{"title":"The Best Books of 2017","description":"Christmas isn't all about other people, it's also about treating yourself, so what better way to celebrate finishing your Christmas shopping than curling up with a good book? Use the code TREATYOURSELF for 30% off all of our favourite books from 2017.","products":[{"product_id":"the-toll","title":"The Toll","description":"\u003cp\u003e“One of the funniest and most brilliant poets of his generation.”   \u003ci\u003eThe Independent \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The best young performance poet around.”   \u003ci\u003eThe Observer \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Visceral, poignant and riotously funny.”   \u003ci\u003eThe Scotsman \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe new collection from one of Britain’s most popular poets, \u003ci\u003eThe Toll\u003c\/i\u003e is a tighly-wrought book on politics, family and a crumbling society that sees \u003cspan\u003e\u003cb\u003eLuke Wright \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003eat the peak of his powers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHoned on roads, stages and radio shows across the UK, this stunningly crafted new collection demands the cost of living in the contemporary world and explores the toll it takes on us all.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penned in the Margins","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":39907953934414,"sku":"9781908058423","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/Penned_in_the_Margins_-_The_Toll.jpg?v=1752240325"},{"product_id":"coronership-cowgirl","title":"Cornership Cowgirl","description":"\u003cp\u003eA first full poetry collection from this Bishop Auckland writer, \u003ci\u003eCorner Shop Cowgirl\u003c\/i\u003e is a highly unusual mix of verse which manages to see the declining industrial communities of Teesside often through the lens of the USA’s famous Wild West.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThus the first poem 'Reach for the Sky' runs as follows:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlood stone canyon\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRed sand\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReflecting hot the sun\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sliver of snake skin in the dust, Survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven the charity shops have shut.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Iron Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":28988613193,"sku":"9780995457911","price":7.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/Iron_Press_-_Corner_Shop_Cowgirl.png?v=1752239246"},{"product_id":"madwoman","title":"Madwoman","description":"\u003cp\u003eAlthough at times haunting and elusive, the poems in \u003cspan\u003e\u003cb\u003eShara McCallum\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e's latest collection \u003ci\u003eMadwoman\u003c\/i\u003e are transformative, seeking to chart and intertwine three stages of a mother's life from childhood to adulthood to motherhood. Rich with the complexities that join these states of being, the poems wrestle with the idea of being girl, woman and mother at once. McCallum questions how we form our identities and who shapes those identities for us. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“These wonderful poems open a world of sensation and memory. But it is a world revealed by language, never just controlled. The voice that guides the action here is openhearted and openminded—a lyric presence that never deserts the subject or the reader. Syntax, craft and cadence add to the gathering music from poem to poem with—to use a beautiful phrase from the book, ‘each note tethering sound to meaning.\" \u003cspan\u003e\u003cb\u003e Eavan Boland\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Peepal Tree Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":28989626249,"sku":"9781845233395","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/9781845233396.jpg?v=1752239718"},{"product_id":"little-blue-hut","title":"Little Blue Hut","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2011 \u003cstrong\u003eNancy Charley\u003c\/strong\u003e spent six weeks in a little blue beach hut on Tankerton Slopes, near Whitstable on the Kent coast, recording the changing tides and shifting moods of the shingle beach. \u003cem\u003eLittle Blue Hut\u003c\/em\u003e is a book about weather and water, bladderwrack and gutweed, swimmers, dog-walkers and sea anglers, cormorants and blackheaded gulls, ‘resident birds’ and ‘transient people’. And always the horizon where sky merges with sea.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the first half of the book the Water-Watcher tells her tale, exploring the mysteries and the\u003cbr\u003e‘bizarreries’ of the Thames Estuary and finding, like a beachcomber, myth and poetry in the rarely noticed details of everyday life. In the second half of the book a woman is summoned by the three female genii of the coast – Luna, Marina and Hertha. Helped by the birds, she discovers who she might be, whilst berthed in the safety of the\u003cem\u003e Little Blue Hut\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Smokestack Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":29535950345,"sku":"9780993454783","price":7.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/Smokestack_Books_-_Little_Blue_Hut.jpg?v=1752239460"},{"product_id":"ticker-tape","title":"Ticker-Tape","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom politics to pop, from the UK to California, wherever digital heartbeats flutter and stutter, \u003cem\u003eTicker-tape\u003c\/em\u003e is a maximalist take on 21st century living. \u003cstrong\u003eRishi Dastidar\u003c\/strong\u003e’s first full collection showcases one of contemporary poetry’s most distinctive voices, delivering effervescence with equal servings of panache and whiplash-quick wit. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere is sheer madcap ingenuity and also impressive breadth; ranging from odes of love to deconstructed diversity campaigns and detonations of banter’s worst excesses, plus appearances from ex-SugaBabes, a shark who comes to tea, to the matters of matchstick empires and national identity. \u003cem\u003eTicker-tape\u003c\/em\u003e is bold, adventuresome and wry – an unmissable and irrepressible debut. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nine Arches Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":39906952970318,"sku":"9781911027171","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/Nine_Arches_Press_-_Ticker-Tape.jpg?v=1752240315"},{"product_id":"writing-motherhood","title":"Writing Motherhood","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis book presents a chorus of voices on the wonders and terrors of motherhood, and the ways that a creative life can be both ignited and\/or disrupted by the pressures of raising children. Featuring thought-provoking essays, interviews and poetry by high-profile writers on their experiences of creating art while also engaged in the compelling, exhausting, exhilarating work of motherhood, this important anthology reconsiders ‘the pram in the hallway’ as explosively nuanced. Entries include an insightful interview with Pulitzer prize-winning poet \u003cstrong\u003eSharon Olds\u003c\/strong\u003e, excerpts from \u003cstrong\u003eHollie McNish\u003c\/strong\u003e’s motherhood diary, \u003cstrong\u003eCarol Ann Duffy\u003c\/strong\u003e’s beautiful portrait of being and having a daughter, and specially commissioned poems by \u003cstrong\u003eSinead Morrissey\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eRebecca Goss\u003c\/strong\u003e, and many others. Crime fiction fans will enjoy \u003cstrong\u003eCL Taylor\u003c\/strong\u003e’s witty essay, ‘How Motherhood Turned Me to Crime’, and \u003cstrong\u003eNuala Ellwood\u003c\/strong\u003e’s heart-wrenching depiction of miscarriage and loss. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy engaging with both the creation of literature by mothers and literary representations of motherhood, the work is a vital exploration of the complexities of contemporary sexual politics, publishing, artistic creation, and 21\u003csup\u003est\u003c\/sup\u003e-century parenting.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Seren","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":31418942153,"sku":"9781781723760","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/Writing_Motherhood.jpg?v=1752241283"},{"product_id":"tan-raptures","title":"Tan Raptures","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTaking its title from the brown envelopes that strike fear into benefit-claimants and the biblical ‘Rapture’, \u003cstrong\u003eAlan Morrison\u003c\/strong\u003e’s eighth collection imagines these letters as passports to a twisted Tory notion of salvation through benefit sanction. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eT\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003ean Raptures\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a series of verse-missives from the frontline of the war against the poor and its spirit-stripping weapons of food banks, poor doors and homeless spikes. It’s a people’s history, from Dale Farm and the firebombing of the Freedom Bookshop to Troika-shackled Athens, featuring the Bryant \u0026amp; May Matchgirls, the International Brigades, the Runnymede Diggers, Los Indignados, Gerrard Winstanley, Joe Hill, Wal Hannington, Conrad Noël and Christopher Caudwell. The title poem is a Catholic Socialist polemic in opposition to self-proclaimed ‘Roman Catholic’ Iain Duncan Smith’s despotic six year grip at the DWP.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Smokestack Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":32905688201,"sku":"9780995563506","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/Smokestack_Books_-_Tan_Raptures.jpg?v=1752239715"},{"product_id":"stairs-and-whispers-d-deaf-and-disabled-poets-write-back","title":"Stairs and Whispers: D\/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSandra Alland\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003eKhairani Barokka\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003cstrong\u003eDaniel Sluman\u003c\/strong\u003e co-edit \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\" style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003eStairs and Whispers: D\/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\"\u003e, a ground-breaking anthology examining the poetics of disabled and D\/deaf cultures. With contributions that span Vispo to Surrealism, and range from hard-hitting political commentary to intimate lyrical pieces – these poets refuse to perform or inspire according to tired old narratives. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\"\u003eFive years after the seminal U.S. anthology,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\" style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003e Beauty is a Verb\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\"\u003e, Nine Arches Press brings you its exciting UK progeny:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\" style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003e Stairs and Whispers.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\"\u003e The first of its kind and packed with fierce poetry, essays, photos and links to accessible online videos, this book showcases a diversity of styles, opinions, and survival strategies for a world that often works to shut us down.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nine Arches Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":39906939338830,"sku":"9781911027195","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/Nine_Arches_Press_-_Stairs_and_Whispers.jpg?v=1752241425"},{"product_id":"the-debutante-and-other-stories","title":"The Debutante and Other Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Leonora Carrington has unswervingly followed the intensity of her own particular vision and way of being . . . Her work bristles with a fierce, unconventional brand of feminism; anger gives it its final edge of irony and power.\" \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eAngela Carter \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Leonora Carrington is a true one-off, but she has a place in that bright constellation of absurdists, fabulists and dream voyagers, alongside Artaud and Lewis Carroll, Firbank and Gertrude Stein, Angela Carter and Patti Smith. But for far too long her unmistakable voice, wonderfully strange and funny, could only be heard and savoured over beloved, read-to-bits old copies of her writings. So all congratulations now to Silver Press for brilliantly bringing back into print this rich collection of her incomparable tales.\" \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMarina Warner\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 14.6667px;\"\u003e\"Leonora Carrington is so inspiring . . . I love her freedom, her humour and how her work invents its own laws. What specifically do I take from her? Her wig.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eBj\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eörk\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Romantic heroines, beautiful and terrible . . . come back to life in women like Leonora Carrington.\" \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOctavio Paz \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA debutante frees a hyena from the zoo so that it might take her place at her coming-out ball; an artist paints a portrait of a man’s dead wife, but finds she has painted herself instead; a woman makes love to a boar underneath a mountain of cats; a chicken is roasted with the brains and livers of thrushes, truffles, crushed sweet almonds, rose conserve and drops of divine liqueur; two noble sisters wonder whether anybody can be ‘a person of quality if they wash away their ghosts with common sense’; a psychoanalyst must decide what to do with the gift of a team of Russian rats trained to operate on humans. In this first complete edition of \u003cstrong\u003eLeonora Carrington\u003c\/strong\u003e’s short stories, written throughout her life from her early years in Surrealist Paris to her late period in Dirty War-era Mexico City, the world is by turns subversive, funny, sly, wise and disarming.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Silver Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":32977142217,"sku":"9780995716209","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/carrington.jpg?v=1752240311"},{"product_id":"kingdom-of-gravity","title":"Kingdom of Gravity","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn direct narrative terms the poems in this collection relate to the horrors of the civil war that ousted the brutal tyranny of Idi Amin in Uganda, a war of liberation that brought its own barbarous atrocities. In political terms the poems chart the impact of imperialism and neo-colonialism that lay behind those traumas in the life of the nation. In personal terms, the poems are framed between the contrary pulls of attachment and flight, exile and longing. At their heart is an unwavering curiosity about how people behave in extreme situations, and what this reveals about our common human capacities to indulge grandiose visions, betray them, dissemble, seek revenge and kill. There is no presumption of innocence. There may be flight, but there is no standing aside. The narrator can dream (but is it a dream?) of a “dead man\/who has been stung by the invisible bee of my bullet”.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is much darkness of reference in the collection, but also a hopeful search for truthfulness and trust as the only things that matter. The poems -- as poems of grace, control and beauty of image – demonstrate the power of the best poetry to speak of difficult things in a way that enlightens, not merely horrifies. The care in the making and shaping of the poems bears witness to the evident fact that for Nick Makoha poetry became “This rock […] a sanctuary from which I can repair the ruins”.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Peepal Tree Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":33112418441,"sku":"9781845233334","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/9781845233334_0.jpg?v=1752239715"},{"product_id":"to-sweeten-bitter","title":"To Sweeten Bitter","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTo Sweeten the Bitter\u003c\/i\u003e is a collection by British Jamaican poet,\u003cstrong\u003e Raymond Antrobus\u003c\/strong\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the death of his father, Raymond returns to Jamaica but restless questions begin to unearth inside him (\u003ci\u003eWho I am now is something I need to remember\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Upon returning to the UK Raymond travelled to Bristol, Liverpool, Hastings, Hull and around London to meditate in the places where the pain and grief of history is bigger than his own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Consider the name of \u003cstrong\u003eRaymond Antrobus\u003c\/strong\u003e’ extraordinary collection of poems for a moment: \u003cem\u003eTo Sweeten Bitter\u003c\/em\u003e. It’s a phrase of infinite possibility and tender worry, open and searching, wanting and volatile. And in this sense, it serves as a kind of secret refrain for us, a haunted current that charges after each line and image, each heart-fraught question (“you think you’re going \/ to go free?”) and tentative hope (“there is always enough time \/ in our lives to see \/ what we must see”). Here, a father laughs “you cannot love sugar and hate your sweetness” and a son reckons with all that might mean “in the scratched light” of history and the “turning \/ and the losing of myself.” Derek Walcott once reflected that “I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer;” these poems— in all their urgent beauty—affirm that faith, embody it.\" - R.A. Villanueva\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Out-Spoken Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":39960141889614,"sku":"9780993103872","price":8.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/Out-Spoken_Press_-_To_Sweeten_Bitter.png?v=1752239547"},{"product_id":"afterhours","title":"#Afterhours","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\"\u003eIn 2015,\u003cstrong\u003e Inua Ellams\u003c\/strong\u003e was poet in residence at the Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre in London. His #Afterhours project took him on a voyage of cultural translation and transposition through time and place, to the heart of the libraries' rare books collection, and through his own life’s story as he selected poems published during each year of his life, from birth to the age of 18. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\"\u003eIn return, Ellams opens up a captivating and potent dialogue between poems, writing a diary and intricately-crafted poems of his own in conversational response to the poems he selected from the Poetry Library collections. Here, for the first time together, are the collected \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\" style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003e#Afterhours\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"textnormal mobile-undersized-upper\"\u003e poems alongside the re-discovered poems which inspired them and the diary entries which follow this journey. In Ellams’ meticulous hands, this becomes an entire narrative in its own right, compelling and magnetic, drawing parallels of displacement, language and reclamation, and showing poetry’s great capacity to be a powerful amplifier of human experience.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Nine Arches Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":34397707337,"sku":"9781911027164","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0441\/7369\/products\/Nine_Arches_Press_-_Afterhours.jpg?v=1752240307"},{"product_id":"this-is-not-a-rescue","title":"This is Not a Rescue","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThis Is Not a Rescue\u003c\/em\u003e is the eagerly-awaited debut collection from \u003cstrong\u003eEmily Blewitt\u003c\/strong\u003e. These poems move in various registers, keyed to their subject-matter. There are pieces that take a playful approach to the author’s native Wales (‘How to Explain \u003cem\u003eHiraeth\u003c\/em\u003e to an Englishman’, ‘How to Marry a Welsh Girl’) which resist cliché by subverting our expectations. Similarly, there are several sharp, satirical poems about modern office life; these paint a familiar scene, redolent of boredom and lechery (‘When I Think of Bald Men’, ‘The Question’).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe author’s coolly intelligent wit is to the fore in ‘Devouring Jane’, which updates Jane Austen’s heroes for a 21st-century Elizabeth Bennet. There are also a number of instructional poems, survival guides for the modern heroine: ‘Woman Poet’, ‘Self-Defence’, ‘Things My Dance Teacher Used to Say’. These contrast with some intensely personal lyrics that touch on childhood trauma, on depression, on sexual and domestic violence (‘When in Recovery’, ‘Sometimes I Think of Chapel’, ‘Forgiveness’). The revealing honesty of these pieces makes for compelling reading.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are also poems inspired by popular culture, for a TV and internet-saturated age: ‘The Walking Wed’, ‘On Watching \u003cem\u003eParanormal Witness\u003c\/em\u003e’, ‘Boba Fett and the Sarlacc’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerhaps most striking, however, are the number of startlingly beautiful love poems: ‘The Philobrutist’, ‘I Threw Myself at You’, ‘We Broke Up’, ‘Navigation Points’. Often a poem will initially seem to be about a landscape or an animal – say, a bird (‘Honeyguide’) – but this ostensible subject matter is a mere prelude to subtle declarations of passion, of yearning, of desire. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlso here are two sequences: one inspired by crows, and the other by a favourite cat. 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