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
Heloise Press DAYS & DAYS & DAYS
Book SynopsisBibbs is just about to turn thirty-nine. She has been a reality show star but the good life is beginning to slip through her fingers and there seems to be a never-ending flow of unexpected expenditures. Her boyfriend, Baby, has always provided stability and when he dumps her out of the blue, she is also faced with an ultimatum: if she wants to keep the flat she must pay 100 000 Krona within a week. She no longer has access to that kind of money and Bibbs is forced to make extreme decisions. Days & Days & Days is a pitch perfect study of success and destruction, dependence and betrayal, celebrity and anonymity.
£12.30
Heloise Press Industrial Roots
Book SynopsisRooted in the oral tradition of storytelling, INDUSTRIAL ROOTS is an exceptional collection of domestic vignettes narrated by different female characters. The stories in this book concern mainly the daily experiences of blue-collar life amongst the members of a working class family in Ontario. A woman that wants to steal babies, alcoholic husbands, sisters in love with the same man, aging parents, absent fathers - all have a place in the stories these women tell. Lisa Pike uses a variety of registers, from slang to standard English, to shape the characters' stories. This book is a linguistic gem that brings the English language to its limits.Trade Review"Aficionados of greyscale Americana will love these interlinked vignettes - perfect polaroid snapshots of everyday life for generations of working-class women in Ontario." Stu Hennigan, author of Ghosts Signs; "These bittersweet vignettes linked by intergenerational familial ties are little gems making up a caustic jewel of a novel." Jonathan Wolfman, BAFTA-Winner screenwriter and producer; "Lisa Pike is a wonderful writer. She brings these characters and their trials to life in a prose that carries their stories along in an engaging and accessible way." Dr Karina M. Szczurek, publisher and author of The Fifth Mrs Brink: A Memoir
£10.40
Heloise Press Satisfaction
Book SynopsisSatisfaction is an intense, introspective novel that explores the intimate thoughts, feelings and impressions of Mme Akli, a French woman living in Algeria in the late 1970s. Mme Akli is a possessive mother in conflict with her own sexuality in a country that feels alien to her. The acquiescence of Catherine Bousba, mother of her son’s best friend Bruce, will cause a turmoil of emotional events. Through a narrative charged with sensuality and repressed passion, we navigate Mme Akli’s complex and paradoxical feelings towards her own son, Catherine, Bruce and the Algerian landscape. The representation of a troubled motherhood that echoes the tumultuous political situation of Algeria at the time, opens the story to wider community issues.
£11.66
Heloise Press WENLING'S
Book SynopsisIntertwining journalistic precision with the casual tone of joyful conversation, WENLING'S brings together friendship, gender and migration. A female space par excellence, Wenling's nail salon becomes the crossroad for a myriad of women's stories. From the unique perspective of a female documentary producer, we learn about the history of nail salons in the US and Europe, migration waves from the East to the West and gender relationships across cultures.Originally from China, Wenling arrived in Barcelona looking for a better life. She was six months pregnant at the time. With no knowledge of the local languages, she managed to open a salon. Our unnamed narrator is one of Wenling's frequent customers. As time passes by, a friendship grows between the two women. Through their conversations, Wenling's story unfolds at the salon, where we also discover the many similarities amongst women of different generations and cultures. Gemma Ruiz Pala immerses the reader in a story of gender and migration through an uncompromising, lighthearted narrative.Trade Review'A novel open to the world. The characters' stories dominate the narrative, while unfolding different aspects of femininity' La Vanguardia
£999.99
Bullaun Press Forgottenness
Book SynopsisProbing modern meditation on memory and identity through the prism of a contemporary female narrator's obsession with Viacheslav Lypnskyi (1882-1931), an activist in Ukraine's struggle for independence and statehood.
£12.60
Marotte Books The Photographer
Book Synopsis
£7.99
Ultimo Press The Family String
Book SynopsisMeet Dorcas, a spirited 12-year-old struggling to contain her irrepressible humour and naughty streak in a family of Christadelphians in 1960s Adelaide. She is her mother’s least favourite child and always at the bottom of the order on the family’s string of beads that she and her younger siblings Ruthy and Caleb reorder according to their mother’s ever-changing moods. Dorcas, an aspiring vet, dreams of having a dog, or failing that, a guinea pig named Thruppence. Ruthy wants to attend writing school, and Caleb wants to play footy with the local team. But Christadelphians aren’t allowed to be ‘of the world’ and when their older brother Daniel is exiled to door knock and spread the good word in New South Wales after being caught making out with Esther Dangerfield at youth camp, each try their hardest to suppress their dreams for a bigger life. But for a girl like Dorcas, dreams have a habit of surfacing at the most inopportune moments, and as she strives to be the daughter her mother desires, a chain of mishaps lead to a tragedy no one could have foreseen. The Family String is a superb coming of age story that explores a fraught mother-daughter dynamic, and the secrets adults keep from their children. It is about resilience, and the loves that sustain us when our most essential bonds are tested, and how to find the way back through hope and forgiveness. Trade ReviewA heart-breaking but also wildly funny coming of age novel. * Sarra Manning, Red online *Denise Picton’s writing is relatable and humorous but she also weaves in these threads of emotion that wind themselves around your heart and take root. This is a story of family ties, depression, love, faith and determination... Dorcas is an unforgettable character who will stay with me for a long time to come... A brilliant debut! * @bookishchat *Heart-warming coming-of age novel. * Daily Mail *
£8.54
Ultimo Press God Forgets About the Poor
Book Synopsis‘A stand out amongst contemporary Australian literary fiction for its stylistic and structural ambition, God Forgets About the Poor is the novel Polites has been climbing to. It is moving, poetic, powerful - at once a folktale and a modern day lament. Christos Tsiolkas meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez.’ - Maxine Beneba Clarke, bestselling and award winning author of Foreign Soil and The Hate Race ‘In God Forgets About the Poor, Polites has produced a masterpiece.’ - ArtsHub ‘a triumphant reclamation, written in prose clean as polished stones’ - The Saturday Paper ‘God Forgets About the Poor feels like a culmination; it’s the author’s most striking work yet.’ - The Guardian ‘an important literary achievement’ - The Conversation ‘God Forgets About the Poor is a reminder that everyone has a story worth telling and hearing, but not everyone gets the chance to share it. This is one told well.’ - Books + PublishingI will tell you why you should draft my story. Because migrant stories are broken. Some parts in a village where we washed our clothing with soot. Some parts in big cities working in factories. How we starved for food in Greece and starved for Greece in Australia.You don’t know the first thing about me. A son can never see his mother as a woman. You will only see me in relation to you. I have had a thousand lives before you were even a thought. Hospitalised as a child for an entire year. Living as an adult without family in Athens when the colonels took control.Start when I was born. Describe the village and how beautiful it was. On the side of a mountain but in the middle of a forest. If we walked to a certain point on the edge, we could look over the valley and see rain clouds coming. Sometimes we would see a cat on a roof, we read that as a warning of a storm. When we looked down, we saw the dirt, which was just as rich as the sky. My island, your island, our island.Sometimes I think God forgot about us because we were poor.A stunning new novel from the author of Down the Hume and The Pillars, God Forgets About the Poor is a love story to a migrant mother, whose story is as important as any ever told. PRAISE FOR GOD FORGETS ABOUT THE POOR: ‘Polites brings to light his mother’s story, a migrant woman who has lived a number of lives, surely a common story in the Greek community, and while the title suggests god may forget about the poor, Polites wants to make sure the world does not.’ - Neos Kosmos ‘It is an exquisite mode for the diaspora story, a genre that is increasingly losing its meaningfulness in a time of its commodification. In God Forgets About the Poor, the old country is dead, yet it continues to live vividly in migrants' memories even as they evolve amongst future generations.’ - ABC Arts - The Bookshelf ‘Peter Polites is also sensitive to the ways in which migrant stories can be reduced, stereotyped and consumed in mainstream publishing, and is at pains to give voice to the complexity and richness of his subject's experience.’ - The Sydney Morning Herald ‘a nuanced portrait in which a mother—in her full and challenging complexity—is truly honoured.’ - MeanjinTrade Review‘Polites’ book is a triumphant reclamation, written in prose clean as polished stones but consciously bearing something of the occasional awkwardness and inadvertent poetry of his mother’s bilingualism. God may forget about the poor, but Polites evidently does not. He has rescued his mother’s modest story and made it into a contemporary epic of homecoming.’ * The Saturday Paper *‘It’s a tender, funny, full-bodied portrait – and utterly transporting.’ * The Guardian *
£15.29
Inanna Publications and Education Inc. Slow Reveal
Book Synopsis
£9.86
Douglas & McIntyre The Wild Heavens
Book SynopsisA graceful and compelling first novel that pays tribute to the magic and unfathomable mystery of the natural world.It all starts with an impossibly large set of tracks, footprints for a creature that could not possibly exist. The words sasquatch, bigfoot and yeti never occur in this novel, but that is what most people would call the hairy, nine-foot creature that would become a lifelong obsession for Aidan Fitzpatrick, and in turn, his granddaughter Sandy Langley.The novel spans the course of single winter day, interspersed with memories from Sandy's lifechildhood days spent with her distracted, scholarly grandfather in a remote cabin in British Columbia's interior mountains; later recollections of new motherhood; and then the tragic disappearance that would irrevocably shape the rest of her life, a day when all signs of the mysterious creature would disappear for thirty years. When the enigmatic tracks finally reappear, Sandy sets out on the trail alone, determined to find out the truth about the mystery that has shaped her life.The Wild Heavens is an impressive and evocative debut, containing beauty, tragedy and wonder in equal parts.
£16.14
Book*hug Play
Book Synopsis
£14.36
Baraka Books Morel
Book SynopsisBorn during the Great Depression, Jean-Claude Morel is an Everyman, an ordinary Montreal construction worker who has built the city with his own hands, digging its metro, creating islands, and weaving expressways through the downtown core. But the progress has come at a cost: neighbourhoods have been razed, streets wiped off the map, and the Morel family expropriated. Teeming with life, Morel uncovers a story of Montreal that has been buried under years of glitzy urban renewal and modernization. This intricately constructed literary novel is a profoundly human portrait of one man and his time, a monument to a city, and a toast to days gone by.
£24.26
Baraka Books In the Shadow of Crows
Book SynopsisConnected via the fictional town of St Anne? s, a community along Nova Scotia? s western shore, each story takes its title from the children? s rhyme Counting Crows.One for sorrow, two for joy,three for a message, four for a boy,five for silver, six for gold,seven for a secret never to be told.Within each tale an individual (often from the same family, always from the same town) will note the number of crows in their midst and recall the poem as it relates to the prophecy and the story at hand. Between the last century and the current one, the characters (for the most part, women) walk a shifting landscape carved out by war, poverty, and patriarchal expectations. Beneath the gaze of a small town and these intelligent birds whose memories are unforgiving, we are as close as a heartbeat to the souls upon these pages.
£15.26
Baraka Books Dear Haider
Book Synopsis
£19.76
Biblioasis You Are Here
Book SynopsisGathering the best twenty stories from Cynthia Flood’s career, these spare, stylistically inventive stories explore subjects ranging from the domestic to the political.In this collection, Flood navigates a wide range of subject matter with a writing style which gradually becomes more intense, tighter, and sometimes experimental with each story. Most themes are familiar—love, hate, children, the natural world, parents, failure, despair, anger, regret. Other stories are more unusual, dealing with topics such as far-left political activity. Containing what may be some of Flood’s most poignant work, You Are Here is a sharp and engaging exploration of the world today.Trade ReviewPRAISE FOR YOU ARE HERE"These stories defy categorization; they are wonderful, layered, powerful, and imbued with clear senses of their often-Canadian settings and eras ... And they infuse bursts of joy into their cadences and descriptions of people’s literal and mental landscapes ... You Are Here is a rich and beautiful short story collection via which the voice of an era can be savored."—Foreword Reviews (starred)"You Are Here presents insightful, often incisive, glances into fictional lives ... Cynthia Flood employs a realistic style to glances into characters who are products of their respective time and place, while at the same time surprising, sometimes jarring, us with unpredictability."—BC ReviewPRAISE FOR CYNTHIA FLOOD“The prose of short story writer Cynthia Flood is sharp, minimalist and concise. Her 2013 collection Red Girl Rat Boy was shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Her latest book, What Can You Do, is a collection of 12 short stories that features flawed characters who are emotionally broken and adrift.”—Ryan B. Patrick, CBC Books"As the fifth collection of short stories from an award-winning author, it’s no surprise that What Can You Do is an exceptionally written and thought-provoking read. The twelve stories make up just under 150 pages, and in each one Flood does a masterful job creating a sense of existence for her characters that extends beyond the pages of their story."—Joanna Graham, The Winnipeg Review“Cynthia Flood scatters fleeting moments of personal insight throughout the dozen intriguing stories of What Can You Do, her fifth collection. Funnily, though, they’re sporadic, unreliable, and not what Flood’s characters (or readers) might expect. With characters muddling through or getting by with what life hands them, wisdom of the transcendent clarity variety turns out to be a rare commodity. In understated yet nuanced pieces that are bittersweet, sobering, or chuckle-inducing, the Vancouver-based author introduces a gallery of figures for whom paths fork unexpectedly, plans go awry, and expectations require extensive revising. Still, Flood’s characters are managing. And committed to their decisions, as on-the-fly as they might be.”—Brett Josef Grubisic, Vancouver Sun“Her latest collection, What Can You Do? cements her reputation as a gifted and observant storyteller. Technically superb, demonstrating Flood’s unstinting grasp of complex, subterranean emotion, these twelve stories tread familiar territory. The haunting “Struggle,” about a disturbed woman’s memories of her activist past, mines the rivalries and chauvinism of far-left politics in 1970s Vancouver.”—Trevor Corkum, Toronto Star“With rapid-fire narration, power-point prose, and darts of minimalist description, Flood nails her subject. Her characters are impatient to be heard, grabbing your attention, word bullets flying, hope and despair spilling over the pages.”—M.A.C. Farrent, The Vancouver Sun
£11.04
Biblioasis Sea Loves Me: Selected Stories
Book SynopsisAn NPR Best Book of 2021 New and selected fiction, over half in English for the first time, from the winner of the 2014 Neustadt Prize. Known internationally for his novels, Neustadt Prize-winner Mia Couto first became famous for his short stories. Sea Loves Me includes sixty-four of his best, thirty-six of which appear in English for the first time. Covering the entire arc of Couto's career, this collection displays the Mozambican author's inventiveness, sensitivity, and social range with greater richness than any previous collection—from early stories that reflect the harshness of life under Portuguese colonialism; to magical tales of rural Africa; to contemporary fables of the fluidity of race and gender, environmental disaster, and the clash between the countryside and the city. The title novella, long acclaimed as one of Couto's best works but never before available in English, caps this collection with the lyrical story of a search for a lost father that leads unexpectedly to love.Trade ReviewPraise for Sea Loves Me "Mia Couto’s words help weave the story of Mozambique. Couto’s language is enriched by his country’s idioms, voices—and possibilities."—New York Times“A worthy ... introduction to a unique and atmospheric African writer’s work.”—Kirkus “Couto employs his haunting lyricism ... to examine the burdens of race, history, and culture in the aftermath of Mozambique’s 1974 independence from Portugal ... Mia Couto’s multivalent vision also manifests in the seamless merging of author and translators, original and translated texts ... Like Mia Couto’s aesthetic effort to render whole the many facets of his contradictory identity, the translators’ linguistic dance simultaneously pays homage to his original fiction, and gives birth to its autonomous and indelible existence in English.”—Asymptote “The stories offer a kaleidoscopic vision of Couto’s world, deeply rooted in Mozambique but imbued with an ethereal, otherworldly quality. Often in just a few pages, Couto is able to breathe life into a variety of characters … Sea Loves Me is a thrilling addition to Couto’s extraordinary body of work, bringing together new and old stories that evoke past and present Mozambique, memories and dreamscapes, natural and spirit worlds. War, race, sky and sea, death and desire—these are just a few of the eternal elements Couto uses to mold his wise, enchanting fiction.”—World Literature Today “Mozambican writer Couto (Woman of the Ashes) draws on African proverbs for a captivating collection of 64 brief, aphoristic stories, set mostly in Mozambique … There are captivating stories of people at the margins … Many entries elude easy interpretation, making them all the more haunting. Each story contains enchanting insights into human nature.”—Publishers Weekly “Stunning … Packed with an incredible 64 stories, Sea Loves Me features 36 of Couto’s pieces translated to English for the first time ever, including the titular novella. With a voice that immediately grabs you, it's a great entry for readers new to Couto and a treat for those already acquainted with his sharp, wise, playful, and absorbing writing.”—Open Book "Extraordinary ... Begin anywhere, with any story, and you as reader are safe within Couto’s world. The imagination is without limit, the poetic force is exhilarating and often disturbing, while the surprise of some is breathtaking ... Couto is as much a master of the pointed anecdote as the longer tale."—Winnipeg Free Press "What makes his stories so special is the way in which he manages to describe even the most violent events as if they were coated in honey. There are no sharp edges in Couto’s writing, no matter how much desperation and darkness the scenario he describes contains. Everything seems taken out of a dream, and reading his books is like being constantly, softly lulled into the story ... This collection offers a perfect glimpse into Couto’s writing, and it’s a great pathway into his novels."—Book Riot "Covering the entire arc of Couto’s career, this collection displays the Mozambican author’s inventiveness, sensitivity, and social range with greater richness than any previous collection"—Portuguese American Journal Praise for Mia Couto “Mia Couto’s stories of civilisation and barbarity are told through a language that is precise and profound; he weaves together the living tradition of legend, poetry and song.”—International Man Booker shortlist jury citation “These literary fragments are dreamy but hopeful responses to Mozambique’s violent past, magical tales that find solace in the wisdom of rivers and trees, fishermen and fortune tellers, children and blind men … Couto’s stories are rooted yet timeless, both whimsical and deeply spiritual.”—Vanity Fair “[Couto is] a brilliant aphorist. There are countless sentences that … have the weight and wisdom of ancient proverbs.”—Wall Street Journal “Couto’s narrative tone, at once deadpan and beguiling, and his virtuoso management of time place him alongside the best Latin American magic realists.”—Times Literary Supplement “One of the greatest living writers in the Portuguese language … [Couto] cracks open a welcoming window onto a vast world of literary pleasures.”—The Millions
£13.29
Biblioasis Best Canadian Stories 2021
Book SynopsisSelected by guest editor Diane Schoemperlen, the 2021 edition of Best Canadian Stories continues not only a series, but a legacy in Canadian letters. “The best short stories,” writes editor Diane Schoemperlen, “are disruptive in all the best ways, diverse in all senses of the word, always looking back and leading forward at the same time … they must be written in the world, in the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of more horrifying news every day.” Submitted and published by Canadian writers in 2020, Schoemperlen’s selections for Best Canadian Stories 2021 feature work by established practitioners of the form alongside exciting newcomers, and stories published by leading magazines and journals as well as those appearing in print for the first time—all of which, as Schoemperlen writes, “bring us news of the world and the shape of things to come.” Featuring work by: Senaa Ahmad Chris Bailey Shashi Bhat Megan Callahan Francine Cunningham Lucia Gagliese Alice Gauntley Don Gillmor Angélique Lalonde Elise Levine Colette Maitland Sara O’Leary Jasmine Sealy Joshua Wales Joy WallerTrade ReviewPraise for Best Canadian Stories “The legacy for Canadian literature in the Best Canadian Stories series can’t be overstated. For years the collection has been the place to discover Canadian writers.”—Winnipeg Free Press “Best Canadian Stories … combines both emerging and established voices for a fascinating glimpse at the most exciting short fiction coming out of this country.”—Open Book “The arrival, late in the fall each year, of [this] collection is always cause for fanfare.”—Quill & Quire
£11.04
Biblioasis Say This: Two Novellas
Book SynopsisTwo crystalline novellas linked by one devastating crime: Say This is an immersive meditation on the interplay between memory, trauma, and narrative.It’s a cold spring in Baltimore, 2018, when the email arrives: the celebrity journalist hopes Eva will tell him everything about the sexual affair she had as a teen with her older cousin, a man now in federal prison for murder. Thirteen years earlier, Lenore-May answers the phone to the nightmare news that her stepson’s body has been found near Mount Hood, and homicide is suspected. Following Eva’s unsettling ambivalence towards her confusing relationship, and constructing a portrait of her cousin’s victim via collaged perspectives of the slain man’s family, these two linked novellas borrow, interrogate, sometimes dismantle the tropes of true crime; lyrically render the experiences of grief and dissociation; and brilliantly mine the fault lines of power and consent, silence, justice, accountability, and class. Say This is a startling exploration of the devastating effects of trauma on personal identity.Trade ReviewPraise for Say This"Say This is a breathtaking, daring exploration of that constancy, of the lingering power of trauma, and the roots and branches of violence and despair."—Toronto Star"Levine addresses questions of identity and the impact of violence as well as addiction, consent, and society’s exploitation of trauma, and does so in gorgeous, surprising, and utterly gripping prose."—Elizabeth Hazen, Baltimore Fishbowl"Elise Levine is a taut and musical writer who experiments boldly and beautifully with form. The fragments of story here refract like a prism, bending and catching the complexity of her characters’ experiences. This is an arresting and powerful book."—Alix Ohlin, author of Dual Citizens and We Want What We Want "Every page of Elise Levine's Say This is a meticulously crafted, crystalline work of high art. These two novellas, fragmented and fractured in a manner that perfectly captures our present reality, are sharp and poetic, suspenseful and engaging. Everything one requires of the best narrative fiction is here, all told in gorgeous prose that commands your attention at every turn."—Robert Lopez, author of All Back Full "Elise Levine's brilliant Say This examines the damage inflicted by one man's life and another man's death, as experienced by the people they left behind. Intimate, provocative, and deeply unsettling in their power, these interconnected novellas showcase Levine's gift for telling stories that readers can't look away from, wrapped in prose so beautiful and precise."—Jung Yun, Author of Shelter and O Beautiful Praise for Elise Levine “Levine offers a vision and a language so poetically visceral and fiercely poignant—so uniquely intelligent—that story after story I was in awe of her courage and artistry.”—Barbara Gowdy “Elise Levine writes with a new and exciting type of lyric rhythm. These are stories with the beating heart of poems.”—Rion Amilcar Scott, winner of the 2017 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction “Elise Levine’s startling sentences alternate between serrated sentiment and lyrical reverie, offering readers that rarest commodity—genuine surprise.”—Jeff Jackson, author of Destroy All Monsters “Elise Levine uses language like a scalpel to cut to the nervy core of our inner life. There’s a restless desolation in these stories, perfectly poised against a wily, wry wit. This Wicked Tongue is wicked smart.” —Dawn Raffel, The Strange Case of Dr. Couney “Levine demonstrates a boisterous command of language and an ability to seize the reader’s attention … her stories pry us open, revealing our secretly wounded places, finally acting as balm and salvation. Lucky us.” —Toronto Star “Reading Elise Levine is akin to a wild ride down a dark road at night … Bold and startling …Precipitous and exhilarating.” —Globe and Mail
£11.04
Biblioasis Estates Large and Small
Book SynopsisProfound, perceptive, and wryly observed, Estates Large and Small is the story of one man’s reckoning and an ardent defense of the shape books make in a life.What decades of rent increases and declining readership couldn’t do, a pandemic finally did: Phil Cooper has reluctantly closed his secondhand bookstore and moved his business online. Smoking too much pot and listening to too much Grateful Dead, he suspects that he’s overdue when it comes to understanding the bigger picture of who he is and what we’re all doing here. So he’s made another decision: to teach himself 2,500 years of Western philosophy.Thankfully, he meets Caroline, a fellow book lover who agrees to join him on his trek through the best of what’s been thought and said. But Caroline is on her own path, one that compels Phil to rethink what it means to be alive in the twenty-first century. In Estates Large and Small Ray Robertson renders one man’s reckoning with both wry humour and tender joy, reminding us of what it means to live, love, and, when the time comes, say goodbye.Trade ReviewPraise for Estates Large and Small"This wry novel follows a struggling used bookstore owner and Grateful Dead fan as he grudgingly moves his store online, decides to teach himself two millenniums of Western philosophy, falls in love and attempts to pin down the point of life."—New York Times"With the publication of Estates Large and Small, novelist Ray Robertson succeeds in reminding his readers just what it means to live, love, and (when the time comes) to say goodbye. Deftly crafted and memorable characters, a narrative storyline laced with humor and acute observation."—Midwest Book Review"Ray Robertson asks us to think about life as a rental, and to make the best out of it before our lease runs out."—Literary Review of Canada"Estates Large and Small is a thoughtful book that manages to make its serious existential themes both entertaining and, yes, hopeful."—Ottawa Review of Books"The issues, relationships and real-life collisions in the novel keep reminding the reader that an intellectual exercise by itself doesn’t offer much beyond intellectual satisfaction. Estates Large and Small offers so much more if you can handle the trepidation it shares."—Winnipeg Free Press"This novel takes you on a rollercoaster of heartwarming and melancholic moments that will leave you contemplating what your own journey is and how you can make the most of your life."—White Wall Review"Chatham-born author Ray Robertson likes to tell a story in his novels that makes his readers ponder their own lives. He’s hit the mark again with Estates Large and Small."—Chatham Daily News"Ray Robertson's novel Estates Large and Small is both poignant and heartwarming."—Largehearted Boy“A warmhearted and unconventional love story that's also an opportunity for a gentle encounter with some of life's fundamental questions ... With Phil's droll humor and world-weary cynicism, and Caroline's clear-eyed determination to live her final days on her own terms, the two make for an appealing couple. Like the philosophers they encounter, Estates Large and Small only hints at answers to life's deepest mysteries, but it's a wise reminder that the journey is really the point."—Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf AwarenessPraise for Ray Robertson “While How to Die is a slim book, it offers some hefty insights, leavened with frequent, self-effacing humour. There are numerous passages here which, while quick to read (the book is very accessible, despite its philosophical bona fides), nonetheless take hours to fully internalize … Brilliant.” —Toronto Star “Robertson is a moral writer and a bitingly intelligent one, a man who writes with penetrating insight of what needs to be written about: beauty, truth and goodness.”—Globe and Mail “Heartfelt, funny, rigorous, practical without ever being preachy . . . a book that feels like a friend.”—Montreal Gazette “One of the country’s finest literary voices."—National Post “Many of us sense that the world has too many moving parts and can become utterly defeated. Ray Robertson has found a road back in this splendid and intriguing book [Why Not: Fifteen Reasons to Live].”—Jim Harrison
£11.89
Biblioasis Shimmer
Book SynopsisNominated for the 2023 ReLit Award for Short FictionIn ten vividly told stories, Shimmer follows characters through relationships, within social norms, and across boundaries of all kinds as they shimmer into and out of each other’s lives. Outside a 7-Eleven, teen boys Veeper and Wendell try to decide what to do with their night, though the thought of the rest of their lives doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. In Laurel Canyon, two movie stars try to decide if the affair they’re having might mean they like each other. When Byron, trying to figure out the chords of a song he likes, posts a question on a guitar website, he ends up meeting Jessica as well, a woman with her own difficult music. And when the snide and sharp-tongued Twyla agrees to try therapy, not even she would have imagined the results.Trade ReviewPraise for Shimmer"Looking at Shimmer as a whole, one is struck by Pugsley’s mastery of the short-story form, his ability to distil entire lives’ worth of meaning into a few short pages. He’s not just a writer to watch: he’s a writer to savour."—Robert Wiersema, Toronto Star"Alex Pugsley is one of our greatest living writers. He is like a Canadian James Joyce, only if James Joyce grew up hanging out in the parking lots of rundown 7-Elevens and pow-wowing on the grimy floors of divey rock & roll clubs."—The Colorado Sun"His greatest gift as a writer is, I believe, his ability to carry dialogue ... a brave departure from the highly-praised Aubrey McKee."—Miramichi Reader"Pugsley brings out the confusion of life well. No one is in control. Everyone has doubts about themselves and others. His ability to show the twists and turns of our constant, anxious questioning of ourselves makes each story revelatory in a different way. A truly impressive collection!"—Ottawa Review of Books"[Pugsley's] story proves that the digital mode of communication, while frequently castigated as impersonal and dehumanizing, can, in the right hands, carry with it strong emotional resonance."—Steven Beattie, That Shakespearean Rag"Pugsley excels at putting life on the page, mainly because he uses a profusion of concrete details. He out-Dickens Dickens. And it works."—Maple Tree Literary Supplement“Alex Pugsley’s Shimmer (2022) offers a character for every reading mood...poignant and moving.”—Buried in PrintPraise for Aubrey McKee“Aubrey McKee is no austere, white-walled art gallery of a novel. It’s abundant, highly decorated, and unafraid of extravagance, of stylistic excess ... From ordinary incidents—a childhood acquaintance, marital strife, a wedding—as well as a few extraordinary ones, Aubrey McKee builds a dazzling and complicated world, a childhood in Halifax as a vibrant universe in itself. While Pugsley’s literary performance is an immediate delight, the portrait of the early days of a 'wayward oddity' lingers long after.”—Toronto Star “Evoking comparisons in both style and substance to the work of John Irving and Robertson Davies in its assemblage of perceptive, richly detailed character studies ... The life of a Canadian city is revealed with verve and insight.”—Kirkus “Although many peoples’ stories comprise the whole of Aubrey McKee, the city of Halifax is also a feature character ... the reverence Pugsley provides about Halifax will resonate with anyone thinking about their own hometown, no matter its size or location ... The richly defined personalities in Aubrey McKee are void of pretense or judgment and are, at once, knowable. Like a favourite song, it’s the hook that makes the adventures of Aubrey McKee and those he cares about so memorable.”—Winnipeg Free Press "Pugsley, equal parts poet and meticulous historian of his own private Halifax, has accomplished, with “Aubrey McKee,” a work of high literary art, remaking and claiming the city as his own once again in a sustained performance that pulses with that deep, radical love."—John Delacourt, The Ottawa Review of Books “The mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic Halifax depicted in Aubrey McKee is as enchanted as it is benighted, an adolescent fever-dream. This is a rollicking, strange and unforgettable coming of age novel unlike anything you've ever read.”—Lynn Coady, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author of Hellgoing “His prose style is among the finest anywhere: humorous, economical, deft without sacrificing accessibility, capable of laying bare the complicated depths, the tenderness, and the strangeness of personal relationships.”—Roo Borson, Griffin Poetry Prize-winning author of Short Journey Upriver Toward Oishida “Alex Pugsley’s novel, Aubrey McKee, is a whip-smart portrait of the artist at the end of the twentieth century. Funny and wildly intelligent, it captures a somewhat tragic cohort of young, ambitious Haligonians trying to become themselves, all seen through the eyes of the narrator, a young man of incomplete wisdom. In quicksilver prose, Pugsley shows us a whole generation, some of whom are lost, some found, but all viewed with a profound, comic humanity.”—Michael Redhill, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author of Bellevue Square “A wonderful book, it absolutely floored me. It's been a very long time since I've read anything like it ... I found Aubrey McKee to be more reminiscent of Dubliners by James Joyce, not only because the sense of place is so strong, but because the narrative in this book is told through interconnected stories.”—Bookin’
£11.04
Biblioasis Confessions with Keith
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2023 City of Victoria Butler Book PrizeAn outrageously comic novel documents a middle-aged writer and mother's grappling with mid-life crisis—her husband's and her own.Preoccupied with her fledgling literary career, intent on the all-consuming consolations of philosophy, and scrambling to meet the demands of her four children, the acutely myopic and chronically inattentive Vita Glass doesn’t notice that her house and her marriage are competing to see which can fall apart fastest. She can barely find time for her writing career, and just when her newfound success in vegetable erotica is beginning to take off. Our heroine’s only tried and trusted escape is the blissful detachment of Keith's hairdressing salon, but when her husband leaves the country, unannounced, she decides to do likewise—in the opposite direction, and with their children. Drawn from the pages of Vita’s journal, this outrageously comic novel documents Vita's passage through a mid-life crisis and explores all the ways we deceive each other and ourselves.Trade ReviewPraise for Confessions with Keith"Bridget Jones meets Nora Ephron in this diarized account of Vita, a woman dealing with an unexpected plot twist after 20 years of marriage."—Globe and Mail"Magnetic ... artfully expressed—funny, honest, wry, intimate—private thoughts ... On page after assured page, Vita’s confounded, thrilled, irked, hurt, and envious—about minutia as well as the big picture—and all of which are facets of what she terms 'the senselessness of human existence.'"—The Vancouver Sun"Succinct, cheeky prose ... Holdstock’s fast-paced comic novel with its entertaining narrative will captivate readers, especially those who relish domestic tales."—Winnipeg Free Press"Things going wrong on many levels is the focus of the novel, but Vita’s ability to plough through the problems and often see the humour even when exhausted is refreshing ... Confessions with Keith deals with real life issues in a frenetic and funny manner."—Candace Fertile, The BC Review"A deftly crafted and wickedly fun read from cover to cover, Confessions with Keith by novelist Pauline Holdstock is the kind of story that will linger in the mind and memory long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf."—Midwest Book Review“This is a book about family, marriage, motherhood, and the importance of having a support network around you. I laughed, chuckled, and giggled my way through this book. And for that it gets 5 stars from me.”—Consumed By Ink"Confessions with Keith reminds us that life is a raw, radiant, and ridiculous story unfolding moment by moment for everyone in their separate subjectivities. It deserves laughter. It deserves tears. It is made more bearable by books like this, the literary equivalent of uncensored midnight conversation over cups of tea or glasses—plural—of wine."—Amy Reiswig, Focus on Victoria"With ample wit, Pauline Holdstock perfectly articulates the quiet sacrifice and crushing weight of keeping domestic order in the face of chaos. Confessions with Keith is not only a laugh-out-loud joy to read, but is bursting with incredible insight, and lends much-needed visibility to the inner life of a woman overlooked. A sheer delight of a book."—Stacey May Fowles, co-editor of Good Mom on Paper
£11.04
Biblioasis The Dead and the Countess: A Ghost Story for
Book SynopsisWorld-renowned cartoonist Seth returns with three new ghost stories for 2022. The dead sleep peacefully—until a railway is built near their cemetery. While the old priest works to keep them at rest, the count’s dying wife begs to be buried near the railway. But when her last wish is granted, the priest finds that the sound of the train leaves the countess far from at peace.Trade ReviewPraise for Christmas Ghost Stories“[This] series of Christmas ghost stories, miniature books chosen and illustrated by the cartoonist Seth … [offers] chills—and charm.”—John Williams, New York Times Book Review“[I]t’s worth asking why Christmas and ghosts go so well together, and what the hearthside season’s haunts are trying to tell us. They live on in the 2022 edition of Christmas Ghost Stories from Biblioasis, a series of chilling classics illustrated by Seth … perfect for slipping into a stocking, or tucking into a coat pocket to while away a rinkside hour.”—Globe and Mail"Internationally celebrated Guelph cartoonist Seth dug deep into his archive of ghost stories to resurrect a Victorian tradition of reading one on Christmas Eve."—Deb Dundas, Toronto Star“I just bought my set of these and they … are … PERFECT. I hope they do these every year.”—Patton Oswalt“Seth’s design and illustrations are alone worth the price of admission, capturing and interpreting the mood of each story.”—Book Beat“If you’re looking to lace your Christmas cheer with a little fear, then Seth, Biblioasis, and these three authors have the perfect gift for you.”—Cemetery Dance“A nice, creepy reprieve from all the holly and jolly of the holidays. Seth’s black and white illustrations provide a delicious sense for foreboding and unease to these tales of the dearly departed.”—Lindsey Childs, Prairie Fire"These slim volumes make great gifts; they are beautiful to behold and satisfying to read. Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories are a great tradition for book lovers to adopt. The slow-burning nature of older ghost stories, which makes them perhaps too tame for Halloween, makes them perfect for the winter holidays."—Quarantine Review“I loved them, and really enjoyed the whole concept of reading ghost stories for the holidays (I appreciate a good scare any time of year!) … These beautiful books are perfect stocking-stuffers, and even better is that they are beautifully illustrated by Canadian darling Seth.”—Anne Logan, I've Read This"[Seth's] illustrations are bold yet simple, and the use of shadows brings a lifelike quality to the playful cartoon style. Seth visually guides readers through each scene and adds thrill to every tale...This book collection kept me up at night with its chilling tales and gave me a chance to reflect on what tradition means during the holiday season."—Justin Ball, The Charlatan"Really beautiful art, and great stories."—So Many Damn Books"What I love about these books is that they're really a proper blast from the past ... If you know someone who likes their spooky stories, then they'd make a perfect Christmas gift. They look lovely, the artwork is fantastic, and they're just a great read ... I highly recommend them."—Total Christmas Podcast"Taking classic short stories and adding design and geometry-heavy illustrations, Seth reintroduces eerie works from writers including Gertrude Atherton, Lady Asquith, and Shirley Jackson, among many others ... great small gifts for holiday exchanges."—Paste Magazine
£7.49
Biblioasis Burn Man
Book Synopsis"Literature at the highest level: heartrending, disquieting, fascinating."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Drawing together the best of his short fiction published over the last four decades, Burn Man: Selected Stories showcases Mark Anthony Jarman’s sharply observed characters and acrobatic, voice-driven prose in stories that walk the tightrope between the commonplace and the mystical. With an insightful introduction from John Metcalf, this revelatory selection highlights one of the most spirited and singular masters of the short story form.
£14.24
Biblioasis The Future
Book SynopsisWinner of Canada Reads 2024 • Longlisted for the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction • One of Tor.com''s Can''t Miss Speculative Fiction for Fall 2023 • Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 • One of Kirkus Reviews'' Fall 2023 Big Books By Small Presses • A Kirkus Review Work of Translated Fiction To Read Now • One of CBC Books Best Books of 2023 • A CBC Books Bestselling Canadian Book of the WeekIn an alternate history in which the French never surrendered Detroit, children protect their own kingdom in the trees.In an alternate history of Detroit, the Motor City was never surrendered to the US. Its residents deal with pollution, poverty, and the legacy of racism—and strange and magical things are happening: children rule over their o
£13.29
Talon Books,Canada Falling Shadows
Book SynopsisIn Falling Shadows, a lone man walks in the forest towards the hunting camp where his family has taken refuge to escape the upheaval caused by a widespread power failure. He knows he is threatened. One day, having lost his way, a twelve-year-old boy, mysteriously fearless and familiar, calls out to him. The unusual duo will have to face the hostility of the wilderness and thwart the offensive groups that now inhabit the woods. This is Québec writer Christian Guay-Poliquin's much anticipated third instalment in the series of gripping post-apocalyptic novels initiated with Running on Fumes and prolonged by the international bestseller The Weight of Snow, both translated by Governor General's Award winner David Homel and published by Talonbooks in 2016 and 2019. The Weight of Snow was long-listed for the 2020 Sunburst Award and was translated into fifteen languages. Throughout these novels, Guay-Poliquin has developed a unique storytelling craft; his narratives are grounded in the demands and details of daily life and in a world ripe with experience. Adventurous and cleverly assembled, Falling Shadows questions the meaning of community and revisits the thrilling excitement associated with the wilderness and survival classics like McCarthy's The Road and King's The Stand.
£12.34
Conundrum Press Hot to Trot
Book Synopsis "Hot To Trotis abeautifullytold story of friendship, introspection, personal growth and empathy.I don''t just read Veronica Post''s comics,I dive intothem."?Noah Van Sciver As Langosh and Yeva embark on an epic cross-country journey, they discover that old wounds?and differing personal experiences?have begun to threaten their close-knit friendship.The landscape of America creates a constantly evolving backdrop to their emotional voyage. As they explore big cities, small towns, prairies and mountains, Langosh opens up to Yeva about his experience of police brutality, and the stark difference between how they respond to the situation leads to deep reflection on how the past informs their current choices.The more they seek to influence each other, the more obscured their path becomes. As Yeva comes to understand the unjust act of violence that changed his life forever, she struggles with how Langosh decides to respond to what happened. Have the values that he formed in response to harm become barriers to his personal growth? Is Yeva callous to the realities that he faces? Can they stay true to themselves and keep their friendship alive?Influenced by Jillian Tamaki, Kate Beaton and Guy Delisle, Veronica Post examines how we respond to structual harm, the power and limitations of personal agency and the divide between individual freedoms and collective responsibility.
£17.09
Great Plains Publications The Lark of Stolen Time
Book SynopsisLauder Jones and Mountcastle, two Halifax families both alike in dignity, linked by love and circumstance. Douglas Lauder Jones, obscure story writer, calls it Life and No Escape. His lovelorn son John thinks it''s the end of happiness. Neuroscientist Ursula Lauder Jones sees it as sink-or-swim parenting. Whatever it is, her daughter Merin, new owner of a movie house on Barrington Street, wants to sit through it twice. Her sister Anya, summer student working at Mountcastle Framing on Spring Garden Road, relishes life''s richly varied fabric.And the youngest, Cary, budding writer, recognizes it as apt material for the many stories stitching this novel''s intriguing brocade.
£15.29
Fernwood Publishing Co Ltd Sister Seen, Sister Heard
Book SynopsisFarah's ready to move out of her parent's house. It takes an hour to get to campus, and she has no freedom to be herself. Maiheen and Mostafa, first-generation Iranian immigrants in Toronto, find their younger daughter's "Canadian" ways disappointing and embarrassing, and they wonder why Farah can't be like her older sister Farzana - though Farah knows things about Farzana that her parents don't. They begrudgingly agree to let Farah move, and she begins to explore her exciting new life as an independent university student. But when Farah gets assaulted on campus, everything changes. This beautiful coming-of-age story will be familiar to every immigrant in the diaspora who has struggled to find a way between cultures, every youth who has rebelled against their parents and every woman who has faced the world alone.
£14.20
Invisible Publishing Above Discovery
Book SynopsisA collection that careens from Ancient Greece to the Klondike Gold Rush, for readers of A. S. Byatt and Margaret Atwood.“It is the part that is missing that I am drawn to, that I try to pin down. My gaze is always divided by what is here and what is no longer here. That, for me, is where the deepest pleasure lies, where the sweet overcomes the bitter."A couple coping with a recent loss are tasked with taking stock of a late biology enthusiast’s hoard. A support worker dedicated to rehabilitating young women suffering from, among other things, a certain unexpected effect of the climate apocalypse faces a truth that shatters the illusion separating her work and her personal life. An archaeologist formerly working in Syria struggles with her decision to flee from unrest, while the people she has left behind face an uncertain fate.In Jennifer Falkner’s richly imagined first collection, past and present glancingly converge, making the familiar outlines of myth, history, and everyday life seem suddenly strange. With spare, elegant prose, Falkner introduces the reader to those whose narratives are written in the language of empty space. Above Discovery is a stunning debut collection from an author to watch.Trade Review"Falkner’s stories are dark, transportive, and intimately detailed character studies. Her expansive interest in history is apparent, ingrained in the minutiae of each fiction [wherein] looking backward, the constraints of the past are unexpectedly and undeniably revealed as intertwined with those of the present. …[An] exciting debut from Falkner."—Quill & Quire, Starred Review"The twelve exquisite, elegant stories that make up Above Discovery navigate the liminal territory between reality and dream, life and death, the past and the present in a way that feels utterly fresh and enchanting.…[A] literary performance that soars."—Steven W. Beattie, Toronto Star"Above Discovery is Jennifer Falkner's debut collection, but being a first-timer didn't hold Falkner back in the least: epic, far-ranging, and filled with lavishly imagined tales, these stories are complex and unflinching, obsessed with history, myth, geography, the climate, and the inequalities and strangeness inhabited in those subjects[:] work and labour, loss and connection."—Open Book"Jen Falkner’s stories bring us not only into wondrous worlds, but deep into vivid and fascinating lives. It isn’t often that a collection invites you into its stories so completely that you come to inhabit its characters, but that’s exactly what’s on offer in Above Discovery. We as readers are enthralled, challenged, and implicated. This book is one to savour, and Jen Falkner is a writer to watch."—Andrew Forbes, author of The Utility of Boredom and Lands and Forests"Elegant and atmospheric. Falkner’s beautiful writing puts her readers right in her characters’ worlds and heads. ... I recommend treating this collection like a box of chocolates: read just one per day and savor it."—Historical Novel Society
£10.19
Orion Publishing Co The Death of an Owl: From the author of Salmon
Book SynopsisPolitical chaos, MPs turning on each other, expediency and skulduggery at the highest echelons of government? No, not Brexit, but a brilliant political satire from the bestselling author of SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN'THE DEATH OF AN OWL will ring true with anyone who has ever hated politicians or fallen out of love' EVENING STANDARD'A pleasure to read' DAILY EXPRESSAndrew Landford, MP is driving home one night along a dark country lane when a barn owl flies into his windscreen. It is an accident, nothing more. But Andrew sits on a parliamentary committee concerned with the protection of endangered species, and the death of the owl threatens to destroy his hopes of reaching No. 10. Also in the car is Andrew's old Oxford friend and political adviser, Charles Fryerne. Will they be able to keep the crime under wraps, or will circumstances conspire against them? Paul Torday's last novel, and completed by his son Piers, this is a timely reminder that in politics, nothing is sacred...'A pleasure to read' Daily Express'Skeweringly accurate' Evening Standard'A compelling blend of morality and satire' Sunday Mirror'Witty and well-crafted - a delightful gothic fantasy' Guardian Trade Reviewbest suited to a fireside on a winter's night, but it's no less satisfying for that * DAILY MAIL *A delightful Gothic fantasy... Witty and well-crafted - completed with panache * THE GUARDIAN *Compelling blend of morality and satire * SUNDAY MIRROR *Skeweringly accurate... THE DEATH OF AN OWL will ring true with anyone who has ever hated politicians or fallen out of love * EVENING STANDARD *The Death of an Owl makes the journey from well-crafted and urbane political novel to spooky melodrama with elegance. A pleasure to read * DAILY EXPRESS *Piers has taken up the story so perfectly that you can't see the join. * THE TIMES *
£8.54
Orion Publishing Co Collected Stories
Book SynopsisThis unique edition presents the complete span of Thomas' short stories, from his urgent hallucinatory visions of the dark forces beneath the surface of Welsh life to the inimitable comedy of his later autobiographical writings.With PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DOG and ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE, Thomas found a new voice for his irreverent memories of lust and bravado in south-west Wales and London, leading to a sequence of classic evocations of childhood magic and the follies of adult life.The definitive collection of Dylan Thomas' short stories, showing just why he is considered one of the 20th century's finest writers. Also featuring a bold new livery in celebration of the Dylan Thomas centenary.
£10.44
Quercus Publishing The Light and the Dark
Book SynopsisFate sends two star-crossed lovers, Sasha and Volodenka, on two separate journeys across space and time. Sasha finds herself as a young woman in a time not far from the present day. Volodenka finds himself as a young soldier in a horrific conflict at the turn of the twentieth century. Yet, despite their cosmic schism, their letters still reach one another; as he helps her to come to terms with life and she helps him to come to terms with death. Half male, half female; half exploration of the physical and the immediate, half meditation on the intangible and the infinite, The Light and the Dark is a literary feat as balanced and beautiful as it is prodigious and profound.Trade Review'[A] powerful treatment of love and the vividness of being alive' Sunday Times. * Sunday Times *'A literary masterpiece' Guardian. * Guardian *'Shishkin is the Ian McEwan of Russia' Monocle. * Monocle *
£9.49
Vintage Publishing On Java Road
Book SynopsisA veteran British journalist living in Hong Kong investigates the disappearance of a student protestor amidst the pro-democracy demonstrations in this unsettling new novel from the acclaimed author of The ForgivenAfter twenty indolent years as an ex-pat reporter in Hong Kong, Englishman Adrian Gyle has almost nothing to show for it. And now the streets are choked with students demanding democratic freedoms, and the old world begins to fall apart . . . Watching from the skyrises overlooking the protests is Adrian''s old friend Jimmy Tang, the scion of a wealthy Hong Kong family, who has begun a reckless affair with Rebecca, a leading pro-democracy protestor, full of idealism and reeking of tear gas. The couple are dancing over the abyss, and Adrian is drawn into their clandestine romance with a mixture of complicity and envy.But when Rebecca disappears and Jimmy goes to ground, Adrian unearths the familiar old urge to investigate, and personal lo
£16.99
Profile Books Ltd I Give It To You
Book SynopsisJan Vidor seems like the ideal tenant for a long summer holiday in a Tuscan villa. Unobtrusive and quietly sociable, the American academic can be relied upon to entertain herself - but her aristocratic landlady Beatrice has made a terrible mistake. A chance remark about a violent death at Villa Chiara during the war piques Jan's writerly interest and sends her digging into the Salviati family's tragic past. Was Beatrice's uncle Sandro really mistaken for a partisan, or was his killer someone closer to home? Does it matter if Jan just fills in the gaps? After all, Beatrice said she could do as she liked with the story, she even said 'I give it to you' . . . Written with a deep understanding of loyalty and temptation, I Give It To You is a riveting novel about who owns a story, whether we have a right to what we inherit, and what a gift really means.Trade ReviewMartin writes with amplitude, precision, grace and wit -- Margaret AtwoodShe always produces something unexpected and revelatory -- Jane SmileyMartin's writing is a reward in itself, a wonderful precision-tool. She uses it to chisel at the human condition - and the effect is astonishing * Financial Times *Valerie Martin has always been a consummate storyteller, but in her new novel she tackles the question of where do a writer's stories come from. And to whom does a story belong? The person it happened to or the one who tells it. In some ways all writers betray their subjects, and Valerie Martin digs into the heart of that betrayal. Reminiscent of Rachel Cusk's Outline Martin masterfully gives voice to those who have been silenced, whose stories would be lost were it not for a writer to retell it. -- Mary Morris, author of Gateway to the MoonValerie Martin is a fleet-footed writer; you never quite know where she'll go next * Observer *An Italian villa and the family that owns it capture the imagination of an American writer in Martin's intimate, disquieting latest ... Martin's engrossing tale explores relationships among family members and workers over four generations ... Martin's masterly descriptions of the villa and its gardens are transportive. Evoking the charms and complexities of 20th-century Italy, Martin offers a thought-provoking reflection on writing, friendship, family, and betrayal. * Publishers Weekly *Yes, the narrator of Martin's new novel is a middle-aged American woman vacationing in Tuscany, but this prickly, uncomfortably relevant dive into personal and societal ethics is no escapist romance... Martin parses personal and social politics with methodical care and a reserved tone reminiscent of Edith Wharton. * Kirkus, starred review *Immensely satisfying ... cleverly plotted and packed with great characters, both Jan's creative struggles and her beautifully wrought stories of the Salviati family lift themselves effortlessly free of their source material, whatever or wherever that may be. They demonstrate the enchanted moment when words on a page rise by virtue of the alliance of a mysterious grace and sheer hard work, and create magic. -- Christobel Kent * Guardian *The story slips between past and present and is an interesting reversal of all the usual mellow Italian tropes. We may be Under The Tuscan Sun, but we're definitely in the shadows here ... an absorbing read * Daily Mail *Exquisite -- Jane Shilling * Daily Telegraph *
£13.49
SilverWood Books Ltd Bombweed: Adapted from an unpublished novel
Book SynopsisRosebay willowherb grew rapidly on bombsites in WWII. Often called Bombweed, its image conjured up the terror of the blitz and its aftermath; a reminder of the lifelong consequences of wartime loss and the choice to cling to, discard, or lock away the memories of those who have disappeared from view in the fog of war. // Vivienne, a naive teenager in 1938, has to grow up in a world at war. Her family is shattered, like the buildings in her town, by the Luftwaffe. Vivienne and her sisters each seek ways to deal with devastating loss. Memories are destroyed, blotted out with drink and sex, or clung to obsessively. Houses can be repaired when peace comes, but the heart is a trickier matter. Vivienne knows that to recover, she must reach into the dark past.Trade ReviewGillian grew up in post-war Portsmouth in a family steeped in amateur dramatics. She lacked confidence, and would often be watching rehearsals and performances from the back of a darkened hall. The good thing, she says, is that by 12 years old she had seen almost all of Shakespeare's plays. She is no longer shy. // After completing a social science degree, Gillian stepped sideways into education where her curiosity about children who were failing in school drew her to therapeutic training. She has published and contributed to conferences nationally and internationally. // 'Bombweed' is Gillian's first novel. It is based on an unpublished story written in 1947 by her mother in the aftermath of WWII. Assisted by her sister Maureen, she has turned their mother's extensive, rambling, narrative into an engrossing story of love and loss, and sibling rivalry, in wartime Britain. // I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters were well crafted and real and it was a difficult book to put down. I was sad when I reached the end. I wish there was more to come. Tina, Amazon Reviewer // This book far surpasses my expectations; it is a story of life during the 2nd world war for a family in the Portsmouth area, badly affected by bombing and loss of life. Vivienne and her sisters go out into the world, dealing with war time conditions in their different ways. It is told in a clear and true voice and is a great read. Judica, Amazon Reviewer;Table of ContentsTea for Two Peace in Our Time Dancing Cheek to Cheek Blackout Buttons and Bows My Heart and I Home Fires Stirring Silent Night In the Bleak Midwinter On the Beach The End of the Pier Out of the Blue We'll Meet Again On a Bicycle Made for Two Blues in the Night Let It Snow, Let It Snow We Will Never Surrender Out of Sight, Out of Mind I'll Get By As Long As I Have You Bye Bye Blackbird I'm Through with Love Run Rabbit Run There is a Tavern in the Town Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye Baby It's Cold Outside In the Mood Goodnight Sweetheart Run Rabbit Run Again Lend A Hand On The Land Making Hay Sisters, Sisters V for Vengeance Shine On Harvest Moon The Homecoming Waltz V for Victory It's Been a Long, Long Time On the Outside Looking In When the Lights Come On Again All Over the World Stormy Weather Home Fires Burning Still Tea for Two I'm Beginning to See the Light Tea for Two Again On the Sunny Side of the Street
£11.99
Fantom Films Limited The Mill on the Floss
Book Synopsis
£11.01
Poolbeg Press Ltd The Lies Beneath
Book Synopsis
£14.24
Quercus Publishing Claire of the Sea Light
Book SynopsisClaire goes missing the night her father agrees to give her up for adoption. Her mother died when she was born. In the tiny fishing town of Ville Rose, Haiti, she and her father are not the only ones to have experienced loss. As the poor townspeople search by moonlight for the seven-year-old girl, each remembers what death has stolen from their own lives: a forbidden love cut down by slum gangsters; a mother whose rare affluence could not save her child. In prose that shimmers with folkloric imagery, Danticat intertwines their stories to reveal a deep connection between locals of distinct classes and creeds. Her vision of modern Haiti makes the unknowable familiar; like the townspeople, the reader shares a common humanity - always caught between the darkness and the light.Trade Review'A haunting new novel ... Writing with lyrical economy and precision, Ms. Danticat recounts her characters' stories in crystalline prose that underscores the parallels in their lives' New York Times. * New York Times *'A jewel - a remarkable book, as luminous as its title' Ann Patchett. * Ann Patchett *'Magnificent ... this is a book that draws its power from its clear-eyed look at both love and decay' Kamila Shamsie, Guardian. * Guardian *
£9.49
Canongate Books A Gift from Nessus
Book SynopsisEddie Cameron is a salesman for Rocklight Ltd., an electrical equipment firm in Glasgow, where he has been fiddling the firm's expenses. Eddie's life is in tatters - his wife hates him, and his violent temper has left his mistress teetering on the edge of sanity.Trade ReviewThere is a sense of moral growth in A Gift from Nessus that lifts it out of the ordinary . . . almost frighteningly truthful and moving * * The Times * *McIlvanney is a compassionate writer and leaves an impression both of high seriousness and great charm * * Sunday Telegraph * *William McIlvanney paints a world of harsh reality, but does so in language that is strangely beautiful and hauntingly poetic -- Craig Russell
£9.49
Canongate Books The Dark Flood Rises
Book SynopsisNEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017: 'masterly'GUARDIAN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: 'An absolute tour de force'Fran may be old but she's not going without a fight. So she dyes her hair, enjoys every glass of red wine, drives restlessly around the country and lives in an insalubrious tower block that her loved ones disapprove of. And as each of them - her pampered ex Claude, old friend Jo, flamboyant son Christopher and earnest daughter Poppet - seeks happiness in their own way, what will the last reckoning be? Will they be waving or drowning when the end comes? By turns joyous and profound, darkly sardonic and moving, The Dark Flood Rises questions what makes a good life, and a good death.Trade ReviewAn absolute tour de force -- LINDA GRANT * * Guardian, Best Books of the Year * *Erudite, beautifully written, funny, tragic * * Daily Mail * *Masterly * * New York Times, 100 Notable Books of 2017 * *Darkly witty and exhilarating * * The Times * *Her distinctive narrative voice and soaring prose remain electrifying * * Telegraph * *With its echoes of Simone de Beauvoir and Samuel Beckett, this quiet meditation an old age seethes with apocalyptic intent . . . Brilliant * * Guardian * *Masterly, poignant and uplifting * * Mail on Sunday * *Drabble has pulled off a quietly revolutionary portrait of an age-group whose lives are just as urgent as anyone's but are rarely considered ***** * * Sunday Telegraph * *Ageing and dying in style . . . Margaret Drabble's sharply drawn characters look back on lives lived and forwards to achieving a good death * * Observer * *My novel of the year . . . Like a blood transfusion of ideas, feelings -- LINDA GRANT
£9.49
Pushkin Press The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland
Book SynopsisA moving and compelling emotional mystery, by one of the most exciting new talents in Norway
£11.69
Pushkin Press Soul of the Border
Book SynopsisThe de Boer family are tobacco growers, working on terraces in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Life is hard, and the father, Augusto, occasionally supplements their income by smuggling tobacco across the border into Austria. Sometimes he takes his daughter Jole with him, and father and daughter journey together on the perilous route over the mountains. But Augusto mysteriously never returns from one of these trips, and Jole, driven to provide for her family, inherits her father's smuggling route. Accompanied only by her horse, Sansom, she must retrace the dangerous journey through the spectacular landscape, hoping for a good trade in exchange for her tobacco, but also to discover the truth behind her father's disappearance. Written in a spare crystalline prose and filmic in scope, Soul of the Border is an epic story of revenge and salvation, a ferocious tale of violence and corruption, and a journey into the wild.
£11.69
Pushkin Press As Rich as the King
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE FRANÇOISE SAGAN PRIZE FEATURED IN CHANEL SHORTLISTED FOR THE GONCOURT PRIZE FOR DEBUT NOVEL 'With this book, Abigail Assor announces herself as one of the most distinctive voices in North African literature. This is a vibrant, sensual, subversive novel with an unforgettable heroine' LEÏLA SLIMANI _______________ Sarah is poor, but at least she's French, which allows her to attend Casablanca's elite high school for expats and wealthy locals. It's there that she first lays eyes on Driss. He's older, quiet and not particularly good looking-apart from his eyes, which are the deep green of thyme simmering in a tagine. Most importantly, he's rumoured to be the richest guy in the city. She decides she wants those eyes. And she wants a life like his. But to get to Driss she will have to cross the gaping divide that separates them and climb to the top of the city's society, from street corner merguez a
£9.49
Granta Books Chrysalis
Book SynopsisNAMED AS ONE OF GRANTA MAGAZINE'S BEST OF YOUNG BRITISH NOVELISTS 2023 An unnerving, compelling and utterly contemporary debut novel about one woman's metamorphosis into an online phenomenon, from a Sunday Times Short Story Award-shortlisted writer She is noticed by Elliot as he trains in in the gym. He sees her dedication to building her body and taking up space, and he is drawn to her strength. She is observed by her mother, as she grows from a taciturn, tremulous child into a determined and distant woman, who severs all familial ties. She is watched by her former colleague Susie, who offers her sanctuary and support as she leaves her partner and rebuilds her life, transforming her body and reinventing herself online. Each of these three witnesses desires closeness. Each is left with only the husk of the person they thought they knew, before she became someone else: a woman on a singular and solitary path with the power to inspire and to influence her followers, for good and ill. Chrysalis a story about solitude and selfhood, and about the blurred line between self-care and narcissism. It is about controlling the body and the mind, about the place of the individual within society and what it means when someone chooses to leave society behind. It is a strikingly contemporary story about the search for answers and those we trust to give them to us.Trade ReviewThis is a very well-written novel that is shrewdly revealing about the alluring and insidious nature of contemporary consumer culture. It fully justifies Anna Metcalfe's inclusion on Granta's recent Best of Young British Novelists list * TLS *Chrysalis is a savvy exploration of one woman's desire to inspire others, and how self-presentation can tip into obsession... * Observer *Strikingly original... explores the dark side of influencer culture and probes questions of solitude, perception and self-invention... a triumph of observation and control * Bookseller *[An] eerily cool debut... in its acute examination of voyeurism, image and the deceptive nature of connection, [it] feels tailor-made for the age of the internet * Daily Mail *Deliciously timely.... Metcalfe is a properly clever writer - she moves deftly between the voices of her narrators with ease, while her prose is assured, unforced, and almost graceful * AnOther Magazine *Chrysalis examines the illusions built into our search for online connection and our idolisation of strangers simply because we feel intimate with them... The resulting tone is one of isolation and introspection, as though humanity were being viewed from afar - evocative of the psychological loneliness that is the extreme end of self-care * Literary Review *Taking on questions of femininity and expectation, as well as social media and its ability to make a cult leader of anyone, Chrysalis raises as many questions as it answers about our society and our place within it -- "Most Anticipated Books of 2023" * Lit Hub *It's all in the telling, which is gripping and subtle. Small pieces of information are drip fed to the reader, each moment viewed and reviewed across the different narratives. [Chrysalis] feels fizzy, with all these pops of observation on the move... * Guardian *The effect of the novel's triptych form feels like looking at the protagonist through the lens of a kaleidoscope, each segment dazzling, but ultimately fractured, leaving compelling gaps in our perception of who she is * Electric Lit *A powerful, eerie debut novel that investigates stillness and selfishness * Kirkus Reviews *Perceptive.... [An] intriguing exercise in narrative.... Metcalfe clearly has her finger on the pulse of internet culture and its habitués * Publishers Weekly *I really, really did love [it]... I think it's a really interesting discussion and reflection on a topic that is very prevalent in the world -- Jen CampbellA subtle, perceptive and highly enjoyable novel which illuminates many of the challenges and absurdities of life as we live it now -- Cathy RentzenbrinkUnputdownable, ice-cool and wittily contemporary, Chrysalis announces Anna Metcalfe as a distinctive and daring fresh literary voice. Utterly original and with shades of Ottessa Moshfegh, Patricia Lockwood, Yoko Ogawa and Alexandra Kleeman, this brilliant portrayal of desire and transcendence had me totally entranced -- Sharlene Teo, author of PontiWOW. I just devoured this. What a wonderful, painful, funny novel... It's so beautiful and cruel, and summed up just perfectly by the ending - a flawless final sentence, one of the best I've ever read, it absolutely gave me chills -- Avni DoshiChrysalis is a thrilling look at how we spin silk around ourselves by watching the world on our screens. We are the gaping entomologist; we are the pupa, always a little stuck -- Claire Luchette * New York Times *Incredibly smart and totally unique... Ranging from online obsession, to mothers and daughters, to the very nature of selfhood, the whole thing is strange and warm and, crucially, very funny... I savoured every last brilliant sentence -- Ruth Gilligan, author of The Butchers, winner of the 2021 RSL Ondaatje PrizeA beautifully conceived triptych, shining and modern -- Lillian Fishman, author of Acts of ServiceA masterclass in character, Chrysalis is an unsettling and brilliant portrait - not just of a woman in transformation or of those who fall into her orbit, but also of a world defined simultaneously by our isolation and by our longing to connect. This is a sharply-wrought, surprisingly tender book about how our internal changes create external change... often in ways we didn't intend -- Jen Silverman, author of We Play OurselvesManaging the intimacy of the mother-daughter relationship and coming to terms with how it went wrong makes for compelling material * The Times *The characters are always intriguing * New Statesman *
£13.49
Headline Publishing Group Retreat to the Lakeside Cottage
Book SynopsisEscape this summer with the new feel-good read from Erin Green!
£10.44
Austin Macauley Publishers The Omen Is a Woman
Book Synopsis
£13.49
Austin Macauley Publishers The Quest Lucie No Legs
Book Synopsis
£10.79
Austin Macauley Publishers Scattered Perspectives
Book Synopsis
£6.99
