Inspiration, comfort and joy from Sister Wendy, for all life's highs and lows.

Although well known as a writer and TV presenter on the history of painting, Sister Wnedy's first love among the arts is literary. In this beautiful and moving anthology she has collected both well-loved and modern poems from different centuries and countries, organising them under headings such as Longing, Wonder, Hope, Sorrow, Love and Prayer, choosing in every instance poems that 'speak directly to the heart'.

'What I so value here,' she writes in her introduction, 'is that in every case, or so it seems to me, the significance does not have to be puzzled out, but comes to us with an immediacy and power.' To accompany her selection, she provides a short introduction to each themed section and brief and often personal commentaries on every poem in the book.

Here is an anthology of moving and easily understood poems by a wide variety of poets - from Keats, Wordsworth, Milton, Shakespeare and Donne to Cavafy, Rilke, Graves and Auden, or modern poets working today such as Alice Oswald, David Constantine, or Seamus Heaney. It will provide inspiration, comfort, joy and enjoyment to anyone who reads it.