The hapless inhabitants of Killoyle, Ireland, face all manner of chaos in this comic novel from an author "capable of spinning a fabulous yarn" ( Minnesota Daily).After local lush Mick McCreek gets into a car crash with a cross-dressing church sexton, he enlists the help of a lawyer, Tom O'Mallet. As it turns out, the lawyer's real gig is selling missiles to an IRA splinter group, and he plans to use his clueless client as a patsy.O'Mallet also hoo...

Roger Boylan is a booze-soaked humorist in the tradition of James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Samuel Beckett.Roger Boylan’s first novel is about the inhabitants of the Irish town of Killoyle: Milo Rogers, a headwaiter and would-be poet with a bit of a drinking problem and a bit of a sexual one; Kathy Hickman, a writer for the woman's fashion magazine Glam andformer pin-up girl; Wolfetone Grey, who reads books only by or about God, and who also makes anonymou...

What moves the Archangel Michael to recruit Gustave Termi, a middle-aged professor in modern-day Geneva, into his legions of divine warriors? It's a total mystery to Gustave, who isn't even sure he believes in God, and is certainly no one's idea of a warrior. He tries psychoanalysis to clear up the visions. That doesn’t work, but a chance encounter with journalist Martine Jeanrenaud in the therapist’s waiting room changes his life. Martine, it turns out, has recently published the biograph...

Sherlock Holmes: Volume 1 is a great introduction to the world's most famous pipe-smoking detective, Holmes himself. Experience two complete novels and two collections of short stories now!Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1 is a great introduction to the series which features the early works written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Included are the novels A Study in Scarlet (1887) and The Sign of the Four (1890...

pistache (pis-tash): a friendly spoof or parody of another's work. [Deriv uncertain. Possibly a cross between pastiche and p**stake.]From Thomas Hardy's football report to Dan Brown's visit to the cash dispenser, the work of the great and the not-so-great is here sent up with little hope of coming down.Most of these pieces began their life on Radio Four's The Write Stuff, but have been retooled for the printed page. Others, such as Martin Amis's fi...

Robinson Crusoe discovers thousands of ‘half-naked savages’ having it large on Ibiza.James Bond is on a mission, as a 24-hour call-out plumber.‘The young stable lad is a moody fellow,’ say reviewers of Wuthering Heights in The Good Hotel Guide.Hans Christian Andersen gets into the subprime mortgage racket.Stephen King attempts a love story that doesn’t involve buckets of blood.Robbie Burns cheers on Andy Murray at Wimbledon....

This was the collection with which Durcan broke through to the huge and appreciative audience he enjoys today. In the first part are poems of great satirical comedy and also of great passion and indignation, and in the second part, poems about the break-up of a marriage so intense they would hurt if they weren't also possessed of the healing gifts of truthfulness and humour. In The Berlin Wall Café Durcan has located that space between the walls and barriers societies and individu...

The Devil Wears Farah is a hilarious but thoughtful account of the experiences of one boy growing up in the Ireland of the Seventies. Nestled within a noisy, argumentative, absolutely typical family of that era and that place, the young MacCarthy, with his 'child prodigy capacity for deceit' is a whip-smart witness to his society's slow and blinking emergence into the bright shining world of modernity and consumerism.The reader will only stop smiling to laugh out-loud at the memori...

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK AWARDLONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE"Beautiful and affecting" -- David Nicholls, author of One DayA moving novel of three men, each searching for something they have lost, from the award-winning and Man Booker nominated author Donal Ryan.**For Farouk, family is all. He has protected his wife and daughter as best he can from the war and hatred that has torn Syria apart. If they stay, they will lose their freedom, will ...

Paul O'Grady is one of Britain's very best loved entertainers. He is known and adored by millions, whether as the creator of the acid-tongued Blonde Bombsite, Lily Savage, or the presenter of the fantastically successful, award-winning Paul O'Grady Show on Channel 4.Now, in his own unique voice, Paul O'Grady tells story of his early life in Irish Catholic Birkenhead that started him on the long and winding road from mischievous altar boy to national treasure. It is a brill...

"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public RadioWhen Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama an...

In his new novel, Paulo Coelho, bestselling author of The Alchemist and Adultery, brings to life one of history's most enigmatic women: Mata Hari.HER ONLY CRIME WAS TO BE AN INDEPENDENT WOMANWhen Mata Hari arrived in Paris she was penniless. Within months she was the most celebrated woman in the city.As a dancer, she shocked and delighted audiences; as a courtesan, she bewitched the era’s richest and most powerful men.But a...