{"title":"Peter Conrad Books","description":"\u003cp\u003eBrowse the books by Peter Conrad we have in stock, second-hand, in hardback and paperback. Mostly non-fiction and literary criticism. Every book ships from our own UK warehouse. Free UK delivery on orders of £10 or more.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"down-house-revisiting-tasmania","title":"Down House: Revisiting Tasmania","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen he was 20, Conrad left his home in Tasmania for Oxford, London, New York; 20 years later, he returnedto rediscover the island and his relationship to it. The author of Imagining America evokes an extraordinary portrait of his native land, a brilliant, merciless portrait. Tasmania, he writes, is Australia's little Australia, doubly isolated frm the world, a place whose settlers attempted to reconcile Arcady with Alcatraz. When its name was changed from Van Dieman's Land to Tasmania, the colonists conveniently forgot its brutish origins and re-wrote history, dismissing from memory the horrors of Port Arthur prison and aboriginal genocide. Mt. Wellington, rising behind his childhood home in Hobart, represented the unknown to young Conrad. His journey begins there, taking him to the roadless, inhospitable, inclement southwest coast; to a grisly convict museum; to Flinders Island, whose residents have turned it into a monumental junkyard. Continuing his exploration, he visits mining areas, abandoned farms, ghost towns and graveyards. He sees the landscape as part savage Eden, part factory with its own manufactured sceneryzinc works that taunt nature with useless, extravagant art, power lines supplanting nature by technology. Dead gum trees are \"twisted in arthritic agonies but unbowed\"; they are succeeded by giant pylons, \"trees transformed into girders of metal.\" Conrad conveys no romantic empathy with a pristine environment, but a sense of land as adversary; people have been able to live in Tasmania only by ravaging the land. National self-image alternates between gentle English villagers and brawling frontier Americans. Artists and writers have made Tasmania habitable by depicting a fiction; local poets dream of England and awaken to a different reality. Romantic dream or romantic nightmare: a Switzerland of the Pacific or an Appalachia of the Antarctic? Conrad invokes powerful images of a remote, desolate, exotic land; ultimately, he accepts the fact that when you leave home, it travels with you. Part autobiography, part history, part travelogue, this is a wholly memorable memoir.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/peter-conrad-books\"\u003ePeter Conrad\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1988\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 232\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Chatto \u0026amp; Windus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780701132538\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Chatto \u0026 Windus","offers":[{"title":"Very Good — £11.90","offer_id":47900839477425,"sku":"SB-0701132531-C2","price":11.9,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0701132531.jpg?v=1789801327"},{"product_id":"everymans-history-of-english-literature","title":"Everyman's History of English Literature","description":"\u003cp\u003eA complete chronicle of the literature of the British Isles, from \u003ci\u003eBeowulf \u003c\/i\u003eto the beginning of the third millennium. This classic work of literary history not only provides an encyclopedic survey, but also a personal, chronological interpretation of the English tradition with an emphasis on the continuity of major literary forms and on the ways in which important figures transform the art. The many literary genres, themes, and authors that receive a fascinating analysis include The Epic; Chaucer; Two Versions of the Pastoral; The Sonnet; Spenser's Garden; Shakespeare; Revenge Tragedy; Restoration Comedy; Inventing the Novel; Gothic Follies; Wordsworth and Coleridge; and Imagination and Fiction. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/peter-conrad-books\"\u003ePeter Conrad\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2006\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 772\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Weidenfeld \u0026amp; Nicolson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780304368211\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Weidenfeld \u0026 Nicolson","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £2.75","offer_id":47909987385521,"sku":"SB-0304368210-C3","price":2.75,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0304368210.jpg?v=1789216238"},{"product_id":"modern-times-modern-places-how-life-and-art-were-transformed-in-a-century-of-revolution-innovation-and-radical-change","title":"Modern Times, Modern Places: How Life and Art Were Transformed in a Century of Revolution, Innovation, and Radical Change","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe world changed faster during the twentieth century than ever before. Science and technology set the pace, promoting men to the air like gods. There were revolutions on the streets, but also in the head: uprisings of the Marxist proletariat and of the Freudian id. The new physics of Einstein and his colleagues changed our understanding of nature by showing that matter is made up of empty space, and modern architects constructed buildings to match those new structural principles. Painters such as Picasso and Dali denied they were distorting the human form: they were simply acknowledging the ways in which modern men and women were different, both physiologically and psychologically.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLittle wonder that, even before our unprecedented century has concluded, its culture has been studied, dissected, analyzed, questioned, rejected, and embraced. We are exhilarated by our own story. Yet the twentieth century's proud rejection of the Western humanist past and its newly specialized intellectual style has left our understanding of it in fragments. But rescue is at hand, for in Modern Times, Modern Places, the noted critic Peter Conrad--ranging brilliantly between literature, the visual arts, music and the performing arts, science, and psychoanalysis--connects these disparate areas and sees the modern era as a whole.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTaking his cue from the declaration of the Italian futurists that time and space had been abruptly killed off by Einstein's time-space continuum, he investigates the notion and the nature of modern times: the justified conviction that we have lived through a unique testing period in the experience of mankind. He also describes the places that were frontiers of modernity--cities like Vienna, Moscow, Paris, and Berlin; new worlds in the Americas; a preview of a possible future in Tokyo.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDid it all happen too fast and go too far? Modernity was like a roller coaster ride, during which the human race jested with disaster and delighted in the havoc created by the play of g-forces. Yet we can take pride in our century's mental achievements, as well as regretting its crimes. Despite the dangers we confront, with the uniquely clear perspective Peter Conrad provides on a phase of history that has nearly passed we are much better prepared to confront the new millennium.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/peter-conrad-books\"\u003ePeter Conrad\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1999\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 752\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Knopf\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780375401138\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £6.11","offer_id":47910886408369,"sku":"SB-037540113X-C3","price":6.11,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/037540113X.jpg?v=1789239098"},{"product_id":"at-home-in-australia","title":"At Home in Australia","description":"\u003cp\u003ePeter Conrad’s special gift is that of the great writer - to make the particular of intense personal concern to each of us. Here he gives his own deeply felt account of a nation’s history and his brilliant word-pictures are inspired by over 200 photographs from the collections of the National Gallery of Australia. In the 19th century the camera recorded the clearance of the bush and the construction of huts for homesteaders, and documented the exploration of the remote outback; it also accompanied the building of new cities, bravely determined to look European despite their position. Photographers helped Australians to make themselves at home in their strange, beautiful land. This is a many-layered story that depicts the making and the remaking of a nation; a social history extending from the trials of the frontier to the hedonistic urban society of the present day; a psychological history describing how the mass or the mob gradually permitted individuals to challenge the country’s inherited values; and a cultural history that begins with the harsh, arid earth and shows how that stark reality has been transformed into art thanks to the creative skills of generations of Australian photographers. This is also a personal journey of rediscovery undertaken by a writer who quit Australia at the age of twenty and has now come to see it again, with fresh, wondering eyes, through these extraordinary images.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/peter-conrad-books\"\u003ePeter Conrad\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2003\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 256\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Thames \u0026amp; Hudson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780500511411\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Thames \u0026 Hudson","offers":[{"title":"Very Good — £1.85","offer_id":47911977779377,"sku":"SB-0500511411-C2","price":1.85,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0500511411.jpg?v=1789204711"},{"product_id":"islands-a-trip-through-time-and-space","title":"Islands: A trip through time and space","description":"\u003cp\u003ePeter Conrad, who was born in Tasmania, has produced an original and highly personal account of the role islands play in our dreams and nightmares. With his customary wide range of reference and quick wit, he visits every corner of the globe to explain why islands appeal to us, and on the way covers everything from the myth of Atlantis to Watteau's erotic Cytherea, from Prospero's magical kingdom to Nelson Mandela's prison.Whether we live on an island or merely fancy escaping to one, we can all learn something from this thought-provoking book.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/peter-conrad-books\"\u003ePeter Conrad\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2009\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 192\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Thames \u0026amp; Hudson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780500514719\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Thames \u0026 Hudson","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £14.03","offer_id":47911978238129,"sku":"SB-0500514712-C3","price":14.03,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0500514712.jpg?v=1789718170"},{"product_id":"the-hitchcock-murders","title":"The Hitchcock Murders","description":"\u003cp\u003eAlfred Hitchcock relished his power to frighten us and believed the shocks he administered improved our psychological health. But he could never satisfactorily explain our curiosity to see forbidden things or the perverse desire to experience anxiety and dread that made his work so popular.\n\nIn The Hitchcock Murders, Peter Conrad, one of Hitchcock's eager victims, undertakes the task on the master's behalf. At the age of thirteen, Conrad snuck into his first screening of Psycho, and he's been wary of showers and fruit cellars ever since. Thanks to Hitchcock, he's also suspicious of staircases, seagulls, and crop-dusting planes. Now he sets out to analyze the nature of Hitchcock's appeal to both himself and the millions of moviegoers for whom Hitchcock is cinema's foremost auteur. Examining Hitchcock's use of religion, morality, conscience, culpability, and literary symbols, Conrad unveils a chilling Nietzschean universe-one in which there is no God and no moral standard, where humans are petty and disposable and the neutral hand of fate can take a life in the blink of an eye. A timid, respectable man with the imagination of a psychopath, a chubby jester whose practical jokes took merciless advantage of human insecurities, Hitchcock is revealed here as the man who knew too much-about all of us.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/peter-conrad-books\"\u003ePeter Conrad\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2001\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 362\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Faber \u0026amp; Faber\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780571200238\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Faber \u0026 Faber","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £1.52","offer_id":47912223703217,"sku":"SB-0571200230-C3","price":1.52,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0571200230.jpg?v=1789194295"},{"product_id":"underworld","title":"Underworld","description":"\u003cp\u003eHardcover and jacket. First edition. Page block and page edges are slightly tanned; no further notable faults - a very good copy. TS\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/peter-conrad-books\"\u003ePeter Conrad\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1992\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 252\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Chatto \u0026amp; Windus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780701138950\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Chatto \u0026 Windus","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £1.43","offer_id":47912612561073,"sku":"SB-0701138955-C3","price":1.43,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0701138955.jpg?v=1789215559"},{"product_id":"where-i-fell-to-earth-a-life-in-four-places","title":"Where I Fell to Earth: A Life in Four Places","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/peter-conrad-books\"\u003ePeter Conrad\u003c\/a\u003e (all their books in stock)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Chatto \u0026amp; Windus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780701209223\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Random House","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £22.72","offer_id":47958436315313,"sku":"SB-0701209224-C3","price":22.72,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0701209224.jpg?v=1790049336"}],"url":"https:\/\/sellbooks.co.uk\/collections\/peter-conrad-books.oembed","provider":"Sell Books .co.uk","version":"1.0","type":"link"}