‘Very funny’ Guardian‘Inkwell black and surprisingly tender’ ADAM KAY‘Outrageous’ MARINA HYDE‘A blockbusting explosion of toxic masculinity’ SpectatorIn a busy maternity ward, first-time father Dan meets Jada, a dad welcoming his fifth – no, sixth? – child into the world. But Dan and Jada come from very different places: both called Glasgow. Dan is a successful TV writer with ...

God takes a look at the Earth around the time of the Renaissance and everything looks pretty good – so he takes a holiday. In Heaven-time this is just a week’s fishing trip, but on Earth several hundred years go by. When God returns, he finds all hell has broken loose: world wars, holocausts, famine, capitalism and ‘fucking Christians everywhere’. There’s only one thing for it. They’re sending the kid back.JC, reborn, is a struggling musician in New York City, trying to teach the o...

AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERSHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR SCOTLAND'S NATIONAL BOOK AWARDA GUARDIAN BEST MEMOIR OF 2023A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023John Niven’s little brother Gary was fearless, popular, stubborn, handsome, hilarious and sometimes terrifying. After years of chaotic struggle against the world took his own li...

You thought you could leave the past behind.Think again.Donnie Miller counts himself lucky. Living in a beautiful, spacious house in the wild and remote landscape of central Canada, he spends his days writing for the local newspaper, working on a film script, and acting as house-husband. After a troubled and impoverished upbringing in Scotland, he now has all he wants: a caring wife, a bright and happy son, a generous father-in-law. As the brutal northern winter begins to b...

'I love John Niven's writing – OBVIOUSLY – but came late to his first book, and was blown away by what vivid, delicate time-travel it is. Every The Band fan in the world MUST read it - it's like living in the music. Just smoky, ravishing magic' Caitlin MoranTimed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the release of The Band's debut album, Music from Big Pink is John Niven's first novel – a heady blend of dru...

Gary Irvine's wife refuses to sleep with him, so he pursues an even stingier mistress: golf. But despite his spending unconscionable amounts of time and money, his game is wretched. Until the day he takes a perfect swing . . . and then everything goes black.After waking up from a coma a few weeks later, with a golf-ball-sized dent in his temple, Gary discovers that his last perfect swing has been imprinted on his brain. However, his newfound prowess is accompanied by some ...

"Music From Big Pink is a moving book that succeeds not just in vividly evoking its time and place but in distilling one young man's cliched and minor destiny into something approaching tragedy....This well-written first novel captures not just some of the dreams of that bygone era, but the way those dreams died."-Greg Kamiya, The New York Times Book ReviewMusic From Big Pink is faction: real people like Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Bob Dylan and Albert Grossman rub ...

God takes a look at the Earth around the time of the Renaissance and everything looks pretty good – so he takes a holiday. In Heaven-time this is just a week’s fishing trip, but on Earth several hundred years go by. When God returns, he finds all hell has broken loose: world wars, holocausts, famine, capitalism and ‘fucking Christians everywhere’. There’s only one thing for it. They’re sending the kid back.JC, reborn, is a struggling musician in New York City, trying to teach the o...

Salmon P. Chase was one of the preeminent men of 19th-century America. A majestic figure, tall and stately, Chase was a leader in the fight to end slavery, a brilliant administrator who as Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury provided crucial funding for a vastly expensive war, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during the turmoil of Reconstruction, and the presiding officer of the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Yet he was also a complex figure. As John Niven reveals in ...

AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERSHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR SCOTLAND'S NATIONAL BOOK AWARDA GUARDIAN BEST MEMOIR OF 2023A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023AN iNEWS BEST BOOK TO GIFTJohn Niven’s little brother Gary was fearless, popular, stubborn, handsome, hilarious and sometimes terrifying. In 201...

Salmon P. Chase was one of the preeminent men of 19th-century America. A majestic figure, tall and stately, Chase was a leader in the fight to end slavery, a brilliant administrator who as Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury provided crucial funding for a vastly expensive war, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during the turmoil of Reconstruction, and the presiding officer of the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Yet he was also a complex figure. As John Niven reveals in ...