The early years of Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) came from an unlikely background for a future literary celebrity. Unlike most of his fellow writers, he wasn’t from an aristocratic family but a conservative, merchant one. Rosamund Bartlett, who edited and translated the stories in the collection About Love, introduces Chekhov

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Neil Cross on new novel Captured

Neil Cross talks about and reads from his electrifying new novel Captured.

Science writer Marcus Chown on extraterrestrial life: “Where is everybody?”

Science writer Marcus Chown responds to the question first posed by Enrico Fermi – the Italian physicist who developed the first nuclear reactor – about the apparent absence of extraterrestrial life: “Where is everybody?”

Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life

We present an excerpt from Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life, by Howard Sounes. The Pleasures of the Damned, a ‘best of the best’ collection of Bukowski’s poetry, is published this month.

Anne Brontë: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Josephine McDonagh, who has written a new introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, introduces the novel, and talks about Anne’s life and the imaginative world she and her siblings – Emily, Charlotte, and Branwell – inhabited

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Lisa Hilton on the Queens of England

George Miller talks to Lisa Hilton about her history of English queens and the role they have played in shaping the nature of the English monarchy.

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December Non-fiction Round-up – Best of 2009

2009 was an amazing year for our publishers’ non-fiction lists. Here we focus on just a few of the wide-ranging titles that saw the light of day and the shelves of many.

December Contemporary Fiction Round-up – Best of 2009, Part Two

The second entry featuring the pick of 2009′s best contemporary fiction from Bookhugger’s publishers…