'Joelle Taylor has a Midas touch with words' Diana SouhamiA Cosmo best books to look forward to in 2024 pick 'A glorious jewel of a novel' Sophie Ward'Exhilarating, profoundly beautiful and exquisitely written' Salena Godden'A mesmerising debut from one of the most talented literary stylists writing today' The Bookseller'Hugely imaginative'Marie Claire (Best New Books, 2024)'It's hard to think of many books more restlessly inventive' Guardian (Book of the Day)---------------------------------------------------------------------------------The tattoo was a reclamation, a flag we mounted in the centre of our own landscape.A woman walks into a tattoo parlour. But this is no ordinary woman, and this is Hackney in 2233. Jones' body is covered in tattoos but she wants to add one final inking to her gallery - a thin line of ink mixed with blood that connects her body art together, creating a unique map.As the two artists set to work, Jones tells them the story behind each tattoo. As Jones is no ordinary woman, these are no ordinary stories: each one represents a doorway to a life Jones fell into, a 'remembering'. Some of these lives were in the past, others in the future, some are sideways, but each of them connects Jones to the two tattoo artists in some way, though they are unaware of it.We visit the dystopian cities of the Quiet Men, the coal mines of 19th century Lancashire, join a gang of vigilante sex workers, enter the world of an INCEL murderer, haunt the old Maryville gay bar, and uncover plans to genetically modify female children. Each of the stories brings us closer to Jones' truth, and how her life is intricately interwoven with that of the women tattooing her body.Set across geographies and timespans, The Night Alphabet is a dazzlingly bold and original work, a deep investigation into human nature and violence against women. Read more

From Tiktok phenomenon Whitney Hanson, a revised edition of her bestselling Home, now with a new introduction and more than a dozen new poems"the bees aren't going to go awaybut they are going to change with yousometimes they will be chaoticsometimes they will restsometimes they will give you sweet honeyand sometimes they will remind youof how much love can stingbut if you can find a home within yourselfand make peace with your beesyou will be alright"--from HomeResonant, raw, and vibrant, Home is a lyrical map to navigating heartbreak. Tracing the stages of healing - from the despair that comes with the end of a relationship to the eventual light and liberation that comes with time - the poems in Home provide comfort and solace, while revitalizing your soul - and helping you make peace with your bees.'I would buy it again!' 5* reader review'This book is everything I needed and more' 5* reader review'Best poet out there' 5* reader review'This book did wonders for my mental health and heartbreak' 5* reader review'Can't wait for what Whitney writes next' 5* reader review Read more

More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, west off the coast of what is present Turkey. Little remains today of her writings, which are said to have filled nine papyrus rolls in the great library at Alexandria some 500 years after her death. The surviving texts consist of a lamentably small and fragmented body of lyric poetry - among them poems of invocation, desire, spite, celebration, resignation and remembrance - that nevertheless enables us to hear the living voice of the poet Plato called the tenth Muse. This is a new translation of her surviving poetry. Read more

'Tender, evocative' TLS'Richly engaging' SpectatorA Radio 4 Serial Fiction Book of the Week 'A characteristically tender novel about a young man growing up in the shadow of one war and the whispers of the next' Observer'A wonderful novel about relationships, particularly between a mother and son. A compelling read, beautifully crafted and sensitively written' Irish Examiner_______Laura, a laundress, meets her young husband when they are both placed in service in Teignmouth in 1914. They have a baby, Charles, but his father returns home from the trenches a damaged man, already ill with the tuberculosis that will soon leave Laura a widow.As a new war looms, Charles signs up for the navy as a coder. His escape from the tight, gossipy confines of Launceston to a more colourful life in action sees him blossom, as he experiences the possibility of death, and the excitement - even terror - of a love that is as clandestine as his work._______'Stands with the best queer literary fiction of a historical bent, illuminated as it is by Gale's devilish wit and talent for both social observation and intricacies of character' Sydney Morning Herald'A wonderful novel - a touching, utterly convincing portrait of the nascent artist' Mail on Sunday'A deeply moving novel. The portrait of a complex relationship that constricted as much as it sustained is brilliantly done' The Tablet Read more

“The hallucinatory prose-poems of Arthur Rimbaud rank among the glories of 19th-century French literature.” — New York TimesOne of the world's most influential poets, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) is remembered as much for his volatile personality and tumultuous life as he is for his writings, almost all of which he produced before the age of twenty. Paul Schmidt's acclaimed collection brings together his complete poetry, prose, and letters, including "The Drunken Boat," "The Orphans' New Year," "After the Flood," and "A Season in Hell." Complete Works is divided into eight "seasons"—Childhood, the Open Road, War, the Tormented Heart, the Visionary, the Damned Soul, a Few Belated Cowardices, and the Man with the Wind at His Heels—that reflect the facets of Rimbaud's life. Insightful commentary by Schmidt reveals the courage, vision, and imagination of Rimbaud's poetry and sheds light on one of the most enigmatic figures in letters. Read more

LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI PRIZE FIRST BOOK AWARD 2024WATERSTONES' BEST BOOKS OF 2023: POLITICS'A riveting blend of memoir and manifesto ... I found myself dog-earing every page' Elizabeth Day'Profoundly articulate. Entirely wise. Beautifully real.' Attitude 'Transitional is a clever, moving book that packs a lot into its 194 pages' GuardianTransitioning is an alignment of the invisible and the physical. It is truth rising to the surface. It is one of the most fundamental aspects of the human condition - a part of our experience as a conscious being, no matter who we are.As time goes on, we all develop as people. We all transition. It's what unites us, not what separates us.In this life-affirming, heartfelt and intimate book, activist and model Munroe Bergdorf shares reflections from her own life to illustrate how transitioning is an essential part of all our lives. Through the story of one woman's extraordinary mission to live with authenticity, Transitional shows us how to heal, how to build a stronger community and how to evolve as a society out of shame and into pride.------PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR:'Bergdorf is proof that speaking up for what you believe in can provoke real change' Vogue'A phenomenon' Owen Jones, Guardian'A powerful and unstoppable new force . . . The world should take notice' Teen Vogue'One of the UK's most committed and outspoken transgender activists' Stylist Read more

Immerse yourself in may i come home, the sophomore release from writer Christopher Tapp, which offers a raw exploration of mental health, addiction, and identity within the queer community.Through road trip-inspired prose, readers delve into themes of trauma, healing, and self-discovery across four distinct sections: the lake outback, first car, photo albums, and home remedies.Join this journey of introspection and redefinition in a quest for inner stillness. Read more

Make a cup of tea and let yourself feel.Pillow Thoughts is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, love, and raw emotions. It is divided into sections to read when you feel you need them most. Read more

‘there is a certain skill in delusion.in burying your head into the sand,or into the shoulder of whoever will let you.it might not be art,but it is damn near close-to take a few, spared words as gospel promisesand an unbothered body as a lover.if that is not talent, i do not know what is.’an unfortunate story of love, oranges, delusion and hatred. Read more

Pillow Thoughts is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, love, and raw emotions. It is divided into sections to read when you feel you need them most. Read more

'hello to my heartbroken, to my hearts aching, to my love shaken. hello to the people who have had their heart ripped out of their chest and trodden on. hello to the friends i have made who are equally as afraid of love as i am.''how to be heartbroken' is a must-read book for anyone who has experienced a brutal heartache. isabella's book is designed to guide you as you recover from love (and encourage you to love again). Read more

Alan Bennett's beloved, best-known play, with a beautiful typographic cover. The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead.As an unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys pursue sex, sport and a place at university, adolescent anarchy and staffroom rivalry provoke insistent questions about history and education.The History Boys premiered at the National Theatre, London, 2004, winning Evening Standard, Critics' Circle, Olivier and South Bank Awards. On Broadway, it received numerous awards, including six Tonys. Read more

Thom Gunn has been described as 'one of the most singular and compelling poets in English during the past half-century' (TLS). This Selected Poems, compiled by his friend Clive Wilmer and accompanied by insightful notes, is the first edition to represent the full arc of Gunn's inimitable career. 'The poetry of Thom Gunn was much admired in his lifetime, and at the same time often misunderstood and underestimated. The scale of his achievement, and its uniqueness - a masterful Elizabethan lyric poet writing in the second half of the twentieth century - is just now becoming properly appreciated. Anonymous in voice, even in the service of the most intimate subject matter, acute in observation, particularly the urban experience, with San Francisco the principal site, Gunn is not merely the poet of the druggy '60s in California or the plague of the AIDS epidemic, but of the deeper-running themes, shared by Shakespeare, Baudelaire, William Carlos Williams and all his greatest exemplars, of the artist's moral and imaginative engagement with the world as it actually is, in the broadest possible sense, not as contemporary fashion might have it be. Which strikes me, who knew and loved the man and poet, as a kind of heroism.' August Kleinzahler'Thom Gunn smuggled the lyric tradition out of post-war Britain, and gave it cool, gracious renaissance in California. His poetry evokes the wild life of the body with madrigal-like elegance.' Fiona Sampson'Gunn's work illustrates with unusual clarity some of the debates poetry in English has pursued in [the twentieth] century - form versus improvisation, diction versus talk, the American way versus the English tradition, even, at times, authenticity versus art. To contain these contradictory impulses and . . . to have generated a body of work which anybody wanting to understand the period and identify some of its best poems will find essential reading - this is quite an achievement.' Sean O'Brien Read more

Winner of the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize‘Reading Vuong is like watching a fish move: he manages the varied currents of English with muscled intuition.’ New YorkerAn extraordinary debut from a young Vietnamese American, Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a book of poetry unlike any other. Steeped in war and cultural upheaval and wielding a fresh new language, Vuong writes about the most profound subjects – love and loss, conflict, grief, memory and desire – and attends to them all with lines that feel newly-minted, graceful in their cadences, passionate and hungry in their tender, close attention: ‘…the chief of police/facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola./A palm-sized photo of his father soaking/beside his left ear.’ This is an unusual, important book: both gentle and visceral, vulnerable and assured, and its blend of humanity and power make it one of the best first collections of poetry to come out of America in years.‘These are poems of exquisite beauty, unashamed of romance, and undaunted by looking directly into the horrors of war, the silences of history. One of the most important debut collections for a generation.’ Andrew McMillan Winner of the 2017 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection A Guardian / Daily Telegraph Book of the YearPBS Summer Recommendation Read more

I Was Never Broken is a collection of free verse, poetry, journal entries, and more. I started writing this collection when I was sixteen. If you follow the dates on the pages it will bring you back or currently to every experience. This collection is raw and vulnerable, also a young adult searching for love, self-love, and an understanding of what it’s like to process emotions. It’s not a traditional poetry collection, it’s more like a journal, but with quotes and lots of emotion. This collection may hit you in the feels or it might help you capture the human in every writer. It’s not perfect and I made sure of it. It’s one of my very first collections so the mistakes don’t define me, but I enjoy them because it shows we’re all human, but beautiful. Read more

Winner of the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Book of the YearAstrid is returning home from art school on Mars, looking for inspiration. Darling is fleeing a life that never fit, searching for somewhere to hide. They meet on Deep Wheel Orcadia, a distant space station struggling for survival as the pace of change threatens to leave the community behind.Deep Wheel Orcadia is a magical first: a science-fiction verse-novel written in the Orkney dialect. This unique adventure in minority language poetry comes with a parallel translation into playful and vivid English, so the reader will miss no nuance of the original. The rich and varied cast weaves a compelling, lyric and effortlessly readable story around place and belonging, work and economy, generation and gender politics, love and desire – all with the lightness of touch, fluency and musicality one might expect of one the most talented poets to have emerged from Scotland in recent years. Hailing from Orkney, Harry Josephine Giles is widely known as a fine poet and spellbindingly original performer of their own work; Deep Wheel Orcadia now strikes out into audacious new space. Read more

New Zealand's best-selling poetry collection, from the mysterious force behind such classics as 'Monica' (as in, the one from Friends) and 'Keats is Dead so F**k Me from Behind'this impressive debut has established Hera Lindsay Bird as a good girl......with many beneficial thoughts and feelings......with themes as varied as snow and tears, the poems in this collection shine with the fantastic cream of who she is................juxtaposing many classical and modern breezesBird turns her prescient eye on love and loss, and what emerges is like a helicopter in fog......or a bejewelled Christmas sleigh, gliding triumphantly through the contemporary aesthetic desert.........this is at once an intelligent and compelling fantasy of tenderness......heart-breaking and charged with trees......without once sacrificing the forest............whether you are masturbating luxuriously in your parents' sleepout....................or pushing a pork roast home in a vintage pram...................this is the book for you.............................................heroically and compulsively stupid.............................................................................................................................whipping you once again into medieval sunlight.PRAISE FOR HERA LINDSAY BIRD'I think there's a pretty strong case which suggests Hera Lindsay Bird is like the most exciting newish poet in NZ' - Steve Braunias'On more than one occasion, while working through a poem, I have found myself asking, what would Hera Lindsay Bird do?' - Bill Manhire'Hi, dear, we have to say how much we enjoyed, if right word, the Hate poem. Really made us think, loved the line about the ancient cannon' - Text message from Ashleigh Young's mum'The wickedest problem in Hera Lindsay Bird is not sex but taste' - John Newton Read more