Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) is, of course, best known as the author of Little Women (1868). But she was also a noted essayist who wrote on a wide range of subjects, including her father's failed utopian commune, the benefits of an unmarried life, and her experience as a young woman sent to work in service to alleviate her family's poverty. Her first literary success was a contemporary close-up account of the American Civil War, brilliantly depicted in Hospital Sketches drawn from her own experience of serving as an army nurse near the nation's capitol. As with her famous novel, Alcott writes these essays with clear observation, unforgettable scenes, and one of the sharpest wits in American literature. Blending gentle satire with reportage and emotive autobiography, Alcott's exquisite essays are as exceptional as the novels she is known for. Published together for the first time, this delightful selection shows us another side to one of our most celebrated writers.

What happens when an art critic loses some of his sight to cataracts? What wonders are glimpsed once vision is restored? In this impressionistic essay written in the spirit of Montaigne, John Berger, whose treatises on seeing have shaped cultural and media studies for four decades, records the effects of cataract removal operations on each of his eyes. With beautiful illustrations by Turkish artist Selçuk Demirel that complement the text, Cataract is a collaborative collectors' piece that is perfect for every reader's bedside table.

An urgent final work from the award-wining author whose writing, fieldwork and mentorship inspired generations of writers and activists.An ardent steward of the land, fearless traveller and unrivalled observer of nature and culture, Barry Lopez died after a long illness on Christmas Day in 2020. The previous summer, a wildfire had consumed much of what was dear to him in his home and the community around it – a tragic reminder of the climate change of which he'd long warned.At once a cri de Coeur and a memoir of both pain and wonder, this remarkable collection of essays adds indelibly to Lopez's legacy, and includes previously unpublished works, some written in the months before his death. They unspool memories, both personal and political, among them tender, sometimes painful stories of his childhood in New York and California, reports from expeditions to study animals and sea life, recollections of travels to Antarctica and other extraordinary places on earth, and mediations on finding oneself amid vast, dramatic landscapes. He reflects on those who taught him, including Indigenous elders and scientific mentors who sharpened his eye for the natural world. We witness poignant returns from his travels to the sanctuary of his Oregon backyard and in prose of searing candour, he reckons with the cycle of life, including own and – as he has done throughout his career – with the dangers the earth and its people are facing.With an introduction by Rebecca Solnit that speaks to Lopez's keen attention to the world, including its spiritual dimensions, Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World opens our minds and sounds to the important of being wholly present to the beauty and complexity of life.

'Without any doubt, London is one of the best cities in the world for modern architecture. But it is also one of the biggest cities in the world, and it does not make a display of its best things. A visitor looking for new buildings in the City and the West End might well be justified in turning away with a shudder. Yet delightful things may be waiting for him in Lewisham or St. Albans.' Ian Nairn, from the 'Foreword' to Modern Buildings in London. As one of the few architectural critics to eschew purely aesthetic modes of analysis, Ian Nairn's timeless books on modern urban cities have been hailed as some of the most significant writing about contemporary Britain, while also being praised as alternative 'guidebooks' for curious travellers. First published in 1964, Modern Buildings in London celebrates the character of buildings that were immediately recognisable as 'modern' in 1964, many of which were not the part of the well-known landscape of London but instead were gems that Nairn stumbled across. Written 'by a layman for laymen', Nairn's take on modern design includes classic buildings such as the Barbican, the former BBC Television Centre and the Penguin Pool at Regent's Park Zoo as well as schools, old timber yards, ambulance stations, car parks and even care homes.

Thackeray, author of the masterpiece Vanity Fair, was considered one of the finest writers of the Victorian heyday: Dickens was his closest rival. This anthology covers all of Thackeray's versatile genius: his sketches, journalism, essays, cartoons and fiction. With explanatory notes by Scholar and writer John Sutherland, this varied selection offers a lens into Victorian life by one of its most distinctive voices.

'There was nowhere to go but everywhere.' Jack Kerouac Following on from the huge success of Beneath My Feet: Writers on Walking and Sauntering: Writers Walk Europe, Duncan Minshull, brings together the recorded footfalls of over fifty walker-writers who have travelled the world's seven continents. From the 1500s to current times come a memorable band of explorers and adventurers, scientists and missionaries, pleasure-seekers and literary drifters recalling their experiences and asking themselves a compelling question – why travel this way in the first place? With contributions from Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, Vernon Lee, Sarah H. Bradford, Rabindranath Tagore, D. H. Lawrence, Isabella Bird, Katharine Mansfield, Rachel Carson, Helen Garner, Jean Pierre Clébert, Colin Thubron, William Boyd and many more, Globetrotting takes us across the streets of London, Rome, Melbourne, Cairo, Kyiv and Kabul; through the frozen wastes of Antarctica; along the pilgrim paths of Japan; into the jungles of Ghana; around the Great Wall of China.