Being Alone
Writing tends to be a solitary activity. It's not surprising then that writers have often made loneliness and solitude the subject, rather than just the condition, of their work. Here are some of our favourites.
£8.99
A Book of Silence
In her late forties the feminist writer Sara Maitland began to withdraw herself from the world, discovering the pleasures of silence. Her latest bo... See details
£11.99
A Pelican in the Wilderness: Hermits, Solitaries and Recluses
Isabel Colegate begins her book with a description of a ruined 18th century hermit’s cell in her own garden before travelling across the continents... See details
£18.95
Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation
At the beginning of the 18th century – Laqueur suggests the rather precise date ‘in or around 1712’ – masturbation was suddenly catapulted by moral... See details
£6.50
Walden
Henry David Thoreau’s account of his two years spent living in semi-reclusion at Walden Pond – a book described by Denis O’Donoghue in the introduc... See details
£17.99
Alone
Explorer and aviator Admiral Byrd spent the winter of 1934 alone on the Antarctic ice, conducting meteorological research. The nearest human was mo... See details
£15.50
Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes – a Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness
In 2001 mature student Robert Kull decided on a very unusual research project for his PhD thesis: he would maroon himself for a year on an island o... See details
£19.95
Heidegger's Hut
From the 1920s onwards, Heidegger used a three-room cabin in the Black Forest mountains, which he called die Hütte, as a retreat in which to... See details
£4.99
A Room of One’s Own
Virginia Woolf’s long essay on female creativity is based on two lectures delivered in Cambridge during October 1928. Throughout the centuries, she... See details
£8.99
Cave in the Snow
In 1976 Diane Perry, a fishmonger’s daughter from Bethnal Green, secluded herself in a remote Himalayan cave and began 12 years of intense Buddhist... See details
£7.99
I Am Legend
In Richard Matheson’s 1954 science fiction novel Richard Neville is, or believes himself to be, the last human alive following a pandemic that has ... See details
£8.99
Solitude
Anthony Storr argues against the prevalent, and he believes distinctly modern, belief that success in human relationships is the cornerstone of hea... See details