Other books that might interest you

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  Sorrow Tears and Blood - Poetry...

  David Onamade

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  David’s book is one of despair and hope; one that paints a picture of our society that is both dark and broken up by fleeting rays of light. From his plight on the streets in one of England’s richest regions, to the interactions of people he observes and encounters every day, to the impacts of Covid-19 and the changing seasons – this is poetry and prose at its most powerful. It is a book that reveals the double-talk of homeless service provision – a society that consigns people as worthless without knowing their backgrounds; which assumes that homelessness is a choice rather than a predicament. It is impossible not to have read this book and come away changed: to feel the biting need to make a difference and sense of injustice as to why so many individuals – people who could otherwise fulfil their potential, for the benefit of others as well as themselves – are thrown cruelly to the fringes. 
   

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  Scattered Love

  Maylis Besserie

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  'She entered the house like a shadow … She was like a divine elixir: one drop for each of my thoughts. … I could feel the breath of the warrior, the Queen of Ireland, and it intoxicated me with the wind of hope, like noble wine.'
  She is Maud Gonne, the muse of writer William Butler Yeats. Yeats here returns as a ghost, having been buried in southern France in January 1939 at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. Ten years later his remains are repatriated to Ireland. He emerges from his grave to recount his thwarted love for Maud, a story blending with the movement for Irish independence in which they each played an integral part.
  Yeats' ghost has suddenly appeared as diplomatic documents have come to light, casting doubt on the contents of the coffin brought back to Sligo for a state funeral. Where did the poet's body go? Does he still hover 'somewhere among the clouds above'? What remains of our loves and our deaths, if not their poetry?
  Maylis Besserie's exciting new work follows on from Yell, Sam, If You Still Can (Le tiers temps). In her second novel, she turns her attention from Samuel Beckett to another Irish writer, W.B. Yeats. The connection between Ireland and France is forged once again in the smithy of art, culture and the days at the end of life.
  A Guardian Most Anticipated Book of 2023
  An Irish Times Most Anticipated Book of 2023
  An Irish Independent Most Anticipated Book of 2023

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  Through the Mud

  Apphia Campbell

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  'It's our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win.'
  Assata Shakur, a notorious Black Panther, is accused of murdering a state trooper in New Jersey in 1973. Ambrosia, a college student in 2014, is at the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson, Missouri, finding herself swept up in the consequences of protesting.
  Two generations of women activists involved in the struggle for Black liberation in America.
  Against a stunning soundtrack of gospel and blues, Apphia Campbell's Through the Mud explores what it takes to become a revolutionary. Originally performed in Edinburgh in 2017, with the title Woke, it won a Scotsman Fringe First, a Highly Commended Award from Amnesty International, and was shortlisted for the Filipa Bragança and Scottish Art Club Theatre Awards.
  This edition was published alongside the revival at Summerhall during the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, co-produced by Stellar Quines and The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, winning a Summerhall Lustrum Award.

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  There is (still) love here

  Dean Atta

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  There is (still) love here, the compelling new collection of poetry by Dean Atta, is a personal and powerful exploration of relationships, love and loss, encompassing LGBTQ+ and Black history, Greek Cypriot heritage, pride and identity, dislocation and belonging.
  Atta's tender, precisely-crafted and generous poems seek consolation and affirmation. These are poems as an antidote for challenging times, whether facing prejudice or the challenges of the pandemic, experiencing grief or recovering from heartbreak. Here, we encounter blue feelings and homesickness, things lost in translation and the pressures of the many roles we play in life. We also find the recipes of home, gifts and giving, the togetherness of community and connection to help us to heal. There is still love here - and journeys towards forgiveness, acceptance, queer joy and the power to unapologetically be yourself and fully embrace who you are.

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  The Infernal Garden

  Gregory Leadbetter

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  In The Infernal Garden, Gregory Leadbetter's poetry leads us into dark and verdant places of the imagination, the edge of the wild where the human meets the more-than-human in the burning green fuse of the living world. This liminal ground becomes a garden of death and rebirth, of sound and voice, in poems that combine the lyric with the mythic, precision with mystery.
  Responding to the intricate crisis in our relationship to our planet and the life around us, the garden here assumes a haunting, otherworldly aspect, as a space of loss, grief and trial, which nonetheless carries within it the energies of regeneration and growth. At the heart of this bewitching book is the force of language itself – at once disquieting and healing – through which we are drawn to the common roots of art, science, and magic, in exquisite poetry of incantatory power.
  "This is heavy-metal poetry, dark and decidedly theatrical." - Jeremy Wikeley, 'The best poetry books of 2025 so far', The Telegraph.

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  Skyscraper Lullaby (NHB Modern...

  James Fritz

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  A powerful drama about two parents trying to come to terms with the disappearance of their toddler, written and first performed as an audio drama for Audible Original.
  As they recount the events surrounding the disappearance of their toddler – one with a tendency to bite – two parents cope with grief in vastly different ways. While the father wrestles with feelings of guilt, the mother is convinced she's spotted the boy in frightening TV news reports… though let's just say he looks nothing like the precocious little boy they remember from a decade ago.
  James Fritz's Skyscraper Lullaby is a haunting examination of the ways we cope with tragedy, complicity, and remorse. It was first produced as an audio play for Audible Original in 2022.

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