'Reads like early Nabokov: barbed, provocative, virtuosic in his performance of linguistic jokes...rollicking, unsettling and furiously intelligent' Guardian'Full of pathos and penetrating insights into the best and worst in human nature. A consummate performance, it's a book that might finally silence Self's critics' SpectatorThis dark yet hilariously satirical state-of-an-era novel sees Will Self's middl...

When artist Simon Dykes wakes after a late night of routine debauchery, he discovers that his world has changed beyond recognition. His girlfriend, Sarah, has turned into a chimpanzee. And, to Simon's appalled surprise, so has the rest of humanity. Simon, under the bizarre delusion that he is 'human', is confined to an emergency psychiatric ward. There he becomes of considerable interest to eminent psychologist and chimp, Dr Zack Busner. For with this fascinating case, Busner thinks may fi...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2012For half a century Audrey Death has been in a state of semi-consciousness. Severed from the world of the living after falling victim to Encephalitis lethargica, she has languished in Friern Barnet Mental Hospital. Then, in 1971, maverick psychiatrist Dr Zack Busner arrives.Audrey's experiences of a bygone Edwardian London: her socialist lover, her involvement with the Suffragists, and her work in a munitions factory ...

“For intelligence and ambition . . . inventive comedy, heartbreak and levity . . . Will Self belongs in the company of Nabokov, Pynchon, William Gaddis and Don DeLillo.” —The New York Times Book ReviewWill Self has established himself as one of the most brilliant, daring, and inventive writers of his generation. My Idea of Fun is Will Self’s highly acclaimed first novel. The story of a devilishly clever international financier/marketing wizard and...

The Book of Dave is Booker-shortlisted author Will Self's dazzling sixth novelWhat if a demented London cabbie called Dave Rudman wrote a book to his estranged son to give him some fatherly advice? What if that book was buried in Hampstead and hundreds of years later, when rising sea levels have put London underwater, spawned a religion? What if one man decided to question life according to Dave? And what if Dave had indeed made a mistake?Shuttling between the rece...

"A brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella."-James Joyce, UlyssesRadical and uncompromising, Umbrella is a tour de force from one of England’s most acclaimed contemporary writers, and Self’s most ambitious novel to date. Moving between Edwardian London and a suburban mental hospital in 1971, Umbrella exposes the twentieth century’s technological searchlight as refracted through the dark glass of a long term mental institution. While making his first ...

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 ...

Will Self has been praised by The New York Times Book Review as a high-powered satirical weapon” and Cock & Bull is one of his most outrageous works of fictionCock: A Novelette” is the story of a woman who grows a fully functional penis. Bull: A Farce” is the story of a man who acquires a vagina and all its companion parts. There are, however, complications. Cock & Bull, the book that introduced an enfant terrible of English letters to an American audience, has quickly become a ...

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 ...

'Self is the most daring and delightful novelist of his generation' Guardian

This is the sparkling debut with which Will Self burst onto the literary scene. In it, we discover a superhumanly dull tribe of Amazonians, the terrible, seductive secret of Ward 9 and why you are right to think that London is full of dead people.Full of his trademark jagged-edge satire and dark wit, The Quantity Theory of Insanity is acerbic, hilarious and, most of all, utterly unique in its imaginative vision.'Very funny and very good, with that unmistakable sign...

What is there is only a limited amount of sanity in the world and the real reason people go mad is because somebody has to? What if a mysterious tribe in the Amazon rainforest turn out to be the most boring people on earth? What if the afterlife is nothing more than a London suburb, where the dead get new flats, new jobs, and their own telephone directory? These are the sort of truths that emerge in this collection of stories by one of England's most gifted writers.In ...