In times of great uncertainty, it’s often art and literature that we turn to for escape, for answers, and for comfort. How many times have you reread the Harry Potter series, Percy Jackson, or The Lord of the Rings when the world suddenly felt not only overwhelming but frightening? Do you remember how it felt when you read something that expressed a feeling you thought words would never be able to capture? Have you ever buried your nose in a book and then lifted your head to find hours had passed without your notice?

From stories of famous authors and their feline companions to how one writer’s impact can spawn an aesthetic that stands the test of time, below is a grouping of books that celebrate writers, their lives, and their work.

Jane Austen in 41 Objects by Kathryn Sutherland

A new kind of biography on Jane Austen examining the objects she encountered during her life alongside newer memorabilia inspired by the life she lived.

More than two hundred years after Jane Austen’s death at the age of just forty-one, we are still looking for clues about this extraordinary writer’s life. What might we learn if we take a glimpse inside the biographies of objects that crossed her path in life and afterward. This is a different kind of biography, in which objects with their own histories offer shifting entry points into Jane Austen’s life. Each object, illustrated in color, invites us to meet Austen at a particular moment when her life intersects with theirs, speaking eloquently of past lives and shedding new light on one of our best-loved authors.

On James Baldwin by Colm Toibin
Colm Tóibín’s personal account of encountering James Baldwin’s work, published in Baldwin’s centenary year.
 Acclaimed Irish novelist Colm Tóibín first read James Baldwin just after turning eighteen. He had completed his first year at an Irish university and was struggling to free himself from a religious upbringing. He had even considered entering a seminary and was searching for literature that would offer illumination and insight. Inspired by the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, Tóibín found a writer who would be a lifelong companion and exemplar. On James Baldwin is a magnificent contemporary author’s tribute to one of his most consequential literary progenitors.

Great Writers and the Cats who Owned Them by Susannah Fullerton
A fun, charming romp through the history of seventeen great writers and the cats who captured their hearts.
Throughout history, cats and writers have banded together in a magical combination of comfort, companionship, and inspiration. Great Writers and the Cats who Owned Them features famous authors ranging from Samuel Johnson whose cat Hodge dined on oysters, to Edward Lear whose charismatic cat Foss was missing half his tail, to Dorothy L. Sayers who rescued her kitten Blitz from a bombsite. Each chapter delves into the relationship between authors and the felines who condescended to share their homes and desks, revealing intriguing aspects of the writers’ lives and celebrating how cats—pure-bred and mixed-breeds, large and small, graceful and eccentric—enriched the world of literature.

Pen Names by Kirsty McHugh and Ian Scott
Your favorite author may not be who they say they are.
The stories behind why an author chose their literary alias can be just as compelling as the works that they wrote. Pen Names traces the history of literary aliases from the nineteenth century to the present day through forty novelists, poets, and playwrights. These include famous pseudonymous writers such as George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë), Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), George Orwell (Eric Blair), crime writers such as Josephine Tey and Nicci French, and those lesser-known writers whose real identities have been obscured behind their literary aliases. Pen Names gives unusual insights into authors, publishers, and readers over the last two hundred years.

D. H. Lawrence by David Ellis
An approachable critical biography of the English novelist, most famous as the author of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
This book offers a concise yet comprehensive look at D. H. Lawrence’s turbulent life and career. Tracing Lawrence’s journey from a mining village outside Nottingham to his early death in the South of France, the book provides fresh perspectives on his major works. David Ellis covers the essential aspects of Lawrence’s life and writings and presents a balanced view, steering between admirers and critics. Written in an accessible style, this book is ideal for both students new to Lawrence and readers looking to revisit one of Britain’s greatest early twentieth-century writers.

Zora Neale Hurston by Cheryl R. Hopson
The life, work, and legacy of one of the twentieth century’s most published African American women.
This book explores the life and legacy of Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), the most-published African American woman of the first half of the twentieth century. Famous today as the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston was also an anthropologist and a folklorist. In this new biography, Cheryl Hopson casts Hurston as a modern woman on the move, particularly as a collector of stories in and around the Jim Crow South. Hopson details her rejection by the Harlem Renaissance as well as her recovery by Black feminists such as Alice Walker years after her death. The result is an accessible and fresh account of the celebrated writer’s life and work.

Tradecraft: Writers on John le Carré edited by Federico Varese
Original insights on John le Carré by the people who worked with him, illuminating the storied writer’s working methods.
John le Carré is one of the most significant political novelists in the English language. In this book, collaborators and friends take us behind the scenes to give original insights into le Carré’s extraordinary observational writing techniques, revealing his unique tradecraft as a writer. Le Carré’s striving for artistic truth and historical precision is presented here through the words of those who worked alongside him, together with an analysis of the novels that so often captured the zeitgeist. Illustrated with manuscript pages, family photographs, film stills, and correspondence, Tradecraft provides a multifaceted portrait of the working life and legacy of a great writer.

Katherine Mansfield: A Hidden Life by Gerri Kimber
A revealing look at the life and writing of the great modernist.

This biography explores the life and work of Katherine Mansfield, one of literary modernism’s most significant writers. On the fringes of Bloomsbury, and friends with D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, T. S. Eliot, and many others, Mansfield was at the heart of literary London at its most experimental. By the time of her death in 1923, aged just thirty-four, she had broken boundaries and created new ways of writing that led her literary sparring partner, Virginia Woolf, to later admit that Mansfield’s “was the only writing I was ever jealous of.” Based on compelling new research, Gerri Kimber challenges previous conceptions surrounding the author’s life, uncovers friendships and relationships formerly barely acknowledged, and offers innovative readings of Mansfield’s most celebrated stories.

In Poe’s Wake: Travels in the Graphic and the Atmosphericby Jonathan Elmer
Explores how Edgar Allan Poe has become a household name, as much a brand as an author.
 You’ll find his face everywhere, from coffee mugs, bobbleheads, and T-shirts to the cover of the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Edgar Allan Poe is one of American culture’s most recognizable literary figures, his life and works inspiring countless derivations beyond the literary realm. In Poe’s Wake locates the source of the writer’s enduring legacy. Encompassing René Magritte, Claude Debussy, Lou Reed, Roger Corman, Spongebob Squarepants, and many others, this book shows how the Poe brand opens trunk lines to aesthetic experiences fundamental to a multi-media world.

Write Cut Rewrite: The Cutting Room Floor of Modern Literatureby Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon

An illumination of writing’s mysteries through examining the words and ideas that were edited out of renowned novels, poems, and plays.
Imagine looking over your favorite author’s shoulder and witnessing the moment they begin writing the opening chapter of their best-loved novel. What you might see is that the author has to write, cut, and rewrite their words—often many times—in order to find the right form. Unearthing what has been jettisoned, moved, or edited can give us valuable insights into the creative process.

What would Frankenstein have looked like if Mary and Percy Shelley had not collaborated on the draft? Would we view The Wind in the Willows differently if its title had remained The Mole & the Water Rat? With insights into the drafting techniques of writers as varied as Jane Austen, Raymond Chandler, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, John le Carré, Barbara Pym, and Alice Oswald, this is a fascinating unveiling of the mysteries of writing, cutting, rewriting, and publishing creative works.

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