A radical new examination of the transition into motherhood and how it affects the mind, brain and body During pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood, women undergo a far-reaching physiological, psychological and social metamorphosis. Other than during adolescence, there is no other time in a human's life with such dramatic change, yet science, medicine, and philosophy have neglected this life-altering transition. Its seismic effects go largely unrepresented across literature and the arts. Speaking about motherhood as anything other than a pastel-hued dream remains, for the most part, taboo. In this ground-breaking, deeply personal investigation, acclaimed journalist and author Lucy Jones brings to light the emerging concept of 'matrescence'. Drawing on new research across various fields—neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics and ecology—Jones shows how the changes in the maternal mind, brain, and body are far more profound, wild, and enduring than we have been led to believe. She reveals the dangerous consequences of our neglect of the maternal experience, and interrogates the patriarchal and capitalist systems that have created the untenable situation mothers face today. Here is an urgent examination of the modern institution of motherhood that seeks to unshackle all parents from oppressive social norms. As it deepens our understanding of matrescence, it raises vital questions about motherhood and femininity; interdependence and individual identity; and our relationships with each other and the world.

In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother's death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, Vuong's poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break. The author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award, the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize, and a 2019 MacArthur fellow, Vuong writes directly to our humanity without losing sight of the current moment. These poems represent a more innovative and daring experimentation with language and form, illuminating how the themes we perennially live in and question are truly inexhaustible. Bold and prescient, and a testament to tenderness in the face of violence, Time Is a Mother is a return and a forging forth all at once.

Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. The woman at the center wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home, an engaging backdrop to her days, acts as a confidant: the sidewalks around her house, parks, bridges, piazzas, streets, stores, coffee bars. We follow her to the pool she frequents and to the train station that sometimes leads her to her mother, mired in a desperate solitude after her father's untimely death. In addition to colleagues at work, where she never quite feels at ease, she has girl friends, guy friends, and "him," a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. But in the arc of a year, as one season gives way to the next, transformation awaits. One day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun's vital heat, her perspective will change. This is the first novel she has written in Italian and translated into English. It brims with the impulse to cross barriers. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, Lahiri has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement.

From poet and classicist Anne Carson comes this translation of the work of Sappho, together with the original Greek. During her life on the island of Lesbos, Sappho is said to have composed nine books of lyrics. Only one poem has survived complete. In "If Not, Winter", Carson presents all the extant fragments of Sappho's verse, employing brackets and white space to denote missing text - allowing the reader to imagine the poems as they were written. Carson says of her method of "I like to think that, the more I stand out of the way, the more Sappho shows through". Her translation illuminates Sappho's reflections on love and desire, her companions and rivals, the goddess Aphrodite and her own daughter, Kleis. The book brings us an ancient poet brought to life by an empathetic contemporary poet, and is complete with an introduction and notes.

Anne Carson' s first full-length publication in Britain, Glass and God introduces an assured and challenging new voice: vivid, laconic, precise. Her 'Short Talks' are about everything from Sylvia Plath to Franz Kafka, from waterproofing to walking backwards; the brilliant long poem 'The Glass Essay' deals with the end of a contemporary love affair, but is haunted by the Brontë sisters. Blending the modern and the classical, Anne Carson writes with an intensity and an integrity that is transfiguring.

Inspired by the mapping of Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, Land, the new novel from the author of Hamnet, is at once intimate and a portrait of a family navigating a legacy of upheaval and loss with love and hope. On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster. The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tomás is unexpectedly sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tomás and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping, and get them both home? Land is a novel about separation and reunion, tragedy and recovery, colonisation and rebellion. It is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away. As spellbinding and various as the landscape that inspired it, Land is, above all, a story of survival, for our times, and for all time.

'One of the most powerful medical memoirs of recent years' WATERSTONES'Surrendering to what happens to us, to find joy and meaning in spite of it, is the bravest and most wise choice we can make and this book is an extraordinary one to inspire just that' MIRANDA HART'Astonishing, important, and truly radical ... this book is completely transformative' POLLY MORLAND'A beautiful, powerful, indelible read. Superb' RACHEL CLARKE, GuardianIt wasn't a car crash, but there was a collision. He fell from the third floor. At the age of twenty-two, Grace Spence Green's spine was broken at the fourth thoracic vertebra, and her life changed tracks. One day, she was in hospital supporting patients, the next she was one.To Exist As I Am traces Grace's journey back to the wards and back to herself - as words like recovery, independence and community, well and unwell, took on new meanings. Through her extraordinary story, she asks how we might fight for change, while joyously embracing life exactly as we are.'Essential reading' XAND VAN TULLEKEN'Inspiring and life-affirming' VIV GROSKOP'It'll change the way you think about disability. Stop whatever it is that you're reading and read Grace Spence Green instead' GAVIN FRANCIS'Unputdownable, awe-inspiring, necessary' GABRIEL WESTON'So true and so beautiful' TOM SHAKESPEARE

For over a century, LGBTQ+ bookshops have been the unsung heroes of queer liberation Home not only to books but chaotic community noticeboards, vicious rescue cats and countless meet cutes, queer bookshops have always been more than just bookshops, offering friendship, solidarity and sanctuary. Travelling the world – Shakespeare and Company in Paris, Gay’s the Word in London, the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York – A. J. West explores the remarkable history of these bookstores. Tracing their evolution from under-the-counter operations to beloved out-and-proud institutions, West reveals how the queer bookshop stood at the vanguard of LGBTQ+ rights, offering support and vital information through the AIDS crisis and bringing the fight to Section 28 and book bans. A powerful testament not only to bookshops but to the courage of queer booksellers, from Sylvia Beach hiding books from the Nazis in laundry baskets to Craig Rodwell facing off against the police at the Stonewall riots, A. J. West celebrates the shops and booksellers that brought queer literature and lives into the mainstream.

'You deserve to exist as your biggest, unapologetic and most whole self. You always have done.'Bestselling author Megan Jayne Crabbe lays bare all the ways we shrink ourselves in today's world, and how to break free.From body ideals to bad break ups, sexual shame to toxic productivity, Megan interrogates how cultural and internal narratives diminish us and explores what we can do to ditch social pressures and live life as our fullest and boldest selves.Candid, empowering and insightful, We Don't Make Ourselves Smaller Here is a powerful rallying cry for embracing authenticity in all areas of our lives. It is an invitation to revisit the places where parts of us were lost, taken or given away, and to reclaim them.

Hunter School is a timely piece of fiction, drawing on the recollections, folklore, and autobiographical stories of an aboriginal Taiwanese man aiming to reconnect with his lost tribal identity a Paiwan identity lost in the name of development. It is impossible to be unaware of the effect of development, invariably at the hands of outsiders, upon the lands, inhabitants and very nature of faraway climes. Hunter School shows us first-hand the immediate and long-reaching effects of such changes upon an indigenous people. The fabric of the community is changed, its balance and its self-sufficiency undermined, and confusion reigns. A common theme running throughout this charming but important book is that of a young man learning about himself and his heritage from the past, elders, ancestors, and nature itself. This award-winning book is a highly readable and touching work, and an insight into a unique and endangered society. It serves also as a clarion call for action and awareness.

Return to Wonderland in this extraordinary reimagining of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by one of our most brilliant storytellers ‘Spectacular!’ Kiran Millwood Hargrave ‘An absolute masterclass’ Hannah Gold ‘I absolutely loved it’ Katie Tsang ‘Beautiful and witty’ Pari Thomson England, 1919. Alyce – with a Y – lives with her grandmother, the original Alice, having lost her father during the Great War. When a mysterious invitation to a tea party hits her square in the face, Alyce realises her grandmother’s strange stories of a place called Wonderland might have some truth to them after all. But the land Alyce finds herself in feels different from the Wonderland of her grandmother’s stories – for it is trapped in its own war. The Sun King and the Queen of the Moon are fighting over a stolen hour, and soon Alyce is tasked with setting it right. With the help of the Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and a Sailor Fox, Alyce will have to solve Wonderland’s problems and, eventually, find her way back home. Enter an enchanting adventure through Wonderland. Starring new characters and old favourites, Alice With a Why is both a celebration of Lewis Carroll's beloved original story, and a modern masterpiece. *Includes bonus chapters from Anna’s epic fantasy, Chronicles of Whetherwhy and the original Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland*