Search results for ""canongate books""

Walker is at a party where he meets Rachel. Two days later she turns up at his apartment. However, it's not Walker she wants but her husband Malory, who has gone missing. She asks Walker to find him. So begins this strange, beautiful, road-movie of a novel that takes the hero across the vast landscape of middle America on the trail of a man he has never met. And as Walker's search grows in its weird intensity, it seems that somebody else is following, searching for him too.

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Go the Fuck to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don't always send a toddler sailing off to dreamland. Profane, affectionate and refreshingly honest, it captures the familiar and unspoken tribulations of putting your child to bed for the night. Colourfully illustrated and hilariously funny, this is a breath of fresh air for parents new, old and expectant.**(You probably shouldn't read this to your children.)

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He turns up first as Snoopy's secretary, then gradually becomes a good friend whom Snoopy helps to fly South . . . but it's not until 22 June 1970 that the little bird gains a name, in a perfect salute to the decade that ends with this volume: Woodstock!In other timely stories, Peppermint Patty runs afoul of her school's dress code (those sandals!), Lucy declares herself a "New Feminist," and Snoopy's return to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm on a speaking engagement climaxes in a riot and a new love found amidst the teargas ("She had the softest paws...").Speaking of Snoopy, this volume falls under the sign of the Great Beagle, as three separate storylines focus on the mysterious sovereign of Beagledom. First Snoopy is summoned by a wrathful G.B. when Frieda submits a complaint about his (Snoopy's) desultory rabbit-chasing efforts; then, back in the Great one's good graces, Snoopy is sent on a secret mission; and finally he himself ascends (briefly!) to the mantle of Great Beagledom.In other news, an exasperated Lucy throws Schroeder's piano into the maw of the kite-eating tree, with gruesome results... Miss Othmar goes on strike and Linus gets involved... Charlie Brown's baseball team has an actual (brief) winning streak... Snoopy's quest to compete in the Oakland ice skating competition is thwarted by his inability to find a partner... Charlie Brown goes to a banquet to meet his hapless baseball hero Joe Shlabotnik... Snoopy is left in the Van Pelt family's care as Charlie and Sally Brown head out of town for a vacation... and (alas) the Little Red-Haired Girl moves away...This volume also features a new introduction by renowned illustrator Mo Willems and, as always, gorgeous design by award-winning cartoonist Seth.

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In this spellbinding book, the man described by the Daily Telegraph as 'possibly the best living writer in Britain' takes on his biggest challenge yet: unlocking the film that has obsessed him all his adult life. Like the film Stalker itself, it confronts the most mysterious and enduring questions of life and how to live.

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A FARMER and his wife fall on hard times. They haven't lost everything the way others have, but they have lost enough. Their hope for a better future comes under threat when they discover an intruder on their land. A WOMAN from a small town marries an outsider. Her love for him battles with her suspicions that he is the source of the fires ravaging the mountains.A YOUNG BOY, neglected by his parents, sits in the remains of a crashed plane and lovingly tends to two frozen bodies.These remarkable stories and many more can be found in Burning Bright, an award-winning collection that captures the complexities of a place and conjures characters that will burn bright in your mind long after you have finished reading.

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Jerry Lee Lewis has lived an extraordinary life. He gave rock and roll its devil's edge with hit records like 'Great Balls of Fire'. His incendiary shows caused riots and boycotts. He ran a decade-long marathon of drugs, drinking, and women, and married his thirteen-year-old second cousin, the third of seven wives. He also nearly met his maker, at least twice. He survived it all to be hailed as one of the greatest music icons. For the very first time, he reveals the truth behind the Last Man Standing of the rock-and-roll era.

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In the thirty years since viewers first visited Nelson Mandela House, Only Fools and Horses has won countless awards and is still Britain's most-watched and best-loved sitcom. Del Boy's overwhelming popularity has even inspired the Oxford English Dictionary to include a selection of his most famous words and phrases, such as 'lovely jubbly' and 'twonk'. In this fascinating, entertaining and meticulously researched book, acclaimed biographer Graham McCann goes behind the scenes to tell the inside story of Britain's most enduring comedy. With major contributions from the people who wrote, produced and starred in the programme and with material drawn from the BBC archives, it's time to take one last trip down Hooky Street . . .

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A 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.

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Listening at its finest and great fun for all the family...Here''s everybody''s favourite schoolboy! Martin Jarvis is the hilarious multi-award-winning reader of Richmal Crompton''s Just William Stories. Now packaged together in one unique collection package his Just William recordings for CSA WORD are the only ones available on the market complete and unabridged. Nothing has been cut or missed out so don''t you miss out either...

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The world might be in the throes of a global recession but when an author on the brink of despair, an enigmatic musician, a supermodel and a Satanic sect meet with the cream of Italian high society at the home of a Roman property tycoon, the world outside the mansion's walls is soon forgotten. There's going to be one hell of a party. And you've got a VIP ticket.

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By the age of six, Nicolai Lilin had been given his first 'pike knife' by an uncle, and by the age of twelve, he had been convicted of attempted murder . . . Nicolai Lilin gained his 'education' as a member of the Siberian Urkas - a small and tight-knit community of 'honest criminals' in a forgotten corner of Eastern Europe . . . Siberian Education is his tale of an extreme childhood - exotic, violent and completely unique.

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Alessandro Baricco re-creates the siege of Troy through the voices of 21 Homeric characters. Sacrificing none of Homer's panoramic scope, Baricco forgoes Homer's detachment and admits us to realms of subjective experience his predecessor never explored. From the return of Chryseis to the burial of Hector, we see through human eyes and feel with human hearts the unforgettable events first recounted more than 3,000 years ago events arranged not by the whims of the gods in this instance but by the dictates of human nature.With Andromache, Patroclus, Priam, and the rest, we are privy to the ghastly confusion of battle, the clamour of the princely councils, the intimacies of the bedchamber until finally only a blind poet is left to recount secondhand the awful fall of Ilium.Imbuing the stuff of legend with a startlingly new relevancy and humanity, Baricco gives us The Iliad as we have never known it. His transformative achievement is certain to delight and fascinate all the readers of Homer's indispensable classic.

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Listener overflows with love poems, inner-city soap operas, reflections on history, mystery and felicity and much more. Every page sings with Sissay's unique voice - visionary, good-humoured and bursting with life.

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Ireland, 1971, John Egan is a misfit, 'a twelve year old in the body of a grown man with the voice of a giant who insists on the ridiculous truth'. With an obsession for the Guinness Book of Records and faith in his ability to detect when adults are lying, John remains hopeful despite the unfortunate cards life deals him. During one year in John's life, from his voice breaking, through the breaking-up of his home life, to the near collapse of his sanity, we witness the gradual unsticking of John's mind, and the trouble that creates for him and his family.

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Deft and lyrical, this paperback edition of Michel Faber's collection of stories is his first since his auspicious debut, Some Rain Must Fall. It has sealed his reputation as one of Britain's most daring and original authors. Acclaimed for his pitch-perfect prose and brilliant characterisation, Faber is also celebrated for his mastery of contrasting styles. From achingly sad lost lives, through moments of exquisitely distilled happiness, to biblical innocence and savagery, Faber's characters are redeemed, abandoned, beloved and laid bare.

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Without Blood begins with a shocking, visceral act of violence - the assassination of a man and his family. Only the daughter, Nina, survives, thanks to an extraordinary act of mercy by one of the attackers. Nina is just four years old.Decades later Nina hunts down the last of her family's murderers, the man who was her saviour. Their reunion brings about a profound reappraisal of their lives and what took place on that fateful night over half a century earlier.Highly visual and unforgettably sad, Without Blood is a haunting book about damage, longing, memory and forgiveness. Ann Goldstein's superb translation captures Baricco's effortless prose style and gives readers in Britain the opportunity to experience this gem of a novel that has already delighted hundreds of thousands across Europe.

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Widely acclaimed as Massie's finest novel, A Question of Loyalties engages with all the complexities and ambiguities of loyalty, nationality and family as they are put under threat by betrayal, by errors of judgement, or simply friendship.Etienne de Balafré, half French, half English and raised in South Africa, returns to post-war France to unravel the tangled history of his own father. Was Lucien de Balafré a patriot who served his country as best he could in difficult times, or a treacherous collaborator in the Vichy government?Rife with the anguish of hindsight and the irony of circumstance, this powerful book brilliantly explores the ties between fathers and sons and the pains of love and duty in a period of European history that is still characterised by wilful denial and hatred.

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A superb new collection of haiku and other short poetic forms on the theme of Glasgow - its people, landscape, culture. As always, Spence is uniquely illuminating, witty and delightful. Incorporating some of the poems which appeared decades ago in the much sought-after collection of the same title, Glasgow Zen includes mostly new material from this highly popular and exquisite poet.

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This is Spence's first book of poetry since "Glasgow Zen". In this collection he evokes the essence of the seasons with this cycle of haiku.

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Hornclaw is a sixty-five-year-old female contract killer who is considering retirement. A fighter who has experienced loss and grief early on in life, she lives in a state of self-imposed isolation, with just her dog, Deadweight, for company. While on an assassination job for the 'disease control' company she works for, Hornclaw makes an uncharacteristic error, causing a sequence of events that brings her past well and truly into the present.Threatened with sabotage by a young male upstart and battling new desires and urges when she least expects them, Hornclaw steels her resolve, demonstrating that no matter their age, the female of the species is always more deadly than the male.

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Does blood run thicker than ink?When one of London''s best-known literary agents is found dead in strange circumstances, seemingly having fallen from his office window, DCI Slider is under pressure to confirm a case of accidental death. But when the evidence points to murder, the team find themselves uncovering some decidedly scandalous secrets.Every lead seems to result in more questions, and as Slider delves deeper into the publishing world it''s up to him to sort fact from fiction.

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A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICKQuestion: What''s worse than being in a wheelchair?Answer: Being a fuck-up in a wheelchair.After a car accident Jarred discovers he''ll never walk again. Confined to a ''giant roller-skate'', he finds himself with neither money nor job. Worse still, he''s forced to live back home with the father he hasn''t spoken to in ten years.Add in a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and the fact that total strangers now treat him like he''s an idiot, it''s a recipe for self-destruction. How can he stop himself careering out of control?As he tries to piece his life together again, he looks back over his past - the tragedy that blasted his family apart, why he ran away, the damage he''s caused himself and others - and starts to wonder whether, maybe, things don''t always have to stay broken after all.The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness. It''s about how the wo

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The pharmaceutical industry is broken. From the American hedge fund manager who hiked the price of an AIDS pill from $17.50 to $750 overnight to the children's cancer drugs left intentionally to expire in a Spanish warehouse, the signs of this dysfunction are all around. A system that was designed to drive innovation and patient care has been relentlessly distorted to drive up profits.Medicines have become nothing more than financial assets. The focus of drug research, how drugs are priced and who has access to them is now dictated by shareholder value, not the good of the public. Drug companies fixated on ever-higher profits are being fined for bribing doctors and striking secret price-gouging deals, while patients desperate for life-saving medicines are driven to the black market in search of drugs that national health services can't afford.Sick Money argues that the way medicines are developed and paid for is no longer working. Unless we take action we risk a dramatic decline in the pace of drug development and a future in which medicines are only available to the highest bidder. In this book investigative journalist Billy Kenber offers a diagnosis of an industry in crisis and a prescription for how we can fight back.

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The perfect Mother's Day gift - a compulsive collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring and powerful letters with mothers at their heart, curated by the founder of the global phenomenon lettersofnote.comIn Letters of Note: Mothers, Shaun Usher gathers together exceptional missives by and to mothers, celebrating the joy and grief, humour and frustration, wisdom and sacrifice the role brings to both parent and child. Includes letters by:Caitlin Moran, Sylvia Plath,Martin Luther King Jr., George Bernard Shaw,E.B. White, Laura Dern, Louisa May Alcott,Edna St. Vincent Millay, Bette Davis,Richard Wagner, Martha Gellhorn& many more

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The remarkable true story of a modern-day Robin Hood, from Times feature writer Ben MachellIt is 2007, a time of recession and impending climate crisis, and one young man decides to change the world.Meet Stephen Jackley, a British geography student with Asperger's Syndrome. Aged just twenty-one, obsessed with the idea of Robin Hood, and with no prior experience, he resolved to become a bank robber. He would steal from the rich and give to the poor.Jackley used disguise, elaborate escape routes and replica pistols to successfully hold up a string of banks, making away with thousands of pounds. He committed ten robberies in south-west England over a six-month period and bank notes marked with 'RH' - 'Robin Hood' - began finding their way into the hands of the homeless. The police, despite their concerted efforts, had no idea what was going on or who was responsible. That is until Jackley's ambition got the better of him.This is his story.

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''BREATHTAKING'' Dolly Alderton, ''REMARKABLE'' Marian Keyes, ''LIFE-CHANGING'' Emma Jane Unsworth, ''COMPELLING'' Amy Liptrot, ''STUNNING'' Cathy Rentzenbrink, ''EXTRAORDINARY'' Sali HughesTo everyone else, Terri White appeared to be living the dream, named one of Folio''s Top Women in US Media and accruing further awards for the magazines she was editing. In reality, she was rapidly skidding towards a mental health crisis that would land her in a locked psychiatric ward as her past caught up with her. Coming Undone is Terri''s documentation of her unravelling, and her precarious navigation back from a life in pieces.

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Ron Kovic went to Vietnam dreaming of being an American hero. What he found there changed him profoundly, even before the severe battlefield injury that left him paralysed from the waist down. He returned to an America indifferent to the realities of war and the fate of those who fought for their country. From his wheelchair he became one of the most visible and outspoken opponents of the Vietnam War.Born on the Fourth of July is a journey of self-discovery, a reckoning with the horrors of an unjust war, a testament to courage and a call to protest. A modern classic of anti-war writing, it inspired an Oscar-winning film, sold over one million copies and remains as powerful and relevant today as when it was first published.

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In Dubliners, James Joyce takes us on an extraordinary journey with the ordinary men and women from the city of his birth. In 'Araby' a young boy struggles with everyday tasks in the face of a growing infatuation with his neighbour's sister; in 'The Boarding House' a single mother orchestrates a marriage proposal for her daughter; in 'The Dead' the ideas of birth and decay are played out over the course of a dinner. From short, lyrical stories to the novella-length masterpiece which concludes this collection, Dubliners is as alive with feeling as it was when first published.

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'Outstanding' Booklist'A savvy detective and a setting fraught with intrigue and tension' Publishers WeeklyNOT ALL FLOODS WASH AWAY SIN . . .Ireland, 1923. The country has been torn apart by the War of Independence and is now in the throes of sectarian violence and severe flooding. But Mother Aquinas knows that not all floods cleanse the deeds of humanity . . . When a body washes up at her convent chapel dressed in evening finery, she immediately suspects foul play. The overstretched police force may be ready to dismiss the case as accidental drowning, but strangulation marks on the girl's throat tell a grimmer story. Mother Aquinas wants justice for the girl - and won't let a murderer slip away unpunished under the cover of war.

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War doesn't end. It sleeps.Delphine Venner remembers everything. She remembers what it is to be a child of war, and what the terrifying creatures from another world took from her all those years ago.And in that other world, Avalonia, someone waits for Delphine. Hagar, a centuries-old assassin, daily paying a terrible price for her unending youth, is planning one final death, the death that will cost her everything. The death which requires Delphine.In the battle to destroy an ageless evil, Delphine must remember who she is and be ready to fight once more, as war reawakens.

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Keggie Carew has an unerring instinct for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, of putting her foot in it and making a hash of things. From the repercussions of a missing purse, to boiling a frog, or the holiday when the last thing you could possibly imagine happens, Keggie has been there. She also has an enviable talent for recycling awfulness and turning embarrassment into gold. In prose that will make you laugh, wince and curl your toes, Keggie Carew shares her most humiliating, awkward, uncomfortable, funny, true, terrible and all-too-relatable moments.

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