A witty and sharp romantic novel from critically acclaimed author Lars Iyer. The unruly undergraduates at Cambridge have a nickname for their new lecturer: Wittgenstein Jr. He's a melancholic, tormented genius who seems determined to make them grasp the very essence of philosophical thought. But the students are too busy getting drunk on lethal homemade cocktails, falling in and out of love and coming to terms with the life waiting for them after Cambridge. And as they scramble to discover...

**"Memorable characters make this a singular exploration of the human condition." - Publishers WeeklyA scathingly funny look at a group of quirky graduate students majoring in Disaster Studies who are forced to reconsider their cynicism when they confront a new student who, remarkably, has the same name as the 20th Century Catholic mystic philosopher Simone Weil ...**My Weil follows a group of twenty-something PhD students of the new-fangled subject Disast...

In a work of blistering dark hilarity, a young Nietzsche experiences life in a metal band & the tribulations of finals season in a modern secondary schoolWhen a new student transfers in from a posh private school, he falls in with a group of like-minded suburban stoners, artists, and outcasts—too smart and creative for their own good. His classmates nickname their new friend Nietzsche (for his braininess and bleak outlook on life), and decide he must be the front m...

In a raucous debut that summons up Britain's fabled Goon Squad comedies, writer and philosopher Lars Iyer tells the story of someone very like himself with a "slightly more successful" friend and their journeys in search of more palatable literary conferences and better gin. One reason for their journeys: the narrator's home is slowly being taken over by a fungus that no one seems to know what to do about.Before it completely swallows his house, the narrator feels compelled to solv...

A plague of rats, the end of philosophy, the cosmic chicken, and bars that don’t serve Plymouth Gin—is this the Apocalypse or is it just America?“The apocalypse is imminent,” thinks W. He has devoted his life to philosophy, but he is about to be cast out from his beloved university. His friend Lars is no help at all—he’s too busy fighting an infestation of rats in his flat. A drunken lecture tour through the American South proves to be another colossal mistake. In ...

A wickedly funny and satisfyingly highbrow black comedy about the collapse of Western academic institutions under the weight of neoliberal economics and crushing, widespread idiocy.Lars and W., the two preposterous philosophical anti-heroes of Spurious and Dogma—called “Uproarious” by the New York Times Book Review—return and face a political, intellectual, and economic landscape in a state of total ruination.With philosophy professors bei...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • From the acclaimed author of Weather comes a slim, stunning portrait of a marriage—a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us all.“A startling feat of storytelling . . . Each line a dazzling, perfectly chiseled arrowhead aimed at your heart.” —Vanity Fair...

Feeding Frenzy - Booker nominee Will Self's dazzling collection of journalism and writing'Self often writes non-fiction as though it were fiction, topping off what we know as reality with the cream of his surreality' GuardianDuring the turbulent years of 1995-2000, Will Self surfed the great wave of olive oil which nearly swept British metropolitan culture away, and produced a series of restaurant reviews for The Observer, whose coruscating critic...

After a noisy upbringing as one of six children, and adulthood as a vocal feminist and mother, Sara Maitland began to crave silence. Over the past five years, she has spent periods of silence in the Sinai Desert and the Australian bush and on the Isle of Skye. She interweaves these experiences with the history of silence told through fairy tale and myth, Western and Eastern religious traditions, the Enlightenment and psychoanalysis, up to the ambivalence towards silence in contemporary soc...

When Miles Franklin-shortlisted novelist Brenda walker became sick she turned to two healers: doctors and books.This is the story of how she recovered.Packing her bag for hospital after being diagnosed with breast cancer, Brenda wondered which book to put in. As a novelist and professor of literature, her life was built around reading and writing. Books had always been her solace and sustenance, and now choosing the right one was the most important thing sh...

'Sharp, unsentimental and ruefully funny. A fascinating portrait not only of Lively but of the times through which she has lived' Daily Telegraph'Clever and poignant . . . there is much to enjoy. This is Lively at her best' Sunday Express'The twentieth century shook the world: it sobers me to have been one of those to see it through'Ten years ago, Penelope Lively, then eighty, wrote this powerful and compe...

What’s the key to the art of growing older well? Is it an art that anyone can cultivate? How should we confront dying and death in a secular age? What about sex when we’re older? What about loneliness? (And, for that matter, what about facelifts?)At the height of his powers in this remarkable (and often witty) book, Robert Dessaix addresses these increasingly urgent questions in inimitable prose and comes up with some surprising answers. From Java to Hobart via Berlin, Des...