Five writers grapple with reality and fiction, and the alchemical process of turning life into art. As Iain Sinclair frames it in his luminous introduction, they try to explain the impulse to write 'by way of personal anecdote, revelation or hopeful punt in the dark.'

Voted by the London Times as one of the best writers since 1945, Michael Moorcock was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and won the Guardian Fiction Prize. He has won almost all the major Science Fiction, Fantasy, and lifetime achievement awards including the “Howie,” the Prix Utopiales and the Stoker. Best known for his rule-breaking SF and Fantasy, including the classic Elric and Hawkmoon series, he is also the author of several graphic novels.Now, in London Peculi...

London Orbital is Iain Sinclair's exceptional voyage of discovery into the unloved outskirts of the city'My book of the year. Sentence for sentence, there is no more interesting writer at work in English' John Lanchester, Daily TelegraphEncircling London like a noose, the M25 is a road to nowhere, but when Iain Sinclair sets out to walk this asphalt loop - keeping within the 'acoustic footprints' - he is determined to find...

'A beautiful book.' Daily Mail'Exhilaratingly curious.' Evening Standard'Gripping.' Spectator'Brilliant.' Penelope Lively'Indefatigably researched.' Country Life'Beautifully illustrated.' MonocleMudlarking, the act of searching the Thames foreshore for items of value, has a long tradition in En...

A cabinet of curiosities, a time machine, a treasure trove - we love bookshops because they possess a unique kind of magic. In Browse Henry Hitchings asks fifteen writers from around the world to reveal their favourite bookshops, each conjuring a specific time and place.Ali Smith chronicles the secrets and personal stories hidden within the pages of secondhand books; Alaa Al Aswany tells of the Cairo bookshop where revolutionaries gathered during the 2011 uprisings; Elif S...

A fascinating and unsettling anthology of 32 science fiction short stories in tribute to the prophetic dystopias of New Wave sci-fi pioneer, and literary titan of the twentieth century, J. G. Ballard—featuring Will Self, Iain Sinclair, Christopher Fowler, Chris Beckett, and a new Jerry Cornelius story from Michael Moorcock.Few authors are so iconic that their name is an adjective – Ballard is one of them.Master of both literary and science fiction, his nove...

Rodinsky's world was that of the East European Jewry, cabbalistic speculation, an obsession with language as code and terrible loss. He touched the imagination of artist Rachel Lichtenstein, whose grandparents had left Poland in the 1930s. This text weaves together Lichtenstein's quest for Rodinsky - which took her to Poland, to Israel and around Jewish London - with Iain Sinclair's meditations on her journey into her own past and on the Whitechapel he has reinvented in his own writing.

Renowned author Iain Sinclair follows in the footsteps of photographer John Deakin, whose chronicles of Soho life - and the world of Francis Bacon and his friends - has so influenced our perception of that generation's work. In this bold fictionalisation, Sinclair enters the underworld of Deakin's life and imagination. The result is an engrossing, utterly unique portrait of a man who some felt was a fallen angel, and others, the devil himself.

Violent rebellion comes to London’s middle classes in the extraordinary new novel from the author of ‘Cocaine Nights’ and ‘Super-Cannes’.When a bomb explodes at Heathrow, it looks like just another random act of violence to psychologist David Markham. But when he discovers that his ex-wife is among the victims he is compelled to further investigate the mysterious and shocking circumstances surrounding her death.Acting on police suspicions he immerses himself in the strange ...

‘A book full of richness, unexpected enticements, short sharp shocks and breathtaking writing’ GuardianWelcome to the real, unauthorised London: the disappeared, the unapproved, the unvoiced, the mythical and the all-but forgotten. The perfect companion to the city.‘Exhilarating, truly wonderful, a cavalcade of eloquent writing. London demands an anthology like this to remind us of the irascible quirkiness of its residents, and we have Sinclair to ...

In Edge of the Orison the visionary Iain Sinclair walks in the steps of poet John ClareIn 1841 the poet John Clare fled an asylum in Epping Forest and walked eighty miles to his home in Northborough. He was searching for his lost love, Mary Joyce - a woman three years dead ...In 2000 Iain Sinclair set out to recreate Clare's walk away from madness. He wanted to understand his bond with the poet and escape the gravity of his London obsessions. Accom...

Iain Sinclair explores modern London through a day's hike around the London Overground route.Echoing his journey in London Orbital over a decade ago, Iain Sinclair narrates his second circular walk around the capital. Shortly after rush-hour and accompanied by a rambling companion, Sinclair begins walking along London's Overground network, or, 'Ginger Line'. With characteristic playfulness, detours into folk history, withering assessments of the political ...