Kirjahaku

A new account of the brilliant and prolific Danish writer whose works captivated readers across Europe Rarely does an American or European child grow up without an introduction to Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Ugly Duckling," "The Princess and the Pea," or "Thumbelina." Andersen began publishing his fairy tales in 1835, and they brought him almost immediate acclaim among Danish and German readers, followed quickly by the French, Swedes, Swiss, Norwegians, British, and Americans. Ultimately he wrote more than 150 tales. And yet, Paul Binding contends in this incisive book, Andersen cannot be confined to the category of writings for children. His work stands at the very heart of mainstream European literature. The author considers the entire scope of Andersen’s prose, from his juvenilia to his very last story. He shows that Andersen’s numerous novels, travelogues, autobiographies, and even his fairy tales (notably addressed not to children but to adults) earned a vast audience because they distilled the satisfactions, tensions, hopes, and fears of Europeans as their continent emerged from the Napoleonic Wars. The book sheds new light on Andersen as an intellectual, his rise to international stardom, and his connections with other eminent European writers. It also pays tribute to Andersen’s enlightened values—values that ensure the continuing appeal of his works.

First published in 1994, Paul Binding's portrait of Eudora Welty is being reissued to coincide with the 100th anniversary of her birth. Eudora Welty was a Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of numerous literary friendships and awards. She was one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth-century. Born in 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi. Eudora Welty was brought up in the harsh American South when it was bedevilled both by the Depression and racial discrimination. Her acclaimed novels and short stories however are imbued with compassion and optimism, while also revealing her extraordinary gift for inhabiting the inner world of her characters.Paul Binding knew Eudora Welty, and in this book he draws on the many conversations he had with both her and her friends and fellow writers. The Still Moment presents a critical portrait of a remarkable mind and a profoundly humanist writer.

St Martin's Ride was first published in 1990 just after the tumultuous events of the previous year that reshaped Europe. It was timely then, it is timely now.Born in 1943, Paul Binding was taken by his parents to live in Essen, a city destroyed by British bombing during the Second World War. His experiences in that ruined city haunted him for years, until, in 1989 he joined the scenes of wild rejoicing as the Berlin Wall came down and a new era was ushered in.Part-autobiography, part-meditation on the dilemmas of Europe, St Martin's Ride is an utterly original and deeply moving exploration of the uncertainties that affected Europeans for nearly half a century. 'One of those rare masterpieces which portrays the peculiar truth of the world of grown-ups in the mind of a child who has been thrust into excruciating circumstances. Literary art of a very rare kind.' Stephen Spender, Independent on Sunday'A book as beautiful as it is profound.' Theodore Zeldin

It is Britain in the late 1950s: every weekday the BBC Home Service broadcasts The Parkers from 4.30 to 4.45 (the signature tune is a country dance called 'Sellinger's Round'). It has an avid following. For this novel, Paul Binding hit upon the brilliant idea of creating a radio soap opera, everything revolves around it, and all the characters, in one way or another, are under its influence. There is, for instance, Bruno, as arrogant as he is handsome, his Aunt Eileen (addicted to The Parkers), his adoring cousin Ian, Verity Orchard (in one review likened to Virginia Woolf cross-pollinated with Elfine Starkadder from Cold Comfort Farm) and her sexually ambiguous husband Charles Compson. This is a glorious, effervescent but at times sad novel recreating its period with acute and affectionate accuracy.In a long and admiring review in the Spectator, Zenga Longmore concluded:'This book bursts with surprises both funny and brutal. Every character has a hidden jack-in-the-box 'other side' which pops out to hit poor Bruno in the face just as he thinks he has manipulated things so nicely.Paul Binding has produced an original masterpiece, an ingenious concoction of school essays, letters, radio scripts and cantering narrative. His portrayal of 1950s rock'n'roll, furniture, books, magazines leaves one asking how he can so vividly recall the details. Is it memory or meticulous research?This is an exquisitely crafted novel, comic but oh so agonising.'

When eighteen year-old Nat Kempsey goes missing in the Berwyn mountains, his disappearance reveals a secret that his own father, Pete Kempsey, has kept for thirty-five years, drawn as he was to the same remote land, at the same age, by a phenomenon mysterious and unexplained. A cut-throat journalist is convinced something is awry with Nat's story, and it soon becomes clear that the lives of both Nat and his father are running in disconcerting parallels… After Brock is a story of infatuation, fraught relationships and dysfunctional families – exploring the boundaries between myth and reality, and humanity's relationship with the natural world. "Animal magic on the borders between youth and maturity."The Independent"After Brock shows how natural drama infuses human behaviour with resonant meaning, and vice versa."The Spectator"Binding successfully combines a riveting story with a deeper contemplation of the human condition."gwales.comPaul Binding is a novelist, critic, poet and cultural historian. Four of his books have recently been reissued by Faber Finds: Lorca (2009), The Still Moment: Eudora Welty (2009), St Martin's Ride (2009) and My Cousin the Writer (2010). A regular reviewer for the Guardian, the Independent and the TLS, he lives in the Marches.