"Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs" celebrates the astonishing career of Leonard Cohen, revered around the world as one of the great visionaries, writers, performers, and most consistently daring songwriters. Cohen's career began in 1956 with the publication of "Let Us Compare Mythologies," and he has since published eight books of poems - including "The Spice-Box of Earth," "Death of a Lady's Man," and "Book of Mercy" - and has made numerous albums, becoming one of the most popular and influential artists in Canada, the United States, and Europe. His first record, "The Songs of Leonard Cohen," released in 1967, was a remarkable musical debut and introduced some of his most famous songs, including "Suzanne," "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye," and "Sisters of Mercy." From then, and with each subsequent album, he earned the status as one of the most dazzlingly literate songwriters of our time. "Stranger Music" brings together for the first time a comprehensive selection of Leonard Cohen's song lyrics and his poetry, including some poems not previously published. This landmark edition demonstrates the range and depth of Cohen's work, revealing an extraordinary gift of language that speaks with rare clarity, passion, and timelessness.

Book of Longing is Leonard Cohen's astonishing new collection of poems, the first since Book of Mercy was published nearly three decades ago. Leonard Cohen made his name as a poet before he came to worldwide attention as a singer and songwriter. Book of Longing, his new collection of poetry, was twenty years in the making and written in Montreal, Mumbai and during his retirement in Mt Baldy. Enhanced by Cohen's own playful and provocative illustrations, these poems show the full range of one of the most influential and enigmatic writers of his generation. 'Awe-inspiring. . . Cohen emerges as the wry, sensual mystic his champions have always known he was' Su nday Telegraph 'Exceptional. Clear yet steamy, cosmic yet private, both playful and profound. . . as soulful a credo as he has ever put on paper' New York Times 'Playful, colourful, erotic. . . brilliant and sharp as flint' Big Issue 'Dazzling' Sunday Herald 'The best bring an ironic, world-weary sensibility to bear on themes of ageing, sex, sensuality and spirituality' Financial Times 'A fine book of poems' Time Out 'Cohen maps this wasteland of the heart with humour, and sometimes anger' Independent Cohen's career began in 1956 with the publication of Let Us Compare Mythologies, and he has since published nine books of poems, and has made numerous internationally successful recordings. In a career spanning fifty years, Leonard Cohen has become one of the western world's most popular and innovative creative artists.

To mark the publication of Leonard Cohen's final book, The Flame , McClelland & Stewart is proud to reissue six beautiful editions of Cohen's cherished early works of poetry. A freshly packaged series for devoted Leonard Cohen fans and those who wish to discover one of the world's most adored and celebrated writers. Originally published by McClelland & Stewart in 1961, The Spice-Box of Earth was Leonard Cohen's breakout book, announcing the arrival of a major talent, and a popular one—the first edition sold out in less than three months, and one reviewer hailed Cohen as "probably the best young poet in English Canada right now." In his second collection, Cohen deepens his engagement with subjects that would define his career; as biographer Sylvie Simmons argues, "the poems dance back and forth across the border between the holy and the worldly, the elevated and the carnal."

To mark the publication of Leonard Cohen's final book, The Flame , McClelland & Stewart is proud to reissue six beautiful editions of Cohen's cherished early works of poetry. A freshly packaged series for devoted Leonard Cohen fans and those who wish to discover one of the world's most adored and celebrated writers. Originally published by McClelland & Stewart in 1964, Flowers for Hitler is Leonard Cohen's third collection of poetry, in which he first experiments with his self-consciously "anti-art" gestures: an attempt, in his own words, to move "from the world of the golden-boy poet into the dung pile of the front-line writer." Haunted by the image of the Nazi concentration camps, the poems are deliberately ugly, tasteless, and confrontational, setting out to destroy the image of Cohen as a sweet romantic poet. Its author was confident in his new direction, telling his publisher at the time that the collection was a masterpiece, and "there [had] never been a book like this, prose or poetry, written in Canada."

God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot is a poem/mantra from Cohen's second novel, Beautiful Losers. The piece is an extraordinary flash of optimism, of hope, of the celebration of a life force that is both God and Magic. It remains one of the most accessible pieces of writing from Leonard Cohen and is certainly one of his most beautiful works. The illustrations have been specially commissioned to complement the text, and the result is not only a beautiful book that every Cohen fan will want to own, but one that will surely bring him to an even wider audience.