To hear Paul Reverb tell it, he's fine.Sure, he's been caught in a compromising situation by his window cleaner and failed to prevent daylight robbery, and yes, he no longer tells people he was born the day Sergeant Pepper was released, as, to his horror, people no longer know what a Sergeant Pepper is.Fine.But Paul isn't fine. He hates his job and he's not fond of his friends. He sits in his dead parents' flat surrounded by his c...

John Patrick Higgins has been told he's spineless for as long as he can remember. But if that's true, why is he obliged to leave an armchair with the nervous trepidation of someone dipping a toe into a piranha tank?John has a bad back. His skeleton's turned on him like an angry dog denied, ironically, a bone.As he embarks on a six-week course of Pilates to iron out his kinks—years of Freudian analysis having not even touched the sides—he finds himself in a world of Lycra-cl...

Teeth, like a weeping father at a wedding, give you away. Like St Peter, they will betray you three times: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Teeth are a memento mori, a sudden glimpse of the naked skull beneath the skin.John Patrick Higgins has had bad teeth for as long as he can remember and you might expect him, being English, not to notice. But he has noticed, and he's doing something about it.This book recounts his journey from a mouthful of moist gravel to...

I don’t recall if I saw my first gunman in my childhood nightmares or on my childhood streets.There were plenty in both and they looked very much like each other.So begins Reggie Chamberlain-King’s introduction to The Black Dreams, a thrilling and compelling collection of specially commissioned stories that explore the emotional geography of growing up and living in Northern Ireland.The fourteen stories gathered here criss-cross coast, bor...

In this provocative and haunting collection of short stories, edited by two masters of the form, a diverse group of contemporary writers probes the nature and connection between two of the most powerful, exhilarating, and terrifying forces that define and shape the human experience."What else is there?"—Alice Munro, on why so much of her work deals with the twin themes of sex and death.The drive for life—for survival and reproduction—and the drive for death...

Witty, tender and daring essays from the British David Sedaris'A lovely writer: supple, stylish and almost effortlessly witty.' Daily Mail'Made me laugh out loud and then properly cry.’ Jennie GodfreyWhen it comes to the challenge of being a man, Adam Farrer always seems to find a way to fall short…Broken Biscuits vividly recounts Adam’s struggles to live up to masculine ex...

There are certain moments studded throughout our lives where events embed memories that last the distance. Not just the obvious, like births, deaths and marriages, but also the smaller, less overtly impactful ones, which glue our past to our present to our future. The minutiae that solidify us. It may be as inconsequential as a conversation, a meal, or the sun-speckled image of a six-year old running ahead, blonde hair becoming iridescent as it whips across her shoulders. Jogging behind is...

THE NO. 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER - NOW INCLUDING BRAND NEW MATERIALTHIS IS GOING TO HURT was the bestselling non-fiction book of the century - a frank, funny and furious look at the brutal realities of life in the NHS.But it was only part of Adam Kay's story.With his stethoscope now hung up, Adam shares more suture-splitting anecdotes from both on and off the wards. From the hilarious to the profoundly moving, from the first days of medica...

Comedian Jack Dee's hilarious account of how he became quite such a miserable git and a stand up comedian.'A brilliant book. So funny. It's my bible' Paul O'GradyIn this hilariously frank account of his life, Jack Dee finally reveals what turned a once optimistic young man into this grumpy middle-aged git. It's a journey that takes him from a first gig as a ventriloquist's dummy, to working in an artificial leg factory and...

Now a major motionpicture starring Beanie Feldstein!The New York Times bestselling author hailed as “the UK’s answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one” (Marie Claire) makes her fiction debut with a hilarious yet deeply moving coming of age novel.What do you do in your teenage years when you realize what your parents taught you wasn’t enough? You must go out and find books and poetry and pop songs and ...

‘We asked listeners to be honest, creative, funny, engaging and evocative in their writing…to try to make us laugh, cry and think. We never imagined we would get the quantity and quality of entries that we did for A Page from My Life.’ – Ray D’ArcyIn the midst of the Covid crisis, the Ray D’Arcy Show invited RTÉ Radio 1 listeners to send in ‘A Page from My Life’: 500 words on a memorable event, or a story simply worth sharing. The response was overwhelming. Ray an...