検索キーワード： イングランド・アイルランド・スコットランド・ウェールズ

A work of gripping nonfiction, North by Shakespeare presents the twinning narratives of rogue scholar Dennis McCarthy, called "the Steve Jobs of the Shakespeare community", and Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier whom McCarthy believes to be the undiscovered source for Shakespeare's plays.

In 1969, John Julius Norwich, the legendary popular historian, gathered together the favourite things he'd come across in the last 365 days into one short charming pamphlet. Initially just a treat for his friends, it rapidly turned into a huge word-of-mouth success. And soon the arrival of John Julius Norwich's latest 'Christmas Cracker' became as essential a part of the English Christmas experience as holly and mistletoe. Norwich had a brilliant eye for a story and telling detail, and his Crackers are full of jokes, warmth and wit.

Peter Tinniswood was best known for his popular TV series The Home Front and I Didn't Know You Cared and award-winning novel A Touch of Daniel. But he was also a prolific writer for radio, where he created a host of wonderful characters - often funny, sometimes poignant and always totally believable. This compilation brings together six of his finest monologues, as well as his comic play The Governor's Consort.

Alexa, What Is There to Know About Love? is a wonderful collection of poems about love in all its forms, covering everything from romantic love to familial love, to long-distance love and even love on the internet. The collection also features poems about the true passions for many booklovers, reading and literature, and the odd one about the subject causing many of us heartbreak: politics. With titles like ‘Hold My Hand While We Jump Off This Cliff’ and ‘Remembrance of Things Pasta’, there’s something for even the most jaded romantic within.

Raymond Antrobus’ astonishing debut collection, The Perseverance, won both Rathbone Folio Prize and the Ted Hughes Award, amongst many other accolades; the poet’s much anticipated second collection, All the Names Given, continues his essential investigation into language, miscommunication, place, and memory.

Jenny Diski was a fearless writer, for whom no subject was too difficult, even her own cancer diagnosis. Her columns in the London Review of Books - selected here by her editor and friend Mary-Kay Wilmers, on subjects as various as death, motherhood, sexual politics and the joys of solitude - have been described as ‘virtuoso performances’ and ‘small masterpieces'. Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? is a collective interrogation of the universal experience from a very particular psyche.

From Pickwick to Scrooge, Copperfield to Twist, how did Dickens find the perfect names for his characters? What was Dickens' favourite way of killing his characters? When is a Dickens character most likely to see a ghost? Why is Dickens’ trickery only fully realised when his novels are read aloud? In 13 entertaining and wonderfully insightful essays, John Mullan explores the literary machinations of Dickens’ eccentric genius, from his delight in clichés to his rendering of smells and his outrageous use of coincidences.

Edna O'Brien depicts James Joyce as a man hammered by Church, State and family, yet from such adversities he wrote works 'to bestir the hearts of men and angels'. The journey begins with Joyce the arrogant youth, his lofty courtship of Nora Barnacle, their hectic sexuality, children, wanderings, debt and profligacy and Joyce's obsession with the city of Dublin, which he would re-render through his words.

Drawing from two political and several literary homelands, this collection presents a remarkable series of trenchant essays, demonstrating the full range and force of Salman Rushdie's remarkable imaginative and observational powers. With candour, eloquence and indignation he carefully examines an expanse of topics; including the politics of India and Pakistan, censorship, the Labour Party, Palestinian identity, contemporary film and late-20th century race, religion and politics.

With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a girl who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way toward womanhood. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women and teenage girls.

With a writer as prolific as Neil Gaiman, what do you check out next? Or, perhaps, where do you begin? Spanning Gaiman's career to date, this collection of groundbreaking, entrancing, endlessly imaginative fiction will answer those questions. Curated by Gaiman's devoted listeners around the world, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction includes excerpts from each of his five novels for adults - Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys and The Ocean at the End of the Lane - and nearly 50 of his short stories.

For every moment in your life there is a poem. In Dancing by the Light of the Moon, we have a remarkable collection of over 250 best-loved poems in the English-speaking world. Allow Gyles Brandreth to be your guide to not only the wonders of poetry - and there are many - but also its practical uses in everyday life.

Austen Years is a deeply felt and sensitive examination of a writer’s relationship to reading, and to her own family, winding together memoir, criticism, and biographical and historical material about Austen herself. And like the sequence of Austen’s novels, the scope of Austen Years widens successively, with each chapter following one of Austen's novels. We begin with Cohen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she raises her small children and contemplates her father’s last letter.

Julius Caesar is at the height of his power. He has just defeated his top rival and is basking in the glory of his triumph. Some believe that he is abusing his power, though, and behind his back, a conspiracy is developing to assassinate him. Even his close advisor Brutus is swayed to participate in the murder plot. Once Caesar is murdered, the conspirators are forced to explain themselves to Rome’s citizens and explain their intentions and attempt to convince them that this murder was necessary to create peace.

Lady Windermere’s Fan: A Play About a Good Woman by Oscar Wilde is a play in four acts about a marriage teetering on the edge of destruction and the drama that surrounds the family while they seek resolution. This play was Wilde’s first foray into comedies and was his first successful play that would earn a profit from its performances. The play follows the young Lady Windermere as she begins to believe that her husband is having an affair.

The story begins with two men discussing an impending marriage proposal. Algernon Moncrieff’s best friend, Ernest, has planned to propose to Algernon’s cousin but has secretly been living a double life. To some, he is named Jack Worthing, to some he is Ernest. His dual personas have different personalities - Ernest is a libertine, while Jack is a serious man. This deception makes Algernon wonder what may happen if he also adopts the Ernest persona

The Picture of Dorian Gray centers on the character of Dorian Gray, a handsome young man who is the muse for a talented painter. Dorian wishes for a painting of himself to take on the effects of aging instead of him so he can give into any vice he wants - and his wish comes true. The novel follows Dorian Gray’s life of giving into every temptation and moral malfeasance that come his way, ranging from smaller vices like vanity and dishonesty all the way to debauchery and murder.

Othello is a tragedy play by William Shakespeare, written in the middle of his career in 1603. The story follows Othello, a general in the Venetian army, and Iago, a treacherous soldier who conspires against him to make him believe that his wife is unfaithful.

Pam Ayres, one of Britain's best-loved entertainers, personally presents this audiobook which brings together two of her solo stage shows with live audiences. Pam introduces each recording and then, as a bonus, reads a collection of new and previously unrecorded poems from her two most recent books, You Made Me Late Again and Up In The Attic. With poems such as 'My Mother Was Right About You', 'Geriatric Juliet', 'Poor Old Father Christmas', and 'The Hat From Hell', this hilariously funny collection is a must-have for seasoned fans and first time listeners alike.

John Milton (1608-1674) has a unique claim on literary and intellectual history as the author of both Paradise Lost, the greatest narrative poem in English, and prose defenses of the execution of Charles I that influenced the French and American revolutions. Tracing Milton’s literary, intellectual, and political development with unprecedented depth and understanding, Poet of Revolution is an unmatched biographical account of the formation of the mind that would go on to create Paradise Lost - but would first justify the killing of a king.