{"title":"Miranda France","description":"\u003cp\u003eDiscover the insightful and evocative works of Miranda France. From travel writing to biography, explore her unique perspectives on culture, history, and the human experience. Start your reading journey here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"bad-times-in-buenos-aires-book-miranda-france-9780297819660","title":"Bad Times in Buenos Aires","description":"In 1993 Miranda France moved to South America, drawn to Buenos Aires as the intellectual hub of the continent, with its wealth of writers and its romantic, passionate and tragic history. 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In 1993 Miranda France moved to South America, drawn to Buenos Aires as the intellectual hub of the continent, with its wealth of writers and its romantic, passionate and tragic history. She found that is was all these things, but it was also a terrible place to live.  The inhabitants of Buenos Aires are famously unhappy.  All over South America they are known for their arrogance, their fixation of Europe and their moodiness.  Very soon, Miranda France encounters' bronca' - the simmering and barely controllable rage that is a staple feature of life in the Argentinian capital.  She finds that 'bronca' has deep roots: the violence and racism of the first European settlers; the dictatorships, especially in the 1970s when so many 'disappeared'; even Evita Peron, for there was no rage to rival Evita's.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49524413694225,"sku":"GOR001414680","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49660495659281,"sku":"GOR001565218","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49728096403729,"sku":"NGR9780753805510","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49747283509521,"sku":"CIN0753805510G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50357875376401,"sku":"CIN0753805510A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52458364436753,"sku":"GOR001823561","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0753805510.jpg?v=1772790685"},{"product_id":"don-quixote-s-delusions-book-miranda-france-9780753813843","title":"Don Quixote's Delusions","description":"A humorous and affectionate look at modern Spain, and a celebration of the country's greatest book, from the pen of a brilliant young writer.  When in 1987 Miranda France spent a year living in Madrid, the post-dictatorship ebullience was at its height.  Pornography and soft drugs were legalised alongside more basic freedoms, such as divorce, party-affiliation and kissing in the street. In 1998 she returned to make a journey through the great cities and towns of central Spain - Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca and others. With the new prosperity, much has changed.   But much has also endured, as she learns from the people she meets, who include a private detective, a shepherd, various nuns, two belly dancers and a Castilian separatist.  She also discovers that Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE' published in 1605 and the most translated book after the Bible - is a work of genius which still helps to explain the Spanish character: today's Spaniards still suffer from Don Quixote's delusions, and are as stubborn, inflexible and unrealistic as they have always been.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49548919046417,"sku":"GOR003541585","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49633456423185,"sku":"GOR001751568","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49730339307793,"sku":"NGR9780753813843","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51324155429137,"sku":"CIN075381384XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/075381384X.jpg?v=1751263980"},{"product_id":"day-before-the-fire-book-miranda-france-9780701185817","title":"The Day Before the Fire","description":"'Intelligent, insightful, enlightening and gripping' ML Stedman, author of The Light Between Oceans  When fire devastates Turney House, London’s finest stately home, the immaculate Lady Alexandra Marchant demands that everything be restored exactly as it was ‘the day before the fire’. Every charred remnant must be salvaged. Even the famous chandelier will be pieced back together into a flawless reconstruction.   But is it possible, or even desirable, to resurrect the past? And why do we care so much about it? Critics say the restored Turney can never be more than an elegant fake; Lady Alexandra Marchant says Turney’s doors, its café and gift shop, must be re-opened to the paying public as soon as possible.   Ros Freeman is called in as part of the effort, to Turney’s tented village of carvers, gilders, plasterers and stonemasons. Ros loves her work as a paper restorer. She considers herself an expert in uncovering the past, layer by layer, to bring out the truth. And yet in her personal life there are corners, shadows, ghosts, she fails to see. Until a discovery in Turney’s Rose Room challenges her to look again.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49564792553745,"sku":"GOR006798337","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49664408813841,"sku":"GOR008261734","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51166980735249,"sku":"GOR007176704","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0701185813.jpg?v=1751199430"},{"product_id":"writing-school-book-miranda-france-9781472157348","title":"The Writing School","description":"'Both extremely funny and deeply sad, The Writing School examines how and why we tell our own stories.  It's beautifully written and structured, compelling, wise and fabulously readable' Lissa Evans  'The Writing School is an extraordinary book. It is funny, exhilarating, heart-breaking and passionate. Its delicate pulsing themes are held like a bird in the writer's confident, gentle hand' Katharine Norbury  'Life, with its unexpected troughs and highs, the disciplines of teaching a creative writing course and the shadow of a family tragedy provide the focus for a memoir that brims with humour, honesty and intelligence. The Writing School taught me a lot' Elizabeth Buchan  A creative writing course is a chance for reinvention. When author Miranda France sets off to teach at a residential writing school in a remote valley, she expects to meet a group of aspiring writers with the usual mix of hope and unrealised ambitions, talents and motivation.  Tensions are bound to emerge over the course of the week they spend together: personalities will clash, egos will need to be tamed or gently encouraged. What France doesn't expect, as she takes her tutees through a series of exercises designed to help them explore different aspects of their writing, is that a ghost from her own life will join them.  As the daily drama of the writing school unfurls, so memories resurface concerning a death that profoundly shaped the author's world when she was a teenager. Soon France's memories interweave with her present task of thinking about writing and storytelling, and she too becomes a student: asking, what is to be done with our memories of those we have lost? What is behind the urge to put lives into words? And is it ever right to tell another person's story?  A delightful and unusual blend of storytelling and memoir, packed full of literary anecdote and insight from the author's own experience as well as that of other writers and poets, The Writing School is a moving and often very funny book about why people write, as well as being a uniquely generous masterclass on the art of writing itself.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49577339355409,"sku":"GOR013148469","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49744745070865,"sku":"NGR9781472157348","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":52890852327697,"sku":"CIN1472157346LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472157346.jpg?v=1751405584"},{"product_id":"hill-farm-book-miranda-france-9780701185800","title":"Hill Farm","description":"Hill Farm tells the story of what appears to be a perfectly ordinary farming family living in a perfect village in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It feels like a place that will never change. Its fields have been cultivated since medieval times, its farmhouse is crumbling and the same bric-a-brac has been circulating the village jumble sales for decades.  But change does come, that summer. It comes in different guises: a handsome farm-hand, a death-watch beetle, a lavender-scented bosom, a lost hedgerow, a disused water tank. But finally it comes in the shape of an explosive argument in the tractor shed, after which nothing will ever be the same again.   With gentle wit and sharp intelligence, Miranda France takes the rural idyll and shakes it right up. She finds there's quite another side to the Hill Farm story.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49601022460177,"sku":"GOR002765820","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49668721836305,"sku":"GOR007425531","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51855586427153,"sku":"GOR005028788","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53155191587089,"sku":"GOR014784643","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0701185805.jpg?v=1751447121"},{"product_id":"day-before-the-fire-book-miranda-france-9781444827415","title":"The Day Before The Fire","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49628889514257,"sku":"GOR012114067","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1444827413.jpg?v=1750922680"},{"product_id":"don-quixote-s-delusions-book-miranda-france-9780297842774","title":"Don Quixote's Delusions","description":"When in 1987 Miranda France spent a year living in Madrid, the post-dictatorship ebullience was at its height - pornography and soft drugs were legalized alongside more basic freedoms, such as divorce, party-affiliation and kissing in the street. 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She also discovers that Cervante's \"Don Quixote\", published in 1605, and the most translated book after the Bible, helps to explain the Spanish character: todays Spaniards still suffer from Quixotic delusions and are as stubborn, inflexible and unrealistic as they have always been.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49727575851281,"sku":"GOR006209254","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49762364850449,"sku":"GOR013778708","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0297842773.jpg?v=1751005533"},{"product_id":"writing-school-book-miranda-france-9781472157355","title":"The Writing School","description":"'Fascinating, hugely entertaining, instructive in the best sense. I always thought that writing could not be taught, only reading, but this book made me reconsider. I read it in one sitting' Alberto Manguel  'Both extremely funny and deeply sad, The Writing School examines how and why we tell our own stories.  It's beautifully written and structured, compelling, wise and fabulously readable' Lissa Evans  'The Writing School is an extraordinary book. It is funny, exhilarating, heart-breaking and passionate. Its delicate pulsing themes are held like a bird in the writer's confident, gentle hand' Katharine Norbury  'Life, with its unexpected troughs and highs, the disciplines of teaching a creative writing course and the shadow of a family tragedy provide the focus for a memoir that brims with humour, honesty and intelligence. The Writing School taught me a lot' Elizabeth Buchan  When author Miranda France sets out to teach at a residential writing school in the British countryside, she expects to meet a group of aspiring writers with the usual mix of hope and unrealised ambitions, talents and motivation. What she doesn't expect, as she takes her tutees through a series of exercises designed to help them explore different aspects of their writing, is that a ghost from her own life will join them.  As she thinks about the act of writing and storytelling, Miranda recovers memories concerning her brother's untimely death when she was a teenager, a grief that has profoundly shaped her life. What is to be done with our memories of those we have lost? What is behind the urge to put lives into words? And is it ever right to tell another person's story?  Blending storytelling and memoir, packed full of literary anecdote and insight, The Writing School is a moving and often very funny book about why people write, as well as being a uniquely generous masterclass on the art of writing itself.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49744695460113,"sku":"NGR9781472157355","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50554796441873,"sku":"GOR013993261","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53143418405137,"sku":"GOR014771755","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472157354.jpg?v=1751210784"},{"product_id":"that-summer-at-hill-farm-book-miranda-france-9780099555131","title":"That Summer at Hill Farm","description":"To the casual outsider, Hill Farm is a rural idyll and the perfect retreat from urban life. Yet beneath the tranquil surface lie discontent, desire and death-watch beetles.  Farmer Hayes loves the land - but hates farming. His neglected wife Isabel adores her three children, but is temperamentally unsuited to life as a wife and mother. The Smith sisters have not spoken to one another for forty years, farm-hand Mikey dabbles in pyromania, while neighbour Mr Payne has fled the city, only to find a greater threat to his karma in the hedgerows of Middle England. And after one incendiary summer, all of their lives will be different...  Originally published with the title Hill Farm","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50654433313041,"sku":"GOR003829369","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50657413857553,"sku":"GOR004108401","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099555131.jpg?v=1751069330"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-miranda-france.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}