{"title":"Laura Beatty","description":"\u003cp\u003eDiscover the captivating works of \u003cem\u003eLaura Beatty\u003c\/em\u003e, a remarkable author renowned for her vivid storytelling and profound exploration of human experiences. With a flair for weaving history and fiction together, Beatty's books offer readers an intriguing journey through time and personal introspection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAmong her insightful works, you'll find \"\u003cem\u003eLooking for Theophrastus\u003c\/em\u003e,\" a compelling exploration of the ancient philosopher's influence on modern thought. This book blends \u003cstrong\u003eBiography \u0026amp; Memoir\u003c\/strong\u003e with historical analysis, shedding light on forgotten narratives and their relevance today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \"\u003cem\u003eLost Property\u003c\/em\u003e,\" Beatty presents a story rich in emotion and self-discovery. This piece of \u003cstrong\u003eGeneral Fiction\u003c\/strong\u003e delves into themes of belonging, memory, and the quest for identity, resonating with anyone who has ever pondered their place in the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLaura Beatty's unique narrative style and profound understanding of the human condition make her collection an essential addition to any reader's library. Dive into her books to experience a blend of eloquence, insight, and literary artistry.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"lost-property-by-laura-beatty-9781786497406","title":"Lost Property","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Clever, brave and urgent. I thought about \u003ci\u003eLost Property\u003c\/i\u003e for days after I finished it.\" – Sarah Moss, author of \u003ci\u003eGhost Wall\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Fascinating and eloquent discussion of nationalism, art and conflict, leavened with wry humour.\" – \u003ci\u003eMail on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the middle of her life, a writer finds herself in a dark wood, despairing at how modern Britain has become a place of such greed and indifference. In an attempt to understand her country and her species, she and her lover rent a busted-out van and journey through France and down to the Mediterranean, across Italy and the Balkans, finishing in Greece and its islands. Along the way, they drive through the Norman Conquest, the Hundred Years War, the Italian Renaissance, the 1990s and on to the current refugee crisis, encountering the shades of history, sometimes figuratively and sometimes—such as Joan of Arc, sitting pertly in the back of the van—quite literally.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs she roadtrips through 10,000 years of civilization, watching humanity repeat itself with wars over borderlines and exceed itself with the creation of timeless art, the writer begins to reckon with the very worst and the very best in our collective natures. It is in seeing the beauty beside the ugliness, the light among the trees, that she begins to see, finally, a way for her to go home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46712247419116,"sku":"9781786497406","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/1503103482824.jpg?v=1754288760"},{"product_id":"looking-for-theophrastus-by-laura-beatty-9781838954369","title":"Looking for Theophrastus","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStanding on the deck of a ferry boat, Laura Beatty watches as the assembled port and buildings of mainland Greece disappear from view. Her destination is Lesbos, but she's not only travelling across the stretch of glittering blue sea—she's also travelling 2,000 years into the past, to a time when the world was a wild place of gods and warrior kings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt's here she needs to go to retrieve a forgotten philosopher, one who worked side-by-side with Aristotle to learn and to classify the world, to rely on his senses rather than myth to explain what governs the seasons and the soil, to put down on parchment the glorious multiplicity of character types he met on his travels across ancient Greece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThat philosopher is Theophrastus, a gentle, peaceful, wondering man whose work took him from the academies of Athens to the reckless court of Philip of Macedonia, and in time would inspire Linnaeus' system of classification and, quite possibly, Chaucer's \u003ci\u003eCanterbury Tales\u003c\/i\u003e—and the modern form of the novel that the Tales, in turn, inspired. But if one person achieved so much, why is his name so little recognised?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eLooking for Theophrastus\u003c\/i\u003e, Laura Beatty restores this important figure to collective consciousness, and in doing so travels in Theophrastus's own footsteps, exploring how we see, receive and relate to the world around us and questioning what we lose from the modern way of living when we forget those ancients who first taught us how to see.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46833263214828,"sku":"9781838954369","price":39.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/20528513482842.jpg?v=1758449259"},{"product_id":"looking-for-theophrastus-by-laura-beatty-9781838954383","title":"Looking for Theophrastus","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWho is Theophrastus, and why should we care? Once, he was the equal of Plato and Aristotle. Together, he and Aristotle invented science. Alone, he invented Botany. The character of the Wife of Bath is his invention; the \u003cem\u003eCanterbury Tales\u003c\/em\u003e as a whole, perhaps, the product of his inspiration. When Linnaeus was developing our modern system of plant taxonomy, it was Theophrastus' work on plants that he used as a basis. So how could one man do so much and still sink almost without a trace?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the story of a journey to find him and bring him back from oblivion. \u003cem\u003eLooking for Theophrastus\u003c\/em\u003e, in all the places he must have walked and lived, tells how he and Aristotle, his friend and tutor, broke with the philosophical conventions of the Academy and left on their own adventure; of how together they invented what we now take for granted as the Natural Sciences; how, not content with that, they made the great experiment of applying philosophy directly to the practicalities of government through the tutoring of Alexander the Great; how they were disappointed and how, in the end, they returned to Athens and founded the famous Lyceum.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAgainst the dramatic context of his time—the end of democracy in Athens and the rise of Alexander the Great; the great battles and vast territorial expansion that followed; the flowering of the philosophy schools on which so much of our culture and thinking is founded—and on, following his cultural legacy through to the modern day, it explores how we perceive, understand and, most importantly, how we relate to the world around us, questioning what we lose from our way of living when we forget those ancients who first taught us how to see.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46833263935724,"sku":"9781838954383","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/20528653482842.jpg?v=1758449341"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/laura-beatty.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}