It’s Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer by A. A. Milne (21 Sep 2017)
In It’s Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer, A. A Milne, with his characteristic self-deprecating humour, recalls a blissfully happy childhood in the company of his brothers and writes with touching affection about his father whom he adored. From Westminster School he won a scholarship to Cambridge University where he edited the university magazine, Granta. He then went out into the world, determined to be a writer. He was assistant editor at Punch Magazine and enjoyed great success with his novels, plays and stories. And of course he is best remembered for his children’s novels and verses featuring Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin. This is both an account of how a writer was formed and a charming period piece on literary life – Milne met countless famous authors including H. G. Wells, J.M Barrie of Peter Pan fame and Rudyard Kipling.
Rosalind: A Biography of Shakespeare’s Immortal Heroine by Angela Thirlwell (1 Oct 2017)
Angela Thirlwell explores the fictitious life and the many after-lives of Rosalind, Shakespeare’s progressive new heroine, and her perennial influence on drama, fiction and art.
The book ranges widely across Tudor history, theatre history, sexual politics, autobiography, art history and filmography.
This highly original ‘biography’ of Rosalind – Shakespeare’s greatest female creation – contains exclusive new interviews with Juliet Rylance, Sally Scott, Janet Suzman, Juliet Stevenson, Michelle Terry, award-winning director Blanche McIntyre, as well as insights from Michael Attenborough, Kenneth Branagh, Greg Doran, Rebecca Hall, Adrian Lester, Pippa Nixon, Vanessa Redgrave and Fiona Shaw.
Logical Family: A Memoir by Armistead Maupin (5 Oct 2017)
‘A sweet, filthy peach of a memoir from a cultural explosion of a man.’
CAITLIN MORAN
Born in the mid-twentieth century and raised in the heart of conservative North Carolina, Armistead Maupin lost his virginity to another man “on the very spot where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.” Realizing that the South was too small for him, this son of a traditional lawyer packed his earthly belongings into his Opel GT (including a beloved portrait of a Confederate ancestor), and took to the road in search of adventure. It was a journey that would lead him from a homoerotic Navy initiation ceremony in the jungles of Vietnam to that strangest of strange lands: San Francisco in the early 1970s.
Reflecting on the profound impact those closest to him have had on his life, Maupin shares his candid search for his “logical family,” the people he could call his own. “Sooner or later, we have to venture beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us,” he writes. “We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives.” From his loving relationship with his palm-reading Grannie who insisted Maupin was the reincarnation of her artistic bachelor cousin, Curtis, to an awkward conversation about girls with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office, Maupin tells of the extraordinary individuals and situations that shaped him into one of the most influential writers of the last century.
Maupin recalls his losses and life-changing experiences with humor and unflinching honesty, and brings to life flesh-and-blood characters as endearing and unforgettable as the vivid, fraught men and women who populate his enchanting novels. What emerges is an illuminating portrait of the man who depicted the liberation and evolution of America’s queer community over the last four decades with honesty and compassion―and inspired millions to claim their own lives.
Keeping On Keeping On by Alan Bennett (5 Oct 2017)
‘I seem to have banged on this year rather more than usual. I make no apology for that, nor am I nervous that it will it make a jot of difference. I shall still be thought to be kindly, cosy and essentially harmless. I am in the pigeon-hole marked ‘no threat’ and did I stab Judi Dench with a pitchfork I should still be a teddy bear.’
Alan Bennett’s third collection of prose Keeping On Keeping On follows in the footsteps of the phenomenally successful Writing Home and Untold Stories, each published ten years apart. This latest collection contains Bennett’s peerless diaries 2005 to 2015, reflecting on a decade that saw four premieres at the National Theatre (The Habit of Art, People, Hymn and Cocktail Sticks), a West End double-bill transfer, and the films of The History Boys and The Lady in the Van.
There’s a provocative sermon on private education given before the University at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, and ‘Baffled at a Bookcase’ offers a passionate defence of the public library. This is an engaging, humane, sharp, funny and unforgettable record of life according to the inimitable Alan Bennett.
Monograph by Chris Ware (10 Oct 2017)
The first and much-anticipated monograph by multi-award winning cartoonist and graphic novelist Chris Ware, chronicling his influential quarter-century career. While illustrator Chris Ware s singular body of work is often categorized as comics, his trailblazing work defies genre. Whether he is writing graphic novels, making paintings, or building sculptures, Ware explores universal themes of social isolation, emotional torment, and depression with his trademark self-effacing voice. The end result is wry, highly empathetic, and identifiable to all walks of life. Ware, like Charles Schulz, Art Spiegelman, and R. Crumb, has elevated cartooning to an iconic art form. This volume is a personal, massive, never-before-seen look at how the artist s life and work combine, beginning with his newspaper family and the influence of their work; his art-school days in Austin and Chicago; to his career from the early 1990s to the present day. It also delves into how, as a storyteller and builder, his near-compulsion to build in three dimensions feeds into the thinking of his innovative narrative art. The book contains a comprehensive collection of his work, including many previously unpublished examples, and is an intimate window into a comics master sure to appeal to fans of art and storytelling.
South Dublin Reads 