Search results for ""Author Iain Banks""

New introduction by Ian Rankin_________________________________________‘One of the most playful and entertaining writers of our generation’ Val McDermid, Guardian In an absorbing voyage as interesting to non-drinkers as to true whisky connoisseurs, sci-fi and literary author Iain Banks explores the rich heritage of Scottish whisky, from the most famous distilleries to the most obscure operations. Whisky is more than a drink: it's a culture that binds together people, places and products far across Scotland's rugged terrain. Switching from cars to ferries to bicycles, Banks criss-crosses his homeland, weaving an engrossing narrative full of fascinating traditions, peculiar people, and the downright bizarre places he encounters on his journey down Scotland's great golden road.'The book I return to most often . . . It's is like slipping into a warm bath.'James Graham, THE TIMES (playwright and creator of ITV's Quiz)'Filled withinsightful and witty observations . . . this is a rip-roaringand informative delve into the unique history and enduring appeal of this iconic spirit.'VISIT SCOTLAND, 9 'must read' books

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'A stunning book. Banks' powerful imagination is joined to a rare ability to be truly funny while exploring a nightmare world' Sunday TimesA man lies in a coma after a near-fatal accident. His body broken, his memory vanished, he finds himself in the surreal world of the bridge - a world free of the usual constraints of time and space, a world where dream and fantasy, past and future, fuse. Who is this man? Where is he? Is he more dead than alive? Or has he never been so alive before?Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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'Exhilarating... a work of imagination and arresting originality' Sunday TelegraphThe war is ending, perhaps ended... For the castle and its occupants the troubles are just beginning. Armed gangs roam its lawless land, where each farm and house supports a column of dark smoke. Taking to the roads with the other refugees, anonymous in their raggedness, seems safer than remaining in the ancient keep. But the lieutenant of an outlaw band has other ideas, and the castle becomes the focus for a dangerous game of desire, deceit and death... Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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'Establishes beyond doubt that Iain Banks is a novelist of remarkable talents' Daily TelegraphGraham Park is in love. But Sara Fitch is an enigma to him, a creature of almost perverse mystery. Steven Grout is paranoid - and with justice. He knows that They are out to get him. They are. Quiss, insecure in his fabulous if ramshackle castle, is forced to play interminable impossible games. The solution to the oldest of all paradoxical riddles will release him. But he must find an answer before he knows the question.Park, Grout, Quiss - no trio could be further apart. But their separate courses are set for collision.Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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From its bravura opening onwards, THE CROW ROAD is justly regarded as an outstanding contemporary novel. 'It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach.' Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he is also deeply preoccupied: mainly with death, sex, drink, God and illegal substances...

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'As good as anything Banks has ever written, if not better' Sunday TelegraphAfter years of exile, Alban Wopuld has been summoned back to his family's highland estate, Garbadale. The Wopuld clan are closing ranks. They have built their fortune on the boardgame Empire! - which has become a hugely successful computer game - and now the Americans want to buy them out. As the family gathers for their Extraordinary General Meeting, old grudges, forbidden passions and dark secrets emerge. What drove Alban's mother to take her own life? And is Alban over Sophie, his bewitching cousin and teenage love?Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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The polarizing literary debut by Scottish author Ian Banks, The Wasp Factory is the bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath.Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least: Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I''d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That''s my score to date. Three. I haven''t killed anybody for years, and don''t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.

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'A deeply satirical and thought-provoking thriller' Sunday ExpressA couple of ice cubes, first, then the apple that really started it all. A loft apartment in London's East End; cool but doomed, demolition and redevelopment slated for the following week. Ken Nott, devoutly contrarian leftish shock-jock attending a mid-week wedding lunch, starts dropping stuff off the roof towards the deserted car park a hundred feet below. Other guests join in and soon half the contents of the flat are following the fruit towards the pitted tarmac... just as mobiles start to ring, and the apartment's remaining TV is turned on, because apparently a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center... Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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'One of the best opening lines of any novel' Guardian'It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach.'Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he is also deeply preoccupied: mainly with death, sex, drink, God and illegal substances...Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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'A gothic horror story of quite exceptional quality' Financial Times'Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.' Enter - if you can bear it - the extraordinary private world of Frank, just sixteen, and unconventional, to say the least.Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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Imagine a world that is one of infinite parallel worlds, that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse. Presiding over this world is the Concern, an all-powerful organisation whose operatives possess extraordinary powers. There is Temudjin Oh, an unkillable assassin who journeys between the high passes of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and a wintry Venice; Adrian Cubbish, restlessly greedy City trader; and the Philosopher, a state-sponsored torturer who moves between the time zones with sinister ease. Transition is a high-definition, hyper-real apocalyptic fable for terrible times.

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'Utterly absorbing... addictive, funny and brilliantly observed' Daily MailStewart Gilmour is back in Stonemouth, the estuary town north of Aberdeen that on a bleak day can seem to offer little more than sea-fog, gangsters, cheap drugs and a suspension bridge irresistible to suicides. After a five-year exile, Stewart's presence is required at the funeral of patriarch Joe Murston, even though the last time Stu saw the Murstons he was running for his life. But Stonemouth is also home to the girl who still haunts his dreams.... Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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'Ingenious, daring and brilliant' GuardianCOMPLICITY N. 1. THE FACT OF BEING AN ACCOMPLICE, ESP. IN A CRIMINAL ACTA few spliffs, a spot of mild S&M, phone through the copy for tomorrow's front page, catch up with the latest from your mystery source - could be big, could be very big - in fact, just a regular day at the office for free-wheeling, substance-abusing Cameron Colley, a fully paid-up Gonzo hack on an Edinburgh newspaper.Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he is also deeply preoccupied: mainly with death, sex, drink, God and illegal substances... Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing...Innocent in the ways of the world, an ingenue when it comes to pop and fashion, the Elect of God of a small but committed Stirlingshire religious cult: Isis Whit is no ordinary teenager. When her cousin Morag - Guest of Honour at the Luskentyrian's four-yearly Festival of Love - disappears after renouncing her faith, Isis is marked out to venture among the Unsaved and bring the apostate back into the fold. But the road to Babylondon (as Sister Angela puts it) is a treacherous one, particularly when Isis discovers that Morag appears to have embraced the ways of the Unsaved with spectacular abandon...Truth and falsehood; kinship and betrayal; 'herbal' cigarettes and compact discs - Whit is an exploration of the techno-ridden barrenness of modern Britain from a unique perspective.

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40th anniversary edition of Iain Banks'' classic debut novel THE WASP FACTORY, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman''A gothic horror story of quite exceptional quality'' Financial Times''Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I''d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That''s my score to date. Three. I haven''t killed anybody for years, and don''t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.''Enter - if you can bear it - the extraordinary private world of Frank, just sixteen, and unconventional, to say the least.Praise for Iain Banks:''The most imaginative novelist of his generation'' The Times''His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers'' Ken MacLeod, Guardian

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'Banks once again demonstrates his extraordinary dark powers of imagination' Sunday TimesHisako Onada, world-famous cellist, refuses to fly. And so she travels to Europe as a passenger on a tanker bound through the Panama Canal. But Panama is a country whose politics are as volatile as the local freedom fighters. When Hisako's ship is captured, it is not long before the atmosphere is as flammable as an oxy-acetylene torch, and the tension as sharp as the spike on the cello...Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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Daniel Weir used to be a famous - not to say infamous - rock star. Maybe still is. At thirty-one he has been both a brilliant failure and a dull success. He's made a lot of mistakes that have paid off and a lot of smart moves he'll regret forever (however long that turns out to be). Daniel Weir has gone from rags to riches and back, and managed to hold onto them both, though not much else. His friends all seem to be dead, fed up with him or just disgusted - and who can blame them? And now Daniel Weir is all alone. As he contemplates his life, Daniel realises he only has two problems: the past and the future. He knows how bad the past has been. But the future - well, the future is something else.

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'Ingenious, daring and brilliant' GuardianCOMPLICITY N. 1. THE FACT OF BEING AN ACCOMPLICE, ESP. IN A CRIMINAL ACTA few spliffs, a spot of mild S&M, phone through the copy for tomorrow's front page, catch up with the latest from your mystery source - could be big, could be very big - in fact, just a regular day at the office for free-wheeling, substance-abusing Cameron Colley, a fully paid-up Gonzo hack on an Edinburgh newspaper.Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he is also deeply preoccupied: mainly with death, sex, drink, God and illegal substances... Praise for Iain Banks:'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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'A quietly incendiary piece of writing, at times heartbreaking, at other times really wonderfully funny... a profoundly humane, funny and smart novel' IndependentA dying man and his only son. Six old friends. A missing videotape. And a reunion in a crumbling house on the edge of The Quarry. Praise for Iain Banks: 'The most imaginative novelist of his generation' The Times'His verve and talent will always be recognised, and his work will always find and enthral new readers' Ken MacLeod, Guardian'His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent' Neil Gaiman'An exceptional wordsmith' Scotsman

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A world that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, between the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, frozen in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse, such a world requires a firm hand and a guiding light. But does it need the Concern: an all-powerful organisation with a malevolent presiding genius, pervasive influence and numberless invisible operatives in possession of extraordinary powers? On the Concern's books are Temudjin Oh, an un-killable assassin who journeys between the peaks of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and the dark palaces of Venice; and a nameless, faceless torturer known only as the Philosopher. And then there's the renegade Mrs Mulverhill, who recruits rebels to her side; and Patient 8262, hiding out from a dirty past in a forgotten hospital ward. As these vivid, strange and sensuous worlds circle and collide, the implications of turning traitor to the Concern become horribly apparent, and an unstable universe is set on a dizzying course.

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