Search results for ""Author Brian FitzGibbon""

'Incredibly funny, incredibly insightful and incredibly moving' Fiona Mozley, author of Hot Stew A darkly comic and explosive tale of a world at war and one island girl's struggle to survive Eighty-year old Herra Björnsson lies alone in her garage waiting to die. Oh, she has two weeks left, maybe three - she has booked her cremation appointment, at a blistering 1,000 degrees, so it won't be long. But until then she has her cigarettes, her laptop, a World War II grenade, and her memories to sustain her. One of the most original narrators in literary history, Herra takes readers with her on a dazzling ride of a novel as she reflects - in a voice by turns darkly funny, poignant and always, always smart - on the mishaps, tragedies and turns of luck that shaped her life. And with a bawdy, uncompromising spirit, she has survived it all. As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, Hallgrímur Helgason tells the deeply moving story of a woman swept up by the forces of history.

Read more less

In the days leading up to Christmas, Dómhildur delivers her 1,922nd baby. Beginnings and endings are her family trade; she comes from a long line of midwives on her mother's side and a long line of undertakers on her father's. She even lives in the apartment that she inherited from her grandaunt, a midwife with a unique reputation for her unconventional methods. As a terrible storm races towards Reykjavik, Dómhildur discovers decades worth of letters and manuscripts hidden amongst her grandaunt's clutter. Fielding calls from her anxious meteorologist sister and visits from her curious new neighbour, Dómhildur escapes into her grandaunt's archive and discovers strange and beautiful reflections on birth, death and human nature. For even in the depths of an Icelandic winter, new life will find a way.

Read more less

'Ólafsdóttir's specialty is the small journeys we take to save ourselves and the ones we care for. She is the heart's finest map-maker' Sjón Winner of the Icelandic Literature Prize< Jónas feels like his life is over. His wife has left him, his mother is slipping deeper into dementia, and his daughter is no longer who he thought. So he comes up with a foolproof plan: to buy a one-way ticket to a chaotic,war-ravaged country and put an end to it all. But on arriving at Hotel Silence, he finds his plans - and his anonymity - begin to dissolve under the foreign sun. Now there are other things that need his attention, like the crumbling hotel itself, the staff who run it, and his unusual fellow guests. And soon it becomes clear that Jónas must decide whether he really wants to leave it all behind; or give life a second chance, albeit down a most unexpected path...

Read more less

'Gorgeously quirky' Stylist 'Evocative and humorous' Observer 'Beguiling' GuardianIt's been a tough day. She's been dumped. Twice. She's accidentally killed a goose. And now she's suddenly responsible for her best friend's deaf-mute son. But when a shared lottery ticket turns the oddly matched pair into the richest people in Iceland, she and the boy find themselves on a road trip across the country. With cucumber hotels, dead sheep, and any number of her exes on their tail, Butterflies in November is a blackly comic and uniquely moving tale of motherhood, friendship and the power of words. Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir was born in Iceland in 1958, studied art history in Paris and has lectured in History of Art. Her earlier novel, The Greenhouse (2007), won the DV Culture Award for literature and was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Award, and her other titles have been translated into 16 languages. She currently lives and works in Reykjavik as the director of the University of Iceland's Art Museum. 'Beautifully crafted and translated... Carefully observed, sensuously written, and often darkly comic' Booktrust

Read more less

Hlynur Björn is an unemployed 30-something loner, still living with his mum, who spends his days on the Internet, watching satellite TV, and gazing at girls in the pub. But Hlynur's cosy, unthreatening world is shaken when his mother comes out as a lesbian, and her Spanish girlfriend Lolla moves into their home. 101 Reykjavik is a first-person account of a blackly funny and bizarre love triangle, a dark, comic tale of perverse sexuality and slacker culture in Iceland's trendy capital city that pokes fun along the way at such foibles of our culture as CNN weather reports and porn videos.

Read more less