The “virtuoso” author’s memoir of his spiritual journey with famed Taoist philosopher Jolan Chang (The New York Times). Beginning with their first meeting over lunch at Lawrence Durrell’s Provencal home, Durrell and Jolan Chang—renowned Taoist philosopher and expert on Eastern sexuality—developed an enduring relationship based on mutual spiritual exploration. Durrell’s autobiographical rumination on their friendship and on Taoism recounts the author’s existential ponderings, starting with his introduction to the mystical and enigmatic “smile in the mind’s eye.” From parsimony, cooking, and yoga to poetry, Petrarch, and Nietzche, A Smile in the Mind’s Eye is a charming tale of a writer’s spiritual and philosophical awakening.

In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world. There is Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable even to recognize everyday objects, and Sue, a neurobiologist who has never seen in three dimensions, until she suddenly acquires stereoscopic vision in her fifties. There is Pat, who reinvents herself as a loving grandmother and active member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence, and Howard, a prolific novelist who must find a way to continue his life as a writer even after a stroke destroys his ability to read. And there is Dr. Sacks himself, who tells the story of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side. Sacks explores some very strange paradoxes—people who can see perfectly well but cannot recognize their own children, and blind people who become hyper-visual or who navigate by “tongue vision.” He also considers more fundamental questions: How do we see? How do we think? How important is internal imagery—or vision, for that matter? Why is it that, although writing is only five thousand years old, humans have a universal, seemingly innate, potential for reading? The Mind’s Eye is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation. And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another person’s eyes, or another person’s mind.

Durrell's best-known work fused Western notions of time and space with Eastern metaphysics. Very little has been written about Durrell's work before the Second World War. With A Smile in His Mind's Eye, Ray Morrison seeks to redress this neglect.

Riffing on cats and Brexit, the Royals and the annoyances of aging, the nonagenarian Jan Morris delights with her wickedly hilarious first-ever diary collection. Celebrated as the “greatest descriptive writer of her time” (Rebecca West), Jan Morris has been dazzling readers since she burst on the scene with her on-the-spot reportage of the first ascent of Everest in 1953. Now, the beloved ninety-two-year-old, author of classics such as Venice and Trieste, embarks on an entirely new literary enterprise—a collection of daily diaries, penned over the course of a single year. Ranging widely from the idyllic confines of her North Wales home, Morris offers diverse sallies on her preferred form of exercises (walking briskly), her frustration at not recognizing a certain melody humming in her head (Beethoven’s Pathétique, incidentally), her nostalgia for small-town America, as well as intimate glimpses into her home life. With insightful quips on world issues, including Britain’s “special relationship” with the United States and the #MeToo movement, In My Mind’s Eye will charm old and new Jan Morris fans alike.

International Bestseller Håkan Nesser is firmly established as one of the world's bestselling crime novelists. And now the novel that introduced Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is available for the first time in English. The swift conviction left Van Veeteren uneasy: Janek Mitter woke one morning with a brutal hangover and his wife dead in the bathtub. With only the flimsiest defense, he is found guilty and imprisoned in a mental institution. But when Mitter is murdered in his bed, Van Veeteren regrets not following his gut and launches an investigation into the two murders. As the chief inspector delves deeper, the twisted root of these violent murders will shock even him.

Near the edge of the Baltic Sea, in a small East Prussian town, lives a happy and prosperous family. The Wobsers are patriotic Germans and faithful Lutherans with four beautiful children: chatty Trude, fearless Lotte, careful Ilse, and precocious Gerhard. The decade-older sisters treat Gerhard as their little prince. He is the apple of his father's eye. Then, one day in 1933, their world falls apart. They have been identified as Jews, a heritage never denied, but a religion never embraced. This chilling true story follows the four Wobser siblings as they struggle to survive a Nazi regime intent on their extermination. Even those that manage to flee will find themselves without a home or country to call their own. From Edinburgh to Shanghai, the Wobsers will travel the world in search of a place they belong. Author and historical chronicler Ralph Webster (a descendent of the Wobsers) deftly connects their story and survival to the struggles modern refugees face every day. In addition to serving as a fascinating piece of history, A Smile in One Eye: A Tear in the Other is a passionate call to arms for organizations and individuals to properly protect and help the world's refugees.