As any, even vaguely addicted book collector will have swiftly learned, most booksellers' catalogues are written in a parallel language that can fool anyone but the 'cognoscenti' and which makes the mysteries of the Rosetta stone, or Linear B, look like something out of Enid Blython. Without a smattering of inside information, the baffled but hopelessly-bitten book buyer is drifting unarmed and unprepared into a minefield whose perilous complexities will usually only be made plain when an eagerly awaited parcel of dream volumes arrives and mangled contents are revealed in all their deceptive glory.... But all is not lost. Help is at hand! After a lifetime of avidly scanning the frequently poisonously-tinted pages of innumerable book catalogues, Ronald Searle has become expert in the art of decoding those esoteric, poetic and usually approximate, descriptions of literary come-ons. Now, licking his wounds, he publishes his hard-earned findings in this fully illustrated pioneer guide, designed to foil the devious machinations of scheming and wicked booksellers for ever more. No longer will the innocent book collector need to puzzle over the finer meaning of 'old half road', 'good working copy', blind tooled', or 'tail-edged shaved'. The unvarnished truth is here exposed at last, both in the shocking explicit drawings and in the devastatingly frank glossary whose revelations will startle even the most battle-scarred of bibliophiles. The result is one of the funniest, most entertaining books to have emerged from the brilliantly perceptive pen of the master. No book collector, and certainly no bookseller, can afford to be without it - even the wicked ones.

Illustrated in Searle's inimitable style are the ancient noble ceremony of slashing the trockenbeerenauslese, the inauguration of the first authentic denominazione di origine controllata e garantita, and the vinolympics. For wine lovers who have never tasted ptolemy nouveau or watched the uncorking of the kangarouge, these experiences are related with warmth and humor. The many ways to open a bottle of wine are illustrated, and the rituals and delights of wine around the world are described.

Winner of the 2022 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Winner of the 2022 Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize Shortlisted for the 2023 Plutarch Award A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Best Book of 2022 A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Times Literary Supplement, and Literary Hub From the standout scholar Katherine Rundell, Super-Infinite presents a sparkling and very modern biography of John Donne: the poet of love, sex, and death. Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, a priest, a member of Parliament—and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. He converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a sixteen-year-old girl without her father’s consent, struggled to feed a family of ten children, and was often ill and in pain. He was a man who suffered from surges of misery, yet expressed in his verse many breathtaking impressions of electric joy and love. In Super-Infinite, Katherine Rundell embarks on a fleet-footed act of evangelism, showing us the many sides of Donne’s extraordinary life, his obsessions, his blazing words, and his tempestuous Elizabethan times—unveiling Donne as the most remarkable mind and as a lesson in living.

Paris is seen through the eyes of artist Fabrice Moireau, with sketches in watercolor and pencil perfectly matched by an introduction by Mary A. Kelly. These residents of the world's most romantic capital city are the perfect guides to its streets, monuments, gardens and delightfully hidden corners.

We know the facts of Mary Shelley’s life in some detail—the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, within days of her birth; the upbringing in the house of her father, William Godwin, in a house full of radical thinkers, poets, philosophers, and writers; her elopement, at the age of seventeen, with Percy Shelley; the years of peripatetic travel across Europe that followed. But there has been no literary biography written this century, and previous books have ignored the real person—what she actually thought and felt and why she did what she did—despite the fact that Mary and her group of second-generation Romantics were extremely interested in the psychological aspect of life.In this probing narrative, Fiona Sampson pursues Mary Shelley through her turbulent life, much as Victor Frankenstein tracked his monster across the arctic wastes. Sampson has written a book that finally answers the question of how it was that a nineteen-year-old came to write a novel so dark, mysterious, anguished, and psychologically astute that it continues to resonate two centuries later. No previous biographer has ever truly considered this question, let alone answered it.

Offers a collection of full-page cat portraits that document the most adorable, or repulsive, facets of feline personality while, at the same time, depicting that trait in its human manifestation

Paris Sketchbook is a stunning gift book from leading international fashion illustrator Jason Brooks. Although he is best known for his beautiful fashion imagery, which has regularly graced the pages of Vogue and Elle magazines, travel has been a recurrent theme in his work and his adventures continue to inspire and inform his visual repertoire. During his time on fashion assignments at the couture shows in Paris, Brooks developed a fascination for the city, drawing and painting beautiful travel journals that demonstrate his passion for all things Parisian. This book is a whimsical take on Paris, part guide book, part illustrated journal, it will appeal to both travellers and fashionistas. Sumptuous production with different stocks and inks will make this a must for anyone who loves fashion illustration and beautiful books.

A hilarious send-up of winetasters' jargon, this collection of cartoons offers a satiric look at pretentious phrases used to describe wines by humorously assigning those characteristics to people.