Arcadia Books £8.99

The Glanvilles are an extraordinary family; Edwin is a retired bishop who has lost his faith, Marta, a child of the Warsaw Ghetto, is a controversial anthropologist. Their son is a celebrated gay painter traumatized by the death of his twin and their daughter is a music publicist recovering from an affair with a convicted murderer. Over three remarkable years, the family goes through a sequence of events that causes it to reassess its deepest values and closest relationships.

 

'Anyone who is afraid that the English novel is sliding into a backwater of domestic anecdote should find their anxieties assuaged by the writing of Michael Arditti'

The Times  

 

Other books by Michael Arditti include:

Easter; The Celibate; A Sea Change; Good Clean Fun; A Pagan and her Parents; Unity

Bloomsbury £11.99

What is the devastating effect on your life when, through no fault of your own, you lose everything - home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, money, credit cards, mobile phone - and you can never get them back? This is what happens to Adam Kindred, when a freakish series of malign accidents and a splitsecond decision turns his life upside down for ever. The police are searching for him. There is a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him. He is alone and anonymous in the huge, pitiless modern city. Adam has nowhere to go but down - underground. He joins that vast army of the disappeared that throng the lowest level of London's population. William Boyd's follow-up to Costa Novel of the Year Restless is a heart-in-mouth conspiracy novel about the fragility of social identity, the scandal of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of every city.

 

`Highly entertaining and characteristically expert' Daily Telegraph `A mini exploration of the nature of modern citizenship combined with a picaresque tour of the various strata of modern metropolitan life'

Guardian  

 

Other books by William Boyd include:

Restless; Any Human Heart; An Ice Cream War; Bamboo; The Blue Afternoon; Fascination; A Good Man in Africa; Armadillo

John Murray £8.99

At thirteen Horatio Clare was a boarder at a boy's public school, a privileged member of an apparently blessed generation. A rebel, one of those who detested the system, he was expelled for smoking dope. He became one of the thousands who gleefully ignored the warnings and set out in search of experience and intensity. He was a truant in its original sense: one who beggars himself through choice, not necessity. From university campuses to the rooftops of New York; from Brixton basements to fear and loathing in Mid Devon, through psychosis, mania and depression, from sanity to madness and back again, this is a portrait drawn from a generation that turned to drugs. And it is a search for understanding: why do we do these things, and what do they do to us? What were we looking for and what did we find?

 

‘In this stunningly written memoir of a drug-fuelled youth misspent, Horatio Clare subverts the cliché that "anti-drugs" parables have to be preachy or condescending’

Irish Times

 

Other books by Horatio Clare include:

Running for the Hills; Sicily: Through Writers Eyes; A Single Swallow; Marrakech the Red City; Meetings with Remarkable Muslims

Little Brown £12.99

The story of five people connected by murder. All are immigrants living in London - some, like Job, fleeing political persecution in Zimbabwe, others, like Katie, trying to rebuild a life after a failed love affair in New York. Dispossessed, bewildered and suffering from culture shock they are also linked to a criminal underworld which services modern middle-class life. From the glittering absurdities of The Rambler, a political magazine, to the horrors of trafficked women, this is a detective story, a love story and ultimately a novel that asks the most serious questions about the way we live now.

  

‘Craig eschews laboured profundity. Her style is immediate and precise, and convincingly dramatic. She skilfully mixes skilled reportage with a filmic sensibility.... You can't put this novel down, even if babies are yelling and pots are boiling. A terrific read.’

Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Independent  

 

Other books by Amanda Craig include:

Love in Idleness; In a Dark Wood; A Vicious Circle; A Private Place; Foreign Bodies

Penguin Classics £8.99

When Arthur Clennam returns to England after many years abroad, he takes a kindly interest in Amy Dorrit, his mother's seamstress, and in the affairs of Amy's father, William Dorrit, long imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea. As Arthur soon discovers, the dark shadow of the prison stretches far beyond its walls to affect the lives of many. A masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens' maturity.

Faber & Faber £9.99

The culminating achievement of Eliot's poetic career. The four parts, Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages and Little Gidding present a rigorous meditation upon those spiritual, philosophical and personal themes that preoccupied the author.

White Leaf Press £3.00

Joanna Ezekiel's second poetry collection, this slim volume is a journey through space and time: reshaped, re-aligned, clarified, distorted even, by the power of the imagination and in the service of a particularized reality that art creates. The journey inevitably leads to exploration of self. The compressed energy and an unswerving courage to tell the truth about her own family history marks many of Ezekiel's poems with a sharp edge — a kind of elegiac journey that leaves the reader wanting to know more.

 

‘Joanna Ezekiel... investigates with honesty and intelligence elements of her Jewish heritage’  

- Bob Mee, Poetry Magazine.

Jonathan Cape £12.99

Based on real events and set in and around the High Beach Asylum in 1840, Foulds’ compelling tale centres on the life of the great nature poet John Clare. After years struggling with alcohol, critical neglect and depression, Clare finds himself in High Beach Asylum. At the same time another poet, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves nearby and becomes entangled in the life and catastrophic schemes of the asylum’s owner, the peculiar, charismatic Dr Allen. Historically accurate, but brilliantly imagined, the closed world of High Beach and its various inmates are brought vividly to life. Foulds also exquisitely depicts life outside the walls; nature and Clare’s paradise -the birds and animals, the gypsies living in the forest, his dream of home, of redemption, of escape.

 

'a profoundly imagined historical novel, with a gripping plot and some memorably beautiful scenes'  

Times Literary Supplement  

 

Other books by Adam Foulds include:

The Truth About These Strange Times; The Broken Word

Ragged Raven £7.00

Angela France's poems have a curious, satisfying depth as if ancient lores are being remade. She has a gift for seeing the magical in the ordinary, the violin bow, the rhubarb patch, and she can inhabit the life of a bee: ‘on a quiet night I miss the song / my back is dull from lack of gilding’. A poet respectful to the mystery at the heart of things, she can get under the skin of her subjects.

 

‘Angela France writes with passion and clarity; here is a meticulous sensuous imagination, richly structured and musical’  

Penelope Shuttle

Tindal Street Press £7.99

Eric is a debt counsellor (as Gaffney himself once was) whose days at the Cleator Moor Money Advice Shop in Cumbria are spent helping anxious debtors. Mired in more debt than most of the clients he counsels, Eric maintains a façade of easy solvency for his girlfriend, while sneaking off to Manchester to feel alive again. With a ruthless eye and pitch-black humour, Gaffney explores a consumer culture in which exploiting the welfare system is both a necessity and an addiction, and in which hypocrisy is endemic. This clever novel couldn't be more timely - it forces us to confront society's insatiable thirst for credit, and our own sense of entitlement.

 

‘Cometh the hour, cometh the novelist – it would be hard to imagine a book that scored a more penetrating bull’s-eye on the target of the moment’  

Independent  

 

‘One hundred and fifty words by Gaffney are more worthwhile than novels by a good many others’  

Guardian  

 

Other titles by David Gaffney include:

Sawn Off Tales; Aromabingo

Fourth Estate £7.99

An exhilarating new collection of stories which combines wit and poignancy to illuminate experiences both common and uncommon. Love (& loathing) within families are dissected, here too are music and silence - the sweetness and sadness of Festivals of the Church, and of the control exercised by those in charge in small communities. This tremendously enjoyable collection has the same wit, tenderness and acute psychological observation as Gale's bestselling novels.

 

`Vivid, believable characters...Gale has a light touch with social commentary but the undertones are often menacing'  

–TLS  

 

`The short story form suites gale's ability to zoom in on the smallest nuances of a relationship'  

Times  

 

Other books by Patrick Gale include The Whole Day Through; Notes From an Exhibition; Rough Music. Tree Surgery for Beginners; Friendly Fire; Ease; The Cat Sanctuary; The Facts of Life.

Headline Review £7.99

Georgia's husband Henry has been dead for a year. Their daughter Chloe, a dyslexic stylist, was largely a happy singleton until devastated by her father's death. Georgia feels her whole life unravel, as those dearest to her are plunged into distress and even her oldest friends cannot be relied upon to behave sensibly. A light novel with a dark heart set in contemporary London and York, Reading in Bed is about finding the right man (and the wrong one), about facing illness and bereavement, about an unexpected turn of events in a long, enduring marriage. It brings together youth and age. The title comes to represent all that each character longs for – stability and loving companionship.

 

‘as seductively readable as its title suggests...draws the reader in with its skilful portrayal of real-life situations’  

The Times  

 

Other books by Sue Gee include:

The Mysteries of Glass; Thin Air; Heaven and Earth; The Hours of the Night; Letters from Prague

Jonathan Cape £7.99

It’s Jake’s birthday. He is sitting in a small plane being flown over the landscape that has been the backdrop to his life – his childhood, his marriage, his work, his passions. Now he is in his early sixties, and he isn’t quite the man he used to be. He has lost his wife, his son is in prison, and he is about to lose his past. Jake has Alzheimer’s. As the disease takes hold of him, Jake struggles to hold on to his personal story, to his memories and identity, but they become increasingly elusive and unreliable. Jake fights the inevitable dying of the light, the key events of his life keep changing as he tries to grasp them, and what until recently seemed solid fact is melting into surreal dreams or nightmarish imaginings. Is there anything he’ll be able to salvage from the wreckage?

 

`Harvey uses her precise and unostentatious style to full effect'  

TLS  

 

`Moving, convincing, adroit- it is a remarkably accomplished first novel'  

The Lady

£8.99

Mrs Normal is a wife and mother-of-two who suddenly decides to ‘save the world’. This is a wonderfully funny and incisive account of the practical approach that an ordinary person can take to the challenge of creating a sustainable life for a family in our society. It is sparklingly satirical about well-meaning greens, but also about people in the mainstream who don’t care about the planet. Whichever camp you fall into, the book will make you laugh aloud. It somehow manages also to make you care very much about the family at the centre, and finally to leave even a cynic feeling inspired to ‘do something’.

 

Other books by Sheila Hayman include:

Are We Nearly There Yet?; Small Talk.

Ragged Raven £7.00

Imagination-gripping oddities from the winner of the National Poetry Competition.

 

‘Christopher James is a witty and assured poet: imaginatively bold and wide ranging, yet always perfectly grounded in surprising and convincing detail’  

Michael Laskey  

 

‘Given the nature of this anthology (Catapult), the poetry comes off best, with Christopher James as the star’  

Amanda Craig Independent on Sunday

Ragged Raven £7.00

A collection of spare, beautifully observed poems.

 

‘Chris Kinsey’s poems have a kind of earthbound magic’  

Orbis  

 

‘a collection from a small press with an excellent eye for picking gems. Kinsey has an artist’s eye, not only in picking out fine detail, but excavating it for meaning. This is precision work, often pared down and laconic, sometimes unflinching, but always with its own tenderness’  

Coffee House Poetry  

 

Other books by Chris Kinsey include:

Kung Fu Lullabies

£9.99

Each of the sections of this collection exhibits a thematic focus, however threads of all the major themes cross into the other sections to create a rich weave of interjuxtapositions. All of McLoughlin's concerns are represented - cultural and linguistic decay, eco-poetics, the modern rural, and the tension between oral and written traditions. He experiments with the short lyric to explore the dislocations and dissonances between his themes, and between the aural and oral qualities of verse and its various written manifestations. He tackles traditional forms, free verse, and fractured and exploded forms. The poems collude and collide to form a collection that foregrounds language in all its dissonant and disjointed richness.

 

‘The poems are beautiful, full of an unpretentious gravitas and bear witness to the contradictions of inheritance and language...Dissonances, with all its cross threads, contradictions, risks and fragmentation, is a work not only of bravery and complexity, but also deep humanity. It is not easy listening, but it is certainly a tremendous song.’  

Envoi  

 

‘one of Ireland’s most exciting younger poets’  

Fortnight  

 

Other books by Nigel McLoughlin include:

Chora; Songs for no Voices

£4.99

Herman feels he is the luckiest boy in the world. He has a beautiful island home to explore, friends to play with and now a special new treasure for his collection. What more could a boy want? The story is set thousands of years ago on the small and beautiful Channel Island of Herm, where there is archaeological evidence of Neolithic man.

 

‘A story that sparkles. This gentle seaside story is aimed at three- to six-year-olds and is a theme that will no doubt ring true with every parent... As well as giving children an appreciation for natural things Herman's Stone is also a charming tale about play and getting on with friends... Lizzie Mee's vibrant watercolour paintings perfectly match the innocent and natural tone of the book, and her nebulous, flowing style mirrors the peaceful atmosphere of the island’  

Focus Magazine

£7.99

Bob Mee moves with assured lyricism from darkness to irony, from free verse to tight rhythms, delighting and enthralling the reader as he goes. The work confirms Mee as a raconteur and accomplished teller of tales.

 

‘...a wry conversational style that reminded me of Billy Collins. But as with Collins, the apparent simplicity can be deceptive’  

Raw Edge  

 

Other books by Bob Mee include:

Paradise Road; The Heavyweights; Bare Fists; Twenty and Out; Lords of the Ring

£11.00

Slightly Foxed is a rather unusual kind of book review - informal and independentminded. Each issue contains 96 pages of personal recommendations for books of lasting interest, old and new, fiction and non-fiction – books that have inspired and amused. Slightly Foxed contributors have a diverting way with words and are never boring. Eclectic, elegant, and just the right size to read in bed or slip into a large pocket, Slightly Foxed is a reminder that, even in tough times, the value of a good book doesn’t change.

 

‘Fondling its delightfully crisp, cream pages you can almost feel corduroy patches springing from your elbows’ Guardian ‘Packed with anecdotes, reminiscences and essays about books, writers and the trade. If you love books you’ll love Slightly Foxed’  

Time Out  

 

‘Absolutely beautifully produced’  

James Naughtie, BBC Radio 4

Tindal Street Press £7.99

Young Morley Charles worries that he’s just not clever enough for the city’s art school. But the lies he tells to advance himself in the eyes of friends, family and the local priest bring all manner of trouble. Imagine if Michael Frayn’s Spies had been set in Birmingham with the daftest, funniest, most self-deluding schoolboy at its heart. Well, here is Morley Charles again, the inventive and sexually curious hero of Richardson’s earlier The Pig Bin, but now he has artistic ambitions and anxieties about links between his family and the Blackshirts. Careless Talk is a glorious comedy of misunderstandings set in a seemingly ordinary end-of-wartime suburb.

 

‘The dialogue is brilliantly lively and the period scene setting beautifully rendered; it can make you laugh out loud’  

Independent  

 

‘Richardson has a gift for idiomatic dialogue. But what is most impressive in these novels is the recreation of the class consciousness of the 1940s. Morley, who has won a place at an art school, is painfully aware that he comes from a municipal home, that he has only once used a telephone, and that his father is not an officer. There is comedy in his hapless efforts to find his way in the world, and psychological truth as well’  

Guardian  

 

Also by Michael Richardson: The Pig Bin

£7.99

This is the story of Vanessa and Gerald, who fall in love in the sixties when she is an art student and he a sculptor. They marry, have children, divorce, have other lovers, meet again with tragic consequences, but never stop loving each other. When they are finally reunited they have to come to terms with their past.

£5.00

The project Write to Life, was started by playwright Sonja Linden as a means of helping torture survivors remove the shackles of their past by writing. Now under the stewardship of screenwriter and novelist Sheila Hayman, the project has become increasingly prolific. With the help of several distinguished writers acting as mentors for individual clients, memories that could otherwise terrify and weaken have been turned into intensely moving poems, short stories and pieces of autobiographical journalism that bear witness to a horrific past but also to the therapeutic power of the written word.

 

Other books by Write to Life include:

Welcome to Britain; Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind