Alone with a Book

Alone with a Book is a glorious celebration of reading deeply and seeing the world and ourselves reflected back to us in art, in the first non-fiction from Tessa Hadley.

'Tessa Hadley is a great writer, and if it's possible, an even better reader' – Zadie Smith

In this rich and engaging collection of essays, Tessa Hadley reflects on a lifetime of reading with the clarity and perceptiveness that have made her one of our most widely loved contemporary writers. She charts her development as a lover of literature from a book-mad childhood shaped by libraries and imaginary worlds, through the long, uncertain years of writing and teaching, to the mature artistic vision that defines her work today.

Here, Tessa Hadley turns to writers as varied as George Eliot and George Saunders, Tolstoy and Elizabeth Bowen, and looks closely at a handful of paintings. Throughout, her sharp eye, precise judgement, and instinct for style guide the reader towards the pleasures found in each text, and in a life made richer, deeper, and more fully imagined through art.

'The writer we didn't know we were waiting for, until she arrived' – Anne Enright

'Tessa Hadley's extraordinary skill is making both surface life and deep interiors come fully alive' – Colm Tóibín