Leighton Pugh

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Published in 1884, Against Nature (À rebours) concerns the attempts of its cultured and neurotic anti-hero, Des Esseintes, to escape contemporary Parisian life. At his rural retreat he is able to indulge his particular artistic tastes as he muses on a...

Allen Carr's Easy Way to Better Sleep

Allen Carr's Easy Way to Better Sleep

READ THIS BOOK AND SLEEP WELL THE EASY WAYDo you find it hard to switch off at night? Do you feel tired all day but when your head hits the pillow it's impossible to sleep?Whether it's worrying about work, 'doomscrolling' on your phone or...

Beethoven in Words and Music

Beethoven in Words and Music

When we think of Ludwig van Beethoven images of a stormy and passionate but tortured genius are brought to mind, alongside the transformative effect of his work on musical history. All of these things are true, but no artist lives in a vacuum, and...

Sinclair McKay's portrait of Berlin from 1919 forward explores the city's broad human history, from the end of the Great War to the Blockade, rise of the Wall, and beyond.Sinclair McKay's Berlin begins by taking readers back to 1919 when the city...

Germinal is one of the most striking novels in the French tradition. Widely regarded as Zola’s masterpiece, the novel describes the working conditions of French coalminers in the 1860s in harsh and realistic terms – it is visceral, graphic and...

J.S.Bach in Words and Music

J.S.Bach in Words and Music

Johann Sebastian Bach today has a reputation as the Godfather of Western European music, as a fountainhead of classical music theory and the creator of some of the greatest works the world has ever produced. Better known as a keyboard virtuoso, Bach...

Brutal, gripping and heart wrenching, L’Assommoir (also known as The Drinking Den) chronicles the tragic downward spiral of Gervaise Macquart, a good-natured and hardworking laundress who slides into alcoholism and despair. After her lover abandons...

La Bête Humaine

La Bête Humaine

Against the backdrop of political and legal corruption in Second Empire France, La Bête Humaine (1890) contrasts the technological advancements of the Machine Age with the primitive and timeless human impulse to possess through killing and to kill...

Le Grand Meaulnes

Le Grand Meaulnes

A new pupil, Augustin Meaulnes, arrives at a rural school, and his bravado and charisma make an immediate impact on all those around him, including the 15-year-old François Seurel. The newcomer suddenly disappears for several days, during which time...

Mendelssohn in Words and Music

Mendelssohn in Words and Music

Felix Mendelssohn was a child prodigy to rival Mozart and achieved great fame during his lifetime, fêted across Europe, and composing in the widest possible range of musical genres. However, his music has also been denigrated for its elegance, charm...

Zola’s Money (L’Argent, 1891) shows the corrupting effect of untrammelled stock-market speculation. While some seek redemption through philanthropic and evangelical ventures, others – such as the main protagonist, Saccard – embrace their own avarice....

Mozart in Words and Music

Mozart in Words and Music

Tchaikovsky declared that Mozart was 'full of divine beauty', and Schubert's wonder at the 'countless images of a brighter and better world' that Mozart was able to conjure up through his music knew no bounds. Many of us carry the image of Mozart as a...

Nana Coupeau is a beautiful woman, able to attract men of enormous wealth with the crook of her finger. Part-time prostitute, part-time actress, she makes her debut in a mediocre operetta The Blonde Venus at the bustling Paris World’s Fair of 1867....

The greatest of all the medieval romances about the Holy Grail, Parzival was written in the early 13th century. The narrative describes the quest of the Arthurian knight, Parzival, for the Holy Grail. His journey is filled with incident, from...

Poetics/Rhetoric

Poetics/Rhetoric

The Art of Rhetoric, a guide on the principles behind oratorical skill, is a core text on the art of persuasion. Aristotle contends that rhetoric is one of the key elements of philosophy – along with logic and dialectic. The work consists of three...

Schubert in Words and Music

Schubert in Words and Music

Franz Schubert was regarded chiefly as a composer of domestic music, and during his all-too-brief life managed to publish only a quarter of his works. Without patronage and without ever becoming well known or a virtuoso, how did Schubert manage to...

Schumann in Words and Music

Schumann in Words and Music

The unresolved and ambiguous details of Robert Schumann’s psychological decline and death have tended to dominate his biography. Yet in his time Schumann was lauded as a protean Romantic literary genius whose writings, as a music critic, poet,...

Studies in the History of the Renaissance

Studies in the History of the Renaissance

Published in 1873, Studies in the History of the Renaissance is considered one of the most influential works in the field of aestheticism. The book is a collection of essays that explore various artists of the Renaissance period, focusing primarily on...

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the Navy Office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century...

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the Navy Office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century...

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the Navy Office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century...

The Ladies' Paradise

The Ladies' Paradise

Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames, 1883) plays out in a colossal and opulent Parisian department store of the same name. Its owner, Octave Mouret, builds his innovative, upmarket women’s fashion empire at the expense of the city’s...

The Man Who Disappeared (America)

The Man Who Disappeared (America)

The first of Kafka’s three great novels, The Man Who Disappeared (America) follows the picaresque adventures of Karl Rossman, who is banished to America following a family scandal. Upon his arrival, Karl immediately happens upon his uncle, and from...

The Masterpiece

The Masterpiece

Perhaps the most autobiographical of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart cycle of novels, The Masterpiece is a hard, bleak and raw portrait of unrecognised artistic genius. Claude Lantier, brother to Nana and son of Gervaise, is a struggling painter who dreams of...

In The Republic Socrates is asked the question ‘What is justice?’ And in order to answer it, he draws a long and detailed analogy between the individual and the city. Plato’s work forms the foundation of Western philosophy and covers a wide range of...