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The Penguin Book of Elegy
The Penguin Book of Elegy
Mar 13, 2025 3:48 PM

Author:Stephen Regan,Andrew Motion

The Penguin Book of Elegy

'A tremendous sentimental education of a book ... a literary adventure ... chosen with a scholarly discernment mixed with a wild-card flair ... fascinating and unignorable' Kate Kellaway, Observer (Poetry Book of the Month)

'If you have any weakness at all for poetry, this book will draw you in, then devastate you' Susie Goldsbrough. The Times

Elegy is among the world's oldest forms of literature. Born in Ancient Greece, practised by the Romans, revitalized by the poets of the Renaissance and continuing down to the present day, it speaks eloquently and affectingly of the experience of loss and the yearning for consolation. It gives shape and meaning to memories too painful to contemplate, and answers our desire to fix in words what would otherwise slip our grasp.

In The Penguin Book of Elegy, Andrew Motion and Stephen Regan trace the history of this tradition, from its Classical roots in the work of Theocritus, Virgil and Ovid down to modern compositions exploring personal tragedy and collective grief by such celebrated voices of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Denise Riley.

The only comprehensive anthology of its kind in the English language, The Penguin Book of Elegy is a profound and moving compendium of the fundamentally human urges to remember and honour the dead, and to give comfort to those who survive them.

Reviews

Like sitting in a room with Mark and hearing the best stories in the world, wound up with wisdom, craft, and hard-won philosophy

—— Burkhard Bilger , The New Yorker

A brilliantly engaging storyteller, laugh-out-loud funny, loving, cheekily smug . . . An enjoyable read on making, inventing and what might contribute to a life worth living

—— Julie Mehretu

Mark is an amazing polymath - and an Olympic-level aesthete. Unlike many polymaths and aesthetes, though, when he gets up in the morning, it's to make real, physical things - including this book

—— Craig Nevill-Manning, Engineering Director, Google NYC

On a job site Mark makes irreverent banter while scribbling measurements on the back of pizza box as works of astonishing complexity and precision materializes under his direction. Now he has somehow applied this same deceptively offhand but exacting craft to unspooling this collection of tales from his ascent to the summit of one of the most demanding construction habitats on earth

—— David Hotson, architect, Skyhouse and Pinnacle

Wry, laconic and packed with salient life lessons, this is a book that will encourage everyone to attempt to build the life they wish to live

—— Simple Things Magazine

Who knew Mark Ellison’s handiwork would include a book this exquisite, purposeful, absorbing? How To Build Impossible Things merits reading and rereading — it’s a book with much to teach us all.

—— Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of HOMELAND ELEGIES

Mark Ellison is known for building beautiful rooms, but here he has crafted a gorgeous book. This cross between Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Kitchen Confidential contains fascinating insights about working with your hands, the nature of talent, and how to create a meaningful life, whatever your craft is. Oh, and lots of juicy stories of pain-in-the-ass clients. Even if you aren’t handy — I can barely hang a picture frame — you’ll find this book a wonderful read

—— A. J. Jacobs, bestselling author of THE PUZZLER

A daring work of investigative journalism and a well-reasoned argument for smarter drug policies.

—— Kirkus Reviews

This is a clearly written and unassumingly clever book

—— Oliver Poole , The Independent

An economics manual for the Breaking Bad generation…a fascinating account

—— Fiona Wilson , The Times

Great fun…He reveals how drug barons run their illegal multi-billion dollar global businesses in much the same way as Fortune 500 chief executives.

—— John Arlidge , The Sunday Times

One of the pithiest and most persuasive arguments for drug law reform I have ever read

—— Misha Glenny , New York Times

Dazzling . . . This stellar collection will leave readers hungry for more.

—— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

[K-Ming Chang] rewrites the world as a place of radical transformation.

—— New York Times Book Review

[Her] ability, to take a common, decidedly earthbound, experience and transform it through her lens into a fantastical, otherworldly encounter shines. . . . Chang's writing reflects her gift as a lifelong listener of oral storytelling . . . and her ability to synthesize new ideas with her own spin on language.

—— San Francisco Chronicle

Chang has a special talent for forging history into myth and myth into present-day fiction. . . . Gods of Want is in some ways a fantasy of queer freedom. Its main characters, all Taiwanese or Chinese by birth or descent, are allowed to be who they are, to love and make love to whomever they choose.

—— Los Angeles Times

[K-Ming Chang] is back with her signature precise and enthralling prose in this short-story collection.

—— Shondaland

K-Ming Chang's inspired mix of magic and realism returns in full fabulist force. . . . The stories are eclectic . . . and united by Chang's fascination with the queer and quotidian in her characters' worlds. . . . Piercing.

—— Esquire

Her new short-story collection Gods of Want both widens and calcifies the expansiveness of her range. . . . Chang is singular amongst us all. . . . New work from Chang is a cause for celebration-a holiday in its own right-and it's also a reminder of the infinite possibilities on the page. . . . Nothing short of marvelous.

—— Bryan Washington , Electric Literature

Atwood brings her trademark wit and invention to bear on subjects as diverse as a pandemic, cancel culture, female friendship, witchcraft - and cats

—— Observer

Old Babes in the Wood... [is] a clear demonstration of her prevailing skill as a writer

—— Arts Desk

As her short story collection Old Babes in the Wood debuts at the top of the fiction chart, Margaret Atwood can rest assured that she has reached literary legend status. It was one thing for The Handmaid's Tale to make it to No 1, but quite another for stories narrated by snails and aliens to do it

—— The Sunday Times

Her latest collection of short stories... proves once again she's also an impassioned observer of everyday people and their struggles, with a hilarious sense of humour

—— RTE *Book Of The Week*

Each [story] is interesting in its own right...Atwood's imagination and mastery of storytelling is evident

—— UK Press Syndication

[A] writer who is still so sparky and brilliant in the sudden ways she tips you into despair or delight. Whatever she's up to, I'll take more if it's going

—— Alys Key , Spectator

Quietly devastating

—— Suzi Feay , The Tablet

Any new publication by the estimable Atwood...is an event and this collection of 15 short stories is no exception

—— Evening Standard

Bracing, darkly funny and cheerfully unsentimental

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2023*

[A] masterclass in writing about the edges of everyday life. This collection of short stories that all link to the Sunshine State captures loneliness, alienation, abandonment and inner resourcefulness in the most creative of tales.

—— Victoria Sadler

Fantastical tales ... You'll be swept up in a wild hurricane of a ride with this lyrical stories of fury and love, loss and hope.

—— Newsweek

Each story is perfectly formed, exquisite, often troubling but there is something so brilliantly humane about her work.

—— Kate Hamer, Wales Art Review
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