On September 5, 2003, illusionist David Blaine entered a small Perspex box adjacent to London's Thames River and began starving himself. Forty-four days later, on October 19, he left the box, fifty pounds lighter. That much, at least, is clear. And the rest? The crowds? The chaos? The hype? The rage? The fights? The lust? The filth? The bullshit? The hypocrisy?

Nicola Barker fearlessly crams all that and more into this ribald and outrageous peep show of a novel, her most irreverent, caustic, up-to-the-minute work yet, laying bare the heart of our contemporary world, a world of illusion, delusion, celebrity, and hunger.

From the brilliantly unconventional Nicola Barker, the short stories in 'Love Your Enemies' present a loving depiction of the beautiful, the grotesque and the utterly bizarre in the lives of overlooked suburban Britons. Layla Carter, 16, from North London, is utterly overwhelmed by her plus-size nose. Rosemary, recently widowed and the ambivalent owner of a bipolar tomcat, meets a satyr in her kitchen and asks, 'Can I feel your fur?' In these ten enticingly strange short stories, a series of marginalised characters seek truth in the obsession and oppression of everyday existence, via a canine custody battle, sex in John Lewis and some strangely expressive desserts.

Hilarious, poignant and frequently surreal, Small Holdings is a is a comedy of errors from a neglected corner of everyday life by the brilliantly unconventional Nicola Barker. An attractive park in Palmers Green plays host to Phil, a chronically shy gardener who feels truly at home only with his plants. He and his gentle colleague Ray, a man with all the sense of a Savoy cabbage, are tortured by Doug, their imposing and unpredictable supervisor, and a malevolent one-legged ex-museum curator called Saleem. In love with the truck-obsessed Nancy, Phil strives nobly to maintain his equilibrium despite being systematically mystified, brutalised, drugged, derided and seduced. But when he loses his eyebrows, he decides to fight back.

Winner of IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2000, Wide Open is the first of Nicola Barker's Thames Gateway novels. Poking out of the River Thames estuary, the strange Isle of Sheppey is home to a nudist beach, a nature reserve, a wild boar farm and not much else. The landscape is bleak, but the people are interesting. There's Luke, who specialises in join-the-dots pornography and lippy, outraged Lily. They are joined by Jim, the 8-year-old Nathan and the mysterious, dark-eyed Ronnie. Each one floats adrift in turbulent currents, fighting the rip tide of a past that swims with secrets. Only if they see through the lies and prejudice will they gain redemption. Wide Open is about coming to terms with the past, and the fantasies people construct in order to protect their fragile inner selves.

We live with the idea of sin every day - from the greatest transgressions to the tiniest misdemeanours. But surely the concept was invented for an age where divine retribution and eternal punishment dominated the collective consciousness? In this lively collection of new writing, Nicola Barker, Dylan Evans, David Flusfeder, Todd McEwen, Martin Rowson, John Sutherland and Ali Smith go head to head with the capital vices to explore what we really mean when we talk about sin. The resulting mixture of erudite and playful essays and startling new fiction might not make you a better person, but it will certainly give you pause for thought when you're next laying the law down or - heaven forfend - about to do something beyond the pale yourself.

The destinies of three mysterious lost children entwine in this James Tait Black Memorial Prize-winning fable by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, introduced by Nicola Barker. A figure had condensed out of the shuddering backdrop of the glare. He is born in fire: a naked child in the blood-red flames of London's Blitz. Miraculously saved but grotesquely burned, this mysterious orphan is named Matty. Doomed to a life of torment, he becomes a wanderer, a spiritual seeker after unknown redemption. They are also lost children: neglected twins, as exquisitely beautiful as they are loveless and sinful. Toni explores political terrorism; Sophy, sexual dominance and violent criminality. But their destinies will soon collide in an apocalyptic climax - one that illuminates the inner and outer darkness of modern humanity. 'Exceptional ... Irresistibly transcendent ... Golding seduces us, transfixes, bewitches and confounds us.' Nicola Barker 'The most powerful, and strangest, of all Golding's novels, and one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth-century.' Philip Hensher 'A master craftsman in [his] magic ... Golding's best book ... Wonderfully creepy.' London Review of Books 'A vision of elemental reality so vivid we seem to hallucinate the scenes ... Magic.' NYTBR 'One of the most moving books I've ever read.' The Times

The Civil Partnership Act 2004 (CPA) and the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2014 (MSSCA) are important legal, social and historical landmarks, rich in symbolic, material and cultural meanings. While fiercely opposed by many, within mainstream narratives they are often represented as a victory in a legal reform process that commenced with the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Yet, at the same time, for others they represent a problematic and ambivalent political engagement with the institution of marriage. Consequently, understood or labelled as 'revolutionary', 'progressive' and 'conservative', these legal reforms provide a space for thinking about issues that arguably affect everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or relationship status. This edited collection brings together scholars and commentators from a range of backgrounds, generations and disciplines to reflect on the first ten years of civil partnerships and the introduction of same-sex marriage. Rather than rehearsing the arguments 'for' and 'against' relationship recognition, the essays ask original questions, draw on a variety of methods and collectively provide a detailed and reflective 'snap shot' of a critical moment, a 'history of the present' as well as providing a foundation for innovative ways of thinking about and engaging with the possibilities and experiences arising from the new reality of relationship recognition for gays and lesbians.

The Civil Partnership Act 2004 and the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 are important legal, social and historical landmarks, rich in symbolic, material and cultural meanings. While fiercely opposed by many, within mainstream narratives they are often represented as a victory in a legal reform process that commenced with the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Yet, at the same time, for others they represent a problematic and ambivalent political engagement with the institution of marriage. Consequently, understood or labelled as 'revolutionary', 'progressive' and 'conservative', these legal reforms provide a space for thinking about issues that arguably affect everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or relationship status. This edited collection brings together scholars and commentators from a range of backgrounds, generations and disciplines to reflect on the first ten years of civil partnerships and the introduction of same-sex marriage. Rather than rehearsing the arguments 'for' and 'against' relationship recognition, the essays ask original questions, draw on a variety of methods and collectively provide a detailed and reflective 'snap shot' of a critical moment, a 'history of the present' as well as providing a foundation for innovative ways of thinking about and engaging with the possibilities and experiences arising from the new reality of relationship recognition for gays and lesbians.

'Open yourself up again to all that terrible light and savage bliss and deafening reverberation ...' In the Summer of 1971, a charismatic family seeks refuge in the quiet, English coastal backwater of Pett Level. Bran Cleary is a controversial Irish muralist; his fractious and promiscuous wife (and muse) 'Lonely' Allaway is half Aboriginal; their strange, sickly daughter, Orla Nor, is almost a Saint. Thirteen years later, a shifty individual turns up in Pett Level, apparently determined to get to the bottom of the bizarre and ultimately tragic events which unfolded in the aftermath of that arrival. But does he really want to understand, or is he just way too close to the story to make any clear sense of it? And what of the locals who seem so determined to resist and undermine his investigations? 'In The Approaches' is a fabulously twisted comedy of very bad manners which starts out as a seaside idyll and ends up as a pilgrimage - sometimes sacred, sometimes profane, and frequently both at once. Set in a 1984 which seems almost as distantly located in the past as Orwell's was in the future, Nicola Barker's tenth novel offers a captivating glimpse of something more shocking than any dystopia - the possibility of faith.

The first novel from the brilliantly unconventional Nicola Barker is a tale of gambling, allergies, music and dogs, set in some of London's less scenic locations. Chance meetings between its cast of eccentric individuals - Ruby the bookie's cashier, violently disturbed (and disturbing) Vincent, Samantha the would-be cabaret singer, wilfully sickly Sylvia and Little Buttercup the never-quite-made-it greyhound - result in the unlikeliest of couples; and there's always the risk that it could all work out disastrously as characters select each other and try or don't try to make winning combinations. But, as Ruby, the story's soft-centred heroine, observes: 'Losing, that's the whole point of the gamble.'

The sly and subversive sixth book from Nicola Barker, one of our most funny and anarchic writers. It's the summer of 1981. Medve, sixteen years old and six foot three inches tall (a positive girl giant) is stuck in a semi-derelict art-deco hotel on a tiny island off the South coast of Devon, with the rest of her crazy family members. There's nothing to do but paint Margaret Thatcher mugs to supplement the meagre family income, wait for Soft Cell's 'Tainted Love' to come out and dream of literary murderer Jack Henry Abbott. Into this family affair, strolls 19-year-old La Roux (The Sauce), a deserter from the South African army with flaming ginger hair. It's not long before Medve and La Roux embark on a barbed flirtation, full of simmering sexuality and bad intentions, which ends in the very destructive "Operation Vagina"... things will never be the same again.

Heading Inland is a funny, broody, saucy collection of stories about the kind of people you sometimes meet but might prefer to ignore. Barker creates a wonderfully fantastical and unimaginable world: an unborn baby escapes an unsuitable mother through a secret belly-button zip; a wayward and yet enigmatic man attempts to rescue eels from an East End pie shop; a young woman discusses her fascination in other women's breasts; a boy with his inside organs back to front desperately seeks attention; and a bitter old woman becomes bent on war with a tramp. This collection confirms Nicola Barker as one of the most versatile and original writers of her generation with a brilliant unconventional imagination she creates a new world that sparkles with dark humour.

The hilarious Man Booker-longlisted novel from the author of 'Darkmans' and 'The Burley Cross Postbox Theft'. 2006 is a foreign country; they do things differently there. Tiger Woods' reputation is entirely untarnished and the English Defence League does not exist. But storm-clouds are gathering above the bar of the less-than-exclusive Thistle Hotel in Luton. Among those caught up in the unfolding drama are a man who's survived cancer seven times, a woman priest with an unruly fringe, the troubled family of a notorious local fascist, an interfering barmaid with three E's at A-level but a PhD in bullshit, a free-thinking Muslim sex therapist and his considerably more pious wife. But at the heart of every intrigue and the bottom of every mystery is the repugnantly charismatic Stuart Ransom - a golf star in free-fall.

From the Man Booker Prize shortlisted author of Darkmans comes a comic epistolary novel of startling originality and wit. Reading other people's letters is always a guilty pleasure. But for PC Roger Topping contemplating a cache of 27 undelivered missives, retrieved from a back alley in Skipton, it's a job of work. The quaint village of Burley Cross has been plunged into turmoil by the theft of the contents of its postbox, and no-one is above suspicion. Yet Topping's investigation into the curtain-twitching lives of the eminently respectable Burley Cross residents not only uncovers the dark underbelly of his beat, but reveals a hitherto unknown strength of character buried deep within the young flatfoot. The denizens of Burley Cross inhabit a world of epic pettiness, where secrets are the currency. From complaints about dog shit to passive-aggressive fanmail, from biblical amateur dramatics to an Auction of Promises that goes staggeringly wrong, Nicola Barker's epistolary novel is a work of immense comic range. Irresistibly mischievous, Burley Cross Postbox Theft is Alan Bennett with added Tamiflu, sex-therapy and cheap vodka.

Longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. A raucous, exuberant novel about the outrageous circus surrounding David Blaine's 2003 starvation stunt at Tower Bridge, from Nicola Barker, a Granta Best of British Novelist. On 5th September 2003, New York illusionist David Blaine entered a small perspex box beside the River Thames and began starving himself. Forty-four days later he left the box. The end. The real show, of course, was on the sidelines: the crowds, the chaos, the hype and most enjoyably, the hypocrisy. Through the eyes and exploits of Adair Graham MacKenney, bitter, shameless and irreverent, we see this world for what it is: a place of illusion, delusion, celebrity and hunger. And, naturally, lust. With her Tupperware and awful shoes, Adair finds himself unaccountably drawn to the reluctant Aphra. But when has futility ever stopped anyone? Just think of the guy in the perspex box. Wickedly comic, caustic and uncommonly astute, this outrageous peep show of a novel gives us our contemporary world laid bare.

Some people follow the stars. Some people follow the soaps. Some people follow rare birds, or obscure bands, or the form, or the football.

Wesley prefers not to follow. He thinks that to follow anything too assiduously is a sign of weakness. Wesley is a prankster, a maverick, a charismatic manipulator, an accidental murderer who longs to live his life anonymously. But he can't. It is his awful destiny to be hotly pursued - secretly stalked, obsessively hunted - by a disparate group of oddballs he calls The Behindlings. Their motivations? Love, boredom, hatred, revenge.

Shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize, an epic novel of startling originality which confirms Nicola Barker as one of Britain's most exciting literary talents. If history is a sick joke which keeps on repeating, then who keeps on telling it? Could it be John Scogin, Edward IV's jester, whose favourite skit was to burn people alive? Or could it be Andrew Boarde, physician to Henry VIII, who wrote John Scogin's biography? Or could it be a Kurd called Gaffar whose days are blighted by an unspeakable terror of salad? Or a beautiful bulimic with brittle bones? Or a man who guards Beckley Woods with a Samurai sword and a pregnant terrier? Darkmans is a very modern book, set in ridiculously modern Ashford, about two old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. And the main character? The past, creeping up on the present and whispering something quite dark into its ear. Darkmans is the third of Nicola Barker's visionary Thames Gateway novels. Following Wide Open (winner Dublin IMPAC award 2000) and Behindlings it confirms one of Britain's most original literary talents.

'Extremely ambitious' Financial Times 'An imaginative tour de force ... She really is a genius' Guardian 'A delight' New Statesman FROM THE MAN BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR NICOLA BARKER To the world he is Sri Ramakrishna - godly avatar, esteemed spiritual master, beloved guru. To temple owner, Rani Rashmoni, he is the Brahmin fated to defy tradition. But to Hriday, his nephew and long-time caretaker, he is just Uncle - maddening, bewildering Uncle, prone to entering trances at the most inconvenient of times, known to perform dangerous acts of self-effacement, who must be vigilantly safeguarded not only against jealous enemies but also against that most treasured yet insidious of sulphur-rich vegetables: the cauliflower.

__________________________________________ 'One of the funniest, most finely achieved comic novels, even by her own standard ... I think it's a masterpiece.' ALI SMITH 'I think Nicola Barker is incapable of a dull page. [Her work] is unified by its spirit of adventure.' KEVIN BARRY How long does it take to change the world? Could it happen in approximately twenty minutes? Charles, a forty-year-old teddy bear maker, is trying to sell his late mother's house, helped by his estate agent Avigail (who thinks Charles is an imbecile). The prospective buyers: the fearsome Wang Shu - who has no desire to make idle chit-chat - and her downtrodden daughter, Ying Yue. During the twenty-minute viewing a huge number of things happen, although it is also entirely possible that nothing happens at all. Which is it? Can the world really turn on its axis during a mundane discussion about cheese preservation? Has fiction the power to do that? Should it even want to? __________________________________________ 'She really is a genius.' GUARDIAN 'Life-affirming hilarity - Evelyn Waugh on ecstasy.' NELL ZINK 'A madly brilliant little book that asks who at any point is in control of what. I loved it.' DAILY MAIL 'Nicola Barker's wildness and capacity for the absurd often delight me.' SARAH MOSS 'What an audacious writer Nicola Barker is ... In an era when plot is king, Barker has typically, joyously, dispensed with one ... Barker's pleasure in the novella feels defiant.' EVENING STANDARD 'I Am Sovereign is bursting with energy, compassion and humour.' LITERARY REVIEW 'Barker is a writer in a class of her own ... A work of coruscating intelligence, of deep humanity.' OBSERVER 'A riotous burst of a novel that scrutinises the nature of fiction with the lightest of touches.' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'A bracing, brilliantly bonkers comic novel ... This is freewheeling fiction that delights in the visual.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Barker's writing is very, very funny, both ha ha and strange ... Fans of Ali Smith's "Seasonal Quartet" will enjoy a similarly arch, detached view on the banality of contemporary Britain ... A gloriously audacious blend of, well, the deep and the trite.' INDEPENDENT

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, "Darkmans" is an exhilarating, extraordinary examination of the ways in which history can play jokes on us all... If History is just a sick joke which keeps on repeating itself, then who exactly might be telling it, and why? Could it be John Scogin, Edward IV's infamous court jester, whose favorite pastime was to burn people alive - for a laugh? Or could it be Andrew Boarde, Henry VIII's physician, who kindly wrote John Scogin's biography? Or could it be a tiny Kurd called Gaffar whose days are blighted by an unspeakable terror of - uh - salad? Or a beautiful, bulimic harpy with ridiculously weak bones? Or a man who guards Beckley Woods with a Samurai sword and a pregnant terrier?

"Darkmans" is a very modern book, set in Ashford [a ridiculously modern town], about two very old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. It's also a book about invasion, obsession, displacement and possession, about comedy, art, prescription drugs and chiropody. And the main character? The past, which creeps up on the present and whispers something quite dark - quite unspeakable - into its ear.

The third of Nicola Barker's narratives of the Thames Gateway, "Darkmans" is an epic novel of startling originality.

*WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2017* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2018* *LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018* A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR AN INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR From the internationally acclaimed, Man Booker-shortlisted Nicola Barker comes a new novel, a post-post apocalyptic story that overflows with pure creative talent. Imagine a perfect world where everything is known, where everything is open, where there can be no doubt, no hatred, no poverty, no greed. Imagine a System which both nurtures and protects. A Community which nourishes and sustains. An infinite world. A world without sickness, without death. A world without God. A world without fear. Could you...might you be happy there? H(A)PPY is a post-post apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland, a story which tells itself and then consumes itself. It's a place where language glows, where words buzz and sparkle and finally implode. It's a novel which twists and writhes with all the terrifying precision of a tiny fish in an Escher lithograph - a book where the mere telling of a story is the end of certainty.