This compelling new study reveals, for the first time, through an emplaced investigation, the potential of Charleston and Monk's House to illuminate the shared histories of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.

This chronological account takes you through the key events in the lives of Virginia and Leonard Woolf through a history of their home, Monk’s House in Sussex, where Virginia wrote most of her major novels. The story of this magical garden includes selected quotations from the writings of the Woolfs which reveal how important a role the garden played in their lives, as a source of both pleasure and inspiration. Bought by them in 1919 as a country retreat, Monk's House was somewhere they came to read, write and work in the garden. Virginia wrote first in a converted tool shed, and later in her purpose-built wooden writing lodge tucked into a corner of the orchard. Enriched with rare archive images and embroidered garden plans, the book takes the reader on a journey through the various garden ‘rooms’, (including the Italian Garden, the Fishpond Garden, the Millstone Terrace and the Walled Garden), each presented in the context of the lives of the Woolfs, with fascinating glimpses into their daily routines at Rodmell.

A transcendent tale of a woman's self-discovery—the New York Times–bestselling second work of fiction by the author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion. When Jessie Sullivan is summoned home to the island to cope with her eccentric mother’s seemingly inexplicable behavior, she is living a conventional life with her husband, Hugh, a life “molded to the smallest space possible.” Jessie loves Hugh, but once on the island, she finds herself drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk about to take his final vows. Amid a rich community of unforgettable island women and the exotic beauty of marshlands, tidal creeks, and majestic egrets, Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, with a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right, and with the immutable force of home and marriage. Is the power of the mermaid chair only a myth? Or will it alter the course of Jessie’s life? What happens will unlock the roots of her mother’s tormented past, but most of all, it will allow Jessie to discover selfhood and a place of belonging as she explores the thin line between the spiritual and the erotic.

Set in the heart of the Sussex Downs, Charleston Farmhouse is the most important remaining example of Bloomsbury decorative style, created by the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Quentin Bell, the younger son of Clive and Vanessa Bell, and his daughter Virghinia Nicholson, tell the story of this unique house, linking it with some of the leading cultural figures who were invited there, including Vanessa's sister Virginia Woolf, the writer Lytton Strachey, the economist Maynard Keynes and the art critic Roger Fry. The house and garden are portrayed through Alen MacWeeney's atmostpheric photographs; pictures from Vanessa Bell's family album convey the flavour of the household in its heyday.

'Bloomsbury in Sussex' looks at the furnishings, decorations and gardens of Charleston and Monks House and how they came to express the spirit of their creative and innovative occupants.

Photographs, some barely known, on the domestic lives of Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) and the historical, cultural and artistic milieux of their circle in Bloomsbury, including Vivienne Eliot, Vita Sackville-West, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Dora Carrington.

Place of publication from publisher's website.

'What would Germaine do?' This is the mantra that Skip and Marlo Wells turn to as they navigate their way through the twists and turns that life brings. Such as the sectioning of their mother Karen Jane. Marlo puts her faith in her hero, Germaine Greer, and twelve-year-old Skip trusts her clever big sister to know the right thing to do. But when the sisters are forced to move to their Auntie Noreen and Uncle Doug's home in the backwater city of Crater Lakes even Marlo can't think of a solution. At age sixteen, Marlo is forced to quit school and work in the family hardware store. Skip manages to get on her auntie's bad side from the get-go and is an outcast at school as she vehemently declares the injustice of the Vietnam War - not what Noreen wants to hear with her precious son Barry off fighting. Skip and Marlo dream of escape from Crater Lakes but with Karen Jane's release nowhere on the horizon they resign themselves to their new life. Before long they make the acquaintance of the Novak brothers - Skip's classmate Honza and his eternally cheerful older brother Pavel. Marlo becomes entangled with the local drama teacher, leaving Skip to explore the town's haunts with Honza. Skip learns about the mysterious Dansie residence, a secluded house that once belonged to Roger Dansie - an actor and the closest thing to a local hero that Crater Lakes ever had. As the days roll on the Wells sisters are drawn ever deeper in to the lives of their new acquaintances, learning that their first impressions of Crater Lakes may not be as accurate as they believed. Against the backdrop of a broken home, the fight for equality and a far off war Volcano Street is a heartfelt tale of acceptance and belonging, and learning what family truly means.

Describes early 20th century interior decoration noting the influence of major designers of the time.

'The Germans were over this house last night and the night before that. Here they are again. It is a queer experience, lying in the dark and listening to the zoom of a hornet, which may at any moment sting you to death. It is a sound that interrupts cool and consecutive thinking about peace. Yet it is a sound - far more than prayers and anthems - that should compel one to think about peace. Unless we can think peace into existence we - not this one body in this one bed but millions of bodies yet to be born - will lie in the same darkness and hear the same death rattle overhead.' Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.