Анджали Джозеф5.0 Mohan, a middle-aged letter writer sits under a banyan tree in Fort, furnishing missives for village migrants, disenchanted lovers, and when pickings are slim, filling in money order forms. But Mohan's true passion is collecting second-hand books and he's particularly attached to novels with marginal annotations.
Ned Beauman0.0 Kevin "Fishy" Broom has his nickname for a reason: he has a rare genetic condition that makes him smell markedly like rotting fish. Consequently, he rarely ventures out of the London apartment where he deals online in Nazi memorabilia. But when Fishy stumbles upon a crime scene, he finds himself on the long-cold trail of a pair of small-time players in interwar British history. First, there's Philip Erskine, a fascist gentleman entomologist who dreams of breeding an indomitable beetle as tribute to Reich Chancellor Hitler's glory, all the while aspiring to arguably more sinister projects in human eugenics. And then there's Seth "Sinner" Roach, a homosexual Jewish boxer, nine-toed, runtish, brutish--but perfect in his way--who becomes an object of obsession for Erskine, professionally and most decidedly otherwise. What became of the boxer? What became of the beetle? And what will become of anyone who dares to unearth the answers?
Ned Beauman spins out a dazzling narrative across decades and continents, weaving his manic fiction through the back alleys of history. Boxer, Beetle is a remarkably assured, wildly enjoyable debut.
Stephen Kelman3.3 Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of a block of flats on an inner-city housing estate. The second best runner in the whole of Year 7, Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers - the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen - blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him. With equal fascination for the local gang - the Dell Farm Crew - and the pigeon who visits his balcony, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of his new life in England: watching, listening, and learning the tricks of urban survival. But when a boy is knifed to death on the high street and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to try and keep them safe. A story of innocence and experience, hope and harsh reality, Pigeon English is a spellbinding portrayal of a boy balancing on the edge of manhood and of the forces around him that try to shape the way he falls
Лео Бенедиктус0.0 'Hi,' the man said, stepping forward. 'I'm such a big fan.' No one had briefed Hugo about him.
This book is different. You've really never read a book like this before.
It's the story of an April night that never happened. A night that changes everything for nerdy Michael, a Fleet Street worker ant, when he agrees to take his boss's invitation to an A-list party at a London club.
Inside, reclusive movie star Hugo Marks is announcing his re-entrance to society. And the last thing Hugo needs is Mellody, his junkie supermodel wife, deciding now's the time to swan-dive off the wagon. Or drop-dead-gorgeous pop pup Calvin, hoping he can screw himself into their league.
Yet not one of them sees the real crisis coming. The moment that will tangle their four lives into an intricate disaster. It happens at the afterparty. But then, perhaps you knew that already...
Том Коннолли0.0 Against the vividly described background of 1980s rural Kent, this moving portrait of a father-son relationship shifts effortlessly between evoking utterly convincingly the terrors and joys of adolescence and the complicated pleasure and pain of becoming an adult. Ellis is obsessed by the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister and great aunt Mafi - and also by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family's otherwise happy existence. Ellis a quirky soul; awkward and sensitive, out of place most of the time, funny, and with an often embarrassing habit of speaking his thoughts aloud, whatever the company. From early attempts at relationships, to building jobs, flatshares and drug-addled nights on the beach, Ellis muddles his way towards adulthood. What endures is the strength of his bond with his dad and his affectionate relationship with his intrepid sister, Chrissie, who turns up whenever he needs her - a new boyfriend in tow every time - to take the piss out of her introspective and hapless brother. Meanwhile their dad, Denny, an ex-Merchant Navy man, bottles up his grief at the loss of his wife, refusing to talk about her. The family banter is Ellis' lifeline and a counterpoint to the constant heartache of his desire to know something - anything - about his mother.
Jonathan Lee0.0 "One afternoon last October, on the concrete of her patio garden, my mother had a fall...That was the last time I really had any options."
Reclusive photographer Rob Fossick has come adrift both from society and his creative urge. But when his mother dies, Rob is suddenly presented with an unwanted yet intriguing problem to solve - minutes before her death, he discovers that she was hoping to deliver a package to an enigmatic character called Mr Satoshi, but the name and the contents of the parcel are shrouded in mystery.
So begins a quest that takes Rob out of his isolation and plunges him, anxious and unprepared, into the urban maelstrom of Tokyo. With the help of a colourful group of new acquaintances - an octogenarian amateur detective; a beautiful 'love hotel' receptionist; an ex-sumo wrestler obsessed with Dolly Parton - Rob edges closer to uncovering the mystery surrounding Mr Satoshi, and in the process comes face to face with some demons of his own.
Combining several interlocking mysteries - both past and present - Who is Mr Satoshi? is a uniquely inventive and unforgettable story of a fragile soul coming to terms with the fact that no one, in the end, is quite who they seem to be.
Луиз Левен0.0 An Education meets The Talented Mr Ripley in dark comic gem of a novel that recreates the grubby glamour of early sixties London and introduces an irresistible anti-heroine
Нат Сегнит0.0 "If your companion is walking far ahead, it can be fun to close one eye and hold her between your thumb and forefinger, taking care in case she slips from your grasp, or, conversely, you crush her altogether!"
Graham Underhill is a much-loved local watercolourist, ale enthusiast, and self-published guidebook writer - the 'Wainwright of the West Midlands'. But our narrator and guide is a rambler in more ways than one, and what begins as a set of walk instructions soon gives way to what Graham would rather talk about - mostly, his marriage to the beautiful and erudite Sunita.
When a well-connected environmentalist and would-be MP takes an interest in Sunita's childhood memoir Graham's happiness seems complete. Or it would, were it not for the shoddy state of the local footpath network. And inconsiderate mountain bikers. Litter louts, pretentious landscape photographers, idiots who consider light trainers suitable for mountainous terrain, and the Highways Agency's plan to build a bypass through his house.
At least he has his beloved Sunita. Or does he? Graham, it turns out, is not always the most reliable guide. And neither is 'Underhill Country' the sleepy idyll it seems...
Cunning, hilarious and heartbreaking, Nat Segnit's debut novel is a guidebook to stubborn optimism in the face of marital - and environmental - meltdown.
Никеш Шукла0.0 'Coconut Unlimited' follows the adventures of three hapless, hip-hop obsessed Asian boys in an all-white private school. It is the debut novel from London-based writer and performance poet Nikesh Shukla. Shortlisted for Costa First Novel Award 2010.
Мирза Вахид0.0 It is Kashmir in the early 1990s and war has finally reached the isolated village of Nowgam close to the Pakistan border. Indian soldiers appear as if from nowhere to hunt for militants on the run. Four teenage boys, who used to spend their afternoons playing cricket, or singing Bollywood ballads down by the river, have disappeared one by one, to cross into Pakistan and join the movement against the Indian army. Only one of their friends, the son of the headman, is left behind. The families in the village begin to think it?s time to flee, to search for a place of greater safety. But the headman will not allow his family to leave. And, whilst the headman watches his dreams give way beneath the growing violence, his son, under the brutal, drunken gaze of the Indian army captain, is seemingly forced to collaborate and go into the valley to count the corpses, fearing, each day, that he will discover one of his friends lying amongst the dead. The Colloborator is a stunningly humane work of storytelling with a poignant and unpredictable hero at its heart. In one of the most shocking and brilliantly compelling novels of recent times Mirza Waheed lights our way into the heart of a war that is all too real.
