You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
A brilliantly realized evocation of the thoughts and voices of Captain Scott and the four men with him, who suffered extraordinary hardships before finally dying during their 1912 attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole. 'Bainbridge's account of the horribly familiar story is both fresh and sure-footed. The power of her imagination, her clarity of expression and mastery of language are more striking than anything else I have read this year' Jane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph The Birthday Boys is one of Beryl Bainbridge's most acclaimed novels, telling the story of Scott's doomed expedition through the voices of five men on the voyage. As Scott, Petty Officer Taff Evans, ship's doctor Dr Edward Wilson, Lieutenant Henry Bowers and Captain Lawrence Oates step forward for their place in the narrative, the reader is gripped by the the characters themselves alongside the vividly evoked period.
Short-listed for the Booker Prize and named 'one of the greatest novels of all time' by The Observer, this riveting novel shows Beryl Bainbridge at her darkly comic best. Freda and Brenda spend their days working in an Italian-run wine-bottling factory. A work outing offers promise for Freda and terror from Brenda; passions run high on that chilly day of freedom, and life after the outing never returns to normal. Inspired by author Beryl Bainbridge's own experiences working at a London wine-factory in the 1970s, The Bottle Factory Outing examines issues of friendship and consent, making the novel timelier than ever. Readers will be dazzled by this offbeat, haunting yet hilarious Guardian fiction prize-winning novel. 'An outrageously funny and horrifying story' Graham Greene (Observer)
Beryl Bainbridge is best known as a prolific writer of novels that ranged from black comedies of contemporary life, often autobiographical in inspiration, to idiosyncratic reimaginings of historical events and characters. This book offers a highly personal, chronological account of Beryl's life and work both her writing and her painting.
'A stellar literary event . . . written with panache and an enviable economy . . . the biggest risk of her literary life' Margaret Atwood According to Queeney is a masterly evocation of the last years of Dr Johnson, arguably Britain's greatest Man of Letters. The time is the 1770s and 1780s and Johnson, having completed his life's major work (he compiled the first ever Dictionary of the English Language) is running an increasingly chaotic life. Torn between his strict morality and his undeclared passion for Mrs Thrale, the wife of an old friend, According to Queeney reveals one of Britain's most wonderful characters in all his wit and glory. Above all, though, this is a story of love and friendship and brilliantly narrated by Queeney, Mrs Thrale's daughter, looking back over her life.
Quiet and reliable, Douglas Ashburner has never been much of a womaniser. So when he begins an extra-marital affair with Nina, a bossy, temperamental artist with a penchant for risky sex, he finds adultery a terrible strain. He tells his wife that he needs a rest, so she happily packs him off for a fishing holiday in the Highlands. Only, unknown to her, Douglas is actually flying off to Moscow with Nina, as a guest of the Soviet Artists' Union. It is then that things begin to get very complicated indeed...
For the four fraught, mysterious days of her doomed maiden voyage in 1912, the Titanic sails towards New York, glittering with luxury, freighted with millionaires and hopefuls. In her labyrinthine passageways are played out the last, secret hours of a small group of passengers, their fate sealed in prose of startling, sublime beauty, as Beryl Bainbridge's haunting masterpiece moves inexorably to its known and terrible end.
'This is one of Bainbridge's best books. The close observation and hilarity are underlain by a sense of tragedy as deep as any in fiction' The Times SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE IN 1990 It is 1950 and the Liverpool repertory theatre company is rehearsing its Christmas production of Peter Pan, a story of childhood innocence and loss. Stella has been taken on as assistant stage manager and quickly becomes obsessed with Meredith, the dissolute director. But it is only when the celebrated O'Hara arrives to take the lead, that a different drama unfolds. In it, he and Stella are bound together in a past that neither dares to interpret.
'The book I wish I'd written . . . Witty, chilling, every word in place' Hilary Mantel, Guardian Wartime Liverpool is a place of ration books and jobs in munitions factories. Rita, living with her two aunts Nellie and Margo, is emotionally naïve and withdrawn. When she meets Ira, a GI, at a neighbour's party she falls in love as much with the idea of life as a GI bride as with the man himself. But Nellie and Margo are not so blind...
In a remote cottage in Wales two urban couples are spending their holiday with the idealistic owner and his protege. The beginning is idyllic but catastrophe lurks behind every tree.
The tragicomic tale of a dysfunctional middle-class family in postwar England from the award-winning author of Injury Time. Though the Second World War has ended, times are anything but peaceful for seventeen-year-old Alan. His father, an entrepreneur who was once able to provide the family with a comfortable life, is now struggling to put food on the table. Meanwhile, Alan’s mother dresses as if money is plentiful and spends all her time avoiding her husband, indulging in the escapism of romance novels, and engaging in real-world love affairs. And as if a household struck by poverty and marital trouble isn’t enough, Alan’s bohemian sister, Madge, has been sneaking off into the sand du...