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Literary ombudsman John Crace never met an important book he didn't like to deconstruct. From Salman Rushdie to John Grisham, Crace retells the big books in just 500 bitingly satirical words, pointing his pen at the clunky plots, stylistic tics and pretensions of Big Ideas, as he turns publishers' golden dream books into dross.
A wise, affecting novel from the beloved, award-winning author of Dickens and Prince, High Fidelity, and About A Boy. New York Times-bestselling author Nick Hornby mines the hearts and psyches of four lost souls who connect just when they've reached the end of the line. A Long Way Down is now a major motion picture from Magnolia Pictures starring Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, and Imogen Poots. Meet Martin, JJ, Jess, and Maureen. Four people who come together on New Year's Eve: a former TV talk show host, a musician, a teenage girl, and a mother. Three are British, one is American. They encounter one another on the roof of Topper's House, a London destination famous as the last stop for those ready to end their lives. In four distinct and riveting first-person voices, Nick Hornby tells a story of four individuals confronting the limits of choice, circumstance, and their own mortality. This is a tale of connections made and missed, punishing regrets, and the grace of second chances. Intense, hilarious, provocative, and moving, A Long Way Down is a novel about suicide that is, surprisingly, full of life.
'I don't paint so much anymore,' I say, looking to my feet. 'Oh. Well, I got a boy who needs to do some art. You can help him out,' Aunty Pam says, like I have no say in the matter, like she didn't hear what I just said about not painting so much anymore. 'Jackson, this is Tomas. He's living with me for a little while.' It's a hot summer, and life's going all right for Jackson and his family on the Mish. It's almost Christmas, school's out, and he's hanging with his mates, teasing the visiting tourists, avoiding the racist boys in town. Just like every year, Jackson's Aunty and annoying little cousins visit from the city - but this time a mysterious boy with a troubled past comes with them.....
'This book is a not-so-small joy in itself.' NIGELLA LAWSON 'Parkinson has the gift of making you look with new eyes at everyday things. The perfect daily diversion.' JOJO MOYES 'Always funny and frank and full of insight, I absolutely love Parkinson's writing.' DAVID NICHOLLS 'I loved this book . . . Parkinson's writing transports you to unexpected places of joy and comfort . . . these pages contain happiness.' MARINA HYDE 'The twenty-first century feels a lot more bearable in Parkinson's company.' CHARLOTTE MENDELSON Drawn from the successful Guardian column, these everyday exultations and inspirations will get you through dismal days. Hannah Jane Parkinson is a specialist in savouring the...
'The Alexander Trilogy contains some of Renault's finest writing. Lyrical, wise, compelling: the novels are a wonderful imaginative feat' SARAH WATERS In the final novel of her stunning trilogy, Mary Renault vividly imagines the life of Alexander the Great, the charismatic leader whose drive and ambition created a legend. Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind an empire that stretched from Greece and Egypt to India. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C. his only direct heirs were two unborn sons and a simpleton half-brother. Every long-simmering faction exploded into the vacuum of power. Wives, distant relatives and generals all vied for the loyalty of the increasi...
Philip Swallow, Morris Zapp, Persse McGarrigle and the lovely Angelica are the jet-propelled academics who are on the move, in the air and on the make in David Lodge's satirical Small World. It is a world of glamorous travel and high excitement, where stuffy lecture rooms are swapped for lush corners of the globe, and romance is in the air...
The first in Rachel Cusk's landmark trilogy, shortlisted for the Folio Prize and the Goldsmith Prize and longlisted for the IMPAC Prize. 'A work of stunning beauty, deep insight and great originality.' Monica Ali, New York Times 'One of the most daringly original and entertaining pieces of fiction I've ever read.' Observer 'A perfect synthesis of form and content.' Deborah Levy Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing over an oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her student in storytelling exercises. She meets other writers for dinner. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her seatmate from the place. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves, their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face great a great loss.
Submarine is the wickedly funny first novel by Joe Dunthorne NOW AN ACCLAIMED FILM BY RICHARD AYOADE Meet Oliver Tate, fifteen years old. Convinced that his father is depressed ('Depression comes in bouts. Like boxing. Dad is in the blue corner') and his mother is having an affair with her capoeira teacher, ('a hippy-looking twonk'), he embarks on a hilariously misguided campaign to bring the family back together. Meanwhile, he is also trying to lose his virginity - before he turns sixteeen - to his pyromaniac girlfriend Jordana. Will Oliver succeed in either aim? Submerge yourself in Submarine and find out . . . 'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud enjoyable. The sharpest, funniest, rudest accou...
Michael first met the Hanburys of Egypt Hill when he was a young student. He was intrigued and delighted by their bohemian lifestyle and bravado. Twelve years later, married with a young son, Michael is invited back to the house and jumps at the chance of escaping his increasingly turbulent domestic situation. But his illusions about the family are shattered as the rotten core of the Hanbury myth is gradually revealed. Intimate in its insight, epic in its emotional scope, In the Fold is a brilliant, clever, often painful story of how we can become undone by our yearning to belong.
Since leaving his job to look after Alexa, his eight year old daughter, Thomas Bradshaw has found the structure of his daily piano practice and the study of musical form brings a nourishment to these difficult middle years. His pursuit of a more artistic way of life shocks and irritates his parents and his in-laws. Why has he swapped roles with Tonie Swann, his intense, intellectual wife who has accepted a demanding full-time University job? How can this be good for Alexa and for the family as a whole? Tonie tunes herself out of domestic life, into the harder, headier world of work where long-since forgotten memories of herself are awakened. She soon finds herself outside their tight family ...