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
Canelo Meet Me in Ivy Falls
Book SynopsisWelcome to Ivy FallsIn the gorgeous small town of Ivy Falls, Torran is putting all her passion into building her new career in house restoration, trying desperately to help the town keep its identity and charm. She has no time for love but when her childhood sweetheart, Beck, comes back to town and outbids her on her dream house at auction, sparks fly. This man broke her heart. Can she ever trust him again?For Beck, Ivy Falls means trauma and loss. He knows his sudden departure hurt Torran badly but there are things she doesn''t know. He never intended to return to Ivy Falls so why is he there, bidding on his childhood home? His feelings for Torran are as strong as ever but Torran means Ivy Falls and Beck can''t go back there. Can he find a way to heal his past and find his future?A romantic, uplifting and captivating read set in small-town America, perfect for fans of the Virgin River series and Gilmore Girls.Pr
£9.49
EnvelopeBooks The Hopeful Traveller
Book SynopsisIn France, Mattie feels 20 again. In Poland, Magda revisits her impoverished family. In Uzbekistan, Diana lets a fellow tourist kiss her. In Germany, Lynn loses her luggage on the Düsseldorf train.The Hopeful Traveller is a collection of short stories about—and told by—single women who have put the past behind them but are still looking for their anchor in the present. It includes bitter-sweet accounts of the freedoms of postwar life, of foreign travel, of the rekindling of old friendships and of the search for new ones. The stories speak of cosmopolitan, self-confident, well-heeled characters, in an era just before the birth of feminism, conventional in their expectations of men, always just a step away from displacement and alienation.Set variously in Paris, Kalisz, Samarkand, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Erfurt, Singapore and London, these stories, from a much-admired veteran writer, offer a teasing mix of realism and fantasy, wish-fulfilment and regret. Some of these stories have appeared in translation in overseas annuals and collections.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Pari Perspectives 1; On the Terrace 5; The Way to the Park 20; Trees 27; The Hopeful Traveller 49; Nothing to do with the Moon 75; In the Heat of the Sun 96; Pearl of Wisdom 121; A Visit to Erfurt 137; Ghosts 147; Hothouse 155; The Babysitter 179; Sauce for the Goose 193; The Overcrowded Inn 220.
£12.34
Everyman The Tale Of Genji
Book SynopsisThis is the prose masterpiece of the Heian era of the 10th and 11th centuries, which is recognized as a great period in Japanese literature. It is an account of the intricate, exquisite, highly ordered court culture which made such a masterpiece possible.
£22.50
Comma Press The Book of Gaza: A City in Short Fiction
Book SynopsisUnder the Israeli occupation of the '70s and '80s, writers in Gaza had to go to considerable lengths to ever have a chance of seeing their work in print. Manuscripts were written out longhand, invariably under pseudonyms, and smuggled out of the Strip to Jerusalem, Cairo or Beirut, where they then had to be typed up. Consequently, fiction grew shorter, novels became novellas, and short stories flourished as the city's form of choice. Indeed, to Palestinians elsewhere, Gaza became known as 'the exporter of oranges and short stories'. This anthology brings together some of the pioneers of the Gazan short story from that era, as well as younger exponents of the form, with ten stories that offer glimpses of life in the Strip that go beyond the global media headlines; stories of anxiety, oppression, and violence, but also of resilience and hope, of what it means to be a Palestinian, and how that identity is continually being reforged; stories of ordinary characters struggling to live with dignity in what many have called 'the largest prison in the world'.Trade ReviewA welcome reminder of the universality of human relations' - The Guardian; 'Tales that reflect that depth and the variety and universality of the Gazan experience' - The Irish Times
£10.44
Octopus Publishing Group The Eyes Are The Best Part
Book Synopsis''I was enticed from the first line'' OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE, author of My Sister, the Serial Killer This feminist howl-of-a-debut is going to crawl right under your skin''An outstanding debut'' NEW YORK TIMES SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOODREADS CHOICE AWARDSNEW YORK TIMES BEST HORROR BOOK OF THE YEARSPOTIFY ''BREAKOUT'' AUTHOR OF THE YEARJi-won''s life is in disarray. Her father''s affair has ripped the family to shreds, leaving her to piece their crappy lives back together.Then her mother''s new white boyfriend enters the scene, bragging about his knowledge of Korean culture. As he swaggers around their claustrophobic apartment ogling her teenage sister, Ji-won''s grip on reality begins to slip.She finds herself growing obsessed with his brilliant blue eyeballs, resolving to do the one thing that will save her family - and curb her cravings...''Smartly written... A writer to watch'' BIG ISSUE''Darkly funny'' FERN BRADY, author of Strong Female Character''Monika Kim has written a novel every library needs to own'' LIBRARY JOURNAL
£15.29
The Conrad Press Feel
Book SynopsisA novel
£10.44
Dome Press The Experimentalist
Book SynopsisEngaging and disturbing new novel, exploring stolen identity and post-truth.
£8.99
Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd A Bit of Earth
Book Synopsis
£12.74
Canelo My Mothers Ridiculous Rules for Dating
Book SynopsisIt's hard to prove Mom wrong when she's found Mr. RightDumped by his boyfriend and stuck in an unfulfilling job, jaded NYC ghostwriter Sam Carmichael can't be more miserable. Until the eve of his thirty-fifth birthday when his mother, Gloria, arrives with a present from the past. Years ago, exasperated by Gloria's matchmaking, Sam promised his mother that if he wasn't coupled up by thirty-five, he would do whatever she wanted to find a boyfriend. Sam was joking; his mother was not. Gloria swoops in creating new dating profiles, re-doing his wardrobe, and setting him up with a parade of bizarre matches. When his mom zeros in on sexy and passionate artist, Finn Montgomery, Sam intends to prove her wrong and stop her interfering for good. But when it comes to finding love, does mother really know best?Readers are falling for My Mother's Ridiculous Rules for Dating:A hug of a book -if you're looking for something that will make you laugh and feel good, this book is it!' ????? Reader Re
£9.49
Cornerstone Maybe Next Christmas
Book SynopsisEmma Heatherington is the Irish Times and international best-selling author of fifteen novels, including UK Number One Ebook THIS CHRISTMAS, as well as Amazon Top 10 and USA Kindle hits THE LEGACY OF LUCY HARTE, ONE MORE DAY, THE PROMISE and SECRETS IN THE SNOW.Her novels are set in Ireland, each exploring life affirming issues combined with heart-warming love stories. Emma's distinctive style, full of poignancy and warmth has developed a loyal and ever-growing fan base.
£9.49
World Editions Ltd The Museum Of Lost Love
Book SynopsisDispatches from the frontiers of love
£8.99
Gallic Books Edith Holler
Book Synopsis''An extraordinary achievement'' A. L. KennedyEdward Carey''s witty and entrancing story of a young woman trapped in a ramshackle English playhouse - and the mysterious figure who threatens its very survival.Norwich, 1901. Edith Holler spends her days among the eccentric denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave.Fascinated by tales of the city she knows only from afar, young Edith decides to write a play of her own about Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy, Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar woman named Margaret Unthank, Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre, and her play - the one thing that’s truly hers - from the newcomer’s sinister designs. Teeming with unforg
£15.29
Monsoon Books Dirty Old Media Men
Book SynopsisMillie Lee is 22, smart and ready to start the Singaporean media job of her dreams. She just has to avoid the sexual advances of dirty old men in a newsroom both digitally and emotionally stunted. This is the fictional memoir of a young woman in Singapore trying to make it in a man's media world.
£10.44
Blackwater Press Catch the Moments as They Fly
Book SynopsisToday Rena is going to change her life... Rena Jarvie is ahead of her time. Ambitious, attractive, and determined her family escape their shameful past. When she moves to a new town and marries the charming and cosmopolitan Bobby Young, doors finally begin to open. But as Bobby already knows, some things cannot be run from. Spanning the 1930s to the 1960s, Catch the Moments as They Fly is an assured portrait of a rapidly changing Scotland, vivid with humour, and hardship, and love.Trade Review"Woven through Catch the Moments as They Fly is an almost Fitzgerald-like awareness of the subtle corruptions and compromises that haunt our dreams of 'self-improvement' and social aspiration. Glasgow and Kilmarnock are much more than mere backdrops to the delicate web of human voices and fates in the novel: their own civic destinies, spanning two world wars and decades of aftermath, play a powerful and evocative part in this wonderfully vivid and moving portrait of the past." Wayne Price, author of Mercy Seat; "Catch the Moments as They Fly is, simultaneously, an engrossing and affecting love story, a family saga, and a deft portrait of Scottish urban life in the wake of two world wars. Subtle, layered, and full of captivating historical detail as well as vividly drawn characters, this is a novel to get lost in. Absolutely compelling." Jane McKie, author of Carnation Lily Lily Rose
£13.29
Canongate Books The First Bad Man
Book SynopsisA Guardian literary highlight A Huffington Post ''One to Watch'' ''Astounding'' LENA DUNHAM, creator of Girls and author of Not That Kind of Girl''The First Bad Man brings together all of July''s talents - it''s a book that must be read, a book that must be purchased - in duplicate - one for you, one for a friend. Don''t think you can loan this book - you''ll never get it back'' A. M. HOMES, author of This Book Will Save Your Life and May We Be ForgivenThe first novel by the filmmaker, artist and bestselling author Miranda July confirms her as a spectacularly original, iconic, and important voice today, and a writer for all time. The First Bad Man is dazzling and unforgettable.
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Adults The Funny and Heartwarming Sunday Times
Book SynopsisTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERAN AMAZING WRITER' Margot Robbie*HILARIOUS' StylistDAZZLING' Marian KeyesWITTY' GuardianHEARTBREAKING' Dolly AldertonINCREDIBLE' Candice Carty-WilliamsJenny McLaine: can't afford her mortgage since her ex moved out is about to get dumped by her best friend spends all day online-stalking women with picture-perfect livesAnd now her mother has appeared on her doorstep, unbidden, to save the dayIs Jenny ready to grow up and rescue herself this time?UK's #6 bestselling hardback, The Sunday Times chart 9th February 2020*Margot Robbie talking about Adults, as quoted in CHANEL's short film segment, In the library with Margot Robbie'Trade Review‘Jaunty, witty, sexy and funny … [Unsworth’s] writing surprises, delights and moves. I will remember, for a long time, this novel’s lacerating wit and its melancholy sorrow’ GUARDIAN ‘Adults is hilarious … that this novel is so relatable is what makes it such a page-turner. Heartwarming and heartbreaking’ STYLIST ‘Unsworth dazzlingly skewers modern life … This deserves to be gleefully quoted’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘Virtuoso … Unsworth sparkles… like the very best of her kind, she creates a world complex enough that in the echoes of our laughter are also relatability, wistfulness, even hope’ OBSERVER ‘I LOVED it! Dazzling observations & snarky one-liners, with a heroine who is vulnerable, funny, intelligent & feels SO REAL I WISH I'd written it!’ MARIAN KEYES ‘Adults is a sharp, funny novel about floundering in a social-media world where everyone else seems to be flying … [Unsworth] nails the anguish of losing a future and figuring yourself out. Adults is witty, clever and a bit frightening. Unsworth had me rooting for Jenny to like herself’ THE TIMES ‘Confronting, heartbreaking and hilarious … I completely & utterly adored it’ DOLLY ALDERTON ‘Brilliant’ WOMAN’S HOUR BBC RADIO 4 ‘As empathetic as it is energising … Superb’ DAILY MAIL ‘Funny, arch & tender …. A must-read’ JESSIE BURTON ‘Funny, sad and often very wise’ METRO ‘Hilarious & heartbreaking’ RED ‘Too funny, too clever, satisfyingly satirical & with just the right amount of Zodiac chat, ADULTS is incredible’ CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS ‘Adults is a sharp, dark and frequently very funny story of mothers and daughters’i NEWS ‘Unique, hilarious … I loved it’ HOLLY BOURNE ‘As funny as it is scary . . . a very clever, and frequently sad, story of addiction hiding in plain sight: Instagram’ JUNO DAWSON ‘Hilarious’ DAILY MAIL
£8.99
The Westbourne Press A Man With No Title
Book SynopsisGeoff Nicholson has been walking his whole life. Part urban explorer, part psychogeographer, rambler and flaneur, wherever he is and wherever he goes in the world, he walks and writes about what he sees and feels. Here he reflects on the nature of walking, why we do it, how it benefits us and, in some cases, how it damages and even destroys us
£10.44
Simon & Schuster Ltd Saha
Book SynopsisFrom the author of international bestseller Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 ''Cho’s complex, humane, and by its end utterly transfixing novel shows that it is in community that we find resilience.' i newspaper 'Like Bong Joon-ho's Academy Award-winning film Parasite and the popular Netflix series Squid Games, Saha points to the increasing inequality and lack of social mobility in South Korea. ... With global inequality on the rise, Saha’s theme of human dignity quashed by the interests of mega-corporations resonates widely.' Daily Telegraph '[A]n affecting portrait of people doing their best to survive in a world that would rather pretend they didn’t exist.' New York Times In a country called ‘Town’, Su is found dead in an abandoned car. The suspected killer is presumed to come from the Saha Estates.
£11.99
Canongate Books The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western
Book SynopsisMagic Child, a fifteen-year old Indian girl, wanders into the wrong whorehouse. She is looking for the right men to kill the monster. The monster that lives in the ice caves under the basement of Miss Hawkline's yellow house.Richard Brautigan takes the reader on a heroic, magical adventure through Eastern Oregon. The Hawkline Monster confirms his place as one of the twentieth century's most exciting writers.Trade ReviewBrautigan is a folk-artist, a master storyteller -- SARAH HALLThere is nothing like Richard Brautigan anywhere * * San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle * *The beauty of Brautigan's writing is its dryness - the way absurd or fantastical events are described in a completely deadpan manner -- JARVIS COCKERAn absolute original who found cause for celebration in the most unlikely places * * Guardian * *
£9.49
Canongate Books The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break
Book SynopsisFive thousand years after leaving the Cretan Labyrinth, the Minotaur - or M as he is known to his colleagues - is working as a line chef at Grub's Rib in Carolina, keeping his horns down, trying in vain to put his past behind him. He leads an ordered lifestyle in a shabby trailer park where he tinkers with cars, writes and re-writes to-do lists and observes the haphazard goings on around him. Outwardly controlled, M tries to hide his emotional turmoil as he is transported deeper into the human world of deceit, confusion and need.Trade ReviewA wry, melancholy, beautiful first novel . . . The language is everywhere precise and graceful . . . Genius * * Guardian * *Beautifully detailed and honed . . . a poetic testament to the wild, unchartable experience of human loving . . . Sherrill's vision is at once melancholy and deeply affirming. Somewhere in M's inchoate mass of sensation there exists a sharp spark of hope * * Observer * *Immaculate . . . Sherrill is a beautiful writer . . . he finds the drama to keep you reading, your heart in your mouth, to the conclusion's defiant roar of hope * * Telegraph * *At once ugly, tender and hopeful . . . Sherrill's Minotaur allows for allusive readings but remains rootedly among us * * Independent * *Exceptional . . . Steven Sherrill uses M as the vehicle for a finely observed and compassionate portrayal of humanity in all its guises * * Irish Independent * *This is the most surreal slab of realism you will read all year. Unique and rather wonderful * * Arena * *Sherrill's dense, poetic style never falters in its creation of a perfect metaphor for the eternal outsider -- CAROL BIRCH * * Wall Street Journal * *[A] brilliant imagination . . . Every page is a delight worth savouring for a millennium or two * * USA Today * *Sherrill's narrative, with its dreamlike pace, shows myth coexisting with reality as naturally as it does in ancient epic * * Publisher's Weekly * *
£9.49
Europa Editions (UK) Ltd My Devotion
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2018 Fénéon Literary Prize A subtle, captivating, and insightful exploration of the mysterious connections between love, submission, and creation. Helen and Franck, both born into high-ranking diplomatic families, meet in Rome as high-school students and immediately detect in each other the wounded child hidden beneath their gilded social status. Their relationship becomes a dangerous, explosive mix of love and friendship. Immediately after Helen's graduation, they leave their past and family behind to move in together in her apartment in Amsterdam. While Helen immerses herself in her studies and embarks on a promising academic career, Frank, after a few difficult years, makes a spectacular debut on the Dutch Art scene with his first paintings. Helen remains faithfully by his side during his rise to fame, overseeing the domestic details of his life in apparent total self-abnegation. Are introverted Helen and flamboyant Franck who they really appear to be? Are they victims or monsters? Kerninon’s English language debut, full of masterfully orchestrated twists and turns, leaves simple distinctions behind and progresses on to far more intriguing terrain.
£12.59
Profile Books Ltd Aliens & Anorexia
Book SynopsisIt's 1996, and Chris Kraus is in Berlin, seeking a distributor for her film Gravity & Grace, described alternately as 'an experimental 16mm film about hope, despair, religious feeling and conviction' and 'an amateur intellectual's home video expanded to bulimic lengths' ... It's 1942 in Marseille, and Simone Weil is waiting for the US entry visa that will save her from the Holocaust, while writing work described alternately as a 'radical philosophy of sadness' and 'immoral, trite, irrelevant and paradoxical' ... It's the late 90s, the millennium is approaching, and Chris Kraus is in Los Angeles, not eating, waiting for her s/m partner to reply to her emails ... It's 1943, and Simone Weil is in London, completing her project of transcendence by dying of starvation ... Filled with Chris Kraus' trademark wit and frankness, unfolding to reveal the lives of ecstatic visionaries and failed artists, Aliens & Anorexia is an audacious novel about failure, empathy and sadness.Trade ReviewChris Kraus' work is not just great but indispensable ... I read everything she writes -- Rachel KushnerKraus' books are all committed to the live wire of feeling, refusing the divide between authenticity and artifice * New Yorker *One of our smartest and most original writers * The New York Times *Devastatingly relevant ... a manifesto for failing as an artist ... full of Kraus's characteristic deep empathy, vulnerability and wit * The Skinny *
£8.54
Profile Books Ltd A Lucky Man
Book Synopsis'Full of subtle poignancy ... each story is a trenchant exploration of race and class, vividly conveying the tension between social codes of masculinity and the vulnerable, volatile self' New Yorker A National Book Award Finalist 'Comfort' has been longlisted for the 2021 Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award In the nine unforgettable stories of A Lucky Man, Jamel Brinkley explores the unseen tenderness of black men and boys: the struggle to love and be loved, the invisible ties of family and friendship, and the inescapable forces of race, class and masculinity. A teen intent on proving himself a man at an all-night rave is preoccupied by watching out for his impressionable younger brother. A pair of young men who follow two girls home from a party face the uncomfortable truth of their desires. An imaginative boy from the inner city goes swimming in the suburbs, and faces the effects of privilege in ways he can barely grasp. And at a capoeira conference, two brothers grapple with their painful family history. Moving, lyrical and keen-eyed, A Lucky Man captures the inner lives of men and boys caught between hope and expectation, duty and desire.Trade ReviewUrgent, intimate narratives, framed as confessions and quests, and edged with quickening threat. Everything that is good can be ruptured with as little as a single accidental touch ... not only heralds the arrival of a fully formed, entirely distinctive new voice but reinvigorating the short story itself. In the end, there's no doubt who the lucky ones are: we, the readers. * Observer *Wonderful ... Brinkley's characters and their actions probe the questions at the heart of masculinity * LA Review of Books *Full of subtle poignancy ... each story is a trenchant exploration of race and class, vividly conveying the tension between social codes of masculinity and the vulnerable, volatile self * New Yorker *This is the rare debut that introduces not a promising talent but a major writer, fully formed. Jamel Brinkley is brilliant, the real thing, a revelation -- Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to YouSensuous, sensual, sharply observed stories. A really striking debut. -- Adam O'RiordanOne of the many striking qualities in Brinkley's stories is how precarious his male characters tend to be ... extraordinary * Paris Review *Through pages of peerless prose and startlingly sharp sentences, what emerges is a constantly reframed argument about the role and power of masculinity * L.A. Times *Not only a standout debut for the year, but also a testament to what can be achieved in a short story. * Chicago Review of Books *With equal parts precision and poetry, these nine audacious stories step into the minefields awaiting boys of color as they approach manhood in Brooklyn and the Bronx - testing the limits of relationships, social norms and their own definitions of masculinity. * O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE *Brinkley's depictions of love's many varieties are subtle and deeply observant ... With this observant book, Brinkley demonstrates an enviable capacity for narrative compression. In the space of 25 pages, he's capable of creating complex and memorable emotional worlds. This is a very hard thing to do, but in A Lucky Man he pulls it off in one story after the next. * Minneapolis Star Tribune *A stunning debut ... Set in Brooklyn and the Bronx, in poor neighborhoods and on school campuses, these tales are imbued with pathos, sexuality, and moments of violence and tenderness. With this memorable collection, Brinkley emerges as a gifted and empathetic new writer * Booklist (starred review) *An assured debut collection of stories about men and women, young and old, living and loving along the margins in Brooklyn and the Bronx ... It's difficult to single out any story as most outstanding since they are each distinguished by Brinkley's lyrical invention, precise descriptions of both emotional and physical terrain and a prevailing compassion toward people as bemused by travail as they are taken aback by whatever epiphanies blossom before them. A major talent * Kirkus (starred review) *Jamel Brinkley's stories tell of absence and abandonment, always edged with pain and beauty ... a magnificent debut -- Laila LalamiAn extraordinary short story collection -- George PelecanosIn these nine memorable stories Brinkley shakes each of his main characters in turn, and we, as we read, are shaken too ... both subtle and striking -- Chris Power * White Review *Beautifully written and movingly insightful. -- Curtis Sittenfield
£8.54
Unbound Daughters of the Nile
Book Synopsis"Original, compelling, witty and historically illuminating - hilarious and essential reading." — Helen Lederer, comedian, actress and founder of Comedy Women in PrintParis, 1940. The course of Fatiha Bin-Khalid’s life is changed forever when she befriends the Muslim feminist Doria Shafik. But after returning to Egypt and dedicating years to the fight for women’s rights, she struggles to reconcile her political ideals with the realities of motherhood.Cairo, 1966. After being publicly shamed when her relationship with a bisexual boyfriend is revealed, Fatiha’s daughter is faced with an impossible decision. Should Yasminah accept a life she didn’t choose, or will she leave her home and country in pursuit of independence?Bristol, 2011. British-born Nadia is battling with an identity crisis and a severe case of herpes. Feeling unfulfilled (and after a particularly disast
£9.49
Swift Press The Singularities
Book Synopsis''This novel is essence of Banville ... a career summation'' Daily TelegraphFelix Mordaunt, recently released from prison, steps from a flashy red sports car onto the estate of his youth. But there is a new family living in the drafty old house: descendants of the late, world-famous scientist Adam Godley. Felix must now vie with the idiosyncratic Godley family, with their harried housekeeper who becomes his landlady, with the recently commissioned biographer of Godley Sr., and with a wealthy and beautiful woman from his past who comes bearing an unusual request...
£9.49
Profile Books Ltd Love Me Tender
Book Synopsis'Destined to become a classic of its kind' Maggie Nelson 'One of the most compulsive voices I've read in years' Olivia Laing, Observer When Constance told her ex-husband that she was dating women, he made a string of unfounded accusations that separated her from her young son, Paul. Laurent trained Paul to say he no longer wants to see his mother, and the judge believed him. She approaches this new life with passionate intensity and the desire for an unencumbered existence, certain that no love can last. Apart from cigarettes, two regular lovers and women she has brief affairs with, Constance's approach is monastic and military - she swims daily, reads, writes, and returns to small or borrowed rooms for the night. A starkly beautiful account of impossible sacrifices asked from mothers, Love Me Tender is a bold novel of defiance, freedom and self-knowledge.Trade ReviewCommitted to truth-telling, no matter how rough, but also intriguingly suspended in a cloud of unknowing and pain, Love Me Tender is a wry, original, agonizing book destined to become a classic of its kind -- Maggie NelsonA deadpan, tensile thread of a voice: calm, Camusian, comic, stark, relentless, and totally hypnotic -- Rachel KushnerExhilarating -- Eileen Myles, author of AfterglowLove Me Tender will break your heart and repair it and break it again, but not because it's trying to. Debré writes matter of factly, fluidly, scabrously, laying bare the hypocrisies of society, of institutions, of families. It is a brutal manifesto of how to live an honest life, direct the way a laser is direct -- Lauren Elkin, author of FlâneuseIn cruel, brilliant sentences that tighten around the truth like teeth, a fierce character emerges; a new kind of rebel in a queer masterpiece -- Holly Pester, author of Comic TimingLove Me Tender is a spitting, snarling tour de force of fuck-you feminist defiance. Pulling us straight from the tender moments of a mother meeting her estranged child, right into a whirlwind of lesbian pick-ups, Parisian apartment-hopping and chain smoking, Debré's novel is a stark reminder of society's suspicion towards women - particularly mothers -who resist easy definition. Wry, bold and confronting, Love Me Tender insists on a woman's right to define herself, to choose her own life -- Imogen Crimp, author of A Very Nice GirlA story that's quietly heartbreaking and fiercely defiant * Spectator *Love Me Tender is written with edge and urgency in a voice that is both vulnerable and in full command. I read it in one sitting and was taken over by its narrative energy and shocked by the story it tells -- Colm TóibínIntense... a character striving mightily for authenticity and honesty, questioning and rending the veil of social norms, acknowledging the Absurd, in hopes of finding some more solid, albeit subjective, truth -- Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl * Harper's *I am obsessed with Debré's spare account of a, both chosen and necessarily, pared-down life, that smashes the conventions of style as it smashes the conventions of family, without ever losing its tender touch -- Joanna Walsh, author of Break.upOne of the most compulsive voices I've read in years ... there's undeniable pleasure to be had from the way in which she reacts, her powerful evacuation of feeling, her sense of taking an automatic rifle to her past... a vision of queer life that has nothing to do with identity or marriage or any of the new homonormative rites -- Olivia Laing * Observer *This book knocked my block off. One of a kind -- Ana Kinsella, author of Look HereA compulsive read, this is for fans of Virginie Despentes, Hervé Guibert and Guillaume Dustan * AnOther magazine best books feature *Written in clear and direct prose. Fearless and honest. Hard and soft. Resolute and tough and yes very tender -- Michael ImperioliDebré's writing aims to eradicate all origins and backstories, and with them the social roles they enforce, replacing them with an ethos of radical self-fashioning ... Debré's sprezzatura writing is the literary equivalent of a shrug: a swashbuckling 'Et alors? -- Alice Blackhurst * New Left Review *Constance's voice is extremely strong - sharp, assertive, acerbic, and wholly convincing * Buzz Magazine *Love Me Tender is, without a trace of coyness, a love letter, both to a child and to a queer woman's own becoming. As for Constance - both the author and her fictional counterpart - you root for her all the way. * Guardian *Ferocious emotional honesty ... A bracing read and a timely reminder that attitudes are often far slower to change than legislation * Irish Times *Tight, present-tense prose (in a crisp translation by Holly James) ... genuinely inspiring * Financial Times *Painfully beautiful -- Christiana Spens * London Magazine *
£10.44
Granta Publications Ltd May We Be Forgiven
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 'Reads like a brilliant miniseries ... has the narrative intensity of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and the emotional punch of Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved.' Observer Harold Silver has spent a lifetime watching his taller, smarter, and more successful younger brother George acquire a covetable wife, two kids, and a beautiful home in New York City. But Harry also knows his brother has a murderous temper. When George loses control the result is an act of violence so shocking that both brothers are hurled into entirely new lives in which they both must seek absolution. Suddenly Harry finds himself playing parent to his brother's two adolescent children, tumbling down a rabbit hole of online sex, and dealing with aging parents who move through life like travellers on a fantastic voyage. And he is forced to confront the ways in which our histories can either compel us to repeat our mistakes - or become the catalyst for change. May We Be Forgiven is a darkly funny tale exploring how one deeply fractured family might begin to put itself back together. 'An unflinching account of a catastrophic, violent, black-comic, transformative year in the history of one broken American family. Flat-out amazing' Salman RushdieTrade ReviewThis novel starts at maximum force - and then it really gets going. I can't remember when I last read a novel of such narrative intensity; an unflinching account of a catastrophic, violent, black-comic, transformative year in the history of one broken American family. Flat-out amazing -- Salman RushdieI started reading A.M. Homes twenty years ago. Wild and funny, questioning and true, she is a writer to go travelling with on the journey called life -- Jeanette WintersonReads like a brilliant miniseries. I gorged on it like a DVD boxset... Homes is dark and funny and elegant all at the same time. [This] has the narrative intensity of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and the emotional punch of Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved, all told through the eyes of Larry David. It's the best thing I've read this year... Masterful -- Viv Groskop * Observer *Wonderful, wild, heartbreaking, hilarious and astonishing... This is a piercing, perceptive and deeply funny novel about the nature of life, family and love -- Doug Johnstone * Independent on Sunday *A.M. Homes has long been one of our most important and original writers. May We Be Forgiven is her most ambitious as well as her most accessible novel to date; sex and violence invade the routines of suburban domestic life in a way that reminded me of The World According to Garp, although in the end it's a thoroughly original work of imagination -- Jay McInerneyExhilarating -- Lucy Lethbridge, Books of the Year * Observer *The most thrilling, ambitious, thought-provoking American novel to have emerged in a long while -- David Evans, Books of the Year * Independent on Sunday *Every page crackles with wit and intelligence -- Marcus Berkmann, Books of the Year * Spectator *One of the most acclaimed American writers of her generation -- Richard Grant * Telegraph Magazine *Laugh out loud funny... Completely wonderful. Extraordinary -- BBC Radio 4 * Saturday Review *Being a clever American novel, this is also an examination of the American dream... but, wherever you live, Homes's sharp, detailed prose will teem with gloriously free, un-airbrushed life -- Tim Auld * Sunday Telegraph *A brilliantly funny tale of a fractured family... [An] unmissable novel -- Eithne Farry * Marie Claire *Homes returns with another stylish read... Those who wish Jonathan Franzen wrote more frequently will devour Homes's work, and rightly so * Elle Magazine *Funny, nerve-touching, intelligent and even heartbreakingly sweet. You won't read many like this one, that's for sure * Psychologies *Her language is precise, her observations astute, her style punchy, her view of the world dark, but somehow accurate - disturbingly so -- Lucy Atkin * Sunday Times *To call [this] "compelling" would be an understatement; it is a novel as compulsive as its characters -- Emily Stokes * Financial Times *Homes manages a high-wire act in [this]. There are moments of outright satire... but these are always held in tandem to moments of real emotional engagement and insight... Sparkling -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman *A vitriolic satire of contemporary American society, often very funny and at times completely savage... Homes crafts a bold and genuinely disturbing attack on vanity, money-lust and our Faustian pact with materialism -- Joanna Kavenna * Literary Review *[A] humane, comic story of a good man trying to do the right thing * Vogue *A novel of great scope, taking some truly hideous events and spiking them with humour and realism * Emerald Street *A tour-de-force of pitch-black comedy... Excellent -- Theo Tait * Guardian *Horribly funny and unexpectedly uplifting -- Amber Pearson * Daily Mail *Bleakly funny -- Claire Allfree * Metro *Immensely likeable and sustained throughout by a vividly described plot heaving with believable grotesques... Homes has a feel for the comedic that is as well developed as her chillingly direct grasp of horror... A funny, fast-moving, picaresque, baggy satire -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *Blackly humorous * Independent *Capable, likeable, readable -- Sarah Churchill * New Statesman *Brilliant... Homes draw[s] fascinatingly complex, flawed characters whose domestic situations run scarily outside their own control. Do yourself a favour and read this book * Bella *Humane [and] comic * Vogue *A bonkers yet quite brilliant book ... It deserves to be called a work of art -- Sarah Vine * The Times *Homes plays with the substance of the American dream, and gives us a horrific, internet-age deconstruction... only connect, Homes tells us, and we can escape the nightmare of the 21st century -- Philip Womack * Telegraph *Complex, nuanced and so engrossing that it makes you wish the real world would go away and leave you to read... A huge-hearted expansive book, simultaneously nightmare-black and extremely funny -- Lisa Gee * Independent *She has a deadpan understated humour that builds line by line into comic intent -- Jeanette Winterson * Guardian *[A] comic epic of modern America -- Sarah Churchwell * New Statesman *[Homes'] dialogue is extremely funny, worthy of a stand-up comic-rapid and raw... Unrelenting and endlessly inventive -- Edmund White * New York Book Review *Her biggest, broadest, most spacious novel yet, a dark carnival of American life in the 21st century... Cool, controlled... extraordinarily lucid -- Christopher Bollen * Interview Magazine *One of the strangest, most gripping and satisfyingly ugly books I've read in a long time -- Thomas Quinn * Big Issue *Laced with her trademark dark humour and emotional intensity, it's also a savage meditation on sex, violence, success, fulfilment and modern life... Epic * Diva *This is the great American novel for our time -- Jeanette Winterson, Books of the Year * Guardian *Wonderful, strange... at once dystopian and utopian, hovering somewhere between satire and sentiment -- Hannah Forbes Black * National *One of the best new American novels -- Edmund White, Books of the Year * Times Literary Supplement *The incendiary A.M. Homes exposes the black-comic mayhem behind the American front door -- Boyd Tonkin, Books of the Year * Independent *Sit back and enjoy Homes's delicious black humour, her sharp characterisation, and thrilling narrative intensity -- David Evans * Independent on Sunday *[A] compelling dysfunctional family saga... Homes doesn't chronicle US life as much as take a cleaver to it and relish in the blood-splattered aftermath -- Darragh Reddin * Metro *I would not lose a word of her whip-sharp wit or unerring dialogue... Truly to die for -- Madeleine Kingsley * Jewish Chronicle *A white-knuckle black comedy about the vagaries of 21st-century living -- Doug Johnstone, Books of the Year * Scotsman *[It] is a savage and dizzyingly inventive satire on contemporary America, whose dark heart Homes penetrates like no other writer... Inspiring * Stylist *Truly original, highly topical and yet, I suspect, utterly timeless * Laissez Faire *You'd have to have no sense of the absurd, and no sense of humour, not to be pretty impressed -- Theo Tait * Guardian *Compulsive and authentic -- Lesley McDowell * Sunday Herald *Touching and uplifting * Daily Telegraph *Dazzling * Sunday Telegraph *A bristly, bumpy ride of a novel -- Katya Johnson * Daily Express *At once affecting and uproarious, the characters that Homes so deftly conjures will stay with readers well beyond when the final pages are turned -- Sonia Nair * Kill Your Darlings *Searing -- Kate Mosse * Mail on Sunday *It's strong stuff, and all the better for it * Guardian *Horribly funny and unexpectedly uplifting... Sensational * Daily Mail *Acutely observed * Women and Home *A novel that has everything: laughs; sibling hatred; horrifying turns of events; online misadventures... and the general meaning of life -- Simon Schama * Mail on Sunday *Darkly funny and compelling... [It] is the latest in a series of novels that display Homes' talent as one of the most consistently talented, funny and challenging storytellers of her generation * Huffington Post *Hilariously clever -- Viv Groskop, Books of the Year * Observer *This has all her mordant wit and close observation of flawed humanity -- Raffaella Barker * Daily Mail *[A] deeply enjoyable tale of festering sibling rivalry gone horribly wrong * Pride *A big American novel about family... funny and edging towards surreal in places. The book has a huge heart and an easy brilliance. A novel with everything -- Alex Hourston * Metro *One of those rare delights: a weird, scary, comic novel that actually makes you laugh out loud -- Simon Schama * Mail on Sunday *The wicked humour draws you in, but the cracking energy keeps you reading; there's a fierceness here that makes this tale of violence and family life quite unforgettable -- Natasha Walter * Stylist *
£9.49
Granta Publications Ltd Study for Obedience
Book SynopsisA powerful, compressed masterwork that explores questions of complicity, power and devotion - from one of Granta magazine's Best of Young British Novelists 2023
£9.49
Granta Books The Hole
Book SynopsisA woman moves to live with her in-laws in the Japanese countryside in this haunting and surreal novel featuring a mysterious relative, an elusive hairy creature, and lots of strange holes - from the author of Weasels in the Attic
£9.49
Fitzcarraldo Editions The Netanyahus
Book SynopsisCorbin College, not-quite-upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host, to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with non-fiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive, genre-bending comedy of blending, identity, and politics—“An Account of A Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family” that finds Joshua Cohen at the height of his powers.Trade Review‘Joshua Cohen is such an accomplished writer it’s surprising he isn’t a better known one.... Cohen’s new book – his sixth – continues the turn to allegorical realism [and] is among his best: a fastidious and very funny book that is one of the most purely pleasurable works of fiction I’ve read in ages.’ — Jon Day, Financial Times‘The Netanyahus is Cohen’s sixth novel, his most conventional and his best to date. It is a tour de force: compact, laugh-out-loud funny, the best new novel I’ve read this year [and] probably the funniest novel ever written about contending historiographies.... Cohen’s lesson, in this determinedly comic novel, is that history happens as farce and tragedy simultaneously.’ — John Phipps, The Times‘[Cohen] clearly is a genius ... The Netanyahus [is] a comic historical fantasia – a dizzying range of bookish learning and worldly knowhow is given rich, resourceful expression.... With its tight time frame, loopy narrator, portrait of Jewish-American life against a semi-rural backdrop, and moments of cruel academic satire, The Netanyahus reads like an attempt, as delightful as it sounds, to cross-breed Roth’s The Ghost Writer and Nabokov’s Pale Fire.... This is a brisk, impudent, utterly immersive novel.’ — Leo Robson, Guardian‘The Netanyahus, like Cohen’s previous novels, is driven by the momentum of its prose. It has a freewheeling, all-consuming style which frequently turns up unexpected delights.... This is a surprising novel, full of quirks and explosive moments’ — Christopher Shrimpton, Spectator‘No one writing in English today is more gifted than Joshua Cohen. Every page of The Netanyahus – an historical account of a man left out of history, a wickedly funny fable of the return of the repressed – crackles with Cohen’s high style and joyride intelligence.’ — Nicole Krauss, author of Forest Dark‘The Netanyahus is constructed with a brilliant comic grace that moves from the sly to the exuberant. Some scenes are funny beyond belief. But even when moments in the book are sharp or melancholy, they keep an undertone of witty and ironic observation. The vision in this book is deeply original, making clear what a superb writer Joshua Cohen is.’ — Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician‘Cohen is an extraordinary prose stylist, surely one of the most prodigious in American fiction today.’ — James Wood, New Yorker
£8.54
Fitzcarraldo Editions Tell
Book SynopsisCurtis Doyle, a self-made businessman and art collector, has vanished from his palatial home in the Scottish Highlands. In the wake of his disappearance, the woman who worked as his gardener is being interviewed for a possible film about her employer. A work of strange and intoxicating immediacy, exploring wealth, the art world, and the intimacy and distance between social classes,Tellis a probing and complex examination of the ways in which we make stories of our own lives and of other people's.
£12.34
Fitzcarraldo Editions Living Things
Book SynopsisLivingThingsfollows four recent graduates Munir, G,Ernesto and Álex who travel from Madrid to the southof France to work the grape harvest. Except things don'tgo as planned: they end up working on an industrialchicken farm and living on a campsite, where a generalsense of menace takes hold. What follows is a compellingand incisive examination of precarious employment,capitalism, immigration and the mass production oflivingthings, all interwoven with the protagonist's thoughts onliterature and the nature of storytelling.A genre-bendingand dystopian eco-thriller,LivingThingsis a punk-likeblend of Roberto Bolaño'sThe Savage DetectivesandSamanta Schweblin'sFever Dream, heralding an excitingnew voice in international fiction.
£10.44
Fitzcarraldo Editions A Shining — WINNER OF THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN
Book SynopsisA man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left, and finally he gets stuck at the end of a forest road. Soon it gets dark and starts to snow, but instead of going back to find help, he ventures, foolishly, into the dark forest. Inevitably, the man gets lost, and as he grows cold and tired, he encounters a glowing being amid the obscurity. Strange, haunting and dreamlike, A Shining is the latest work of fiction by Jon Fosse, ‘the Beckett of the twenty-first century’ (Le Monde).Trade Review‘A Shining can be read in many ways: as a realistic monologue; as a fable; as a Christian-inflected allegory; as a nightmare painstakingly recounted the next morning, the horror of the experience still pulsing under the words, though somewhat mitigated by the small daily miracle of daylight. I think the great splendour of Fosse’s fiction is that it so deeply rejects any singular interpretation; as one reads, the story does not sound a clear singular note, but rather becomes a chord with all the many possible interpretations ringing out at once. This refusal to succumb to the solitary, the stark, the simple, the binary – to insist that complicated things like death and God retain their immense mysteries and contradictions – seems, in this increasingly partisan world of ours, a quietly powerful moral stance.’ — Lauren Groff, Guardian‘Fosse’s prose doesn’t speak so much as witnesses, unfolds, accumulates. It flows like consciousness itself…. This is perhaps why A Shining feels so momentous, even at fewer than 50 pages. You never quite know where you’re going. But it doesn’t matter: you want to follow, to move in step ith the rhythm of these words.’ — Matthew Janney, Financial Times‘We are in the presence of rare literary greatness. It is for this greatness that the Swedish Academy has justly awarded Jon Fosse the Nobel prize.’ — Paul Binding, Times Literary Supplement‘The translation by Damion Searls perfectly judges the pitch and rhythm …producing a natural reading beat. [...] A Shining is a neat example of Fosse’s gift for portraying porous psychological states, and its publication is perfectly timed for a satisfying Samhain evening read.’ — Rónán Hession, Irish Times‘A Shining s marked by what is perhaps Fosse’s defining skill: his ability to effortlessly marry the mundane and the sublime. The author is himself a practicing Catholic; he was received into the Church in 2012, and a certain spiritual seriousness is at the heart of his works’ power, even while their spirit everywhere shuns the dogmatic. Expect from Fosse neither the supposedly infallible truths of the pulpit nor Scripture’s resonant cadence. The experience of reading him is of a different order entirely, one more humble, and perhaps as illuminating.’ — Luke Warde, Sunday Independent‘In this spare tale of disorientation and longing, by the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, a man gets stranded on a back road in a forest and wanders deep into the trees…. Fosse uses fleeting allusions to a world beyond the reach of the narrator to explore some of humanity’s most elusive pursuits, certainty and inviolability among them. His bracingly clear prose imbues the story’s ambiguities with a profundity both revelatory and familiar.’ — New Yorker‘The physical and otherworldly hinterland of A Shining through which Jon Fosse is the guide is at once terrifying and deeply reassuring.’ — Catherine Taylor, Times Literary Supplement‘Jon Fosse is a major European writer.’ — Karl Ove Knausgaard, author of The Wolves of Eternity‘The Beckett of the twenty-first century.’ — Le Monde‘Fosse has been compared to Ibsen and to Beckett, and it is easy to see his work as Ibsen stripped down to its emotional essentials. But it is much more. For one thing, it has a fierce poetic simplicity.’ — New York Times‘Jon Fosse has managed, like few others, to carve out a literary form of his own.’ — Nordic Council Literary Prize‘A deeply moving experience. At times while reading the first two books of Septology, I walked around in a fugue-like state, wondering what it was that I was reading, exactly. A parable? A gospel? A novel bereft of the usual markings of plot, time, and character? The answer appeared to be all of the above, but although I usually balk at anything mystical, the effect was haunting and cumulative ... I hesitate to compare the experience of reading these works to the act of meditation. But that is the closest I can come to describing how something in the critical self is shed in the process of reading Fosse, only to be replaced by something more primal. A mood. An atmosphere. The sound of words moving on a page.’ — Ruth Margalit, New York Review of Books‘Fosse’s fusing of the commonplace and the existential, together with his dramatic forays into the past, make for a relentlessly consuming work: Septology feels momentous.’ — Catherine Taylor, Guardian‘With Septology, Fosse has found a new approach to writing fiction, different from what he has written before and – it is strange to say, as the novel enters its fifth century – different from what has been written before. Septology feels new.’ — Wyatt Mason, Harper’s‘Having read the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse’s “Septology”, an extraordinary seven-novel sequence about an old man’s recursive reckoning with the braided realities of God, art, identity, family life and human life itself, I’ve come into awe and reverence myself for idiosyncratic forms of immense metaphysical fortitude.’ — Randy Boyagoda, New York Times‘[P]alpable in this book is the way that the writing is meant to replicate the pulse and repetitive phrasing of liturgical prayer. Asle is a Catholic convert and, in Damion Searls’s liquid translation, his thoughts are rendered in long run-on sentences whose metronomic cadences conjure the intake and outtake of breath, or the reflexive motions of fingers telling a rosary. These unique books ask you to engage with the senses rather than the mind, and their aim is to bring about the momentary dissolution of the self.’ — Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal‘The translation by Damion Searls is deserving of special recognition. His rendering of this remarkable single run-on sentence over three volumes is flawless. The rhythms, the shifts in pace, the nuances in tone are all conveyed with masterful understatement. The Septology series is among the highlights of my reading life.’ — Rónán Hession, Irish Times‘Fosse intuitively — and with great artistry — conveys ... a sense of wonder at the unfathomable miracle of life, even in its bleakest and loneliest moments.’ — Bryan Karetnyk, Financial Times
£8.54
Fitzcarraldo Editions Childish Literature
Book SynopsisHow do we write about the singular experience of parenthood? Written in a state of attachment', or under the influence' of fatherhood, Childish Literature is an eclectic guide for novice parents, showing how the birth and growth of a child changes not only the present and the future, but also reshapes our perceptions of the past. Shifting from moving dispatches from his son's first year of existence, to a treatise on football sadness', to a psychedelic narrative where a man tries, mid-magic mushroom trip, to re-learn the subtle art of crawling, this latest work from Alejandro Zambra shows how children shield adults from despondency, self-absorption and the tyrannies of chronological time. At once a chronicle of fatherhood, a letter to a child and a work of fiction, Childish Literature is the latest, virtuosic addition to the oeuvre of one of the most exciting Latin American writers in recent decades.
£11.69
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Black Crescent
Book Synopsis1950s Morocco: murder, magic and divided loyalties...Hamou Badi is born in a mountain village with the magical signs of the zouhry on his hands. The zouhry is a figure of legend, capable of finding all manner of treasure. But instead of finding treasure, young Hamou finds a body.Haunted by this unsolved murder, Hamou goes on to train as a police officer in Casablanca. Yet the city is trapped in a nationalist uprising, and Hamou is soon torn between his heritage and his employers. How will he choose between all he knows and all he loves?''Hugely enjoyable'' Rachel Hore''Compelling'' The Times Addictive reading' Viggo MortensenPowerful and transportive' Elizabeth ChadwickA must-read' Chat
£9.49
Atlantic Books Choice
Book SynopsisNeel Mukherjee won the Writers Guild of Great Britain Award for best fiction in 2010 for his debut novel A Life Apart. His second novel, The Lives of Others, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Costa Novel Award, and won the Encore Award. His most recent novel, A State of Freedom, was a New York Times '100 Notable Books of the Year' and heralded as 'Stunning ... a marvel of a book, shocking and beautiful, and it proves that Mukherjee is one of the most original and talented authors working today' (NPR).
£17.09
Zaffre The Fixer: The side-splitting novel from
Book SynopsisThe side-splitting new novel form the bestselling author The Women of Primrose Square, perfect for fans of Marian Keyes, Mhairi McFarlane and Sophie Kinsella. Meet Meg Monroe, the fixer. If you want to get rid of someone you call Meg. (No, not like that - this would be a very different book!)Using her brilliant intuition, people reading skills and with masterful manipulation Meg befriends her mark and tells them what they want to hear, using it to convince them to see the error of their ways. She's never once found a case she can't handle - affairs, clingy former-friends, useless employees and exes that can't take the hint. But when a blast from the past turns up on Meg's doorstep, will she get caught in her own web of lies?
£13.49
Canongate Books That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz
Book Synopsis1957. Sonny is working on a whaling ship in the South Atlantic, reckoning with the most vicious storms he has ever seen. It''s a brutal way to make a living. When he finally returns to his Shetland home to build a life with his wife and young son, the legacy of his time at sea is felt by all of them. In present day Shetland, Jack is an old man, living alone in the cottage where he grew up, in the shadow of a hill. And it is here, one evening, that something appears on his doorstep. Something that throws off the rhythm of his solitary existence in the most profound way. This is a story of unlikely friendship, longing, the power of music and the pull of home. It is about a life revisited - and reimagined.
£17.09
Profile Books Ltd We Need To Talk About Kevin
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2010 ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of a boy named Kevin who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who had tried to befriend him. Now, two years after her son's horrific rampage, Eva comes to terms with her role as Kevin's mother in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband Franklyn about their son's upbringing. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about motherhood. How much is her fault? In Lionel Shriver's hands this sensational, chilling and memorable story of a woman who raised a monster becomes a metaphor for the larger tragedy - the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.Trade ReviewOnce in a while, a stunningly powerful novel comes along, knocks you sideways and takes your breath away: this is it... a horrifying, original, witty, brave and deliberately provocative investigation into all the casual assumptions we make about family life, and motherhood in particular * Daily Mail *This startling shocker strips bare motherhood... the most remarkable Orange prize victor so far -- Polly Toynbee * Guardian *An awesomely smart, stylish and pitiless achievement. Franz Kafka wrote that a book should be the ice-pick that breaks open the frozen seas inside us, because the books that make us happy we could have written ourselves. With We Need to Talk About Kevin, Shriver has wielded Kafka's axe with devastating force * Independent *One of the most striking works of fiction to be published this year. It is Desperate Housewives as written by Euripides... A powerful, gripping and original meditation on evil * New Statesman *Shriver keeps up an almost unbearable suspense. It's hard to imagine a more striking demolition job on the American myth of the perfect suburban family * Sunday Telegraph *One of the bravest books I've ever read... We Need to Talk About Kevin is an original, powerful, resonant, witty, fascinating and deeply intelligent work * Sunday Business Post *A study of despair, a book of ideas and a deconstruction of modern American morality -- David Baddiel * The Times *This superb, many-layered novel intelligently weighs the culpability of parental nurture against the nightmarish possibilities of an innately evil child * Daily Telegraph *Urgent, unblinking and articulate * Sunday Times *[A] powerful, painful novel... There are true, terrible things said here about family life * Saga Magazine *A fierce challenge of a novel that forces the reader to confront assumptions about love and parenting, about how and why we apportion blame, about crime and punishment, forgiveness and redemption and, perhaps most significantly, about how we can manage when the answer to the question why? is either too complex for human comprehension, or simply non-existent * Independent *Pitch-perfect, devastating and utterly convincing -- Geoff DyerOne of my favourite novels... the best thing I've read in years -- Jeremy VineWe Need to Talk About Kevin is not a treatise on crime prevention but a meditation on motherhood, and a terribly honest one * Wall Street Journal *What an amazing piece of storytelling. I could not put the book down. -- Shirley Henderson (Bridget Jones & Harry Potter actress) * Daily Express *One of the most powerful books I've read... brilliant -- Boy George * Elle *An original and startling story of family life. A brilliant and thought-provoking read. -- Jackie Brown * Woman's Own *
£9.49
Profile Books Ltd 1985
Book SynopsisIn characteristically daring style, Anthony Burgess combines two responses to Orwell's 1984 in one book. The first is a sharp analysis: through dialogues, parodies and essays, Burgess sheds new light on what he called 'an apocalyptic codex of our worst fears', creating a critique that is literature in its own right. Part two is Burgess' own dystopic vision, written in 1978. He skewers both the present and the future, describing a state where industrial disputes and social unrest compete with overwhelming surveillance, security concerns and the dominance of technology to make life a thing to be suffered rather than lived. Together these two works form a unique guide to one of the twentieth century's most talented, imaginative and prescient writers. Several decades later, Burgess' most singular work still stands.Trade ReviewAn exciting, bleakly fascinating story told with enormous erudition and wit. Its indignation is blazingly imaginative, furiously vital and gives us hope * Financial Times *The unclassifiable Mr Burgess has once more broken new ground -- Kingsley Amis * Observer *There is too much which is truly excellent for anyone to ignore it -- Auberon Waugh * Evening Standard *Burgess is the great postmodern storehouse of British writing - an important experimentalist; an encyclopaedic amasser, but also a maker of form; a playful comic, with a dark gloom -- Malcolm BradburyOne of the cleverest and most original writers of his generation * The Times *Wonderful ... I don't agree with everything Burgess writes, but the way he writes it is spectacular. It's hard to make profound ideas read so easily; Burgess does, with such artfulness that you almost forget how profound it is. It's a masterclass in everything from history and sociology to pop culture and sexuality, and breezes by like a cheery pop song. Burgess was also famed as a raconteur, and that might be the closest approximation of delight you feel reading him: you're in company with a brilliant mind who makes everything entertaining and comprehensible. * Irish Independent *
£9.49
Profile Books Ltd Astragal
Book Synopsis'My Albertine, how I adored her! Her luminous eyes led me through the darkness of my youth. She was my guide through the nights of one hundred sleeps. And now she is yours.' At the age of twenty-one, a sad and hungry Patti Smith walked into a bookshop in Greenwich Village and decided to spend her last 99 cents on a novel that would change her life forever. The book was Astragal, by Albertine Sarrazin. Sarrazin was an enigmatic outsider who had spent time in jail and who wrote only two novels and a book of poems in her short life - she died the year before Patti found her book, at the age of twenty-nine. Astragal tells the story of Anne, a young woman who breaks her ankle in a daring escape from prison. She makes it to a highway where she's picked up by a motorcyclist, Julien, who's also on the run. As they travel through nights and days together, they fall in love and must do whatever they can to survive, living their lives always on the edge of danger. A bewitching and timeless novel of youthful rebellion and romance, this new edition of Patsy Southgate's original translation includes an introduction by Patti Smith.Trade ReviewAstragal is amazing ... Anne is a wonderful anti-hero - a rare role for a woman - and her journey is thoughtfully and poetically expressed. She is the best of the bad girls: spend time with her. -- Anna Fielding * Emerald Street *Astragal is a spirited journey through the dark underbelly of Paris in the 1960s that leaps from the page like a Jean-Luc Godard movie. * Dazed magazine *
£9.49
Granta Books The Dig
Book SynopsisDeep in rural Wales, a farmer is struggling through lambing season when he becomes aware that his land is being stalked by a badger-baiter who brings with him the stark threat of violence. Built of the interlocking fates of these two solitary men, this is a searing story of isolation and loss, from a writer of uncommon gifts.Trade ReviewA quietly overwhelming masterpiece of love, degeneration and the merciless landscape of grief -- Eimear McBrideI treasure Cynan Jones's The Dig for engaging with [a] marginal pastoral tradition, showing the depth of its attachments to nature, and for refusing to treat those attachments in a romantic, nativist way -- Helen Macdonald ‘The six books that made me’ * Guardian *A powerful book... about violence, loss and the different ways one can be trapped. It is absolutely unflinching in its descriptions of the savagery the badgers face... [yet] the violence is never gratuitous... There is certainly a deliberate gnarled quality to the novel's prose. Its language is slightly askew, forcing the reader to linger... This is a novel with a heft far beyond its size -- Evie Wyld * New York Times Book Review *Jones' novellas, with their carefully chiselled prose and explicit descriptions of archetypal figures, gradually acquire a mythic patina. The Dig is a fine exploration of masculinity, grief and violence. Savour the evolution of this distinctive literary voice. -- Keith Hopper * TLS *Jones's sense of place is acute, and his passion for the landscape - for its colours, its creatures, its textures, its scents - is absolutely magnetic -- Sarah Waters, author * Fingersmith *Jones's use of language is frequently stellar... There is no doubt that he is one of the most talented writers in Britain' * Independent *Jones addresses you with a poetic directness that owes something to Dylan Thomas... These are sentences that are written not for the eye or the ear but for some deeper sense... Deeply moving, but not sentimental, [this] is a book that will get in your bones, and haunt you * Telegraph *A marvellous novel... There are echoes of Ted Hughes, Cormac McCarthy, Ernest Hemingway... It can be read like poetry, letting the words resonate in the skull -- Angus Clarke * The Times *Extraordinarily powerful... [Its] necessary and central brutality is more than redeemed by the transcendent quality of Jones's writing... In its marriage of profound lyricism and feeling for place, deep human compassion and unflinching savagery, this brief and beautiful novel is utterly unique -- Melissa Harrison * Financial Times *Written with a beautifully blunt simplicity, The Dig is moving, evocative, and utterly compelling -- Jon McGregor, author * Even the Dogs *By turns chilling and haunting, The Dig is a visceral indictment of the continuities between the use and abuse of animals, and a meditation on the casual violence of ordinary men -- Patrick Flanery, author * Absolution *[There] is a series of often dramatic and beautifully drawn set-pieces... [and] when is deep in these physically resonant scenes, Jones can be strikingly effective. He has a wonderful eye... The central story around which The Dig is organised is powerfully immediate' * Sunday Times *Tenderness and brutality are folded out together in this chiselled gem of a novel... Jones has a poet's eye for detail but his sentences are pared to the bone -- Maggie Fergusson * Intelligent Life *There's something of John Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy and the Old Testament to this short, sharp, brutal and bewitching tale... Beauty and barbarity, tenderness and heartlessness are mixed in prose that reads like stark poetry. There's almost too much truth in this unforgettable novel. But great beauty too -- Robert Bound * Monocle *The Dig explores its central themes - loss, isolation, nature - through, dry, punch storytelling. Each sentence has been neatly sculpted to develop a rich poetry from the stuff of rural life * New Statesman *Take equal pinches of Hemingway and McCarthy, mix them with a huge spadeful of wild Welsh and wondrous originality, and you get The Dig. It's brave and necessary and relevant in that it steers us into a contemplation of the world's beauties by forcing us to consider their extinction. It is angry and heartbreaking and profoundly moving. Truly, it stirs the soul -- Niall Griffiths, author * Runt *With this quietly huge little book Cynan Jones sets a thrilling new standard for our generation, and shows what a transporting device the short novel can be. I read it twice, heart in mouth, and still cannot quite believe how good it is. Extraordinary gifts in craft and art, combined with mesmeric storytelling, create a book which no-one will put down until it is finished, and which leaves the reader in no doubt: here is a real writer, a real star in the ascendant. 'I felt as though I became a better reader, and a better writer, while I was lost in The Dig -- Horatio Clare, author * A Single Swallow *It reads like Cormac McCarthy meeting Ted Hughes down a dark country lane... Thoroughly memorable -- John Self * Asylum Blog *It took me over completely, the brutality in it and the tenderness. It is wonderful to read writing that's so hard and true about the land, the land as lived in now, and from within, not as observed from without or as some place in the past. We need that. Not one of Jones' plain strong words is wasted, and Wales comes through in the rhythm of the sentences as well as in what they describe -- Georgina Harding, author * Painter of Silence *This parable of modern rural life is lyrical but tough, stylish and poetic, and its themes of grief, wonder, and violence have a resonance far beyond the Welsh valleys where the story takes place -- Gavin Francis, author * Empire Antarctica *The plot is winningly sparse. ... [The first] twenty pages possess a sharp exactitude, like a taut line of barbed wire. The detail of the prose is remarkable -- Lucian Robson * Literary Review *Powerful [and] indelible... [There are] memorable phrases on almost every page * Independent *Beautiful * Chronicle *A powerful novel about isolation and loss, written in wonderful pared-down prose * Observer *Give me this sparse, tense novella over Hardy any day. ... The book is haunting and moving without ever being sentimental. A beautiful contrast of violent, unrelenting pressure and searing, intimate moments * Case for Books blog *A short novel that packs the compact force of a lightweight boxer... Jones has hewn an earthy, flinty language... We can only wonder at what this singular voice might create next * Metro *Tenderness and brutality are folded together in this chiselled gem of a novel. Jones has a poet's eye for detail -- Maggie Ferguson * Intelligent Life *Important and superbly written * Tivy-Side Advertiser *Terse and beautiful... The Dig turns words into scalpels then cuts to the quick. Buy it in spades. 10/10 -- Jon Gower, author * Too Cold for Snow *A work of breathtaking scale and ambition... [with] a rare poignancy and profundity' * The Oxonian Review *A perfect novella: excruciatingly brutal and extraordinarily beautiful at the same time * Wexford Echo *Rich and deeply felt... combines a visceral emotional punch with a beautifully detailed sense of place... Brief yet powerful * New Welsh Review *Slim but very powerful... Jones ratchets up the tension in this brutal but mesmeric book * Good Book Guide *A small, beautifully-formed tale of loss set against the brutality of badger baiting... Jones proves that the short novel can be as epic, and stylistically demanding as a long one -- Arifa Akbar * Independent *Accomplished and compelling... The language of the book is unsentimental and blunt, richly evoking sound and colour and a contrapuntal, nocturnal lack of colour... Extraordinary * Dundee University Review of the Arts *Incredibly visceral and astounding * Savidge Reads *The Dig has stuck with me throughout [the year]... Jones is his own man, making authentically British - Welsh - myths with plenty of horror and muted emotion -- John Self ‘Book of the year’ * Asylum *[This] strange and dark work of landscape fiction caught my eye - and ear - this year; brutal, regional, stripped back and pumped up -- Robert Macfarlane ‘Book of the Year’ * Big Issue *The Dig is forceful in its simplicity, grace and depiction of human cruelty. An outstanding novel -- Katie KitamuraImagine Cormac McCarthy transposed to Wales. Infuse a hint of Hemingway, a dash of Eugenio Montale and a lick of José Saramago, and you might arrive at Cynan Jones. The Dig remains one of my most uncomfortable reading experiences to date. From the first sentence to the last, the tone is controlled, economical, alarmingly brutal and tender -- Tishani Doshi * New Indian Express *Those sounding the knell for traditional stories may have a hard time explaining books like Cynan Jones's The Dig, a swift, elegant novella about a farmer, a badger hunter, and the inevitable clash of their opposing lives... a darkly beautiful book... The Bottom Line: The Dig is a short, powerful story that wraps contemporary issues about modern farming in stunning, earthy language * Huffington Post *[A] brutal, lyrical, slim novel... while the action of the story is compelling, the real pleasures lie in Jones's language and meditations on grief. In prose that calls to mind both the severity of Cormac McCarthy and the psychological lucidity of John Updike... the focus on the criminal underbelly of agrarian culture poses a refreshing counterpoint to back-to-the-land idealism * Publishers Weekly *Brilliantly evoking the murkier side of the countryside, Jones has a powerful voice as well as a fine touch for atmosphere * Country & Town House *
£9.49
Canongate Books The House of the Mosque
Book SynopsisWelcome to the house of the mosque . . . Iran, 1950. Spring has arrived, and as the women prepare the festivities, Sadiq waits for a suitor to knock on the door. Her uncle Nosrat returns from Tehran with a glamorous woman, while on the rooftop, Shahbal longs only for a television to watch the first moon landing. But not even the beloved grandmothers can foresee what will happen in the days and months to come. The household is set to experience great love and loss as it opens the doors to faith and politics. In this uplifting bestseller, Kader Abdolah charts the triumphs and tragedies of a family on the brink of revolution.Trade ReviewBeautifully written and fiercely readable * * Daily Mail * *Abdolah's is a powerful voice * * The Times Saturday Review * *Enchanting...Abdolah's juxtapositions - the spiritual and the earthly, myth and reality - give the story a powerful irony. * * Independent * *[Kader Abdolah] tells this story straight from the heart. And it's on the heart too that it leaves an indelible mark. * * The Scotsman Magazine * *Expertly mingles fiction and personal history to create a thought-provoking novel to please fans of Khaled Hosseini, Mohsin Hamid and Azar Nafisi. * * Waterstone's Books Quarterly * *fabulously powerful and heart warming * * Good Book Guide * *an impressive book [telling] a tragic story illustrating the power of the human spirit to conquer. * * The Bookseller * *Sensual, beguiling and elegantly translated. -- Alastair Mabbott * * Herald Arts * *Fabulously powerful and heart-warming. * * Good Book Guide * *Captivating and distinctive . . . a measured, beguiling and potent example of literary resistance * * Times Literary Supplement * *
£9.99
Honno Ltd God's Children
Book SynopsisA fascinating fictional account of the disintegration of a personality.
£8.54
Neem Tree Press Limited The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Text Publishing The Golden State
Book SynopsisA gorgeous, raw debut novel about a young woman braving the ups and downs of motherhood in a fractured America.
£10.44
Cinder House Small Rivers
Book SynopsisIt's December 2016 and Toby and Angelica are going back to their father's farm for Christmas. Now that they live in London and Berlin respectively - eschewing the family trade in favour of more creative pursuits - this return to the pastoral also feels like a return to the parochial.
£9.49
The Indigo Press Pearl
Book SynopsisMarianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother''s love; the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother''s disappearance and the secrets she''s sure her father is keeping from her. Discovering a medieval poem called Pearl and trusting in its promise of consolation, Marianne sets out to make a visual illustration of it, a task that she returns to over and over but somehow never manages to complete. Tormented by an unmarked gravestone in an abandoned chapel and the tidal pull of the river, her childhood home begins to crumble as the past leads her down a path of self-destruction. But can art heal Marianne? And will her own future as a mother help her find peace?
£9.49
