Louis De Bernières

A beautiful collection of poems from bestselling author Louis de Bernières. There are moving poems to, and about, his family: his great grandmother, his mother and father and his children. There are poems about places near and far, about the passing of time, music and about love in its various forms.

Louis de Bernieres is one of our most treasured writers and these stories show his imaginative range and unique storytelling power. This collection features tales that transport us around the globe, from the London Underground to Turkish ruins to the banks of the Amazon.

Q wants a simpler and safer life. His work as a quantum cryptographer for the government has led him to believe a crisis is imminent for civilisation and he's looking for somewhere to ride out what's ahead. He buys a ruined farmhouse in Cornwall and begins to build his own self-sufficient haven.

Over the course of this quest he meets the eccentric characters who already live on the moors nearby - including the park ranger in charge of the reintroduced lynxes and aurochs that roam the area; a holy man waiting for the second coming on top of a nearby hill; an Arthurian knight on horseback and the amorous ghost of an Edwardian woman who haunts the farmhouse.

Welcome to the village of Notwithstanding where a lady dresses in plus fours and shoots squirrels, a retired general gives up wearing clothes altogether, and a spiritualist lives in a cottage with the ghost of her husband. A moving depiction of a charming vanished England.