'This book seems to be about us. Within a day or two of starting it I devised a title: VAC... The subtle idea was to fuse the suggestion of holiday or vacation with that of vacuum...'Paul Ableman's third novel, first published in 1968, is - through the voice of its narrator Billy Soodernim, libidinous and regretful by turns - a meditation on love and carnality, monogamy and promiscuity, childbirth, separation and indeed the whole of the fraught relations between the sexes:...

Paul Ableman's modern masterpiece was first published by the Olympia Press of Paris in 1958, to instant acclaim. The narrator of I Hear Voices is a young schizophrenic who transports himself, and the reader, through a wondrously transfigured city where the real and the fantastic blend together in a seamless enchantment. The continual stream and buzz of events is often comical, occasionally wrenching, and always unpredictable. Encounters with Miss Carpet, The Commissioner, Merkitt ...

Tornado Pratt is the last of the old-style American tycoons, one who has lived his life with ferocious vigour through the vacillating fortunes of the twentieth-century USA. Paul Ableman's novel finds him in a hotel room at the end of his days, as he recounts via a dying monologue the events of his turbulent life. What is revealed, in a testimony full of jokes and surprises, is a brash, lustful, comic, profane, naïve and sentimental man who, driven on by remorse, displays a wry and percepti...

First published in 1962 As Near as I Can Get was Paul Ableman's follow up to his critically acclaimed debut I Hear Voices.Following Alan Peebles, a young man struggling to become a poet, As Near as I Can depicts a mid-twentieth century London of offices, pubs and lodgings. Fuelled by drink through these desperate years, the narrator charts his encounters with women and fellow artists, as he seeks to glimpse a wonder in life barely discernible beneath the ...

The hero of Paul Ableman's Vilp (1962) is Clive Witt, a novelist in search of a hero for his new novel. He advertises for suitable applicants, and from seventy-three replies he selects three: Professor Guthrie Pidge, a zoologist; Pad Dee Murphy, an Irish-Burmese peasant; and Harry Glebe, the inventor of the renowned earth-borer.Clive's novel, though, progresses slowly. His three heroes refuse to mix their very disparate elements into a harmonious whole. Eventually, Clive s...

A landmark, eclectic, leviathan-sized anthology of fiction's wilder, stranger, darker shores.The Weird features an all star cast of authors, from classics to international bestsellers to prize winners:Ben OkriGeorge R.R. MartinAngela CarterKelly LinkFranz KafkaChina MiévilleClive Barker

Profound, lyrical, shocking, wise: the short story is capable of almost anything. This collection of 100 of the finest stories ever written ranges from the essential to the unexpected, the traditional to the surreal. Wide in scope, both beautiful and vast, this is the perfect companion for any fiction lover.Here are childhood favourites and neglected masters, twenty-first century wits and national treasures, Man Booker Prize winners and Nobel Laureates.Featuring an all-star...

THE classic thriller of the 20th century - 'Simply the best escape and pursuit story yet written' [THE TIMES] - with an introduction by Robert Macfarlane'[A] masterpiece: a bestseller that redefined its genre' GUARDIAN' Rogue Male is probably the most famous chase thriller ever, influencing an entire generation from Frederick Forsyth to Lee Child' CATHOLIC HERALD

Attractively designed and illustrated by well-known cartoonist Seth (creator of several New Yorker covers, graphic novels, etc.)Small trim size and inexpensive price = perfect for register displayAttractive Seth-designed display for books ideal for register placementSimilar series of Xmas Ghost Stories by Galley Beggar Press have sold 30,000+ in UKCanadian "trial run" of books showed approx. 1,000 copies sold of each book, even as a drop-in title so...

Middle age took Jane Shilling by surprise. She hadn't seen it coming, and she certainly wasn't ready for it. Living a flawed, bittersweet version of the idyll she dreamed of in her twenties, in a tumbledown urban cottage by the Thames, with a son, a cat and a horse in a livery fifty miles away, she wondered whether middle age was the beginning of the end. Or was there one last great adventure to be had?The Stranger in the Mirror is one woman's attempt to understand what mi...

Sixteen unforgettable stories from a "beguiling writer" and the Edgar Award–winning author of the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael ( The Daily Telegraph ).CWA Diamond Dagger Award–Winning AuthorExpanding her horizons far beyond the boundaries of crime fiction, Ellis Peters offers a broad range of short stories in this collection. Two friends, cruelly torn apart when their country is violently sundered...

Shortly before her death Angela Carter was preparing this volume of short stories, one which does full justice to the glory of her imagination and the range of her talent. It is divided into distinct parts. The first comprises a group of stories inspired by America: Lizzie Borden visits a circus; a John Ford Western is spiced with the story of 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE' and there is a wonderful Gothic extravaganza set in Hollywood. The second section - OLD WORLD WONDERS - draws on fairy tale...