Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke
Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke

Author: Peter Benson

Publisher: Alma Books

Published: 2012-03-15

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1846882168

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When young Elliot gets a labourer's job at Mr Evans's after being sacked from a pig farm for liberating six of its sows, he thinks he'll have even more opportunities to lean on gates or stare at fields. But his best mate Spike keeps getting him into trouble, first by showing him what is being grown in a tucked-away polytunnel, and then turning up at his caravan's door with a van full of weed. As Elliot tries to help his friend get rid of the hot merchandise, they find themselves at the receiving end of a cruel cat-and-mouse game.A tale of adventure with as many twists and turns as the enchanting Somerset landscape that forms its backdrop, Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke is, above all, a celebration of the English countryside - full of magic, history and superstition - where smoke is in the air, and where not all is what it seems.

Isabel's Skin
Isabel's Skin

Author: Peter Benson

Publisher: Alma Books

Published: 2012-10-01

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1846882818

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Peter Benson's new novel is a slick gothic tale in the English tradition, a murder mystery, a reflection on the works of the masters of the French Enlightenment and a tour of Edwardian England. More than this, it is a work of atmosphere and unease which creates a world of inhuman anxiety and suspense. David Morris lives the quiet life of a book-valuer for a London auction house, travelling every day by omnibus to his office in the Strand. When he is asked to make a trip to rural Somerset to value the library of the recently deceased Lord Buff-Orpington, the sense of trepidation he feels as he heads into the country is confirmed the moment he reaches his destination, the dark and impoverished village of Ashbrittle. These feelings turn to dread when he meets the enigmatic Professor Richard Hunt and catches a glimpse of a screaming woman he keeps prisoner in his house.

The Times Index
The Times Index

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 1484

ISBN-13:

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Indexes the Times, Sunday times and magazine, Times literary supplement, Times educational supplement, Times educational supplement Scotland, and the Times higher education supplement.

The Stromness Dinner
The Stromness Dinner

Author: Peter Benson

Publisher: Seren

Published: 2020-10-28

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1781725977

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Ed Beech is one half of Beech Building Services. He's based in Bermondsey but no job's too small, no distance too great. So when he's asked to do some work on a house in Orkney, he loads the van with paint, tools and sandwiches, and takes off. He gets nervous around farm animals and large ships, and he's never been so far north, but when he's joined by Claire, his client's city banker sister, he discovers that in Stromness, anything is possible.Peter Benson's compelling new novel continues his exploration of unlikely relationships, and paints a vivid picture of a place where all is not what it seems, but might be."What's on the menu at The Stromness Dinner? Small plates, big flavours. Peter Benson has the miniaturist's eye for the tiny details that bring grand themes alive: the love of food, the love of island life, and a love of love itself. His novel is humorous, humane and horrible good (as we say in Stromness.)" – Duncan McLean"Benson's snappy novel rattles along with irresistible pace and panache... his story will captivate and entertain and the happy ending is a great treat during the current pandemic nightmare." – Val Hennessy

The Other Occupant
The Other Occupant

Author: Peter Benson

Publisher:

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

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A lyrical story about friendship and love between an awkward displaced young man and a strong-minded old woman, set in the countryside of Dorset.

A Lesser Dependency
A Lesser Dependency

Author: Peter Benson

Publisher: Alma Books

Published: 2012-04-12

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781846881923

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A trenchant critique of modern civilization, "A Lesser Dependency" movingly describes how one family s tropical heaven became hell. In 1971 the inhabitants of Diego Garcia, a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, a place too small to find on a map and one of the last paradisical outposts of the Empire, were suddenly evicted from their homes to make way for a US military base."

Levels
Levels

Author: Peter Benson

Publisher: Alma Books

Published: 2012-04-05

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1846882230

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Drove House has always loomed large over village life. Boarded-up for years, it is reputed to be brimming with ghosts, and is shunned by the locals - all except Billy, for whom it has been the site of childhood dens and secret adolescent adventures. When the captivating Muriel moves in with her bohemian mother, they sweep out the ghosts and breathe new life into both the house and Billy's quiet rural existence. After an idyllic summer, though, Muriel returns to her life in London, and the newly empty Drove House becomes the backdrop for Billy's struggle to reconcile the vanishing agricultural lifestyle he has inherited with the glimpses of a baffling new way of life Muriel seemed to offer. Charting the conflict between these two competing worlds, Peter Benson's award-winning first novel is at once a lyrical portrait of the landscape of the Somerset Levels and a touching evocation of first love.

Knights of Madness
Knights of Madness

Author: Peter Haining

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9780441006823

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Woody Allen, Peter S. Beagle, Ray Bradbury, Spike Milligan, Mark Twain, Orson Welles, and others expose the wacky side of Camelot, the Holy Grail, and other tourist traps in this outrageous collection of 24 outlandish tales representing the best in fantasy humor.

Before the Feast
Before the Feast

Author: Sasa Stanisic

Publisher: Tin House Books

Published: 2016-06-14

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1941040403

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It’s the night before the feast in the village of Fu¨rstenfelde (population: an odd number). The village is asleep. Except for the ferryman—he’s dead. And Mrs. Kranz, the night-blind painter, who wants to depict her village for the first time at night. A bell-ringer and his apprentice want to ring the bells—the only problem is that the bells have gone. A vixen is looking for eggs for her young, and Mr. Schramm is discovering more reasons to quit life than to quit smoking. Someone has opened the doors to the Village Archive, but what drives the sleepless out of their houses is not that which was stolen, but that which has escaped. Old stories, myths, and fairy tales are wandering about the streets with the people. They come together in a novel about a long night, a mosaic of village life, in which the long-established and newcomers, the dead and the living, craftsmen, pensioners, and noble robbers in football shirts bump into each other. They all want to bring something to a close, in this night before the feast.