'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...

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...

“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...

"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 ...

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

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 ...

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...

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 ...

'WHATEVER YOU DO hang on to the phone. . . . . . . . ! . . . . . . . . ! Feel the smoothness of its bevelled screen . . . . . . . . ! . . . . . . . . ! Place your thumb in the soft depression of its belly-button - turn it over and over. . . . . . . . ! . . . . . . . . ! A five hundred-quid worry bead - and all I worry about is losing the bloody thing. . . . . . . . ! . . . . . . . . !'For the four characters at the heart of Will Self's brilliantly acute novel of ou...