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The Cleaner of Chartres
by Salley Vickers'A lovely book . . . wise at heart and filled with colourful characters' Joanne Harris, author of ChocolatA beautifully beguiling new novel from Salley Vickers, author of the bestselling Miss Garnet's Angel and winner of the 2007 IMPAC Dublin award.There is something special about the ancient cathedral in Chartres, with its mismatched spires and strange labyrinth. And there is something special too about Agnès Morel, the mysterious woman who is to be found cleaning it each morning.No one quite knows where she came from - not the diffident Abbé Paul, who discovered her one morning twenty years ago, sleeping in the north porch; nor lonely Professor Jones, who pays her to tidy his chaotic house; nor Philippe Nevers, whose baby nephew she cares for. And yet everyone she encounters would surely agree that she has touched their lives in subtly transformative ways.But with a chance meeting in the cathedral one day, the spectre of Agnès' past returns, provoking malicious speculation from the local gossips. As the rumours grow uglier daily, Agnès is forced to confront her history and the mystery her origins finally unfolds.The Cleaner of Chartres is a compelling story of darkness and light; of traumatic loss and second chances. Told with a beguiling charm and wit, infused throughout with painful emotional truths, it speaks of the transformative power of love and mercy.'Salley Vickers is a novelist whose imaginative journey always promises magic and mystery. The Cleaner of Chartres shows her on top form in a rich weave of loss and redemption spiked with Ms Vickers' irrepressible wit' Robert McCrum, Observer'With its subtle combination of explorations of faith and love, The Cleaner of Chartres is something of a return to the terrain of Vickers's first novel, Miss Garnet's Angel. Certainly, it's another gem' Independent'Salley Vickers sees with a clear eye and writes with a light hand and she knows how the world works. She's a presence worth cherishing' Philip Pullman'Reveals itself as a surprising exploration of the mysteries of imagination and faith' Joanna Trollope, Book of the Year, Daily Telegraph'Rich, complex and haunting' Sunday Times'Subtle and utterly joyous...a contemporary moral and psychological drama every bit as absorbing as Miss Garnet's Angel' Sunday Times'A magical and at times sinister story about love, loss, secrets and forgiveness...with Chocolat-type charm' Scotland on Sunday'The Cleaner of Chartres is a return to form' Sunday Express 'Combining grace with gravity and wisdom with wit, this latest novel by Salley Vickers simply radiates soul' Red'If you're looking for a book to take you by surprise, Salley Vickers' latest is the perfect choice' PsychologiesSalley Vickers is the author of the word-of-mouth bestseller Miss Garnet's Angel and several other bestselling novels including Mr Golightly's Holiday, The Other Side of You and Dancing Backwards as well as a collection of short stories Aphrodite's Hat. She has worked as a cleaner, a dancer, a university teacher of literature and a psychoanalyst. She is currently a RLF fellow at Newnham College Cambridge and she divides her time between Cambridge and London.
Mad About You: Emma and James, novel 4 (The Baby Trail series)
by Sinéad Moriarty'A perfect mix of intrigue, emotion and humour, this is a really gripping and enjoyable read****' Closer'The inevitable comparisons with Marian Keyes are justified and well deserved - Moriarty's characters are likeable, well developed and funny****' HeatSinéad Moriarty's riveting novel, Mad About You, makes you stop and think about the importance of trust in relationships - how fragile it can be, how easily damaged, how hard to repair. Sinéad combines the storytelling genius of Jodi Picoult, and the compassion and humour of Marian Keyes, in a gripping story of contemporary marriage. Emma and James Hamilton have weathered lots of storms in their ten-year marriage. From the heartbreak of infertility, to the craziness of then becoming parents to two babies in one year, to coping with James losing his job, somehow they have always worked as a team.However, the pressure of moving for James's new job puts them under stress like never before. So when James starts getting texts from a stranger - texts that show startling insights into their lives - Emma is not sure what to think. She is far from home, isolated and before long finds herself questioning everything about their relationship.Somehow she has to get a grip, but how can she do that when a stranger seems set on driving Emma out of her home and her marriage?'One of the brightest voices in modern women's fiction' BellaSinéad Moriarty lives with her family in Dublin. Her previous titles are: The Baby Trail; A Perfect Match; From Here to Maternity; In My Sister's Shoes; Keeping It In the Family (also titled Whose Life is it Anyway?); Pieces of My Heart , Me and My Sisters and This Child of Mine.
NW
by Zadie SmithComing soon as a BBC2 drama adaptation -- a masterful novel about London life from the bestselling, prize-winning Zadie SmithZadie Smith's brilliant tragicomic NW follows four Londoners - Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan - after they've left their childhood council estate, grown up and moved on to different lives. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their city is brutal, beautiful and complicated. Yet after a chance encounter they each find that the choices they've made, the people they once were and are now, can suddenly, rapidly unravel.A portrait of modern urban life, NW is funny, sad and urgent - as brimming with vitality as the city itself.
The Victoria System
by Eric Reinhardt Sam TaylorThe Victoria System is Eric Reinhardt's acclaimed and controversial French bestseller.LONGLISTED FOR THE IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD.NOMINATED FOR THE PRIX GONCOURT, THE PRIX RENAUDOT AND THE GRAND PRIX DU ROMAN DE L'ACADEMIE FRANCAISEDavid Kolski never sleeps with the same woman twice - apart from his wife.Then he meets Victoria. Head of people at a multinational company, by day she is a ruthless executive in a lightning-paced, high-pressured whirlwind of power and productivity. By night she likes good wine, luxurious hotel rooms, and abandoning herself to her sexual fantasies.David is soon addicted. Under crushing pressure at work to oversee the construction of a huge Paris tower-block in near-impossible circumstances, he takes new vigour and inspiration from his hard-headed capitalist lover. He works harder, faster and better, and then escapes to indulge in the most intense sexual passion he's ever experienced. But when Victoria offers to use her position to help him in his career, a dark shadow falls over their affair. Is she really capable of helping anyone other than herself, or is she hiding something from him? And who are the two men in the Audi he keeps seeing, always a few cars behind him?Complex, compelling and ambitiously structured, The Victoria System is a daringly sensual story of an obsession. Part erotica; part thriller; part novel of ideas, like a series of slightly angled mirrors held up to our globalised, capitalist society, the twists and turns of its narrative create a dazzling interplay of reflections and compel us to question the assumptions and forces of our modern world.'Dark, twisted and devastating. . . A big novel of amorous adventures in the era of the blackberry. Eric Reinhardt is the new Alexandre Dumas' Nouvel Observateur'Erotic, raw, violent and vertiginous . . . We often accuse French writers of navel-gazing and ignoring the world around them, but Eric Reinhardt is one of those who gives the lie to this cliché' Emmanuel Carrère, author of Limonov'Part classic, part tragedy, part thriller: Eric Reinhardt merges genres and invokes elusive echoes in this highly contemporary novel of a rare depth' Libération'The Victoria System is a fantastic and sensual modern thriller, like nothing I've ever read' Christian Louboutin'A powerful novel about the philosophical and moral consequences of ultra-liberalism, and a subtle reflection on the urges of the powerful' MarianneÉric Reinhardt is one of the rising stars of French literature. He is the author of five novels and also a freelance publisher of art books. He lives and works in Paris. The Victoria System was first published in French in 2011 and was nominated for the Prix Goncourt, the Prix Renaudot and the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie Française. It is Éric Reinhardt's first novel to be translated into English.Sam Taylor is the English-language translator of HHhH, by Laurent Binet, and the author of the novels The Island at the End of the World, The Amnesiac and The Republic of Trees. He lives in France and the United States.
The Child's Child: A Novel
by Barbara VineThe Child's Child is the new crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine, pen-name for the late bestselling author Ruth Rendell What sort of betrayal would drive a brother and sister apart? When Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house, they surprise few people by deciding to move in together. But they've always got on well and the London house is large enough to split down the middle.There's just one thing they've not taken into account though. What if one of them wants to bring a lover to the house? When Andrew's partner James moves in, and immediately picks a fight about the treatment of gay men, the balance is altered - with almost fatal consequences.Barbara Vine's is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell, and The Child's Child is the first book she has published under that name since The Birthday Present in 2008. It's an intriguing examination of betrayal in families, and of those two once-unmentionable subjects, illegitimacy and homosexuality. A taut, thrilling read, it will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin.'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin'She deploys her peerless skills in blending the mundane, commonplace aspects of life with the murky impulses of desire and greed.Ruth rendall has published fourteen novels under the Vine name, two of which, Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Also available in Penguin by Barbara Vine: The Minotaur, The Blood Doctor, Grasshopper, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Brimstone Wedding, No Night is Too Long, Asta's Book, King Solomon's Carpet, Gallowglass, The House of Stairs, A Dark-Adapted Eye.
The Collected Stories: World's End; Sinning with Annie; Jungle Bells; the Consul's File; the London Embassy;
by Paul Theroux'No one ever sees me write. One of the triumphs of fiction is that it is created in the dark. It leaves my house in a plain wrapper, with no bloodstains. Unlike me, my stories are whole and indestructible.' In The Collected Stories, Paul Theroux's canvas stretches from London to South-East Asia, from Boston to Paris, from Africa to Eastern Europe and from Moscow to the tropics in this vibrant collection. Full of suspense and the unexpected, these stories by the acclaimed author of The Old Patagonian Express and Dark Star Safari delve into the worlds of a vast spectrum of characters and display throughout a flair that shows Theroux to be a master of the form.Praise for Paul Theroux:'A shimmering, kaleidoscopic and very entertaining collection' Sunday Telegraph'You close the book feeling you have read a single big narrative rather than a series of short ones . . . As a short-story writer, he makes a terrific novelist' Sunday Times'Theroux willingly explores the blighted territory of a failing marriage; the tangled jungle of a mad poet's secret anti-Semitism; the belated sexual guilt of a Hindu . . . A book of many and varied pleasures; to read it is to feel alert, curious, adventurous' Observer'Paul Theroux's writing is impeccable and thoughtfully entertaining . . . his artistry is individual, serene, yet also grainy with fierce truths' The Times'One needs energy to keep up with the extraordinary productive restlessness of Paul Theroux . . . [He is] the most gifted, most prodigal writer of his generation' Jonathan RabanPaul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His subsequent novels include The Family Arsenal, Picture Palace, The Mosquito Coast, O-Zone, Millroy the Magician, My Secret History, My Other Life, and, most recently, A Dead Hand. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. He divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian Islands.
Mr Loverman: from the Booker prize-winning author
by Bernardine EvaristoBernardine Evaristo's Mr Loverman: 'Brokeback Mountain with ackee and saltfish and old people' Dawn FrenchBarrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather - but he is also secretly homosexual, lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris.His deeply religious and disappointed wife, Carmel, thinks he sleeps with other women. When their marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?Mr Loverman is a ground-breaking exploration of Britain's older Caribbean community, which explodes cultural myths and fallacies and shows the extent of what can happen when people fear the consequences of being true to themselves.Praise for Bernardine Evaristo: 'One of Britain's most innovative authors . . . Bernardine Evaristo always dares to be different' New Nation'Evaristo remains an undeniably bold and energetic writer, whose world view is anything but one-dimensional' Sunday Times'Audacious genre-bending, in-yer-face wit and masterly retellings of underwritten corners of history are the hallmarks of Evaristo's work' New Statesman Bernardine Evaristo is the author of three critically acclaimed 'verse novels' - Lara, The Emperor's Babe (which won the Arts Council Award in 2000) and Soul Tourists. Mr Loverman is her second prose novel, after 2008's Blonde Roots. Evaristo is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts, and was awarded an MBE in 2009. She lives in London.
Carry the One (Bride Series)
by Carol Anshaw'Here's passion and addiction, guilt and damage, all the beautiful mess of family life. Carry the Onewill lift readers off their feet and bear them along on its eloquent tide' Emma Donoghue In the early hours of the morning, following a wedding reception, a car filled with stoned, drunk and sleepy guests accidentally hits and kills a girl on a dark country road. For the next twenty-five years, the lives of those involved are subtly shaped by this tragic moment.Through friendships and love affairs, marriage and divorce, parenthood, addiction, and the modest calamities and triumphs of ordinary days, Carry the One shows how one life affects another and how those who thrive and those who self-destruct are closer to each other than we'd expect.'Her deftly episodic novel of love, time and off-beat family life is warm, generous and wise. An enormously engaging novel' Daily Mail'Carry The Oneis a finely crafted novel, full of phrases you want to cut out and keep, and characters you think you know. It is delicate in its touch, yet huge in its reach' Observer'Superb . . . Anshaw sees her characters with startling clarity and no small helping of warmth and humour . . . Anshaw's writing [is] subtle, bemused, kind and smart, she nails moment after moment . . .Carry The Oneis a marvellous novel, grown-up, smart and emotionally intelligent about people who, like the rest of us, try but mostly fail to keep their ducks in a row' Patrick Ness, Guardian'A tender tale of what happens to ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances' Marie Claire'A funny, vivid and pingingly true story about longing and the pain of love. Anshaw conveys beefy emotions and life-changing events with the most gossamer of touches' Rachel Johnson, Vogue'If you love Jonathan Franzen, you'll love this compelling book' Entertainment Weekly
Mount Merrion
by Justin QuinnJustin Quinn's Mount Merrion: a gripping family story spanning half a century, in the mould of Jonathan Franzen and John Lanchester.Declan and Sinead Boyle are pillars of society - born into prosperous families, educated at Dublin's finest schools, dwellers in a fine house in a leafy suburb. So why are they in so much trouble?Declan wants to serve his country - but he also wants to serve his own ambition. Sinead wonders if she is allowed, in the Ireland of the sixties and seventies, to have ambitions at all. Their son, Owen, seems intent on squandering the advantages of a prosperous upbringing and an expensive education. Their daughter Issie, gifted and attractive, has all the options in the world - and keeps choosing the wrong one.Mount Merrion, the dazzling debut novel by Justin Quinn, tells the story of the Boyles from Declan and Sinead's first meeting, in the late fifties, through decades of success, failure and tragedy. Set against the brilliantly realized backdrop of a changing Ireland, it is a page-turning drama, a biting satire and a lovingly detailed portrait of a marriage and a family.'Imaginative and compassionate ... Mount Merrion is about how a decent man, anxious to play by the rules - even if they're someone else's rules - can make the sort of choices that may end up ruining him' Mail on Sunday (four stars)'Taking the form of a family saga, [Quinn's] assured debut plays out over half a century - a state-of-the-nation novel as told through the fast-changing fortunes of middle-class married life ... his novel is filled with perfectly judged moments' Independent 'Mesmerising ... The story is a page-turner, and Quinn's prose consistently light and controlled' Irish Independent'A book that people will find hard to put down ... a gripping story' Sunday Business Post'A great story ... both beautifully written and a well-paced page-turner' Irish Times'Justin Quinn's debut novel is poignant - but it is also fiercely and poetically written, a beautifully observed trajectory of the rise and fall of a society and its assumptions, through the medium of a family story ... This is one of the best books of the year' Evening Herald'Exquisite' Irish Examiner'Absorbing ... A closely and sympathetically observed portrait of family life and Ireland's changing face, Quinn's wide-ranging tale culminates in a conclusion of considerable pathos' Daily Mail'An impressively accomplished trip through forty-odd years of Ireland's recent history ... quite brilliant' RTÉ Guide 'A bona fide thumping good read' Image'An ambitious take on both personal dramas and the altering political landscape of Europe' Sunday Telegraph'An epic yet intimate account of one family caught in the maelstrom of recent history' Metro Herald'Accomplished ... as a condition-of-Ireland novel it makes for salutary reading' TLS'Mount Merrion is epic and intimate, deliciously observed and wholly enjoyable. Justin Quinn is a shining talent.' Claire Kilroy
One Way and Another: New and Selected Essays
by Adam PhillipsA selection of the most popular and relevant essays from Adam Phillips, the man New Yorker called 'Britain's foremost psychoanalytic writer''Phillips's prose is poetic in the best sense: it is muscular, resonant, and thrums with a dark music that is all its own' John BanvilleIn the twenty essays gathered here, ranging across his entire oeuvre, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips offers a vivid introduction to his discipline as well as his own unique thinking. Investigating subjects as diverse as desire, family, happiness, tickling, forgetting and even boredom, Phillips proves himself to be not only one of our most engaging writers but also a fascinating and provocative guide to our obsessions as human beings.
The River
by Tricia WastvedtThe Orange Prize long listed debut novel by the author of The German BoyIn 1958, in a small Devon village, on an idyllic summer afternoon, two children are drowned. Their parents, Isabel and Robert, are overcome with grief but, as time passes, their tragedy becomes part of the everyday fabric of village life. One summer's day, thirty years later, Anna arrives. She comes to the village on a whim, hoping to start afresh - and, without telling anyone she is pregnant, goes to live with Isabel. For a time the women find solace in each other's company, but the baby's arrival causes powerful feelings of loss and heartbreak to surface, and Anna must question whether Isabel's feelings towards her child are entirely benign. . . 'Wastvedt, like Alice Sebold in The Lovely Bones, casts a wide net that goes beyond the immediate family. Captivating and evocative' Toronto Globe and Mail'Accomplished, dramatic, with a finale that Du Maurier herself would have been proud of' Daily Mail'Moving, impressive, strongly atmospheric. A remarkable achievement' Penelope LivelyBorn in 1954, Patricia Wastvedt grew up in Blackheath, south London, and spent her summers in Kent. She has a degree in Creative Arts and an MA in Creative Writing, and her first novel, The River, written in her late forties, was long-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, The German Boy, is available in Penguin. She teaches at Bath Spa University, and is also a manuscript editor. She lives and writes in a cottage in Somerset.
The Violet Hour: A Novel
by Katherine HillKatherine Hill's Violet Hour is blazing debut about a woman who just can't stop herself from destroying what she loves most.For a moment that afternoon, it was only woman and water, the Bay in all its sickening glory squaring itself for a fight.Life hasn't always been perfect, but for Abe and Cassandra Green, an afternoon on the San Francisco Bay might be as good as it gets. He's a doctor piloting his new sailing boat. She's a sculptor finally getting a bit of recognition. Their beautiful daughter Elizabeth is off to Harvard at the end of the summer. But then there is a terrible row. Cassandra has been unfaithful. In a fit of insanity, Abe throws himself off the boat. A love story that begins with the end of a marriage, The Violet Hour follows a 21st century American family through past and present, from a lavish New York wedding to the family funeral home in suburban Washington, from a drunken PTA party to a scene of unexpected public violence. In this deeply resonant novel intimacy is fragile and the search for gratification breeds destruction. Here is a family ripped apart by desire. And here is a family possibly reborn.Katherine Hill was born in Washington, D.C., in 1982. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many publications including n+1, The Believer, Bookforum, Colorado Review and the San Francisco Chronicle. This is her first novel.
The Sea Change
by Joanna RossiterA Richard and Judy Summer 2013 Book Club pick.The Sea Change by Joanna Rossiter is a haunting and moving novel about a mother and a daughter, caught between a tsunami and a war.Yesterday was Alice's wedding day. She is thousands of miles away from the home she is so desperate to leave, on the southernmost tip of India, when she wakes in the morning to see a wave on the horizon, taller than the height of her guest house on Kanyakumari beach. Her husband is nowhere to be seen.On the other side of the world, unhappily estranged from her daughter, is Alice's mother, Violet. Forced to leave the idyllic Wiltshire village, Imber, in which she grew up after it was requisitioned by the army during World War Two, Violet is haunted by the shadow of the man she loved and the wilderness of a home that lies in ruins.Amid the debris of the wave, Alice recollects the events of the hippie trail that led to her hasty marriage as she struggles to piece together the fate of the husband she barely knows. Meanwhile, Violet must return to Imber in order to let go of the life that is no longer hers - and begin the search for her daughter.Joanna Rossiter grew up in Dorset and studied English at Cambridge University before working as a researcher in the House of Commons and as a copy writer. In 2011 she completed an MA in Writing at Warwick University. The Sea Change is her first novel. She lives and writes in London.
The History of Love (Penguin Essentials Ser.)
by Nicole KraussLeo Gursky is a man who fell in love at the age of ten and has been in love ever since. These days he is just about surviving life in America, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbour know he's still alive, drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago in the Polish village where he was born Leo fell in love with a young girl called Alma and wrote a book in honour of his love. These days he assumes that the book, and his dreams, are irretrievably lost, until one day they return to him in the form of a brown envelope. Meanwhile, a young girl, hoping to find a cure for her mother's loneliness, stumbles across a book that changed her mother's life and she goes in search of the author. Soon these and other worlds collide in The History of Love, a captivating story of the power of love, of loneliness and of survival.
English Passengers: A Novel
by Matthew Kneale'A big, ambitious novel with a rich historical sweep and a host of narrative voices. Its subject is a vicar's ludicrous expedition in 1857 to the Garden of Eden in Tasmania, [as] meanwhile, in Tasmania itself, the British settlers are alternately trying to civilise and eliminate the Aboriginal population ... The sort of novel that few contemporary writers have either the imagination or the stamina to sustain' - Daily Telegraph
The Man in the High Castle (Essential. Penguin Ser. #Vol. 3)
by Philip K. Dick Eric BrownNOW A MAJOR TV SERIES 'Truth, she thought. As terrible as death. But harder to find.'America, fifteen years after the end of the Second World War. The winning Axis powers have divided their spoils: the Nazis control New York, while California is ruled by the Japanese. But between these two states - locked in a cold war - lies a neutal buffer zone in which legendary author Hawthorne Abendsen is rumoured to live. Abendsen lives in fear of his life for he has written a book in which World War Two was won by the Allies. . .
A Hologram for the King
by Dave EggersNew from Dave Eggers, National Book Award finalist A Hologram for the KingIn a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter's college tuition, and finally do something great. In A Hologram for the King, Dave Eggers takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the global economy's gale-force winds. This taut, richly layered, and elegiac novel is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment - and a moving story of how we got here.'A master of the surprising metaphor, Eggers's great skill is in tracking the exuberant chaos of thought, with all its sudden poignancies and unexpected joys' Daily Telegraph'Among the most influential writers in the English language' GQ 'Eggers can write like an angel' Tablet
Winter Games
by Rachel JohnsonWinter Games is a dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal: perfect reading for fans of The Bolter by Frances Osborne, and the writing of the Mitfords.Munich, 1936. She doesn't know it, but eighteen-year old Daphne Linden has a seat in the front row of history. Along with her best friend, Betsy Barton-Hill, and a whole bevy of other young English upper-class girls, Daphne is in Bavaria to improve her German, to go to the Opera, to be 'finished'. It may be the Third Reich, but another war is unthinkable, and the girls are having the time of their lives. Aren't they? London, 2006. Seventy years later and Daphne's granddaughter, Francie Fitzsimon has all the boxes ticked: large flat, successful husband, cushy job writing up holistic spas . . . The hardest decision she has to make is where to go for brunch - until, that is, events conspire to send her on a quest to discover what really happened to her grandmother in Germany, all those years ago.'A rip-roaring read' Evening Standard'There's never a dreary moment in this blast of a book . . . Johnson's descriptions are irresistibly exuberant . . . As addictively, fizzily invigorating as the Alpine air itself' Daily Mail'Johnson delivers a genuine sense of time and place . . . there isn't a dull sentence in this sure-footed novel' Jenny Colgan, Telegraph'An excellent romp. Full of 'tally-ho' Mitfordian charm . . . a witty, fast read' Red'Excellent on period detail, the blundering innocent abroad and young heartbreak' Sunday Times'The Jane Austen of W11' ScotsmanRachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.
The Herbalist
by Niamh Boyce'The most entertaining yet substantial historical novel since Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea' Irish TimesWhen a neglected teenager - Emily - becomes infatuated by a mysterious medicine man who turns up in the local market square she finds herself competing for his attention with the other women of her town. But naïve as she seems, Emily is the first to discover the stranger's dark side, and when she does she holds his fate - and the fate of the women of her community - in her hands ...The Herbalist is the electrifying first novel from Hennessy XO New Irish Writing Award winner, Niamh Boyce. It is a deeply moving and viscerally powerful novel about the lives of women in 1930s Ireland - an unforgettable story of love, shame, hypocrisy and courage.'Niamh Boyce's compelling female characters push against the rigid social parameters of 1930s Ireland, yearning for the light of the outside world, which comes in the shape of a stranger trading in herbs, cures, complications and danger' Dermot Bolger'An elegant morality tale about the inescapable strictures of women's lives ... Her publisher describes her as "a dazzling new voice". I cannot disagree' Sunday Times'A vividly imagined tale of love, lust and longing ... a compelling read with a cathartic ending that deserves a wide readership. It remains authentic and moving to the end' Sunday Business Post'Boyce's subject matter may be dark, and she treats it with the seriousness it deserves, but she writes with a lightness of touch not often seen in the genre ... just as the readers of The Herbalist share the women's fear as we read, we share their wonder and excitement as well ... hugely impressive and wonderfully assured'Irish Times'There's a lot going on that is slowly revealed and the writing is beautiful ... a serious new literary talent' TV3'Comparisons to Edna O'Brien and Pat McCabe are more than justified. That said, Boyce has a unique voice and sensibility, one that's entirely her own' Image Magazine'A powerful plot full of betrayal, morality and love ... Not only is this a book that will keep you captivated, it will remain with you long after you've read the last words and closed the cover' Country Living'She has a real lightness of touch and it's a wonderfully told story' Marian Finucane, RTE'A riveting story that electrifies and dazzles' Writing.ie
Gordon: A Novel (Vintage International Series)
by Edith TempletonThe original Fifty Shades of Grey, Edith Templeton's novel Gordon has been banned, pirated and published under various names for almost fifty yearsPost-war London. Louisa, a smartly dressed young woman in the midst of a divorce, meets a charismatic man in a pub, and within an hour has been sexually conquered by him on a garden bench. Thus begins her baffling but magnetic love affair with Richard Gordon.Gordon, a psychiatrist, keeps Louisa in his thrall with his almost omniscient ability to see through her, and she is equally gripped by the unexpected pleasure of complete submission. Subjecting herself to repeated humiliations at his hands, but quite unable and unwilling to free herself from his control, Louisa and Gordon sink further and further into the depths - both psychologically and sexually.An extraordinary novel of psycho-sexual entanglement that was banned for indecency in England in 1966, in Gordon, Edith Templeton captures one of the most unusual and disturbing love stories ever written.'Templeton's characters are not passive or self-doubting. Their pleasure in sexual submission is a mark of their toughness: they can take what their men give them' The New York Times'Sexual perversion, masochistic dependency, obsession and suicide' Telegraph'An unsettling tale of sexual obsession' The New Yorker'It is unlikely that any young woman will write a book as good, as honest, as provocative as Gordon' Telegraph'Superbly written and unsettling' Beryl BainbridgeEdith Templeton was born in Prague in 1916 and spent much of her childhood in a castle in the Bohemian countryside. Her short stories began to appear in The New Yorker in the 1950s and caused a major stir because of their sexual explicitness (these stories are available in one volume entitled The Darts of Cupid as a Penguin ebook). Gordon first appeared in 1966 under the pseudonym Louise Walbrook and was subsequently banned in England and Germany; it was then pirated around the world, appearing under various titles. In 2001, Edith Templeton agreed to publish the novel, with its original title, under her own name. She died in 2006.
The Darts of Cupid: And Other Stories (Vintage International Series)
by Edith TempletonThe highly-acclaimed short story collection by the author of Gordon, the erotic novel banned for indecency in 1966In The Darts of Cupid, Edith Templeton gives a sweeping and intimate exposé of her century and the lives of the women who lived in it. The unforgettable title story was celebrated upon its original publication in The New Yorker for its explicit portrayal of the relationship between a young British woman and her American superior in a provincial war office during World War II - a love affair that lasted only two nights but changed the narrator's life forever, and is still haunting today. Other stories take us from the tumbledown glamour of a Bohemian castle between the wars to an apartment on the coast of Italy in the 1990s, where a rich widow's decision to sell her husband's prized silver becomes a bewitching tale of longing. Whatever the period, Templeton addresses the truth about female passion with a forthright gaze that is rare for any age.'[Templeton's stories] make the flesh tingle' Observer'Templeton's characters are not passive or self-doubting. Their pleasure in sexual submission is a mark of their toughness: they can take what their men give them' The New York Times'Dark, compelling and invigoratingly unsettling' Sunday TimesEdith Templeton was born in Prague in 1916 and spent much of her childhood in a castle in the Bohemian countryside. Her short stories began to appear in The New Yorker in the 1950s and caused a major stir because of their sexual explicitness (these stories are available in one volume entitled The Darts of Cupid as a Penguin ebook). Gordon first appeared in 1966 under the pseudonym Louise Walbrook and was subsequently banned in England and Germany; it was then pirated around the world, appearing under various titles. In 2001, Edith Templeton agreed to publish the novel, with its original title, under her own name. She died in 2006.
All That is Solid Melts into Air
by Darragh McKeonAll That is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon is an exceptionally moving novel of interwoven lives, set amidst one of the most iconic disasters in living memory.'Daring, ambitious, epic, moving' Colm Tóibín'Exhilarating, thrilling, brilliantly imagined, beautifully written' Colum McCannRussia, 1986. In a run-down apartment block in Moscow, a nine-year-old piano prodigy practices silently for fear of disturbing the neighbours. In a factory on the outskirts of the city, his aunt makes car parts, trying to hide her dissident past. In the hospital, a surgeon immerses himself in his work to avoid facing his failed marriage. And in a rural village in Belarus, a teenage boy wakes up to a sky of the deepest crimson. Outside, the ears of his neighbour's cattle are dripping blood. Ten miles away, at the Chernobyl Power Plant, something unimaginable has happened. Now their lives will change forever.All That is Solid Melts into Air is an astonishing novel of terrifying beauty that captures the end of an era.Darragh McKeon was born in 1979 and grew up in the midlands of Ireland. He has worked as a theatre director, and lives in New York. This is his first novel.
The Shape of Bones: A Novel
by Daniel Galera Alison Entrekin'Like a cross of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and American Psycho' Financial TimesFrom one of Brazil's foremost literary voices comes a gripping, visceral new novel about youth, power and the nature of manhoodA man rises at 5 a.m. and leaves his home. He does not wake his wife or child to bid them goodbye. He starts his car - an SUV filled with survival gear - but does not drive to his friend's house as planned. Instead he glides through the sleeping streets of Porto Alegre, haunted by ghosts of himself: the fearless boy riding a battered stunt bike, the silent adolescent fascinated by bodies and violence, the obsessive young surgeon, the distant husband.As the dawn comes on and people slowly fill the streets, the man drives unthinkingly, inexorably, toward the old neighbourhood of his youth. What is pulling him back there? Perhaps the need to make something happen, perhaps just nostalgia. Or perhaps the search for absolution - from a crime he has carried in his heart for fifteen years.
Carnival: A Novel (Anansi Book Club Editions Ser.)
by Rawi HageCarnival is a new novel from IMPAC Literary Award winner Rawi Hage.WINNER OF THE PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN PRIZE FOR FICTIONThere are two types of taxi driver in the Carnival city - the spiders and the flies. The spiders sit and stew in their cars, waiting for the calls to come to them. But the flies are wanderers - they roam the streets, looking for the raised flags of hands.Fly is a wanderer and from the seat of his taxi we see the world in all of its carnivalesque beauty and ugliness. We meet criminals, prostitutes, madmen, magicians, and clowns of many kinds. We meet ordinary people going to extraordinary places, and revolutionaries just trying to find something to eat. With all of the beauty, truth, rage, and peripatetic storytelling that have made his first two novels international publishing sensations, Carnival gives us Rawi Hage at his searing best. By turns outrageous, hilarious, sorrowful, and stirring, Carnival is a tour de force that will make all of life's passengers squirm in their comfortable, complacent backseats.Praise for Rawi Hage:'A large and unsettling talent' Guardian'Searing, affecting, misanthropic. I'm not from Lebanon and I don't live in Canada, but Cockroach managed to take me to where I come from and where I live now more powerfully than anything I've read in a long while' Mohsin Hamid'The best novel I read this year was Rawi Hage's Cockroach. A dark book, narrated with verve and brilliance. It made me jump for joy' Colm Tóibín, GuardianRawi Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived through nine years of the Lebanese civil war during the 1970s and 1980s. He emigrated to Canada in 1992 and now lives in Montreal. His first novel, De Niro's Game, won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for the best English-language book published anywhere in the world in a given year, and has either won or been shortlisted for seven other major awards and prizes. Cockroach was the winner of the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Awards. It was also shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
De Niro's Game (A\list Ser.)
by Rawi HageDe Niro's Game is the stunning winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the very first novel by up-and-coming Lebanese literary star Rawi Hage, also author of Cockroach.Bassam and George are childhood best friends who have grown up on the Christian side of war-torn Beirut. Now on the verge of adulthood, they must choose their futures: to remain in the exhausted, corrupt city of their birth, or to go into exile abroad, cut off from the only existence they have known.Bassam chooses one path - obsessed with leaving Beirut, he embarks on a series of petty crimes to fund his escape to the West. Meanwhile, George amasses power in the underworld of the city, embracing a life of military service, organised crime, killing, and drugs. But their two paths inevitably collide, with explosive consequences. De Niro's Game is Rawi Hage's devastating, timely portrait of two young men and an entire city formed and deformed by war.'A large and unsettling talent' Guardian'A masterpiece . . . writing cannot really get much better' Literary Review'Hollywood noir meets opium dreams in a blasted landscape of war-wasted young lives' Boston Globe'The most subtly nuanced, psychologically compelling book about the corrosive effects of war to be written for a long time . . .The descriptions of the city are so skilful you can taste the dust in the air' Financial TimesRawi Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived through nine years of the Lebanese civil war. He is the author of De Niro's Game, which won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; Cockroach, which was the winner of the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize and also listed for various other prizes; and Carnival, to be published by Hamish Hamilton/ Penguin in April 2013. He lives in Montreal.