The characters depicted in this volume lead lives which are quintessentially modern; lonely, rootless and uncertain. These are not, however, stories of complaint or lament or melancholy. On the contrary, they illuminate and celebrate the courage and joy that are to be found flourishing in the most unlikely corners of human existence.
An essential primer for the way we live today, "W9 and Other Stories" spans the entire globe as each story gently shifts the reader's attention from one location to the next. A good number of them are situated in the author's native Ireland, where possessing a keen sense of place has a special significance all of its own.
Novelist, playwright and broadcaster Carlo Gbler was born in Dublin in 1954, the son of famous Irish novelist Edna O'Brien. A graduate of York University and the National Film and Television School, Gbler has directed a number of television documentaries and contributed articles to many prominent newspapers and magazines. He now lives in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. His other works include "How to Murder a Man," published by Marion Boyars in 1999.
"Gbler at his disturbing best."?"The Sunday Times"
"Powerfully memorable."?"Daily Telegraph"

A witty, scatological illustrated version of the world's greatest collection of fables, allegedly written by a slave in the 5th century BC. A book for our times: as Gebler notes, Aesop has two subjects the exercise of power and the experience of the powerless who endure life and all that it inflicts on them. This retelling of the Fables makes them relevant and richly enjoyable.

Large and fierce animals kill and butcher weaker creatures; gods play games with the hopes and fears of lesser species, including men and women; and occasionally the weak turn the tables on the strong, exposing their pretensions. This is a stunning new version of a book that was often bowdlerised and used to teach moral lessons to children. Gebler's Aesop is darker and more realistic, and compulsively readable.

I don't recall if I saw my first gunman in my childhood nightmares or on my childhood streets. There were plenty in both and they looked very much like each other. So begins Reggie Chamberlain-King's introduction to The Black Dreams, a thrilling and compelling collection of specially commissioned stories that explore the emotional geography of growing up and living in Northern Ireland. The fourteen stories gathered here criss-cross coast, border and city as they map a 'strange' territory of in-between states and unstable realities in which understanding is unreliable. Obsessions, death and rebirth, violence, sexuality, retribution and apocalypse are all part of the rich fabric of The Black Dreams. Bringing together some of Northern Ireland's finest writers, along with some of the best new talents, The Black Dreams celebrates and extends the rich tradition of the weird, surreal and dream-like in Northern Irish writing. It is also a powerful act of imagining and storytelling - a vibrant, vivid and exhilarating exploration of a world we cannot, or choose not, to see. Contributors: Jo Baker, Jan Carson, Reggie Chamberlain-King, Aislinn Clarke, Emma Devlin, Moyra Donaldson, Michelle Gallen, Carlo Gebler, John Patrick Higgins, Ian McDonald, Gerard McKeown, Bernie McGill, Ian Sansom, Sam Thompson

The intensely moving memoir of Patrick Maguire, one of the 'Maguire Seven', wrongly imprisoned as a teenager for making bombs for the IRA. On the night of October 5 1974, an IRA unit left bombs in two Guildford pubs: five people were killed. On the night of December 3 1974, on the strength of fabricated testimony extracted under duress from Paul Hill and Gerard Conlon (whom the police mistakenly believed had planted the Guildford bombs), Anne and Paddy Maguire, two of their four children, Vincent and Patrick, plus other family members and friends, a total of seven in all, were arrested at their home in West London. On 22 October 1975, the Guildford Four were wrongfully convicted of bombing the two pubs in Guildford. On 4 March 1976, the Maguire Seven, as they had become known, were found guilty of possession of the nitro-glycerine used in those bombings. On 19 October 1989, the verdicts on the Guildford Four were quashed. On 26 June 1991, the convictions against the Maguire Seven of handling explosives were quashed and just over a year later, Sir John May, after producing a report on the Maguire Seven case, described it as the worst miscarriage of justice he had ever seen. Behind these dates lie human stories - 'My Father's Watch' tells that of Patrick, who was the youngest of the accused, at fourteen years old. He was sentenced to four years and when he came out he had no home and no family, as both of his parents were still in jail. This book takes us through Patrick's entire life, from his working-class childhood in West London to the difficult life he has led since prison, the roots of which go back to the wrongful convictions and the destruction of the family that followed. Patrick Maguire and the novelist Carlo Gebler have written 'My Father's Watch' jointly. It is not a ghosted work - told in Patrick's own voice, it is a lucid and inspiring account of one individual's experience of an appalling injustice, as well as a reminder, as the war against terror ratchets up, of just how much harm a state can do to its own innocent citizens in the name of security.