Jon McGregor3.7 Risky in conception, hip and yet soulful, this is a prose poem of a novel -- intense, lyrical, and highly evocative -- with a mystery at its center, which keeps the reader in suspense until the final page. In a tour de force that could be described as Altmanesque, we are invited into the private lives of the residents of a quiet urban street in England over the course of a single day. In delicate, intricately observed closeup, we witness the hopes, fears, and unspoken despairs of a diverse community: the man with painfully scarred hands who tried in vain to save his wife from a burning house and who must now care for his young daughter alone; a group of young clubgoers just home from an all-night rave, sweetly high and mulling over vague dreams; the nervous young man at number 18 who collects weird urban junk and is haunted by the specter of unrequited love. The tranquillity of the street is shattered at day's end when a terrible accident occurs. This tragedy and an utterly surprising twist provide the momentum for the book. But it is the author's exquisite rendering of the ordinary, the everyday, that gives this novel its freshness, its sense of beauty, wonder, and hope. Rarely does a writer appear with so much music and poetry -- so much vision -- that he can make the world seem new
Зои Страчан0.0 Dying at twenty-four is unnatural, but Simon did, leaving his sister alone and haunted by the past. Clutching at refuge where she can find it, she tries to decide whether secrets are better exposed, or buried. Then an unexpected trip to Orkney offers a change in her tense and frightening world, and perhaps an answer to the question, what do you do when you don't know what to do?
Adam Thirlwell2.6 Politics is about: a) a threesome; b) politics
Moshe loves Nana. But love can be difficult -- especially if you want to be kind. And Moshe and Nana want to be kind to someone else.
They want to be kind to their best friend, Anjali.
Politics explores crucial problems of sexual etiquette. What should the sleeping arrangements be in a ménage-à-trois? Is it polite to read while two people have sex beside you? Is it permissible to be jealous?
Элизабет Гарнер0.0 A couple fall in love at first sight - a magical encounter. They search for a home, and soon they are building a charmed life together on the fringes of Wimbledon Common. But when summer arrives, and with it, two gregarious neighbours, their haven is transformed. In the course of lazy days of sunshine and long, hedonistic nights, the boundaries between the two households blur, and the lovers' faith in each other is put to the test. Deep-seated tensions surface, which gradually give way to fears that echo through their days, and haunt their nights. NIGHTDANCING is an unforgettable portrayal of the transforming power of young love, and the darkness that can be born of an ordinary relationship.
Sarah Hall0.0 The village of Marsdale is a quiet corner of the world, cradled in a remote dale in England's lovely Lake District. The rhythm of life in the deeply religious, sheltered community has not changed for centuries. But in 1936, when Waterworks representative Jack Ligget from industrial Manchester arrives with plans to build a new reservoir, he brings the much feared threat of impending change to this bucolic hamlet. And when he begins an intense and troubled affair with Janet Lightburn—a devout local woman of rare passion and strength of spirit—it can only lead to scandal, tragedy, and remarkable, desperate acts.
From Sarah Hall, the internationally acclaimed author of the Man Booker Prize finalist The Electric Michelangelo, comes a stunning and transcendent novel of love, obsession, and the passing of an age.
Stephanie Merritt3.0 Gaveston is a journey into the dark heart of obsession and sexual politics by one of the rising stars of contemporary British fiction.
When Gaby Harvey, daughter of media magnate Sir Edward Hamilton Harvey and research student at the prestigious St Dunstan's College, first sets eyes on Piers Gaveston, she immediately senses danger. Aloof, narcissistic and devastatingly attractive, Gaveston's charms still prove irresistible to Gaby and as he works his way through the London media world, so he works a way into her affections, with devastating consequences.
'Stephanie Merritt's deliciously dark d�but novel has an unusually erudite cast of characters . . . The glamorous life that these characters enjoys suggests, in the most enjoyable way, an episode of 'Dallas' co-written by Iris Murdoch and David Lodge, and directed by Ingmar Bergman.' New Statesman
