One Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette Winterson

One Aladdin Two Lamps

Jeanette Winterson

Random House UK · Hardcover · February 24, 2026

An invitation to change our lives and imagine the world anew through reading stories, in the new book from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit I can change the story because I am the story.

Buy on Amazon

We earn from qualifying purchases.

Who it’s for
Stories become a way to reread the self and imagine change.
Genres
Books & Reading, Personal Memoirs, Essay Collections
Published
Random House UK, February 24, 2026

Nearest books

Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved.

  1. The Moment of LiftMelinda French Gates58% match
  2. WomenChloe Caldwell55% match
  3. What Is Existentialism?Simone De Beauvoir, Marybeth Timmermann53% match
  4. Till We Have FacesC. S. Lewis56% match
  5. The Isle in the Silver SeaTasha Suri, Shiromi Arserio53% match
  6. ExhalationTed Chiang52% match

For younger readers: Nour's Secret Library, Forgotten Fairy Tales of Kindness and Courage, Wonderful Women of the World

Start with three books, and this one can be the first.

Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.

Start with this book

About this book

An invitation to change our lives and imagine the world anew through reading stories, in the new book from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit I can change the story because I am the story. With her execution looming, a woman is fighting for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day.

Continue reading

One Aladdin Two Lamps cracks open the legendary story of One Thousand and One Nights to show how its questions are still relevant to our lives today. Is love the most important thing in the world? What makes us happy? In her guise as Aladdin, Jeanette Winterson asks us to reread what we think we know and look again at how fiction works in our lives, giving us the courage to change our own narratives and alter endings we wish to subvert. As a young working-class woman, with no obvious future beyond factory work or marriage, Winterson realised through the power of books that she could read herself as fiction as well as fact. Weaving together fiction, magic and memoir, this remarkable book is a tribute to the age-old tradition of storytelling and a radical step into the future – an invitation to look more closely at our own stories, and to imagine the world anew. 'Enchanting, unexpected and razor-sharp' Kamila Shamsie 'One of the most gifted writers working today' New York Times In her hands, words are fluid, radiant, humming' Evening Standard

Stories in Motion

Stories become a way to reread the self and imagine change.

Come here for

  • The lively crossing of fiction, magic, and memoir
  • Questions about how stories shape the lives we can imagine

Expect

  • A reflective, searching look at storytelling and self-reinvention

Where it sits

Books & Reading34%
Personal Memoirs33%
Essay Collections32%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Essay Collections
Authors
Jeanette Winterson
Publisher
Random House UK
Published
February 24, 2026
Format
Hardcover
Reading lane
Essay Collections