his foe an impossible challenge: to claim the throne, Jason must first steal the fabled Golden Fleece of Colchis. Jason assembles a band of Greece's finest warriors. They are the Argonauts, named for their trusty ship. But even with these mighty allies, Jason will have to overcome the brutal challenges hurled his way. His mission and many lives depend on his wits - and his sword. PRAISE FOR ARGO AND MARK KNOWLES: 'Mark Knowles has taken the legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece, and stripped it down to its bare bones... What is left is a deeply researched historical epic, so brilliantly brought to life I could taste the salt air on my tongue... Epic battles, well-rounded characters sailing through a brilliantly described world' Adam Lofthouse, author of The Centurion's Son'What a spectacular triumph! Knowles has taken a reassuringly familiar legend and elevated it into a new, realistic and engrossing story' Sam Taw'[Knowles] has teamed his love of learning classics and childhood love of sword-and-sandals epics to accomplish something remarkable' Boarding Schools' Association'Knowles has combined historical realities with sure-footed imagination... brilliant' Dr Paul Millett, Cambridge University (on The Consul's Daughter)

Marrying deft social commentary to a rich, earthy comedy, the three comedies collected in Aristophanes' "The Frogs and Other Plays" offers a unique insight into one of the most turbulent periods in Ancient Greek history.
This "Penguin Classics" edition is translated by David Barrett with revisions, an introduction and notes by Shomit Dutta.
The master of ancient Greek comic drama, Aristophanes combined slapstick, humour and cheerful vulgarity with acute political observations. In "The Frogs", written during the Peloponnesian War, Dionysus descends to the Underworld to bring back a poet who can help Athens in its darkest hour, and stages a great debate to help him decide between the traditional wisdom of Aeschylus and the brilliant modernity of Euripides. The clash of generations and values is also the object of Aristophanes' satire in Wasps, in which an old-fashioned father and his loose-living son come to blows and end up in court. And in "Women at the Thesmophoria", the famous Greek tragedian Euripides, accused of misogyny, persuades a relative to infiltrate an all-women festival to find out whether revenge is being plotted against him. Shomit Dutta's introduction discusses Aristophanes' life, the cultural context of his work and conventions of Greek comedy.