{"title":"Books VAT Zero Rated","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"somewhere-else-or-even-here-9781844718801","title":"Somewhere Else, or Even Here","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA girl meets with danger on the beach when she is lured away by a strange boy; a bereaved wife enlists the help of a mysterious woman to perform rituals that will bring her dead husband back to life; a boy’s anger at his absent father leads him towards an act of destruction in the basement of his school.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are just some of the characters and events which are given life in A. J. Ashworth’s Scott Prize-winning collection Somewhere Else, or Even Here. The stories, described as ‘dark’ and ‘delicious’ by the writer Maggie Gee, explore themes of loss and loneliness, desire and hope – with characters left to navigate the shifting landscapes of their lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA. J. Ashworth captures, with honesty, the collisions that can happen between human beings, whether it’s a couple facing up to life after the death of a child, or lovers broken apart by infidelities either real or imagined. She explores those moments of realisation, those turning points, which will continue to resonate throughout the lives of her characters – those people who, even in small ways, will be forever changed, forever cut loose from their earlier selves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A.J. Ashworth is a writer who creates worlds in a few sentences, and universes in a few pages. She explores our underlying loneliness in all its myriad guises with a steady eye and with great tenderness, whilst investing the everyday with a freshness that comes from a real gift for observation and a delight for language. The stories here really are shooting stars – ‘brilliant sparkling scratches’ against the night. A very gifted writer. One to watch without a doubt.’ —Vanessa Gebbie\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Dark, witty, delicious stories with flashes of terror and tenderness.’ —Maggie Gee\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘With beauty, poise and fearlessness, A. J. Ashworth creates worlds that are chillingly real, exploring the raw human need for attachment and the fear of closeness in a way that is both tender and haunting. She is a fierce new talent.’ —Simon Van Booy\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘With beauty, poise and fearlessness, A. J. Ashworth creates worlds that are chillingly real, exploring the raw human need for attachment and the fear of closeness in a way that is both tender and haunting. She is a fierce new talent.’ —John Oakley\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"A.J. Ashworth","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892788801,"sku":"9781844718801","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844718801.jpeg?v=1570476071"},{"product_id":"echo-train-9781844717491","title":"Echo Train","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eEcho Train begins \"Once upon a time \/ Books began this \/ Way\" and asks us not “to be shocked to find \/ We must return and \/ Stand for what we are” when we reach the book’s end. Readers who said they tend to avoid poetry altogether sat down with the intention of reading one or two poems and found themselves reading it all the way through in a single sitting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Somewhere along the continuum of black holes and dividing cells, televised moonlight and Sanskrit tattoos, Fagan makes a characteristic music—bluntly oblique, elegantly perforated—out of the sufferings and strange comedy of the everyday grotesque and everyday irrational, “inventing \/ My reason to stay out of thin air.” This \u003cem\u003eEcho Train\u003c\/em\u003e reverberates with remnants of everything from souvenir T-shirts to ancient hymns while emerging into the jagged sound of its own present moment.’ —Geoffrey O’Brien\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Aaron Fagan’s poems are perhaps best at what poetry itself is best at: taking the details of everyday life and finding something of philosophical significance. The way he does this—with some brutally beautiful sentences, incredible control of rhythm, and all those perfect final lines—is quirky enough that his writing is original and grounded enough that it always feels true.’ —Matthew Welton\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\"Fagan's first book is vivid and aesthetically disturbing work. His promise is considerable because his originality should prove to be decisive.\"’ —Harold Bloom\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\"Evident [in Garage] is the self-mocking, saturnine temper of such precursors as Alan Dugan (from whom Fagan takes an appropriate epigraph) or even Howard Nemerov. Yet even these anti-lyrics and bedroom palinodes strive towards apt purposes: this poet so given to humble skepticism he still tries to believe that 'each thing we make \/ Results from the wild permutations of love.'\"’ —Publisher’s Weekly\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\"Fagan's work is primarily occupied with distance; his verses often begin by acknowledging a remove from the subject—whether is be person, place or thing—end then, in the most hopeful of poems, subtly closing in on it by the end.\"’ —Jonathan Messinger, Time Out Chicago\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Way back in the book-writing era, Plato wrote about the 'old quarrel between philosophy and poetry.' If the quarrel seemed old to Plato while writing The Republic, to make it seem new in 2007 requires some serious ingenuity. In his inventive first book, Garage, Aaron Fagan seems to be the poet for the job. Like Plato, Fagan is interested in definitions: what kind of philosophizing in a poem is an unearned indulgence, while another sort of philosophizing might qualify as art.... As much as Plato attacked poetry, he recognized something vital about a rhetorical stance made lyric; that vitality is sharply present in the questions and turns of thought in Garage. Fagan both considers the 'laws' of poetry and breaks them, a mix that has made for an excellent first book.’ —Idra Novey, The Believer\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aaron Fagan","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892789377,"sku":"9781844717491","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844717491.jpeg?v=1570475352"},{"product_id":"garage-9781844713455","title":"Garage","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eAaron Fagan’s debut collection glitters with contemporary life, from poems on love, travel, cartoons and shopping, sitting alongside lyrics on channel surfing, philosophy and God. Gathering together work from over a decade of writing, Fagan takes us on tour through his metaphoric Garage, the title signaling his musical forbears in punk and electronic music. On our way, through improvisations, trials and errors, we join him in a world where invention and failure are indistinguishable parts of the journey, and Fagan makes the ideal companion, in love with the world and its characters, filled with hope and humor.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘The intelligent, impeccably crafted poems in Garage, Aaron Fagan’s debut collection, function as philosophical micro-treatises. From the working class angst of ‘Doing My Part for the Tool and Die Industry’ to the post-Romantic musings of ‘Resistentialism,’ Aaron Fagan’s introspections cast light on a world in which the poem’s speakers find themselves trying to make sense of the absurd, and the sense that’s made is the poems themselves, which come to us as bits of gold sieved from the daily dross of human existence.’ —Christopher Kennedy\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Fagan's first book is vivid and aesthetically disturbing work.  His\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003epromise is considerable because his originality should prove to be\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003edecisive.’ —Harold Bloom\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Resolute, understated, and sometimes sullen, the debut volume from New York City-based Fagan explores the poet’s doubts about his vocation and his doubts about the worth of his art. A long poem set “at Zebra Lounge in Chicago” recalls, “My beer was empty\/ And I had nothing to say.\/ Who knows what to say?” Another muses, “No need for a poem\/ To commemorate how inarticulate we are.” Other pages chronicle post-collegiate dejection, a young man’s war on still-undeclared ambitions, or else attempt with measured irony to scale back the pretensions, and the inflated symbols, prior poets have tried to use. Children in “Recall” remain enraptured when adults grow bored and sad; a poem about waking up gets titled “My Arrogance.” Though the title refers to the poet’s tastes in underground rock and dance music, that music is little in evidence here; more evident is the self-mocking, saturnine temper of such precursors as Alan Dugan (from whom Fagan takes an appropriate epigraph) or even Howard Nemerov. Yet even these anti-lyrics and bedroom palinodes strive towards apt purposes: this poet so given to humble skepticism he still tries to believe that “each thing we make\/ Results from the wild permutations of love.”’ —Publishers Weekly\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘In perhaps our favorite poem in the book, “Private Number Calling,” the narrator’s cell phone rings, and a child on the other end asks, “Who is it?” Fagan writes, “But you see I kept saying,\/“Aaron, this is Aaron.”\/And the child (Too young\/To tell whether it was a boy\/Or a girl) repeated, “Who is it?” The child remains calm, but the narrator loses it, until the poem takes an unexpected, hopeful turn in the end. It contains all that we loved about this first collection: Fagan’s fuzzy and fragile take on the world.’ —Jonathan Messinger\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aaron Fagan","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892789441,"sku":"9781844713455","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844713455.jpeg?v=1570475401"},{"product_id":"double-venus-9781844710034","title":"Double Venus","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eStructured as a series of poetic arguments, essays, and visions, Double Venus seeks a suitable language for reconciling various styles of commitment. The collection is especially concerned with facing the call to individual accountability in the context of industrialized patriarchy even as it is counting the manifold blessings of life in that context. Thus, expressions of indignation are always sewn here with desire, fellow-feeling, creature comfort, and the knowledge that the Good Life may still hold some sweetness, even if it must always also be a “work of worry.” Double Venus oscillates between more and less open formal strategies in an explicit effort to bring the lyric into conversation with other discourses dedicated to ethical practice. Likewise, the collection meditates on the place of ethics in territories traditionally thought to be the special province of the lyric – on the place of the lyric in territories traditionally thought to be the special province of ethics.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Aaron McCollough knows that America and Thanatos are hiding something. His poetry uses all manner of devices, determined to find out what and where it is among concrete things and living creatures with their riotous emblems. And sings when a song is called for.’ —Alan Halsey\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘In Double Venus, Aaron McCollough fulfills a promise with a continuity, completes an errand with a deeper errand. Here is the Crashaw of us, crowned in jessamine. Here is a metaphysics we can use, now and in all the hap ahead.’ —Donald Revell\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Aaron McCollough","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892789569,"sku":"9781844710034","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844710034.jpeg?v=1570475344"},{"product_id":"the-invention-of-poetry-9781844710911","title":"The Invention of Poetry","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Adam Czerniawski’s poetry springs from a conjunction of Polish and English (or perhaps European) culture. Deeply rooted in the Polish language, he is at the same time a poet of universal themes observed from a wide perspective of the Western world. I would even claim that this poetry springs from a different basis of culture and literary tradition, that he has managed to set himself free from many complexes of contemporary Polish poetry, to grasp and see them from a global perspective. Additionally, there is his special position as a poet standing outside the émigré cultural life, which gives him the advantage of distance, of reserve and of being above the current disputes and entanglements. The art which he practises enables us to count him among poets of culture full of erudition and various tropes which bear witness to his inheriting the great tradition of European culture.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e–Konstanty Pieńkosz, \u003cem\u003eLiterary critic\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘My favourite poems by Adam Czerniawski include “Seaside Holiday”, “Interior Topography” (one of his best poems), “You and I”, “Man”, “Science Fiction”, “Listening to a Schubert Quartet”, “World”, “Bridge”, “Fish”, “Triangle”, “A View of Delft”, “Evening, or a Field of Vision”, “Token of Remembrance” and “Golden Age”. These poems display a dialectical synthesis of feeling and awareness; without falling below the level of the author’s understanding – and let’s note that it is a philosophical understanding rare among Polish poets (Miłosz is a philosopher of a totally different kind) – these poems do not leave feelings behind, and this is precisely what works in their favour.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e–Bogdan Czaykowski, \u003cem\u003ePoet and scholar\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘This is a book about how seemingly insignificant moments may be the ones that turn out to matter most. It’s about disappearances and exile, love and loss, mystery and poetry. It’s a book to live with – not just read.’ —Helena Nelson\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘There is a note of sadness in Czerniawski; his tone is at times nostalgic, even, funereal of, for instance, ‘annihilated childhood’ – a childhood buried in a diasporic past. There is, in his later works, an untitled poem, almost an epigram: ‘he arranged his life, but not his death’, reminiscent of \u003cem\u003efraszka\u003c\/em\u003e, a form preferred by Kochanowski, another Polish poet, a seventeenth century master. ‘Fraszka’ (from Italian \u003cem\u003efrasca\u003c\/em\u003e: a joke, an anecdote) is a humorous form, composed, speaking melodically, in key-major. I detect in Czerniawski’s piece that sense: a wry humour over a life lived well and an unavoidable passing. But ‘not everything ends’, the poet says in teh book’s epigraph: poetry withstands time, it is eternal, and thus is the poet. This book spans the poet’s entire life – the formative and the most recent years, and it celebrates just that.’ —Piotr Wesolowski\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The last poem in the collection, “For the Muses Return’, serves as Czerniawski’s \u003cem\u003esumma poetica\u003c\/em\u003e in the way it combines his characteristic attitudes of self-assertion and self-effacement. The poem recalls a visitation by the Muses, nothing remains from the original experience, only some words the poet jotted down in his journal and now can read ‘with difficulty’ ... The Muses’ inspiration is a blessing an a beginning. A moment of poetic madness offers (as we learn in Plato’s \u003cem\u003ePhaedrus\u003c\/em\u003e) a transcending experience for both poet and for the future generations of his readers. It is a fit conclusion to Czerniawski’s remarkable volume.’ —Piotr Gwiazda\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Adam Czerniawski","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892789825,"sku":"9781844710911","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844710911.jpeg?v=1571258770"},{"product_id":"how-to-fare-well-and-stay-fair-9781907773280","title":"How to Fare Well and Stay Fair","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eInside this book bursts a kaleidoscope of characters in historical settings from the Balkans to Scandinavia, which they seek to escape, fit in, or change. Following a few female leads after they leave war-torn Bosnia, this book compresses simmering emotions ranging from loss, fear, love, hate, revenge, displacement, regret, humor, and hope. Almasa, the main character in most stories, is feisty and funny, and she suffers no fools. She will go to any length to take charge of her broken life and avoid being labeled a victim. Fatima is like her subtler sister, but no less determined to turn the tables on her horrible fate. In between them are pieces of the author’s life, as fictionalized as the lives of the two women are real.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEach story, although compact and unique on its own, is tied to all other stories, chronologically, emotionally, or thematically. Together they probe the margins of our contemporary history and give voice to people pushed to the edge of life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘I enjoyed this collection very much. It is inventive and adventurous in its texture, and very moving. The snapshots of refugees in Sweden have such a lonely quality, which is probably expressed most beautifully by the fact that the past keeps coming after them. For me the best passages are those simple observations, such as Almasa recognising another Bosnian refugee and the slight sense of horror which that evokes, that inability to escape from the past. The truth in these moments is quite powerful. At times, I felt the inventiveness of the writing overshadowed these true moments a little, but then I explained it to myself as another feature of that restless imagination in the migrant, the attempted belonging in words, in a stranger’s language. I go back to the picture of the father and the deliberate request for him not to smile, a wonderful image, which made me understand completely in one shot what the lives of refugees, and migrants in general, must feel like, full of denial and pretense and hope and putting the past away and never really letting go.’ —Hugo Hamilton\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eHow to Fare Well and Stay Fair\u003c\/em\u003e is a beautiful book: moving, funny and deeply intelligent. In Adnan Mahmutović's stories, longing and survival move forward side-by-side, from Bosnia to Sweden and still further, toward an ever-elusive idea of home and homeland. Months after I finished reading these stories, Almasa, Fatima and Adam remained with me, etched into my memory.’ —Madeleine Thien, author of Dogs at the Perimeter and Certainty\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Adnan Mahmutović","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892790337,"sku":"9781907773280","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781907773280.jpeg?v=1570475904"},{"product_id":"eyes-in-times-of-war-9781844712878","title":"Eyes in Times of War","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis collection of poems speaks to an individual’s place and emotions during war. The wars depicted in this volume – the ‘history wars’, the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, ‘the war against terror’, ‘the clash of civilisations’, etc – form the background against which the speaker’s language seethes and writhes. These fractured lyrics – or ‘antiheroic couplets’ – take place in a volatile space in the aftermath of ancient conquests and prior to future atrocities. Here the medieval Persian poet Rumi is seen escaping the Mongolian hordes; Satan debates Archangel Michael at the battle of Heaven and Hell; the Jewish thinker Walter Benjamin contemplates the Holocaust; an imprisoned writer becomes a saviour and a revolutionary radical is branded traitor; an account of the author’s experiences of the Islamic Revolution of Iran and the war with Saddam Hussein is narrated; and contemporary Australia is seen as a nation engaged in an unremitting conflict against the land’s original inhabitants and its Asian neighbours. History and a desire for peace form the central discourse of this book’s poems that deconstruct the desire for war, undermine the beliefs in religious and cultural identity that often provoke wars, and advocate non-participation and a rejection of the glorification of ‘us’ and the demonisation of the ‘other’. Also included in this volume are love poems and translations from works of Sufi mystics to show that the opposite of war is, if not always allowed, then at the very least imaginable in these times of hostility and conflict.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Ali Alizadeh is a young poet struggling to make sense of a cruel and chaotic world. He strives for a language that can fuse reality and myth, youthful longings and ancient wisdom, the spiritual and the materialistic. He draws upon many influences, ranging from the poet’s Persian traditions, to poetic traditions both ancient and modern, East and West. Idealism and disillusion stalk side by side. Love duels with anger. The most moving poems document the author’s journey from Iran to Australia and his youthful quest for love. The result is a work-in-progress that lays bare the poet’s desperate struggle for inner peace and meaning in a world engaged in seemingly endless warring and demonisation’ —Arnold Zable\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘In our time which is, against all hopes, a century of war, when fundamentalist rhetoric has taken on new life in a cosmic phantasmagoria of destruction and hatred, Ali Alizadeh's fast-moving poetry holds us to today's issues of identity and culture, its dilemmas of allegiance and responsibility. The drama of humanity's complex heritage has no more relevant or urgent voice.’ —Judith Rodriguez\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘In its multiple rendering, you can read [\u003cem\u003eeliXir: a story in poetry\u003c\/em\u003e] as a play, then as a story, then experience it as a poem, at different points and very often simultaneously. Alizadeh does his tale with speed while sucking in our senses with a compelling simplicity that awes with admiration. The pace is varied and the style indicates a craft of narrative economy.’ —Patrick Mangeni\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘[Alizadeh’s] \u003cem\u003eeliXir\u003c\/em\u003e – like the fabled liquor sought by alchemists from which [it] takes its name – is a potent concoction … its after-effects are as powerful as they are thought provoking.’ —Roger Williams\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘A talent to watch.’ —Chris Mansell\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ali Alizadeh","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892790721,"sku":"9781844712878","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844712878.jpeg?v=1570475371"},{"product_id":"burnt-island-9781907773488","title":"Burnt Island","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor disillusioned author Max Long, the offer of a writing-fellowship on the mysterious-sounding ‘Burnt Island’ is a godsend. Max is determined that, inspired by his tenure on this windswept outpost, he will produce every writer’s dream — the bestseller. And this time, he plans to subvert his usual genre and write a horror story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut upon arrival, Max’s fantasies of hermetic island life are overturned when he encounters a potential rival living in close proximity – the famously reclusive James Fairfax, author of the internationally-lauded novel, \u003cem\u003eLifeblood\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Angela Carter crossed with the Scottish diffidence of Muriel Spark.’ —Ali Smith — on Justine\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A high-wire act of a novel. Try to resist it and you can’t.’ —Fay Weldon — on Pandora’s Box\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Expertly combining compelling storytelling with a cleverly constructed, elegant and metaphor-ridden style.’ —Camilla Pia — on The Falconer\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The Existential Detective is unsettling, unsettlingly erotic, and somehow sadly beautiful. Thompson is fast becoming one of the most original and formidable writers in the English language today.’ —Sunday Herald — on The Existential Detective\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Haunting, strange, Kafkaesque, poetic mystery.’ —Ian Rankin — on The Existential Detective\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A gothic music video of a novel that whirls with weirdness... madly energetic ... genuinely scary.’ —Stephen King — on Pharos\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘What makes a book happen? Where does literary inspiration come from? These are some of the underlying questions asked by Alice Thompson’s deliciously creepy tale that is almost an homage to surreal horror stories such as Angela Carter’s \u003cem\u003eThe Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman\u003c\/em\u003e and John Fowles’s \u003cem\u003eThe Magus\u003c\/em\u003e.... Her prose style tackles these questions in spare and simple language, devoid of drama and, it would seem, ambiguity, and in that sense, she avoids echoing the richness of both Angela Carter and John Fowles, even as she appears to be paying her tribute to both of them. It’s a wise decision, as this prose style also matches better the sparse landscape of the island itself. This is a simple yet clever tale, gently satirising literary ambition as it explores the darker sources of inspiration, and told with all the supernatural horror of the best Hammer stories.’ —Lesley McDowell\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Thompson’s gripping narrative invites the reader to solve the mystery of Burnt Island and the true purpose of Max Long’s fellowship. A dark, compelling novel with strong themes of paranoia and strange eroticism throughout.’ —Lizzie Greenhalgh\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Burnt Island is steeped in self-awareness, as a book about the process and effect of writing might be. It seems connected by literary electricity to other tales of isolation: \u003cem\u003eThe Shining\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003ePincher Martin\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Sea, The Sea\u003c\/em\u003e. It might resist \"character development\", but Max does learn that, however bad things can get for him, there is always someone who has had it worse: usually another writer.’ —John Self\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘At the end Thompson seems to be hinting that writing is a parasitic occupation, a form of vampirism even, writers taking the events of others’ lives and using them as raw material, and in the relationship between Fairfax and Long that is taken to an extreme. Exquisitely written, with a real feel for the wide open spaces and the indifference of nature, but at the same time showing how these things are mirrored in the human heart, this is a miniature gem of a book, one that tells us something of the gothic while remaining thoroughly modern in the telling, with a meta-fictional streak that places the practice of writing itself under the microscope.’ —Peter Tennant\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Fractured and lucid as a dream. 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For Justine has a twin sister Juliette, and as the story unfolds, the opium-dazed narrator becomes increasingly unsure as to the identity of the woman he desires.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A lot of flagellation and a matching literary-exquisite style’ —Fay Weldon\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A lush, erotic teasing mystery’ —The Bookseller\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Angela Carter crossed with the Scottish diffidence of Muriel Spark and Emma Tennant … a faultless performance of a first novel’ —The Scotsman\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Beautifully spare, very visual writing … with its own sly, soft sympathetic elegance’ —The Observer\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘And enthuse we must. This is an extraordinarily accomplished book, sharp, focused, highly intelligent’ —The Glasgow Herald\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘So skilfully crafted, its atmosphere so ominous, its end so chilling’ —The Daily Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Alice Thompson","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892791041,"sku":"9781784630317","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781784630317.jpeg?v=1570475923"},{"product_id":"the-book-collector-9781784630430","title":"The Book Collector","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlice Thompson’s new novel is a Gothic story of book collecting, mutilation and madness. Violet is obsessed with the books of fairy tales her husband acquires, but her growing delusions see her confined in an asylum. As she recovers and is released a terrifying series of events is unleashed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘★★★★ With a nod to Angela Carter, Thompson takes the myth of Bluebeard, the murdering husband who keeps a tally of his dead wives, sets it down in that Edwardian summer just before the guns of the First World War go off. It’s a superb settling for betrayal and revenge.’ —Lesley McDowell, The Independent on Sunday\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘★★★★ revel in the gothic darkness and inexorable drama’ —John Lloyd, The Bookbag\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The precise Edwardian vocabulary began to assume a more contemporary feel in the wake of Violet’s treatment at the asylum, and this proved an interesting divergence from the general feel of the book. With flayed corpses, books covered with human skin, and raging madness, this is definitely worth checking out…’ —Raven Crime Reads\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eThe Book Collector\u003c\/em\u003e shows a wry and sly mind at work throughout. Scottish literature would be thinner without this kind of challenging and cleverly-wrought writing.’ —Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Alice Thompson, one-time keyboard player for Eighties band The Woodentops, is now an established novelist, who has won praise from Ian Rankin and Stephen King. The horror master would no doubt approve of this slim Edwardian-era gothic, too, recalling as it does both \u003cem\u003eRebecca\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Silence Of The Lambs\u003c\/em\u003e.’ —Stephanie Cross, The Daily Mail\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A brief, but substantial, horror story.’ —Lynsy Spence, The Lady\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eThe Book Collector\u003c\/em\u003e throws the essential elements of the gothic chiller into a blender and what emerges is something between pastiche and critique, in which its author never loses sight of the need to give her readers, first and foremost, an unputdownable yarn.’ —Alastair Mabbott, The Herald\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘With its gothic motifs, this dark portrait of a ‘fairytale’ marriage is full of mystery and suspense … an elegant and bloodily shocking entertainment.’ —Suzi Feay, The Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for Previous Work\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Angela Carter crossed with the Scottish diffidence of Muriel Spark.’ —Ali Smith\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A high-wire act of a novel. Try to resist it and you can’t.’ —Fay Weldon\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Expertly combining compelling storytelling with a cleverly constructed, elegant and metaphor-ridden style.’ —Camilla Pia\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Haunting, strange, Kafkaesque, poetic mystery.’ —Ian Rankin\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A gothic music video of a novel that whirls with weirdness... madly energetic ... genuinely scary.’ —Stephen King\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Fractured and lucid as a dream. Creepy and brilliant.’ —Ian Rankin\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Thompson’s gripping narrative invites the reader to solve the mystery of \u003cem\u003eBurnt Island\u003c\/em\u003e and the true purpose of Max Long’s fellowship. A dark, compelling novel with strong themes of paranoia and strange eroticism throughout.’ —Lizzie Greenhalgh, The Lady\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eBurnt Island\u003c\/em\u003e is steeped in self-awareness, as a book about the process and effect of writing might be. It seems connected by literary electricity to other tales of isolation: \u003cem\u003eThe Shining\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003ePincher Martin\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Sea, The Sea\u003c\/em\u003e.’ —John Self, The Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Alice Thompson","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892791233,"sku":"9781784630430","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781784630430.jpeg?v=1571258724"},{"product_id":"the-existential-detective-9781784630119","title":"The Existential Detective","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilliam Blake is a private detective. When he is asked by an eccentric scientist to investigate the whereabouts of his amnesiac missing wife, Louise, Will finds himself entangled in layers of deceptions and disappearances that lead him inexorably back to an unsolved mystery in his own past: the loss of his young daughter Emily. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe case takes Will to brothels, night clubs and amusement arcades in the Scottish seaside resort of Portobello. Identities become confused as his sexual obsession with a night club singer becomes entwined with sightings of Louise, his own torturous memories, and new visions of the lost Emily.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Existential Detective\u003c\/em\u003e is a surreal, dreamlike story of loss, incest and what it means to remember.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘If you can have degrees of uncanniness, \u003cem\u003eThe Existential Detective\u003c\/em\u003e is Thompson's uncanniest – and best – novel yet. Private detective William Blake is hired by an eccentric scientist to find his missing wife, Louise, who may have lost her memory. Just as Freud's theory of the Uncanny insists that a man wandering around lost will repeatedly fetch up in the red-light district, Will's search takes him to a brothel and to a nightclub, where he develops a sexual obsession with a singer.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eNicholas Royle\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘The story sounds complicated, but it’s not. In fact, Thompson shows she has a tight grip of plotting and, despite throwing away the rule book, \u003cem\u003eThe Existential Detective\u003c\/em\u003e is as gripping as any potboiler. What does feel simple is the prose itself. Unadorned and mesmerisingly rhythmic, it’s extraordinary how deep Thompson manages to go; how many layers of mood and possible meanings she packs in with such an unaffected style. There are suggestions of several myths – Orpheus, Elektra – of \u003cem\u003eThe Magic Flute\u003c\/em\u003e, and of a whole tradition of Scottish writing from Hogg to Michel Faber. Jack Vettriano gets a mention, and there is something of the mood of his darker paintings in Thompson’s writing. More immediately, when we get to the climax of the novel, we’re reminded of a very real, ongoing, Scottish tragedy. There is nothing sensationalist or expedient here, rather Thompson imagines and communicates the pain of loss and guilt, and the torments of being forever blinkered.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Existential Detective\u003c\/em\u003e is unsettling, unsettlingly erotic, and somehow sadly beautiful. Thompson is fast becoming one of the most original and formidable writers in the English language today.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eChris Dolan\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Herald\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eThe Existential Detective\u003c\/em\u003e is a deeply moving and compelling read, packed with mysterious goings-on and bloodcurdling shocks, all counterbalanced by the author’s trademark subtle and elegant prose. The story is intricately woven and Thompson wastes no time in conjuring up an eerie atmosphere that makes even a simple act seem loaded with meaning. Of course, it’s a departure of sorts for Thompson too, and she subverts the crime fiction genre with aplomb, breaking new ground while still retaining her distinctive voice. Remarkable.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eCamilla Pia\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe List\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘It is the novel’s unpredictable nature, as well as Thompson’s natural ability to relay what could have been a baffling story, that makes this one of the most interesting novels of recent years. The setting is familiar and everyday, yet strange enough to unsettle. There is a cast of characters that add to the atmosphere including an amoral scientist, some private dancers, a blind man with second sight and teenage tearaways who are sadly older than their years. 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Iris Tennant has applied, under a pseudonym, to become personal assistant to Lord Melfort, the Under-Secretary of War, at his estate in the Scottish Highlands. Her plan is to find out why her younger sister Daphne committed suicide there a year previously. As Iris gradually falls under the spell of Glen Almain, she starts to see the apparition of Daphne haunting its glades and begins to wonder about the manner of her death. Is there really a beast that inhabits the woods? Who is the mysterious falconer? What actually happened to Daphne, and is Iris destined for the same fate?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA backdrop of impending war and the spectre of Nazi Germany loom over this strange, dark tale. 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A surprising, lingering and intensely moving tale which reflects the prodigious talent of one of our most exciting novelists.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The best novels are the ones that leave you with a sense of yearning, and in \u003cem\u003eHe Wants\u003c\/em\u003e, Alison Moore proves her mastery of the medium... As Lewis's desires are revealed, the reader is drawn into a compelling series of regrets, coincidences and reminders that life doesn't often bestow second chances... Moore's tightly wreathed prose and assured plotting ensure a bittersweet longing for more once the final page is turned.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eLynsey May\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe List\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘How she achieves such big impact with such small ingredients is a mystery to me, but she does. She bloody well does.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eGav Collins\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eGav’s Book Reviews\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘brave and rigorous’ —\u003cstrong\u003eRachel Cusk\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Moore movingly mines the aching gap between aspiration and actuality.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eAnita Sethi\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eHe Wants\u003c\/em\u003e is a funny, touching, life-affirming novel about desire.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eAnne Goodwin\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eAnnecdotal\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘An elegant story.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eSue Magee\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Bookbag\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘As entertaining as it was gripping; Moore walks a tightrope between tragedy-cum-thriller and deadpan comedy and she does not fall.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eClare Fisher\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eLitro Magazine\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘It is difficult to pinpoint exactly how she creates such compelling (though often unlikeable) characters, turning their everyday doings into a page-turning story, the atmosphere quietly unsettling.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eMarija Smits\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eFor Books’ Sake\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Moore is a serious talent. There’s art here. There’s care.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eSam Leith\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Financial Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eHe Wants\u003c\/em\u003e is an assured and confident second novel which deserves to be reread to fully appreciate its complexities. With sparse prose, astute descriptions, and subtle humour, Moore has cemented herself as one of my favourite authors.’ —\u003cem\u003eThe Perfectionist Pen\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘it is a short novel but needs no further chapters; its impact lies, in part, in its brevity and in its silences... There are dark aspects to \u003cem\u003eHe Wants\u003c\/em\u003e and an intensity of emotion that will pull you in until the last page.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eF.C. Malby\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eHe Wants\u003c\/em\u003e will easily be one of my books of the year... He Wants left me feeling both completely uplifted and utterly devastated, all at once.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eSimon Savidge\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eSavidge Reads\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Alison Moore is very good on modern alienation... She doesn’t so much lay bare a life as shine blinding pinpricks into its darkest corners.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eClaire Allfree\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eMetro\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘It’s a quick, compelling read with real depth and heart, and I loved it.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eAli Hope\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eShiny New Books\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘a witty and very moving novel’ —\u003cstrong\u003eJonathan Edwards\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eNew Welsh Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘I really loved this book... I read it greedily and quickly; I had to force myself to slow down and savour it. And what she's so good at is conjuring a sense of atmospheric, quiet unease. I think it's the kind of book that will really get under people's skin.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eKiran Dass\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eRadio New Zealand\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘This book went where I didn’t expect it to go, and that’s what made reading it so memorable and an enthralling reading experience. It’s a fairly simple story centred around Lewis, a retired RE teacher who has lived his life doing the opposite of how he imagined things would turn out … He spends many hours looking back, at the things he regrets, the missed opportunities and it’s only when an old school friend appears back in his life, that his rebellious streak shows itself and he starts to live life a little dangerously and throws caution to the wind to see if the life he had always dreamed of would bring him the joy he craved. The attention to the little details throughout really make this short novel sparkle and I found it to be so touching and enchanting.’ —\u003cem\u003eBooks and Me\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Alison Moore","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892792001,"sku":"9781907773815","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781907773815.jpeg?v=1570475889"},{"product_id":"the-lighthouse-9781907773174","title":"The Lighthouse","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the 2013 McKitterick Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the 2013 East Midlands Book Award\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for New Writer of the Year in the 2012 Specsavers National Book Awards\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eObserver Book of the Year 2012\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Lighthouse\u003c\/em\u003e begins on a North Sea ferry, on whose blustery outer deck stands Futh, a middle-aged, recently separated man heading to Germany for a restorative walking holiday.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSpending his first night in Hellhaus at a small, family-run hotel, he finds the landlady hospitable but is troubled by an encounter with an inexplicably hostile barman.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the morning, Futh puts the episode behind him and sets out on his week-long circular walk along the Rhine. As he travels, he contemplates his childhood; a complicated friendship with the son of a lonely neighbour; his parents’ broken marriage and his own. But the story he keeps coming back to, the person and the event affecting all others, is his mother and her abandonment of him as a boy, which left him with a void to fill, a substitute to find.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe recalls his first trip to Germany with his newly single father. He is mindful of something he neglected to do there, an omission which threatens to have devastating repercussions for him this time around.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the end of the week, Futh, sunburnt and blistered, comes to the end of his circular walk, returning to what he sees as the sanctuary of the Hellhaus hotel, unaware of the events which have been unfolding there in his absence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Melancholy and haunting. The sense of loneliness and discomfort and rejection is compelling, the low key prose carefully handled. It’s a serious novel with a distinctive and unsettling atmosphere.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eMargaret Drabble\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A haunting and accomplished novel.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eKaty Guest\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Independent on Sunday\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘It is this accumulation of the quotidian, in prose as tight as Magnus Mills’s, which lends Moore’s book its standout nature, and brings the novel to its ambiguous, thrilling end.’ —\u003cstrong\u003ePhilip Womack\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Telegraph\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘No surprise that this quietly startling novel won column inches when it landed on the Man Booker Prize longlist. After all, it’s a slender debut released by a tiny independent publisher. Don’t mistake \u003cem\u003eThe Lighthouse\u003c\/em\u003e for an underdog, though. For starters, it’s far too assured ... Though sparely told, the novel’s simple-seeming narrative has the density of far longer work. People and places are intricately evoked with a forensic feel for mood. It’s title becomes a recurring motif, from the Morse code torch flashes of Futh’s boyhood to the lighthouse-shaped silver perfume case that he carries in his pocket, history filling the void left by its missing vial of scent. Warnings are emitted, too – by Futh’s anxious aunt and an intense man he meets on the ferry. It all stokes a sense of ominousness that makes the denouement not a bit less shocking.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eHephzibah Anderson\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Daily Mail\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘This is powerful writing likely to shine in your memory for a long time.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eEmily Cleaver\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eLITRO Magazine\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Alison Moore's writing is exquisite, the prose simple and powerful, but it's the use of imagery which really marks it out as something special.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eSue Magee\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Bookbag\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘In \u003cem\u003eThe Lighthouse\u003c\/em\u003e Alison Moore has created an unsettling, seemingly becalmed but oddly sensual, and entirely excellent novel.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eAlan Bowden\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eWords of Mercury\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Alison Moore's debut novel has all the assurance of a veteran, a strong contender for the prize, its sense of despair will either be its making or its undoing: 9\/10.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eRoz Davison\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eDon't Read That Read This\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Ultimately, what drew me into this bleak tale of sorrow and abandonment was the quality of the writing – so taut and economical it even looked different on the page somehow – and so effective in creating a mounting sense of menace and unease. It never flinches.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eIsabel Costello\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eOn the literary sofa\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Moore’s writing has a superb sense of the weight of memory.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eKate Saunders\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eThe Lighthouse\u003c\/em\u003e is a spare, slim novel that explores grief and loss, the patterns in the way we are hurt and hurt others, and the childlike helplessness we feel as we suffer rejection and abandonment. It explores the central question about leaving and being left: even when it feels inevitable, why does it hurt so much, and why is this particular kind of numbness so repellent to others? The brutal ending continues to shock after several re-readings.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eJenn Ashworth\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eThe Lighthouse\u003c\/em\u003e looks simple but isn't, refusing to unscramble what seems a bleak moral about the hazards of reproduction, in the widest sense. Small wonder that it stood up to the crash-testing of a prize jury's reading and rereading. One of the year's 12 best novels? I can believe it.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eAnthony Cummins\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘This is a book that might have vanished had it not been picked up by the Booker judges. It deserves to be read, and reread. No laughs, no levity, just a beautiful, sad, overripe tale that lingers in the mind.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eIsabel Berwick\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘What must have gone some way to earning \u003cem\u003eThe Lighthouse\u003c\/em\u003e a place on the longlist, though, is the admirable simplicity of Moore’s prose. Like Futh, its without flourishes, yet beneath its outward straightforwardness lies a hauntingly complex exploration of the recurring patterns that life inevitably follows, often as a consequence of one’s past.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eFrancesca Angelini\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eThe Lighthouse\u003c\/em\u003e, Alison Moore’s melancholic debut, would eventually have found admiring readers through the great network of word of mouth. That it has been shortlisted, deservedly, for the Man Booker Prize will quicken the process. This is a beautiful short novel sustained by muted urgency, nuance and the exactness with which Moore conveys the paralysing levels of depression that Futh battles. In order to deal with the present he attempts to make sense of his past, which refuses to fade away. His thoughts throb with humiliating episodes from his boyhood, cut short when his bored, dissatisfied mother left, leaving his father to voice his anger at his only audience, the bewildered boy.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eEileen Battersby\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Irish Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A debut novel from a high-achieving independent publisher, \u003cem\u003eThe Lighthouse\u003c\/em\u003e has surprised some observers with its place on the Man Booker Prize shortlist. Disquieting, deceptive, crafted with a sly and measured expertise, Alison Moore's story could certainly deliver a masterclass in slow-burn storytelling to those splashier literary celebs who take more pains over a pyrotechnic paragraph than a watertight plot.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eBoyd Tonkin\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The originality, structure and neat prose of this first novel justify its shortlisting, but it doesn't do much to lift the soul.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eKate Green\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eCountry Life\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The menacing atmosphere Moore builds up is masterful, in that Futh only partly perceives it, through his own preoccupations. A pair of silky knickers he finds under his bed only makes him think squeamishly that the dust on them is ‘strangers’ dead skin’. Rarely is dullness so dangerous.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eLaura Marsh\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Highly recommended.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eHarriet Harman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Alison Moore","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892792193,"sku":"9781907773174","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781907773174.jpeg?v=1571258775"},{"product_id":"the-pre-war-house-and-other-stories-9781907773501","title":"The Pre-War House and Other Stories","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the East Midland’s Book Award 2014\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Pre-War House and Other Stories\u003c\/em\u003e is the debut collection from Alison Moore, whose first novel, \u003cem\u003eThe Lighthouse\u003c\/em\u003e, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and Specsavers National Book Awards 2012.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe stories collected here range from her first prize-winning short story (which appeared in a small journal in 2000) to new and recently published work. In between, Moore’s stories have been shortlisted for more than a dozen different awards including the Bridport Prize, the Fish Prize, the Lightship Flash Fiction Prize, the Manchester Fiction Prize and the Nottingham Short Story Competition. The title story won first prize in the novella category of The New Writer Prose and Poetry Prizes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘There is an insistent, rhythmic quality to Moore’s writing, and a dark imagination at work.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eGenevieve Fox\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eDaily Mail\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Many of the themes centre around family, relationships, loss, and uncertainty. Some of the stories create a sense of claustrophobia as the characters become trapped in situations beyond their control. Each piece has its own unique style but the thread weaving through the collection is an intangible sense of anticipation. It is a delicious read and, having read some of the stories a few times, it is something I will keep going back to. A remarkable debut collection which comes highly recommended.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eF.C. Malby\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The level of accomplishment on display in this bleak narrative is remarkable. Moore is not, however, a beginner. She has been publishing short stories since 2000, and that apprenticeship shaped her first novel. Now she has published a collection of her stories, and it turns out to be just as uncompromising and unsettling as The Lighthouse ... Moore's distinctive voice commands exceptional power.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eDinah Birch\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘[A]lmost every story works beautifully and Moore is clearly a master of the short form writing. They are atmospheric, often sad and dark, and weighed down my memory. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the final story with gives the collection its title. This is a longer piece than most of the others, as a daughter sells the family home which stirs memories of a surprising life within the four, pre-war walls of the house.’ —\u003cem\u003eThe Bookbag\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Evocative and sinister, it builds relentlessly to its inevitable unwanted climax. Impressive and memorable.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eMerric Davidson\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe New Writer\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘It should come as no surprise that \u003cem\u003eThe Pre-War House\u003c\/em\u003e is a controlled and powerful piece of prose fiction, coming as it does from an author whose debut novel features on the recently released Man Booker 2012 [shortlist].’ —\u003cstrong\u003eDan Powell\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e","brand":"Alison Moore","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":18117386631,"sku":"9781784630843","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781907773501.jpeg?v=1571258803"},{"product_id":"gravity-9781844710348","title":"Gravity","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGravity\u003c\/em\u003e presents the first five books of poems from the sequence \u003cem\u003eGravity as a consequence of shape\u003c\/em\u003e, started in 1982 and scheduled for completion in 2005. \u003cem\u003eGravity\u003c\/em\u003e includes the books \u003cem\u003eBrixton Fractals\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eBreadboard\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eCivic Crime\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eDispossession \u0026amp; Cure\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eFizz\u003c\/em\u003e. The sequence is an inversion of empirical demands. Each untitled poem has been relabelled with a jazz dance from a list of dances, from African Boog to Zip. The design of the overall work uses the model of a crushed cylinder, the process of a crumbling wall and a variety of contingent energies, interrupted narratives demonstrating crowd-outs, descriptions of shifts in focal consciousness, fleeting interruptions that damage continuities and expectations with named actors; Burglar, Badger, Fireman, Mathematician. These narratives are supported by decoherent syntax, moving positions that question strident notions of coherence and over-determined incoherences. This is a syntax that sometimes avoids and sometimes embraces tried stanza structures through the use of unreliable sentences and designed forms that exercise deliberate breaks from golden mean or idealised exactness. The poems rely on inconsistency leading to prepared and unexpected transformations that link or rhyme into following or previous poems. One preparation involved labelling a cylinder with stanza indications to provide sonority, bending the cylinder in upon itself and producing new damaged sonorities from the crushed indications. This transformed geometry energises the process of aesthetic productions in each reader’s involvement. One activity transforms words by sound, another by meaning and another by inversion or critique of its proposals. One unrealised proposal is to demonstrate truth. Another is to confirm a lack of reliance upon expectation. The subjects bridge biotechnology and quantum physics through a system of urban gardening and leaking streets. The proposals demand civility and are preposterous.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘A burglar near the end of the century hears a song thrush on trumpet. William Blake, senior citizen of Lambeth, is walking through the Brixton riots. Garden design encodes aesthetics and slavery. This is our poetry. It ranges from archaeology to jazz, from genetics to ZAP vectors via Paxton and Mandelbrot, a performance in time. Allen Fisher’s epic \u003cem\u003eGravity\u003c\/em\u003e is an alphabet of procedural poems, a conceptual cinema, a fun-park, and a museum of anthropology. Deliberately imperfect, democratic, non-totalising, vivid and beautiful: we could not have imagined it without him.’ —Tony Lopez\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Allen Fisher’s \u003cem\u003eGravity\u003c\/em\u003e is a definitive work of synthesizing (non-totalizing) perceptual analysis—an energy map for the uncoded regions of social space. In shape-time as pliant as that which Fisher explores here, the mind of the writer, seen from above, takes on the aspect of a river through the head. No wall can stop it (the culture breaks).’ —Miles Champion\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Allen Fisher","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892792641,"sku":"9781844710348","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844710348.jpeg?v=1570475418"},{"product_id":"leans-9781844715398","title":"Leans","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLeans\u003c\/em\u003e is the condition experienced by a jet pilot as he leaves the Earth’s gravity. The book brings together four chapter-books and the remaining poetry that completes the poet’s twenty-three-year project Gravity as a consequence of shape started in 1982. The earlier two volumes were Gravity and Entanglement, published in 2004 and 2005. The work includes brief and clear descriptions of scientific vocabulary along with poetry that demonstrates enjambment and transformations of poetry derived from collage practice or a practice that uses more than occasion to inform the work all at once in the same place. The poetry continues and extends the poet’s concern for how we know anything and what vocabulary humans use to describe it. The texts therefore draw on unusual as well as straightforward words to achieve a rich range from blend to disruption. This encourages the reader’s confidence but also provides many instances of surprise.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘An alphabetical list of dances found in 1982 gave \u003cem\u003eGravity as a Consequence of Shape\u003c\/em\u003e its titles, its scope, but not its structures. There are many spacetimes and many pertinent voices and in this, the last serial publication of the project, we hear them speak in the only human time the productive reader has – now. Like cosmic paradox, the project’s farthest point from its origin brings us back to its beginnings: to that list and to a culture which can (still) only be dreamt of.’ —Robert Sheppard\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘If poetry is the scholar’s art, then Allen Fisher remakes scholarship in the spirit of poetic inquiry. In all his work, Fisher has committed himself to a precarious openness toward knowledge. \u003cem\u003eLeans\u003c\/em\u003e moves from an exploration of language as the material of information to an emergent lyricism of facticity as \u003cem\u003en\u003c\/em\u003e-dimensional space. \u003cem\u003eLeans\u003c\/em\u003e is a masterful work in the project of undoing mastery.’ —Charles Bernstein\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Allen Fisher","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892792705,"sku":"9781844715398","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844715398.jpeg?v=1570475931"},{"product_id":"blood-run-9781844712663","title":"Blood Run","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eBlood Run was once a great mound city. About eighty remnants of its original four-hundred mounds still stand in testament to the 10,000 people who made their home here time ago and prove a terrific tribute of world history for their descendants living just down the road today. Yet, Blood Run is still in great danger of being forever destroyed by looters, developers, and the plow. This volume stands to persuade others to protect her and the sacred remains she guards in mounded tombs. The verse play of persona poems herein emanate its character of architectural accomplishment designed in accordance with the sun and moon and multitudes of stars above.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrevious to European colonization and conquest efforts, trade flourished between Indigenous peoples of the Americas for perhaps as long as time earmarked humankind. Evidence of continual vast trade throughout the Western Hemisphere, including art, symbolic items, and practical tools, was well cached in the multitude of mound cities puckering vast portions of the continent, some still incredibly existing after decades of continual and intentional desecration, disfigurement, and dismantling by grave robbers and Manifest Destiny driven anti-eco agriculturalists. Though surely there were times of dilemma for Indigenous Americans, these long-developed relations ensured survival during eras of doubt. Thus the likelihood of peace prevailed and most nations enjoyed the security of blanket protection, aid, and assistance from related tribes; whether by blood or adoption. In so much, tribes that enjoyed helping one another sustain themselves engaged in trade relationships with numerous additional nations outside these pacts; building cities of ceremonial, burial, effigy, and civic mounds, wherein which they flourished.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘I am a descendent of the mound-builders. I say, Praise to the book that praises this mystery and beauty and history. Allison Hedge Coke is a woman who has fallen deep into the earth world and reveals its hidden truths. She is a mesmerizing artist, with work based on research chanted into poetry.’ —Linda Hogan\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘These poems bear witness to a difficult age, an age built on a spiral of earthliness. They make an honoring song for the earth. This honoring song carries joy, sadness, fury and grief. We need this gift, these poems.’ —Joy Harjo, Mvksoke poet and musician\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘“Blood Run” the name of an ancient site in an eastern corner of the US state South Dakota. Hundreds of mounds were built here by Native American Plains peoples and cultures, a thousand years before the arrival of the white intruders (e.g., settlers, military). The poems revive the history of the sites at “Blood Run” giving profound voice to humans, animals, plants and structures, also with political-ecological hope for the future to preserve ancient spiritual places.’ —Bernhard Widder \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Purity in Poetry! Allison Hedge Coke has captured the true essence of the way of life, celebration of life enjoyed by all the many nations of Indigenous people(s) living here on our Makoce (land) which all indigenous nations call in unison Mother Earth. All Our Relations (Mitakuye Oyasin) is eloquently spoken and expressed by Allison. It is a true honor to have a kola (friend) a true Indigenous winyan (lady), to hold, keep and express the true spirit of all nations. I AM HONORED.’ —Irwin Sharp Fish, Sr.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Allison Adelle Hedge Coke","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892792769,"sku":"9781844712663","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844712663.jpeg?v=1570475276"},{"product_id":"effigies-9781844714070","title":"Effigies","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a rare pleasure to unleash beauty upon the ever-tragic world, an exception to the plagued misfortune of greed, despair, and injury. Though elements of colonization do present certain challenges and malady to a natural world inhabited for tens of thousands of years by peoples steeped in ideologies, practical and philosophic systems, they do not overcome the lingual sensibilities and prowess of the poets representing the areas of the planet present in this text. Instead the poets overcome the intrusion.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom baleen row, razor clam edge, rabid willow ptarmigan plume, to white buds of plumeria, gardenia, lei, shaded grave of dried lauhala and graying niu, fertile Pacific essence swells these poems into hummock ice knolls, into layers and layers of white sea laps rolling, into mindfulness, consideration, climate care--belonging.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom ulu, to cane knife, where aurora’s green vein bleeds blue and tangles into indigo or green-robed mauna combs t? stalks, palms, kukui, and pines. From Barrow to Waihe’e, tethered and hammered through wild among dark branches and snared by voices, these poems harbor whale and seal oil burning to bring sustenance to a reader’s search for light and with them carry us into a seafaring world of rich embrace. Spectacular, immediate, these beaches and beeches along the shores provide a tactile relationship made immense in their stream-crafted images.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eEffigies\u003c\/em\u003e juxtaposes the distinctive voices and visions of four emerging poets – dg nanouk okpik, Cathy Rexford, Brandy Nalani McDougall, and Mahealani Perez-Wendt. In drawing from their Native Alaskan and Native Hawaiian cultures and histories, the poems in this book are not an assemblage but a living force and create an intricate, haunting weave.’ —Arthur Sze\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘What a shape-shifting moment, this release of four lush and necessary voices into the open air. Linked by blood and fevered lyric, dg nanouk okpik, Cathy Tagnak Rexford, Brandy Nalani McDougall and Mahealani Perez-Wendt offer up unapologetic and unflinching lessons that, as okpik says in the astonishing \"Corpse Whale,\" shove \"sinew back into the threaded bones of the land.\" Individually, each of these voices would be a revelation. Collectively, they're a revolution.’ —Patricia Smith\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Allison Adelle Hedge Coke","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892794945,"sku":"9781844714070","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844714070.jpeg?v=1570475355"},{"product_id":"effigies-ii-9781844718955","title":"Effigies II","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese five first books join to represent a freshly emerging 21st Century Indigenous Mainland poetry. This collection releases a reader into parallel spaces of Native culture as diverse as the US-occupied landscapes they embody; the desert Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, Eastern Woodlands, Great Lakes Region, Kansas and Oklahoma, bringing a bit of urban and rural symphony by resisting folds into Americana with courageous unfolding imagery in a serious range of departure. Five debut books present a fistful of furious nature, supple with beauty and brilliance and packing the punch intentional poetry delivers. This is a fearless collection of evocative and challenging verse. Effigies II is a road trip through Indian Country with five American Indian women poets who bring it all back home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003cem\u003eThe Tecumseh Motel\u003c\/em\u003e traces a parallel path of Shawnee culture and personal history.  Spanning from the period of Indian Removal to the present, this text lyrically examines identity, generational memory, and the importance of place.” —LAURA DA\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This book explores the images of the American West. From the neon light of honky tonk barrooms to the Southwestern landscape to the railroad, dirt roads and grandmothers’ living rooms.” —UNGILBAH DAVILA\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A narrative through wrenching spaces in the life of one descendant wrestling with post apocalyptic identity, grounded by persistently supportive ancestors and helpers determined to see their blood survive and resist colonial assimilation through disembodiment” —KRISTI LEORA\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘“I want my ink to bellow,” Shawnee poet Laura Da’ writes, and in \u003cem\u003eEffigies II\u003c\/em\u003e, series editor Allison Adelle Hedge Coke has gathered ink that bellows—and soothes and whispers and rants and hums and moans and rocks.  In this gathering of “survivors who remember \/ where they come from,” we find beautifully-built poems in many kinds of language, from “mad-house logic” to “the language of the deer,” from “the subtle semantics of Shawnee” to a \u003cem\u003eLa Bajada\u003c\/em\u003e love song. These poems travel the world from \u003cem\u003eNanih Waiya\u003c\/em\u003e to Sacre-Coeur, from the brutal world of the twelve Caesars of ancient Rome to Caesar’s Palace, from The Inari Temple to \u003cem\u003ekitchi kabekong\u003c\/em\u003e, from Peer Gynt to Buck Owens, from the world of two women firing a Ruger 270 at beer cans in the headlights to “the woods, the remote quiet in the deep of them.\" Good editing (like good mothering), as Hedge Coke casually defines it in her introduction, is “reveling in what they bring bursting in.” Readers, the door just banged open. Prepare to revel.’ —Jon Davis, author of Preliminary Report and Scrimmage of Appetite\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘From within the pages of Effigies II the essential aspect of light from our indgenous poetics burns brilliant. Lara Mann's impeccable \u0026amp; evocative poems give rise to Davila's ironic modernities, Menominee's archetypal homages, Leora's prescient renderings of the seventh-generation's silhouettes, and finally, the magnificently weighted lines of Laura Da'.’ —Joan Naviyuk Kane, author of The Cormorant Hunter's Wife, Hyperboreal, and Then the World Was Milk\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Allison Hedge Coke has done it again, with her keen ear and eye: brought powerful new Native women's voices to our attention. Rigorous, powerful, brave, haunting, spirited. These collections are a refreshing antidote to any old cynical poetry tropes.  Cheers all around.’ —Anne Waldman, author of The Iovis Trilogy, Manatee\/Humanity, Gossamurmur\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘These poems, fresh effigies carved by five young Native women cracked open my heart.  Read them when alone carefully swaddled in a warm blanket, or read them aloud at the kitchen table to all your relations, past and future.  But read them. Glorious, rich with imagery, potent to the last page!’ —LeAnne Howe, author of Evidence of Red and Choctalking on Other Realities\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Allison Hedge Coke has done it again, with her keen ear and eye: brought powerful new Native women's voices to our attention. Rigorous, powerful, brave, haunting, spirited. These collections are a refreshing antidote to any old cynical poetry tropes.  Cheers all around.’ —Anne Waldman, author of The Iovis Trilogy, Manatee\/Humanity, Gossamurmur\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘In Effigies II we are introduced to a subtle and striking set of new indigenous voices. The five poets represented here give readers a window into the nuanced range of contemporary Native poetry and the complex polyphonic lives that work to (re)define a contemporary indigenous identity. Each of these poets establishes themselves in a defiant domain of fluidity, unwilling to settle for staid and hardened definitions of indigeneity.’ —Matthew Shenoda, author of Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cstrong\u003eWednesday, August 27, 2014 - August Book of the Month: “Effigies II”\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEffigies II\u003c\/em\u003e is a compilation of works from Native women poets. Editor Allison Hedge Coke says debuting these works in a collection gives these Native writers a chance to enter the literary publishing world as a community. The book is like a road trip through Indian Country through words. The poems allow the reader to experience a multi-regional view on Native life. We invite you join us live as we take in the words of Laura Da’ (Eastern Shawnee), Ungelbah Davila (Diné), Kristi Leora (Kitigan Zibi Anishinaabeg), Laura Mann (Choctaw\/Cherokee\/Mohawk) and Kateri Menominee (Bay Mills Tribe of Chippewa).’ —Native America Calling\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Allison Adelle Hedge Coke","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892795073,"sku":"9781844718955","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844718955.jpeg?v=1570475356"},{"product_id":"erec-enide-9781844718092","title":"Erec \u0026 Enide","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eErec \u0026amp; Enide\u003c\/em\u003e is a bold and unashamedly intimate work that delights in the theatrical, communicative powers of language, and by turns gives way to a quiet sadness. Writing out of contemporary feminist revisions of lyric and epic forms, the poems set up an overtly feminised display which the reader then re-enacts to find meanings which do not ally and a feminism which does not conform to conventional modes of uplift. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTaking its title from Chretien De Troyes’ twelfth-century Arthurian romance, \u003cem\u003eErec \u0026amp; Enide\u003c\/em\u003e draws on Jack Spicer’s \u003cem\u003eThe Holy Grail\u003c\/em\u003e, the pastoral romanticism of John Clare, the feminist projects of Lisa Robertson and the essays of Kathy Acker as it moves through a vibrant, rich and playful mix of underhand lyric. These modern love poems wear their ideologically saturated state on their sleeve, and are all the more loving for that.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘It is the world’s wild glare that provides the complex heart of Erec \u0026amp; Enide. With wisdom, uncommon wit, and precision, Amy De’Ath’s spirited first book unsettles all things to reveal that neither a language nor a body is a closed system. De’Ath’s is an inclusive imagination that meets the world with lyric intensity and irony—her poems invite us to feel: “stranger, it’s a hunger I’m looking for.”’ —Peter Gizzi\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Lyrical, local, literary, strong, domestic, delicate, sexy and epic, Amy De’Ath’s Erec \u0026amp; Enide also brings the modernity and speed of much recent North American poetry to these too-often inward-looking isles. De’Ath’s emphatic arrival on the British poetry scene is cause for both hope and celebration.’ —Tim Atkins\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘While we oscillate between life and death, Amy De'Ath's poetry looks to the whir, the engines and the effects of such daily migrations. She ably slows us to take in and weigh the view, to ask how we construct the 'publicity of meaning'. De'Ath's is a sensitive search; and while the unearthed may challenge (‘opened every cupboard looking for the nature of it’), the unanswerable space is enriching.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eErec \u0026amp; Enide is fiery and soft. Let it carry you on wings of seductive metrics and lyric playfulness, below and between timeless narratives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e’ —Amy King\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Amy De’Ath","offers":[{"title":"Pamphlet","offer_id":3892795137,"sku":"9781844718092","price":6.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844718092.jpeg?v=1570475365"},{"product_id":"luxe-9781844719716","title":"Luxe","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eLuxe is a magnificent spree in a bric-a-brac shop. A haul of pre-loved and glittering objets – pralines in a crystal bowl, a handful of tame ladybirds, a portrait in vinyl and cola-cubes – are artfully displayed on the poems’ shelves to represent the conflicts and connections of a fabulous circle of friends and lovers, those real, remembered and imagined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eLuxe\u003c\/em\u003e, Amy Key’s debut collection, is a magnificent spree in a bric-a-brac shop. A haul of pre-loved and glittering objets – pralines in a crystal bowl, a handful of tame ladybirds, a portrait in vinyl and cola-cubes – are artfully displayed on the poems’ shelves to represent the conflicts and connections of a fabulous circle of friends and lovers, those real, remembered and imagined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLayer your pulse onto my pulse she writes in ‘On Being In Bed With Your Brand New Lover’. Dress me. Only the reader knows if this is an order, an instruction or the sweetest sort of invitation. Read a copy of Luxe, keep it next to your fainting couch.’ —Julia Bird\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘This delicious selection is a chocolate-box assortment of the work of one of my favourite poets writing today. Her delicate, dextrous writing belies the raw truths she tells. There are many centres to her confections that only reveal themselves when you take a bite. In her words 'Poem with peep toes...Poem to conceal some feelings in...Poem to avalanche in your heart'. I love Amy Key.’ —Lauren Laverne\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘If we are living in the material world, I want Amy Key to be my material girl. She makes her pleats and flounces move; she crowds the surface with color and texture right where it needs to be to draw the reader in like a bee to the velvet bell of the foxglove; or like the silverscreen beauty who eats bonbons from a satin box, she wills our gaze to take it all in and to crave more. These poems are worn on the body, and like all great ensembles, they show just enough; they are hot and memorable.’ —D.A. Powell\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Aside from all their purely poetic elements, what strikes me most about Amy’s poems is the kind of idea of woman-ness which they work with. It feels like what is happening is a kind of valorisation – as oppose to eroticisation – of feminine vulnerabilityKatherine Kilalea’ —Katharine Kilalea\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Amy Key","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892795393,"sku":"9781844719716","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844719716.jpeg?v=1570475946"},{"product_id":"true-north-9781844718283","title":"True North","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn keeping with his powerful first collection, A Little Javanese, these seven new stories by André Mangeot roam the globe, exposing human frailty in its many forms.   In central Europe a wayward son takes up the reins of the family business; a journalist heads into the Sahara in search of her past; a retired Canadian teacher is forced to question much he has believed …\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFlood, heat, desert and snowscape are here almost characters in themselves – edging certain stories to their climax, elsewhere simply observing how we humans write our own stories and endings.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlayed out against the grinding poverty of street children, in drug fuelled Miami bars and alleys, amongst the detritus of a deserted Thai beach or in the complex world of musical genius – we are witnesses to love, betrayal, self-delusion, the nature of hope and loyalty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese compelling and beautifully crafted stories show us that humanity has more that binds us together than separates us. That action and consequences all have a cost and that truth and lies are sometimes only divided by a heartbeat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘There is a cosmopolitan breadth to Andre Mangeot’s stories that gives them exceptional range and cultural richness. These layered narratives are fraught with the eruption of memory, the complications of the past, with encounters that grow taut through misunderstanding and darkly ensuing consequence. Few writers would dare to mix historical and fictional characters as he does in the title story and few could write from the viewpoint of other cultures with such sensitivity and interior authority. His subjects are beautifully observed and his style has technique equal to their variety and emotional scale.’ —Graham Mort\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘About A Little Javanese:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese stories are pacy, eventful, sometimes violent, their settings unusually varied and colourful but they nevertheless remain grounded in real human experience, so that we can believe in the characters and recognise their dilemmas. A disturbingly unpredictable world emerges, populated by isolated individuals who can only guess at one another's motives.’ —Chris Beckett\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘In plain, uncluttered prose, these stories illuminate pivotal moments in their characters’ lives. Their yearning for escape and flight speaks of a deep-rooted psychological unease which the protagonists’ themselves—although not the author—are unable, or unwilling, to explore.’ —Colette Paul\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Intertwines the personal and the political with terrific skill … a fantastic collection: ambitious, moving and beautifully written.’ —Joe Dunthorne\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘With a meticulous sense of place, Andre Mangeot presents a series of characters caught between worlds, on the cusp of change, between life and death. His stories are gripping and atmospheric, full of impending doom and unexpected redemptions.’ —Sarah Bower\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"André Mangeot","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892795585,"sku":"9781844718283","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844718283.jpeg?v=1571258859"},{"product_id":"origins-of-the-underground-9781844710782","title":"Origins of the Underground","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe background to \u003cem\u003eOrigins of the Underground\u003c\/em\u003e is really the story of how British poets became intellectuals. As they retreated from inherited and fixed value systems, they had to think for themselves, and this was a race which intellectuals generally won. You can't just buy in ideas like a small tropical country buying jet fighter planes. What the success of poets seems to turn on is their willingness to use ideas which excite the ideas part of their brains because they are genuinely unfamiliar. Poets who prefer to stick to well-worn and inherited arguments, where they can predict every move, fail for this reason. The area of nearby uncertainty has an odd shape. Obviously, most of the ideas which were new and risky thirty years ago are now forgotten – the risk fell to earth, so to speak. A certain archaeology is needed to retrieve these \"casualty\" ideas. I admit that I enjoy this sort of digging, and the practice of psychoceramics (the scientific study of crackpots), but perhaps this pleasure pursuit is useful as well. The terrain is made impassable by deep mutual disagreements between different groups of poetry readers (and writers). Going in at the level of ideas offers a possible way of easing these disagreements. Admittedly, it's very difficult to find out exactly what they are.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Andrew Duncan","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892795777,"sku":"9781844710782","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844710782.jpeg?v=1570475995"},{"product_id":"leaves-are-like-traffic-lights-9781844712779","title":"Leaves are Like Traffic Lights","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eFeaturing turbo-charged trees, double agent forests and leaves that perform magic, this is a wide-ranging collection of fun, lyrical and thought-provoking poems. Some have already appeared on programmes such as Blue Peter, Poetry Please and BBC Poetry Pie. Others have delighted audiences up and down the country.  There are new poems that celebrate the outdoors,  tree-climbing, forest school, ecological matters and nature in the city, alongside a smattering of favourites from previous anthologies and collections.  As ever Andrew infuses the poems with his bonkers and surreal imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Andrew Fusek Peters’ poems, like the man himself, have always been great performers — they make you stop and listen. These new poems do all that and more. They make you listen and look, look at the natural world around you. And they leave you thinking when they go.’ —Philip Gross\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Your zaniness reminded me of Eddie Izzard!’ —C. Jones, KS2 class teacher\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Andrew Fusek Peters","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892795905,"sku":"9781844712779","price":6.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844712779.jpeg?v=1570475932"},{"product_id":"goose-music-9781844718566","title":"Goose Music","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGoose Music is a collection of new poems co-authored by Andy Brown and John Burnside, two writers with backgrounds in ecology and notable for their lyric poetry. John Burnside won the Whitbread Prize for poetry in 2000. Characterised by their formal variety, lyric intensity and their attention to natural detail, the poems in Goose Music are Ecopoetic, asking questions of how we might dwell on the earth in these times of great environmental change, exploring lyric ideas of identity, self, myth, landscape and place.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘To disappear within the hum of creation is every creator's fiercest longing. And to reappear, reincarnate, grinning for all of the apparent reasons! Such is the magic Brown and Burnside make in Goose Music.’ —Thomas Lynch\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Mystery, luminosity and forgetting the maps – that thrilling space between sense data and faith.’ —Paul Farley\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Andy Brown","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892796033,"sku":"9781844718566","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844718566.jpeg?v=1570475416"},{"product_id":"strip-9781844715305","title":"Strip","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSugar and Spice and All things nice?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIs that what little girls are made of?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMagazines, lippy and a push-up bra?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePorn star, sex symbol, victim or whore? What does it mean to be a woman in the 21st century? Are we born girls? Or are we the products of what has gone before? \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eStrip\u003c\/em\u003e reveals the lives of 50's pin-up Bettie Page, hardcore porn stars and the little girl left behind on the way with stunning beauty and poignancy. The poet is not afraid to go beyond the boundaries of taste, and ask what lies beneath images we both admire and demonise. The strong voice of these sensitive and powerful narratives manages to find a sad beauty within lives. These cinematic poems are political in the most subtle sense as they explore the intimacy of power relations, gender, and unpick notions of glamour to find the tale behind the glossy centrefold. The work is a tapestry of how femininity is created, culturally and individually, exposing how the girl on stage stitches together her personae, and then strips her down layer by layer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePoems that refuse to shy away from the dark, the grotesque and the taboo, but lead us, through an interplay of beautifully crafted, sensuous language, striking visuals, voice and often devastating observation to bring us face to face with the 'other' in ourselves. The true shock in these haunting narratives is that these lives speak to all of us about family, sex, power and love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘These are teasing erotic poems with imagery brilliant as sequins on a gown, that persuade us of the wayward frisson of pin-up glamour and bravado of bleached hair. In \u003cem\u003eStrip\u003c\/em\u003e we undergo our own journey of vicarious pleasure, down to the bone of ourselves. Didn’t we always know those suggestive fairy stories could groom us for the porn movie? This is a coming of age collection of a poet truly blossoming: elegant, witty, provocative and subversive on ‘this short forever’ of sex and its appeal.’ —S.J. Litherland\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Genuine work from a genuine new voice – a voice which will be heard.’ —Joolz\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Poetry is something of a no no for me usually as often it’s so damn obscure you have to be the actual poet to understand what the flipping thing is on about; not this book. Impressive, refreshing, honest and hilarious are just a few ways of describing \u003cem\u003eSex with Elvis ...\u003c\/em\u003e This is a truly brilliant observant authentic painting with words. An unforgettable word mistress. More please.’ —The Crack\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Angela Readman’s work is a carefully stitched embroidery of the familiar and the often overlooked or taken for granted- she makes pictures that stay in your mind long after the poem has been read. Sharply observant, dry, savage and wholly authentic. Genuine work from a genuine new voice, a voice that will be heard.’ —Joolz\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Readman casts her eye over ordinary life with a sharp knife. This is witty, astute poetry of the inventive kind. Sex with Elvis feels important, as all good poetry should ... Poetry with an edge. Read it, taste it, it’s bloody wonderful!’ —Julia Darling\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘It must be obvious that I loved this collection of poetry. It is one of the most exciting collections I have read in recent years. \u003cem\u003eStrip\u003c\/em\u003e goes straight to the core, very little metaphor, just very stark images that explore society and the experience of girls and woman within it. The language and imagery is cutting, beautiful and sad. I felt as though I was breathing with these narrators, experiencing the small detail of their lives.’ —Annie Clarkson\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Angela Readman","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892796161,"sku":"9781844715305","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844715305.jpeg?v=1570476086"},{"product_id":"the-new-generation-9781844717651","title":"The New Generation","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eVampires, witches, fairies, wizards and mermaids meet them all here in Angela Topping's poems. She shares her wicked sense of humour about school and celebrates festivals, families and nature in this delightful collection of much anthologised poems now brought together for the first time. These poems have been enjoyed by children of all ages the length and breadth of the country in a variety of venues including schools, libraries and festivals. Enter Topping's zany world of magic and mystery, where teenage wizards wear doc martens and your auntie is a vampire. You will never want to leave.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Among the whimsy that sometimes passes for children's poetry, Angela Topping's new book stands out. It is witty and technically inventive. Like most of the best poetry, it stands at a slight angle to the world.’ —Fred Sedgwick\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘To quote one of her poems \"It's kids stuff – but I like it\". Except it isn't just for kids. Rich in language, tone, style and voice, the variety of subjects that matter ensure that adults and children alike will find much to delight in.’ —Paul Cookson\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘A lively collection that will capture the interest and imagination of young readers.’ —John Foster\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘She flies up from the everyday in a powerful space-craft to find a wider view of the world. Which is not all beautiful, not all kind, but with its own mythic element.’ —Anne Born \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Angela Topping's poetry is now fully-fledged: her poems are as finely-crafted as she can make them – the products of always being in quest of perfection, the elusive only-words in their only-order. They are, in a word, self-assured, the genuine article. These are poems for sharing’ —Matt Simpson \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Angela Topping combines a practical, no-nonsense talent with gentle loving humour.’ —Janet Walker\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Angela Topping","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892796289,"sku":"9781844717651","price":6.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844717651.jpeg?v=1571258792"},{"product_id":"implacable-art-9781876857004","title":"Implacable Art","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this landmark first full-length collection, Anna Mendelssohn emerges as one of the most singular and formidable voices of the late twentieth-century avant-garde. ‘Implacable Art’ is a work of restless transformation, where the poetic page becomes a site of intense resistance against the narrowing effects of modern power and state surveillance.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe collection continues Mendelssohn’s career-long exploration of persecution, loss, and the precarity of the individual. Her lyricism is both fiercely guarded and radically open, weaving esoteric wordplay and high-stakes linguistic play into a ‘fugitive’ poetics that refuses to be categorized. By treating words as magical objects capable of re-enchanting a world shaped by alienation, Mendelssohn challenges the reader to look beyond official language and accepted histories.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoving between ‘explosive’ political confrontation and the quiet, minor confusions of daily life, \u003ccite\u003eImplacable Art\u003c\/cite\u003e offers an ecstatic and at times painful vision of our shared dependencies and desires. It is a work of profound imaginative inventiveness – a testament to the necessity of art as a means of survival and a howl of defiance that remains as vital and audacious today as when it was first published.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of This Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘[Mendelssohn is] increasingly recognised as one of the most important avant-garde poets of her generation.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eEleanor Careless and Vicky Sparrow\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eJournal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry\u003c\/cite\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Mendelssohn’s poetry is a marvel of high-stakes linguistic play and fierce, fugitive integrity.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eDavid Wheatley\u003c\/cite\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Mendelssohn’s poetry is both empathic and uncompromising. Politically charged, explosive moments are patterned within shifting images that register a profoundly sensitive lyric subjecthood.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eCulture Matters\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eVicky Sparrow\u003c\/cite\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Mendelssohn’s anonymous honesty calls for more poetry, more writing, more art, implacable.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eJournal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eLuke Roberts\u003c\/cite\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Mendelssohn’s poems are at once radically open and fiercely guarded; they possess a lyric intelligence that is as sharp as a diamond and just as difficult to shatter.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eNew Left Review\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eJack Barron\u003c\/cite\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Anna Mendelssohn","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892796353,"sku":"9781876857004","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781876857004.jpeg?v=1570475912"},{"product_id":"the-burning-9781844719518","title":"The Burning","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘The lyric poem works both to slow down our world, teasing out the many disparate elements of our experience, and to reorient it, by exposing an entire universe of instincts, paradoxes, and mysteries beneath all that we know, or think we know. In these poems by Anna Selby, human beings are always gravitating from earth and air towards water. It is as if the transcendence they seek (the desire to “leap\/hot out of your own life”) requires a physical departure from the very medium they inhabit. Selby’s ringing titles evoke not just a subject but a sensibility, and her versatile forms and deftly run-on lines very persuasively re-enact the thrill of sense experience and the shape of thought.’ Chandrahas Choudhury\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Anna Selby’s 'The Burning' pulses with ingenious energy. ‘Your language\/ got more picasz’ – By turns laconic and lively, her poems are generous with possibility: ‘Will we […]love again the strangeness of our shape – \/ our shadow flooding the ceiling?’ —Alison Brackenbury\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Anna Selby has a view of things which is all her own. Without affectation, carefully and precisely, never forcing it, she realizes, and makes the reader party to, that vision.  The poems are poignant, funny, passionate and more besides; and in all their tones they ring true. You read them with little shocks of surprise and recognition. Thinking of them afterwards is like a pleasurable haunting.’ —David Constantine\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Anna Selby","offers":[{"title":"Pamphlet","offer_id":3892796417,"sku":"9781844719518","price":6.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844719518.jpeg?v=1571258730"},{"product_id":"the-men-from-praga-9781844714223","title":"The Men from Praga","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for The Seamus Heaney Centre Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e This sharp and unpredictable collection opens in the Cold War. Berkeley’s father was a V-bomber navigator, a conflicted inheritance of pride and guilt which informs the opening poems. While parents struggle to keep life normal, the secrecies and occluded horrors of the period play out in vividly imagined children’s games. One locus of memory is a ruined mansion, sliced into many apartments, through which the adult narrator looks back on the past unsure of what really happened, only that the child did not understand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe second part of the book develops the theme of shared humanity from the Warsaw fishermen of the title poem to a hi-tech dystopia of the near future, by way of a dissolute Norwegian, a traduced Baudelaire, a contemporary woodwose, and a petrolhead on the A1M. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe array of voices – boastful, baffled, sardonic – employs Berkeley’s experience as a poetry performer with The Joy of Six. In poems that frequently wrongfoot the reader, the Empire shrinks to an opera audience, the Royal Family is reduced to waxworks, and Cambridge finally gets its ecological mass transportation system. Obliquely political, this debut collection takes a sideways look at modern England.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Anne Berkeley's poems manage to seem unnervingly direct while coming at you from the most unexpected angles. Whether evoking a childhood lived in the shadow of the Bomb or the skewed reality of a waxworks museum these poems take a clear-eyed look at the world in all its strangeness.’ —Matthew Francis\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Whether via sound-effects (\"the swallowing blue of a million delphiniums\"), exact images (\"the wall was speckled green, like ice-cream in the gutter\") or that assurance with facts that convinces a reader (\"gold a micron thick laminates the glass\"), Anne Berkeley's writing has immediacy. She says it, you see it.’ —Sheenagh Pugh\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Anne Berkeley","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892796481,"sku":"9781844714223","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844714223.jpeg?v=1571258781"},{"product_id":"braided-river-9781844711093","title":"Braided River","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBraided River\u003c\/em\u003e consists of a major selection from forty years of Anselm Hollo’s published work, as well as a selection from his most recent, uncollected work. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt describes a “braided” lifetime’s endeavours to generate text that reflects a twentieth century existence in Europe, including England, and the United States of America. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA native of Finland, Hollo has been anthologized and discussed as a “British” poet in the Sixties and early Seventies, later on, as an “American” one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA lifelong associate of the Beat, Black Mountain, New York (One and Two), and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E schools of U.S. American Poetry, Hollo hopes to convey to younger writers the amazing variety and strength of the writing (both poetry and prose) that has emerged from those quarters in the past fifty-odd years, and that has been strongly connected to the most active work created in the United Kingdom. This body of work represents the United States’ true contribution to modern and postmodern world literature, and it exists, to this day, in glorious independence from what poet\/essayist Charles Bernstein has called ‘official verse culture.’ Hollo’s aim is to acquaint younger writers with this vigorous, multifarious, rhizomic tradition of U.S. American writing. He also hopes to demonstrate the multi- and cross-cultural connections that have influenced it, something he practises in his Boulder classes, examining twentieth century European poetry and French poetry in particular, and in his translation workshops.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘This is a man who sees through to the other side of empire’s lies, but who is also capable of remaining perfectly still, a rare thing, as Pascal knew. He doesn’t bother with spending the entire day in search of the \u003cem\u003emot juste\u003c\/em\u003e, as Ford said of Conrad. He's got a million of them up his sleeve. You want mot juste? “Lookee here,” as Buddy Guy says before he rips into one of his solos: “In the land of invisible warfare, many thoughts return marked insufficient postage.”’ —Patrick Pritchett\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Anselm Hollo wrote The Empress Hotel Poems (there were six of them), which appeared in Jon Silkin’s magazine, Stand, in England, in 1966. I was astounded by them then, for they proposed, for the first time in my experience, that it was possible for an American poetic idiom to be adopted by a European (writing in English). It is impossible for someone under 40 (say) writing poetry in America today to imagine the narrowness of possibility allowed by the literary climate in England at that time. There were some British poets (Tom Raworth and Lee Harwood being the outstanding examples) who had the nous to overcome those severe limits, but for me, and I’m sure for many others, it was Anselm Hollo’s work that represented a crucial breakthrough, especially because Stand was a magazine with a relatively large distribution, while Raworth and Harwood were still “underground” poets at that time. What The Empress Hotel Poems illuminated was the simple fact that Kerouac, Ginsberg, O’Hara and company, were not simply icons of a seemingly fabulous culture beyond our reach, but were potential models for the future of a new poetics.’ —Doug Lang\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘On \u003cem\u003eCorvus\u003c\/em\u003e: The bedrock solidness of Anselm Hollo’s poems makes as ever a place of refuge and delight in these meager times. Thank God for his humor, else we’d all be dead.’ —Robert Creeley\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘On \u003cem\u003eCorvus\u003c\/em\u003e: For three decades Anselm Hollo has been an important figure on the intercultural poetry scene. In \u003cem\u003eOutlying Districts\u003c\/em\u003e,  we see how his original work has been enriched, both technically and in content, by the contact he has had with European poets through his impressive translations.’ —James Laughlin\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘And the language – hip and jazzy, humorous, erudite and seemingly casual, overlays the serious rumblings of a non-complacent mind, always  ‘very there’, wary and alert. Resonating from the onset of the moment, his poems are sharp, concise, politically prescient, and a bit world weary – as should be expected – with his awareness of and translations from an international and intercultural world of writing. Although he has made the United States his home since 1966, he still retains the valuable ability to see ‘America’ from the outside. Yet he knows that “beauty knows no ideologically correct routines.”’ —Joanne Kyger\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Anselm Hollo","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892796545,"sku":"9781844711093","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844711093.jpeg?v=1570475290"},{"product_id":"the-mud-fort-9781844710751","title":"The Mud Fort","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book draws together a major selection of poems from 1984-2004. Including works on London, sport, boats, cartoons, food, the classics, the mystical, history, crime, and the North. A taut, rhythmic verse, with respect for word-sound and a cheering disregard for consensus on history, language and ‘poetry’.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘To have even a part of Bill Griffiths’ writing of the past decades widely available is an event to be welcomed. Mercurially self-effacing – a Pepper’s Ghost on the stage of poetry – Bill has kept the down-home of the reality based community honest and welcoming: generous music.’ —Tom Raworth\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Griffiths’s poetry sings among the bogus, as Basil Bunting might have said, with an insouciant yet high musical intelligence almost unique among contemporary poets. The poet’s sense of local and wider history, his concern for the human soul (an old concept here made new in a materialist age), his dazzling lexical virtuosity, his range of forms and his commitment to vital scholarly investigation of a long range past combine to posit a fundamental challenge to all authoritarian claims to truth, especially the totalitarian reduction of human consciousness to the present and immediate: that degrading reality crust of postmodern confidence. The poetry runs the gamut of human perception from the comic to the mystical and from the lyrical to the tragic. Human achievement and human failure are dispassionately articulated in a world where Blakean contraries have full play. His is a unique and unrepeatable voice speaking with an unnerving accuracy in our time.’ —Clive Bush\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bill Griffiths","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892796993,"sku":"9781844710751","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844710751.jpeg?v=1571258789"},{"product_id":"brother-no-one-9781844719181","title":"Brother No One","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten during the George W. Bush era, the poems in Brother No One take their bearings from our surveillance society, where no action or transaction goes unnoticed. Everything, from vacation spots to email messages to food choice, becomes part of the surveilled tableau, and the lines between victim, bystander, and perpetrator become blurred. The CIA regulates the sun’s rising and setting, cameras lurk behind mirrors, and every human interaction becomes fodder for film. 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Review\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Henry is a keen observer who writes from a constantly changing perspective.’ —Jacket\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Brian Henry","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892797057,"sku":"9781844719181","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844719181.jpeg?v=1570475298"},{"product_id":"designated-heartbeat-9781844710683","title":"Designated Heartbeat","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘In this selection of shorter lyric poems, celebrated Language poet Bruce Andrews offers his charismatic blend of satire, wit and \u003cem\u003ejouissance\u003c\/em\u003e, creating a dizzying picture of modern America. In these poems Andrews explores a more intimate and domestic register, further reminding us of the astonishing range of this contemporary master.’\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Andrews’ \u003cem\u003eDesignated Heartbeat\u003c\/em\u003e clips in and out of syntax, repetition or surprise. The aesthetic damage and recovery, then damage. It holds you, drops you, sometimes helps you recover.’ —Allen Fisher\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘“Lexicon seduces” we read in the marvelous poem “I knew the signs by their tents” that opens \u003cem\u003eDesignated Heartbeat\u003c\/em\u003e. Bruce Andrews’ lexicon does indeed “seduce” the reader, what with the “referent burnout” of such pieces as “Verbal Sallies,” a bravura series of quasi-love poems, where we witness the poet, who is “Listening for portraiture,” “sweep the jokes overword.” But where else would one sweep jokes if not “overword”? Andrews’ word invention has never been more dazzling than it is in these profoundly political riffs on the current cultural scene, on the ways we live now—if one can call it “living.” Whether in verse or prose or in concrete visual forms, this is a poetry remarkably attuned to that “referent burnout” we all experience as we make our way through the “success sewage” that surrounds us. 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It brings you love, death, lust, loss, betrayal, belonging, murder, aliens and a time-travelling adventuress being chased by a dastardly foe!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis collection is made up of loosely connected stories, all occurring in the same place at the same time, sprawling out across different genres, styles, perspectives and emotions. 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These ethereal, romantic, and feminine poems draw on the aesthetic beauty of nature, flowers, trees, the sky and the sea, to convey emotional intimacies. As if happening upon a cache of personal letters, the reader is invited to share in the poet’s private world, where gardens, the seaside, a palace bathroom and an antique’s cabinet are among the poems’ settings. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe poet’s love of London and her experiences of living in the city feature strongly throughout the collection, offsetting the gentler dreaminess of the natural environment poems with the city’s vibrancy. The collection’s long coming of age poem \u003cem\u003eDear Camden\u003c\/em\u003e journals the poet’s experience of living in Camden Town with honesty, humour, joy and spirited rhythm. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDeeply visual, filled with colour and decorativeness, \u003cem\u003eLetters to the Sky\u003c\/em\u003e, celebrates the poet’s love of art, fashion and antiques. Using painterly and at times old fashioned language, the poet explores non-traditional poetry subjects such as make up, dresses and shopping. Throughout the collection, the poems’ gorgeous veneer of dainty, pretty language splits open to reveal heartaches, anxieties and the poet’s quest to learn how to live meaningfully.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Camellia Stafford has the gift of making humility sound like boldness, the perverse demure and the decorative, steely. In its evocation of a muse whose charms Ovid would have coveted, there is the sense of something very highly distilled, just and even sacred. In Letters to the Sky the reader will find poem after poem of remarkable maturity, tenderness and depth – and to boot – knee-trembling pleasure.’ —Annie Freud\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eLetters to the Sky\u003c\/em\u003e is a dressing-up box of nostalgic delights, a sensual exploration of friendship, romance and sweet melancholia with heart-shaped sunglasses on.’ —Emily Berry\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Camellia Stafford’s collection has disturbed some of the ways I think about contemporary poetry. The mask of irony is lifted. Universal experiences of anxiety, love, loneliness, are dealt with directly and almost beautified. The language is vivid, colourful. But there is something more, an over-reaching, a leaning toward something less discernible. It’s as if she articulates for me the difference between someone who is good at crafting a poem and someone who is a poet.’ —Wayne Holloway-Smith\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Whether drifting through the rococo and pink-noire offerings of museum and city, contemplating the indisputable divinities of art, fashion and love; or effortlessly stepping through the carnage of the afterparty, Camellia Stafford’s exquisite first collection offers us poems of great emotional depth and complexity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom spot-on ekphrases, to painstaking jump-cut re-constructions of past events, she extols ‘the artistry of looking’, in beautiful, generous poems that are both moving, and saturated with a fevered humour.’ —Patrick Brandon\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘She is one of the younger London poets now emerging who is worth reading and attending to.’ —Todd Swift\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Camellia Stafford","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892797377,"sku":"9781844719730","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844719730.jpeg?v=1570475934"},{"product_id":"some-new-ambush-9781844713417","title":"Some New Ambush","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the 2009 Roland Mathias Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the 2009 Calvino Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLonglisted for the 2008 International Frank O’Connor Short Story Award\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLonglisted for the 2008 Wales Book of the Year: Fiction\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the award-winning author of \u003cem\u003eWest\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Mission House\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSome New Ambush\u003c\/em\u003e is the first collection of short stories from award-winning writer Carys Davies. Love, loss, birth, death, betrayal, madness – they all lie in wait for Davies’s characters in their startlingly different worlds: a dry cleaner’s shop in contemporary Chicago, a mining town in South Wales in the sixties, a lunatic asylum in nineteenth century northern England.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShot through with wit and aching emotional poignancy, these stories tell of how we attempt to confront the things life throws in our path – often when we least expect them, and in places where we never thought to look. They tell of the mistakes we make along the way, and of how we try to deal with the whole difficult, unpredictable business.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is the boy who steps into his best friend’s clothes in a desperate bid to fulfil his dreams, the man who comes up with an amazing new invention to win the heart of the woman he loves, the bored young wife doomed to live on an island where everything is red, the middle-aged woman who finds a baby in the sand and passes it off as her own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for This Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Carys Davies is a gifted writer. A true original. Her magical yet weirdly believable stories transport you in a breath into other lives and worlds, without a word wasted. Full of surprises.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eMaggie Gee\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘On “Hwang”: A perfectly judged moment of comedy ... I laughed out loud at the same point every time I read it.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eLynne Truss\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Stealthily clever stories, pricked with menace.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eSue Gee \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of This Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The 15 pieces in Carys Davies’s darkly funny and unsettling collection usually begin with “quite small things”, only to edge gently into an emotional abyss in dank Welsh towns, airless Victorian parlours or mouldering libraries. The half-hidden passions of “Ugly Sister” could be a lost slice of Dylan Thomas, while the ousted Latin teacher of “Historia Calamatitum Mearum” has an Atwood-esque prickly wit that surfaces elsewhere. Arrivals and departures often trigger crises – but then, as “Metamorphosis” puts it, “Take-off and landing are the most dangerous times”’ —\u003cstrong\u003eBoyd Tonkin\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/cite\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The stories move seamlessly between the familiar and the surreal, between reality and fantasy, sanity and madness ... The attention is focused as through a magnifying glass and we are hooked, drawn into an imaginary world of which we wish to know more ... her spare, concise, clear style is ideally suited to a genre in which every word must earn its keep.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eHazel Watson\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eBook Club Reviews – Bromley local meeting\u003c\/cite\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘I simply adored \u003cem\u003eSome New Ambush\u003c\/em\u003e.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eSimon Savidge\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eSavidge Reads\u003c\/cite\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Each story is, as you’d hope from the title, a new ambush (this is true of the second collection as well). You never know where you will end up. By the third story, I had that quivering sense I get when I read good crime fiction, alert for every clue. Only once did I guess the ending. This is intensely exhilarating as a reader and a writer.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eJackie Morris\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003ccite\u003eJust Waving\u003c\/cite\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Carys Davies","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892797953,"sku":"9781844713417","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/files\/9781844713417.jpg?v=1759315885"},{"product_id":"the-redemption-of-galen-pike-9781907773716","title":"The Redemption of Galen Pike","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the 2015 International Frank O’Connor Short Story Award\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the 2015 Wales Book of the Year: Fiction\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the 2015 Edge Hill Short Story Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Globe 100: The Best International Fiction of 2017\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a remote Australian settlement a young wife with an untellable secret reluctantly invites her neighbour into her home. 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Full of surprises.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eMaggie Gee\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A writer willing to tackle the hardest of all fictional forms – the short story. This is a region in which so many fail … Carys understands the attention and respect that must be paid to the form … she can keep her literary powder dry, so to speak, until the end of a story, and she can do what it is essential to do in this form, create a micro-world, which has reverberations beyond its size and scope, which is metaphysical.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eSarah Hall\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘on \u003cem\u003eSome New Ambush\u003c\/em\u003e: Darkly funny and unsettling.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eBoyd Tonkin\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Like Chekhov’s great stories Davies’ stories are deceptively simple. They reward re-reading not by resolving the core mystery, but by revealing layers of meaning and complexity’ —\u003cstrong\u003eLadette Randolph, editor-in-chief of Ploughshares and 2015 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award judge\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Extraordinarily powerful’ —\u003cstrong\u003eVS Pritchett Prize judges Jane Gardam, Penelope Lively and Jacob Ross on The Redemption of Galen Pike\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘This story of brutal murder and rough justice in the American Wild West carried a real punch. As if Mark Twain and Annie Proulx had sat down at a desk together. But an original voice too. I shall be looking out for more.’ —\u003cstrong\u003ePiers Plowright\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Karen E Bender, Carys Davies, Tony Earley, Kirsty Gunn and Alejandro Zambra on shortlist for world’s richest short story prize … Jennifer Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing said: “We were completely bowled over when we heard the news that Carys Davies’ book, The Redemption of Galen Pike, had been shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor prize. It is, without doubt, the world’s most prestigious prize for short stories and to have a book placed up there with the best collections internationally is something we’ve dreamt of for many years. We are delighted for Carys, it is a fantastic achievement, and delighted too that her book has received such recognition.”’ —\u003cstrong\u003eMartin Doyle\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Irish Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Outstanding…perfectly distilled, intense…exquisite.’ —\u003cem\u003eThe Yorkshire Post\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Confirms beyond doubt her position among the finest British exponents of a particularly challenging form.’ —\u003cem\u003eThe Irish Examiner\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘This delicate, magical collection won the Frank O’Connor Award for Short Stories and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize and it’s easy to see why. They are precise but full of beautifully observed details that fill compact vignettes with incident and emotion.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eCharlotte Heathcote\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eDaily Express\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘This book is so wonderful! It’s fantastic.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eSarah Jessica Parker\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eRead It Forward!\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Her collection, \u003cem\u003eThe Redemption of Galen Pike\u003c\/em\u003e, is published by the small UK independent press Salt. Its subjects span the world, with stories set everywhere from a remote Australian settlement, where a young wife has a secret, to a Colorado jail, where a Quaker woman meets a condemned man in his final hours in the title story.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eAlison Flood\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘One of the things that I loved so much about \u003cem\u003eThe Redemption of Galen Pike\u003c\/em\u003e is one of the things that makes it incredibly difficult to write about – the scope of these stories in both time and place are epic… It is simply a stunning collection of stories.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eSimon Savidge\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eSavidge Reads\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘This sophisticated collection observes that everyone contains multitudes, and people’s darkest corners are what make them interesting. 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The Redemption of Galen Pike is a stunning achievement, and Carys Davies a writer to celebrate.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eStephen Finucan\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Star\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Carys Davies","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892798017,"sku":"9781907773716","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844719945_f33b531a-fc0c-4bcd-bca5-bfa82c0a678c.jpg?v=1661341658"},{"product_id":"new-world-fairy-tales-9781844718818","title":"New World Fairy Tales","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn contemporary America, an un-named college student sets out on an obsessive journey of discovery to collect and record the life-stories of total strangers. 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A haunting blend of romance and realism, these stripped-back narratives of human experience are the perfect read for anyone who has read their child a bedtime fairy story, and wondered who ever said these were stories meant for children.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A beguiling collection of present-day fables that effortlessly transcend their folk origins.’ —Jonathan Pinnock\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A joyous celebration of humanity in all shapes and sizes, infectious in its enthusiasm and stunning in its ambition. It's magical, funny, tragic, fierce, soft, cutting, and eminently readable.’ —A J Kirby\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eNew World Fairy Tales\u003c\/em\u003e is immensely enjoyable and utterly compelling; I was drawn into each world and into the concerns of each of the characters. I would highly recommend it.’ —Rebecca Rouillard\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Drawing on the original, unexpurgated tales collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, six of their most famous works are re-imagined in the rich and endlessly varied landscapes of contemporary America. From the glass towers of Manhattan to the remoteness of the Blue Ridge mountains; from the swamps of Louisiana to the jaded glamour of Hollywood, \u003cem\u003eNew World Fairy Tales\u003c\/em\u003e reclaims the fairy tale for the modern adult audience. A haunting blend of romance and realism, these stripped-back narratives of human experience are the perfect read for anyone who has read their child a bedtime fairy story, and wondered who ever said these were stories meant for children.’ —Jen Campbell\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The best newcomer I’ve comes across this year is fellow Scott Prize winner Cassandra Parkin with her \u003cem\u003eNew World Fairy Tales\u003c\/em\u003e.’ —Jonathan Pinnock\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cassandra Parkin","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892798145,"sku":"9781844718818","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844718818.jpeg?v=1570475975"},{"product_id":"a-bad-case-9781844719624","title":"A Bad Case","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat links Clorinda to the mysterious disappearance of her new friend Theresa, in broad daylight, on the streets of New York? What is the true relationship between high-born, nine-year-old Elise von Alpenberg and her sinister guardian, Kepler von Thul? Why does young Marthe’s uneasy interview with the notorious spy, Anthony Blunt, stir up suspicions of complicity against her boss, the Establishment socialite Barbara? And who is the \u003cem\u003etrue\u003c\/em\u003e Fourth Man? And what connects Barbara to Constance Bryde, an unfaithful wife enmeshed in the cat-and-mouse surveillance operations of a divorce solicitor’s enquiry agent? Or how will jilted mistress, Rhona, deliver a long-overdue comeuppance to her Significant Other, the supercilious on-screen Talking Head? And who, you may well wonder, is the next doomed subject of portraitist Deverell-Hewells’s murderous thoughts? And, finally, can Nina discreetly maintain the façade that hides the eternal triangle of her complicated lovelife? These questions and more are answered in Eisner’s third series of mordant case histories intimately documenting bizarre dramas triggered by the subclinical dependencies of disturbed minds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A meticulous recorder of behaviour, pitch-perfect on accents and the faultlines between class, sex and age, Eisner imbues each account with an unsettling verisimilitude that reaches its peak in ‘An Unreined Mind’.’ —Cathi Unsworth\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Eisner's collection is subtitled, \u003cem\u003eHidden Lives of Love, Madness, Murder, Loss and Deception\u003c\/em\u003e, and while the sense of madness and loss is amplified by the book's extraordinary and disturbing cover, there is also a tremendous sense of fun here. The title story is the last testament of its asexual narrator. It's a odd story, full of strange characters and erotic imagery: the narrator's husband refers to her as his ‘long noodle’, and poor Uncle Irving's body has to be identified by dental records – all that is left of him is his toupee. The stories in this collection are dark and the characters are ‘driven by bizarre and sometimes criminal compulsions.’’ —Carys Bray\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘I've long been an admirer of Catherine Eisner's piquant and highly original fictions in the literary journal, 'Ambit', and of her singularly rich pictorial and sensuous prose. Here at last she is given a very much broader canvas for her character studies of women at the end of their tether, though it's the minute detail of their dysfunctional, drug-dependant (and even criminal) lives I admire so much.’ —Johanna Behrendt\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Eisner herself intrigues me almost as much as her work. This is because she is profoundly knowledgeable in so many different fields: she understands the pop scene of the 1960s; she obviously knows a lot about the publishing industry; she exhibits more than a passing acquaintance with a wide range of ‘mind-altering substances’; she is erudite, although she wears her learning lightly, pronouncing telling mots justes upon the giants (and some of the minnows) of Western civilisation’s authors, artists and musicians across many centuries; she understands Latin and several European languages besides English; she has an acute ear for dialect (in A Bad Case, southern Irish, especially) as well as the varying cadences of speech that derive from differences in social standing; and, if she has not lived among the British aristocracy, she has clearly had opportunities to observe it at first hand. 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Mesmeric reading.’ Ambit magazine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘I've long been an admirer of Catherine Eisner's piquant and highly original fictions in the literary journal, 'Ambit', and of her singularly rich pictorial and sensuous prose (she's an academically trained painter, I understand). Here at last she is given a very much broader canvas for her character studies of women at the end of their tether, though it's the minute detail of their dysfunctional, drug-dependant (and even criminal) lives I admire so much.’ —Johanna Behrendt\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘entertaining and finely spiced …’ —Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Extraordinary writing. 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Charting the magic arc of a modern love story on a banjo string or through birch-white epistles left behind at a deserted campsite, these poems engage in the oblivion of snow, intoxicants, and broken-heartedness since living includes loving where “destruction be our lot.” It’s a place where fortunes are told: “Degenerate fruit and burned apple wood. \/ The impure equals the fertile plain.” From prose poems and extended lyric sequences to translations and fragments, this book attempts to enfold the living past into the insane present. Or, what you might call “the wild hunt to baptize the dead.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘With \u003cem\u003eThe Fraud of Good Sleep\u003c\/em\u003e, Catherine Theis gives us poetry as sensuous, glinting energy.  Swerving between the intimate and the adamant, these poems feel like letters written to you by someone who’s in love with the world—someone whose eyes and heart are wide open, who’s learned (and keeps learning) from the ancients, who can mingle her voice with Sappho’s and smile wickedly at Dante.  There are musings on cities and foods (“Who will bring the chocolates weather permitting?”), mock lectures, disarming wisdom (“Fidelity, the sea we share in peaceful times”), and exhortations to live—to live well.  “My concern,” writes Theis, “is with circumference, many-faceted \/ crystal wine glasses, Roman aqueducts, all sorts \/ of highway thinking.”  These are poems flashing with wonder and humor, but “roughed in sorrow,” hard-won in their realizations.  They are full of the bright ache of being alive.’ —Joanna Klink\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Catherine Theis’s \u003cem\u003eThe Fraud of Good Sleep\u003c\/em\u003e is a riotous and refined celebration of language. It is elegant and erudite without ever being stuffy, and surprising at every turn. A truly dashing collection, full of glitter, and everywhere intimating the “joy in the mountains very near.”’ —Maggie Nelson\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Catherine Theis","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892798657,"sku":"9781844718795","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844718795.jpeg?v=1571258754"},{"product_id":"the-sophist-9781844710003","title":"The Sophist","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Sophist\u003c\/em\u003e was first published by Sun \u0026amp; Moon Press in 1987 and has been unavailable for well over a decade. A pivotal book for Bernstein, \u003cem\u003eThe Sophist\u003c\/em\u003e demonstrated his great range of subject matter, style, and genre. By contrasting wildly different approaches to poetry, Bernstein not only questions the intrinsic value of any given form but also provides a model for his later heterogeneous books, including \u003cem\u003eMy Way\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eWith Strings\u003c\/em\u003e. If sophism is the opposite of both philosophy and the lyric, then \u003cem\u003eThe Sophist\u003c\/em\u003e is model for a rhetorical poetry that interrogates truth in the name of reason.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Charles Bernstein has reintroduced a spirit of polemic into the world of American poetry. In the exhausted atmosphere in which so much of our writing takes place, Charles Bernstein has battled long and hard to make both writers and readers aware of the implications embedded in each and every language act we partake of as citizens of this vast, troubled country.’ —Paul Auster\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Bernstein’s is the most provocatively intelligent reaction to the general drift of mainstream poetry, and he is an indefatigable writer of essays and poems wherein the determinations of genre are largely superseded. In short, he has not only given brilliant instance of the confusions of contemporary social and political premises but has done so in remarkable constructs of their characteristic modes of statement, which are not simply parodic but rather reclamations, recyclings, of otherwise degraded material.’ —Robert Creeley\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Charles Bernstein","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892799233,"sku":"9781844710003","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844710003.jpeg?v=1571258829"},{"product_id":"third-class-superhero-9781844719822","title":"Third Class Superhero","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoisture Man, the hero of “Third Class Superhero”, is tired of watching his former classmates kick ass and claim their secret hideouts while he struggles to maintain his good-guy accreditation. Someday soon he’ll have to decide whose side he’s really on, and how far he’s willing to push the panels of his storyline. Meanwhile, in \"401(k)\", a young, upwardly-mobile couple attempt to navigate their way through a world of pure advertising, with hopes of attaining the Pretty Good Life. And in \"The Man Who Became Himself\", a successful executive is terrified to find himself becoming trapped inside his own body. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThrough these eleven stories, Charles Yu explores issues of identity, time and being in an age of dislocation. Heartbreaking, hilarious, smart, surprising, Third Class Superhero marks the arrival of an impressive new talent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘A playful experimentalist probes the limits of fiction in this debut collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe post-collegiate braininess of many of Yu’s stories is like the music of the Talking Heads, making the familiar seem off-kilter. Among his mathematically audacious fictional strategies, “Problems for Self-Study” casts itself as a series of algebraic equations that attempt to account for the inevitable arc of a marriage, and “32.05864991%” introduces the field of “emotional statistics” and the precision of probability indicated by the word “maybe.” There’s a reversal of Kafka’s Metamorphosis in “Realism,” a story suggesting that what’s commonly accepted as literary realism is unrealistic convention. “The Man Who Became Himself” also takes a Kafkaesque turn in its comic examination of the essence of identity, when a man starts thinking of himself as “he” rather than “I,” as if he is somehow inhabiting the body of another. The closing “Autobiographical Raw Material Unsuitable for the Mining of Fiction” may or may not be autobiographical, may or may not be fiction, and its narrator, “I,” who reads and writes stories, may or may not be the author. In one of the most metaphorically compelling stories here, “Florence” takes the form of science fiction, set a million years from now, when centuries pass in the blink of an eye, and each human exists isolated on his own planet, communicating across the void. The title story might well be the weakest, though the cover it inspires could appeal to the expanding readership for graphic novels, as Yu details the plight of “Moisture Man,” whose powers fail to make the superhero cut. Within these 11 stories, Yu uses language to suggest what language cannot express, as he deals with themes such as the nature of distance, the essence of time and the illusion of self for readers whose attention span has been conditioned more by video games than classic novels.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSmart, engaging and often deadpan funny.’ —Kirkus Review\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Issues of identity and insecurity simmer throughout Yu’s debut collection, an imaginative excursion into the burrow Kafka built. In “My Last Days as Me,” the unnamed star of the hit TV show \u003cem\u003eMe and My Mother\u003c\/em\u003e chafes at the recasting of his onscreen mother and eradicates the line between actor and character. The unnamed man in “Man of Quiet Desperation Goes on Short Vacation” evaluates his existential condition as frequently as a time-obsessed man checks his watch. And in the title story, “Moisture Man” strives to improve his position in the superhero hierarchy, which means constant self-appraisal and comparison to his more successful counterparts (“fireball shooters. A few are ice makers. Half a dozen telepath\/empaths”). Yu flirts with formal experimentation--”Problems for Self-Study” unfolds as a complicated multiple choice test, for example--but tempers his fantastical constructions with level prose. (The first two paragraphs of “The Man Who Became Himself” are “He was turning into something unspeakable” and “At the office, people avoided the issue.”) There is abundant humor, though, and Yu allows the reader to feel pathos without patronization; a neat trick, in a compulsively readable collection.’ —Publishers Weekly\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Superhero suggests a cheeky-geeky riff on our comic-book-mad culture, but Yu’s book is actually a piercing survey of ambition, rich with humor, invention, and humanity. In the title story, a minor-league do-gooder he can manipulate atmospheric moisture sells out for a shot at the majors. The ingenious “401(k),” about a married couple nagged by inadequacy, makes subversive use of corporate jargon to skewer commercialized notions of personal fulfillment. In searching for the reasons why “good enough” people feel “not good enough,” Yu emerges as a first-class talent. (the book receives an “A” grade!)’ —Entertainment Weekly\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘This unusual debut collection of 11 stories uses an inventive style to probe fundamental questions about modern life from a variety of different perspectives ... These stories read like entries in a private journal, with clever metaphors and philosophical introspections related through absurd situations that capture the vagueness in our lives. Recommended for all collections.’ —Library Journal\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Charles Yu","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892799553,"sku":"9781844719822","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844719822.jpeg?v=1571258848"},{"product_id":"mother-land-9781844712694","title":"Mother\/Land","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Cheryl Savageau’s new book of poetry, \u003cem\u003eMother\/Land\u003c\/em\u003e, she radically re-maps New England as Native American space. Savageau retells and re-imagines creation stories, revealing a landscape of trees, ponds, rivers and mountains rich in meaning for Abenaki people, and weaves traditional, personal and family stories, with stories of colonization and resistance. Savageau’s “unhistory” tells the stories of her people without privileging the moment of contact with Europe as the defining moment for viewing the culture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMother\/Land\u003c\/em\u003e is beaded with gems from her mother’s jewel box—poems that tell stories of her mother’s life, and the complexities of survival and love in a family of mixed heritage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSavageau’s work signals the reemergence of a people who have been described as “hiding in plain sight.” In contrast to stereotypical associations of Native Americans with “Mother Earth,” this poetry highlights the bittersweet complexities of the relationship between a woman and her homeland, whose bodies seem to be constantly under siege.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eMother\/Land\u003c\/em\u003e is restoring the world through the retelling of patterns passed woman to woman like songs to lips. In this familial place, where one haggles over Memere’s house dress, combs her Mama’s hair as if brushing a bird’s wing, employs mother-of-pearl to fill the black hole of her absence leaving buxom hills bare of trees. From this childhood where one might wear a dress of fall grass, cut ankles on witchgrass, and peer into a refrigerator to delineate a hummingbird from a moth; in the land of mothers, grandmothers, and their later lineal offspring, we come to terms with crossroads and swallows, rivers and oceans, and they lead us back home from which we began—the Motherland.’ —Allison Hedge Coke\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Cheryl Savageau stares into stones of amber, opal, emerald, garnet, sapphire, amethyst, pearl, quartz, peridot, and onyx,recording every change of light and color they throw on old and new loves. She examines recurring characters and places from as many angled refractions as possible until one of the richest, fullest New England spiritual topographies ever written emerges. Readers who know Savageau’s earlier chronicling of those who sacralize and profane her homescape will be astonished at this poetic culmination of fully-drawn portraits. I fell, hard, for the boy under the drain pipe, the whale’s word for world, the slapping tails of children, the hummingbird in the refrigerator, the cathechist with knife in her teeth, the wife spraying breast milk at the breakfast table, the woodchuck too busy for crucifixions, the piano baptized in molasses, the parakeet’s family jewels, the leathered and lathered Doc Martened butch leading her woman around the dance floor, the lightning that converses with fireflies, and everyone, everything that busts out of the gamebag and into Cheryl Savageau’s poetry. This may be one of the best literary depictions of New England to date, certainly the finest one to challenge whatever is new and English about the place.’ —Craig S. Womack\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cheryl Savageau","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892799617,"sku":"9781844712694","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781844712694.jpeg?v=1570475965"},{"product_id":"the-departure-9781907773150","title":"The Departure","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the EDP-Jarrold East Anglian Book Awards\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the centre of Emery’s third collection are a series of narrative poems that reveal an astonishing range of personas, from the set of \u003cem\u003eMission Impossible\u003c\/em\u003e, an extra from \u003cem\u003eGojira\u003c\/em\u003e, porn stars, bombers and executioners — even Charles Bukowski turns up to take a leak. There are Pennine journeys, war zones, the Norfolk coast, the Suffolk coast, riots, bad hotel rooms and crazy conventions. Even the secret life of peas. Interspersed among all these are poems concerning the mysterious ‘M’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘In his aptly-named new collection, Chris Emery shows he still has the talent to surprise us with a perfectly-managed change of direction and range, showing (in the words of one of his poems) a new \"fantastic ordinary face\". A fresh accessibility is achieved with a richness of striking and imaginative language that will impress his existing readership, and reward the new one this book is certain to attract. There is plenty of humour here alongside genuine political commitment, a lot of real human feeling between its sharp satirical edges, kissing as well as broken teeth. Anybody interested in the contemporary poetry of these islands will have to read this book.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eIan Duhig\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The poems in \u003cem\u003eThe Departure\u003c\/em\u003e possess (and are possessed by) such intent, detailed, living brilliance, it is like reading a series of captivating novels compressed to their musical essence.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eDavid Morley\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Chris Emery's poems are like highly compressed short stories that we enter at high speed. Once in, the place is full of vivid detail keeping our head turning. A good deal of the world is there  with all its proper names, staring back at us as if it desired calm but knew things were on the move. Sometimes surreal, sometimes baroque, at other times darkly playful, the world is as in ‘Snails’ “Tonight we will pile them, pile everything of them \/ into the whorl of a bucket and then we will fill it \/ to the top with forest tears and let the silence do its work.”’ —\u003cstrong\u003eGeorge Szirtes\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘There's an immediacy and something familiar in the way the poems of Chris Emery's new collection address the reader. They impel us to engage, to join the moment, the experience, the thought, and to consider what’s being prised open or experienced. The ease with which he develops irony and yet is freshly lyrical is almost reassuring. This is a very sophisticated and controlled poetry, language rich, but also surprising and at times gloriously tangential. What matters most is that it urges us to confide, to share – written because it has to come out, but also because we might like to listen. Emotions work with sensations and retain the intelligence that has so characterised Emery’s earlier writing. Who are we, where am I, how do we all relate to a wider world with its still and frantic moments? This book expands horizons, acerbic and poignant, constrained and ecstatic at once.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eJohn Kinsella\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The narrative poems are like snapshots of longer stories, like watching ten minutes of a film – you want to know more. The ‘location poems’ feature such vivid imagery, so real that you’re right there – “a charcoal pushbike leaning on the door’s black velour”. Emery shows no sticking rigidly to poetic form, taking the theme of departures around a tour of haiku, sonnets, couplets, free verse. It’s all here. The words are working hard – “the day moon is a wok”, “the sea’s womb bursts” – painting a vivid picture in your mind’s eye. The breadth of this collection is tremendous, but my absolute favourite is the title poem ‘The Departure’, about leaving yourself and diving into your art.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eMichelle Teasdale\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eWinning Words\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘These words matter: these contexts, these agonised, pained, joyous, hilarious worlds.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eCatherine Edmunds\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eGoodreads\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘There are moments of great lucidity and philosophical insight in Emery’s poetry, and a vocabulary born from experience that doesn’t cry pretentious. There is grit, but not for its own sake, and a clean intelligence lies beneath “the dirt the dirt the dirt” of The Bukowskis that makes way for the brave political admonitions (‘The Destroyers Convention’ and ‘Guest Starring’). It is also nice to see a dialogue poem in the form of ‘Carl’s Job’; these are rare and, to me, pave a way forward in poetry. Emery’s excellent execution of this form delivers a haunting exchange of movie-talk, and shows the range of his literary prowess:“‘I’ve no further plans on killing’ I said. ‘Those days are done.’ \/ ‘Let me tell you, Bud,’ said Carl. ‘Those days are sitting here now.’”’ —\u003cstrong\u003ePhilippe Blenkiron\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eInk, Sweat \u0026amp; Tears\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Chris Emery’s ‘Departures’ has affinities with those of John Hartley-Williams. A single poem can pile up seemingly unrelated images with an impact derived not from an understanding of the poem’s logical surface connections, what the seventeenth century described as wit, but from the connections that Emery’s images make with our emotions. A lazy reaction would be to lump him with the more overt surrealist procedures of Hartley—Williams, but I would prefer to describe his imagery sensually associative akin to the work of Elytis or Pablo Neruda.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eJames Sutherland-Smith\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Bow-Wow Shop\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A collection where linguistic invention and imagination combine in poems with a dazzling range of feeling never less than a true entertainment.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eJames Sutherland-Smith\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Bow-Wow Shop\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Studded with richly strange images and ideas, the poems, like the church bells which 'invert the town', in 'Sunday Fathers', are often skewed and unsettling: hat stands, 'wrists of ice'; snails, 'death's pale eccentrics'.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eEllen Cranitch\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003ePoetry London\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Most of Emery’s poems share an immediacy, a measured brashness, but there is nothing especially uniform about this collection: there is a ‘cowboy song’, a poem dedicated to a Victorian hangman, a visit to the frontline of a warzone, each poem shining a different kind of light on a different world of hope, or pain, or calm, or irony, or fortitude, or beauty.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eRory Waterman\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Chris Emery drops you right into his poems\/world, and once in you have very little chance to orientate yourself before being assaulted by the next image or poem; voices and fragments of lives hurtle past you leaving behind ghosts on the retina, neurons fired and blipping beyond the moment.’ —\u003cem\u003eThe Parrish Lantern\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The poems made me feel and put images in my head, but I never understood why I felt that way, or how these quicksilver pictures fitted into the narratives. 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Here the negative is not double, and not singular, it is multitudinous in a journey that resembles a pilgrimage, a departure that is also a beginning.’ —\u003cstrong\u003eMorgan Harlow\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cem\u003eVerse Wisconsin\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chris Emery","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":7351324097,"sku":"9781784630737","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781907773150.jpeg?v=1571258740"},{"product_id":"the-salt-companion-to-maggie-o-sullivan-9781876857738","title":"The Salt Companion to Maggie O’Sullivan","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eMaggie O’Sullivan has been a significant force in the alternative British poetry scene since the 1970s. 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She worked behind the reception. I was a history teacher.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs we meet Matt, lying across the backseat of his on\/off girlfriend’s car, he begins a long confession. It starts with wrestling moves and continues past statue fires, reaching bomb threats and assault via episodes in the life of Franz von Papen, the Chancellor of interwar Germany. Piece by piece, Matt presents us with a map of his failures. Or is he part of some grander, universal fuck-up? \u003cem\u003eSeptembers\u003c\/em\u003e, Christopher Prendergast’s debut novel, is a simmering tale of upheaval, revolt and loss.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Prendergast reanimates the ailing spaces of the City: with vision, tenderness and terrific writing.’ —James Sheard\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The pleasure of \u003cem\u003eSeptembers\u003c\/em\u003e lies in its wisdom, honesty and warmth. It isn’t a eulogy for lost worlds or ideas, or an attack on the world we’re confronted with. Prendergast’s England, hollowed by peak-capitalism, feels fraught with possibility. Life baffles his antiheroes, yet they’re stalked by hopeful conspiracies. \u003cem\u003eSeptembers\u003c\/em\u003e is the smartest, freshest novel I’ve read in some time. Prendergast is a new and important voice.’ —Joe Stretch\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eReviews of this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Prendergast's debut is part love story, part social commentary on an urban world failing its inhabitants like history teacher Matt and his girlfriend Annabel. Prendergast cites Kurt Vonnegut as an influence, and some of that can be seen in the way he moves between the past and the present.’ —Lesley McDowell\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Christopher Prendergast","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892801153,"sku":"9781907773785","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781907773785.jpeg?v=1570476056"},{"product_id":"looking-out-of-broken-windows-9781907773730","title":"Looking Out Of Broken Windows","description":"\u003ch3\u003eSynopsis\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for The 2013 Scott Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe characters in this Scott Prize shortlisted debut collection are all a little broken. Haunted by the past, trapped in the present, and frightened of the future, the world they look out on seems a dark and treacherous place. But there remains, for each of them perhaps, a glimmer of hope.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA daughter returns home to find cracks in more than just her parents’ marriage. A middle-aged man plots to escape the clutches of his controlling mother. A woman, numbed by grief and desperately clinging to old routines, struggles to make sense of her sudden, terrible loss. A terminally ill man fights to survive long enough to let go. The staff and customers of The Teacup cafe witness a meteorological miracle that will change their lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDaring, intense and poignant, Looking Out of Broken Windows maps an emotional terrain both expansive and intimate and includes stories which were awarded The Yeovil Prize for Fiction and the 2013 Carve Esoteric Award, and shortlisted for both the Salt Short Story Award and The Winchester Writers Conference Short Story Prize.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003ePraise for this Book\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘An author drenched with talent, a fearless perceiving of life that made me grin in agreement. Looking Out of Broken Windows stacks modern gem on modern gem, the economy of words offers powerful observation, the exacting prose vibrates with energy, starkness and heart. It is remarkable.’ —Caroline Smailes, author of The Drowning of Arthur Braxton (Harper Collins, 2013)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘On ‘Half-Mown Lawn’: An everyday subject lifted out of the mundane by the sheer quality of the writing.’ —Francine Lee, Yeovil Prize judge\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘On ‘Storm in a Teacup’: Brilliant. One of the most well-crafted, skilled, and creative pieces I've read in my lifetime.’ —Carve editorial team\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Like all good short fiction, Dan Powell’s stories extend at both ends – the reader is left pondering the fate of the man whose flawed attempt to enter the adult world is doomed by his sexual insecurities; we wonder what future awaits the young child who searches for her dead father. In Powell’s fictional world ordinary suburban life is made extraordinary in crisp, precise prose; the stories in \u003cem\u003eLooking Out of Broken Windows\u003c\/em\u003e are full-on and moving and this reader was both chilled and dazzled.’ —Nuala Ní Chonchúir\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘\u003cem\u003eLooking Out of Broken Windows\u003c\/em\u003e is a sparkling debut by a writer with a hugely interesting mind. Its stories are wide-ranging and varied – from the heart breaking to the hilarious, the sombre and the magical, they all touch you in precisely the right places.’ —Nik Perring\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Short stories are portholes allowing us to peek – and, with great stories, step – into other worlds. Dan Powell's broken windows are not themselves flawed or malfunctioning, rather doorways into the fraught and fractured lives of others. Powell's mischievous imagination takes him wherever he pleases and where it lands he weaves story so tightly, so compellingly that you are held. Not constrained by the real, Powell uses surreality and magic – a wheeling-dealing cancer, unborn twins scanning their parents-to-be, a self-starting fire – to illuminate truths with poignancy and humour, paying subtle homage to the short story masters who inspired him, from Kafka to O'Connor and Carver.’ —Tania Hershman, author of My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Dan Powell","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":3892801473,"sku":"9781907773730","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0851\/7222\/products\/9781907773730.jpeg?v=1570475941"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.saltpublishing.com\/collections\/books.oembed?page=22","provider":"Salt","version":"1.0","type":"link"}