Thirty-four essays and interviews with some of the greatest individuals, malcontents and free thinkers of the last 150 years - including Louise Brooks, Richard Pryor, David Bowie, Liam Gallagher and Daniel Day-Lewis - this is a collection that exonerates the maverick and celebrates the individual. It is an essential read for the left of field.

Why does Alfredo keep telling stories? He has a story and a title for all occasions of his experience: A Jew in Tunisia, The Bloomsday Blackout. . . but the Hollywood Moguls are not interested in Alfredo's stories; so he writes a masterpiece for the theatre about the last night on earth of James Joyce. This is an Irish novel set in Los Angeles. It tells the story of Alfredo Hunter, a depressive Jewish/Irish playwright who is in Hollywood to make a killing in the film business. We also meet the unknown narrator, who observes Alfredo's various fluctuations and swings of mood and humour. Humour is to the fore in this novel of a building friendship between two Dubliners as they encounter the New World, with its new language and confusing mores.

In 1966, just two weeks after the IRA blew up Nelson's Pillar in O'Connell Street Dublin, Eddie McGrath is knocked down and killed by the airport bus near the spot where the Pillar used to stand. His death makes his seventeen year old daughter, Nuala, an orphan. She never knew her mother, Gertie, at all, and when she looks into her father's things she finds items of her mother that deeply disturb her. Set in Dublin, Sligo and Donegal, 'Who Was Gertie Ford?' will introduce the reader to the west coast of Ireland, as Nuala searches for Gertie in a world of adventure, heartbreak and tragedy.

Tom Grove sucks in his first breath in 1952 in London's East End. It's a poverty stricken area brimming with Cockney characters who are tough and sharp witted. When his parents move to Wimbledon for a new start events don't go to plan. Tom's life is thrown into turmoil. Tragedy, shock news from America, racy and comical escapades fill this account of Tom's uphill journey from boy to man. The book is littered with rhymes that capture poignant moments as well as humorous episodes in his fight for survival. When he becomes a high flying Trader in London's Money Market his lifestyle is transported to one of champagne and women. After losing it all he launches himself in to many ventures - stand up comedian, gardener to the UK's largest drug importer, film extra, lorry driver, etc. with some hilarious results. Despite constant setbacks Tom's character stands firm. This is a story of one man's ability to overcome adversity with humour and inspiration.