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The Waterstones Podcast - Perfection

Posted on 30th August 2019 by Mark Skinner

Your chance to hear authors going beyond the book to talk about the themes and ideas that obsess us all.

Perfection

What do we mean by perfection and is the pursuit of it a pointless exercise? We hear from poet Charly Cox about why just the word alone is enough to induce anxiety, Sebastian Faulks considers where in the arts perfection might lie and why capturing it might mean a journey to perfection and then back again. Finally we hear from novelist Gabriel Tallent who shares the sheer blood, sweat and tears of writing his debut novel.

Featured in this week's podcast:

She Must Be Mad

Charly Cox

£9.99

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

The powerful new collection of poetry and prose from Charly Cox, the woman described as social media's answer to Carol Ann Duffy. Charly captures the formative experiences of today's young women from the poignant to the prosaic in writing that is witty, wry and heartfelt. For every woman surviving and thriving in today's world; this is a call for communion, and a reminder that you are not alone.

Paris Echo

Sebastian Faulks

£8.99

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

A novel that raises urgent questions about empire, grievance and identity, Paris Echo shows readers a different side of Paris. Into this city come two strangers: American postdoctoral researcher Hannah and runaway Moroccan teenager Tariq. Bringing together their two very different lives, Faulks asks how much we really need to know if we are to live a valuable life.

Love is Blind

William Boyd

£8.99

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

At once an intimate portrait of one man's life and an expansive exploration of the beginning of the twentieth century, Love is Blind is a masterly new novel from one of Britain's best loved storytellers. A tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge; of artistic endeavour and the illusions it creates; of all the possibilities that life can offer, and how cruelly they can be snatched away.

My Absolute Darling

Gabriel Tallent

£8.99

Paperback

5+ in stock

Available

Growing up in Mendocino, in the wilderness of the northern California coast, 14-year-old Turtle Alveston and her father live a life honed by survival, brutality and sadistic love. As Turtle’s reaches out to a life beyond, their fragile existence is blown apart. My Absolute Darling is is a tour-de-force debut that leaves echoes indelibly imprinted on the imagination.

Dept. of Speculation

Jenny Offill

£8.99

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

Modern marriage is placed unflinchingly under the microscope in a work of profound lyricism and emotional power. Tracing the path of a seemingly perfect relationship through the bumps and scrapes of time and reality, Offill presents a stunningly realised portrait of twenty-first century wedlock.

Ink

Alice Broadway

£7.99

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

That the events and actions of your life are forever tattooed on your body is a fantasy concept to die for, and Alice Broadway makes full use of the connotations and consequences in this fine Young Adult debut. A novel of family secrets and standing up to authority, Ink is a triumph of bold, imaginative writing.

Carol

Patricia Highsmith

£8.99

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

Highsmith’s pedigree as a thriller writer suffuses this bewitching tale of forbidden love in 1950s New York with a simmering intensity and wire-taut tension. Impossibly evocative and romantic, Carol has become one of Highsmith’s signature works.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

J. K. Rowling

£7.99 £5.99

Paperback

10+ in stock

Available

The book that launched a billion young readers feels just as fresh, fun and meticulously rendered as it did over twenty years ago. Hogwarts, Muggles, Diagon Alley, Quidditch; the magical journey all started here, with a wide-eyed young wizard and an old-fashioned battle between good and evil.