'A major talent' Hilary MantelShortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story PrizeWhether seeking knowledge, riches, or a better life, the characters in these stories are united by a quest for lasting value, as they ask how we should treat our world, our work, our selves, and each other. A vainglorious mine owner dreams of harnessing all of nature to the machinery of commerce. Two ladies of a certain age hunt rare butterflies in a pre-First Worl...

A collection of stories written in duet.Eight highly original stories, each woven from the joint inspiration of two amazing writers.Sixteen celebrated authors respond, play, twist and develop their story in turn. Without the certainty of being in full control, Duets brings a new dimension to the drama of reading and writing.

**A Most Anticipated Book of August at The MillionsFrom the Winner of the BBC National Short Story Award“Jo Lloyd has drawn out all the intensity and latent power of short fiction. . . . A major talent.”―Hilary Mantel“Her sentences could rouse the dead (and do, in this excellent book).”―Karen Russel**lIn Something Wonderful, prize-winning author Jo Lloyd has crafted nine stories that delight in language and shine with wit, wisdom, and deep humanity....

A young boy takes delight in his mother’s ability to shapeshift from one animal to another, only realisinghow odd she is when it comes to parents’ evening . . .The values of a small farming village are challenged by talk of a well-heeled community living on the other side of the lake that only one person can see . . .A writer researching the life of a 19th century child custody reformer discovers all too many parallels between that century and ours . . .The s...

Can you feel your faith slipping away? Are you or a loved one questioning what you’ve always believed?You are not alone. Come on a journey with others who have lost their religion but have found themselves.If you’re wondering whether there’s life on the other side of deconversion, or if you’re trying desperately to understand a loved one who is losing their faith—this book is for you. Edited by philosophy of religion scholar, Sarah Bacaller, with a foreword...

The iconic memoir from the beloved Irish author of the legendary The Country Girls trilogy.'Get ready to applaud, ladies and gentlemen, because there is no one like her.' Anne Enright'One of the last great lights of the golden age of Irish literature.' Eimear McBride'Glittering energy.' Colm TóibínI thought of life's many bounties, to have known the extremities of joy and sorrow, ...

** LONGLISTED for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2018 **M. John Harrison is a cartographer of the liminal. His work sits at the boundaries between genres – horror and science fiction, fantasy and travel writing – just as his characters occupy the no man’s land between the spatial and the spiritual. Here, in his first collection of short fiction for over 15 years, we see the master of the New Wave present unsettling visions of contemporary urban Britain, as well as supernatural par...

The Remarkable, Revealing and Irresistibly Funny Memoir from Joanna Lumley'A brilliant blend of anecdote and warm, witty self-analysis' Mail on SundayYou know the icons — Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous, Purdey in The New Avengers, a Bond Girl, a model, a national treasure. But behind the wit and champagne sparkle, who is the real Joanna Lumley?In No Room for Secrets, she opens the door to her ...

Thirty-five uncanny and erotic tales of vampires written by supernatural fiction’s greatest mistresses of the macabre."Fashions change, and the urbane vampire created by Byron and cemented in place by Stoker has had to move on . . . Are you, like me, ready for the new dusk?" —Ingrid Pitt, from her IntroductionPrepare to arm yourself with garlic, silver bullets, and a stake. Featuring the only vampire short story written by Anne Rice, the undisputed queen of v...

"Hilary Mantel and Helen Simpson feature in the nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its fifth 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, magazine...

Alice Munro turns to her family for inspiration; and what follows is a fictionalised, brilliantly imagined version of the past.‘One of my very favourite writers’ Claire TomalinFrom her ancestors' view from Edinburgh's Castle Rock in the eighteenth century to her parents' thwarted ambitions in Ontario, and her own awakening in 1950s Canada, Munro effortlessly weaves fact and myth to create an epic story of past and present, proving that fict...

‘Yes, it was be there or be square as, clad in the slum chic of the hipster, he issued the slang anthems of the zip age in the desperate esperanto of the bop. John Cooper Clarke: the name behind the hairstyle, the words walk in the grooves hacking through the hi-fi paradise of true luxury’Punk. Poet. Pioneer. The Bard of Salford’s seminal collection is as scabrous, wry & vivid now as it was when first published over 25 years ago.‘The godfather of British performanc...