A dazzling first novel from the critically acclaimed author of Ten Stories About SmokingMark Wilkinson has three names. He left his own behind in the rainy north of England. US immigration know him as Joe Novak. And at the Valhalla, the mysterious complex in Vegas where he sells lofty ambition and dark desires, he goes by Mr Jones.Since the age of eighteen, Mark has been running away, and hard. Away from everything that is flat and dull and ordinary: his market town. Away f...

Distilled, distinctive and a little bit dangerous, a box of love and cigarettes from a bright new voice in fiction. These stories find dignity in quiet lives and beauty in dark corners. They tell of allure, betrayal, nostalgia, solitude, seduction, damage and desire. They are stories of youth mislaid and love lost, and of recovery. They go to the heart of things.

SARA MAITLAND on NATHANIEL HAWTHORNESEAN O'BRIEN on EDGAR ALLAN POEJANE ROGERS on FYODOR DOSTOYEYSKYBRIAN ALDISS on THOMAS HARDYMARTIN EDWARDS on ARTHUR CONAN DOYLEFRANK COTTRELL BOYCE on ANTON CHEKHOVADAM ROBERTS on RUDYARD KIPLINGSTEPHEN BAXTER on H.G. WELLSSTUART EVERS on SHERWOOD ANDERSONALI SMITH on JAMES JOYCETOBY LITT on FRANZ KAFKADAVID CONSTANTINE on D.H. LAWRENCEALISON MACLEOD on KATHERINE MANSFIE...

Whatever happened to British protest?For a nation that brought the world Chartism, the Suffragettes, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and so many other grassroots social movements, Britain rarely celebrates its long, great tradition of people power.In this timely and evocative collection, twenty authors have assembled to re-imagine key moments of British protest, from the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 to the anti-Iraq War demo of 2003. Written in close consultation with historians, sociol...

‘The Blind Light reads like a British Don DeLillo, telling the social history of Britain through two generations of a family.’ Alex Preston, ObserverIn the late 1950s, during his National Service, Drummond meets the two people who will change his life: Carter, a rich, educated young man sent down from Oxford; and Gwen, a barmaid with whom he feels an instant connection. His feelings for both will be tested at a military base known as Doom Town – a training ground ...

The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its sixth year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the b...

'There is no more carefully chosen yet eclectic anthology series in existence in Britain today' – Susan Haigh, The Short ReviewBest British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, ne...

The author of the critically acclaimed, prize-winning collection Ten Stories About Smoking returns with eleven unforgettable stories of parental love and parental mistakes. Set in the past, present and future, they are unified by their compassion, animated by the unsaid, and distinguished by how beautifully they extract the luminous from the ordinary.Your Father Sends His Love is a book of powerful emotion: of vulnerability, duty,...

In the late 1950s, during his National Service, Drummond meets the two people who will change his life: Carter, a rich, educated young man sent down from Oxford; and Gwen, a barmaid with whom he feels an instant connection. His feelings for both will be tested at a military base known as Doom Town. It is an experience that will colour the rest of his – and his family’s – life. The Blind Light moves from the 50s through to present day, taking in the global and local events that will shape a...

INTRODUCED BY STUART EVERS: 'A genuine, fully fledged masterpiece of the twentieth century; one that remains just as terrifyingly relevant and truthful in the twenty-first'An existential, political, literary thriller first published in 1944, Transit explores the plight of the refugee with extraordinary compassion and insight.Having escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in Germany and a work camp in Rouen, the nameless narrator finds himself in the...

Peter Jernigan's life is slipping out of control. His wife's gone, he's lost his job and he's a stranger to his teenage son. Worse, his only relief from all this reality - alcohol - is less effective by the day. And when the medicine doesn't work, you up the dose. And when that doesn't work, what then? (Apart from upping the dose again anyway, because who knows?)Jernigan's answer is to slowly turn his caustic wit on everyone around him - his wife Judith, his teenage son Danny, his ...

'At once a suspenseful manhunt story and a knowing portrait of the perils of ordinary life in Hitler's Germany, The Seventh Cross is not only an important novel, but an important historical document. This new, unabridged translation is a genuine publishing event' - Joseph Kanon, author of 'The Good German' and 'Leaving Berlin''A masterpiece. Written in the midst of terror, but with such clarity, such acuity; Seghers is a writer of rare insight' RAC...