europa editions uk ltd united kingdom london (24 results)

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A NEW EDITION TO TIE IN WITH THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED FILM DIRECTED BY MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL, STARRING OLIVIA COLMAN, DAKOTA JOHNSON AND PAUL MESCAL From the international bestselling author of MY BRILLIANT FRIEND Leda is devoted to her work as an English teacher and to her two children. When her daughters leave home to be with their father in Canada, Leda anticipates a period of loneliness and longing. Instead, slightly embarrassed by the sensation, she feels liberated, as if her life has become lighter, easier. She decides to take a holiday by the sea, in a small coastal town in southern Italy. But after a few days of calm and quiet, things begin to take a menacing turn. Leda encounters a family whose brash presence proves unsettling, at times even threatening. When a small, apparently meaningless, event occurs, Leda is overwhelmed by memories of the difficult and unconventional choices she made as a mother and their consequences for herself and her family. The seemingly serene tale of a womans pleasant rediscovery of herself soon becomes the story of a ferocious confrontation with an unsettled past. The Lost Daughter is a compelling and perceptive meditation on womanhood and motherhood, exploring the conflicting emotions that tie us to our children. 18M copies of Elena Ferrante's books sold worldwide. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Long ago, following a cataclysm called 'The Tear,' the world was shattered into many floating celestial islands. Known now as Arks, each has developed in distinct ways and at a different pace; each seems to possess its own unique relationship to time. Ophelia lives on Anima, an ark where objects have souls, with which Ophelia can communicate. When she is promised in marriage to Thorn, from the powerful Dragon clan, Ophelia must leave her family and follow her fiancee to the floating capital on the distant Ark of the Pole. Though she doesn't know it yet, she has become a pawn in a deadly plot. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. AN INCENDIARY PORTRAIT OF THE VOLCANIC CURRENTS OF SEX AND BETRAYAL.Mail on Sunday THE INTERNATIONAL No. 1 BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF MY BRILLIANT FRIEND A BBC2 Between The Covers Book Club Pick BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR Soon to be a NETFLIX original series 18M OF ELENA FERRANTE'S BOOKS SLOD WORLDWIDE Giovannas pretty face has changed: its turning into the face of an ugly, spiteful adolescent. But is she seeing things as they really are? Where must she look to find her true reflection and a life she can claim as her own? Giovannas search leads her to two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. Adrift, she vacillates between these two cities, falling into one then climbing back to the other. Set in a divided Naples, The Lying Life of Adults is a singular portrayal of the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER This is no amiable coming-of-age tale the most intense writing about the experiences and interior life of a girl on the cusp of adulthood that I have ever read. It is brilliant.The Financial Times An astonishing, deeply moving tale.The Guardian Ferrante confronts female sexual awakening with such an absence of romantic enchantment it leaves you gasping.The Daily Mail WHAT READERS ARE SAYING: Brilliant as always.Jan on Amazon A tightly crafted and gripping story.Maxwell on Goodreads Excellent book. My only complaint was that it ended too soon!Mhairi on Amazon I woke up eagerly looking forward to reading more of this novel every single day.Violet on Goodreads Fans of Elena Ferrante will not be disappointed.Lesley on Amazon. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. AN INCENDIARY PORTRAIT OF THE VOLCANIC CURRENTS OF SEX AND BETRAYAL.Mail on Sunday THE INTERNATIONAL No. 1 BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF MY BRILLIANT FRIEND A BBC2 Between The Covers Book Club Pick BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR Soon to be a NETFLIX original series 18M OF ELENA FERRANTE'S BOOKS SLOD WORLDWIDE Giovannas pretty face has changed: its turning into the face of an ugly, spiteful adolescent. But is she seeing things as they really are? Where must she look to find her true reflection and a life she can claim as her own? Giovannas search leads her to two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. Adrift, she vacillates between these two cities, falling into one then climbing back to the other. Set in a divided Naples, The Lying Life of Adults is a singular portrayal of the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER This is no amiable coming-of-age tale the most intense writing about the experiences and interior life of a girl on the cusp of adulthood that I have ever read. It is brilliant.The Financial Times An astonishing, deeply moving tale.The Guardian Ferrante confronts female sexual awakening with such an absence of romantic enchantment it leaves you gasping.The Daily Mail WHAT READERS ARE SAYING: Brilliant as always.Jan on Amazon A tightly crafted and gripping story.Maxwell on Goodreads Excellent book. My only complaint was that it ended too soon!Mhairi on Amazon I woke up eagerly looking forward to reading more of this novel every single day.Violet on Goodreads Fans of Elena Ferrante will not be disappointed.Lesley on Amazon. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Without warning or a word of explanation, an unnamed 13-year-old girl is sent away from the family she has always thought of as hers to live with her birth family: a large, chaotic assortment of individuals whom she has never met and who seem anything but welcoming. Thus begins a new life, one of struggle, conflict, especially between the young girl and her mother, and deprivation. But in her relationship with Adriana and Vincenzo, two of her newly acquired siblings, she will find the strength to start again and to build a new and enduring sense of self. Told with an immediacy and a rare expressive intensity that has earned it countless adoring readers and one of Italys most prestigious literary prizes, A Girl Returned is a powerful novel rendered with sensitivity and verve by Ann Goldstein, translator of the works of Elena Ferrante. Set against the stark, beautiful landscape of Abruzzo in central Italy, this is a compelling story about mothers and daughters, about responsibility, siblings, and caregiving, pitch-perfect in Ann Goldsteins English translation. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. ***A SPECTATOR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021*** "An intriguing, memorable book."The Times Like a Kafka story and a Wes Anderson movie combined.Literary Hub Terrifying, comic and heart-breaking.Sigrid Nunez This beautifully written and wonderfully droll novel brilliantly captures the frustrations and unease of being in a foreign environment.The Spectator Full of foreboding, What Happens At Night draws the reader on without questioning. A rich experience.Literary Review A couple travel to a strange, snowy European city to adopt a baby, who they hope will resurrect their failing marriage. Their difficult journey leaves the wife desperately weak, and her husband worries that her apparent illness will prevent the orphanage from releasing their child. The couple check into the cavernous and eerily deserted Borgarfjaroasysla Grand Imperial Hotel where they are both helped and hampered by the people they encounter: an ancient, flamboyant chanteuse, a debauched businessman, an enigmatic faith healer, and a stoical bartender who dispenses an addictive, lichen-flavoured schnapps. Nothing is as it seems in this baffling, frozen world, and the longer the couple endure the punishing cold the less they seem to know about their marriage, themselves, and even life itself. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. "A masterpiece."--The Guardian "Superb."--The New York Times Review of Books Older brother is a driver for an app-based car service. Closed off for eleven hours every day in his cab, constantly tuned in to the radio, he ruminates about his life and the world that is waiting just on the other side of the windshield. Younger brother set out for Syria several months ago, full of idealism. Hired as a nurse by a Muslim humanitarian organization, he has recently stopped sending any news back home. This silence eats away at his father and brother, who ask themselves over and over again: why did he leave? One evening, the intercom rings. Little brother has come home. In this incisive first novel, Mahir Guven alternates between lively humour and the gravity imposed by the threat of terrorism. He explores a world of Uberized workers, weighed down by loneliness, struggling to survive, but he also describes the universe of those who are actors in the global jihad: indoctrination, combat, their impossible return . . . This is the poignant story of a Franco-Syrian family whose father and two sons try to integrate themselves into a society that doesnt offer them many opportunities. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. An emblematic story of the shipwreck of the Arab Spring At his fathers funeral, to the great consternation of all present, Abdel Nasser beats the imam who is celebrating the funeral rite. The narrator, a childhood friend of the protagonist, retraces the story of the Italian from his days as a free and rebellious adolescent spirit to the leader of a student movement and then affirmed journalist. Those were crucial years in Tunisia, years of great tension, change, and repression. Against this background full of revolutionary ferments stands the tormented love story between Abdel Nasser and Zeina, a brilliant and beautiful philosophy student.Their dreams will unfortunately end up being wrecked under the ruthless gears of a corrupt and chauvinist society. Abdel Nassers transformation from a young idealist with high hopes to a successful, but disillusioned and tired journalist is masterfully narrated in a stream of stories, digressions and flashbacks in which the narrative tension is always high. Winner of the 2015 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. *WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2020* *THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* A deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play. Willis Wu doesn't perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he's merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in Chinatown and enters the Golden Palace restaurant where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guythe most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it? After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he's ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but also the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu's most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet. Goodreads 10 Books that 'Disrupted' the Literary Status Quo WHAT READERS ARE SAYING What a clever, clever book this is!Regina on Goodreads Truly unique.Kevin on Amazon *inhales sharply* *screams* This book makes me feel seen.Sofia on Goodreads Thoughtful, moving, and just hilarious.Charles on Netgalley Absolutely loved this book.Andres on Amazon An emotional roller coaster.Ellen on Amazon. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. PICKED BY THE GUARDIAN AS FICTION TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2021' A dream-like, emotionally charged narrative by a bold new voice in Japanese fiction A mesmerizing combination of two tales about memory, loss and love, both told with stylistic inventiveness and breath-taking sensitivity. Taichi was forced to stop working almost a decade ago and since then he and his wife Natsuko have been getting by on her part-time wages. But Natsuko is a woman accustomed to hardship. When her own family's fortune dried up years during her childhood, she, her brother, and her mother lived a surreal hand-to-mouth existence shaped by her mother's refusal to accept their new station in life. One day, Natsuko sees an ad for a spa and recognizes the place as the former luxury hotel that Natsuko's grandfather had taken her mother to when she was little. She decides to take her damaged husband to the spa, despite the cost, but their time there triggers hard but ultimately redemptive memories relating to the complicated history of her family. The overnight trip becomes a voyage into the netherworld - a journey to the doors of death and back to life. Modelled on a classic story by Junichiro Tanizaki, Ninety-Nine Kisses is the second story in this book and it portrays in touching and lyrical fashion the lives of the four unmarried sisters in a historical, close-knit neighbourhood of contemporary Tokyo. Kashimada is a writer who brings something truly rich." - Nikkei The tense disquiet that hangs over the work has a unique charm. This is a world that only Kashimada could have depicted. - Yoko Ogawa. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Adrien, Etienne and Nina are 10 years old when they meet at school and become inseparable. Years later, a car is pulled up from the bottom of a lake, with a body inside. Virginie, a local journalist with an enigmatic past, follows the case. Step by step she reveals the extraordinary bonds that unite the three childhood friends. How is the car wreck connected to their story? Why did their friendship fall apart? Three is a compelling story of love and loss, hope and grief, and of the distance that comes with the passing of time. A masterly crafted story full of suspense and unexpected plot twists. WHAT READERS ARE SAYING: This book owns my soul. Booksnpenguins 5* "Valerie Perrin is always a delight." Alexandra Jundler 5* "A stellar read that I highly recommend." Paromjit Hayers 5* "I flew threw the pages with Olympic speed!" Michelle Coates 5* Threeis a totally consuming book that makes it hard to come up for air while reading it. Jill 5* "Such a great book, that I found very hard to put down." Mel 5* "One of the most beautifully written stories I have ever read." Alison 5* Im so dumbstruck by this novel. June Schwartz 5*. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. OVER 14M OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE Nothing quite like this has ever been published before.The Guardian This is high stakes, subversive literature.The Daily Telegraph With the publication of her Neapolitan Novels, (Ferrante) has established herself as the foremost writer in Italyand the world.The Sunday Times An unconditional masterpiece . . . I was totally enthralled.Jhumpa Lahiri An extraordinary epic.Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times To the uninitiated, Elena Ferrante is best described as Balzac meetsThe Sopranosand rewrites feminist theory.The Times Ferrantes writing seems to say something that hasnt been said before, in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep.London Review of Books Stunning. An intense, forensic exploration of friendship.The Times Literary Supplement Set in the late 1960s and the 1970s, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay continues the story of the feisty and rebellious Lila and her lifelong friend, the brilliant and bookish Elena. Lila, after separating from her husband, is living with her young son in a new neighbourhood of Naples and working at a local factory. Elena has left Naples, earned a degree from an elite college, and published a novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned and fascinating interlocutors. The era, with its dramatic changes in sexual politics and social costumes, with its seemingly limitless number of new possibilities, is rendered with breathtaking vigour. This third Neapolitan Novel is not only a moving story of friendship but also a searing portrait of a rapidly changing world. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK - VOGUE, BuzzFeed, LitHub "A bold, promising debut." MARY GAITSKILL *** "Thoughtful, savage" RAVEN LEILANI *** "Radical, daring and bracing" SHEILA HETI If sex is a truth-teller, Evea young, queer woman in Brooklynis looking for answers. On an evening when she is feeling particularly impulsive, she posts some nude photos of herself online. This is how Eve meets Olivia, and through Olivia, the charismatic Nathanand soon the three begin a relationship that disturbs Eve as much as it delights her. As each act of the affair unfolds, Eve is left to ask: to whom is she responsible? And to what extent do our desires determine who we are? In the way that only great fiction can, Acts of Service takes between its teeth the contradictions written all over our ideas of sex and sexuality. As incisive as it is exhilarating, this novel asks us to face our ideas about desire and power: what sex means to us, the forces that shape it, and how we findor loseourselves in intimacy. At once juicy and intellectually challenging, sacred and profane, it might be the most thought-provoking book you read all year. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Without warning or a word of explanation, an unnamed 13-year-old girl is sent away from the family she has always thought of as hers to live with her birth family: a large, chaotic assortment of individuals whom she has never met and who seem anything but welcoming. Thus begins a new life, one of struggle, conflict, especially between the young girl and her mother, and deprivation. But in her relationship with Adriana and Vincenzo, two of her newly acquired siblings, she will find the strength to start again and to build a new and enduring sense of self. Told with an immediacy and a rare expressive intensity that has earned it countless adoring readers and one of Italys most prestigious literary prizes, A Girl Returned is a powerful novel rendered with sensitivity and verve by Ann Goldstein, translator of the works of Elena Ferrante. Set against the stark, beautiful landscape of Abruzzo in central Italy, this is a compelling story about mothers and daughters, about responsibility, siblings, and caregiving, pitch-perfect in Ann Goldsteins English translation. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 18M copies of Elena Ferrante's books sold worldwide Stunning the raging, torrential voice of the author is something rare. The New York Times THE BREAK-OUT NOVEL BY THE INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF MY BRILLIANT FRIEND Rarely have the foundations upon which our ideas of motherhood and womanhood rest been so candidly questioned. This compelling novel tells the story of one womans headlong descent into what she calls an absence of sense after being abandoned by her husband. Olgas days of abandonment become a desperate, dangerous freefall into the darkest places of the soul as she roams the empty streets of a city that she has never learned to love. When she finds herself trapped inside the four walls of her apartment in the middle of a summer heat wave, Olga is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal again.Ferrante puts hammer to flesh and invites her reader to penetrate the page. Financial TimesExtraordinary. The London Review of Books. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. OVER 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN ENGLISH WORLDWIDE OVER 14 MILLION COPIES OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE GUARDIAN 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY From one of Italys most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, as their friendship, beautifully and meticulously rendered, becomes a not always perfect shelter from hardship. Ferrante has created a memorable portrait of two women, but My Brilliant Friend is also the story of a nation. Through the lives of Elena and Lila, Ferrante gives her readers the story of a city and a country undergoing momentous change. Nothing quite like it has ever been published.Guardian Elena Ferrante has established herself as the foremost writer in Italyand the world.The Sunday Times This is high stakes, subversive literature.The Telegraph. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. *A NUMBER 1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER* *Jane Garvey and Fi Glover's book club pick* Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Her daily life is lived to the rhythms of the hilarious and touching confidences of random visitors and her colleaguesthree gravediggers, three groundskeepers, and a priest. Violettes routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of police chief Julien Seul, wishing to deposit his mothers ashes on the gravesite of a complete stranger.Julien is not the only one to guard a painful secret: his mothers story of clandestine love breaks through Violettes carefully constructed defences to reveal the tragic loss of her daughter, and her steely determination to find out who is responsible. The funny, moving, intimately told story of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness, Fresh Water for Flowers brings out the exceptional and the poetic in the ordinary. A delightful, atmospheric, absorbing tale. An appealing indulgence in nature, food and drink, and, above all, friendships.The Guardian What readers are saying: I'd read this book over and over again One of those books that you dont want to end Absolutely amazing story This is one of the BEST BOOKS EVER WRITTEN! A really moving story of hope love and determination this is one of the most life-affirming books I have read. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. SHORTLISTED: EBRD LITERATURE PRIZE 2022 If you want to get inside the head of modern, young Russia, read Filipenko.SVETLANA ALEXIEVICH (Nobel Prize winner, 2015) A heart-wrenching novel exploring both personal and collective memory spanning Russian history from Stalin's terror to the present day. Tatiana Alexeyevna is 90 years old and shes losing her memory. To find her way in her Soviet-era apartment block, she resorts to painting red crosses on the doors leading back to her apartment. But she still remembers the past in vivid detail. Alexander, a young man whose life has been brutally torn in two, would like nothing better than to forget the tragic events that have brought him to Minsk. When he moves into the flat next door to Tatianas, hes cornered by the loquacious old lady. Reluctant at first, hes soon drawn into Tatianas life story one told urgently, before her memories of the Russian 20th century and its horrors are wiped out. The two forge an unlikely friendship, a pact against forgetting giving rise to a new sense of hope in the future. Deeply moving, with flashes of humour, Red Crosses is a shining narrative in the tradition of the great Russian novel. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. "A moving mural of lives in the underclass of Luanda." The Guardian In a crumbling apartment block in the Angolan city of Luanda, families work, laugh, scheme, and get by. In the middle of it all is the melancholic Odonato, nostalgic for the country of his youth and searching for his lost son. As his hope drains away and the city outside his doors changes beyond all recognition, Odonatos flesh becomes transparent and his body increasingly weightless. Alongside, disparate stories are woven into the narrative, spanning from the tragic to the comic, from the surreal to the every-day, culminating into a depiction of near-future Luanda. A captivating blend of magical realism, scathing political satire, tender comedy, and literary experimentation, Transparent City offers a gripping and joyful portrait of urban Africa quite unlike any before yet published in English, and places Ondjaki among the continents most accomplished writers. NOMINATED FOR THE 2019 BEST TRANSLATED BOOK AWARD A VANITY FAIR HOT TYPE BOOK FOR APRIL 2018 A VULTURE MUST-READ TRANSLATED BOOK A LIT HUB FAVOURITE BOOK OF THE YEAR A WORLD LITERATURE TODAY NOTABLE TRANSLATION OF 2018. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Fine. LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2024 Starnone uses languages the way a great painter works with colour, conjuring the illusion of three dimensions from a blank flat surface. Jhumpa Lahiri One of Italys most accomplished novelists. The Guardian Masterly. Times Literary Supplement The modest apartment on Via Gemito smells of paint and white spirit.The furniture is pushed up against the wall to create a make-shift studio, and drying canvases must be moved off the beds each night. Federi, a railway clerk, is convinced that, if he didnt have a family to feed, hed be a world-famous painter.Talented, ambitious, and frustrated, his life is marked by bitter disappointment.His long-suffering wife and their four sons bear the brunt. Years later, his first-born son will tell the story of a man he spent his whole life trying not to resemble. Narrated against the background of a Naples still marked by WWII and first published in Italy over 20 years ago, The House on Via Gemito is a masterpiece of contemporary Italian literature.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Lovely, hilarious, and seriously thought-provoking. TONI MORRISON "Endlessly curious, playful, and subtle." PANKAJ MISHRA SLEEPING AMONG SHEEP UNDER A STARRY SKY is a collection of essays written over the course of the last thirty-five years. Shawn seems to start from the premise that the world ought to be a place where all of us can lie around on cushions writing letters and love poems to each other on multi-coloured paper, as perhaps the women and men of the eleventh-century Heian court in Japan were able to do. Why do we not inhabit a world in which beauty, sensuality, and the adoration of other people, other beings, and the natural world are our principal preoccupations? Why, instead, are we obsessed with a joyless struggle for supremacy over each other? Why have we invented races and nations? Is what we call civilization the precipitating cause of our destructiveness and viciousness, our sadism, our love of murder? Shawn himself grew up as a child of privilege and has devoted his life to aesthetic pursuits and hedonism. Has the life hes led provided him with any sort of valuable vantage point from which to view the world, or has he simply been a parasite? As he himself feels that the answer isnt clear, a certain self-questioning underlies these essays, along with a nagging doubt about whether were right to insist that all of our different qualities and aspects cohere into a single self. If the self is simply an illusion, how can we understand ourselves? And if we dont understand ourselves, what conclusions should we draw from that? The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.