Charlie Templeton, his wife Mandy, and student mistress Mary-Jane Millford survived the London terrorist bombings of 7/7, but history has yet to be made. To save the future of western civilisation, Charlie, a schizoid cultural studies lecturer with a penchant for horror films and necrophilia, must fight the zombies of university bureaucracy and summon the will to become the last in a long line of mad prophets announcing the end of art.
This volume relates the British fiction of the decade to the contexts in which it was written and received in order to examine and explain contemporary trends, such as the rise of a new working-class fiction, the ongoing development of separate national literatures of Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and shifts in modes of attention and reading. From the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crash to the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, the 2010s have been a decade of an ongoing crisis which has penetrated every area of everyday life. Internationally, there has been an ongoing shift of global power from the US to China, and events and developments such as the election of Donald Trump as US President, the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, the rise of the populist right across Europe and very gradually the incipient effects variously of AI. Nationally, there has been a decade of austerity economics punctuated by divisive referendums on Scottish independence and whether Britain should leave or remain in the EU. Balancing critical surveys with in-depth readings of work by authors who have helped define this turbulent decade, including Nicola Barker, Anna Burns, Jonathan Coe, Alys Conran, Bernadine Evaristo, Mohsin Hamid, James Kelman, James Robertson, Kamila Shamsie, Ali Smith, Zadie Smith and Adam Thirlwell, among others, this volume illustrates exactly how their key themes and concerns fit within the social and political circumstances of the decade.
FRANCIS PLUG is back. The lovable misfit is now adjusting to life as a newly published author. Interviews and publicity are coming his way, not to mention considerable acclaim. But Francis can't understand why people think he was writing fiction... He also has plenty of other problems – and very little money. Fortunately, he's handed a lifeline when he lands a job as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Greenwich. Unfortunately, this involves interacting with more new people, which isn't exactly Francis's strong suit. Try as he might, the staff and students at the university seem to have great difficulty knowing what to make of Francis. (Not to mention the trouble that he has making sense of himself...). Oh – and now he also needs to hook in some big-name authors for the Greenwich Book Festival, and has to write his own campus novel. The urgent questions build and build – and Francis is in no state to answer them Will he keep his job? Will he be able to secretly sleep inside a university office? Will anyone find out that he did a wee in the corridor? ... Find out as Francis embarks on a new adventure, more intoxicating and hilarious than ever.
The legendary novel Pulp Mania is back on the streets in its original form and eBook also. In the eBook and hardback editions the legendary novel is presented with an author interview, colour plates of Stewart Home and enumerative bibliographic hand list. 'Let us not forget, ladies and gentlemen,' Chickenfeed announced as Christine mounted her man, 'that fiction has played an important role in the development of Western sexuality. Among other things, the terms Sadism and Masochism are derived from the names of men who wrote pornographic novels.' Pure Mania is set in an almost fictional anarcho-punk milieu around the squats and council estates of East London. This trashy adventure story takes the form of a blatantly falsified tour of eighties youth trends. It's a pastiche of the fiction published by New English Library during the 1970's. Situationist fun and anarcho-punk adventure à la Jamie Reid meets Cockney Red street violence, Pure Mania by Stewart Home was first published by Polygon Books in 1989. MARX CHRIST AND SATAN UNITED IN STRUGGLE Pure Mania is a pulp tragicomedy set in London's punk and skinhead scene at a time when both ready to blow the British Isles to hell. SEXUAL PERVERSION AT ITS VERY WORST Pure Mania is a tragic Trotskyist triangular tale of politics and love between two men and one woman. Tracy is a militant vegan who is willing to sacrifice everything to save the third world. And in order to get her Paul gives up coffee and other women and Edward gives up his Nazi uniform and other men. ¡ SEX AND ECO-TERRORISME ! PURE MANIA is published in Hardback 9781914090660 / Original paperback 9781914090776 / and quality eBook 9781914090943
The celebrated author of The Group offers a “clever, witty, polished” portrait of the 1940s NYC literary bohemia she knew so well in this debut novel (The New York Times). Margaret Sargent is young and fearless, a deep thinker inspired by the bohemian energy that abounds in New York City in the years leading up to the Second World War. With careless abandon, she destroys her marriage and numerous love affairs as she moves through the social circles of artists and writers, playing at the fringes of political extremism. She is an enigma, often wanton and frivolous, but possessing intelligence and a razor-sharp wit, as well as a troubling core of inner darkness, self-doubt, and puzzling tendencies toward self-destruction. For Margaret, urban life in the 1930s is an ongoing adventure—ever-changing, always surprising, and deeply, profoundly unsatisfying. Mary McCarthy, author of the bestselling American classic The Group, burst boldly onto the literary scene with her provocative debut, The Company She Keeps. A brilliant, stylistically inventive novel, it offers a rich portrait of a truly fascinating protagonist in six revealing episodes. Love her, despise her, or fear for her, you will never forget Margaret Sargent. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author’s estate.
How far would you go to win the love of a woman? Arch, a wannabe poet living in a bohemian Birmingham suburb, likes to party and has no time for love or seriousness. Then he meets the mysterious Vee. They have a one-night stand and she leaves him the next day with a challenge: throw yourself into the world and its possibilities. Discovering that Vee has gone to Croatia to photograph the war, Arch begins to expand his horizons. As the government clamps down on road protesters, new age travellers and the free festival scene, he throws himself into the subsequent campaign of civil disobedience. But will it be enough for the returning Vee? The Space Between Things is a satirical love story set in the social turmoil of the early 1990 s. It is the first fictionalised account of the road protest movement.
By 'quite simply one of the best writers we have' (Sunday Telegraph), a profoundly moving story spanning three generations. 'It is a gem' Independent 'I loved it' Pat Barker Reaching from late 19th-century Cumbria to the present, this elegiac novel celebrates two spirited women: Grace, a farm labourer's daughter who fatefully followed her heart, and Mary, the child she was forced to give up. Unsung heroines according to Mary's son who, as his elderly mother's mind begins to fail, lovingly recreates their lives and the vanished country of their pasts, linking three generations in a chain of enduring love, loss and courage.
As a young woman, Mavis Gaunt leaves post-war London to make a new life for herself in rural Devon, where she spent a few blissful months of her childhood as an evacuee. Living alone in the verdant hamlet of Shipleigh, she believes she's found a heaven on earth - until a violent tragedy brings trouble to paradise, and turns Mavis's idyllic solitude into a tormented, guarded isolation. Decades later, the arrival of a newcomer to the village forces Mavis to make a final reckoning: should she take her horrible secret to the grave? Or, should she summon up her ghosts and, in doing so, lay them to rest? An Inventory of Heaven is a lyrical and intimate meditation on the rural life, falling in love and the long passing of time.
January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to be the wireless operator on an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year. Gruhuken. But the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice. Stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return - when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. And Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark. This Special Edition Ebook will feature exclusive material: AUTHOR EXTRAS: Dark Matter ¿ An exclusive interview with Michelle Paver and an extended author biography with integrated photos of the landscape of Spitsbergen. COVER DESIGN: Dark Matter ¿ the jacket designer¿s take and cover design progression (5 x visuals). DARK MATTER - A SHORT FILM: Dark Matter ¿ Turning the novel into a short promotional film and Dark Matter - The Film Director's Cut, the rejected film scripts, the final film script and behind the scenes at filming (3 x visuals).
