“Self is the most daring and delightful novelist of his generation.”—GuardianA blistering, brilliant novel from the Booker-shortlisted author, elegantly reflecting his Geoffrey Faber Memorial award-winning story collection The Quantity Theory of InsanityIn The Quantity Theory of Morality, Will Self’s unconventional new novel, his pen remains dipped in vitriol and elegance as ever. In this dark yet hilariously sati...

Grotesque, deconstructive, and absolutely genius, Vladimir Sorokin’s short story collection Dispatches from the District Committee is a revelatory, offbeat portrait of Soviet life beyond the propaganda and state-sponsored realism.Celebrated—and censored—for its political satire, literary irreverence, and provocative themes, Sorokin's work has been recognized across the world for its scathing, darkly humorous commentary on political and cultural oppression ...

The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker - hilarious restaurant reviews by Booker nominee Will Self'Most food writing and restaurant criticism is concerned with the ideal, with how by cooking this, or dining there, you can somehow ingurgitate a new - or at any rate improved - social, aesthetic and even spiritual persona. I aimed to turn this proposition on its head, and instead of commenting on where and what people would ideally like to eat I would consider where...

Some people lost their sense of proportion, others their sense of scale, but Simon Dykes, a middle-aged, successful London painter, has lost his sense of perspective in a most disturbing fashion. After a night of routine, pedestrian debauchery, traipsing from toilet to toilet, and imbibing a host of narcotics on the way, Simon wakes up cuddled in his girlfriend’s loving arms. Much to his dismay, however, his girlfriend has turned into a chimpanzee. To add insult to injury, the psychiatric ...

Will Self possesses one of the greatest literary imaginations of any writer working today. How the Dead Live is his most extraordinary book yet—a novel that will challenge, entertain, and truly astonish.Lily Bloom is an aging American transplanted to England who has lost her battle with cancer and lies wasting away at the Royal Ear Hospital. As her two daughters—lumpy Charlotte, who runs a hugely successful chain of stationery stores called Waste of Paper, and beautiful Natasha, a ...

Carol, the heroine of Cock, is extremely dissatisfied with her married life. Realisation that her husband Dan is not the man for her has come too late and insult follows injury as Dan's drinking problem gives way to an obsessive fervour for Alcoholics Anonymous. One evening while Dan is out, Carol discovers something entirely unexpected about herself that leads her into rather twisted and distinctly uncharted waters ...On the flip side, there is Bull. Joh...

A postmodern novel of melancholy memory and erotic fantasy—"a filthy tour de force"—by the acclaimed Scottish author of Poor Things ( The Washington Post).1982, Janine is a searing portrait of male need and inadequacy, as explored via the lonely sexual fantasies of Jock McLeish, failed husband, lover, and businessman. Alone in a hotel room, Jock attempts again and again to escape the realities of his life through an elaborate sadomasochis...

The fictional world of Will Self is unlike any other. In The Quantity Theory of Insanity, we learn, amongst other things, the dark and terrible secret of Ward 9, why you are right to think that London is full of dead people and that each and every human being is caught up in a colossal balancing act between the sane and the insane ... The Quantity Theory of Insanity is acerbic, satirical, hilarious and, most of all, utterly unique in imaginative vision.

A fascinating and unsettling anthology of 32 science fiction short stories in tribute to the prophetic dystopias of New Wave sci-fi pioneer, and literary titan of the twentieth century, J. G. Ballard—featuring Will Self, Iain Sinclair, Christopher Fowler, Chris Beckett, and a new Jerry Cornelius story from Michael Moorcock.Few authors are so iconic that their name is an adjective – Ballard is one of them.Master of both literary and science fiction, his nove...

May 4th, 1970. A week earlier President Nixon has ordered American ground forces into Cambodia to pursue the Vietcong. By the end of the day four students will be shot dead by the National Guards in the grounds of Kent State University. On the other side of the Atlantic, it's a brilliant sunny morning after an April of heavy rain, and at the "Concept House" therapeutic community he has set up in the London suburb of Willesden, maverick psychiatrist Dr Zack Busner has been tricked into join...

One of Will Self’s best-loved novels, newly reissued by Grove, The Book of Dave begins when East End cabdriver Dave Rudman’s wife takes from him his only son. In response, Dave pens a savage jeremiad against the contemporary world that filters his fearful bigotry through religious mania, with a generous dose of the London cabby’s unique knowledge of the sprawling city. Dave buries the book in his ex-wife’s Hampstead backyard, intending it for his son, Carl, when he comes of age. F...

Extended comic turns like The Queue and relentless, mind-bending, genre-shredding extravaganzas like Ice Trilogy have established Vladimir Sorokin as a master of the contemporary novel. It is to Sorokin’s short fiction, however, that readers must turn to encounter the wildest and most unsettling of his inventions and provocations. Sorokin is a virtuoso of parody and pastiche, as well as a poet of the black sites where the human soul stands exposed to its own incontinent d...