{"title":"Books by Clare Pollard","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780241995266","title":"Delphi","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Vivid as fireworks ... Both terrifying and exhilarating' \u003c\/b\u003eDoireann Ní Ghríofa, author of \u003ci\u003eA Ghost in the Throat\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Funny and sharp ... A hungry book, looking everywhere and seeing everything' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eObserver\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a time more turbulent than any of us could have ever imagined, a woman is attempting to write a book about prophecy in the ancient world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNavigating the tightening grip of lockdown, a marriage in crisis, and a ten-year-old son who seems increasingly unreachable, she becomes fixated on our many forms of divination and prediction: on oracles, tarot cards and tea leaves and the questions we have always asked as we scroll and click and rage against our fates.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut in doing so she fails to notice the future creeping into the heart of her own home. For despite our best intentions - our sacrifices and our bargains with the gods - time, certainty and, sometimes, those we love, can still slip away ...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHeartbreakingly relatable and achingly funny \u003ci\u003eDelphi \u003c\/i\u003eis both a snapshot and a time capsule, deftly capturing our pasts, our presents, and how we keep on going in a world that is ever more uncertain and absurd.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Impressive ... What good fiction is meant to do' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Bold, brave and uncompromising, Pollard has found a way to write about the last couple of years which is both truthful and enjoyable to read, which I didn't think was possible' \u003c\/b\u003eCathy Rentzenbrink, author of \u003ci\u003eEveryone is Still Alive\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43128921817266,"sku":"9780241995266","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":57685889876341,"sku":"9780241558539","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241995266.jpg?v=1792599117"},{"product_id":"9780241672457","title":"The Modern Fairies","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘A novel with oodles of charm’ \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Elegant, decadent, vulgar, clever, enchanting and dark’ Sarah Perry, author of \u003ci\u003eEnlightenment\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVersailles, 1682: a city of the rich, a living fairy-tale, Louis XIV's fever dream. It's a place of opulence, beauty, and power. But strip back the lavish exterior of polite society, and you'll find a dark undercurrent of sexual intrigue and vicious gossip. Nobody is safe here - no matter how highly born they are.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo one knows this better than Madame Marie d'Aulnoy. Each week, a rogue group of intellectuals gather at her Parisian home to debate, flirt and perform \u003ci\u003eContes de Fées \u003c\/i\u003e- fairy tales - that challenge the status quo, at a salon that will change the course of literature forever. But while they weave tales of glass slippers, enchanted beasts and long-haired princesses, a wolf is lurking, who threatens to destroy the members of the salon one by one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBrilliant and bawdy, romantic and provocative, \u003ci\u003eThe Modern Fairies\u003c\/i\u003e is a dazzling novel inspired by real events, about the delights and dangers of storytelling in dark times.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Funny, filthy, dancingly clever ... A delectable confection of many-layered pleasures … I gobbled it all up, Joanna Quinn, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Whalebone Theatre\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘The sentences sing on the page with wit and intelligence ... Reminds the reader of the enduring power of storytelling to transform and even save lives, then and now’ \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57685981135221,"sku":"9780241672464","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":44581227495602,"sku":"9780241672457","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241672464.jpg?v=1792599258"},{"product_id":"9780241354797","title":"Fierce Bad Rabbits","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'An enlightening, perceptive analysis of the books that build us'\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003eSunday Telegraph, \u003c\/i\u003e5 star review\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat is \u003ci\u003eThe Tiger Who Came to\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eTea\u003c\/i\u003e really about? \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat has \u003ci\u003eMeg and Mog \u003c\/i\u003egot to do with Polish embroidery?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhy is death in picture books so often represented by being eaten?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe've read \u003ci\u003eGreen Eggs and Ham, \u003c\/i\u003elaughed at \u003ci\u003eMr Tickle\u003c\/i\u003e and whetted our appetites with \u003ci\u003eThe Very Hungry Caterpillar.\u003c\/i\u003e But what lies behind the picture books that make up our childhood? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFierce Bad Rabbits\u003c\/i\u003e takes us on an eye-opening journey in a pea-green boat through the history of picture books. From Edward Lear through to Beatrix Potter and contemporary picture books like\u003ci\u003e Stick Man, \u003c\/i\u003eClare Pollard shines a light on some of our best-loved childhood stories, their histories and what they really mean. Because the best picture books are far more complex than they seem - and darker too. Monsters can gobble up children and go unnoticed, power is not always used wisely, and the wild things are closer than you think. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSparkling with wit, magic and nostalgia, \u003ci\u003eFierce Bad Rabbits \u003c\/i\u003eweaves in tales from Clare's own childhood, and her re-readings as a parent, with fascinating facts and theories about the authors behind the books. Introducing you to new treasures while bringing your childhood favourites to vivid life, it will make you see even stories you've read a hundred times afresh.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A gem, thoroughly enjoyable. Pollard has managed to dissect all our favourite stories with her scalpel, while leaving their magic intact' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'When I read \u003ci\u003eFierce Bad Rabbits\u003c\/i\u003e, I thought, \u003cb\u003ewhy has no one written this book before\u003c\/b\u003e? But Clare Pollard has done so superbly - it is \u003cb\u003eperceptive, illuminating, scholarly\u003c\/b\u003e but at the same time \u003cb\u003eentertaining\u003c\/b\u003e. 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Whether looking at the discourse around pregnancy, describing the pain of childbirth or thinking about surveillance at soft play, they blur the personal and political. Pinocchio, Hamelin, Alice and \u003cem\u003eThe Tiger who Came to Tea \u003c\/em\u003emake appearances alongside biblical tales: the ark, the whale's belly, the Moses basket in the rushes. There are poems for lost daughters - Amy Winehouse, Madeleine McCann, the victims of honour killings - and lost sons. There are also poems about innocence and responsibility which ask what it means to bring new human beings into this world, and how we shape them through our words.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Since her late teens, Clare Pollard has kept her poetic finger on the pulse of the world, writing poems of fierce love about the full scope of contemporary life from the intimacy of motherhood and the divided streets of London to elegies for the victims of honour killings and the climate crisis. Wonderfully skilled and with a rare lyrical gift, her poems ask today the questions the rest of us will ask tomorrow.' - Owen Sheers on Clare Pollard, one of the ten writers 'asking questions to shape our future' he selected for the National Centre for Writing's International Literature Showcase in 2020.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304189145461,"sku":"9781780373379","price":9.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781780373379_9311607f-c548-47e8-a3f5-4c5d4d9eb2b7.jpg?v=1786024982"},{"product_id":"9781780377476","title":"Lives of the Female Poets","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eClare Pollard thumbs her nose at Dr Johnson’s all-male \u003ci\u003eLives of the Poets\u003c\/i\u003e in chronicling her own life and theirs in her \u003ci\u003eLives of the Female Poets\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese portraits and self portraits offer glimpses into the poet’s own everyday life – from nit-combing and laundry to pollen counts and cocktails, watching school plays to shopping on Rye Lane – all whilst in conversation with female poets through the ages. Playing with forms from the version to the \u003ci\u003eglosa\u003c\/i\u003e, these are poems that remix, adapt and channel figures from Enheduanna, the first recorded poet, through to Wanda Coleman. Probing the idea of the ‘Poetess’ over time, there are also poems about writers’ lives – sonnets for Anne Locke, who wrote the first English sonnet sequence; a sestina for Elizabeth Bishop; a series of prose poems about Emily Brontë; and a look at the tragic life of L.E.L.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhether imagining a ‘three-martini afternoon’ at the Ritz with Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, or exploring the ways women writers have been erased from the canon in the book’s long, closing poem, Clare Pollard’s playful sixth collection celebrates and commemorates all those female poets who have come before.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304593502581,"sku":"9781780377476","price":12.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781780377476_3138edf4-3b5d-4353-899a-2947197749f0.jpg?v=1786025394"},{"product_id":"9781852249762","title":"Ovid's Heroines","description":"\u003cp\u003eOvid's Heroides, written in Rome some time between 25 and 16 BC, was once his most popular work. The title translates as Heroines, and it's a series of poems in the voices of women from Greek and Roman myth - including Phaedra, Medea, Penelope and Ariadne - addressed to the men they love. It has been claimed as both the first book of dramatic monologues and the first of epistolary fiction. It's also a radical text in its literary transvestism, and the way it often presents the same story from very different, subjective perspectives. For a long time it was Ovid's most influential work, loved by Chaucer, Dante, Marlowe, Shakespeare and Donne, and translated by Dryden and Pope. Clare Pollard's new translation rediscovers Ovid's Heroines for the 21st century, with a cast of women who are brave, bitchy, sexy, suicidal, horrifying, heartbreaking and surprisingly modern. 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Piers Torday'Laugh-out-loud funny and edge-of-seat thrilling' Sophie AndersonPhoebe and Perry have said goodbye to the Argonauts but Phoebe is craving adventure again. Then Perseus announces that he's going on a quest to defeat the fearsome gorgon Medusa before she turns them all to stone.   When a delivery of some essential hero accessories from Zeus goes astray, Phoebe and Perry end up chasing after Perseus. But is the gorgon Medusa as much of as a threat as Perseus says she is?Their mission will take them from high up in mountainous lairs right down into the Underworld - all with a troublesome baby gorgon in tow . . . At least they've got the help of Poseidon and a real-life pegasus who is definitely nothing like a unicorn.   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