{"title":"February 2023","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"from-purgatory-to-paradise","title":"From Purgatory to Paradise","description":"Han Meilin is a titan of contemporary Chinese art, from Olympic mascots to the tails of planes, his works have drawn worldwide recognition. But behind the fame, he was forged in the crucible of China’s Cultural Revolution. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn an uncertain political landscape where suspicion itself was as good as proof, the very thing that gave him purpose - his passion for art - doomed him to an indefinite Purgatory behind bars in No. 100 Dongshan detention centre. Branded a traitor to the revolution, he faced a decade of despair, but at its cruel depths, he discovered the values which would shape him as an artist. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow in conversation with the premier storyteller on China’s turbulent 1960s, Meilin recounts his turbulent path to Paradise. Filled with first-hand accounts of his complex relationship with the suffering he endured, and the many ways it continues to reverberate in the hyper-commercial today of the Middle Kingdom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ACA Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45156786274593,"sku":"9781838905385","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_4b69cae6-924a-401f-97b0-f3360c9a0317.jpg?v=1752240743"},{"product_id":"the-sojourn-teashop","title":"The Sojourn Teashop","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMorning brings\u003c\/b\u003e new and old faces to Hai Ruo’s teashop. The premium leaves she sells to Xijing’s high society keep the doors open, however it’s her Sisterhood – a dozen glamorous confidants who visit daily to share tales of love, loss and professional success – that really keeps the shop running.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom a returning Russian expat to a hotpot tycoon, they epitomise the new possibilities of this ancient metropolis. The group's rise in business and society is sometimes helped by Yi Guang, a noted writer with his own artistic demons. But with every deal struck and official bribed, a debt accumulates, jeopardising a hard-won but brittle autonomy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe gates of Hai’s establishment help keep the choking smog of the city at bay, and inside she provides a sanctuary for the friends to express their true selves. If only the tea leaves held all the answers. Instead, it’s up to the sisters to discover how far their bonds will \u003ci\u003ereally hold\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ACA Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45157543412001,"sku":"9781838905408","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_0e81d49c-2499-476b-b409-97f66503a89a.jpg?v=1752241390"},{"product_id":"memorial-29-june","title":"Memorial, 29 June","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCelebrated for her signature insight and precision, Tine Høeg returns with a wry, haunting, and riotously funny novel about how loss is bound up with the urge to create\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAsta is invited to a memorial. It’s been ten years since her university friend August died. The invitation disrupts everything – the novel she is working on and her friendship with Mai and her two-year-old son – reanimating longings, doubts, and the ghosts of parties past. Soon a new story begins to take shape. Not of the obscure Polish sculptor Asta wanted to write about, but of what really happened the night of August’s death, and in the stolen, exuberant days leading up to it. The story she has never dared reveal to Mai.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoving between Asta’s past and present, \u003cem\u003eMemorial, 29 June\u003c\/em\u003e is a novel about who we really are, and who we thought we would become. It’s a novel about the intensity with which we experience the world in our twenties, and how our ambitions, anxieties, and memories from that time never relinquish their grasp on how we encounter our future.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn prose that shimmers like poetry, masterfully translated by Misha Hoekstra, \u003cem\u003eMemorial, 29 June\u003c\/em\u003e is an urgent yet tender reminder that sometimes pain is where the love is, and that grief, however thorny, should never go unspoken.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Lolli Editions","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":44685203144993,"sku":"9781915267115","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_85915826-4933-421a-a7ed-01f6663902c2.jpg?v=1752241390"},{"product_id":"my-mummy-marches","title":"My Mummy Marches","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMummy says that some things can’t be said with just\nwords . . . Sometimes you have to say it with your feet.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA young girl watches her mummy proudly take to the streets to march for what she believes in. Mummy marches through the sunshine, through the rain and through the deepest snow, on her own or hand-in-hand with others, to give voice to causes that need to be heard. Inspired to join the next generation of young activists, her daughter dreams of marching alongside her.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA joyful story celebrating the power of peaceful protest and the will to change things for the better.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Lantana Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":44792890884385,"sku":"9781915244154","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_3df4ead3-3c3a-4860-ba30-bd817d97c4ca.jpg?v=1752241213"},{"product_id":"republic","title":"Republic","description":"This sequence of 80 prose-poems, each constructed in 20 sentences, has arisen from the author’s need to tell a more intimate history, to commit an untold oral history to paper. Williams returns to the meaning of “republic” in its Latin origins which meant “wealth of the people”. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe explosion of the arts and culture looms large, through bands from New Order to My Bloody Valentine, but it is explored specifically through C?l Cymru’, and the power of Welsh-language bands like Datblygu. This story is also about class, as we explore a family history of hard work in jobs from retail to caregiving. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are stories told, overheard, handed down, sometimes translated from Welsh. Together, they create an expansive portrait of the era, including the challenges for women, Welsh-speakers, and other marginalized groups. Ferocious remarks about the Welsh in the popular media are dissected with satirical humour and appalled fascination, while other poems describe being a token woman and political outsider on a TV current affairs show panel, tolerated but ostracized.\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, Williams poses the possibilities of a nation looking back at itself and its history from afar. Wales has not been allowed to be a republic, but is subject to a state that has military claims on its landscape and a second home explosion which has a severe impact on its communities. There is rebellion to be found in the older meaning of “republic”: since the wealth of the people is a wealth of sounded stories, culture, art, and history.","brand":"Seren","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44349628252449,"sku":"9781781726969","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_e6a31629-9300-430e-aea8-752effcb2609.jpg?v=1752239933"},{"product_id":"how-kyoto-breaks-your-heart","title":"How Kyoto Breaks Your Heart","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eHow Kyoto Breaks Your Heart\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a collection about the ways in which heartbreak can fill a place and make it impossible to stay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e20-something and uncertain about her future, Florentyna Leow is exhilarated when an old acquaintance offers her an opportunity for work and cohabitation in a little house in the hills of Kyoto.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFlorentyna begins a new job as a tour guide, taking tourists on elaborate and expensive trips around Kyoto’s cultural hotspots. Amidst the busy tourist traps and overrun temples, Florentyna develops her own personal map of the city: a favourite smoky jazz kissa; a top-shelf katsuobushi loving cat; an elderly lady named Yamaguchi-san, who shares her sweets and gives Florentyna a Japanese name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMeanwhile, her relationship with her new companion develops an intensity as they live and work together. Their little kitchen, the epicenter of their shared life, overlooks a community garden dominated by a fruitful persimmon tree. Their relationship burns bright, but seasons change, the persimmon tree out back loses its fruit, and things grow strange between the two women.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eHow Kyoto Breaks Your Heart\u003c\/i\u003e is a collection about the ways in which heartbreak can fill a place and make it impossible to stay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Emma Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44685424066849,"sku":"9781915628008","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_db9cc548-a6dc-4196-bf36-1630e1347a2d.jpg?v=1752239610"},{"product_id":"more-than-weeds","title":"More Than Weeds","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMore Than Weeds,\u003c\/i\u003e the debut poetry collection by L. Kiew, explores the language of\nmigration and how it is used in relation to plant and animal species, as well\nas peoples. These knowledgeable and verdant poems draw deeply on botanical and\necological detail and reveal secret histories thriving in the gaps between\ndefinitions; here are precious seedlings, unforced flowers, tongues of leaves,\ntangled roots and rhizomes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith roots in decolonialising botany and horticulture movements, and\ninfluenced by the impact of the climate crisis and regenerative gardening\npractices, Kiew’s poetry is alive and thronging with the interconnected nature\nof things – and the formative forces of nurture, family, food, refuge and love.\nHuman and plant voices speak for themselves of experiences of belonging and\ndisplacement, as well as encounters with violence. These vivid poems that ask\nus to scrutinise what is really contained or constrained by demarcations –\nwhether those of weed or wildflower, or of borders and hostile environments.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nine Arches Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44685282017569,"sku":"9781913437640","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_2552d684-2af3-4e14-948d-974bb2864ce0.jpg?v=1752240736"},{"product_id":"saved-to-cloud","title":"Saved to Cloud","description":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003ci\u003eThe algorithm\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eof my own life, faded\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eand spidery,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eis written,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003enot keyed in.\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom bombsites used as childhood playgrounds to lockdown FaceTime \ncalls, Kate Foley looks back on almost nine decades of life – a life \ncharacterised by curiosity, resistance and a strong connection with the \nnatural world. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAppreciation and concern for the planet runs through this frank and \nmoving collection, which muses on the notions of faith and belief, \nultimately rejecting both Whitehall politics and traditional religion as\n inadequate to deal with environmental crisis. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSimultaneously nostalgic and highly concerned with the future, Kate \nFoley’s candid reminiscence and simple use of language draw us softly \ninto consideration of life’s big questions: What’s it all for? How will \nwe be remembered?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWill it build again, our earth?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Arachne Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44658037096737,"sku":"9781913665760","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_cff93d80-2ed3-4ce5-81e6-b72824da2d76.jpg?v=1752239932"},{"product_id":"retrieved-attachments","title":"Retrieved Attachments","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe \u003cem\u003eRetrieved Attachments\u003c\/em\u003e in Peter Robinson’s new collection are to people and places, friends and loved ones, mentor poets and artists. Deploying the full range of his gifts, these poems are characteristically responsive both to fresh encounters and evocative returns.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePresented in five titled sections they revisit the landscapes of his years in Japan, find a way to tell the story of a heartbreak, return to familial locations in an unvisitable Italy, elegize or re-encounter companions and friends, and, for the final section, recover intimate senses of a locality’s flora and fauna.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeter Robinson has been described as ‘the finest poet of his generation’ (PN Review) and ‘a major English poet’ (Poetry Review). \u003cem\u003eRetrieved Attachments\u003c\/em\u003e again shows why.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Two Rivers Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44349631234337,"sku":"9781915048059","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_2cb98162-039b-4aea-aa20-5ac2a1561640.jpg?v=1752240965"},{"product_id":"balkan-bombshells","title":"Balkan Bombshells","description":"\u003cb\u003eA collection to whet the appetite of anyone wishing to learn more about a region rich in history, folklore and (her)stories. Telling it like a woman does not mean literature for women only: it provides an insight into h\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ealf of humanity, a window onto the lives of citizens who work, love and develop their inner lives. This collection brings together the voices of a wide selection of prize-winning and established authors:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eBalkan Bombshells\u003c\/i\u003e brings together established Serbian and Montenegrin writers like Svetlana Slapšak, Jelena Lengold (winner of the EU Prize for Literature 2013), Dana Todorovi? and Olja Kne?evi? (author of Catherine the Great and the Small, Istros 2020), together with a select group of up-coming writers: Marijana ?anak (1982, Serbia): “Awakened” (Probu?ena) follows the early years of a girl from a very simple background, who discovers she has extrasensory powers. A gruesome fascination with biology allows her to attend high school, where she ends up sewing a voodoo doll to take revenge on a molesting teacher. Marijana Doli? (1990, Bosnia-Herzegovina \u0026amp; Serbia): “Notes from the attic” (Zapisi iz potkrovlja), originally diary entries, are intense mediatations on faith, love and hope – poignant testimony to a struggle to cope in difficult times. Ana Miloš (1992, Serbia): “Peace” (Mir) portrays a woman struggling with disparate feelings after her only child dies. She has long since broken up with the child’s father. She enjoys finally having time for herself, but she has to confront accusations of people around her that she is heartless. Once a mother, always a mother? Katarina Mitrovi? (1991, Serbia):“Small death” (Mala smrt). We are introduced to a fearful young woman who is far from happy with life, and we follow her on a summer holiday by the Adriatic, where a halfhearted romantic adventure takes a scary turn. Andrea Popov Mileti? (1985, Serbia):|: excerpt from the novel Young pioneers, we are seaweed (Pioniri maleni, mi smo morska trava; 2019). This stand-alone excerpt is a poetic flashback to her childhood in the province of Vojvodina in the Yugoslav era, to holidays by the Mediterranean, and to feelings of belonging and home. Lena Ruth Stefanovi? (1970, Sebria\/ Montenegro): “Zhenya” is a fragment from her 2016 novel Daughter of the Childless Man (Š?er onoga bez ?ece), is an entertaining meta-story about an ordinary woman in the late Soviet Union, whom the author decides to grant a new lease of life, so Zhenya studies languages, becomes a mondain writer and moves with her new husband to Montenegro, where the author loses track of her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"istros books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45156306256161,"sku":"9781912545841","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_0c364529-2f79-4e7e-b074-3bc084ecbf32.jpg?v=1752240735"},{"product_id":"the-confession-of-hilary-durwood","title":"The Confession of Hilary Durwood","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eHilary Durwood writes his father a letter of confession from the London gaol in which he awaits execution. Eager for glory as an explorer in the further reaches of the Empire he is duped into undertaking a semi-mythical mission, in semi-mythical lands. After many adventures and setbacks he returns to London destitute, dismayed at having killed someone, and seeking revenge against the Gentleman Explorer who set him up. Meanwhile a serial killer, The Slasher, stalks the streets and inevitably their paths will cross…\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHilary has survived dangerous islanders who are intent on eating human flesh, a huge cat with a wooden leg, a giant centipede, and a man who is determined to taste every animal on the planet. He has been fed by birds bringing hallucinogenic berries and held up the crumbling Tower of Ectha. And now Hilary must write his final letter and contemplate the nature of murder and of guilt. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis dark comedy thriller is a page-turning and riotous engagement with the notions and myths of Empire, the nature of reality, the power of narrative and the gullibility of those who wish to believe, even in the face of the truth.\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Seren","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44349631299873,"sku":"9781781726983","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_d7fb7d23-ded9-4665-98d7-1d4a09c2aa62.jpg?v=1752239932"},{"product_id":"the-hauntings","title":"The Hauntings","description":"Many lives and ideas shape us and our environment. Some forge hope, some threaten our very being, some point to redemption for those who come after. In a love that might sustain us, they can be a manifested present; in their passing, a living prompt to be better.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuch embodiments haunt this poetry collection – where ghosts of lives that reflect the white light of the world rest alongside ghosts of other relationships. These hauntings can inspire us to \u003cbr\u003eprogress or alert us to the dangers of statecraft – the ravages of war, displacement and exile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Hauntings\u003c\/i\u003e is a passionate response to love and its absence, to a sense of community and place from the Pennines and beyond, and of home, wherever that might be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Valley Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44349631332641,"sku":"9781915606068","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_db9758ff-afcc-4b9f-aa12-a266095bf163.jpg?v=1752240735"},{"product_id":"the-magnificent-vanishing-act","title":"The Magnificent Vanishing Act","description":"With his first collection, Matt Riker takes us on a journey where we cannot be sure if we're awake or dreaming – if what we perceive is real or imagined. Circling love and family, nature and society, science and mythology, these poems bring both the surprising and the miraculous into sharp focus. But like words, all things are subject to change – some are lost, others gained. Riker looks inwards outwards, to distant places and times, to distant places and times, to the essence of consciousness. In poems both personal and philosophical, the intimate and the cerebral are entwined with the richness and ambiguity of existence.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Valley Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44349632479521,"sku":"9781915606112","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"ten-planets","title":"Ten Planets","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe characters that populate Yuri\nHerrera’s first collection of stories inhabit imagined futures that reveal the\nstrangeness and instability of the present. Drawing on science fiction, noir,\nand the philosophical parables of Borges’s \u003ci\u003eFictions \u003c\/i\u003eand Calvino’s \u003ci\u003eCosmicomics\u003c\/i\u003e,\nthese very short stories signal a new dimension in the work of this significant\nwriter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eTen Planets\u003c\/i\u003e, objects can be\nsentient and might rebel against the unhappy human family to which they are\nattached. A detective of sorts finds clues to buried secrets by studying the\nnoses of his clients, which he insists are covert maps. A meagre bacterium in a\nhuman intestine gains consciousness when a psychotropic drug is ingested.\nMonsters and aliens abound, but in the fiction of Herrera, knowing who is the\nmonster and who the alien is a tricky proposition.\u003c\/p\u003e \n\nThis collection of stories, with a breadth that ranges from\nphilosophical flights of fancy to the gritty detective story, leaves us with a\nsense of awe at our world and the worlds beyond our ken, while Herrera\ncontinues to develop his exploration of the mutability of borders, the wounds\nand legacy of colonial violence, and a deep love of storytelling in all its\nforms.\n\n\n\n \n                 \n  \u003cp\u003e‘Brilliant, ecstatic and playful, \u003ci\u003eTen Planets\u003c\/i\u003e is the\nwork of one of the most original and prodigiously gifted writers at work today.\nThe grammar of a nose, a skeleton in a shoebox, a consciousness acquiring\nbacterium and a sentient house – the infinite worlds of this story collection\nare further proof that Herrera is a writer of boundless talent.’ Katie Kitamura\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n \n\n           \n        \n  \n\n        \n      \n     \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"And Other Stories","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45157269733665,"sku":"9781913505608","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/original_a75bc41a-ec58-4ec8-b681-a8ae6ef47c1b.jpg?v=1752240964"}],"url":"https:\/\/inpressbooks.co.uk\/collections\/february-2023\/edited-by-will-firth.oembed","provider":"Inpress Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}