'A masterful writer' - RAYMOND CARVER Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is, here, once more our guide to the great American midway. Now in the twilight of life, a man who has occupied many colourful lives — sportswriter, father, husband, ex-husband, friend, real estate agent — Bascombe finds himself in the most sorrowing role of all; caregiver to his son, Paul, diagnosed with ALS. On a shared winter's odyssey to Mount Rushmore, Frank in typical Bascombe fashion faces down the mortality that is assured each of us, and in doing so confronts what happiness might signify at the end of days. In this memorable novel, Richard Ford puts on display the prose, wit and intelligence that make him one of the world's most acclaimed living writers. Be Mine is a profound, funny, poignant love letter to our beleaguered world.

Now a critically acclaimed film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan, co-written by Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan, and directed by Paul Dano

The setting is Great Falls, Montana, where the Rockies end and where, in 1960, the promise of good times seems as limitless as the sweep of the prairies beyond. This is where the Brinson family hopes to find a better life. Instead, sixteen-year-old Joe Brinson watches his parents discover the limits of their marriage and, at the same time, the unexpected depths of dignity and courage that remain even when love dies.

Richard Ford, who is among the finest of American novelists and short-story writers, edits and introduces this volume. First published by Granta Books in 1992, it became the definitive anthology of American short fiction written in the last half of the twentieth century - an 'exemplary choice' in the words of the Washington Post - with stories by writers such as Eudora Welty, John Cheever and Raymond Carver (and forty others) demonstrating how much memorable power can lie in the briefest narration. Along with The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, this book constitutes an important reflection and judgement of recent American writing - as well as the superb pleasure yielded by the stories themselves.

'The god of small stories ... A set of polished gems from a master craftsman' Sunday Times 'An American master' Daily Telegraph A woman and man, parted a quarter of a century, reunite in a bar in New Orleans as the St Patrick's Day parade goes by. A group of friends, all once promising, reunite for dinner when one of their number loses her husband, but the gathering splinters when bitter revelations about their shared past emerge. Two teenage boys sit in a drive-in, the air thick with the scent of gin and popcorn and longing. A visionary collection of luminous stories, imprinting landscape, and great moments in small lives - and of the people we carry with us long after they are gone - Sorry For Your Trouble reconfirms Richard Ford as the master of contemporary American fiction. 'He writes about human beings and their disappointments with unfailing insight and, while he never mocks his characters, is keenly aware of the absurdity involved in being alive ... Exemplary in its nuanced understanding of the relationships between men and women' Observer

'A masterful writer' - RAYMOND CARVER Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is, here, once more our guide to the great American midway. Now in the twilight of life, a man who has occupied many colourful lives — sportswriter, father, husband, ex-husband, friend, real estate agent — Bascombe finds himself in the most sorrowing role of all; caregiver to his son, Paul, diagnosed with ALS. On a shared winter's odyssey to Mount Rushmore, Frank in typical Bascombe fashion faces down the mortality that is assured each of us, and in doing so confronts what happiness might signify at the end of days. In this memorable novel, Richard Ford puts on display the prose, wit and intelligence that make him one of the world's most acclaimed living writers. Be Mine is a profound, funny, poignant love letter to our beleaguered world.

It is fall, 2000 and Frank Bascombe has arrived at a state of optimistic pragmatism that he calls the Permanent Period of life. Epic mistakes have already been made, dreams downsized, and Frank reflects that now at least there are fewer opportunities left in life to get things wrong. But the tranquillity he anticipated is not to be. In fact, as Thanksgiving dinner with his children and first wife nears, the Permanent Period proves as full of possibility as life had ever been. In his third Frank Bascombe novel, Richard Ford contemplates the human character with wry precision. Graceful, expansive, filled with pathos but irresistibly funny, "The Lay of the Land" is a modern American masterpiece.

LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2017

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sportswriter comes a deeply personal account of his parents - an intimate portrait of American mid-twentieth century life, and a celebration of family love

Edna Akin and Parker Ford married young. For fifteen years they traveled the American south of the 1930s as Parker went about his work as a traveling salesman, selling laundry starch. Life was hotels rooms, roadside bars and always each other. Then a single child was born to them, and a life went a new way.

Blending his parents' lives, drawing on memory, history, anecdote, Richard Ford's Between Them is a stirring contemplation of love's mystery and of loss.

As a sportswriter, Frank Bascombe makes his living studying people--men, mostly--who live entirely within themselves. This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. But at thirty-eight, he suffers from incurable dreaminess, occasional pounding of the heart, and the not-too-distant losses of a career, a son, and a marriage. In the course of the Easter week in which Ford's moving novel transpires, Bascombe will end up losing the remnants of his familiar life, though with his spirits soaring.

Nedra and Viri are a married couple whose favoured life is centred around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach. But fine cracks are beginning to spread through the shimmering surface of their life - flaws that will eventually mar the lovely picture beyond repair. Seductive, witty, tender and resonant, Light Years is an exquisite novel of lost lives and the elusiveness of happiness.

First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later. It was more bad instincts and bad luck that lead to Dell Parsons' parents robbing a bank. They weren't reckless people, but in an instant, their actions alter fifteen-year-old Dell's sense of normal life forever. In the days that follow, he is saved before the authorities think to arrive. Driving across Montana, his life hurtles towards the unknown; a hotel in a deserted town, the violent and enigmatic Arthur Remlinger, and towards Canada itself. But, as Dell discovers, in this new world of secrets and upheaval, he is not the only one whose past lies on the other side of the border.

The setting is Great Falls, Montana, where the Rockies end and where, in 1960, the promise of good times seems as limitless as the sweep of the prairies beyond. This is where the Brinson family hopes to find a better life. Instead, sixteen-year-old Joe Brinson watches his parents discover the limits of their marriage and, at the same time, the unexpected depths of dignity and courage that remain even when love dies.

Targeted at both intrepid travellers and 'readers at home', this two-volume account of Spanish history, topography and culture by Richard Ford (1796 1858) combines the rigour of a gazetteer with the humour and pace of a private travel diary. First published in 1845, as part of John Murray's series of guidebooks, the work made an immediate impact upon the reading public, and it was celebrated in the press as the 'most comprehensive and accurate account of that country' hitherto produced. Through a series of hand-picked routes, readers encounter an array of landscapes and experiences as varied as coastal Cadiz, lively Barcelona, bull fights, beggars and pig farming. Opening with a guide to the country, its currency, 'gesticulations' and 'slang', Volume 1 leads the reader from Andalucia to Granada and on to Catalonia. The result is an engaging account that will be of interest to modern tourists and historians alike.

Targeted at both intrepid travellers and 'readers at home', this two-volume account of Spanish history, topography and culture by Richard Ford (1796 1858) combines the rigour of a gazetteer with the humour and pace of a private travel diary. First published in 1845, as part of John Murray's series of guidebooks, the work made an immediate impact upon the reading public, and it was celebrated in the press as the 'most comprehensive and accurate account of that country' hitherto produced. Starting in the Kingdom of Leon, and again using a series of hand-picked routes, Volume 2 leads readers to the pilgrim shrine of Santiago de Compostela and through Galicia and the Basque provinces, introducing them to castles, universities, art collections and the 'inhospitality of Madrid'. The result is an engaging account that will be of interest to modern tourists and historians alike.

Richard Ford, one of the finest American novelists and short-story writers, introduced the first Granta Book of the American Short Story, which Granta Books published in 1992. It became the definitive anthology of American short fiction written in the last half of the twentieth century. In the fourteen years since, Ford has been reading new stories and rereading old ones and selecting new favourites. This new collection, again of more than forty writers, expands Ford's original choice to include stories that he regretted overlooking first time around as well as many by a new generation of writers, among them Sherman Alexie, Junot Diaz, Deborah Eisenberg, Nell Freudenberg, Matt Klam, Jhumpa Lahiri and Z. Z. Packer. None of the stories (though a few of the writers) was in the first volume. Published to critical acclaim in hardback in 2007, this book is an essential companion volume to the first collection.

The landscape of "Women with Men" ranges from the northern plains of Montana to the streets of Paris and the suburbs of Chicago. The tragedies that stalk the characters are unfolded with an indelible wit and clarity. So merciless is Ford's lingering gaze upon human, mostly male, weakness, so understanding his eye for the unravelling threads of human love, that this collection of novellas seems only to broaden the reputation and the following of one of the outstanding writers of our time.

Richard Ford returns with four deftly linked Christmas stories narrated by the iconic Frank Bascombe. Now sixty-eight, Frank resides again in the New Jersey suburb of Haddam, and has thrived - seemingly but not utterly - amidst the devastations of Hurricane Sandy. The desolations of Sandy, which left countless lives unmoored, are the perfect backdrop for Ford - and Bascombe. With a flawless comedic sensibility and unblinking intelligence, these stories range over the full complement of universal subjects: ageing, race, loss, faith, marriage, the real estate debacle - the tumult of the world we live in.

Frank Bascombe, in the aftermath of his divorce and the ruin of his career, has entered an 'Existence Period' - selling real estate in New Jersey and mastering the high-wire act of normalcy. But, over one Fourth of July weekend, Frank is called into sudden, bewildering engagement with life. "Independence Day" is a moving, peerlessly funny odyssey through America and through the layered consciousness of one of its most compelling literary incarnations, conducted by a novelist of extraordinary empathy and perception.

This book stands out from the crowd in providing a fresh original perspective on the relatively underexplored area of a leader's reputation. Reputation is a consequence of everything you say or do and no other tangible or intangible asset is worth as much as your reputation or has such a positive or detrimental impact on your career. Many studies reveal that we care more about what other people think about us than we do about what may have actually happened in reality, and yet there is so little written about the subject. This book gets to grips with how our reputation is formed in the real world and what really makes the difference in winning a good reputation and in losing a good reputation. The book uncovers the impact of the 'secret vocabulary' used in organizations to shape reputations, and offers tips and advice about how to take control and manage your reputation, and how to develop a personal brand to shape your future career direction with integrity and authenticity. Dr Richard Ford is one of the UK's leading leadership coaching and assessment psychologists, who has helped hundreds of senior leaders and potential leaders to develop successful careers, and now Dr Ford shares 35 years of learning about what really happens to help you achieve career success.