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Jeanette Winterson

English • Author
12 books in Langa

Jeanette Winterson is an English author. Her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was a semi-autobiographical novel about a lesbian growing up in an English Pentecostal community. Other novels explore gender and sexual identity, and her later ones the relations between humans and technology. Her novels have been translated into almost 20 languages. She also broadcasts and teaches creative writing.

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Literature
Jeanette Winterson

Books in Langa Library

12 books available from this author.

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Grove Press · 2021 · English · EPUB

**“Witty [and] provocative” essays on how AI might change us by the** New York Times **–bestselling author of** Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? **(** Kirkus Reviews **).** When we create non-biological life-forms, will we do so in our image? Or will we accept the once-in-a-species opportunity to remake ourselves in their image? What do love, caring, sex, and attachment look like when humans form connections with non-human helpers, teachers, sex-workers, and companions? And what will happen to our deep-rooted assumptions about gender? Will the physical body that is our home soon be enhanced by biological and neural implants, keeping us fitter, younger, and connected? Is it time to join Elon Musk and leave Planet Earth? In twelve eye-opening, mind-expanding, funny, and provocative essays on the implications of artificial intelligence that look to history, religion, myth, literature, politics, and computer science to help us understand, Jeanette Winterson tackles AI’s most fascinating talking points, from the algorithms that data-dossier your whole life to the weirdness of backing up your brain. “Thought-provoking and necessary—and sometimes very funny.” — *The Guardian* “Fascinating. . . . Winterson makes granular tech know-how remarkably accessible.” — *Publishers Weekly*
Technology & EngineeringSocial AspectsComputersArtificial Intelligence+3
Boating for Beginners

Boating for Beginners

Methuen · 1985 · English · EPUB

A pleasure boat company is transformed when the proprietor, Noah, is chosen by the "One True God" to put "sunny" faith back in the world and women back in the kitchen. The author has written "Oranges are Not the Only Fruit" (winner of the 1985 Whitbread award), and "Sexing the Cherry".
Sports & RecreationWater SportsBoating
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Open Road + Grove/Atlantic · 2007 · English · EPUB

The New York Times–bestselling author’s Whitbread Prize–winning debut—“Winterson has mastered both comedy and tragedy in this rich little novel” (The Washington Post Book World). When it first appeared, Jeanette Winterson’s extraordinary debut novel received unanimous international praise, including the prestigious Whitbread Prize for best first fiction. Winterson went on to fulfill that promise, producing some of the most dazzling fiction and nonfiction of the past decade, including her celebrated memoir Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?. Now required reading in contemporary literature, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a funny, poignant exploration of a young girl’s adolescence. Jeanette is a bright and rebellious orphan who is adopted into an evangelical household in the dour, industrial North of England and finds herself embroidering grim religious mottoes and shaking her little tambourine for Jesus. But as this budding missionary comes of age, and comes to terms with her unorthodox sexuality, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household dissolves. Jeanette’s insistence on listening to truths of her own heart and mind—and on reporting them with wit and passion—makes for an unforgettable chronicle of an eccentric, moving passage into adulthood. “If Flannery O’Connor and Rita Mae Brown had collaborated on the coming-out story of a young British girl in the 1960s, maybe they would have approached the quirky and subtle hilarity of Jeanette Winterson’s autobiographical first novel. . . . Winterson’s voice, with its idiosyncratic wit and sensitivity, is one you’ve never heard before.” —Ms. Magazine
FictionLgbtq+Lesbian
Sexing the Cherry

Sexing the Cherry

Grove/Atlantic, Inc. · 2007 · English · EPUB

“The marvelous and the horrific, the mythic and the mundane overlap and intermingle in this wonderfully inventive novel.” —The New York Times Winner of the E. M. Forster Award In a fantastic world that is and is not seventeenth-century England, a baby is found floating in the Thames. The child, Jordan, is rescued by Dog Woman and grows up to travel the globe like Gulliver—though he finds that the most curious oddities come from his own mind. The spiraling tale leads the reader from discussions on the nature of time to Jordan’s fascination with journeys concealed within other journeys, all with a dizzying speed that jumps from epiphany to shimmering epiphany. From the New York Times–bestselling author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Sexing the Cherry is “a mixture of The Arabian Nights touched by the philosophical form of Milan Kundera and told with the grace of Italo Calvino” (San Francisco Chronicle). “Those who care for fiction that is both idiosyncratic and beautiful will want to read anything [Winterson] writes.” —The Washington Post Book World
FictionFantasyHistorical
Tanglewreck

Tanglewreck

Bloomsbury Publishing · 2011 · English · EPUB

But Time is big business, and whoever gets control of Time controls life as we know it!In a house called Tanglewreck lives a girl called Silver and her guardian Mrs Rokabye. Unbeknown to Silver there is a family treasure in the form of a seventeenth-century watch called the Timekeeper, and this treasure holds the key to the mysterious and frightening changes in time. When Silver goes on the run to try and protect herself and the Timekeeper, a remarkable and compelling adventure unfolds, full of brilliance and wit, as is befitting an author with the imagination and style of Jeanette Winterson.
Juvenile FictionAction & AdventureGeneralFantasy & Magic+1
The Daylight Gate

The Daylight Gate

Grove/Atlantic, Inc. · 2013 · English · EPUB

“A gripping and grisly gothic tale” of Alice Nutter and the 17th century Pendle witch hunt by the Whitbread Award-winning author of The Passion (The Guardian, UK). England, 1612. Less than a decade after the infamous Gunpowder Plot nearly took his life, King James I is paranoid about conspirators and obsessed with heresy. Across the country, laws against Catholicism and witchery are fanatically enforced. On Good Friday, deep in the woods of Pendle Hill, a gathering of thirteen is interrupted by the local magistrate. Two of their coven have already been imprisoned for witchcraft and are awaiting trial, but those who remain are vouched for by the wealthy and respected Alice Nutter. Shrouded in mystery and gifted with eternally youthful beauty, Alice is established in Lancashire society and insulated by her fortune. As those accused of witchcraft retreat into darkness, Alice stands alone as a realm-crosser, a conjurer of powers that will either destroy her or set her free.
FictionOccult & SupernaturalGothicFantasy+1
The Passion

The Passion

Grove/Atlantic, Inc. · 1987 · English · EPUB

Jeanette Winterson&#8217;s novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. <I>The Passion</I> is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, <I>The Passion</I> intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice&#8217;s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny.<br> <br>In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects. <p>The New York Times–bestselling author interweaves the destinies of Napoleon’s cook and an enigmatic Venetian woman in this “arresting, elegant novel” (Publishers Weekly). A faithful soldier of the Grande Armée, Henri is given the honor of serving meals to Napoleon himself. After all, Henri is short—and no one over five-foot-two ever serves the emperor. But when following his revered leader brings him to near-starvation in Russia’s frozen winter, Henri is disillusioned and desperate for escape. The web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, Villanelle has long been acquainted with the advantages of dishonesty. Trust hasn’t been her strong suit since her heart was stolen—literally—by a noblewoman she once loved. Soon these two will meet their shared destiny in the chaotic carnival that is early 19th century Venice. In The Passion, Whitbread Award-winning author Jeanette Winterson delivers a “historical novel quite different from any other” (Vanity Fair). “Recalls García Márquez . . . Magical touches dance like highlights over the brilliance of this fairy tale about passion, gambling, madness, and androgynous ecstasy.” —Edmund White</p>
FictionHistoricalGeneralMagical Realism+1
The PowerBook

The PowerBook

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · 2013 · English · EPUB

Winterson enfolds her seventh novel within the world of computers, and transforms the signal development of our time into a wholly human medium. The story is simple: an e-mail writer called Ali will compose anything you like, on order, provided you're prepared to enter the story as yourself and risk leaving it as someone else. You can be the hero of your own life. You can have freedom just for one night. But there is a price, and Ali discovers that she, too, will have to pay it. The PowerBook reinvents itself as it travels from London to Paris, Capri, and Cyberspace, using fairy tales, contemporary myths, and popular culture to weave a story of failed but requited love.
FictionLiteraryLgbtq+Lesbian+1
The Stone Gods

The Stone Gods

Penguin UK · 2013 · English · EPUB

<p>The Stone Gods is one of Jeanette Winterson's most imaginative novels about love.</p> <p>On the airwaves, all the talk is of the new blue planet - pristine and habitable, like our own 65 million years ago, before we took it to the edge of destruction. And off the air, Billie and Spike are falling in love. What will happen when their story combines with the world's story, as they whirl towards Planet Blue, into the future? Will they - and we - ever find a safe landing place?Jeanette Winterson OBE, whose writing has won the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and the E.M. Forster Award, is the author of some of the most purely imaginative and pleasurable novels of recent times, from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit to her first book for children, Tanglewreck. She is also the author of the essays Art Objects. Visit her website at www.jeanettewinterson.com</p> <p><i>The Stone Gods</i> is one of Jeanette Winterson's most imaginative novels about love.</p><p></p><p>On the airwaves, all the talk is of the new blue planet - pristine and habitable, like our own 65 million years ago, before we took it to the edge of destruction. And off the air, Billie and Spike are falling in love. What will happen when their story combines with the world's story, as they whirl towards Planet Blue, into the future? Will they - and we - ever find a safe landing place?</p><p></p><p>Jeanette Winterson OBE, whose writing has won the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and the E.M. Forster Award, is the author of some of the most purely imaginative and pleasurable novels of recent times, from <i>Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit </i>to her first book for children, <i>Tanglewreck</i>. She is also the author of the essays <i>Art Objects</i>. Visit her website at www.jeanettewinterson.com
FictionLiteraryScience FictionApocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic+1
The World and Other Places

The World and Other Places

Random House · 2013 · English · EPUB

In this, her first collection of short stories, Winterson reveals all the facets of her extraordinary imagination. In prose that is full of imagery and word-play, she creates physical and psychological worlds that are at once familiar and yet shockingly strange.
FictionShort Stories (Single Author)LiteraryGeneral
Weight

Weight

Canongate Books · 2009 · English · EPUB

Condemned to shoulder the world forever by the gods he dared defy, freedom seems unattainable to Atlas. But then he receives an unexpected visit from Heracles, the one man strong enough to share the burden . . . Jeanette Winterson's retelling of the myth of Atlas and Heracles asks difficult and eternal questions about the nature of choice and coercion. Visionary and inventive, Weight turns the familiar on its head to show us ourselves in a new light.
FictionLiteraryFairy TalesFolk Tales+3
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Knopf Canada · 2011 · English · EPUB

Heartbreaking and funny: the true story behind Jeanette's bestselling and most beloved novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. In 1985, at twenty-five, Jeanette published Oranges, the story of a girl adopted by Pentecostal parents, supposed to grow up to be a missionary. Instead, she falls in love with a woman. Disaster. Oranges became an international bestseller, inspired an award-winning BBC adaptation, and was semi-autobiographical. Mrs. Winterson, a thwarted giantess, loomed over the novel and the author's life: when Jeanette left home at sixteen because she was in love with a woman, Mrs. Winterson asked her: Why be happy when you could be normal? This is Jeanette's story--acute, fierce, celebratory--of a life's work to find happiness: a search for belonging, love, identity, a home. About a young girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night, and a mother waiting for Armageddon with two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the duster drawer; about growing up in a northern industrial town; about the Universe as a Cosmic Dustbin. She thought she had written over the painful past until it returned to haunt her and sent her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother. It is also about other people's stories, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life raft that supports us when we are sinking.
Biography & AutobiographyPersonal MemoirsWomenLgbtq