Contemporary fiction titles are those which focus on the present or near past. Stories rooted in the current cultural, social, and political landscape which feature characters we can all recognise.
Contemporary Fiction Books
Cornerstone Sylvester
Book SynopsisIf you love Bridgerton, you''ll love Georgette Heyer!''The greatest writer who ever lived'' ANTONIA FRASER ''A rollicking good read that will be of particular joy to Bridgerton viewers ... the permanent glister of scandal [...] ties the whole thing together'' INDEPENDENT ''My generation''s Julia Quinn'' ADJOA ANDOH, star of Bridgerton _______________Endowed with rank, wealth and elegance, Sylvester, Duke of Salford, is ready to find a bride. His pursuit of a partner sets him on course to Phoebe Marlow, a young lady who is far more concerned with riding than sewing or beautiful clothes. With Phoebe struggling to meet her family''s demands of gentility and poise, a potential match with Sylvester is exceedingly advantageous. So, it is very intriguing indeed when a visit from her potential suitor causes Phoebe to flee her home. When the pair meetTrade Review"My favourite historical novelist -- stylish, romantic, sharp, and witty. Her sense of period is superb, her heroines are enterprising, and her heroes dashing. I owe her many happy hours." Margaret Drabble "Wonderful characters, elegant, witty writing, perfect period detail, and rapturously romantic. Georgette Heyer achieves what the rest of us only aspire to." Katie Fforde "A writer of great wit and style ... I've read her books to ragged shreds." Kate Fenton, Daily Telegraph
£9.49
Canongate Books Not Fade Away
Book SynopsisFloorboard George Gastin is part of an insurance scam to wreck a pure white, mint condition '59 Cadillac originally intended for The Big Bopper as a token of an admirer's love. But Floorboard George has other ideas and when he disappears with the car, gangsters and cops are soon in hot pursuit.On the road, the crazy characters, hitch-hikers and demented preachers he meets provide the high-octane entertainment as George covers many miles - and states of mind - in his quest to find the true spirit of rock 'n' roll.Trade Reviewrock'n'roll * * The Times * *The best road novel never to be adapted for the big screen - Vanishing Point with a point, Easy Rider with no hippies and a sense of historical depth. * * The Guardian * *expect your brain cells to be frazzled by the funk and fervour of his prose. * * The Herald * *Man, we're on the road again! Big fun! * * Time Out * *
£10.44
Cornerstone The Wilt Alternative
Book SynopsisHenry Wilt is no longer the victim of his own uncontrolled fantasies. As Head of a reconstituted Liberal Studies Department he has assumed power without authority at the Fenland College of Arts & Technology and the fantasies he now confronts are those of political bigots and reactionary bureaucrats - in addition to his wife''s enthusiasm for every Organic Alternative under the compost heap and the insistence of his quadruplets on looking at every problem with an unflinching lack of sentimentality. It is only when Wilt becomes the unintentional participant in a terrorist siege that he is forced to find an answer to the problems of power, which have corrupted greater men than he. With a mental ingenuity born of his innate cowardice, Wilt fights for those liberal values which are threatened both by international terrorism and by the sophisticated methods of police anti-terrorist agents. In the confusion that follows, Wilt resumes his dialogue with the unflagging Inspector FlTrade ReviewMade me laugh aloud...a delight from beginning to end. * Sunday Telegraph *A caustic, inventive comic novel. * Times Literary Supplement *A farce touching fingers with a rich comic vision...sublime orgiastic satire. * Guardian *His wit is devastating, his eye for detail exacting, his prose polished, serpentine, elegant and deadly ... as savvy and savage as Evelyn Waugh ... as dazzingly inventive and bizarrely original as P.G. Wodehouse * Detroit News *Sharpe is the funniest novelist currently writing ... I sat curled up with laughter * Time Out *
£9.49
Cornerstone Indecent Exposure
Book SynopsisIn Piemburgem, the deceptively peaceful-looking capital of Zululand, Kommandant van Heerden, Konstabel Els and Luitenant Verkramp continue to terrorise true Englishman and even truer Zulus in their relentless search for a perfect South Africa. Kommandant van Heerden, that great Anglophile, gropes his way towards attaining true ''Englishness'' in the company of the eccentric Dornford Yates Club. But Luitenant Verkramp, whose hatred of all things English is surpassed only by his fear of sex, sets in motion an experiment in mass chastity (with the help of a lady psychiatrist), which has remarkable and quite unforeseen results.Trade ReviewExplosively funny, fiendishly inventive * Sunday Times *Splendidly funny * New Statesman *What clinches the novel's success is Mr Sharpe's brilliant comic style. His phrasing, his timing, and his extraordinarily deft handling of the minutiae of comic incidents make for real hilarity * Times Literary Supplement *Britain's leading practitioner of black humour * Punch *
£9.49
Canongate Books The Successor
Book SynopsisThe Designated Successor was found dead in his bedroom at dawn on December 14.Did he kill himself or was he murdered? This question slices through Ismail Kadare's masterful psychological thriller. As the state insists that the future leader died by his own hand, the rest of the world begins to have doubts. As the tension builds and rumours escalate, Kadare draws us into a nightmarish world controlled by rules no one understands, blending dream and reality to produce a mystery and a thriller that seduces and surprises up to the last page.Trade ReviewBrilliantly recreates the atmosphere of shadowy fear, rumours and recrimination in Albania. The Successor provides a mesmerically readable parable about the abuse of state power. * * Observer * *One of the most compelling novelists now writing. * * Wall Street Journal * *Suffused with the power of thought and feeling. Above all, Kadare creates a haunting sense of the absurd. * * Sunday Times * *From his youthful obsessions with Shakespeare and Homer, Kadare has retained not just a love of mystery and wit and a facility for clear, bleak language, but a sense of the text's own mystery and the impossibility of fully penetrating it... There is certainly nothing run-of-the-mill about Kadare's biting parable of tyranny. * * Australian Financial Review * *
£9.49
Cornerstone The Liar
Book SynopsisStephen Fry is an award-winning comedian, actor, presenter and director. He rose to fame alongside Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (which he co-wrote with Laurie) and Jeeves and Wooster, and was unforgettable as General Melchett in Blackadder. He has hosted over 180 episodes of QI, and has narrated all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the audiobook recordings. He is the bestselling author of four novels - The Stars' Tennis Balls, Making History, The Hippopotamus and The Liar - as well as three volumes of autobiography - Moab is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles and More Fool Me. Mythos and Heroes, his retelling of the Greek myths, are both Sunday Times bestsellers.Trade ReviewA quite brilliant first novel * Sunday Times *The Liar is hilarious - page after page of the most outrageous and often filthy jokes, delicious conceits, instant, brilliant ripostes that would only occur to ordinary mortals after days of teeth-grinding lunacy * Literary Review *Brilliantly entertaining and consistently outrageous * Daily Mail *Sublime * Cosmopolitan *
£8.99
Cornerstone Mccullough C Caesar
Book SynopsisThe fifth book in the epic Masters of Rome series.Gaul. 54 BC. Julius Caesar sweeps across Gaul, brutally subduing the united tribes who defy the Republic. But, at home, his enemies are orchestrating his downfall and disgrace. Vindictive schemers like Cato and Bibulus, the spineless Cicero, the avaricious Brutus. Even Pompey the Great, Caesar''s former ally.But all have underestimated Caesar. And when the Senate refuse to give him his due he marches upon his own country, an army prepared to die for him at his back. For rome is his destiny - a destiny that will impel him triumphantly on to the banks of the Rubicon, and beyond, into legend, as the noblest Roman of them all.Trade ReviewIncomparable . . . Engrossing . . . Breathtakingly detailed . . . McCullough has triumphed again * Chicago Tribune *Hail, Colleen McCullough! She once again gives Caesar his due . . . Caesar reveals Julius Caesar and the author at the height of their powers . . . With all its Machiavellian machinations and its eye for entertaining history, McCullough latest novel merits the allegiance of her legions of fans * Columbus Dispatch *A thoroughly Romanized epic novel . . . Her version of history marches through the tumultuous years from 54 to 48 B.C. withoutmissing any of the significant military and political landscape . . . McCullough also fleshes out the marbled-over characters of Pompey, Cato, Cicero, Brutus, Mark Anthony and others as they try to deal with the near-infallible Caesar. And Caesar himself . . . [is] brilliant, ambitious, ruthless and fascinating * The New York Times Book Review *
£12.34
Cornerstone The Unknown Ajax
Book SynopsisAuthor of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, who made the Regency period her own. Her first novel, The Black Moth, published in 1921, was written at the age of fifteen to amuse her convalescent brother; her last was My Lord John. Although most famous for her historical novels, she also wrote eleven detective stories. Georgette Heyer died in 1974 at the age of seventy-one.Trade Review"Georgette Heyer is unbeatable" -- India Knight "Sparkling" Independent "My favourite historical novelist - stylish, romantic, sharp, and witty. Her sense of period is superb, her heroines are enterprising, and her heroes dashing. I owe her many happy hours" -- Margaret Drabble
£9.49
Vintage Publishing The Ebony Tower
Book SynopsisJohn Fowles won international recognition with The Collector, his first published title, in 1963. He was immediately acclaimed as an outstandingly innovative writer of exceptional imaginative power. This reputation was confirmed with the appearance of his subsequent works including The Aristos, The Magus, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Ebony Tower, Daniel Martin, Mantissa and A Maggot. John Fowles died in 2005.Trade ReviewThis is an immensely stimulating book, rich in imagery, sure in dialogue, profound in characterization, dazzling in its descriptive powers and constantly haunting with its Celtic rhythms and its bold, elegant design * The Times *This collection of five novellas confirms that in terms of technical resourcefulness and narrative skill he has few equals among the living novelists. The novella which gives the book its title strikes me as being the finest thing Fowles has written * Observer *In a manner worthy of Pirandello, John Fowles uses the conventional apparatus of the detective-story to explore the relationship between fact and fiction, reality and illusion, to masterly effect * Sunday Telegraph *Arresting...this collection impresses me as deeply as any of the novels which Fowles has published to date * Guardian *Pick up any of these stories and you won't, as they say, be able to put it down * Financial Times *
£10.44
Vintage Publishing Stick Out Your Tongue
Book SynopsisA Chinese writer whose marriage has fallen apart travels to Tibet. As he wanders through the countryside, he witnesses the sky burial of a Tibetan woman who died during childbirth, shares a tent with a nomad who is walking to a sacred mountain to seek forgiveness for sleeping with his daughter, meets a silversmith who has hung the wind-dried corpse of his lover to the walls of his cave, and hears the story of a young female incarnate lama who died during a Buddhist initiation rite. In the thin air of the high plateau, the divide between fact and fiction becomes confused and the man is drawn deep into an alien culture he knew nothing about, and which haunts his dreams.Banned in China in 1987, Stick Out Your Tongue, is the hugely influential book that set Ma Jian on the road to exile.Trade ReviewExquisite, earthy stories... Ma writes brilliantly * Independent *At the heart of Ma Jian's stories, there is both humanity and a piercing, if painful, literary truth * Guardian *Ma Jian...creates a stunning vision of a culture too easily and dangerously airbrushed into the ideals of others * Scotland on Sunday *All [these stories] are fascinating windows on the soul of a dying people * The Times *Deadpan yet shot through with subtle empathy and flashes of humour, surreal and unearthly yet steeped in a physicality so immediate that I flinched on at least one occasion. Beautiful...lean style...not a single wasted word...oustanding * Irish Times *
£11.67
Cornerstone The Great Train Robbery
Book SynopsisIn teeming Victorian London, where lavish wealth and appalling poverty exist side by side, one mysterious man navigates both worlds with perfect ease. Rich, handsome and ingenious, Edward Pierce preys on the most prominent of the well-to-do as he cunningly orchestrates the crime of his century.Who would suspect that a gentleman of breeding could mastermind the daring theft of a fortune in gold? Who would predict the consequences of making the extraordinary robbery aboard the pride of England''s industrial era, the mighty steam locomotive? Based on fact, as lively as legend, and studded with all the suspense and style of a modern fiction master, here is a classic novel, set a decade before the age of dynamite - yet nonetheless explosive...Trade ReviewA nineteenth-century version of The Sting ... Crichton fascinates us * The New York Times Book Review *A work of intelligence and craftmanship ... Written with grace and wit * Los Angeles Times *
£9.49
Vintage Publishing The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs
Book SynopsisAt Edinburgh''s Department of Environmental Health, hard-drinking, womanising officer Danny Skinner wants to uncover secrets: ''the bedroom secrets of the master chefs'', secrets he believes might just help him understand his self-destructive impulses. But the arrival of the virginal, model-railway enthusiast Brian Kibby at the department provokes an uncharacteristic response in Skinner, and threatens to throw his mission off course. Consumed by loathing for his nemesis, Skinner enacts a curse, and when Kibby contracts a horrific and debilitating mystery virus, Skinner understands that their destinies are supernaturally bound, and he is faced with a terrible dilemma.Trade ReviewIrvine Welsh is in a class of his own...[his books have] a seething life in them that rivets attention and an inventiveness with story and language that continually amuses and amazes * Guardian *It is an exquisitely paced black comedy. It has clever and funny things to say. There was a rumour that Welsh's last novel, Porno was to be his last. You'll be glad it wasn't * Evening Standard *Flickers with the dynamism, black humour and imaginative bravado that is Welsh at his best * Financial Times *An outrageous and exhilarating foul-mouthed book * Sunday Times *Vintage Welsh: Brilliant, graphic, with frequent forays into the grotesque * Sunday Tribune *
£9.49
Vintage Publishing When She Was Good
Book SynopsisPhilip Roth was born in Newark, New Jersey on 19 March 1933. The second child of second-generation Americans, Bess and Herman Roth, Roth grew up in the largely Jewish community of Weequahic, a neighbourhood he was to return to time and again in his writing. After graduating from Weequahic High School in 1950, he attended Bucknell University, Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago, where he received a scholarship to complete his M.A. in English Literature.In 1959, Roth published Goodbye, Columbus a collection of stories, and a novella for which he received the National Book Award. Ten years later, the publication of his fourth novel, Portnoy's Complaint, brought Roth both critical and commercial success, firmly securing his reputation as one of America's finest young writers. Roth was the author of thirty-one books, including those that were to follow the fortunes of Nathan Zuckerman, and a fictional narrator named Philip Roth, through which he explored and gave Trade ReviewRoth is a living master * New York Review of Books *When She Was Good, both its sustained theme and its detail work, is a step above most recent novels... Roth is a serious writer, willing to turn his face against fashion and the expected, and to take improbable chances' * New York Times *High, careful tragedy, nasty as life, and Roth emerges...as a Dreiser who can write! -- Stanley ElkinCompassion mingles with horror in a superb portrayal of a young woman's obsession with moral rectitude * Saturday Review *
£999.99
Hodder & Stoughton The Clearing
Book SynopsisByron Aldridge, heir to a timber empire, returns from the First World War a changed man and finds refuge as a company policeman in a backwoods Louisiana sawmill. Soon his younger brother Randolph tracks him down, assuming charge of the mill in the hope of rescuing his former idol. But as the brothers try to understand each other and their wives contend with their own hopes and fears, it is Randolph who starts a feud with the Sicilians who control the whisky and girls, and the future grows fearsome for them all.Trade ReviewSo firmly located and vividly realised that you can almost smell the Louisiana swampwater ... a gripping, action-packed tale, but also a notably intelligent one * Jem Poster, Guardian *Astonishingly powerful ... brilliantly written and the characters in their mire are superbly realised * Toby Clements, Daily Telegraph *An extraordinary novel, one of the best I've read in years * Annie Proulx, Guardian Summer Books *I cannot recommend it highly enough. * Peter Straus, Literary Review *Gautreaux captures the fetid atmosphere of a frontier society poised to join the modern world with great skill, each sentence polished to perfection * Independent on Sunday *Near-perfect ... untouchably good * Alan Warner, Daily Telegraph Summer Books *
£9.49
Hodder & Stoughton Winter Solstice
Book Synopsis''This book is the literary equivalent of a warm, soft blanket, a log fire and a cup of strong, sweet tea on a snowy winter night. With the Scotland setting, it is utterly irresistible'' Reader review ?????An endearing and poignant novel about loss and the healing power of love by the beloved Rosamunde PilcherElfrida Phipps loves her new life in her pretty Hampshire village. She has a tiny cottage, her faithful dog Horace and the friendship of the neighbouring Blundells - particularly Oscar - to ensure that her days are filled with companionship as well as independence. But an unforeseen tragedy upsets Elfrida''s tranquillity: Oscar''s wife and daughter are killed in a terrible car crash, and he finds himself homeless when his stepchildren claim their dead mother''s inheritance.Oscar and Elfrida take refuge in a rambling house in Scotland, which becomes a magnet for various waifs and strays who converge upon it, including an unhappy teenage girl. It could be a recipe for disaster. But somehow the Christmas season weaves its magic and the winter solstice brings love and solace.READERS ADORE WINTER SOLSTICE:''The author''s finely drawn characters are charming and her settings beguiling'' Reader review ?????''A sweet love story in a gorgeous and evocative winter setting'' Reader review ?????''I love her books because the characters jump off the page and straight into my heart. I love her books because she creates such a vivid sense of place that I can close my eyes and see it'' Reader review ?????''A truly beautifully heart-warming story of love and loss . . .'' Reader review ?????PRAISE FOR ROSAMUNDE PILCHER:''Enchanting . . . bound to delight her many thousands of fans'' Daily Express''Rosamunde Pilcher''s warm spell is charming and utterly convincing'' Daily Mail''A beautiful, haunting story . . . that will tug at your heartstrings'' PrimaTrade ReviewAs always, Pilcher is a sensible fairy godmother, bestowing happy endings upon the worthy and heartsick. . . [she has a] . . . remarkably evocative sense of place and watercolorist's eye for muted detail. * Kirkus Review *enchanting . . . bound to delight her many thousands of fans. * Daily Express *Pilcher's strength is knowing what she can do well and writing about what she knows. She has a way of tapping into the emotional life of her readers and making them care about characters not unlike themselves. * Daily Telegraph *An entrancing tale of middle-aged love, broken hearts and teenage angst * Daily Express *Rosamunde Pilcher's warm spell is charming and utterly convincing * Daily Mail *Unashamed hymns to the virtues of domesticity, continuity and human warmth. And (they are) thundering good reads * Lady *Another dose of the kind of heartwarming, gentle fiction for which she is known and loved . . . like a big mug of cocoa in front of a blazing fire on a winter night * Press & Journal, Aberdeen *A gentle tale of everyday happenings to a set of well-drawn and believable characters * Peterborough Evening Telegraph *A beautiful, haunting story. . . that will tug at your heartstrings * Prima *Whether she is being poignant, wry or perceptive, Rosamunde Pilcher is always gentle * Woman's Realm *
£11.69
Hodder & Stoughton Pilgrims Rest
Book SynopsisJudy Elliot, meeting an old friend, Detective Sergeant Abbott tells him that, having been left the custody of her motherless little niece, she is taking a domestic job in the country with a family named Pilgrim. Frank is appalled, mysterious deaths have been taking place there. A curse is on the house of Pilgrim''s Rest and by the time Miss Silver investigates she has four murders to solve.Trade ReviewA particular favourite * Andrew Taylor *Miss Silver is marvellous * Daily Mail *. . . some of the best examples of the British country-house murder mystery * Alfred Hitchcock magazine *Miss Silver has her place in detective fiction as surely as Lord Peter Wimsey or Hercule Poirot * Manchester Evening News *Miss Wentworth is a first rate story-teller * Daily Telegraph *You can't go wrong with Miss Maud Silver * Observer *Miss Wentworth's plot is ingenious, her characterization acute, her solution satisfying * The Scotsman *Patricia Wentworth has created a great detective in Miss Silver, the little old lady who nobody notices, but who in turn notices everything * Paula Gosling *
£9.49
Transworld Publishers Ltd The Island Nurse
Book SynopsisLife on the remote island of Papavray in the 1970s was a world away from Mary J. MacLeod’s urban existence in the south of England. And this peaceful environment was just what she was looking for.While indoor toilets were still something of a luxury, and ‘teleeffissions’ could produce terror in some of the older residents, the glory of the mountains and the sea combined with the warmth of the island people meant she had found a haven for her family.Mary’s post as district nurse gave her a unique insight into island life, and her stories of the troubles, joys, drama and comedies endured by her patients make this a charming and humorous account of community life on a small island in a bygone era.Trade ReviewIf the TV companies are looking for the next Heartbeat, it can be found in the windswept coasts of Papavray * Daily Record *
£10.79
Vintage Publishing Runaway Horses
Book SynopsisYukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) Trade ReviewIn Runaway Horses Mishima writes of a desire to destroy or subvert beauty at its height, thus strengthening its appeal and preventing its slow decay * New York Times *One of the great writers of the twentieth century * Los Angeles Times *Mishima's novels exude a monstrous and compulsive weirdness, and seem to take place in a kind of purgatory for the depraved -- Angela CarterThis tetralogy is considered one of Yukio Mishima's greatest works. It could also be considered a catalogue of Mishima's obsessions with death, sexuality and the samurai ethic. Spanning much of the 20th century, the tetralogy begins in 1912 when Shigekuni Honda is a young man and ends in the 1960s with Honda old and unable to distinguish reality from illusion. En route, the books chronicle the changes in Japan that meant the devaluation of the samurai tradition and the waning of the aristocracy * Washington Post *Mishima succeeded, unlike any other writer before him, in creating a glittering alloy of Eastern and Western traditions, classical and contemporary forms * New York Times *
£9.49
Profile Books Ltd Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty
Book SynopsisFinalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Michel is ten years old, living in Pointe Noire, Congo, in the 1970s. His mother sells peanuts at the market, his father works at the Victory Palace Hotel, and brings home books left behind by the white guests. Planes cross the sky overhead, and Michel and his friend Lounès dream about the countries where they'll land. While news comes over the radio of the American hostage crisis in Tehran, the death of the Shah, the scandal of the Boukassa diamonds, Michel struggles with the demands of his twelve year old girlfriend Caroline, who threatens to leave him for a bully in the football team. But most worrying for Michel, the witch doctor has told his mother that he has hidden the key to her womb, and must return it before she can have another child. Somehow he must find it. Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty is a humorous and poignant account of an African childhood, drawn from Alain Mabanckou's life.Trade ReviewIncomparable * Financial Times *Mabanckou's irreverent wit and madcap energy have made him a big name in France -- Giles Foden, author of the Last King of ScotlandA novelist of exuberant originality ... refreshing logic pervades this delightful comic novel in which the boy narrator's ingenuousness is teamed with a sly authorial wit ... Its seductive charm and intelligence recentre the world so that all readers can indeed become Congolese -- Maya Jaggi * Guardian *Perhaps his best yet ... Michel's voice is compelling ... he is, in fact, incomparable -- David Evans * Financial Times *Clear-eyed warmth and charm ... will cleanse the palate and refresh the spirit -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *
£10.44
Vintage Publishing Vermilion Sands
Book SynopsisA FUTURISTIC COVER - COMES WITH 3D GLASSES!Welcome to Vermilion Sands, the fully automated desert-resort ready to fulfil your most exotic whims. Home to the idle rich it now languishes in uneasy decay, populated only by forgotten movie queens, solitary impresarios and the remittance men of the artistic and literary world. Discover prima donna plants programmed to sing operatic arias, dial-a-poem computers and psychosensitive houses capable of murder. These quintessentially Ballardian short stories of dystopian modernity are Ballard's guess at what the future will actually be like'.Trade ReviewPure, weird pleasure * Los Angeles Times *Ballard's best and most characteristic work is in his early novels and short stories * New Statesman *The most significant English novelist of the second half of the 20th century -- Will Self * Prospect *A writer of enormous inventive powers, Ballard has, like Calvino, a remarkable gift for filing the empty, deprived spaces of modern life with invisible cities and the wonder worlds of the imagination -- Malcolm Bradbury * New York Times Book Review *Ballard is a magician and a literary saboteur...He is one of the few genuine surrealists this country has produced, the possessor of a terrifying and exhilarating imagination – and a national treasure * Guardian *
£9.49
Cornerstone Second Honeymoon: Two FBI agents hunt a serial
Book SynopsisA newlywed couple steps into the sauna in their deluxe honeymoon suite – and never steps out again. When another couple is killed while boarding their honeymoon flight to Rome, it becomes clear that someone is targeting honeymooners, and it’s anyone’s guess which happy couple is next on the list.FBI Agent John O’Hara is deep into the case, trying to figure out who this deranged killer is. At the same time, Special Agent Sarah Brubaker is hunting another ingenious serial killer, whose victims all have one chilling thing in common.As wedding hysteria rises to a frightening new level, John and Sarah work ever more closely together in a frantic attempt to decipher the logic behind two rampages.
£19.82
Vintage Publishing Roots
Book SynopsisAlex Haley taught himself to write during a twenty-year stint in the US Coast Guard. He became its first Chief Journalist, a position he held until he retired in 1959 to become a magazine writer and interviewer. His first book was The Autobiography of Malcolm X, after which he spent twelve years researching and writing Roots, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.Alex Haley died in Seattle, Washington in 1992.Trade ReviewHaley succeeds beautifully where many have failed... The book is an act of love, and it is this which makes it haunting -- James Baldwin * New York Times *A gripping mixture of urban confessional and political manifesto, it not only inspired a generation of black activists, but drove home the bitter realities of racism to a mainstream white liberal audience * Observer *Groundbreaking * Associated Press *A Pulitzer Prize-winning story about the family ancestry of author Alex Haley... [and] a symbolic chronicle of the odyssey of African Americans from the continent of Africa to a land not of their choosing * Washington Post *
£11.69
Vintage Publishing Our Ancestors
Book SynopsisItalo Calvino (Author, Introducer) Italo Calvino was born in Cuba in 1923 and grew up in Italy. He was an essayist and journalist and a member of the editorial staff of Einaudi in Turin. One of the most respected writers of the twentieth century, his best-known works of fiction include Invisible Cities, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Marcovaldo and Mr Palomar. In 1973 he won the prestigious Premio Feltrinelli. He died in 1985. A collection of Calvino's posthumous personal writings, The Hermit in Paris, was published in 2003.Trade ReviewCalvino's refusal to be glum set him apart from other modernists. His marvellous Fifties trilogy, Our Ancestors, brought us allegorical fables about a cloven viscount, a non-existent knight and a baron who swings from the trees * Guardian *Calvino's genius lies not so much in this tantalising conceit, but the brilliance and ingenuity with which he pulls it off...A dazzling display of literary fireworks * Independent *The writing is just breathtaking and the final story, 'The Non-Existent Knight', still sends a shiver up my spineItalo Calvino has advanced far beyond his American and English contemporaries, as they continue to look for the place where the spiders make their nests, Calvino has not only found that special place but learnt how himself to make fantastic webs of prose to which all things adhereReading Calvino, you're constantly assailed by the notion that he is writing down what you have always known, except that you've never thought of it before.This is highly unnerving: fortunately you're usually too busy laughing to go mad... I can think of no finer writer to have beside me while Italy explodes, Britain burns, while the world ends
£10.44
Vintage Publishing The Trial
Book SynopsisIt is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary'Rediscover Kafka''s classic work of psychological horror. The Trial is the terrifying tale of Joseph K, a respectable functionary in a bank, who is suddenly arrested and must defend his innocence against a charge about which he can get no information. A nightmare vision of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the insanity of twentieth-century totalitarianism has resonated with readers for generations.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PHILLIPE SANDSTrade ReviewIt is the fate and perhaps the greatness of that work that it offers everything and confirms nothing -- Albert CamusThe Dante of the Twentieth Century -- W. H. AudenNo other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times -- George Steiner
£8.54
Vintage Publishing Lullaby
Book SynopsisChuck Palahniuk is the bestselling author of fifteen fictional works, including Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Survivor, Choke, Lullaby, Diary, Haunted, Rant, Pygmy, Tell-All, Damned, Doomed, Beautiful You, and most recently Make Something Up. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.Trade ReviewThere are more plot ideas in Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby than some writers manage in a whole book * Independent *Palahniuk starts with a throwaway thought - "what if words could hurt?" - and stretches it until it snaps * Arena *A black comic cauldron bubbling with contagious ideas * Time Out *Mr. Palahniuk further refines his ability to create parables that are as substantial as they are off-the-wall * New York Times *This is vintage Palahniuk: weird, creepy, twisted, upsetting, and ultimately a great read * Library Journal *
£9.49
Vintage Publishing One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Book SynopsisFROM THE PUBLISHER OF THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO - THE OFFICIALLY APPROVED TRANSLATION OF SOLZHENITSYN''S SEARING DEBUT NOVELThe Gulag, the Stalinist labour camps to which millions of Russians were condemned for political deviation, has become a household word in the West. This is due to the accounts of many witnesses, but most of all to the publication, in 1962, of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the novel that first brought Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to public attention. His story of one typical day in a labour camp as experienced by prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is sufficient to describe the entire world of the Soviet camps.Translated from the Russian by H. T. WillettsTrade ReviewA masterpiece in the great Russian tradition. There have been many literary sensations since Stalin died. Doctor Zhivago apart, few of them can stand up in their own right as works of art. Ivan Denisovich is different * New Statesman *For much of the century that he came to dominate, he was simply Russia's greatest writer * Guardian *Solzhenitsyn's little book on the Soviet camps, One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, has just been reissued, in a much-improved translation by Harry Willetts. It remains a devastating book - a classical tragedy... Solzhenitsyn is a genius and a hero: Ivan Denisovich stands with Animal Farm. * Guardian *
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Vintage Publishing Broken April
Book SynopsisFrom the moment that Gjorg''s brother is killed by a neighbour, his own life is forfeit.The code of Kanun requires Gjorg to kill his brother''s murderer and then in turn be hunted down. After shooting his brother''s killer, young Gjorg is entitled to thirty days'' grace - not enough to see out the month of April.Then a visiting honeymoon couple cross the path of the fugitive. The bride''s heart goes out to Gjorg, and even these ''civilised'' strangers from the city risk becoming embroiled in the fatal mechanism of vendetta.''One of the most remarkable European novelists of the twentieth century'' IndependentTrade ReviewHis work is as immense as Balzac's, as unrelenting in its critique of dictatorship as Orwell's, and as disturbingly fantastical as Kafka's. It is an invention as well as a reflection of what it means to be Albanian, and an exploration of both the ugliness and the dignity of a small, ancient, oppressed nation. Kadare is perhaps the last 'national writer' of European history * Independent *Broken April, a haunting account of the paroxism of the vendetta in northern Albania between the wars, is one of the twin peaks of Kadare's career * Observer *The story is plain, the telling plainer, yet the overall effect is mysterious and elusive as only a fable can be * Guardian *With Broken April Mr Kadare comes to the forefront as a major international novelist * New York Times *Forcefully and simply written...completely authentic * Sunday Times *
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Profile Books Ltd Beer in the Snooker Club
Book SynopsisBehind the bar at Jameel's in Cairo hang two mugs engraved with the names of Ram and Font. During their years together in London, they drank many a pint of Bass from these mugs. But there is no Bass in Nasser's Egypt, so Ram and Font have to make do with a heady mixture of beer, vodka and whisky. Yearning for Bass they long to be far from a revolution that neither serves the people nor allows their rich aunts to live the life of leisure they are accustomed to. Stranded between two cultures, Ram and Font must choose between dangerous political opposition and reluctant acquiescence. First published in 1964, Beer in the Snooker Club is a classic of the literature of emigration.Trade ReviewBeer in the Snooker Club fearlessly unmasks anti-imperialists as well as imperialists; it shows how their failures tragically compromised the political struggles and emotional lives of several generations. -- Pankaj Mishra * Guardian *Beer in the Snooker Club is one of the best novels about Egypt ever written. In the protagonist, Ram, a passionate nationalist who is nonetheless an anglophile, Waguih Ghali creates a hero who is tragic, funny and sympathetic. Through him we are presented with an authentic and acutely observed account of Egyptian society at a time of great upheaval -- Ahdaf SoueifA plainspoken writer of consummate wryness, grace and humor, the Egyptian author chronicles the lives of a polyglot Cairene upper crust, shortly after the fall of King Farouk and thoroughly unprepared to change its neo-feudal ways...This is the best book to date about post-Farouk Egypt * Los Angeles Times *This is a wonderful book. Quiet, understated, seemingly without any artistic or formal pretentions. Yet quite devastating in its human and political insights... if you want to convey to someone what Egypt was like in the forties and fifties, and why it is impossible for Europeans or Americans to understand, give them this book. It makes The Alexandria Quartet look like the travel brochure it is -- Gabriel JosipoviciI sat on a terrace overlooking the Nile and began to read. I was so captivated that I stayed up late into the night, reading the book in one sitting. Yet while the words were quickly consumed, the world they conjured and the issues they raised - of exile and belonging - have stayed with me through the years ... When I first read Beer in the Snooker Club I was struck by how different it was from any other Egyptian novel I knew. While Ghali was at work on this fresh, bright novel that wears its seriousness so lightly, Naguib Mahfouz, just a couple of years off being elected a Nobel laureate, was still trying to recreate the great nineteenth century English novel, dressed up in Egyptian clothes ... When I first appeared in Cairo with my copy, an Egyptian writer begged to buy it and then asked me to find ways of sending him more copies: "Everyone wants to read it, " he explained, "because it is such a sharp portrait of our country." I have just read the book for the fourth time and what now strikes me is not the book's political credentials but the pleasure to be had in the presence of its wonderful hero/narrator. In Ram, Ghali has created a very Egyptian version of a character familiar from Salinger's Catcher in the Rye@ a young man trying to square dreams and idealism with the realities of the world around him. It is impossible not to sympathise with his predicament. It is also impossible, for me at least, not to be swept along by the deceptive ease of the storytelling, by its pace and sheer skill. -- Anthony Sattin * Slightly Foxed *Ghali's novel reproduces a cultural state of shock with great accuracy and great humor * The Nation *A fantastic novel of youthful angst set against a backdrop of revolutionary Egypt and literary London. It's the Egyptian Catcher in the Rye * Lonely Planet Egypt *Beer in the Snooker Club may be angry, but it is also extremely funny. Ghali neatly skewers the pretensions of the Cairene elite along with the hypocrisies of empire... Beer is a funny, tragic memorial to a man and a country at a time of painful transition. -- Rachel Aspden * Observer *There is a lightness of touch and an engaging self-deprecatory wit in Ghali's writing which carries the reader through what was regrettably his only novel. -- Gordon Parsons * Morning Star *This novel has certainly passed the test of time: it is as powerfully relevant now as it was half a century ago. Let us hope this third reissue is not the last. -- André Naffis-Sahely * TLS *
£9.49
Vintage Publishing Monsignor Quixote
Book SynopsisGraham Greene was born in 1904. He worked as a journalist and critic, and in 1940 became literary editor of the Spectator. He was later employed by the Foreign Office. As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography, two of biography and four books for children. He also wrote hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.Trade ReviewA deliciously funny novel and affectionate offering to all that is noblest and least-changing in the people and life of Spain * The Times *A powerful late work...a mixture of entertainment and deep human awareness -- Malcolm BradburyMonsignor Quixote is important in showing what may be the last stage of the novelist's long argument with himself about the needs, nature and effect of faith * Times Literary Supplement *Graham Greene's best, most absorbing, adept and effortless novel * Spectator *One of the finest writers of any language... Monsignor Quixote is a tour de force and a revealing document of Greene's theological and political intelligence * Washington Post *
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Profile Books Ltd Quicksand & Passing
Book SynopsisNow a major motion picture starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and Alexander Skarsgard. A writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Nella Larsen wrote just two novels, published here, and a handful of short stories. Critically acclaimed, both speak powerfully of the contradictions and restrictions experienced by black women at that time. Quicksand, written in 1928, is an autobiographical novel about Helga Crane, a mixed race woman caught between fulfilling her desires and gaining respectability in her middle class neighbourhood. Written a year later, Passing tells the story of two childhood friends, Clare and Irene, both light skinned enough to pass as white. Reconnecting in adulthood, Clare has chosen to live as a white woman, while Irene embraces black culture and has an important role in her community. Nella Larsen's novels are moving, characterful, and important books. She pioneered writing about the conflicts of sexuality, race and the secret suffering of women in the early twentieth century.Trade ReviewQuicksand and Passing are novels that I will never forget. They open up a whole world of experience and struggle that seemed to me, when I first read them years ago, absolutely absorbing, fascinating and indispensable -- Alice WalkerHighly charged interior dramas of the black middle class in Harlem [by] an original and hugely insightful writer * New York Times *Quicksand does not just explore the contradictory terrain of women and romance; its sexual politics tear apart the very fabric of the romance form -- Hazel Carby, Yale UniversityDiscovering The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen is like finding lost money with no name on it. One can enjoy it with delight and share it without guilt -- Maya AngelouThese are precious and unusual works * Irish Times *
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Vintage Publishing In Search of Lost Time Vol 6
Book SynopsisTHE ACCLAIMED FULLY REVISED EDITION OF THE SCOTT MONCRIEFF AND KILMARTIN TRANSLATIONTime Regained begins in the bleak and uncertain years of World War I. Years later, after the war''s end, Proust''s narrator returns to Paris and reflects on time, reality, jealousy, artistic creation, and the raw material of literature - his past life. This edition includes the indispensable A Guide to Proust, compiled by Terence Kilmartin and revised by Joanna Kilmartin.Trade ReviewAs close to being a definitive version of the great novel as we are likely to get * Scotsman *Sublime... In Proust's interweaving of romantic delusions, the glory of the descriptions, as the narrator strives to recapture the past, redeems everyone -- John UpdikeThe way he replicates the workings of the mind changed the art of novel-writing forever...his style is extraordinary, enveloping, captivating * Guardian *Proust isn't just the most profound of novelists, but the most entertaining, too. No reader ever forgets his most killingly funny scenes... Proust sinks deepest in readers because the book is so exhaustively analytical, so ceaselessly truthful. Not the least of it is the book's heavenly length, so that it inevitably takes over your life for a long stretch... the experience of reading it becomes, in itself, an unforgettable thing * Independent *Surely the greatest novelist of the 20th century * Sunday Telegraph *
£10.44
Vintage Publishing The Power and the Glory
Book SynopsisGraham Greene was born in 1904. He worked as a journalist and critic, and in 1940 became literary editor of the Spectator. He was later employed by the Foreign Office. As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography, two of biography and four books for children. He also wrote hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.Trade ReviewThe most ingenious, inventive and exciting of our novelists, rich in exactly etched and moving portraits of real human beings -- V. S. PritchettThe power and energy of his finest novel derive from the will toward compassion, and ideal communism even more Christian than Communism. Its unit is the individual, not any class -- John UpdikeNo serious writer of this century has more thoroughly invaded and shaped the public imagination than did Graham Greene * The Times *Graham Greene had wit and grace and character and story and a transcendent universal compassion that places him for all time in the ranks of world literature * John Le Carre *Beautiful prose…melded with page-turning suspense… I defy anyone to read it without weeping * The Week *
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Vintage Publishing I Married a Communist
Book SynopsisPhilip Roth was born in Newark, New Jersey on 19 March 1933. The second child of second-generation Americans, Bess and Herman Roth, Roth grew up in the largely Jewish community of Weequahic, a neighbourhood he was to return to time and again in his writing. After graduating from Weequahic High School in 1950, he attended Bucknell University, Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago, where he received a scholarship to complete his M.A. in English Literature.In 1959, Roth published Goodbye, Columbus a collection of stories, and a novella for which he received the National Book Award. Ten years later, the publication of his fourth novel, Portnoy's Complaint, brought Roth both critical and commercial success, firmly securing his reputation as one of America's finest young writers. Roth was the author of thirty-one books, including those that were to follow the fortunes of Nathan Zuckerman, and a fictional narrator named Philip Roth, through which he explored and gave Trade ReviewA passionate and coruscating American tragedy * Financial Times *Knotted with energy, barely wasting a scene or word in its cracking velocity * Mail on Sunday *One of the great political novels of our age; a card-carrying Shakespearean tragedy with New Jersey dirt beneath its fingernails -- Xan Brooks * Guardian *Quintessential Philip Roth * Sunday Telegraph *A magnificent novel of ideas, a disquisition on the fallout of the death of ideology * Observer *
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Saqi Books Three Sisters
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE 2010 MAN ASIAN LITERARY PRIZE Three sisters struggle to change the course of their destinies in a China that does not belong to them. Yumi uses her dignity, Yuxiu her seductive charms, and Yuyang her desire for success. This breathtaking story vividly captures the all-consuming desire for power in a society obsessed with saving face. Whether it's in the Wang family village, where lift is attuned to the rhythm of work and the slogans of the Cultural Revolution, or in urban China of the 1980s, the sisters are not prepared to be just another wave in the 'infinite ocean of people'.Trade Review'Bi Feiyu's account of three sisters struggling to survive in the aftermath of China's Cultural Revolution is a complex moral tale that also illuminates the country's rise from sleeping tiger to global power' Independent 'An unyielding critique of the emotional fallout of China's Cultural Revolution' Metro 'This is a China that few Westerners know. Bi Feiyu makes it real and believable in this charming, surprising novel.' Washington Post 'One of China's best contemporary novelists, Bi Feiyu has created an insightful portrait of China during the past half a century with a tale both epic and intimate. Three Sisters is an important novel.' Yiyun Li, author of THE VAGRANTS 'A thrilling family epic that depicts China's dispossessed longings and love' Xiaolu Guo, author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers 'A valuable document to aid our understanding of daily life as it is carried on in recent times of terror.' Le Temps 'Brilliantly confirms Bi Feiyu's status as a highly accomplished writer.' La Vie Ouvriere
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Peepal Tree Press Ltd My Bones and My Flute: A Ghost Story in the
Book SynopsisOnly when he is on board the steamer halfway to their remote destination up river in Guyana does Milton Woodsley realize that there is more to Henry Nevinson s invitation to spend time with his family in their jungle cottage. Milton, an artist, thinks he has been invited to do some paintings for Nevinson, a rich businessman. But when the Nevinsons mention a flute player that no one else can hear, Woodsley begins to glean that there is more to their stay. Told in Woodsley s skeptical, self-mocking and good-humored voice, Mittelholzer creates a brilliantly atmospheric setting for his characters and their terrified discovery that this is not a place where they can be at home."
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Canongate Books The High Mountains of Portugal
Book SynopsisTHE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERLost in Portugal. Lost to grief.With nothing but a chimpanzee. A man thrown backwards by heartbreak goes in search of an artefact that could unsettle history. A woman carries her husband to a doctor in a suitcase. A Canadian senator begins a new life, in a new country, in the company of a chimp called Odo. From these stories of journeying, of loss and faith, Yann Martel makes a novel unlike any other: moving, profound and magical.A New York Times BestsellerAn Australian Independent Bookseller Bestseller#1 on The Globe & Mail's Bestseller List#1 on Toronto Star's Bestseller List#1 on Maclean's Bestseller List#1 on National Post's Bestseller List#1 on McNally Robinson's Bestseller ListAn ABA Indie BestsellerTrade ReviewReplete with every bizarre and beautiful thing on earth . . . his many fans will delight * * The Times * *Moments of real wonder . . . glorious * * Sunday Times * *His best since Life of Pi . . . miraculous * * Washington Post * *Martel is an original, strange and subtle thinker -- Ursula Le Guin * * Guardian * *Surprising and yet entirely believable * * Observer * *[Martel's] depiction of loss is raw and deeply affecting . . . odd, fabulous, deliberately oblique * * Telegraph * *Engagingly readable * * Daily Mail * *Martel is incapable of writing a dull sentence * * Daily Express * *A book of great wisdom and beauty -- Gavin FrancisLucid and thought provoking * * Mail on Sunday * *Engrossing . . . Martel has a way of capturing the charm, and charge, of an animal and human relationship * * Independent * *Martel is a writer with a light touch and a lively fancy . . . Engaging * * Scotsman * *An exploration of faith and how we can learn to accept death . . . [Martel] has an ability to write about the very fundamental human emotional threads that join us * * Irish Independent * *Sharp, comical, and carries a deeply poignant message * * The List * *It is an unusual novel, a vivid and uncanny adventure in storytelling * * The Skinny * *
£999.99
Quercus Publishing A Naked Singularity
Book SynopsisNOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING JOHN BOYEGA, OLIVIA COOKE AND BILL SKARSGÅRD"The Wire written by Voltaire" Sunday Times"Crime and Punishment as reimagined by the Coen Brothers" The MillionsCasi is a hotshot public defender working on the front line of America's War on Drugs. So far he's on the winning side. He's never lost a case. But nothing lasts forever, and pride like his has a long way to fall. Funny, smart and always surprising, A Naked Singularity speaks a language all of its own and reads like nothing else ever written. Casi's beautiful mind and planetary intelligence make him an inimitable and unforgettable narrator. In De La Pava's hands, the labyrinthine miseries of the New York Justice System are as layered and diabolical as Dante's nine circles of Hell. But the Devil doesn't hog the best lines. There are plenty here to go around.Trade Review'Crime and Punishment as reimagined by the Coen Brothers' The Millions. * Millions *'A fine encyclopedic romp in the Joyce / Pynchon / Wallace tradition' Miles Klee, The Notes. * Notes *'A great American novel: large, ambitious, and full of talk' Alex Good, Toronto Star. * Toronto Star *'A propulsive, mind-bending experience ... a thrilling rejoinder to the tidy story arcs portrayed on television and in most crime fiction' Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal. * Wall Street Journal *'Casi's voice is astonishing, cynical but compassionate, alive to the ridiculous and the pitiful and the horrific but never losing its commitment to morality' Lian Hearn. * Lian Hearn *'Like 'The Wire' written by Voltaire ... Unputdownable' Robert Collins, Sunday Times. * Sunday Times *'Ambitious, affecting, intelligent, plangent, comic, kooky and impassioned. I've read a lot of novels this year, between judging the Man Booker prize and the Granta Best of Young British Novelists, and I've yearned for this kind of exuberant, precise fiction' Stuart Kelly, Guardian. * Guardian *'If you like 'The Wire', if you like rewarding, difficult fiction, if you like literary, high-quality artistic and hilarious yet moving novels that are difficult to put down, I can't recommend A Naked Singularity enough' Scott Bryan Wilson, The Quarterly Conversation. * Quarterly Conversation *
£13.49
Quercus Publishing The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating
Book SynopsisClaire's husband is a philandering 'sexologist' who believes love and sex can't co-exist. But it breaks her heart when he dies and leaves her a young widow. As she braces herself for her new life alone, Claire can't help but wonder if her late-lamented was right all along. After getting through the pain of his passing, she's returning to the battlefield of bad dates. So when she's asked to write the biography of lothario movie star Jack Huxley, she's surprised when he doesn't live up to his sleazy reputation. Not only is he more than meets the eye, but he's got his eye on her. Claire's determined to banish her husband's ghosts and prove him wrong. But having found her first Mr Right, does she deserve a second? A unique, extraordinarily perceptive and darkly comic novel about widows, sex and love - in that order.Trade Review'Witty and charming ... a delight. The character of the widow is a modern-day Holly Golightly' Candace Bushnell. * Candace Bushnell *'Radziwill's delicious debut novel ... is a poignant tale of love and loss' Publisher's Weekly. * Publisher's Weekly *
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Profile Books Ltd Chelsea Girls
Book SynopsisIn this breathtakingly inventive autobiographical novel, Eileen Myles transforms their life into a work of art. Suffused with alcohol, drugs, and sex; evocative in its depictions of the hardscrabble realities of a young queer artist's life; with raw, flickering stories of awkward love, laughter, and discovery, Chelsea Girls is a funny, cool, and intimate account of how one young writer managed to shrug off the imposition of a rigid cultural identity. Told in Myles's audacious and singular voice made vivid and immediate by their lyrical language, Chelsea Girls weaves together memories of Myles's 1960s Catholic upbringing with an alcoholic father, their volatile adolescence, their unabashed "lesbianity," and their riotous pursuit of survival as a poet in 1970s and 80s New York.Trade ReviewDespite having written the book 20 years ago, Myles's literary style feels as contemporary as the essayistic autobiographical fiction of Sheila Heti, Ben Lerner and Tao Lin, who might be considered Myles's literary offspring. * New York Times *[Myles's] very presence in the world is a form of activism, but the work, when studied with care, is also political in the sense that it gives evidence of one of the richest and most conflicted human hearts you're likely to find * New York Review of Books *Unsettled in the best sense: restless, disturbing, changeable... Myles is exemplary for more and more young writers precisely because she has gone her own way. -- Ben Lerner * Paris Review *One of the richest and most conflicted human hearts you're likely to find -- Dan Chiasson * New York Review of Books *Reading Myles is nothing if not a physical experience, the one-two promise of a heartbeat that goes, I'm alive. I'm alive. * Electric Literature *[This book], on all accounts, redefined the queer novel. * Wonderland *Chelsea Girls offers poetry, sex, Catholicism, drugs, class and sexuality. This new reprint of Myles's hard-talking, lyrical autobiographical novel, about a female writer figuring things out in the 1960s, is the missing data for anyone who has read only the male American beat writers. -- Deborah Levy * New Statesman *
£8.99
Profile Books Ltd African Psycho
Book SynopsisFinalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Gregoire Nakobomayo, a petty criminal, has decided to kill his girlfriend Germaine. He's planned the crime for some time, but still, the act of murder requires a bit of psychological and logistical preparation. Luckily, he has a mentor to call on, the far more accomplished serial killer Angoualima. The fact that Angoualima is dead doesn't prevent Gregoire from holding lengthy conversations with him. Little by little, Gregoire interweaves Angoualima's life and criminal exploits with his own. Continuing with the plan despite a string of botched attempts, Gregoire's final shot at offing Germaine leads to an abrupt unravelling. Lauded in France for its fresh and witty style, African Psycho's inventive use of language surprises and relieves the reader by sending up this disturbing subject.Trade ReviewTaxi Driver for Africa's blank generation... a pulp fiction vision of Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth that somehow manages to be both frightening and self-mocking at the same time * Time Out New York *A smart satire on the deserving targets of corrupt officialdom, complacent media and blank-eyed consumerism * New Internationalist *Disturbing - and disturbingly funny ... although the title invokes American Psycho, the book owes more to Dostoyevsky and Camus * New Yorker *
£8.99
Oneworld Publications Gemina: The Illuminae Files: Book 2
Book Synopsis‘Wholly unique and utterly captivating.’ Marie Lu Hanna is the station captain’s pampered daughter; Nik the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. But while the pair are struggling with the realities of life aboard the galaxy's most boring space station, little do they know that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall, carrying news of the Kerenza invasion. When an elite BeiTech strike team invades the station, the two are thrown together to defend their home. But alien predators are picking off the station residents one by one, and a malfunction in the station's wormhole means the space-time continuum might be ripped apart before dinner. Soon Hanna and Nik aren’t just fighting for their own survival; the fate of everyone on the Hypatia—and possibly the known universe—is in their hands. But relax. They've totally got this. They hope. Picking up about five minutes after Illuminae ends, Gemina is an electrifying sequel.Trade ReviewPraise fr Illuminae Files: ‘Never have I read a book so wholly unique and utterly captivating.’ Marie Lu 'A truly beautiful novel that redefines the form.' Victoria Aveyard 'This book is xxxxing awesome.' Laini Taylor 'You're not in for an ordinary novel experience.' Bustle 'A fantastically fun ride.' MTV 'A stellar head trip.' Kirkus 'Riveting.' Booklist
£10.79
Canongate Books A Spaniard in the Works
Book SynopsisFollowing the incredible success of his first book, In His Own Write, John Lennon's second collection of stories, drawings and poems is just as witty, whimsical and wonderful as his debut. First published in 1965 it is now back in print, looking just as it did when it first appeared half a century ago.CONTENTSA Spaniard in the WorksThe Fat BudgieSnore Wife and some Several DwartsThe Singularge Experience of Miss Anne DuffieldThe Faulty BagnoseWe must not forget the General ErectionBenjaman DistastefulThe Wumberlog (or The Magic Dog)Araminta DitchCassandleThe National Health CowReaders LettuceSilly NormanMr. Boris MorrisBernice's SheepLast Will and TesticleOur DadI Believe, Boot . . .Trade ReviewIt owes something to Edward Lear's nonsense books, but from there on in Lennon is on his own . . . Zany, offbeat, and illustrated by his grotesque spidery pen. It jolts the reader into gusts of laughter * * GUARDIAN * *Irresistible . . . the drawings are marvellous * * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH * *
£11.69
Canongate Books One Moonlit Night
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE GREATEST WELSH NOVELThis outstanding novel tells of one boy's journey into the grown-up world. By the light of a full moon our narrator and his friends Huw and Moi witness a side to their Welsh village life that they had no idea existed, and their innocence is exchanged for the shocking reality of the adult world.One Moonlit Night is one of Britain's most significant and brilliant pieces of fiction, a lost contemporary classic that deserves rediscovery.Trade ReviewA remarkable book that recalls Under Milk Wood * * Times Literary Supplement * *One of the great lost voices . . . For its portrayal of a vanished way of life, and for its evocation of the tearless sadness of insanity, this strange, melancholy book deserves to be widely read * * Observer * *Heart-wrenching. A classic to be read and reread * * Daily Telegraph * *An esoteric masterpiece. -- Jan MorrisLyrical and visceral, comic and tragic, compellingly earthy and maddeningly gothic - after 40 years this literary oddity continues to elude classification * * Observer * *One of the oddest, most elusive, most haunting novels ever. -- Niall GriffithsA very moving, often funny account of childhood. * * Spectator * *Utterly compelling * * Guardian * *Premonitions of insanity and the mercurial personality of its narrator give the story a hallucinatory, ambiguous edge. * * Herald * *Lyrical . . . Prichard's elegiac account of a troubled boyhood belongs on the same shelf with Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy, Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes . . . Readers will inevitably be reminded of another Welsh work, Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, that portrays various colourful inhabitants of a minuscule community . . . Whether grim or playful, Prichard's vision in One Moonlit Night is communicated in language that provides intense esthetic pleasure. Those of us who do not know Welsh can only speculate about the texture and cadences of the original . . . The sketches of various townspeople are especially sharp and often moving * * New York Times * *Caradog Prichard's wild, kaleidoscopic One Moonlit Night is widely considered to be the finest novel written in the Welsh language . . . the obvious reference point is Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, but, for all its humour and energy, this is an altogether darker and more intense affair . . . Bleak as it is, One Moonlit Night is never less than beautiful, and Philip Mitchell's 1995 translation retains its power and sensitivity -- Tom Bullough * * Financial Times * *An early precursor to The League of Gentlemen * * Independent * *Philip Mitchell's reworking of Prichard's Welsh conveys the particularity of a time and place that existed recently in years, but a world away in feeling * * The Times * *
£9.49
Pushkin Press Wake Up, Sir!
Book SynopsisA brilliant contemporary reimagining of the greatest comic relationship of all time, which goes far beyond pastiche to places even Wodehouse couldn't. Alan Blair, the hero of Wake Up, Sir!, is a young, loony writer with numerous problems of the mental, emotional, sexual, spiritual, and physical variety. He's very good at problems. But luckily for Alan, he has a personal valet named Jeeves, who does his best to sort things out for his troubled master. And Alan does find trouble wherever he goes. He embarks on a perilous and bizarre road journey, his destination being an artists colony in Saratoga Springs. There Alan encounters a gorgeous femme fatale who is in possession of the most spectacular nose in the history of noses. Such a nose can only lead to a wild disaster for someone like Alan, and Jeeves tries to help him, but... Well, read the book and find out! 'Too funny for the canon of high literature, the book is too brilliant to be mere diversionary humour' New York Press Jonathan Ames's latest comic novel is so brilliant and charming that any description of it is bound to be impossibly dull by comparison Seattle Weekly 'A Wodehouse novel for the recovery era' The New York Times Book Review 'What do you get when you cross Carry On, Jeeves with Portnoy's Complaint? . . . Jonathan Ames's very funny new novel, Wake Up, Sir!' Newsday 'The X-rated Woody Allen'Guardian 'Ames is a remarkable comic writer. He excels at punching out hilarious monologues on subjects ranging from nose fetishes to the planks of Buddhism' Time Out New York Cause for celebration... As Jeeves himself might prompt Ames, 'Carry on, sir!'' Washington Post Pungent and hilarious, if completely off the deep end' Kirkus Reviews Jonathan Ames is the author of the novels Wake Up, Sir!, The Extra Man, and I Pass Like Night; a graphic novel, The Alcoholic, and the essay collections I Love You More Than You Know, My Less Than Secret Life, and What's Not to Love? He is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a former columnist for New York Press. Ames performs frequently as a storyteller and has been a recurring guest on David Letterman. He has fought in two amateur boxing matches as "The Herring Wonder," and he has peformed in a number of shows. Ames had the lead role in the IFC film The Girl Under the Waves, was a porn-extra in the porn film C-Men, and played himself in a pilot episode for the Showtime network. At the time, he said, "It's the role I've been waiting for!" He lives in Brooklyn, New York.Trade ReviewWhat ho! A novel inspired by Jeeves and Wooster? First published in the US in 2004, this is the story of Alan Blair an alcoholic American writer with a weakness for British novelists and a host of problems spanning the mental to the spiritual and a very specific sexual fantasy. Fortunately, he has a valet named Jeeves to help when things go awry. But does he even exist? -- Fiona Wilson The Times, Books of the Year It's a Necker Cube of a book in that it can be either extremely funny or extremely sad, depending on the face that presents itself to you as you read (it is of course both, and everyone who bought this book on my recommendation has told me they loved it) -- Nicholas Lezard Guardian Books of the Year This gleefully knowing mash-up of Wodehouse and literary fiction makes me smile every time I remember it -- Nick Curtis Evening Standard Books of the Year 2015 Superb and audacious... the word "hilarious" seems inadequate. The novel is extremely funny but it is also sad and poignant, and almost incredibly clever. -- Nicholas Lezard Guardian A picaresque tale with pratfalls aplenty Tatler Fiendishly funny Esquire A rip roaring delight... A cauldron of wit, myriad themes and hilarity... 'Wake Up, Sir' is a genuinely brilliant novel, a neatly crafted slice of literary chaos with some heart-warming tenderness added to the mix. Huffington Post A bizarre romp Financial Times Too funny for the canon of high literature, the book is too brilliant to be mere diversionary humor New York Press Jonathan Ames has a brilliant way with words and summons the ghost of PG Wodehouse with almost genius (apparent) effortlessness... [he] never, not for one page, forgets to be very, very funny Big Issue It is hard to convey the hilarity of this novel in just a few words... The prose is littered with philosophical musings... There are passages that will have you laughing out loud... A clever and amusing book. BookTrust It's weird, it's clever, it's funny Evening Standard This isn't just an enjoyable pastiche of Wodehouse but also a clever reimagining of his oeuvre in the present day -- Glasgow Herald Ames is every bit the rightful heir to Wodehouse's legacy of razor-sharp turns of phrase and acutely funny social observation... Jonathan Ames has done that rare thing of producing a pastiche that overreaches the status of an imitation -- Imogen West-Knights Quadrapheme Frequently hilarious... Ames's mastery of the Wodehouseian idiom is total; it's hard to believe that Bertie Wooster's legions of admirers won't find much to enjoy here... The best Jeeves and Wooster novel Saul Bellow never wrote Spectator Clever, ingenious and really, really funny Daily Mail Jonathan Ames's latest comic novel is so brilliant and charming that any description of it is bound to be impossibly dull by comparison Seattle Weekly Amid the hilarity [is] a deep pathos... This is an audacious more-than-pastiche New Statesman A Wodehouse novel for the recovery era The New York Times Book Review What do you get when you cross Carry On, Jeeves with Portnoy's Complaint? ... Jonathan Ames's very funny new novel, Wake Up, Sir! Newsday The X-rated Woody Allen Guardian Ames is a remarkable comic writer. He excels at punching out hilarious monologues on subjects ranging from nose fetishes to the planks of Buddhism TimeOut New York Ames is a considerable misanthropic talent, even if he does hail from over the pond. What ho, in all senses of the phrase. -- James Kidd Independent Cause for celebration... As Jeeves himself might prompt Ames, 'Carry on, sir!' Washington Post Pungent and hilarious, if completely off the deep end Kirkus Reviews
£10.44
Everyman Mavis Gallant Collected Stories
Book SynopsisThis generous collection of fifty-two stories selected from across her prolific career by the author, is preceded by a preface in which she discusses the sources of her art.With irony and an unfailing eye for the telling detail, Gallant weaves stories of spare complexity, often pushing the boundaries of the form in boldly unconventional directions. The settings in the COLLECTED STORIES range from Paris to Berlin to Switzerland, from the Riviera to the Côte d'Azur, and her characters are almost all exiles of one sort or another, as she herself was the most of her expatriate life. The wit and precision of her prose, combined with her expansive view of humanity, provide a rare and deep reading pleasure. With breathtaking control and compression, Gallant delivers a whole life, a whole world, in each story.Trade ReviewOne of the most brilliant story writers in the language. * The New Yorker *Gallant's talent is as versatile and witty as it is somber and empathetic. -- John UpdikeFunny, exacting, and stern... Gallant's chronicles of internal and external exile are a fitting tribute to a diasporic century. * The Guardian *
£14.39
Everyman If I Were You
Book SynopsisAnthony, fifth Earl of Droitwich, is engaged to Violet, a millionaires daughter which was a result of their families planning rather than natures course. Their plan to maintain the family coffers is undermined by the arrival of his Nanny whom under the influence of too much medicinal Brandy allows certain skeletons out of the family tomb. On top of this Anthony has fallen for manicurist Polly Brown whom the family don't consider to be countess material. Tony departs for London with the resourceful Polly Brown, leaving the ancestral home in the hands of the Socialist barber Syd Price...
£11.40
HarperCollins Publishers Vacant Possession
Book Synopsis From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light a savagely funny tale that revisits the characters from the much-loved Every Day is Mother’s Day. Muriel Axon is about to re-enter the lives of Colin Sidney, hapless husband, father and schoolmaster, and Isabel Field, failed social worker and practising neurotic. It is ten years since her last tangle with them, but for Muriel this is not time enough. There are still scores to be settled, truths to be faced and rather a lot of vengeance to be wreaked.Trade Review‘Savage and funny black humour at its best’ Time Out ’The macabre and wonderfully funny plot has as many twists and turns as a well-made thriller’ Standard ‘Filled with fiendish glee……Lie back and laugh yourself silly: this is the best send-up for a long, long time.’ New Statesman ‘Hilary Mantel's wit is wonderful and startlingly nasty’ Sunday Times ‘The farce is edged with constant acuteness about our current social mess and the pleas for charity to begin at home never miss the bull’ Observer
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers The Hours
Book SynopsisWinner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and Pen Faulkner prize. Made into an Oscar-winning film, ‘The Hours’ is a daring and deeply affecting novel inspired by the life and work of Virginia Woolf. In 1920s London, Virginia Woolf is fighting against her rebellious spirit as she attempts to make a start on her new novel. A young wife and mother, broiling in a suburb of 1940s Los Angeles, yearns to escape and read her precious copy of ‘Mrs Dalloway’. And Clarissa Vaughan steps out of her smart Greenwich village apartment in 1990s New York to buy flowers for a party she is hosting for a dying friend. Moving effortlessly across the decades and between England and America, this exquisite novel intertwines the stories of three unforgettable women.Trade Review‘“The Hours” is a book which heightens the perception of the reader. Cunningham’s craftsmanship is overwhelming.’ Robert Farren, Independent on Sunday ‘An extremely moving, original and memorable novel.’ Hermione Lee, TLS ‘Engrossing, imaginative and humane.’ Richard Francis, Observer ‘“The Hours” refracts the lives of three women through the prism of a single day. Michael Cunningham evokes these three discrete characters with rare skill.’ Financial Times ‘The concept behind the novel is bold, the execution rich with feeling.’ Helen Dunmore, The Times ‘A sensitive marriage of intelligence, integrity and finely textured emotions.’ Sunday Times ‘Cunningham has found an American tone which is exhilaratingly modern – tense, tender and completely without strain.’ Guardian
£9.49
