Will Self0.0 When Tom Brodzinksi tries to give up smoking, he inadvertently sets off a chain of events that threaten to upset the tenuous balance of peace in a not-too-distant land. When he flips the butt of his final cigarette off the balcony of his vacation apartment, it lands on elderly Reggie Lincoln, lounging on the balcony below. Lincoln suffers a burn, and the local authorities charge Tom with assault—in a country with draconian anti-smoking laws, a cigarette is a weapon of offense. For reparation, Tom must leave his family behind and wander through the arid center of the country's deserted territory. Joining Tom on his journey is Brian Prentice, a mysteriously sinister presence, who has his own sins to make up for. Inevitably, the two men encounter violence, forcing them to come together despite their seething mistrust. A profoundly disturbing allegory, The Butt reveals the heart of a distinctly modern darkness.
Алан Беннетт3.8 Если бы собаки не залаяли, как бешеные, на незнакомый фургон у дверей дворцовой кухни, королева никогда не узнала бы о еженедельных визитах Вестминстерской передвижной библиотеки. Но, поднявшись по ступенькам фургона, чтобы извиниться за поднятый собаками шум, она, в конце концов, выбрала роман полузабытой писательницы Айви Комптон-Бернетт. Чтение не увлекло королеву, но воспитание не позволило оставить книгу недочитанной, а затем, чтобы не показаться невежливой, она взяла еще одну. Вторая, выбранная более удачно, пробудила у Ее Величества страсть к чтению, со временем ставшую настолько сильной, что из-за нее королева стала пренебрегать своими обязанностями. И, пока королева читала все - от Томаса Харди до Аниты Брукнер, от Пруста до Беккета, - придворные вступили в сговор с целью прекратить ее литературную одиссею. Лишенная всякого пиетета и необыкновенно веселая книга, "Непростой читатель", являет собой прекрасный довод в пользу чтения, высказанный одним из величайших его поборников, Аланом Беннеттом.
Джо Данторн3.6 Оливеру Тейту пятнадцать лет и у него две главные цели. Во-первых, он мечтает перестать быть девственником до своего следующего дня рождения. Во-вторых, парень желает погасить огонь страсти, который вновь запылал между его матерью и её бывшим любовником Грэхемом. И ещё, Оливер влюблён в Джордану.
Julian Gough0.0 'If I had urinated immediately after breakfast, the Mob would never have burnt down the Orphanage.'
So begins the hilarious, genre-busting tale of Jude, a Tipperary-reared orphan who on his 18th birthday sets off to discover the wide world and his true parentage.
His picaresque adventures take him first to the 'Sodom of the West' (Galway) where he falls in love, encounters temptations galore and, disguised as Stephen Hawking, unwittingly blows up the HQ of a Multi-National Corporation -- and himself.
With his face reconstructed into the spitting image of Leonardo DiCaprio (apart from the small matter of an erectile nose) Jude travels on foot to the inferno of Dublin, in hot pursuit of Angela, ex-chip-shop employee and his True Love. A spectacular chase through the city of Ulysses ensues, transformed by Gough's talent into a dazzling metaphor of 21st-century violence, alienation and progress.
Гаррисон Кейллор0.0 The fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon is real to millions of "A Prairie Home Companion" fans, who tune in each week for the latest news about its strong women and good-looking men. Like Sinclair Lewis' "Gopher Prairie", it is part of literary legend. Four novels have been set among its quiet streets: "Lake Wobegon Days", "Wobegon Boy", "Lake Wobegon Summer 1956", and now "Pontoon". Garrison Keillor's latest book is about the wedding of a girl named Dede Ingebretson, who comes home from California with a guy named Brent. Dede has made a fortune in veterinary aromatherapy; Brent bears a strong resemblance to a man wanted for extortion who's pictured on a poster in the town's post office. Then there's the memorial service for Dede's aunt Evelyn, who led a footloose and adventurous life after the death of her husband. Add a surprise boyfriend and a band of newly arrived Mormon missionaries, and the gently rendered chaos is complete. Full of richly drawn characters, sly wit, and indelible descriptions of everyday life in the heartland, "Pontoon" is another unforgettable portrait of the little town we love.
Джон Уолш0.0 A kaleidoscopic journey through post-World War I London in the footsteps of the real-life Rector of Stiffkey – a story by turns funny, moving and scandalous.
It's 1930, and the long post-war party has ended in a giant collective hangover. The flappers have hung up their dancing shoes. The streets of London are teeming with homeless and desperate men and women, the flotsam left in the wake of the General Strike. The bars and cafes are full of seedy chancers and girls who will forget their mothers' warnings for the price of a mutton-chop supper.
Through this moral wasteland strides Harold Davidson: clergyman, social worker, impulsive saver of souls. With his white hair, 16-pocket overcoat and his eye for ladies poised on the edge of perdition, he is an unlikely Messiah; but no London park, no Holborn public house or Drury Lane brothel is a stranger to his mission: to find girls who have strayed, or are about to stray, down the primrose path to Hell, and pull them back by any means at his disposal. Meanwhile, in the little parish of Stiffkey on the Norfolk coast, his Irish wife Moyra is trying to feed her family and stop the local Major from wrecking her husband's reputation. Her letters to a Dublin confidante reveal the extraordinary journey that has brought her marriage to its present, dire state.
When Harold meets Barbara Harris, a 16-year-old London prostitute who confounds his ethical certainties, it's the start of a chain of events that will pitch all their lives into disarray: a clanging chorus that involves bishops and circus strongmen, Indian princelings and Fleet Street hacks, lurking private eyes and reeking Islington stews, and will lead inexorably to a sensational trial and a notorious defrocking…
John Walsh has taken the few known facts surrounding the real-life Rector of Stiffkey – England's first media anti-celebrity – and fashioned from them a sparkling fantasia of altruism and indulgence, decency and sinfulness. In these fictional journals he presents a Victorian idealist confronted by a modern world he both abhors and embraces. The result is an entertainment by turns farcical, shocking and tragic.
