I read a lot of books about running. I mean a lot. Books that tell you how to train, what to eat, how to run faster, how to run further, how not to get injured, how to discover the meaning of life by running through the desert for seven days solid, how you should stop just running and take up triathlon instead. This book doesn't do any of those things. But it does make you laugh and it does make you cry. And if you are a woman (or, indeed a man) who thinks that even running for the bus is beyond you then it might just change your mind. - Janette |
I've never before experienced a writer so in command of character and its function. This deftly crafted treatise upon memory distortion and denial is the antithesis of a vanity piece, wherein not a single paragraph is wasted. The Sense of An Ending is tragic and oppressive in tone yet everything has its own space. - Benjamin |
A charming and intelligent feel-good novel about the socially challenged genetics professor Don Tilman’s attempts to find the perfect wife, but things don’t quite go according to plan, and that’s before he meets the utterly unsuitable Rosie.... - Frances |
Judith Schalansky manages to recreate the dying art form of exploration in this little golden pocket book. With her you discover forgotten and deserted islands through the stories she gathers from lengthy research at libraries in Berlin. A beautifully illustrated piece of work which was unsurprisingly awarded the prize of Germany's most beautiful book.
- Frances |
Carlene's sparkling, witty and moving debut novel, told entirely through correspondence, was inspired by the real-life friendship between Flannery O'Connor and Robert Lowell. As the pair explore ideas of faith, creativity, family and madness they soon find themselves locked in a relationship which they can neither sustain nor entirely abandon. - Frances |
Ash doesn't have high hopes for his summer holiday in India - the heat, the smell, the crowds!? No thank you. But everything suddenly changes when his Aunt and Uncle are killed in a car crash and he is forced to go on the run with his sister, Lucky. Battling demons from ancient Indian mythology and one seriously evil sorcerer, Ash must toughen up, learn the ancient fighting art of Marma-adi and befriend a half-snake demon princess in order to survive.
An incredibly exciting adventure, perfect for fans of Darren Shan and Rick Riordan.
- Jen |
In this elegantly written book Henderson has re-imagined the medieval bestiary, retaining the speculation and tangents, but with a modern scientific underpinning. He is a courteous and engaging guide to obscure topics, drawing on science, philosophy and literature. The clever layout and illustrations complement his writing wonderfully - it really is a beautiful object. I have not finished it yet and have no intention of doing so anytime soon - this is a book to savour and digest slowly. - Sion |
In these short stories, women are defined on their own terms and humanity and nature jockey for control in wild territory. A schoolgirl becomes a rare confidante to the unruly matriarchy of her Carlisle locale; a domineering boyfriend prompts a woman to strike out beyond the safety of their African holiday compound; a visceral tryst between a writer and her lover mirrors the defiant demeanour she presents at public events. Hall’s deft marshalling of language – rendering it fierce and brutal, poetically stark, liltingly sensuous, even unabashedly sexual – matches the sinuous moods of these seven distinctive, accomplished stories. - Jonathan
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Chad Harbach Delivery: To home, business or free to our stores. Click for more info. | £16.99 | £11.89 | 30% |  Despatched in 1 business day. |   Add to Basket | Click & Collect:Order now to collect from 11am today. In stock items only. Click for more info. | £16.99 | £14.44 | 15% |  Currently out of stock in all stores. | Stores - out of stock | New & Used:Our marketplace sellers will deliver to your chosen address. Click for more info. | | | | Currently unavailable | Currently unavailable |
Despite a lack of natural athleticism, Henry Skrimshander is the most instinctively talented college baseball player of his generation. He owes his success to the mentoring of Mike Schwartz, the driven team captain whose local stardom masks a bleak future beyond graduation. Now known to all as Skrimmer and setting records that attract Major League scouts, Henry can no longer pursue perfection in isolation but must now play burdened by local hopes for a first ever national championship and the tantalising opportunities of a professional career. With potent sideplots involving the college president, his seductively improper affair and his wilful daughter, this offers a elegant and eloquent counterpoint to Bernard Malamud's The Natural, perhaps the finest example of baseball as a metaphor for American identity. - Jonathan |
I’d not read any Jasper Fforde before but boy was I missing out! This spooky tale of sex, conspiracy and colour perception really is quite thrilling. Watertight plotting, an intricately imagined world, funny and wholly satisfying, everything here is pitched perfectly, no matter how bizarre or morally suspect. Shame though that we have to wait until 2013 for the next instalment. I’ll just have to work my way through Fforde’s other meta-fictions in the meantime. - Benjamin |
Ronald Reng Delivery:To home, business or free to our stores. Click for more info. | £16.99 | £11.89 | 30% | Despatched in 1 business day. | Add to Basket | Click & Collect:Order now to collect from 11am today. In stock items only. Click for more info. | £16.99 | £14.44 | 15% | Currently out of stock in all stores. | Stores - out of stock | New & Used:Our marketplace sellers will deliver to your chosen address. Click for more info. | | | | Currently unavailable | Currently unavailable |
After the bewildering death of Gary Speed, this William Hill prizewinner is all the more poignant, shedding light upon the 'supermen' of Sport who have to hide their shortcomings and exposing a disease which is rife but shamefully buried in this high-performance world. An artful telling of Robert Enke's struggle expressed through words drenched in sorrow, which still manages to retain a stance of composed reverie throughout. This also covers the reunification of Germany and how that affected its citizens in a myriad of physical and emotional ways. A worthy winner of 2012's top sports book prize. - Benjamin |
This novel is a breath of fresh air in the young adult paranormal genre because 1) this story is not romance-led and 2) the main character isn't female with tortured yearnings. The Replacement has a brilliantly realised male lead in Mackie Doyle that embodies the adolescent angst of not fitting in with peers, of not belonging with their family, that their differences make them a freak. Except that for Mackie all those feelings are fact. Yovanoff has written a story that is new and exciting, and created a richly painted 'otherworld' that is as colourful, abstract and esoteric as a music video for a Marilyn Manson/Lady Gaga collaboration. I seriously, seriously enjoyed this novel, and since I am in the same company as Lauren Kate and Maggie Stiefvater in that enjoyment, I think it's pretty safe to say you will too!
- Neil |
Richards, Jess Delivery:To home, business or free to our stores. Click for more info. | £17.99 | £12.59 | 30% | Despatched in 1 business day. | Add to Basket | Click & Collect:Order now to collect from 11am today. In stock items only. Click for more info. | £17.99 | £15.29 | 15% | Currently out of stock in all stores. | Stores - out of stock | New & Used:Our marketplace sellers will deliver to your chosen address. Click for more info. | | | | Currently unavailable | Currently unavailable |
The islanders live by their own creeds, trade with the tall men their only contact with the mainland. Just one family has travelled to settle
there, but eldest daughter Morgan must wait until she's twenty-one to learn the secrets told only in the women's sanctum, the Weaving Rooms. Meanwhile, Mary's little brother Barney has been snatched by a trader, like many boys before, and she seeks justice from the Thrashing House, a mysterious place said to have grown from the island's last tree. From the islanders' subtle creole to their myths of sea and sky and earth, Richards has nurtured a remarkable community, their home glimpsed in the sea-mist like a new Avalon. Angela Carter or Laura Esquivel would have been proud of this. - Jonathan |
As well as being a sharp alternative thriller with some sinister political overtones, this story of a pickpocket drawn into a plot that spiral out of control offers a fascinating outsider's perspective on Tokyo life and some deliciously uncomfortable moral ambiguity. This is perfect for anyone you likes their crime on the noir side and their criminals brooding and enigmatic. - Jonathan |
Don’t waste your time with the countless biographical rehashings of David Bowie’s career. If you want to understand what transformed ordinary David Jones into rock god David Bowie and how he came to create some of 20th century’s most memorable and influential music, there really is no better book on Bowie than this: it’s the Bowie fan’s bible. Even if the level of detail is more than the casual fan might be looking for, Pegg’s engaging style makes the book as entertaining as it is enlightening: He describes Bowie’s late-period reclamation in concert of ‘Fame’ as a “prowling monster”, “speeding ambient funk” is a delicious description of 1995 album track 'The Voyeur of Utter Desturction (as Beauty)' and his comment that the discovery of any extant recording of Bowie’s early performances of ‘Chim Chim Cheree’ would “blow ‘The Laughing Gnome' out of the water” is hilariously true. - Jonathan |
Beryl Bainbridge Delivery:To home, business or free to our stores. Click for more info. | £16.99 | £11.89 | 30% | Despatched in 1 business day. | Add to Basket | Click & Collect:Order now to collect from 11am today. In stock items only. Click for more info. | £16.99 | £14.44 | 15% | Currently out of stock in all stores. | Stores - out of stock | New & Used:Our marketplace sellers will deliver to your chosen address. Click for more info. | | | | Currently unavailable | Currently unavailable |
The flighty Rose is in America to track down Dr Wheeler, the only
witness to a terrible deed from her youth. She requires the help of Washington Harold, a character created in the spirit of A Confederacy of Dunces' Ignatius J Reilly, who has own clandestine need to track him down. Beryl Bainbridge's final novel, which she was on the verge of completing when she died, is more than just a poignant coda to her inimitable writing career; it's a rough-edged road trip pastiche, wrapped around the historical event of Robert Kennedy's assassination, that stands comparison with her finest achievements.
- Jonathan |