{"title":"Books by Ann Wroe","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781787334458","title":"Lifescapes","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe acclaimed biographer and obituarist for \u003ci\u003eThe Economist \u003c\/i\u003ereflects on a career spent pursuing life and capturing it on the page\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'\u003ci\u003eLifescapes\u003c\/i\u003e is the universe in miniature'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDAILY TELEGRAPH\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIt is soul that I go looking for. Or, to put it another way, real life.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'She's a genius, I believe'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHILARY MANTEL, author of \u003ci\u003eWolf Hall\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'What is life?' asked the poet Shelley, and could not come up with an answer. Scientists, too, for all their understanding of how life manifests, thrives and evolves, have still not plumbed that fundamental question. Yet biographers and obituarists continue to corral lives in a few columns, or a few hundred pages, aware all the time how fleeting and elusive their subject is.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this dazzlingly original blend of memoir, biography, observation and poetry, Ann Wroe reflects on the art and impossibility of capturing life on the page. Through her experiences and those of others, through people she has known, studied or merely glimpsed in windows, she movingly explores what makes a life and how that life lingers after.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnimated by Wroe's rare imagination, eye for the telling detail, and the wit, beauty and clarity of her writing, \u003ci\u003eLifescapes\u003c\/i\u003e is a luminous, deeply personal answer to Shelley's question.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57686005809525,"sku":"9781529922547","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":43205487755442,"sku":"9781787334458","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529922547.jpg?v=1792599336"},{"product_id":"9780099287933","title":"Pilate","description":"Although very little is known for certain about Pontius Pilate, the man who crucified Christ, this has not stopped writers in every age from imagining his life. In this extraordinary book, Ann Wroe recounts the lives of all our Pilates; among them the glittering medieval tyrant, devoted to gambling and getting around the law, and the wriggling modern pragmatist, whose dilemma over Jesus has been described by Tony Blair as 'a timeless parable of political life'. This is also the story of the man Pilate might have been; and the man who mirrors us. Ann Wroe shows how, in his struggles with fate and free will, Pilate's story has also become the story of ourselves.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56223817007477,"sku":"9780099287933","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099287933_c6e75a56-ed05-4b90-8acf-549891f608b8.jpg?v=1786011437"},{"product_id":"9781787331488","title":"Francis","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e**LONGLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2019**\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e**SHORTLISTED FOR THE CATHOLIC HERALD BOOK AWARDS 2019**\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA life of St Francis in verse\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThroughout her career Ann Wroe has constantly confounded expectations, following her own unique path. Now, in \u003ci\u003eFrancis\u003c\/i\u003e, she turns to verse to tell the life of St Francis of Assisi. This is a sequence only Ann Wroe could write, combining a troubadour's musicality with full grasp of the moment, and a luminous sense of Francis as both myth and man, across history and culture, in nature and community. It is a remarkable and immensely beautiful book.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSt Francis was one of the most compelling spirits the world has seen. He was also a poet, a musician and a dancer. His world was coloured by troubadour lays, brightened by birdsong, ordered by the bells and chants of the Church and transfigured by the angel-lyres he heard about him. For Ann Wroe, this seems a good reason to write his life in songs. It is also an excuse to record, in songs, the many ways his presence and his music still linger round us. They surprise us in chance encounters in city streets; they waylay us amid the humdrum banalities of working life; they persist in the beauties of nature. Great spirits never leave us. They echo on and on.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56305673044341,"sku":"9781787331488","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781787331488_fc01111c-3ddd-4e0a-b630-8a8665f65563.jpg?v=1786025731"},{"product_id":"9781845951689","title":"Orpheus","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor at least two and a half millennia, the figure of Orpheus has haunted humanity. Half-man, half-god, musician, magician, theologian, poet and lover, his story never leaves us. He may be myth, but his lyre still sounds, entrancing everything that hears it: animals, trees, water, stones, and men.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this extraordinary work Ann Wroe goes in search of Orpheus, from the forests where he walked and the mountains where he worshipped to the artefacts, texts and philosophies built up round him. She traces the man, and the power he represents, through the myriad versions of a fantastical life: his birth in Thrace, his studies in Egypt, his voyage with the Argonauts to fetch the Golden Fleece, his love for Eurydice and journey to Hades, and his terrible death. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe see him tantalising Cicero and Plato, and breathing new music into Gluck and Monteverdi; occupying the mind of Jung and the surreal dreams of Cocteau; scandalising the Fathers of the early Church, and filling Rilke with poems like a whirlwind. He emerges as not simply another mythical figure but the force of creation itself, singing the song of light out of darkness and life out of death.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308196802933,"sku":"9781845951689","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781845951689_20a4fc95-da9f-4882-9cb3-1d8cb11ef852.jpg?v=1786029622"},{"product_id":"perkin","title":"Perkin","description":"The story of Perkin Warbeck is one of the most compelling mysteries of English history. A young man suddenly emerged claiming to be Richard of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower. As such, he tormented Henry VII for eight years. He tried three times to invade England and behaved like a prince. Officially, however, he was proclaimed to be Perkin Warbeck, the son of a Flemish boatman. A diplomatic pawn, he was used by the greatest European rulers of the age for their own purposes. All who dealt with him gave him the identity they wished him to have: either the Duke of York or a jumped-up lad from Flanders. It is possible that he was neither. It is also possible that, by the end, even he did not really know who he was. In Perkin Ann Wroe tells again a marvellous tale that is on the brink of being forgotten. She also dissects the official cover story. In doing so she delves into the secret corners of European history and produces a portrait of the late fifteenth century that is breathtaking in its detail.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466631946613,"sku":"9780099449966","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099449966.jpg?v=1785654690"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-ann-wroe.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}