Showing titles in Themes & Styles

Beloved poet and philosopher shares profound insights on our hunger to belong and the grandeur of possibility found in our longing. In the quiet spaces of our lives, we feel it—a deep stirring in our hearts, a yearning to bridge the distance between what is and what could be. It shows up when...

The Iliad is one of the most enduring creations of Western Civilization and was originally written to be recited or chanted to the accompaniment of various instruments. Properly performed, this work today is just as meaningful, just as powerful and just as entertaining as it was in the ninth century B.C.,and it casts its spell upon modern listeners with the same raw intensity as it did upon the people of ancient times.

Brought to you by Penguin. The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller Motherhood is messy and beautiful, and hard and humbling. We adore our children, and sometimes we miss ourselves. Beautiful Chaos is a collection of raw, honest poems about motherhood - capturing everything from pregnancy to school...

Essential Skills for a Full and Courageous Life When you think about personal transformation, do you have a picture of who you want to become? Many of us unconsciously create an idealized image of our “awakened” selves—and in doing so, reveals David Whyte, we undermine both the work and...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Adrian Schiller. In Paradise Lost Milton produced poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the...

"In the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost." When you find yourself without bearings, as Dante Alighieri voiced so well centuries ago, where will you look for guidance? Throughout the ages, teaches David Whyte, the language of poetry has...

Tender captures all the tiny, fragile, perfect moments of new life and, with it, new parenthood. Full of sleepless wonder and with his characteristic wit and warmth, Harry Baker offers snapshots into the intense first 100 days with his son as they get to know each other.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Lesley Manville (winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress and known for Phantom Thread and Mum), Derek Jacobi (winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor and known for Gladiator and Gosford Park), Michael...

There were many things that Hollie McNish didn't know before she was pregnant. How her family and friends would react; that Mr Whippy would be off the menu; how quickly ice can melt on a stomach. These were on top of the many other things she didn't know about babies: how to stand while holding one; how to do a poetry gig with your baby as a member of the audience; how drum'n'bass can make a great lullaby. But Hollie learned. And she's still learning, slowly.

This magnificent volume gathers the published verse of Allen Ginsberg in its entirety, a half-century of brilliant work from one of America's greatest poets.

An anthology of over 60 classic love poems, read by some of our finest actors. Love has always been the supreme inspiration for poets, whether romantic or platonic, reciprocated or unrequited. This collection contains a range of the very best love poems, including Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" and Byron's "So We'll Go No More A-Roving" - as well as several sonnets from the master himself, William Shakespeare.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast production of Homer’s epic seafaring adventure, dramatised by award-winning poet Simon Armitage and starring Tim McInnerny, Amanda Redman & Benedict Cumberbatch. ‘My fame is written in the heavens, and my fate too...’ So speaks Odysseus as he starts to recount his...

The Aeneid represents one of the greatest cultural and artistic achievements of Western Civilization. Within the brooding and melancholy atmosphere of Virgil's pious masterpiece lies the mythic story of Aeneas and his flight from burning Troy, taking with him across the Mediterranean the survivors of the Greek onslaught. Aeneas, after many travails and adventures, including a love affair with Dido Queen of Carthage and a visit to the underworld to see his father, ends up in Italy.

Considered by Rumi to be "the master" of Sufi mystic poetry, Attar is best known for this epic poem, a magnificent allegorical tale about the soul's search for meaning. He recounts the perilous journey of the world's birds to the faraway peaks of Mount Qaf in search of the mysterious Simorgh, their king. Attar's beguiling anecdotes and humor intermingle the sublime with the mundane, the spiritual with the worldly, while his poem models the soul's escape from the mind's rational embrace.

Vinegar Hill explores the liminal space between private experiences and public events as Tóibín examines a wide range of subjects—politics, queer love, reflections on literary and artistic greats, living through COVID, memory and a fading past, and facing mortality. The poems reflect a life well-travelled and well-lived; from growing up in the town of Enniscorthy, wandering the streets of Dublin and Barcelona, and crossing the bridges of Venice to visiting the White House, listeners will travel through familiar locations and new destinations through Tóibín's unique lens.

“Probably the most finely accomplished and ... most enduring" translation (Los Angeles Times Book Review) of this essential work of world literature—from a renowned scholar and master teacher of Dante and an accomplished poet. “The Hollanders … act as latter-day Virgils, guiding us...

The #1 New York Times bestselling poet returns with his most ambitious collection yet. In this third and final installment of his poetic trilogy, Yung Pueblo expands upon favorite themes while guiding readers further, toward a life lived authentically, intuitively, and in harmony with others. In...

With a rich and informative introduction from Emily Wilson, maps drawn especially for this volume, a pronunciation glossary, genealogies, extensive notes, and helpful summaries of each book, this gorgeous edition of Rome’s founding poem will capture the imaginations and stir the souls of a new generation of listeners.

For fans of Rupi Kaur and Cleo Wade, this first collection of poetry from the viral TikTok poet Josie Balka, evokes themes of nostalgia, love, envy, and hope, speaking to the universal longings that live deep in our souls. I've never seen anyone at a public pool with a memorable enough body...

Brought to you by Penguin. Composed in the twelfth century in north-eastern Iran, Attar's great mystical poem is among the most significant of all works of Persian literature. A marvellous, allegorical rendering of the Islamic doctrine of Sufism - an esoteric system concerned with the search for...