Books for The History Buff

How Shostakovich Changed My Mind
How Shostakovich Changed My Mind

Stephen Johnson

Winner of the 2021 Rubery Book Award. BBC music broadcaster Stephen Johnson (who has Bipolar Disorder himself) explores the power of Shostakovich’s music during Stalin’s reign of terror, and writes of the extraordinary healing effect of music on the mind for sufferers of mental illness.

A Roundabout Manner: Sketches of Life by W. M. Thackeray
A Roundabout Manner: Sketches of Life by W. M. Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray John Sutherland

This is the first ‘sampler’ which covers all of Thackeray’s versatile genius: his cartoons, his journalism, his carefully restrained sentimentality (much to Victorian taste), his cutting satire, his essayism and what one could grandly call the Thackerayan world view.

Epiphany
Epiphany

Each of the books in this collection reveals a moment of sudden, life-changing, epiphany.

Voyage
Voyage

For the armchair traveller, three poetic journeys that fundamentally changed those who took them.

 

The Paradoxal Compass: Drake’s Dilemma
The Paradoxal Compass: Drake’s Dilemma

Horatio Morpurgo

The Paradoxal Compass is both historical narrative and environmental manifesto. Morpurgo compares our own tipping point with the ‘great unsettling’ faced by the Elizabethans more than four centuries ago. As the modern world continues to plunder the ‘infinite store’ of the earth’s riches, Morpurgo explores how our abusive relationship with the natural world began. He asks what the Age of Discovery might have to teach us in the current environmental crisis, as we too reappraise our place in the world.

Drawn From Life: Selected Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Drawn From Life: Selected Essays of Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne Tim Parks

The essays of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, the 16th-century French philosopher, are an obvious addition to the Notting Hill Editions ‘Classic Collection’ due to the masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal story-telling conveyed in his writing. He popularised the genre of the essay form, coining the term from the French verb ‘essayer’, translated literally as attempts or trials. This selection is introduced by Tim Parks and is from the M A Creech translation.

Attention! A (Short) History
Attention! A (Short) History

Joshua Cohen

A dazzling meditation on the philosophical, scientific, and historical roots of attention, an attempt to pin down this elusive state of being.

Still Life With A Bridle
Still Life With A Bridle

Zbigniew Herbert

A gathering of artful essays by one of Poland’s most translated post-war writers. Poet and essayist Zbigniew Herbert takes an intriguing look at the cultural, artistic, and aesthetic legacy of 17th-century Holland.

The Road to Apocalypse: The Extraordinary Journey of Lewis Way
The Road to Apocalypse: The Extraordinary Journey of Lewis Way

Stanley Price Munro Price

In 1811 eccentric millionaire Lewis Way had an epiphany on the road to Exmouth. From that moment he devoted himself to one goal: the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, revealing a forgotten life story.

Wandering Jew: The Search for Joseph Roth
Wandering Jew: The Search for Joseph Roth

Dennis Marks

In this revealing ‘psycho-geography’, Dennis Marks makes a journey through the eastern border­lands of Europe to uncover the truth about Roth’s lost world. The result is a riveting and involving documentary that reunites Roth with his creative and spiritual landscape.

A Short History of Power
A Short History of Power

Simon Heffer

Taking a panoramic view from the days of Thucydides up to the present, Heffer analyses the motive forces behind the pursuit of power, and, explains in a beautiful argument why history is destined to repeat itself.

Questions of Travel: William Morris in Iceland
Questions of Travel: William Morris in Iceland

Lavinia Greenlaw William Morris

The great Victorian William Morris was fascinated by Iceland, which inspired him to write one of the masterpieces of travel literature. Poet Lavinia Greenlaw follows in his footsteps, combining excerpts from his Icelandic writings with her own eye-witness response to the country and creates a highly original meditation – part memoir, part prose poem, part criticism, part travelogue.

No products have been found