BLAKE MORRISON

Poet, playwright and novelist Blake Morrison evokes the lives of the Bronte sisters, with a nod to Chekhovs Three Sisters.Against the backdrop of a windswept northern village, three remarkable young women live their lives brightly.In Haworth in the 1840s, in a gloomy parsonage, where there are neither curtains nor comforts, Charlotte, Anne and Emily Bronte light up their world with outspoken wit, aspirations, dreams and ideas. And throughout their confined lives intensely lived they write.With a touch of poetic licence, Morrison shows us the overwhelming humanity, charged emotions and brooding unease which characterise the Bronte household - and that of Chekhovs Three Sisters.Blake Morrisons play We Are Three Sisters was first performed at the Viaduct Theatre, Halifax, in 2011.

Intimate and disconcerting, compelling and comic, an anatomy of the way things are, ISouth of the River/I is the big British novel for our times - and a tour de force. It opens on the 'new dawn' of Labour's election victory in 1997, and ends five years later. But this is not so much 'state of the nation' as state of our souls, marriages, families, hopes and careers - a sharp and sexy portrait of a dysfunctional group of characters, all different yet connected. There's Nat, failed dramatist and reluctant lecturer, falling for a younger woman; Anthea, an eco-friendly lost soul obesessed with foxes; Libby, hardworking mother and advertising executive, the family breadwinner; Harry, Nat's friend and ex-pupil, a journalist on a local paper, with a guilty secret of his own; and Jack, Nat's blimpish but unexpectedly poignant uncle, who lives for fox-hunting, and runs a failing engineering company in East Anglia. Beneath the bright familiar world of Blair's Britain, there's a dark undertow of political and personal disillusion, of mythologies and urban myths that circle round our apparently comfortable lives. South of the River, a tale of five people, two rivers, and many Englands, metropolitan and rural, black and white, is gloriously readable and brimming with art and life.

En torno al año 1400, en una Europa castigada por la peste y poblada de ricos burgueses, hijas concupiscentes y aprendices astutos, nació Gutenberg, el hombre que inventó la máquina herética destinada a cambiar el curso de la historia: la imprenta. Apasionado de las maquinas, simpatico y visionario timador, Gutenberg lo aposto todo dinero, honores, y el amor de una mujer- por llevar adelante su sueño.

First published in 1993, Blake Morrison''s And When Did You Last SeeYour Father? is an extraordinary portrait of family life, father-son relationships and bereavement. It became a bestseller, and inspired a whole genre of confessional memoirs. This new edition includes a new afterword by the author. And When Did You Last See Your Father? won the Waterstone''s/Volvo/Esquire Award for Non-Fiction and the JR Ackerley Prize for Autobiography 1993.

Johann Gutenberg, maestro impresor, simpático y visionario timador, dicta su «testamento» o «justificación» a un joven amanuense a quien su invento ha dejado sin trabajo. Sus palabras conjuran la vis

Lucid, tender and humane . . . One of the most formally agile and compassionate poets of our age Fiona BensonHere you are, on the balcony,the sea serenading you,the sun with its armful of light.In Afterburn, Blake Morrison returns to poetry, his first calling, to offers scenes from his own life and the lives of others. In psychology, afterburn refers to the time before a past event is assimilated an idea that resonates through these poems (which themselves linger after reading) about memory and our attempts to articulate, shape or contain it.Throughout the collection, not least in two extraordinary sequences one about his sister, the other about Elizabeth Bishop the poet sees with new eyes the turning points in a lifes accidental course. What holds his wise, touching, melancholy yet joyful poems together are the small intimacies that bind us to others, under times lengthening shadow: you moved too fast for me to catch you / and so did the years.Playful and charming, sometimes rakishly so, Afterburn nevertheless reveals an open, and vulnerable, heart.***Distils the insights of a seasoned memoirist into images that linger long after the final page Julia CopusA master of the sonnet . . . Im taking Afterburn to my desert island Hugo Williams

A delightful compendium of musings from the master of life writing, the much-loved Blake Morrison, for those who practise the art of memoir, and those who read it. Hallelujah! now is the perfect time for Morrisons book On Memoir THE TIMES ON MEMOIR is a gloriously freewheeling exploration of narrative non-fiction, its challenges, ethics and charms, and its power to move and change us. From AI to Ethics to Politics to Sex, there is something for every reader and writer in this modern classic. Gleaned from a lifetime as a passionate reader of others lives, as well as an unflinchingly honest chronicler of his own, Morrisons A-Z is a trove of thoughtful literary exploration, amusing observations, and fascinating finds.

Set over a long weekend in East Anglia, this is the chilling story of a rivalrous friendship - as told with deceptive casualness by the narrator, Ian. It opens with a surprise phone call from an old university friend, inviting Ian and his wife, Em, for a few days by the sea. Their hosts, Ollie and Daisy, are a golden couple, and the scene is set for sunlit relaxation. But dangerous tensions quickly emerge, and in the stifling atmosphere of a remote cottage in the hottest days of summer, Ollie and Ian resurrect a bet made twenty years before. Each day becomes a series of challenges for higher and higher stakes, setting in train actions that will have irreversible consequences.

Exquisitely metered, intimate and yet profound, glimmeringly intelligentA worthwhile, interesting and impressive achievement Edward Docx, GuardianWhat matters most: fidelity or art? Marriage or friendship? The wishes of the living or the talents of the dead?Literary executor Matt Holmes finds himself considering these questions sooner than he thinks when his friend, the poet Robert Pope, dies unexpectedly. A trail of clues Rob has left within his archives leads Matt to a series of shocking discoveries that begins to unsettle everything he thought he knew about his friend. Should Matt conceal what he has found or share it? After all, its not just Robs reputation that could be transformed forever

A cul-de-sac, a dead-end track,A sandbanked strand to sink a fleet,A bay, a bar, a strip, a trap, A wrecking ground, thats Shingle Street.Blake Morrisons first two collections, Dark Glasses (1984) and The Ballad of a Yorkshire Ripper (1987) established him as one of our most inventive and accomplished contemporary poets.In his first full-length collection for nearly thirty years, Shingle Street sees a return to the form with which he started his career. Set along the Suffolk coast, the opening poems address a receding world an eroding landscape, abashed by the oceans passion. But coastal life gives way to other, more dangerous, vistas: a wave unleashes a flood-tide of terror; a sequence of topical poems lays bare pressing political issues; while elsewhere portraits of the past bring forth the dear and the departed. Ardent and elegiac, and encompassing an impressive range of mood and method, this is a timely offering from a poet of distinct talents.

Tender, vivid and achingly sad GUARDIAN, BOOK OF THE YEAR TWO SISTERS publishes on the 30th anniversary of Blake Morrisons ground-breaking book And When Did You Last See Your Father? which forged the way for a new genre of confessional memoir.Shes gone, thats all, and though theres no retrieving her Id like to make sense of who she was and what she became. It wasnt just that she changed over time. She could change from day to day. Drink made it worse but the origins went deeper. You never knew which youd get, the kind and loving Gill or her doppelganger. Two sisters. Blake Morrison has lost a sister and a half-sister in recent years. Both are the subjects of this remarkable and heart-breaking memoir, along with a forensic examination of sibling relationships in history and literature. Blakes sister Gill struggled with alcoholism for a large part of her life, and her shocking death is the starting point for Two Sisters. Blake returns to their childhood to search for the origins of her later difficulties, and in doing so unearths the story behind his half-sister, Josie. As he unravels these narratives, Blake deals movingly in the guilt and shame that will be familiar to every person who has struggled with addiction in their family. He is unflinching in doing so, and the result is a book which provides testament to that common struggle, as well as acknowledging the complex, hidden forces on which all our lives are based. Two Sisters is the extraordinary new memoir from the chronicler of human frailty, Blake Morrison.