From the bestselling, award-winning author of Middle England comes a profoundly moving, brutally funny and brilliantly true portrait of Britain told through four generations of one family In Bournville, a placid suburb of Birmingham, sits a famous chocolate factory. For eleven-year-old Mary and her family in 1945, it's the centre of the world. The reason their streets smell faintly of chocolate, the place where most of their friends and neighbours have worked for decades. Mary will go on to live through the Coronation and the World Cup final, royal weddings and royal funerals, Brexit and Covid-19. She'll have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Parts of the chocolate factory will be transformed into a theme park, as modern life and the city crowd in on their peaceful enclave. As we travel through seventy-five years of social change, from James Bond to Princess Diana, and from wartime nostalgia to the World Wide Web, one pressing question starts to emerge: will these changing times bring Mary's family - and their country - closer together, or leave them more adrift and divided than ever before? Bournville is a rich and poignant new novel from the bestselling, Costa award-winning author of Middle England. It is the story of a woman, of a nation's love affair with chocolate, of Britain itself. 'A wickedly funny, clever, but also tender and lyrical novel about Britain and Britishness and what we have become' Rachel Joyce 'It is miraculous how, in his new novel, Coe has created a social history of postwar Britain as we are still living it. Bournville is a beautiful, and often very funny, tribute to an underexamined place and also a truly moving story of how a country discovered tolerance' Sathnam Sanghera, bestselling author of Empireland

A heartbreaking novel of family secrets from one of the masters of modern fiction, The Rain Before it Falls is part of our Penguin Essentials series which spotlights the very best of our modern classics Deeply moving and compelling, The Rain Before it Falls is the story of three generations of one family riven by tragedy. When Rosamund, a reluctant bearer of family secrets, dies suddenly, a mystery is left for her niece Gill to unravel. Some photograph albums and tapes point towards a blind girl named Imogen whom no one has seen in twenty years. The search for Imogen and the truth of her inheritance becomes a shocking story of mothers and daughters and of how sadness, like a musical refrain, may haunt us down the years. 'A sad, often very moving story of mothers and daughters' Guardian 'Entirely compelling...the plot will keep you rapt...reminiscent of Ian McEwan at his most effective' New Statesman

The prize-winning, bestselling author of Middle England turns his gaze to one of cinema's most intriguing figures - famed director of Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder. ***SOON TO BE A MAJOR FILM*** In the summer of 1977, naive Calista Frangopoulou sets out to venture into the world. On a Greek island that has been turned into a film set, she finds herself working for Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane. Rebuffed by Hollywood, he has financed his film with German money, and when Calista follows him to Munich, she finds herself joining him on a journey of memory into the dark heart of his family history. At once a tender coming-of-age story and an intimate portrait of a Hollywood icon, Mr Wilder and Me explores the nature of time and fame, of family and the treacherous lure of nostalgia . . . __________ 'Utterly charming, deeply poignant and ultimately uplifting' Mail on Sunday 'Sweeps beautifully from Hollywood to Greece and London' FT, Best Books of 2020 'The dialogue's sharp, the comic timing excellent' Sunday Times Written with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!

Can desire really transform reality? From award-winning novelist Jonathan Coe and distinguished Italian artist Chiara Coccorese comes The Broken Mirror, a political parable for children, a contemporary fairy tale for adults, and a fable for all ages. One day Claire, to escape her quarrelsome parents, takes refuge in the dump behind her house. There she finds a broken mirror, a nasty piece of sharp glass... yet she is strangely drawn to it. She soon discovers it has the power to transform even the most drab reality into a fairy-tale world: the grey sky is reflected blue, and Claire's modest, suburban house is transformed into the most beautiful castle. As Claire grows older, always accompanied by her magic mirror, she can see her face without her teenage acne, and her town before it fell victim to thieving property developers. But, in reality, libraries are being turned into luxury flats wherever she looks, and the boy Claire loves is instead her worst enemy. Frustrated and angry with the mirror's illusions, Claire is about to destroy it when the mysterious Peter steps in: he has also found a shard of broken mirror, and so begins their journey to piece together the larger puzzle... Previously published in Italian, French, Greek and Dutch, The Broken Mirror comes to life in English for the first time, to be read with equal pleasure by children and adults.

From the bestselling author of Middle England and Mr Wilder and Me comes a brilliant new state of the nation novel In the Birmingham suburb of Bournville, a family celebrate VE Day in 1945. With the joy of such an occasion there also come larger national questions about the nature of the horrific war the country has just been through. Following this family through generations as they navigate seventy-five years of drastic social change, from wartime nostalgia and English exceptionalism to the World Cup and coronavirus, domestic secrets and national myths leave characters and a country adrift, bewildered and divided. Bournville is the story of who we are - at our worst, and best. From bestselling author Jonathan Coe comes a novel of rare humour and humanity, a novel that holds up a mirror to our past and our present.

WINNER OF THE THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2019 'The book everyone is talking about' The Times 'A comedy for our times' Guardian __________________ The country is changing and, up and down the land, cracks are appearing - within families and between generations. In the Midlands Benjamin Trotter is trying to help his aged father navigate a Britain that seems to have forgotten he exists, whilst in London his friend Doug doesn't understand why his teenage daughter is eternally enraged. Meanwhile, newlyweds Sophie and Ian can find nothing to agree on except the fact that their marriage is on the rocks . . . A hilarious follow-up to The Rotters' Club and Closed Circle, Jonathan Coe captures the state of our nation once again! __________________ 'Coe's back with a bang. Middle England is the novel about Brexit we need' Daily Telegraph 'A pertinent, entertaining study of a nation in crisis' Financial Times, Books of the Year 'Very funny. Coe - a writer of uncommon decency - reminds us that the way out of this mess is through moderation, through compromise, through that age-old English ability to laugh at ourselves' Observer Written with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!

Robert Wyatt started out as the drummer and singer for Soft Machine, who shared a residency at Middle Earth with Pink Floyd and toured America with Jimi Hendrix. He brought a Bohemian and jazz outlook to the 60s rock scene, having honed his drumming skills in a shed at the end of Robert Graves' garden in Mallorca. His life took an abrupt turn after he fell from a fourth-floor window at a party and was paralysed from the waist down. He reinvented himself as a singer and composer with the extraordinary album Rock Bottom, and in the early eighties his solo work was increasingly political. Today, Wyatt remains perennially hip, guesting with artists such as Bjork, Brian Eno, Scritti Politti, David Gilmour and Hot Chip. Marcus O'Dair has talked to all of them, indeed to just about everyone who has shaped, or been shaped by, Wyatt over five decades of music history.

A wickedly funny take on life under the Thatcher government by the prize-winning author of Middle England. It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year: Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn't. Henry's turning hospitals into car parks. Roddy's selling art in return for sex. Down on the farm Dorothy's squeezing every last pound from her livestock. Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators. But once their hapless biographer Michael Owen starts investigating the family's trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time growing ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance . . . __________ 'A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full of twists and ironies' Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times 'A riveting social satire on the chattering and all-powerful upper classes' Time Out 'Big, hilarious, intricate, furious, moving' Guardian Written with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!

The critically acclaimed biography of a man respected for his fierce commitment to truth and honesty, and his passionate belief in the avant-garde. In his heyday, during the 1960s and early 1970s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known young novelists in Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde in both literature and film, he became famous -- not to say notorious -- both for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his idiosyncratic ways of putting them into practice. But in November 1973 Johnson's lifelong depression got the better of him, and he was found dead at his north London home. He had taken his own life at the age of forty. Jonathan Coe's long-awaited biography is based upon unique access to the vast collection of papers Johnson left behind after his death, and upon dozens of interviews with those who knew him best. As unconventional in form as one of its subject's own novels, it paints a remarkable picture -- sometimes hilarious, often overwhelmingly sad -- of a tortured personality; a man whose writing tragically failed to keep at bay the demons that pursued him.

**The dazzling new novel from the prize-winning, bestselling author of Middle England** 'As good as anything he's written - a novel to cherish' Observer _______________________________________________________ In the heady summer of 1977, a naive young woman called Calista sets out from Athens to venture into the wider world. On a Greek island that has been turned into a film set, she finds herself working for the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. But the time she spends in this glamorous, unfamiliar new life will change her for good. While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane. Rebuffed by Hollywood, he has financed his new film with German money, and when Calista follows him to Munich for the shooting of further scenes, she finds herself joining him on a journey of memory into the dark heart of his family history. In a novel that is at once a tender coming-of-age story and an intimate portrait of one of cinema's most intriguing figures, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze on the nature of time and fame, of family and the treacherous lure of nostalgia. When the world is catapulting towards change, do you hold on for dear life or decide it's time to let go? _______________________________________________________ 'A beautiful, bittersweet novel that is itself crying out for the silver screen treatment' Scotsman 'Effortlessly pleasurable and deceptively simple' The Times 'Utterly charming, deeply poignant and ultimately uplifting' Mail on Sunday 'A charming, bittersweet book, and a perfect reminder of art's value in stark times' Spectator

'Sometimes I feel that I am destined always to be offstage whenever the main action occurs. That God has made me the victim of some cosmic practical joke, by assigning me little more than a walk-on part in my own life . . .' Coming of age in 1970s' Birmingham, teenager Benjamin Trotter is about to discover the agonies and ecstasies of growing up. Whether it is first love or last rites, IRA bombs or industrial strife, prog versus punk rock, expectations of bad poetry or an unexpected life-changing experience involving lost swimming trunks, The Rotters' Club is a heartfelt and hilarious portrait of a particular time and place featuring characters recognisable the world over . . . 'Very funny, a compulsive and gripping read' The Times 'Hugely entertaining' The Observer 'A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for all your friends' Independent on Sunday

Expo 58 by Jonathan Coe - Spies, girls and an Englishman abroad. Trust no one. London, 1958: unassuming civil servant Thomas Foley is plucked from his desk job and sent on a six-month trip to Brussels. His task: to keep an eye on The Britannia, a brand new pub which will form the heart of the British presence at Expo 58 - the biggest World's Fair of the century. As soon as he arrives, Thomas is equally bewitched by the surreal, gigantic Atomium, which stands at the heart of this brave new world, and by Anneke, a lovely Flemish hostess. But Thomas's new-found sense of freedom comes at a price: two British spies are following him. For fans of Jonathan Coe's classic comic bestsellers What a Carve Up! and The Rotters' Club, this hilarious new novel, which is set in the Mad Men period of the mid 50s, will also be loved by readers of Nick Hornby, William Boyd and Ian McEwan. 'Clever and funny, enthralling and moving. Wonderful!' Daily Mail 'Rich and splendidly comic' Independent

Mamma was fast asleep at home, her spirit lapped in unconsciousness. Her dreams would not divine that her daughter had stolen out to meet a lover. And next door also they slept unawares, while one of them broke from the circle and came alone to clasp a stranger . . .' Judith Earle, over-earnest and inexperienced, has always been a little in love with each of the four cousins who come to stay next door and, on her return from Cambridge, becomes madly in love with one of them - Roddy, the 'sensation-hunter'. DUSTY ANSWER traces with delicate nostalgia childhood friendships and the pangs of thwarted young love.

The House of Sleep - Jonathan Coe's comic tale of love and obsession Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events; Robert has his life changed for ever by the misunderstandings arising from her condition; Terry, the insomniac, spends his wakeful nights fuelling his obsession with movies; and the increasingly unstable Dr Gregory Dudden sees sleep as a life-shortening disease which must be eradicated. . . A group of students sharing a house. They fall in and out of love, they drift apart. Yet a decade later they are drawn back together by a series of coincidences involving their obsession with sleep - and each other. . . Winner of the 1998 Prix Medicis Etranger, The House of Sleep is an intensely moving and frequently hilarious novel about love, obsession and sleep. 'Moving, clever, pleasurable, smart...one of the best books of the year' Malcolm Bradbury, The Times 'There are bits that make you laugh out loud and others that make your heart ache' Guardian 'Fiercely clever, witty, wise, hopeful...a compellingly beautiful tale of love and loss' The Times Literary Supplement Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with biting political satire, moving and astute observations of life and hilarious set pieces that have made him one of the most popular writers of his generation. His other titles, The Accidental Woman, The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Closed Circle, The Dwarves of Death, What a Carve Up! (winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) and The Rain Before it Falls, are all available as Penguin paperback.

This is a novel about the hundreds of tiny connections between the public and private worlds and how they affect us all. It's about the legacy of war and the end of innocence. It's about how comedy and politics are battling it out and comedy might have won. It's about how 140 characters can make fools of us all. It's about living in a city where bankers need cinemas in their basements and others need food banks down the street. It is Jonathan Coe doing what he does best - showing us how we live now. 'Coe is among the handful of novelists who can tell us something about the temper of our times' Observer

The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is Jonathan Coe's latest heart-breaking and hilarious novel Maxwell Sim could be any of us. He could be you. He's about to have a mid-life crisis (though eh doesn't know it yet). He'll be found in his car in the north of Scotland, half-naked and alone, suffering hypothermia, with a couple of empty whisky bottles and a boot full of toothbrushes. It's a far cry from a restaurant in Sydney, where his story starts. But then Maxwell Sim has, unknowingly, got a long way to go. If he knew now about his lonely journey to the Shetland Isles, or the truth about his father and the folded photograph, or the mystery of Poppy and her peculiar job, or even about Emma's lovely, fading voice, then perhaps he's stay where he was - hiding from destiny. But Max knows none of it. And nor do you - at least not yet. . . Equal parts funny and moving, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim will be cherished by readers everywhere, from fans of David Nicholls to Will Self. 'Witty, unexpected and curiously unsettling. Coe carries it off with empathy, comedy and a ventriloquist's ear for idiom' Literary Review 'Clever, engaging, spring-loaded with mysteries and surprises' Time Out 'Masterly, highly engaging. Coe's eye for the details of contemporary life remains as sharp as ever' Daily Mail

This groundbreaking book explores the psychodynamics and socio-politics of the forensic therapeutic milieu, addressing some of the most difficult and complex issues facing practitioners. It sets out a psycho-social framework for understanding the predicament and the needs of those who live in and those who work in forensic mental health settings. It brings to life the thinking of those working on the frontline in an increasingly difficult and hostile environment, and draws together fresh and stimulating approaches to engagement with highly complex individuals who present challenges to traditional models of psychiatric assessment and treatment. Contributors with considerable clinical experience and expertise from a range of disciplines consider the ethical, emotional and intellectual challenges of their work, and describe ways in which genuine containment and change can be achieved despite numerous perceived assaults on therapeutic relationships, and on the therapeutic milieu itself. Combining clinical case studies with organisational perspectives and clear descriptions of theoretical processes, they explore key issues including the challenges of maintaining role-appropriate, 'boundaried' relationships; the tensions between public protection and individual confidentiality; questions of risk and responsibility; duty of care and respect for individual liberty; the challenges posed by inter-professional tensions and rivalries; as well as specific clinical dilemmas. The difficulties they experience in fulfilling specific therapeutic roles in the face of uncertainties about the funding and commissioning of their services are addressed, and the final part of the book outlines some of the ways in which individuals, particular services and whole organisations may protect themselves when under attack. This unique and highly original book is essential reading for all those working, or training to work, in both forensic and non-forensic inpatient therapeutic milieux and for academics and lay readers interested in the societal dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that are replicated and magnified in these settings.

The hilarious 1980s political satire by Jonathan Coe, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year: Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn't; Henry's turning hospitals into car parks; Roddy's selling art in return for sex; down on the farm Dorothy's squeezing every last pound from her livestock; Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators. But once their hapless biographer Michael Owen starts investigating the family's trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time growing ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance. . . This wickedly funny take on life under the Thatcher government was the winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 'A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full of twists and ironies' Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times 'A riveting social satire on the chattering and all-powerful upper classes' Time Out 'Big, hilarious, intricate, furious, moving' Guardian

Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control, and transmission of power by the use of pressurised liquids. This book discusses hydraulic mechanical applications and roles in engineering. Topics include axial piston pumps; turbulence structure and related mass transfer mechanisms in vegetated canopy open-channel flows; the hydraulic mechanism features of jet-curtain operation; experimental design and calibration of grid gates used in open channels; surface runoff simulation models; and applications of static and dynamic infinite elements to hydraulic engineering problems involving infinite domains.

Winner of the Writers' Guild Best Fiction Award in England and the Prix Médicis in France

Like a surreal and highly caffeinated version of The Big Chill, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows four students who knew each other in college in the eighties. Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events. Robert has his life changed forever by the misunderstandings that arise from her condition. Terry spends his wakeful nights fueling his obsession with movies. And an increasingly unstable doctor, Gregory, sees sleep as a life-shortening disease which he must eradicate.

But after ten years of fretful slumber and dreams gone bad, the four reunite in their college town to confront their disorders. In a Gothic cliffside manor being used as a clinic for sleep disorders, they discover that neither love, nor lunacy, nor obsession ever rests.

Discover bestselling author Jonathan Coe's hilarious sequel to The Rotters' Club! It's the end of the century and Benjamin Trotter and friends are all grown up. Life is a ceaseless whirl of jobs, marriages, kids - and self-inflicted angst. Despite the shiny optimism of Blair's Britain, youthful hopes and dreams feel betrayed. Is the Government (and by extension Benjamin's MP brother Paul) to blame? Or are the 'rotters' themselves - only passingly faithful to their dreams - really at fault? The Closed Circle depicts a group of former school friends as older, wiser and disillusioned in Blair's Britain at the turn of the millennium, proving that the present can never truly be disentangled from the past. THE STORY CONTINUES IN MIDDLE ENGLAND. __________ 'Terrific. An incisive portrait of Britain at the turn of the century' Spectator 'Coe's finest achievement since What a Carve up!' Time Out 'Popular fiction at its best' Daily Mail Written with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!

The Rain Before it Falls - Jonathan Coe's heartbreaking novel of family secrets Deeply moving and compelling, The Rain Before it Falls is the story of three generations of one family riven by tragedy. When Rosamund, a reluctant bearer of family secrets, dies suddenly, a mystery is left for her niece Gill to unravel. Some photograph albums and tapes point towards a blind girl named Imogen whom no one has seen in twenty years. The search for Imogen and the truth of her inheritance becomes a shocking story of mothers and daughters and of how sadness, like a musical refrain, may haunt us down the years. 'Spectacular, heartbreaking, beautifully written. Rosamund's story is one of the most extraordinary and compelling you will ever read. Impossible to put down, I loved every minute of it' Sunday Express 'A sad, often very moving story of mothers and daughters' Guardian 'Entirely compelling...the plot will keep you rapt...reminiscent of Ian McEwan at his most effective' New Statesman Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with moving, astute observations of life and love, and are written with a revealing honesty that has captivated a generation of readers. His other titles, The Accidental Woman, The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Closed Circle, The Dwarves of Death, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of Sleep (winner of the 1998 Prix Medicis Etranger), A Touch of Love, and What a Carve Up! (winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), are all available in Penguin paperback.

The first in The Rotters' Club series, bestselling author Jonathan Coe's iconic tale of Benjamin Trotter is a hilarious, heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up WINNER OF THE EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE __________ Birmingham, England, c. 1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, first love, corrosive class warfare, detention, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. Unforgettably funny and painfully honest, The Rotters' Club is perfect for readers of Nick Hornby and William Boyd - or anyone who ever experience adolescence the hard way! THE STORY CONTINUES IN THE CLOSED CIRCLE AND MIDDLE ENGLAND. __________ 'One of those sweeping, ambitious yet hugely readable, moving and richly comic novels . . . a masterpiece' Daily Telegraph 'Very funny . . . Coe had achieved that rare feat: a novel stuffed with characters you really care for' The Times 'A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for all your friends' Independent on Sunday Written with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!