One of the most important works of cultural theory ever written, Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking essay explores how the age of mass media means audiences can listen to or see a work of art repeate...
Ayn Rand's story of Howard Roark, a brilliant architect who dares to stand alone against the hostility of second-hand souls. First published in 1943, this best-selling novel is a passionate defense...
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist n...
Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty. It describes his search for 'a practical religi...
Adam Smith’s landmark treatise on the free market paved the way for modern capitalism, arguing that competition is the engine of a productive society, and that self-interest will eventually c...
Influencing philosophers such as Sartre and Camus, and still strikingly modern in its psychological insights, Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death explores the concept of 'despair' as a symptom of...
Originally published anonymously, Nature was the first modern essay to recommend the appreciation of the outdoors as an all-encompassing positive force. Emerson’s writings were recognized as ...
John Ruskin overturned Victorian society's ideas about art and architecture, arguing that ancient buildings must be conserved for their deep, mystical links with the past and that creative design i...
Machiavelli is one of the most famous strategists of all time. In this collection he discusses the dangers of conspiracies, and the component parts of an army, vital for gaining and holding power i...
'It would not do to be found in the desert under these circumstances: firing wildly into the cactus from a car full of drugs'Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone showcases the evolution o...
John Berger broke new ground with his penetrating writings on life, art and how we see the world around us. Here he explores how the ancient relationship between man and nature has been broken in t...
The hauntingly romantic new weepy from Jojo Moyes, author of bestseller "Me Before You". Set between the First World War and the present, it's the story of two young women, separated by a...
In these inspiring essays about why we read, Proust explores all the pleasures and trials that we take from books, as well as explaining the beauty of Ruskin and his work, and the joys of losing yo...
Visionary English Socialist and pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris argued that all work should be a source of pride and satisfaction, and that everyone should be entitled to be...
On the Road swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns and drugs, with Sal Paradise and his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller and mystic, the living epitome ...
John Locke was one of the greatest figures of the Enlightenment, whose assertion that reason is the key to knowledge changed the face of philosophy. These writings on thought, ideas, perception, tr...
Carson McCullers' prodigious first novel was published to instant acclaim when she was just twenty-three. Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lone...
Sal Paradise, a young innocent, joins his hero, the mystical traveller Dean Moriarty, on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. Their hedonistic search for release or...
They can't be together, but they can't stay apart.The first time Lucy and Felix meet, she is a tourist vacationing at a beach house on Prince Edward Island. He is the local who shows he...
Ten tales of loss and longing, from one one Japan's greatest writersIt was the height of summer, and there was anger in the rays of the sunA summer holiday that turns to tra...