This fresh and engaging, illustrated history of art explains the fundamentals every art lover needs while presenting the development of different schools and styles as one continuous, astonishing timeline— from Giotto to Leonardo, Frida to Banksy.

When she became interested in painting, the author would visit museums and wonder about all the information she was missing. How did one style develop after another? What meanings were hidden in these works? What were these artists’ lives like? How did their works survive for so many years? She longed for the kind of essential knowledge that would enable her to decode a painting loaded with references. The result of her curiosity is a highly accessible and vividly illustrated book that brings together the fundamentals of eight centuries of art. It covers the basics about such topics as how museums are structured, how painters use proportion and perspective, the anatomy of a painting.
Jouneaux offers surprising comparisons between artists such as Sandro Botticelli and Mary Cassatt, Claude Monet and Joan Mitchell, Delacroix and Rubens. Terms such as Baroque, Ukiyo-e, Graffiti, Cubism, Degenerate Art, and De Stijl are explored and explained. Non-western traditions are given much greater prominence than in other art history books – Chinese, Indian, Australian Aboriginal, and African Art are all included in the timeline. Numerous women artists who were overlooked during the author’s own education are restored to the canon. Accompanying the unpretentious but authoritative texts are hundreds of illustrations, reproductions, timelines and sidebars.

There was no past, no future, no words, nothing – just the light and the yellow and the scent of dry leaves in the sun.

Japan’s internationally celebrated storyteller returns with five stories of healing and hope. Effortlessly beautiful, nostalgic and melancholy, the stories in Dead-End Memories explore the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, find solace in the blissful moments in everyday life.

The daughter of a restaurant owner experiences a budding romance, accompanied by the ghosts of an elderly couple. After a scandalous near-death experience, an editor gains a new lease of life. A woman seeks refuge in the apartment above her uncle’s bar after being betrayed by her fiance. As Yoshimoto’s gentle, effortless prose reminds us, one true miracle can be as simple as having someone to share a meal with, and happiness is always within us if only we take a moment to see it.

Available for the first time in English, these are the complete, uncensored diaries of Franz Kafka. This edition faithfully reconstructs handwritten notes and restores all the material omitted from previous publications. Spontaneous, unpolished, unruly, bizarre, often hilarious — now in a neat paperback. Perfect to dip in and out of. You can really contemplate a single entry for days.

Translator Ross Benjamin brings to light not only the author’s use of the diaries for literary invention and unsparing self-examination but also their value as a work of genius in and of themselves.

A playful guide to understanding the ways of ‘normal people’, The Autist’s Guide to the Galaxy flips our usual scripts about neurodiversity.

Following on from her internationally successful memoir, The Autists, Clara Tornvall has written a fun, comprehensive, and accessible explanation of neurotypical, or ‘normal’, behaviour. Full of facts, tips, and tests, and developed with input from other autists, this book places the difficulties autists face in the context of a world built for the neurotypical majority. It will help neurodiverse people – and their families, friends, and loved ones – navigate this world, nurture stronger relationships, and thrive.

‘Clara Tornvall’s cheeky, illuminating social manual The Autist’s Guide to the Galaxy turns the tables on autism conversations by focusing on how to engage with neurotypical people … Because articles about neurodiversity are often penned by non-autists – sometimes with the implicit directive to “help” those with diagnoses conform themselves more to the rest of the world – Swedish author, producer, and autist T rnvall steps in with lighthearted realism … With its tips to help autists thrive, The Autist’s Guide to the Galaxy is an encouraging, entertaining overview of common social challenges.’ –Forward

“I am not asking you to agree with me. In fact, I’d be happier if you didn’t. I am afraid of self-censorship in a place of supposed radicalism like a liberal arts school because I am afraid that one day we will all be too afraid of being wrong.”

We grew up on the internet, or the Internet, as it was originally known – a proper noun, a place to visit and explore, before we claimed it as everybody’s, turning it into a place where we pay bills, shop, fall in love, where kids get past parental controls to come of age. Honor Levy lends her experience to the narrators of these propulsive, provocative and pill-fuelled dispatches, speaking to the malleable reality we all inhabit, where clicks, codes, unreliable words and memes shape identities, personas and reputations.

In My First Book, Honor Levy endeavors to contextualize Gen-Z, a generation of young people desperate to discern what matters in a world that paints every event as a catastrophe. Irony is the salve of choice, and Levy deploys it masterfully. She paints the chasm in understanding between her parents’ generation and the Zoomer reality overloaded with niche signs and meanings.

‘THE EYES ARE THE BEST PART is an outstanding debut, a feminist horror novel that tackles big social issues and also delivers the gory origin story of a female serial killer.’ – NEW YORK TIMES

This literary feminist howl-of-a-debut is going to crawl right under your skin…

Ji-won’s life is in disarray. Her father’s affair has ripped her family to shreds, leaving her to piece their crappy lives back together.

So, when her mother’s obnoxious new white boyfriend enters the scene, bragging about his flawed knowledge of Korean culture and ogling Asian waitresses in restaurants, Ji-won’s hold over her emotions strains. As he gawks at her and her sister around their claustrophobic apartment, Ji-won becomes more and more obsessed with his brilliant blue eyeballs.

As her fixation and rage grow, Ji-won decides that she must do the one thing that will save her family… and also curb her cravings.

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.

The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

‘in ember and ash / the heart of the Noongar Nation beats buried…’

Refugia is an unparalleled work of vision and political fury from Noongar and Yawuru poet and scholar Elfie Shiosaki. Inspired by the beeliar (Swan River) and the NASA James Webb Space Telescope’s first year of science, this collection draws on colonial archives to contest the occupation of Noongar Country.

As the bicentennial year of the colony of Western Australia approaches, Shiosaki looks to the stars and back to the earth to make sense of memory and the afterlife of imperial violence.

Every home needs a little magic…

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people, and as librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she hasn’t had to. She and her assistant, Caz, a sentient spider plant, have spent most of the last eleven years sequestered among the empire’s precious spellbooks, protecting the magic for the city’s elite. But a revolution is brewing and when the library goes up in flames, Kiela and Caz steal whatever books they can and flee to the faraway island where she grew up. But to her dismay, in addition to a nosy – and very handsome – neighbour, she finds the town in disarray. The empire has slowly been draining power from the island, and now Kiela is determined to make things right. But opening up her own spellshop comes with its own risks – the consequence of sharing magic with commoners is death. And as Kiela starts to make a place for herself among the townspeople, she realizes she must break down the walls she has kept so high…

From award-winning author Sarah Beth Durst, The Spellshop is a cosy fantasy following a woman’s unexpected journey through the low-stakes market of illegal spell-selling and the high-risk business of starting over.

Joe, Brock, & Luka all thoroughly enjoyed this strange and brilliant Hungarian novel. Originally published in 1987, it was not translated into English until 1995.

The Door is a tense domestic portrait of the relationship between a Hungarian writer and her housekeeper. “While it’s not strictly a thriller, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time,” says Luka. The narrative blossoms from the larger-than-life personality of Emerence, the steadfast and mysterious housekeeper. Emerence’s relationship to the protagonist is an emotional rollercoaster – devoted, dutiful, suspicious, utterly bizarre. At the centre of the mystery is the door to Emerence’s flat: closed to all, behind which her most potent secrets lay. As their relationship deepens, the writer is driven almost to total undoing by their growing dependence on one another. It all begins with the writer’s dark confession: that she has killed Emerence.