A fun and fearless anthology of feminist tales, by fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers:

Margaret Atwood, Susie Boyt, Eleanor Crewes, Emma Donoghue, Stella Duffy, Linda Grant, Claire Kohda, CN Lester, Kirsty Logan, Caroline O'Donoghue, Chibundu Onuzo, Helen Oyeymi, Rachel Seiffert, Kamila Shamsie and Ali Smith - introduced by Sandi Toksvig.

DRAGON. TYGRESS. SHE-DEVIL. HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH. HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE. VITUPERATOR. CHURAIL. TERMAGANT. FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO.

For centuries past, and all across the world, there are words that have defined and decried us. Words that raise our hackles, fire up our blood; words that tell a story.

In this blazing cauldron of a book, fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers have taken up their pens and reclaimed these words, creating an entertaining and irresistible collection of feminist tales for our time.

A collection of brand-new short stories written by major international writers and inspired by Kafka - to commemorate one hundred years since his death Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most enigmatic geniuses of twentieth-century literature. Few writers have inspired as much interpretation, adaptation and imitation as he has - from films to novels to memes - and very few artists in any field have created work that captures so resonantly the fraught peculiarity of our existence. What happens when Kafka's idiosyncratic imagination meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English across the globe today? From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of anxiety attacks, these specially commissioned stories speak powerfully to the strangeness of being alive today.

This is an exclusive limited edition with a preface by Liz Lochhead and a new introduction by Ali Smith. Liz Lochhead is one of the leading poets writing in Britain today. This, her debut collection, published in 1972, was a landmark publication. Writing at a time when the landscape of Scottish poetry was male dominated, hers was a new voice, tackling subjects that resonated with readers - as it still does. Her poetry paved the way, and inspired, countless new voices including Ali Smith, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy. Still writing and performing today, fifty years on from her first book of poetry, Liz Lochhead has been awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry and was Scotland's second modern Makar, succeeding Edwin Morgan. Memo for Spring is accessible, vital and always as honest as it is hopeful. Driving through this collection are themes of pain, acceptance, loss and triumph.

DRAGON. TIGRESS. SHE-DEVIL. For centuries past, and all across the world. HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH. There are words that have defined and decried us. HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE. Words that raise our hackles, fire up our blood. FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO. Words that tell a story. In this blazing cauldron of a book, the boldest writers of our day take up these words and take up their pen, celebrating fifty years of Virago.

A disturbing mystery awaits Paul and Jane Sinclair when they arrive in Eden-Olympia, a high-tech business park in the hills above Cannes. Jane is to work as a doctor for the executives who live in this ultra-modern workers' paradise. But what caused her apparently sane predecessor to set out one morning and murder ten people in a shooting spree that made headlines around the world? As Paul investigates his new surroundings, he begins to uncover a thriving subculture of crime that is spiralling out of control.

"Thank God for J.G. Ballard's Super-Cannes, by far the most entertaining novel of the year."
PHIL KERR, INDEPENDENT

"Possibly his greatest book. 'Super-cannes' is both a novel of ideas and a compelling thriller that will keep you turning the pages to the shocking denouement. Only Ballard could have produced it."
SIMON HIDE, SUNDAY EXPRESS

"In this tautly paced thriller he brilliantly details how man's darker side derails a vast experiment in living, and shows the dangers of a near-future in which going mad is the only way of staying sane."
CHARLOTTE MOSLEY, DAILY MAIL

"A companion piece to 'Cocaine Nights'… vintage Ballard, a gripping blend of stylised thriller and fantastic imaginings."
ALEX CLARK, GUARDIAN

"Like watching a slow-motion action replay of a spectacular collision, you can't take your eyes away from 'Super-cannes.'"
MIKE PATTENDEN THE TIMES.

In four short stories, fusions of fiction, biography, autobiography and poetry, Ali Smith pays tribute to the sources, the people and the places which produce and nurture life and art.

Greenvoe, the tight-knit community on the Orcadian island of Hellya, has existed unchanged for generations, but Operation Black Star requires the island for unspecified purposes and threatens the islanders' way of life. A whole host of characters - The Skarf, failed fishermen and Marxist historian; Ivan Westray, boatman and dallier; pious creeler Samuel Whaness; drunken fishermen Bert Kerston; earth-mother Alice Voar, and meths-drinker Timmy Folster - are vividly brought to life in this sparkling mixture of prose and poetry. In the end Operation Black Star fails, but not before it has ruined the island; but the book ends on a note of hope as the islanders return to celebrate the ritual rebirth of Hellya.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER The unmissable new work from Ali Smith, following the dazzling Man Booker-shortlisted Seasonal quartet One day in post-Brexit, mid-pandemic Britain, artist Sandy Gray receives an unexpected phone call from university acquaintance Martina Pelf. Martina is calling Sandy to ask for help with a mysterious question she's been left with after she's spent half a day locked in a room by border control officials for no reason she can fathom: 'Curlew or curfew? You choose.' And what's any of this got to do with the story of a young and talented blacksmith hounded from her trade and her home more than five hundred years ago? Ali Smith's novel takes wing, soaring between our atomised present and our medieval past in the hope we can open our locked down homes and selves to all the other times, other species, other histories, other possibilities. '[An] entertaining and expert portrayal of the world we live in, seen by the most beguiling and likeable of novelistic intelligences' Telegraph '[Companion Piece] makes you look at the world afresh. For me, it turned a cold and depressing day into a bright one' New Statesman LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2022

Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances? Ali Smith's remix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold. It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations. Funny and fresh, poetic and political, here is a tale of change for the modern world. The Myths series brings together some of the world's finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way. Authors in the series include Karen Armstrong, Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, David Grossman, Natsuo Kirino, Alexander McCall Smith, Philip Pullman, Ali Smith and Jeanette Winterson.

O brave new world, that has such people in't.

Once upon a time not very far from now, two children come home to find a line of wet red paint encircling the outside of their house.

What does it mean?

It’s a truism of our time that it’ll be the next generation who’ll sort out our increasingly toxic world.

What would that actually be like?

In a state turned hostile, a world of insiders and outsiders, what things of the past can sustain them and what shape can resistance take?

And what’s a horse got to do with any of this?

Gliff is a novel about how we make meaning and how we are made meaningless. With a nod to the traditions of dystopian fiction, a glance at the Kafkaesque, and a new take on the notion of classic, it's a moving and electrifying read, a vital and prescient tale of the versatility and variety deep-rooted in language, in nature and in human nature.

A once-in-a-generation series, Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet is a tour-de-force about love, time, art, politics, and how we live now. Winter? Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. The shortest days, the longest nights. The trees are bare and shivering. The summer's leaves? Dead litter. The world shrinks; the sap sinks. But winter makes things visible. And if there's ice, there'll be fire. In Ali Smith's Winter, lifeforce matches up to the toughest of the seasons. In this second novel in her acclaimed Seasonal cycle, the follow-up to her sensational Autumn, Smith casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory and warmth, its taproot deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter. It's the season that teaches us survival. Here comes Winter. Discover all four instalments: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Ali Smith's new novel, Companion piece, is available to pre-order now. ***** 'Dazzling . . . Even in the bleak midwinter, Smith is evergreen' Daily Telegraph 'Graceful, mischievous, joyful . . . Infused with some much-needed humour, happiness and hope' Independent 'A novel of great ferocity, tenderness and generosity of spirit . . . Luminously beautiful' Observer

A sparkling satire from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women's Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet 'Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly affecting' Guardian 'There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party . . .' As time passes by and the consequences of this stranger's actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbours and the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they first appear... ***** 'Adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling. This is a novel with serious ambitions that remains huge fun to read' Literary Review 'Smith can make anything happen, which is why she is one of our most exciting writers today' Daily Telegraph

In November 2017 Ali Smith gave the annual Muriel Spark Lecture to kick off the Muriel Spark centenary celebrations. Those lucky enough to get tickets were treated to an invigorating, joyous call-and-response between two of our best writers, both supremely talented in the playful interrogation of truth, power, art and living. In Spark, Smith finds the most formidable inspiration. In Smith, Spark has a formidable champion, one who shows us how Spark's work resonates now more than ever. If you want to read a regenerative blast in praise of how and why fiction matters, start here, and, as Spark writes, `Hear me to the end.'

Introduced by Ali Smith, the title of this group of poems about people is taken from Morgan's poem 'Pelagius', the theologian who is a kind of alter ego. Morgan has the ability to enter into so many lives: the blind hunchback of 'In the Snack-bar', Jesus's judge in 'Pilate at Fortingall', the Polish juggler and acrobat 'Cinquevalli' (another alter ego), even Rameses II in 'The Mummy'. 'Morgan, I said to myself, take note, / Take heart. In a time of confusion / You must make a stand.'

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.

'Wonderful ... all killer, no filler' Red Magazine 'Dazzling stories, as inventive as they are inspiring' Daily Mirror 'Where power and feminist rage meet' Stylist ______________________________ A fun and fearless anthology of feminist tales, by fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers: Margaret Atwood, Susie Boyt, Eleanor Crewes, Emma Donoghue, Stella Duffy, Linda Grant, Claire Kohda, CN Lester, Kirsty Logan, Caroline O'Donoghue, Chibundu Onuzo, Helen Oyeymi, Rachel Seiffert, Kamila Shamsie and Ali Smith - introduced by Sandi Toksvig. DRAGON. TYGRESS. SHE-DEVIL. HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH. HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE. VITUPERATOR. CHURAIL. TERMAGANT. FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO. For centuries past, and all across the world, there are words that have defined and decried us. Words that raise our hackles, fire up our blood; words that tell a story. In this blazing cauldron of a book, fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers have taken up their pens and reclaimed these words, creating an entertaining and irresistible collection of feminist tales for our time. 'A slick collection of clever tales, with something for bluestockings and banshees alike' Guardian 'Delightful, thought-provoking' Louisa Young, Perspectives

Barbara Hepworth is one of the most important artists of the 20th century, yet she has been the subject of relatively few monographs in comparison to her male counterparts. This biography moves beyond the traditional narratives of modernism, truth to materials, and the landscape to provide a penetrating insight into Hepworth’s remarkable life, work and legacy. Barbara Hepworth was reproached for single-mindedness in her lifetime, with critics and commentators framing both the artist and her work as ‘cool and restrained’. A continued focus on her modernist abstract sculpture of the 1930s and its relation to her male contemporaries has left vast swathes of her work and related passions overlooked. This fully illustrated biography reflects for the first time Hepworth’s multi-faceted, interdisciplinary and networked approach, shedding light as never before on her interests in music, dance, poetry, contemporary politics, science and technology; her engagement with these fields through friends and networks as well as her artistic practice; and the ways in which she synthesized sometimes seemingly conflicting disciplines and ideas into one coherent and inspirational philosophy of art and life. With 178 illustrations

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021 LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2021 A once-in-a-generation series, Ali Smith's Seasonal quartet is a tour-de-force about love, time, art, politics, and how we live now. 'A maestra's portrait of her age . . . remarkable' Guardian In the present, Sacha knows the world's in trouble. Her brother Robert just is trouble. Their mother and father are having trouble. Meanwhile the world's in meltdown - and the real meltdown hasn't even started yet. In the past, a lovely summer. A different brother and sister know they're living on borrowed time. This is a story about people on the brink of change. They're family, but they think they're strangers. So: where does family begin? And what do people who think they've got nothing in common have in common? Summer. Discover all four instalments: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Ali Smith's new novel, Companion piece, is available now. ***** 'The first great coronavirus novel - a book to savour, a literary tour de force' Evening Standard 'Exquisite. Smith is in a class of her own' Nicola Sturgeon 'An astonishing finale to a prescient series . . . Ali Smith brilliantly weaves strands of joy and celebration to end her Seasonal Quartet' Irish Times

The unmissable new work from Ali Smith, following the dazzling Man Booker-shortlisted Seasonal quartet.

One day in post-Brexit, mid-pandemic Britain, artist Sandy Gray receives an unexpected phone call from university acquaintance Martina Pelf. Martina is calling Sandy to ask for help with a mysterious question she's been left with after she's spent half a day locked in a room by border control officials for no reason she can fathom:

'Curlew or curfew? You choose.'

And what's any of this got to do with the story of a young and talented blacksmith hounded from her trade and her home more than five hundred years ago?

Ali Smith's novel takes wing, soaring between our atomised present and our medieval past in the hope we can open our locked down homes and selves to all the other times, other species, other histories, other possibilities.

The Hearing Trumpet is the story of 92-year-old Marian Leatherby, who is given the gift of a hearing trumpet only to discover that what her family is saying is that she is to be committed to an institution. But this is an institution where the buildings are shaped like birthday cakes and igloos, where the Winking Abbess and the Queen Bee reign, and where the gateway to the underworld is open. It is also the scene of a mysterious murder. Occult twin to Alice in Wonderland, The Hearing Trumpet is a classic of fantastic literature that has been translated and celebrated throughout the world.

Two unaccompanied children travel across the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat that has been designed to only make it halfway across... A 63-year-old man is woken one morning by border officers 'acting on a tip-off' and, despite having paid taxes for 28 years, is suddenly cast into the detention system with no obvious means of escape... An orphan whose entire life has been spent in slavery - first on a Ghanaian farm, then as a victim of trafficking - writes to the Home Office for help, only to be rewarded with a jail sentence and indefinite detention... These are not fictions. Nor are they testimonies from some distant, brutal past, but the frighteningly common experiences of Europe's new underclass - its refugees. While those with "citizenship" enjoy basic human rights (like the right not to be detained without charge for more than 14 days), people seeking asylum can be suspended for years in Kafka-esque uncertainty. Here, poets and novelists retell the stories of individuals who have direct experience of Britain's policy of indefinite immigration detention. Presenting their accounts anonymously, as modern day counterparts to the pilgrims' stories in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, this book offers rare, intimate glimpses into otherwise untold suffering.

SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A once-in-a-generation series, Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet is a tour-de-force about love, time, art, politics, and how we live now. 'Her best yet, a dazzling hymn to hope, uniting the past and present with a chorus of voices' Observer What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times? Spring. The great connective. With an eye to the migrancy of story over time, and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tells the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown Smith opens the door. The time we're living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story? Hope springs eternal. Discover all four instalments: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Ali Smith's new novel, Companion piece, is available now. ***** 'An astonishing accomplishment and a book for all seasons' Independent 'Smith is a masterful storyteller . . . Savour it' Evening Standard 'Infectious in its energy and warmth' Daily Telegraph

SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2017 A once-in-a-generation series, Ali Smith's Seasonal quartet is a tour-de-force about love, time, art, politics, and how we live now. 'Undoubtedly Smith at her best. Puckish, yet elegant; angry, but comforting' The Times Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever . . . Discover all four instalments: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Ali Smith's new novel, Companion piece, is available now. ***** ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY 'Undoubtedly Smith at her best. Puckish, yet elegant; angry, but comforting' The Times 'Bold and brilliant' Observer 'Terrific, extraordinary, playful . . . There is an awful lot to lift the soul' Daily Mail