Sixty is the new forty, we're constantly told. Or is it that seventy is the new fifty? Yet fashionable clothes shops cater for little but elfin twenty-year-olds; magazines carry little but articles about appearing younger. Heaven forbid you try to apply for a job...Older women are permitted to be either part of the slippers and cardigans brigade, or to cling desperately to their youth and insist on being 'young at heart'. Can't there be a third way?
A young woman called Sara leaves Sweden for the first time to visit her elderly American pen friend Amy, only to find that Amy has died. Sara quickly realises that the town of Broken Wheel is in desperate need of some adventure, a dose of self-help and perhaps a little romance, too. In short, this is a town in need of a bookshop. “Books are meant to be better than reality. Bigger, funnier, more beautiful, more tragic, more romantic,” says Sara. Once you let books into your life, the most unexpected things can happen...
Here are fifteen takes on the human drive to possess - a person, a home, a territory - and the many ways we become possessed - by ideas, by desires, by spirits. Oliver Bullough travels to Ukraine and Crimea in the wake of revolution; Kerry Howley writes about cage fighting and giving birth in Texas; Molly Brodak remembers her father, a compulsive gambler and failed bank robber; and Bella Pollen describes being visited - repeatedly - by an incubus; fiction by Marc Bojanowski, Patrick deWitt, Greg Jackson, Daisy Jacobs, Alan Rossi, Hanan al-Shaykh and Deb Olin Unferth; poetry by Rae Armantrout, Angelica Freitas and Jillian Weise; photography by Max Pinckers.
Living in crumbling Brooklyn apartments, holding down jobs as actors and writers and eschewing the middle-class sensibilities of their parents, graduates of the prestigious Oberlin College, Lil, Beth, Sadie, Emily, Dave and Tal believe they can have it all. When the group come together to celebrate a marriage, anything seems possible. But soon the reality of rent, marriage and family will test them all. For this fortunate age can't last for ever, and the group must face adulthood, whether they are ready for it or not. A compelling era-defining novel from the author of My Salinger Year.
"Funny, compassionate and observant." - Los Angeles Times
"Like Camus's l'Etranger rewritten by Michel Houllebecq, with JG Ballard looking over his shoulder." - Nicholas Royle
"The anomie is delivered with such stripped-down and unforgiving sureness of touch that it becomes hypnotic and deeply disturbing. Somewhere beyond J.G. Ballard's "death of affect" and the cold, clear eye of the nouveau roman is an endgame territory of shifting dunes, dog walkers, flickering porn channels in empty houses occupied by rodents and foil trays of melting frozen meals-for-one. Venture if you dare." - Iain Sinclair
Skittering figures of urban legend - and a ubiquitous reality - cockroaches are nearly as abhorred as they are ancient. Even as our efforts to exterminate them have developed into ever more complex forms of chemical warfare, roaches basic design of six legs, two hypersensitive antennae, and one set of voracious mandibles has persisted unchanged for millions of years.
A lovely hardback edition, nicely printed and reproducing the original dustwrapper.
>> One of the publishing highlights of the year will be the publication, on July 14, 55 years after To Kill a Mockingbird, of To Set a Watchman, its sequel (though written earlier!). To celebrate this momentous event, we would like to offer our customers a chance to pre-order both a copy of the new book (a lovely hardback) and a copy of this hardback edition of the first book for $75 (a $10 saving for a very special pair of books). Just order now, and you'll have both books on 14 July!
Set in Germany in 1945, this is the story of a boy, Hanno, and a girl, Effi. Hanno is on the run, having just seen his twin brother killed. Effi is streetwise. She has learned the hard way that she must keep her secrets to herself - and she's even less keen to trust Hanno when she finds out he is a policeman's son. But there are far more dangerous people on the road, Russian soldiers, German deserters - and Major Otto, who likes to play games with people before he kills them.
The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, Rebanks and his family have lived and worked in and around the Lake District for generations. Their way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand, and has been for hundreds of years. These modern dispatches from an ancient landscape tell the story of a deep-rooted attachment to place, describing a way of life that is little noticed and yet has profoundly shaped this landscape.
"Affectionate, evocative, illuminating. A story of survival - of a flock, of a landscape and a disappearing way of life. I love this book." - Nigel Slater
We flatter ourselves about the nature of free will and yet the most enormous forces - biological, physical, metaphysical - constrain our every action. Many writers and intellectuals have always understood this, but instead of embracing our condition we battle against it, with everyone from world conquerors to modern scientists dreaming of a 'human dominion' almost comically at odds with our true state.
Marcia Williams found an old diary in her attic and discovered it was a diary of the war years by a girl who was nine when the war started. It is here lovingly recreated and illustrated (with lifting flaps and fold-outs), and gives an unparalleled insight into war (and everyday life) as experienced as a child.
"Ingenious and captivating." - Sunday Times
15 year old Zahra has lived in England most of her life, but she is haunted by memories of her early childhood: the warm sun and loud gunfire of the home her family escaped, and aching memories of her older sister. It is hard to make sense of everything that happened, and it feels impossible to talk about, but when three visitors arrive unexpectedly for tea Zahra realises that the dangers of the past could still destroy her.
Includes Margaret Atwood, J. G. Ballard, Melvyn Bragg, A. S. Byatt, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Gray, Germaine Greer, Alan Hollinghurst, Doris Lessing, Candia McWilliam, Edna O'Brien, Ruth Rendell, Tom Stoppard, Sue Townsend, Jeanette Winterson, Emily Berry, Kamila Shamsie, Rory Stewart, Katie Waldegrave and Tom Wells.
Paddy Buckley is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagher's, a long-established--some say the best--funeral home in Dublin. One night driving home after an unexpected encounter with a client, Paddy hits a pedestrian crossing the street. He pulls over and gets out of his car, intending to do the right thing. As he bends over to help the man, he recognizes him. It's Donal Cullen, brother of one of the most notorious mobsters in Dublin...
It's 1971. William is 19, he's working in a dead-end job at London Zoo, and his dreams of becoming an artist are fading fast. When his best friend hatches a plan to travel through Europe to Morocco to sell LSD to the burgeoning hippy community there, William leaps at the chance. How else will he ever afford to get into art school? It isn't long before things start to go wrong. In Barcelona, William gets drunk, steals a moped, and beats up a policeman (not a good idea in a Fascist state). He's thrown into the city's notorious Modelo jail, where he joins a mix of hardened criminals and hippies like him. Tormented by remorse and self-hatred, and treated like an animal by the brutal prison guards, he spirals rapidly into depression. Only two things help: Mike, his American cell-mate, a cannabis-dealing Zen master who has been in Modelo so long that most of his teeth have fallen out; and the sketch book in which he obsessively records the visions and nightmares and the long-repressed memories that swirl inside his head.
The story of Gallipoli in the words of the soldiers who fought there, taken from interviews towards the end of their lives.
Masterful biographer A.N. Wilson shows the extent to which Queen Victoria's vast imperial impact was due to, and yet strangely at odds with, her overwhelmingly rich and creative inner life. This book brings a whole new depth and breadth to our understanding of this pivotal figure.
"If your only image of Queen Victoria is the 'We are not amused' one, this interpretation will come as a real surprise. Heartily recommended." - Jan
At last in paperback!
Following the death of his wife, a writer moves to London and begins to build a friendship with his new neighbours. One afternoon in June, Michael enters their seemingly empty house, hoping to retrieve his screwdriver. He feels an ineluctable pull to go upstairs, where a horrific event occurs, and he finds himself caught is a far-reaching 'causal web' of tragedy.
"A profound meditation on memory and mourning, Sheers’s novel captures the 'unbearably fragile' nature of joy and movingly depicts the haunting physical reminders we leave behind – footprints and fingerprints; breath fogging up glass – and the indelible emotional imprints too, the love that remains long after the beloved person has gone." - Guardian
Michael Morpurgo remembers the post-war Britain of his childhood in this unflinching and deeply poignant tale of the physical and mental scars of war. From a young age, Michael was both fascinated by and afraid of his grandfather. Grandpa's ship was torpedoed during the Second World War, leaving him with terrible burns. Every time he came to stay, Michael was warned by his mother that he must not stare, he must not make too much noise, he must not ask Grandpa any questions about his past. As he grows older, Michael stays with his grandfather during the summer holidays, and as he finally learns the story behind his injuries, he gets to know the real man behind the solemn figure from his childhood.
A quietly perceptive Toibinesque novel of three generations of Australian women and the secrets that press their lives out of shape.
When Amanda Baker was 14 she found a letter written by her runaway mother to her unborn child: 'Dear Jeremy' it began 'or Amanda...'. Now Baker is sixteen and sick of her lot as she moves miserably between lessons, her only solace her fifth form gang - the four Mandies - and a low-calorie diet of king-sized cigarettes. That is, until she teams up with Julia Smith, games captain and consummate game player.
"Fizzes with cracking one-liners, acute observations and acidic social satire. It's funny, boisterous and sharp. An acerbic and gloriously evocative portrait of 'seventies girlhood. Pitch-perfect." - Sunday Telegraph
"Simultaneously funny - wryly and sometimes bleakly so - and painful to read. Levene perfectly captures the brutality of adolescence." - Sunday Times
In June 1941, Flight Sergeant Leslie Mann, a tail gunner in a British bomber, was shot down over Germany and taken into captivity. After the war, wanting to record the experiences of the RAF's 'Bomber Boys', he wrote down his inner thoughts and feelings as a fictional narrative, recently brought to the attention of Imperial War Museums. Visceral, shocking and unglamorous, it transmits as rarely before the horrors of aerial warfare, the corrosive effects of fear, and the psychological torment of the young men involved.
"James Meek's brilliant book, bracing in its detail and sweeping in its scope, makes it clear just how central privatisation is to the story of contemporary Britain: some of it will make you sad, some of it will make you furious, but you are guaranteed to be left feeling that you understand this country much better." - John Lanchester
Winner of the 2015 Orwell Prize for Political Writing
In some places, it's easier to get a gun than a clean glass of water. In some places, you are allowed to carry concealed firearms into schools. In some places, there are more guns than people to shoot them. There are almost one billion guns across the globe today - more than ever before. There are 12 billion bullets produced every year - almost two bullets for every person on this earth. And as many as 500,000 people are killed by them ever year worldwide. The gun's impact is long-reaching and often hidden.
"A brilliantly researched journey, capturing the gun's strangely accepted place in human life and, far too often, death." - Jon Snow
More pub conversation than science book, Black Sheep casts a slant on a range of human experiences from life to death, sex to romance, from speed thrills to halting boredom and from drinking alcohol to headily excessive bad language. Reading this book will change your opinions about sex, addiction, bad language, fast driving, love, stress, boredom and death.
From the winner of the 2014 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize.
A detailed picture of the social and domestic life at Nos 12 & 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, in the early 19th century: how the buildings were heated, the servants' daily duties, what meals were cooked, wines purchased and teas drunk - even the fate of the family's pet dog.
Fox, as the celebrated composer Harry Fox-Talbot is known, wants to be left in peace. His beloved wife has died, he's unable to write a note of music, and no, he does not want to take up some blasted hobby. Then one day he discovers that his troublesome four-year-old grandson is a piano prodigy. The music returns and Fox is compelled to re-engage with life - and, ultimately, to confront an old family rift.
Charlotte is struggling. With motherhood, with the changes marriage and parenthood bring, with losing the time and the energy to paint. Her husband, Henry, wants things to be as they were and can't face the thought of another English winter. A brochure slipped through the letterbox slot brings him the answer: 'Australia brings out the best in you'.
"A striking new voice, calm and fresh." - Helen Garner
The writer David Plante has kept a diary of his life among the artistic elite for over half a century. This extracted memoir spans the 'swinging sixties' London to the 1980s: Stephen Spender, Germaine Greer, Philip Roth; the challenges of monogamy and the growing spectre of AIDS.
"An absorbing and zesty read, both high-minded and full of high gossip. In short, a rare and unexpected treat." - Melvyn Bragg
"David Plante is the ideal diarist: he has a fascination with the famous, a relish for anecdote and gossip, an ability to capture people in a few words, and the essential self-awareness. The treat of the year." - Spectator
"The first time I saw you, you were standing at the far end of the playing field. You were looking down at your brown straggly dog, but then you looked up, your mouth going slack as your eyes clocked her. Alice Taylor. I was no different. I used to catch myself gazing at the back of her head in class, at her silky fair hair swaying between her shoulder blades. If you'd glanced just once across the field you'd have seen me standing in the middle on my own, looking straight at you, and you'd have gone back through the trees to the path quick, tugging your dog after you. You'd have known you'd given yourself away, even if only to me. But you didn't. You only had eyes for Alice."
"Striking and highly enjoyable." - Sophie Hannah
From the crowded tenements of Edinburgh to the Female Factory nestling in the shadow of Mt Wellington, dozens of Scottish women convicts were exiled to Van Diemen's Land with their young children. This is an account of the lives of women at the bottom of society two hundred years ago.
The little red book for the 21st century. Can communism be rejigged as a viable exit-route from the morass of the market economy?
In 2084, three teenagers discover the secret to time travel. At first their jumps cover only a few seconds, but soon they master the technique and combat their fear of jumping into the unknown. It's dangerous. It's illegal. And it's utterly worth it for the full-body bliss of each return. As their ability to time jump grows into days and weeks, the group begins to push beyond their limits, with terrifying consequences. Could they travel as far as ten years, to escape the authorities? They are desperate enough to find out. But before they jump they must sure, because it only works in one direction. Once you trip forwards, there's no coming back.
Nabokov came to think of his time in America as the richest of his life, and it was productive too. Probably the experiences that affected him most deeply were his long journeys into the wilds of the West in search of butterflies (there's a metaphor for the writing process if ever there was one).
A growing friendship between a 57-year-old woman and the teenage girl she rescues from traffickers brings up deeper questions: who is the woman hiding from, what are the teenager's motives, how long can you live a lie?
"Full of the most dazzling observations which, as a writer, I wish that I'd had myself." - Allison Pearson
At the beginning of the modern age, Spaniards were caught between the excitement of change and a medieval world of chivalry and religious orthodoxy, they experienced a turbulent existential angst that fueled an exceptional Golden Age, a fluorescence of art, literature, poetry, and which inspired new ideas about International Law, merchant banking, and economic and social theory.
It is 1947, and the long-retired Sherlock Holmes lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse with his housekeeper and her young son. He tends to his bees, writes in his journal, and grapples with the diminishing powers of his mind. But in the twilight of his life, as people continue to look to him for answers, Holmes revisits a case that may provide him with answers of his own to questions he didn't even know he was asking - about life, about love, and about the limits of the mind's ability to know.
"Extremely touching." - Independent
>> It's not obvious in the text, but Holmes rather resembles Ian McKellen.
Although he comes from a long line of archaeologists, Edward has never discovered anything. Then one rainy night, he stumbles upon what could be his first great discovery. (Spoiler: if you've ever wanted a dodo, you'll like this book.)
"What kind of a girl steals the clothes from a dead man's back and runs off to join the army? A desperate one. That's who." At the end of the American Civil War, Charley - a young African-American slave from the deep south - is ostensibly freed. But then her adopted mother is raped and lynched at the hands of a mob and Charley is left alone. In a terrifyingly lawless land, where the colour of a person's skin can bring violent death, Charley disguises herself as a man and joins the army. Soon she's being sent to the prairies to fight a whole new war against the "savage Indians". Trapped in a world of injustice and inequality, it's only when Charley is posted to Apache territory that she begins to learn what it is to be truly free.
Winner of the 2015 Carnegie Medal.
Siblings Jonathan, Holly and Davy have been struggling to survive since the death of their mother, and are determined to avoid being taken into care. When the family's wealthy but eccentric Great-Aunt Irene has a stroke, they go to visit her. Unable to speak or write, she gives Holly some photographs that might lead them to an inheritance that could solve all their problems. But they're not the only ones after the treasure...
"A writer of enormous power and strength." - Library Review
The Kevinian cult has taken everything from seventeen-year-old Minnow: twelve years of her life, her family, and her ability to trust. And when Minnow rebelled, they took away her hands, too. Now the Kevinian Prophet has been murdered and the camp set aflame and it's clear Minnow knows something. But she's not talking. As she adjusts to a life behind bars in juvenile detention, Minnow struggles to make sense of all she has been taught to believe, particularly as she dwells on the events that led up to her incarceration. But when an FBI detective approaches her about making a deal, Minnow sees she can have the freedom she always dreamed of; if she is willing to part with the terrible secrets of her past.
Castlemaine, 1880. Verity is on holiday with Papa and her friends, but the fun soon comes to an end. A terrible crime has been committed. When Verity tries to investigate, her gift creates more mysteries than it solves. Why was a red glove left at the crime scene? Who is the ghostly woman following Verity? Is she connected to the kidnapping? Terrible secrets are being revealed. With her friends in danger, Verity needs all her courage and skill to solve the crime. But is that enough?
We take it for granted between the tap and the plughole, and barely give a thought to where it comes from or where it goes. As the planet's water resources become increasingly contested and insecure, we need to know more about the wider issues of water, both historically and as they press upon us.
After his editor is murdered in front of him, crime reporter Doug McGregor's world falls apart. As prime witness, he's not allowed to investigate the case, and he's left only with questions and a bloody memory seared in his mind. On top of that, Doug's 'friendship' with his police contact, DS Susie Drummond, is in a weird place right now. So he leaps at the chance to take some time out with his old friend on the Isle of Skye. But when another savage killing occurs, Doug realises that the murders may be linked, and that going to Skye was the best and worst move possible.
Runner-up for Dundee International Book Prize 2013. Shortlisted for Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award 2014.
"Cracking pace, great cast of characters and satisfyingly twisty plot." - James Oswald
Archie loves skipping. Skip Skip Skip. There is nothing better in the world. Jump Jump Jump. And sharing his passion with dog-chum Bella will surely be a lot of fun - what could possibly go wrong...?
>> Hmm.
This is a book about the climate: how it has changed in the past, how and why it is changing it now, and the need for humanity to act to avoid dangerous disruption in the future.
"2071 is better than good: it is necessary." - Guardian
(This particular green will henceforth be known on the colour charts as 'Climate Change Green'.)
Will the struggle simply to stay alive become humanity's future rather than its past?
>> "Finished, it's finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished."
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