A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee."Every successful marriage has its own private language." So it is for baby boomer Kate and her beloved architect husband Jack, thirty years into their seemingly idyllic metropolitan North London life. And so it is for spiky millennial screenwriter Phoebe and her charming loafer of a partner, Tony.But when Phoebe’s steamy television series Cheating bec...

Shortlisted for the 2020 Orwell Prize"Thrilling…A topical and deftly satirical novel." —Anna Mundow, Wall Street JournalIn this taut, dystopian tale, an island nation ravaged by the Change has built an enormous concrete barrier around its coastline—the Wall. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls trapped amid the rising seas outside. A blend of the most compelling issues...

"A vibrant piece of fiction, pulsating with events and emotions . . . Seems destined to be read a hundred years from now." —Martin Rubin, Los Angeles TimesEach house on Pepys Road, an ordinary street in London, has seen its fair share of first steps and last breaths, and plenty of laughter in between. But each of the street's residents—a rich banker and his shopaholic wife, a soccer prodigy from Senegal, Pakistani shop owners, a dying old...

A Kirkus Reviews Best Short Fiction of 2021 SelectionGhost stories for the digital age by the Booker Prize–longlisted author of The Wall.In 2017, inspired in part by Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, the acclaimed English novelist John Lanchester published a ghost story in The New Yorker. "Signal," an eerie story of contemporary life and the perils of technology, was a sensation among readers—and since then Lanchester ha...

The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its ninth 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, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the b...

For two years before and after the 1948 Communist Revolution, David Kidd lived in Peking, where he married the daughter of an aristocratic Chinese family. "I used to hope," he writes, "that some bright young scholar on a research grant would write about us and our Chinese friends before it was too late and we were all dead and gone, folding into the darkness the wonder that had been our lives." Here Kidd himself brings that wonder to life.

"Refreshingly clear, sharp, and funny, How to Speak Money will help you understand not only what the language of finance means but also why it matters." —James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of CrowdsTo those who don’t speak it, the language of money can seem impenetrable. Fortunately, John Lanchester—the best-selling novelist and reporter hailed by The Economist for "explain[ing] complex stuff in a down-to-earth and witty style"—is her...

The author of The Debt to Pleasure digs into his family's extraordinary past in a memoir as enthralling as his finest fictionIt was only when his mother died that John Lanchester realized how little he really knew about his parents. With the cache of letters and papers she left behind, he set out to reconstruct just who his parents had been. In doing so, he did much more than trace the remarkable story of a reluctant international banker, a secretive forme...

Hailed by the New York Times as an ''elegant and wonderfully witty writer,'' John Lanchester received the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Betty Trask Prize for his critically acclaimed debut, The Debt to Pleasure. In Capital, it's 2008, the height of the financial crisis, and someone is sending anonymous postcards to the affluent residents of Pepys Road, London. The cards read simply, ''We want what you have,'' leaving the recipients asking, Who's behind the strange mailings, and to wh...

The bestselling author of The Debt to Pleasure and Capital returns with a chilling fable for our time.Ravaged by the Change, an island nation in a time very like our own has built the Wall—an enormous concrete barrier around its entire coastline. Joseph Kavanagh, a new Defender, has one task: to protect his section of the Wall from the Others, the desperate souls who are trapped amid the rising seas outside and are a constant threat. Failure will ...

A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee."Every successful marriage has its own private language." So it is for baby boomer Kate and her beloved architect husband Jack, thirty years into their seemingly idyllic metropolitan North London life. And so it is for spiky millennial screenwriter Phoebe and her charming loafer of a partner, Tony.But when Phoebe’s steamy television series Cheating bec...

To those who don't speak it, the language of money can seem impenetrable and its ideas too complex to grasp. How to Speak Money is acclaimed writer John Lanchester's entertaining and informative attempt to bridge the gap between the money people and the rest of us.With characteristic wit and candor ("wickedly funny" --Dwight Garner, New York Times), Lanchester shows how the world of finance and economics really works--from the terms and conditions of your personal checking account ...