Non-fiction

Vivian Gornick’s writing has always explored the hard truths of existence: the nature of human loneliness, and the struggle to love, work, and connect. In these seven seminal essays Gornick chronicles the New York streets that energise her, and looks back on the dangerously charged atmosphere of the Catskills where she waitressed as a student in the late fifties. She describes her introduction to feminism and the lessons it taught her, reflects on a friendship with an older female writer that...

In this unforgettable and astutely observed travel account, Pulitzer Prize-winner John McPhee journeys into the wild frontiers and frigid climate of Alaska exploring the diverse terrain of this Northern US state. Travelling by foot and canoe, helicopter and dog team, McPhee traverses total wilderness, urban landscape, and the depths of the bush, drawing a rich and comprehensive history of this vast land and its varied inhabitants. With his keen eye and poetic sensibility at the helm, we paddl...

The celebrated American food writer M. F. K. Fisher pays tribute to that most delicate and enigmatic of foods: the oyster. She tells of oysters found in stews and soups, roasted, baked, fried, prepared à la Rockefeller or au naturel – and of the pearls sometimes found therein. As she describes each dish, Fisher recalls her own initiation into the ‘strange cold succulence’ of raw oysters as a young woman in Marseille and Dijon, and explores both the bivalve’s famed aphrodisiac properties and i...

Written in 1942 to inspire courage in those daunted by wartimes shortages, How to Cook a Wolf has continued to rally readers and cooks during times of both scarcity and plenty. With her trademark wit and warm wisdom, Fisher shares her timeless tips for keeping up spirits – and appetites – when ingredients are in short supply. Instead of regretting what we don’t have, she teaches us how to savour what we do. Fisher also offers dozens of recipe ideas, from soups and simple omelettes, to baking ...

Outdoor space is something everyone should have access to. But you don’t need a garden to become a gardener. Growing plants and vegetables forces us to pause, pay attention and look more closely. From the vantage point of even the smallest windowsill garden we can observe the passing of time through the shifting of the seasons, as well as the environmental changes the planet is undergoing. In this collection of essays, fourteen writers go beyond simply considering a plot of soil to explore ho...

Food can embody our personal history as well as wider cultural histories. But what are the stories we tell ourselves about the kitchen, and how do we first come to it? How do the cookbooks we read shape us? Can cooking be a tool for connection in the kitchen and outside of it? In these essays thirteen writers consider the subjects of cooking and eating and how they shape our lives, and the possibilities and limitations the kitchen poses. Rachel Roddy traces an alternative personal history thr...

‘Last year I lost my cat Gattino. He was very young, at seven months barely an adolescent. He is probably dead but I don’t know for certain.’ So begins Mary Gaitskill’s stunning book-length essay, the closest thing she has written to a memoir. Lost Cat begins with the story of how Gaitskill rescued a stray cat in Italy and brought him to live with her in the US, where he went missing. As she explores the unexpected trauma of her loss, Gaitskill describes how she came to foster two siblings, C...

M.F.K. Fisher moved to Aix-en-Provence with her daughters after the Second World War. In Map of Another Town, she traces the history of this ancient and famous town, known for its tree-lined avenues, pretty fountains and ornate façades. Beyond the tourist sights, Fisher introduces us to its inhabitants: the waiters and landladies, down-and-outs and local characters – all recovering from the affects of the war in a drastically new France. A companion piece to The Gastronomical Me, in this memo...

In these eight evocative and unpredictable essays, Sybille Bedford chronicles her adventures through Europe over a thirty-year period. With her elegant prose and razor-sharp insight, Bedford takes us on a propulsive journey – dropping us into the passenger seat as she drives to meet Martha Gellhorn in Capri, taking us across the wind-swept piazzas of Venice in winter, and tantalising our taste buds with a tour of the vineyards of Bordeaux. Bedford shows us the world through her eyes – the eye...

In 1969, John McPhee moved his family from New Jersey across the Atlantic to live in the land of his forefathers, the island of Colonsay – seventeen square miles of dew and damp twenty-five miles off the coast of Scotland. They rented a crofthouse, his children enrolled at the local school, and they soon were accepted into this tightly circumscribed community of 138 people. Intertwining history and legend, McPhee gives us a comprehensive portrait of this remote and misty land. He battles the ...

A classic of gastronomic writing that redefined the genre, The Gastronomical Me is a memoir of travel, love and loss, but above all hunger. Beginning with her first food memory – the greyish-pink fuzz of her grandmother’s strawberry jam – M.F.K. Fisher traces the development of her appetite from her childhood in America to her arrival in Dijon as a young woman, where she tasted French cooking for the first time. In Europe she embarked on a whole new way of eating, drinking and living, and she...

Michael Rips is not a collector. The only things he holds onto are books and his diaries. But then he moves into the Chelsea Hotel with his wife and young daughter and discovers the Chelsea flea. A famous secondhand market haunted by those hunting for lost treasures, the flea was an integral part of Manhattan for decades, occupying several blocks and an old garage on the west side of the city. It’s not long before Rips is a regular. In turn, the vendors educate him on the items they sell, fro...

Between 1944 and 1960, Natalia Ginzburg wrote The Little Virtues, a collection of eleven vivid portraits of life that are central to her legacy as one of the greatest Italian writers of the twentieth century. From the Italian countryside, where she and her husband lived in exile under fascist rule, to the melancholy streets of 1960s London, Ginzburg explores loneliness and belonging against the backdrop of post-war Europe. In The Little Virtues, Ginzburg takes familiar objects and experiences...

New Jersey is one of the most densely populated US states, but unknown to many it is also home to a vast wilderness, a forest of pines, oaks and cedars almost identical in size to the Grand Canyon. This is the Pine Barrens. People tend to think of New Jersey as a suburban thoroughfare, yet huge sections of the Pine Barrens remain uninhabited. The sandy soil is too acidic for farming, but beneath it lies an immense natural reservoir of soft pure water, while millions of wild blueberry and cran...

In 1976 Ehrlich travelled from her home in New York to Wyoming to shoot a film on sheep herders. While she was there, her partner David died. What started out as a work trip became the beginning of a new life, and a long and deep attachment to place. Writing of sheep herding alone across Wyoming badlands, being struck by lightning, the true meaning of cowboys, and taking her new husband to the rodeo for their honeymoon, as well as the changing seasons, extreme winters and the wind, Ehrlich dr...

When Penguin released a new, unexpurgated edition of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover in 1960 they were charged with the crime of publishing obscene material. Penguin was forced to defend the book’s literary merit in a court of law – thus beginning one of the most famous trials of the 20th century. There to take it all in, armed with her pencil and paper, was Sybille Bedford – who wastes no time complaining about the claustrophobia of Courtroom 1 at the Old Bailey. With her trademark w...