A battle lost. A daring escape. A long walk into obscurity. The ultimate failure.... In the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Culloden, a lonely figure takes flight with a small band of companions through the islands and mountains of the Hebrides. His name is Charles Edward Stuart: better known today as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He had come to the country to take the throne. Now he is leaving in exile and abject defeat. In prose that is by turns poetic, comic, macabre, haunting and humane, multi- award-winning author Alan Warner traces the frantic last journey through Scotland of a man who history will come to define for his failure.

'One of our finest writers' Michael Moorcock 'Alan Warner is one of our best living writers' Jenni Fagan It's the late 70s: the country is on the cusp of the arrival of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, and Marko Morrell, guitarist in Fear Taker, is one of the biggest rock stars on the planet. His 'demanding' lifestyle means he is frequently in absentia at Kitchenly Mill Race, his idyllic country retreat; and so it is his butler (or 'help'), Crofton Park, who is charged with the maintenance and housekeeping of the rambling Tudorbethan gaff. When, one day, two young girls arrive looking for Marko clutching their copies of Fear Taker LPs, Crofton finds himself on a romantic misadventure involving a soiled carpet, a bed of roses, a classic car and a fine pair of stockings. All of which leads to the tragi-comic unravelling of the fantasies he has been living by. A novel about delusional male behaviour, opening and closing curtains, (a lack of) self-awareness, loneliness and 'getting it together in the country', Kitchenly 434 is a magnificent novel about the Golden Age of Rock in the bucolic English countryside.

As a child Iain Crichton Smith was raised speaking Gaelic on the island of Lewis. At school in Stornoway he spoke English. Like many islanders before and since, his culture was divided: two languages and two histories entailing exile. His divided perspective delineated the tyranny of history and religion, of the cramped life of small communities, and gave him a compassionate eye for the struggle of women and men in a world defined by denials. After the Dance proves that big themes - love, history, power, submission, death - can be addressed without the foil of irony and acquire resonance when given a local habitation and a voice that risks pure, humane, impassioned speech. This updated edition includes the story 'Home'

It is off-season in a remote Highland sea port: twenty-one-year-old Morvern Callar, a low-paid employee in the local supermarket, wakes one morning to find her strange boyfriend has committed suicide and is dead on their kitchen floor. Morvern's laconic reaction is both intriguing and immoral. What she does next is even more appalling... WINNER OF THE SOMERSET MAUGHAM AWARD

Finally, a brilliant exploration of the German rock band Can's 1971 album Tago Mago. This hugely unique and influential album deserves close analysis from a fan, rather than a musicologist. Novelist Alan Warner details the concrete music we hear on the album, how it was composed, executed and recorded--including the history of the album in terms of its release, promotion and art work. This tale of Tago Mago is also the tale of a young man obsessed with record collecting in the dark and mysterious period of pop music before Google. Warner includes a backtracking of the history of the band up to that point and also some description of Can's unique recording approach taking into account their home studio set up. Interviews with the two surviving members: drummer Jaki Liebezeit, keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and bassist Holger Czukay make this a hilariously personal and illuminating picture of Can.

'One of our finest writers' Michael Moorcock 'Alan Warner is one of our best living writers' Jenni Fagan Kitchenly 434 is set in a sprawling Tudorbethan mansion in Sussex, Kitchenly Mill Race, on the cusp of the arrival of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. In some ways, the last days of an Age of Innocence. Marko Morrell, guitarist in Fear Taker, is one of the biggest rock stars in the world. His demanding lifestyle means he is frequently in absentia at Kitchenly, his idyllic country retreat, and so it is his butler (or 'help'), Crofton Clark, who is charged with the maintenance and housekeeping. When, one day, two young girls arrive looking for Marko clutching their copies of Fear Taker LPs, Crofton finds himself on a romantic misadventure which leads to the tragi-comic unravelling of the fantasies he has been living by. A novel about delusional male behaviour, opening and closing curtains, self-awareness, loneliness and 'getting it together in the country', Kitchenly 434 is a magnificent novel about the Golden Age of Rock in the bucolic English countryside.

High up in the Conrad Flats that loom bleakly over Acton, two future stars of the literary scene - or so they assume - are hard at work, tapping out words of wit and brilliance between ill-paid jobs writing captions for the Cat Calendar 1985 and blurbs for trashy novels with titles like Brothel of the Vampire. Just twenty-one but already well entrenched in a life eked out on dole payments, pints and dollops of porridge and pasta, Llewellyn and Cunningham don't have it too bad: a pub on the corner, a misdirected parental allowance, and the delightful company of Aoife, Llewellyn's model fiancee, mother of his young baby - and the woman of Cunningham's increasingly vivid dreams. Alan Warner's superb new novel sees the author of Morvern Callar at the top of his game.

Children of Albion Rovers is the best-selling and critically acclaimed collection of novellas that features six of the most exciting young writers to emerge from Scotland in the 90s: award-winning authors Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, Gordon Legge, and James Meek and introducing the striking new talents of Laura Hird and Paul Reekie. Children of Albion Rovers is a world of tripped-out crematorium attendants (Alan Warner), vengeful traffic-wardens (James Meek), born-again vinyl junkies (Gordon Legge), and teenage girls who sexually humiliate their teachers (Laura Hird). Also included are Paul Reekie's fictional account of ideals betrayed, and Irvine Welsh's first ever sci-fi story, featuring alien space casuals wreaking havoc through the known universe. The resulting mix is intoxicating to say the least.

Morvern Callar, a low-paid employee in the local supermarket in a desolate and beautiful port town in the west of Scotland, wakes one morning in late December to find her strange boyfriend has committed suicide and is dead on the kitchen floor. Morvern's reaction is both intriguing and immoral. What she does next is even more appalling. Moving across a blurred European landscape-from rural poverty and drunken mayhem of the port to the Mediterranean rave scene-we experience everything from Morvern's stark, unflinching perspective.

Morvern is utterly hypnotizing from her very first sentence to her last. She rarely goes anywhere without the Walkman left behind as a Christmas present by her dead boyfriend, and as she narrates this strange story, she takes care to tell the reader exactly what music she is listening to, giving the stunning effect of a sound track running behind her voice.

In much the same way that Patrick McCabe managed to tell an incredibly rich and haunting story through the eyes of an emotionally disturbed boy in The Butcher Boy, Alan Warner probes the vast internal emptiness of a generation by using the cool, haunting voice of a female narrator lost in the profound anomie of the ecstasy generation. Morvern is a brilliant creation, not so much memorable as utterly unforgettable."

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

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The choir from Our Lady of Perpetual Succour School for Girls is being bussed to the national finals in the big, big city. It's an important day for The Sopranos, with pub-crawling, shoplifting and body-piercing being the top priorities. And with a newly anchored nuclear sub in the bay, the Man Trap disco will be full of submariners on shore-leave tonight. There is no time for delays – or even for winning…

But after the fifth bottle of alco-pop on the bus it's clear that all is not going to plan, for anyone. The Sopranos are never going to be the same.

Winner of the James Tait Black Fiction Prize For 16-year-old Simon Crimmons there is not a lot to do. Going nowhere, fed up with school, he leaves to work as a driver on the trains. That summer he is introduced to a world of grown-up glamour, strikes and girlfriends. When Simon falls for the ethereal, aristocratic Varie, he finds freedom and adventure but will it be at a price? Too 'posh' for the railways, too 'working class' for Varie, Simon must navigate what it means to be a man as his world is turned upside down.

The choir from our Lady of Perpetual Succour School for Girls is being bussed to the national finals in the big, big city. And it's an important day for the Sopranos - Orla, Kylah, (Ra)Chell, Amanda Konky and Fionnula (the Cooler) - pub-crawling, shoplifting and body-piercing being the top priorities. Then it's time to lose that competition - lose, because a nuclear sub has just anchored in the bayand, tonight, the Man Trap disco will be full of submariners on shore-leave. There is no time for delays... But after the fifth bottleof alco-pop up the back of the bus it's clear that all is not going to plan, for anyone. The Sopranos are never going to be the same.

Is this the right book for me? Do you have responsibility for managing cash flow in a small to medium enterprise or as a manager in a larger organisation, but have limited financial experience? Do you worry that lack of attention to this crucial aspect of financial management could lead to disaster for your business? Improve your Cash Flow, written by two leading financial experts, will help employers, managers and consultants to understand more about how to manage cash flow and how it can impact on your business. Whether you are working at home, a growing business or a non-financial manager this book will guide you easily through all the issues, providing practical advice on why cash is king, including why businesses go bust; why profit is not cash, how to deal with creditors and debtors; using supplier credit as a source of finance; debtors and cash collection; financial planning and sources of funding; the pros and cons of debt finance, using your bank effectively and much more. Improve your Cash Flow includes: Chapter 1: Why 'cash is king'? Chapter 2: Profit and cash flow Chapter 3: The impact of the business model Chapter 4: Key decisions and start-up time Chapter 5: Cash flow planning Chapter 6: Sources of funding Chapter 7: Controlling capital expenditure Chapter 8: Debtors and cash collection Chapter 9: Managing stock levels Chapter 10: Using supplier credit as a source of finance Chapter 11: Alternative routes to financing Chapter 12: Formats for cash flow reporting Chapter 13: Recruting financial expertise Chapter 14: Using your bank effectively Chapter 15: 'Cash is king' Learn effortlessly with a new easy-to-read page design and added features: Not got much time? One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started. Author insights Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the authors' many years of experience. Test yourself Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress. Extend your knowledge Extra online articles to give you a richer understanding of setting up your own small business. Five things to remember Quick refreshers to help you remember the key facts. Try this Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it.