Search results for ""Julie Myerson" "Then""

Book SynopsisA blasted world. A broken heart.A shattering betrayal.Heartlessness has become the law. In the wasted ruins of London, a woman pieces together fragments of her memory. As her past emerges, her own apocalypse begins.Then is a novel of singular invention and bravery. With it, Julie Myerson has created an echo chamber of the heartbreaking and the terrifying, and an enduring dystopian vision.Trade ReviewThis is writing that takes the breath away... I cannot praise this staggeringly accomplished work highly enough -- Virginia Blackburn * Sunday Express *Then is a bold, uncompromising book that marks out Myerson as a truly interesting and risk-taking author... grippingly good -- Elizabeth Day * Observer *Julie Myerson offers a haunting twist on Armageddon... A chillingly persuasive vision of emotional hell -- Adrian Turpin * Financial Times *An addictively readable feat of imagination -- Lionel ShriverA daring and dazzling performance -- John Harding * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisHow I Live Now is an original and poignant book by Meg RosoffHow I Live Now is the powerful and engaging story of Daisy, the precocious New Yorker and her English cousin Edmond, torn apart as war breaks out in London, from the multi award-winning Meg Rosoff. How I Live Now has been adapted for the big screen by Kevin Macdonald, starring Saoirse Ronan as Daisy and releases in 2013.Fifteen-year-old Daisy thinks she knows all about love. Her mother died giving birth to her, and now her dad has sent her away for the summer, to live in the English countryside with cousins she''s never even met.There she''ll discover what real love is: something violent, mysterious and wonderful. There her world will be turned upside down and a perfect summer will explode into a million bewildering pieces.How will Daisy live then?''Fresh, honest, rude, funny. I put it down with tears on my face'' - Julie Myerson, Guardian ''Assure

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Book Synopsis*The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller*Rose Tremain (or Rosie as she was then) grew up in post-war London – a city still partly in ruins, where both food and affection were fiercely rationed. But when she is ten years old, everything changes. She loses her father, her house, her school, her friends and is dispatched to a freezing boarding-school in Hertfordshire. Slowly though, the teenage Rosie escapes from the cold world of the Fifties, into a place of inspiration and friendship, where a young writer is suddenly ready to be born.‘An evocative, unflinching memoir...electric’ Mail on SundayTrade ReviewRose Tremain famously eschews autobiographical material in her fiction, so this account of her childhood feels so fresh it stings… [she] brings her formidable talent for characterisation to bear on the vanished, culpable cast of her childhood -- Claire Lowdon * Sunday Times, **Books of the Year** *Rose Tremain manages to fit more wisdom, more unforgettable scenes, more illuminating recollections, into this 194-page memoir than other writers do in memoirs three times the length. A book as nourishing, but concise as this makes you wonder why other writers have to be so long-winded ... For anyone who loves Tremain's novels this memoir is a vital companion -- Ysenda Maxton Graham * The Times *Intriguing and moving ... So much more alert and open and alive than so many slightly disappointing memoirs by otherwise great writers ... Rosie is a work of self-discovery in the best possible sense of the word - it pulls you in, unsettles, comforts and exhilarates and, finally, makes you see your life anew -- Julie Myerson * The Spectator *Rose Tremain turns to non-fiction for the first time with this lyrical account of her life up to the age of 18 ... The evocation of 1950s schoolgirldom, with all its emotions, elations and smells, is wonderfully vivid - distinctive, like being donated a set of dreams ... A quiet drama, but as you'd expect it's the writing that makes this book such a delight -- Claire Harman * Evening Standard *A beautifully written ode to the tenacity of our younger selves -- Francesca Brown * Stylist *

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Book SynopsisMatt Seaton’s critically acclaimed memoir about his obsession for cycling and how that obsession was tamed. For a time there were four bikes in Matt Seaton’s life. His evenings were spent 'doing the miles' on the roads out of south London and into the hills of the North Downs and Kent Weald. Weekends were taken up with track meets, time trials and road races – rides that took him from cold village halls at dawn and onto the empty bypasses of southern England. With its rituals, its code of honour and its comradeship, cycling became a passion that bordered on possession. It was at once a world apart, private to its initiates and, through the races he rode in Belgium, Mallorca and Ireland, a passport to an international fraternity. But then marriage, children and his wife's illness forced a reckoning with real life and, ultimately, a reappraisal of why cycling had become so compelling in the first place. Today, those bikes are scattered, sold, or gathering dust in an attic. Wry, frank and elegiac, ‘The Escape Artist’ is a celebration of an amateur sport and the simple beauty of cycling. It is also a story about the passage from youth to adulthood, about what it means to give up something fiercely loved in return for a kind of wisdom.Trade Review'As poignant an elegy as I have ever read. I finished the last chapters of this book just before I went to sleep, and in the morning, with a swoop of grief in my guts, it was the first thing I thought of.'Toby Clements, Daily Telegraph ‘Thoroughly tragic and almost brilliant. The Escape Artist is an achingly sad account of what Seaton now refers to as 'my former life.'Robert MacFarlane, Observer 'A heart-stopping examination of how, why and for what we push ourselves to the edge. I never thought I'd cry about bikes and cycling. It is one of those rare books you could give to absolutely anyone – and one you'll want to keep by you and read again and again.'Julie Myerson ‘This book is, above all, about passion and loss. It's about the passion of life at the very edge of athletic and mechanical achievement that is eventually lost to love of a wife and children, which in turn gives way to the loss of the wise and mother herself. I read and relished this book.'Jon Snow, Guardian

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Book Synopsis''He was haunted by a feeling of invisibility, as if he were a mere spectator of his own life, with no one to identify him in the barren circumstances of the here and now.''Paul Sturgis is a retired banker manager who lives alone in a dark little flat. He walks alone and dines alone, seeking out and taking pleasure in small exchanges with strangers: the cheerful Australian girl who cuts his hair, the lady at the drycleaners. His only relative, and only acquaintance, is a widowed cousin by marriage - herself a virtual stranger - to whom he pays ritualistic visits on a Sunday afternoon. Trying to make sense of his current solitary state, and fearing that his destiny may be to die among strangers, Sturgis trawls through memories of his failed relationships and finds himself longing for companionship, or at the very least a conversation. But then a chance encounter with a stranger - a recently divorced and demanding younger woman - shakes up his routine andTrade ReviewNothing less than brilliant, often highly amusing and, ultimately life affirming * Sunday Telegraph *Each book is a prayer bead on a string, and each prayer is a secular, circumspect prayer, a prayer and a protest and a charm against encroaching night -- Hilary Mantel * Guardian *The beauty and precision of Brookner's writing is rightly praised each time she publishes a novel, but what is less often remarked on is her daring...like Graham Greene, she draws the reader into a world that has a character and signature all of its own...Brookner's wry, dry lightness of touch creates a bloom on the darkness of her characters' sufferings...Strangers is a novel of sober brilliance, and the unerring, unflinching Brookner is still a much underestimated novelist -- Helen Dunmore * The Times *No one writes with more skill and honesty about the human condition and this book is possibly her finest -- Julie Myerson * Observer Books of the Year *A novel of great stylistic beauty and psychological truth...the pitiless depiction of the final stages of life - and the refusal to allow her characters any consolation - makes Strangers as great a reflection on fear and regret as Philip Larkin's poem Aubade or Beckett's Endgame -- Mark Lawson * Guardian *In the hands of a lesser novelist, her stories of human frailty would be depressing, but she manages to make them sparkle with life - and always with hope...consistently absorbing * Daily Telegraph *Strangers is, in its own way, definitive. A more frightening, demoralising account of how hard life can be, without work, and above all without family, would be difficult to conceive...Brookner has given classic expression to what she sees to be a central truth of the human condition, absolute loneliness at the last...nothing less than a great horror story -- David Sexton * Evening Standard *Anita Brookner is a distinguished and defiant writer whose books occupy a unique place in English literature. Her subject is the best one: the definition of human nature. Although her novels often convey the loneliness inherent in the human condition, they do so in such an acute and bold way that loneliness itself is shown to be a state as tempestuous and startling as any other sort of crisis. In Brookner's hands, in her descriptions so vivid and exact, it can be exhilarating...her books are unfailingly well written, they give voice and a sense of fierce entitlement to a sort of existence that might otherwise go unrecorded...Brookner's is a literature that may be harsh but it is absolutely necessary -- Susie Boyt * Independent *Paul Sturgis is a brilliant and affecting creation by a writer whose empathy runs deep, and whose pitch is perfect...a brisk and moving story * Spectator *

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Book Synopsis''A stunning piece of speculative fiction'' The i''A haunting novel about love, survival and everything in between ... one to get excited about'' Stylist, Best Modern Dystopia---But she isn''t here, no one is here. And I have a terror of being alone, in this building, in London, in the world.Neffy is a young woman running away from grief and guilt, and the one big mistake that has derailed her career. When a debilitating new virus sweeps across the globe, volunteering in a vaccine trial offers her a way to make up for her past. But then, the virus mutates, and the future she had dreamed for herself is gone.As the London streets outside the medical unit fall silent, and food begins to run out, Neffy must decide where safety lies. Might she find solace by revisiting her own heady memories of the past? Can she trust the strangers trapped inside with her - despite her growing suspicions? Or is her best chance of a futurTrade ReviewFollowing her award-winning novel Unsettled Ground, Fuller has returned with a piece of stunning speculative fiction * The i *A haunting novel about love, survival and everything in between ... one to get excited about * Stylist, Best Modern Dystopia *A thought-provoking and utterly compelling novel from a writer we always look forward to reading * Glamour *Haunting and unsettling, moving and thoughtful, with horror lurking at the edges, this is a subtle, elegant novel. Claire Fuller is a huge talent * Lucy Atkins, author of Magpie Lane *Claire Fuller is such an interesting and original writer and she has produced another literary page-turner ... Compulsive and thoroughly convincing. Terrific! * Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures *Fuller is an excellent writer and she neatly conveys boredom as well as dread (no mean feat) -- Anthony Cummings * Daily Mail *Stunning ... A page-turning, topical, edge-of-your-seat story that resonates with the reader on an emotional level, and leaves them thinking about it for a long time afterwards * Louise Morrish, author of Operation Moonlight *A gripping page-turner, this apocalyptic tale is given warmth and depth by the portrayal of Neffy, a young woman with a complicated past to which she returns to escape the horrors of the present * Woman and Home *A taut and atmospheric read, an exploration of captivity, sacrifice and survival in a post-apocalyptic world ... Asks important, resonant questions of life in extremis ... Fuller writes brilliantly ... The superb ending ties everything together with a moving, tragic cohesiveness * Irish Times *A woman once undone by empathy now finds that it could be her salvation in Claire Fuller's stunning postapocalyptic novel ... Sobering and evocative, The Memory of Animals is a novel about who we choose to be when the lights go out * Foreword *Wonderful, sorrowful, haunting, tender, elegiac * Barney Norris, author of The Undercurrent *Claire Fuller is my favourite story-teller. I read The Memory of Animals in one sitting, swept up by the thriller-like pace and the sheer joy of reading a great story. Yet, in the book's aftermath, I was haunted by Neffy's fumbling humanity in the face of loss and fear, and how courage isn't always obvious - even to those who find it. Fuller's books come in at the eyes, but they settle right behind the heart. * Melanie Finn, author of The Hare *A riveting exploration of agency, allegiance and choice * Marie Claire *Fuller's latest work is thought-provoking and unsettling, and somehow strikes a further warning note to a world already in crisis * Irish Independent *Claire Fuller is a fascinating writer, and The Memory of Animals is further evidence of her powers. Her story is one of survival, but her subject is humanity itself. With immense skill, she shines a light on the dark heart of our existence - the beauty and brutality of human behaviour. This is an unforgettable novel * Kathleen MacMahon, author of Nothing But Blue Sky *A story you'll both recognize from our collective recent past, and a thrilling departure from our reality * Good Housekeeping USA, The Best Books of 2023 so far *Full of jeopardy and strangeness but also laced with Fuller's trademark generosity and compassion. A startling and satisfying book * Julie Myerson, author of Nonfiction *Fuller excels in examining the everyday moments at the heart of a life ... A memorable meditation on how the human struggle to survive in captivity is not so different than that of our animal kin * Kirkus *A haunting novel of second chances set in a near-future pandemic ... Intricately structured ... The entwined pain and pleasure of memory is at the heart of Neffy's story, as is the hard work of establishing trust and finding forgiveness, particularly for oneself. This is a pandemic novel, yes, but one that radically transcends the label * Publishers Weekly, Starred Review *Brave, unflinching and beautiful * Beth Underdown, author of The Witchfinder's Sister *Claire Fuller strikes the perfect balance between beauty and melancholy * Clare Mackintosh, author of Hostage *The way she writes (with empathy but never sentimentality) moves my heart * Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie *A creeping tale of isolation and the dangerous allure of memory * Liz Earle Wellbeing *[A] post-Covid psychological thriller ... takes faintly distubing turns through grimly familiar territory to suggest that what makes us heroic, or not, hinges on unexpected things * Mail on Sunday *Compelling ... A riveting, don't-miss account of what some may see as the reality to come; long-time Fuller readers will relish this completely engrossing story, which questions what we value most * Library Journal *Compelling ... A timely read ... Fuller is on strong form in evoking the terrors faced by those who are not just marginalised but entirely forgotten by society * Daily Express *There's a haunted elegance to Fuller's vision of a fallen world ... Sensuous * Lit Hub, 28 Novels You Need To Read This Summer *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE WOMEN''S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2015 WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2014WINNER OF THE 2014 COSTA NOVEL AWARD''I take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul'' Evening Standard How to be both is a novel all about art''s versatility. Borrowing from painting''s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it''s a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There''s a renaissance artist of the 1460s. There''s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real - and all life''s givens get given a second chance.*****''Brims with palpable joy'' Daily Telegraph''She''s a genius, genuinely modern in the heroic, glorious sense'' Alain de Botton''A delight. A masterpiece. Magical'' Sunday TimesWINNER OF THE SALTIRE SOCIETY LITERARY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2014SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014Ali Smith''s new novel, Companion piece, is available now.Trade ReviewDizzyingly good and so clever that it makes you want to dance * New Statesman *A delight. A masterpiece. Magical. * Sunday Times *I take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul * Evening Standard *Exciting, full of joy and wryly funny... [Ali Smith is] one of the most inventive writers alive * Emerald Street *A remarkably easy and immensely enjoyable read... Ali Smith is a one-off. Her imagination and originality make her one of the most exciting novelists of her generation. Both George and Francesco touch the heart and linger in the mind long after the final page. * Daily Express *Smith is the brightest spark in a recent explosion of female novelists taking dizzying risks with form and voice . . . most contemporary male authors feel Jurassic by comparison. * Metro *Rich, funny and moving. Smith's writing really catches fire * Financial Times *Dazzling * Independent *This warm, funny book deserves to be read at least one-and-a-half times -- Honor Clerk * Spectator *Radical, dazzling . . . Those writers making doomy predictions about the death of the novel should read Smith's re-imagined novel/s, and take note of the life it contains * Independent *Ms. Smith's writing is inventive and delighted. She cannot help being exuberant * New York Times *Inventive, playful, compassionate. An immensely enjoyable read * Daily Express *I was utterly transported by Ali Smith's How to Be Both, a novel built from two stories that speak across six centuries. I'm about to read it for the fourth time -- Helen Macdonald * Irish Times *Smith is dazzling in her daring. Her inventive power pulls you through, gasping, to the final page * Observer *Smith can make anything happen, which is why she is one of our most exciting writers today * Daily Telegraph *She's a genius, genuinely modern in the heroic, glorious sense -- Alain de BottonSmith's fervent, vital, incantatory prose is entirely her own . . . How to be both reads as if she has summoned words from some region of the unconscious and released them in a trance -- Joanna Kavenna * Prospect *Utterly contemporary and vividly historical -- Holly Williams * The Independent *Smith has created a stunning work that is as rewarding as it is challenging * The List *One of the things she does so well, and that is particularly evident in 'How to Be Both,' is the way she can create an extremely sophisticated, complex, multileveled novel that reads beautifully -- Erica WagnerA marvellous exploration of what it means to look, then look again. Spiralling and twisting stories suggest the ways in which we can transcend walls and barriers - not only between people but between emotions, art forms and historical periods. It is a jeu d'esprit about a girl coming of age and coming to terms with her mother's death, a ghosting of a Renaissance fresco painter in a 21st-century frame and an exhortation to do the twist. -- Sarah Churchwell * New Statesman Books of the Year 2014 *A revelation. It blasts the doors open for the novel form and in a Woolf-like way makes all things possible. I imagine it will be one of those rare books that changes the way writers write novels -- Jackie Kay * Observer *Ali Smith's novels soar higher every time and How to be both doesn't disappoint -- Julie Myerson * Observer *Brilliant. No one combines experimentalism and soulfulness like Ali Smith -- Craig Taylor * Observer *One of the most intelligent, inventive, downright impressive writers working anywhere in the world today. In Ali Smith we have a writer whose dazzling sophistication will surely be celebrated, studied and argues over hundreds of years after we're gone -- Nick Barley * The Scotsman *Ali Smith is a master of language. Vigorous, vivid writing that is Ali Smith incarnate -- Alice Thompson * Herald *Ingeniously conceived, gloriously inventive * NPR *Dizzyingly ambitious . . . endlessly artful, creating work that feels infinite in its scope and intimate at the same time. [A] swirling panoramic * Atlantic *Brilliant . . . the sort of death-defying storytelling acrobatics that don't seem entirely possible * Washington Post *Having read this now twice, in both directions so to speak, I've decided - and I do not write this flippantly - that Ali Smith is a genius -- Susan McCallum * LA Review of Books *Approaches the world as only a novel can. The book moves not so much in a straight line as in a twisting helix pattern . . . delivers the heat of life and the return of beauty in the face of loss -- Kenneth Miller * Everyday Ebook *A unique conversation between past and present * Milwaukee Journal *Wildly inventive . . . lyrical, fresh * Bustle Magazine *

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 'This short novel will live on in your imagination long after you read the last page' Claire Messud When Cy Bellman, American settler and widowed father of ten-year-old Bess, reads in the newspaper that huge ancient bones have been discovered in a Kentucky swamp, he leaves his small Pennsylvania farm and daughter to find out if the rumours are true: that the giant monsters are still alive, and roam the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River. West is the extraordinary story of a quest for a myth, of Bellman's journey into the unknown and of Bess, waiting at home for her father to return, facing monsters of her own. It is an eerie and timeless epic-in-miniature. 'One of the best books I've read this year... It's a book you can read in a day and that will resonate all year long in your head' Sunday Times 'Carys Davies is a deft, audacious visionary... Twisting the heart as few others can...' Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger's WifeTrade ReviewOne of the most haunting and beautifully crafted novels I have read in a long time... Davies has produced something quite wonderful * Sunday Times *One of the best books I've read this year...West [...] is so crisply and concisely written, and so warm and human in its economy, that it shames the behemoths sitting beside it on the nation's bookshop shelves. It's a book you can read in a day and that will resonate all year long in your head -- Andrew Holgate * Sunday Times *Slender, stark and utterly mesmerising... The language, lyrical yet pared down, conveys complicated feelings of grief, guilt, sadness and a strange kind of wonder -- Eithne Farry * Mail On Sunday *Davies's lapidary prose is a marvel - she creates worlds in a few deft pen strokes... beautifully sad -- Siobhan Murphy * The Times *Carys Davies's brilliant gem of a novel glints with sadness and a sombre kind of wonder -- Eithne Farry * Sunday Express *Short, incredible, violent, uplifting and empowering - how Davies manages to create such an enduring story in 150 pages is a mystery, but she nails it. Do your reading list a big favour and transport yourself to the American frontier to meet 12-and-half-year-old Bess and her father * Stylist *West is both beautifully crafted and entrances to its cleverly conceived end * Sunday Times *A real page-turner. A magnificent achievement -- Roger Cox * Scotsman *West has all the stark power and immediacy of a folk-tale or a legend. It is also structured with great artistry, a beguiling sense of form and pace, and a depth in the way the characters are created, making clear that Carys Davies is a writer of immense talent -- Colm TóibínMenace and mordant wit are the blood that runs through these veins, but there's a pulse of wonder in Carys Davies' West. She sees the world and its inhabitants both as we hope they are and as we fear that they might be. An audacious and enigmatic debut of thrilling dimensions, and a halting reminder of fiction's possibilities -- Akhil SharmaA story of determination, betrayal, folly, and reckless hope written in the grand tradition of the pioneers. You enter the familiar American frontier and shortly are convinced, with Davies' hero, that the mammoths of the Pleistocene still shyly roam the Plains. The seams between imagination and history in this extraordinary story are invisible. I believed every word -- Salvatore ScibonaIn a way, West reads like some extended fairy tale. But then, I've never stopped wanting to run off and find dinosaurs. Its strength lies in belief, and wonder, and the simple pure clarity of that in an incomprehensible world -- Cynan JonesWest is a journey and a wonder. A story concerned with value and language, love and absence, life and death. A debut of real distinction -- Bernard MacLavertyTo read Carys Davies' West is to encounter a myth, or a potent dream - a narrative at once new and timeless. Exquisite, continent, utterly vivid, this short novel will live on in your imagination long after you read the last page -- Claire Messud, author * The Burning Girl and the Woman Upstairs *West proves what-in-the-know lovers of her short stories have already been trumpeting: Carys Davies is a deft, audacious visionary, a master of the form. In West, she breaks open our fascination with fated journeys and the irrepressible draw of the unknown, imbuing the American landscape with her own rare magic, twisting the heart as few others can, brilliantly navigating the tension between narrative minimalism and imaginative opulence -- Tea Obrecht, author * The Tiger's Wife *Wonderful -- Sarah Jessica Parker * Girlboss *A beautifully written fable on the conflict between the quixotic and the mundane * Wales Arts Review *A novel of extraordinary beauty... an accomplished tale of genuine panache...West will remain with you for some time -- Paul Burke * Nudge Books *I highly, highly, highly recommend this... This is a book I was hoping would be one of my books of the year and most certainly will be -- Simon Savidge * Savidge Reads *Brief and brilliant - perfect to slip into the suitcase...I hope to see it on the Man Booker shortlist this autumn -- Summer Books round up * Tablet *Davies [...] has the astonishing ability to capture a life - however idiosyncratic - in the briefest of brushstrokes -- Summer Reading * Evening Standard *A haunting, beautifully crafted novel * Sunday Times *A compact, elegantly written story -- 100 Modern Novels to Love * Sunday Times *In Davies's slim first novel...not a word is wasted; the canvas is as wide as her brush is fine...There are many worlds to explore within this short book * Guardian *Davies spins a convincing story... The author has an acute sense of period, and a fine ear for dialogue * RTÉ *Perfectly formed . . . Beautifully crafted and immensely moving * Sunday Times *A tiny jewel of a novel, but sweeping in its power and scope, is Carys Davies's West...[an] epic tale of settlers and monsters -- Julie Myerson * Observer *Highly-readable . . . This well-crafted novel, short though it is, will hold your attention to the very end * Yorkshire Gazette and Herald *

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