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From the bestselling, award-winning author of Middle England comes
a profoundly moving, brutally funny and brilliantly true portrait
of Britain told through four generations of one family In
Bournville, a placid suburb of Birmingham, sits a famous chocolate
factory. For eleven-year-old Mary and her family in 1945, it's the
centre of the world. The reason their streets smell faintly of
chocolate, the place where most of their friends and neighbours
have worked for decades. Mary will go on to live through the
Coronation and the World Cup final, royal weddings and royal
funerals, Brexit and Covid-19. She'll have children and
grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Parts of the chocolate
factory will be transformed into a theme park, as modern life and
the city crowd in on their peaceful enclave. As we travel through
seventy-five years of social change, from James Bond to Princess
Diana, and from wartime nostalgia to the World Wide Web, one
pressing question starts to emerge: will these changing times bring
Mary's family - and their country - closer together, or leave them
more adrift and divided than ever before? Bournville is a rich and
poignant new novel from the bestselling, Costa award-winning author
of Middle England. It is the story of a woman, of a nation's love
affair with chocolate, of Britain itself. 'A wickedly funny,
clever, but also tender and lyrical novel about Britain and
Britishness and what we have become' Rachel Joyce 'It is miraculous
how, in his new novel, Coe has created a social history of postwar
Britain as we are still living it. Bournville is a beautiful, and
often very funny, tribute to an underexamined place and also a
truly moving story of how a country discovered tolerance' Sathnam
Sanghera, bestselling author of Empireland
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The Broken Mirror (Hardcover)
Jonathan Coe; Illustrated by Chiara Coccorese
1
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R314
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Can desire really transform reality? From award-winning novelist
Jonathan Coe and distinguished Italian artist Chiara Coccorese
comes The Broken Mirror, a political parable for children, a
contemporary fairy tale for adults, and a fable for all ages. One
day Claire, to escape her quarrelsome parents, takes refuge in the
dump behind her house. There she finds a broken mirror, a nasty
piece of sharp glass... yet she is strangely drawn to it. She soon
discovers it has the power to transform even the most drab reality
into a fairy-tale world: the grey sky is reflected blue, and
Claire's modest, suburban house is transformed into the most
beautiful castle. As Claire grows older, always accompanied by her
magic mirror, she can see her face without her teenage acne, and
her town before it fell victim to thieving property developers.
But, in reality, libraries are being turned into luxury flats
wherever she looks, and the boy Claire loves is instead her worst
enemy. Frustrated and angry with the mirror's illusions, Claire is
about to destroy it when the mysterious Peter steps in: he has also
found a shard of broken mirror, and so begins their journey to
piece together the larger puzzle... Previously published in
Italian, French, Greek and Dutch, The Broken Mirror comes to life
in English for the first time, to be read with equal pleasure by
children and adults.
A heartbreaking novel of family secrets from one of the masters of
modern fiction, The Rain Before it Falls is part of our Penguin
Essentials series which spotlights the very best of our modern
classics Deeply moving and compelling, The Rain Before it Falls is
the story of three generations of one family riven by tragedy. When
Rosamund, a reluctant bearer of family secrets, dies suddenly, a
mystery is left for her niece Gill to unravel. Some photograph
albums and tapes point towards a blind girl named Imogen whom no
one has seen in twenty years. The search for Imogen and the truth
of her inheritance becomes a shocking story of mothers and
daughters and of how sadness, like a musical refrain, may haunt us
down the years. 'A sad, often very moving story of mothers and
daughters' Guardian 'Entirely compelling...the plot will keep you
rapt...reminiscent of Ian McEwan at his most effective' New
Statesman
From the bestselling author of Middle England and Mr Wilder and Me
comes a brilliant new state of the nation novel In the Birmingham
suburb of Bournville, a family celebrate VE Day in 1945. With the
joy of such an occasion there also come larger national questions
about the nature of the horrific war the country has just been
through. Following this family through generations as they navigate
seventy-five years of drastic social change, from wartime nostalgia
and English exceptionalism to the World Cup and coronavirus,
domestic secrets and national myths leave characters and a country
adrift, bewildered and divided. Bournville is the story of who we
are - at our worst, and best. From bestselling author Jonathan Coe
comes a novel of rare humour and humanity, a novel that holds up a
mirror to our past and our present.
The prize-winning, bestselling author of Middle England turns his
gaze to one of cinema's most intriguing figures - famed director of
Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder. ***SOON TO BE A MAJOR FILM*** In
the summer of 1977, naive Calista Frangopoulou sets out to venture
into the world. On a Greek island that has been turned into a film
set, she finds herself working for Billy Wilder, about whom she
knows almost nothing. While Calista is thrilled with her new
adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that his
star may be on the wane. Rebuffed by Hollywood, he has financed his
film with German money, and when Calista follows him to Munich, she
finds herself joining him on a journey of memory into the dark
heart of his family history. At once a tender coming-of-age story
and an intimate portrait of a Hollywood icon, Mr Wilder and Me
explores the nature of time and fame, of family and the treacherous
lure of nostalgia . . . __________ 'Utterly charming, deeply
poignant and ultimately uplifting' Mail on Sunday 'Sweeps
beautifully from Hollywood to Greece and London' FT, Best Books of
2020 'The dialogue's sharp, the comic timing excellent' Sunday
Times Written with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new
novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!
WINNER OF THE THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2019 'The book everyone is
talking about' The Times 'A comedy for our times' Guardian
__________________ The country is changing and, up and down the
land, cracks are appearing - within families and between
generations. In the Midlands Benjamin Trotter is trying to help his
aged father navigate a Britain that seems to have forgotten he
exists, whilst in London his friend Doug doesn't understand why his
teenage daughter is eternally enraged. Meanwhile, newlyweds Sophie
and Ian can find nothing to agree on except the fact that their
marriage is on the rocks . . . A hilarious follow-up to The
Rotters' Club and Closed Circle, Jonathan Coe captures the state of
our nation once again! __________________ 'Coe's back with a bang.
Middle England is the novel about Brexit we need' Daily Telegraph
'A pertinent, entertaining study of a nation in crisis' Financial
Times, Books of the Year 'Very funny. Coe - a writer of uncommon
decency - reminds us that the way out of this mess is through
moderation, through compromise, through that age-old English
ability to laugh at ourselves' Observer Written with his signature
wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is available
to pre-order now!
**The dazzling new novel from the prize-winning, bestselling author
of Middle England** 'As good as anything he's written - a novel to
cherish' Observer
_______________________________________________________ In the
heady summer of 1977, a naive young woman called Calista sets out
from Athens to venture into the wider world. On a Greek island that
has been turned into a film set, she finds herself working for the
famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost
nothing. But the time she spends in this glamorous, unfamiliar new
life will change her for good. While Calista is thrilled with her
new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that
his star may be on the wane. Rebuffed by Hollywood, he has financed
his new film with German money, and when Calista follows him to
Munich for the shooting of further scenes, she finds herself
joining him on a journey of memory into the dark heart of his
family history. In a novel that is at once a tender coming-of-age
story and an intimate portrait of one of cinema's most intriguing
figures, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze on the nature of time and
fame, of family and the treacherous lure of nostalgia. When the
world is catapulting towards change, do you hold on for dear life
or decide it's time to let go?
_______________________________________________________ 'A
beautiful, bittersweet novel that is itself crying out for the
silver screen treatment' Scotsman 'Effortlessly pleasurable and
deceptively simple' The Times 'Utterly charming, deeply poignant
and ultimately uplifting' Mail on Sunday 'A charming, bittersweet
book, and a perfect reminder of art's value in stark times'
Spectator
Robert Wyatt started out as the drummer and singer for Soft
Machine, who shared a residency at Middle Earth with Pink Floyd and
toured America with Jimi Hendrix. He brought a Bohemian and jazz
outlook to the 60s rock scene, having honed his drumming skills in
a shed at the end of Robert Graves' garden in Mallorca. His life
took an abrupt turn after he fell from a fourth-floor window at a
party and was paralysed from the waist down. He reinvented himself
as a singer and composer with the extraordinary album Rock Bottom,
and in the early eighties his solo work was increasingly political.
Today, Wyatt remains perennially hip, guesting with artists such as
Bjork, Brian Eno, Scritti Politti, David Gilmour and Hot Chip.
Marcus O'Dair has talked to all of them, indeed to just about
everyone who has shaped, or been shaped by, Wyatt over five decades
of music history.
The critically acclaimed biography of a man respected for his
fierce commitment to truth and honesty, and his passionate belief
in the avant-garde. In his heyday, during the 1960s and early
1970s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known young novelists in
Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde in both
literature and film, he became famous -- not to say notorious --
both for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for
his idiosyncratic ways of putting them into practice. But in
November 1973 Johnson's lifelong depression got the better of him,
and he was found dead at his north London home. He had taken his
own life at the age of forty. Jonathan Coe's long-awaited biography
is based upon unique access to the vast collection of papers
Johnson left behind after his death, and upon dozens of interviews
with those who knew him best. As unconventional in form as one of
its subject's own novels, it paints a remarkable picture --
sometimes hilarious, often overwhelmingly sad -- of a tortured
personality; a man whose writing tragically failed to keep at bay
the demons that pursued him.
A wickedly funny take on life under the Thatcher government by the
prize-winning author of Middle England. It is the 1980s and the
Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year:
Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it
isn't. Henry's turning hospitals into car parks. Roddy's selling
art in return for sex. Down on the farm Dorothy's squeezing every
last pound from her livestock. Thomas is making a killing on the
stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators. But once
their hapless biographer Michael Owen starts investigating the
family's trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time
growing ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance . . .
__________ 'A sustained feat of humour, suspense and polemic, full
of twists and ironies' Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times 'A riveting
social satire on the chattering and all-powerful upper classes'
Time Out 'Big, hilarious, intricate, furious, moving' Guardian
Written with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new
novel, Bournville, is available to pre-order now!
Discover bestselling author Jonathan Coe's hilarious sequel to The
Rotters' Club! It's the end of the century and Benjamin Trotter and
friends are all grown up. Life is a ceaseless whirl of jobs,
marriages, kids - and self-inflicted angst. Despite the shiny
optimism of Blair's Britain, youthful hopes and dreams feel
betrayed. Is the Government (and by extension Benjamin's MP brother
Paul) to blame? Or are the 'rotters' themselves - only passingly
faithful to their dreams - really at fault? The Closed Circle
depicts a group of former school friends as older, wiser and
disillusioned in Blair's Britain at the turn of the millennium,
proving that the present can never truly be disentangled from the
past. THE STORY CONTINUES IN MIDDLE ENGLAND. __________ 'Terrific.
An incisive portrait of Britain at the turn of the century'
Spectator 'Coe's finest achievement since What a Carve up!' Time
Out 'Popular fiction at its best' Daily Mail Written with his
signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel, Bournville, is
available to pre-order now!
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Expo 58 (Paperback)
Jonathan Coe
1
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R315
R257
Discovery Miles 2 570
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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Expo 58 by Jonathan Coe - Spies, girls and an Englishman abroad.
Trust no one. London, 1958: unassuming civil servant Thomas Foley
is plucked from his desk job and sent on a six-month trip to
Brussels. His task: to keep an eye on The Britannia, a brand new
pub which will form the heart of the British presence at Expo 58 -
the biggest World's Fair of the century. As soon as he arrives,
Thomas is equally bewitched by the surreal, gigantic Atomium, which
stands at the heart of this brave new world, and by Anneke, a
lovely Flemish hostess. But Thomas's new-found sense of freedom
comes at a price: two British spies are following him. For fans of
Jonathan Coe's classic comic bestsellers What a Carve Up! and The
Rotters' Club, this hilarious new novel, which is set in the Mad
Men period of the mid 50s, will also be loved by readers of Nick
Hornby, William Boyd and Ian McEwan. 'Clever and funny, enthralling
and moving. Wonderful!' Daily Mail 'Rich and splendidly comic'
Independent
'Sometimes I feel that I am destined always to be offstage whenever
the main action occurs. That God has made me the victim of some
cosmic practical joke, by assigning me little more than a walk-on
part in my own life . . .' Coming of age in 1970s' Birmingham,
teenager Benjamin Trotter is about to discover the agonies and
ecstasies of growing up. Whether it is first love or last rites,
IRA bombs or industrial strife, prog versus punk rock, expectations
of bad poetry or an unexpected life-changing experience involving
lost swimming trunks, The Rotters' Club is a heartfelt and
hilarious portrait of a particular time and place featuring
characters recognisable the world over . . . 'Very funny, a
compulsive and gripping read' The Times 'Hugely entertaining' The
Observer 'A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for
all your friends' Independent on Sunday
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Number 11 (Paperback)
Jonathan Coe
1
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R314
R257
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This is a novel about the hundreds of tiny connections between the
public and private worlds and how they affect us all. It's about
the legacy of war and the end of innocence. It's about how comedy
and politics are battling it out and comedy might have won. It's
about how 140 characters can make fools of us all. It's about
living in a city where bankers need cinemas in their basements and
others need food banks down the street. It is Jonathan Coe doing
what he does best - showing us how we live now. 'Coe is among the
handful of novelists who can tell us something about the temper of
our times' Observer
The Rain Before it Falls - Jonathan Coe's heartbreaking novel of
family secrets Deeply moving and compelling, The Rain Before it
Falls is the story of three generations of one family riven by
tragedy. When Rosamund, a reluctant bearer of family secrets, dies
suddenly, a mystery is left for her niece Gill to unravel. Some
photograph albums and tapes point towards a blind girl named Imogen
whom no one has seen in twenty years. The search for Imogen and the
truth of her inheritance becomes a shocking story of mothers and
daughters and of how sadness, like a musical refrain, may haunt us
down the years. 'Spectacular, heartbreaking, beautifully written.
Rosamund's story is one of the most extraordinary and compelling
you will ever read. Impossible to put down, I loved every minute of
it' Sunday Express 'A sad, often very moving story of mothers and
daughters' Guardian 'Entirely compelling...the plot will keep you
rapt...reminiscent of Ian McEwan at his most effective' New
Statesman Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with moving, astute
observations of life and love, and are written with a revealing
honesty that has captivated a generation of readers. His other
titles, The Accidental Woman, The Rotters' Club (winner of the
Everyman Wodehouse prize), The Closed Circle, The Dwarves of Death,
The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of Sleep (winner of
the 1998 Prix Medicis Etranger), A Touch of Love, and What a Carve
Up! (winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), are all
available in Penguin paperback.
The House of Sleep - Jonathan Coe's comic tale of love and
obsession Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she
mistakes them for real events; Robert has his life changed for ever
by the misunderstandings arising from her condition; Terry, the
insomniac, spends his wakeful nights fuelling his obsession with
movies; and the increasingly unstable Dr Gregory Dudden sees sleep
as a life-shortening disease which must be eradicated. . . A group
of students sharing a house. They fall in and out of love, they
drift apart. Yet a decade later they are drawn back together by a
series of coincidences involving their obsession with sleep - and
each other. . . Winner of the 1998 Prix Medicis Etranger, The House
of Sleep is an intensely moving and frequently hilarious novel
about love, obsession and sleep. 'Moving, clever, pleasurable,
smart...one of the best books of the year' Malcolm Bradbury, The
Times 'There are bits that make you laugh out loud and others that
make your heart ache' Guardian 'Fiercely clever, witty, wise,
hopeful...a compellingly beautiful tale of love and loss' The Times
Literary Supplement Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with biting
political satire, moving and astute observations of life and
hilarious set pieces that have made him one of the most popular
writers of his generation. His other titles, The Accidental Woman,
The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The
Closed Circle, The Dwarves of Death, What a Carve Up! (winner of
the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) and The Rain Before it Falls,
are all available as Penguin paperback.
The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is Jonathan Coe's latest
heart-breaking and hilarious novel Maxwell Sim could be any of us.
He could be you. He's about to have a mid-life crisis (though eh
doesn't know it yet). He'll be found in his car in the north of
Scotland, half-naked and alone, suffering hypothermia, with a
couple of empty whisky bottles and a boot full of toothbrushes.
It's a far cry from a restaurant in Sydney, where his story starts.
But then Maxwell Sim has, unknowingly, got a long way to go. If he
knew now about his lonely journey to the Shetland Isles, or the
truth about his father and the folded photograph, or the mystery of
Poppy and her peculiar job, or even about Emma's lovely, fading
voice, then perhaps he's stay where he was - hiding from destiny.
But Max knows none of it. And nor do you - at least not yet. . .
Equal parts funny and moving, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim
will be cherished by readers everywhere, from fans of David
Nicholls to Will Self. 'Witty, unexpected and curiously unsettling.
Coe carries it off with empathy, comedy and a ventriloquist's ear
for idiom' Literary Review 'Clever, engaging, spring-loaded with
mysteries and surprises' Time Out 'Masterly, highly engaging. Coe's
eye for the details of contemporary life remains as sharp as ever'
Daily Mail
The first in The Rotters' Club series, bestselling author Jonathan
Coe's iconic tale of Benjamin Trotter is a hilarious, heartfelt
celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up WINNER OF THE
EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE __________ Birmingham, England, c. 1973:
industrial strikes, bad pop music, first love, corrosive class
warfare, detention, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who
stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by rock;
an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer
obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school.
Unforgettably funny and painfully honest, The Rotters' Club is
perfect for readers of Nick Hornby and William Boyd - or anyone who
ever experience adolescence the hard way! THE STORY CONTINUES IN
THE CLOSED CIRCLE AND MIDDLE ENGLAND. __________ 'One of those
sweeping, ambitious yet hugely readable, moving and richly comic
novels . . . a masterpiece' Daily Telegraph 'Very funny . . . Coe
had achieved that rare feat: a novel stuffed with characters you
really care for' The Times 'A book to cherish, a book to reread, a
book to buy for all your friends' Independent on Sunday Written
with his signature wit, Jonathan Coe's unmissable new novel,
Bournville, is available to pre-order now!
This groundbreaking book explores the psychodynamics and
socio-politics of the forensic therapeutic milieu, addressing some
of the most difficult and complex issues facing practitioners. It
sets out a psycho-social framework for understanding the
predicament and the needs of those who live in and those who work
in forensic mental health settings. It brings to life the thinking
of those working on the frontline in an increasingly difficult and
hostile environment, and draws together fresh and stimulating
approaches to engagement with highly complex individuals who
present challenges to traditional models of psychiatric assessment
and treatment. Contributors with considerable clinical experience
and expertise from a range of disciplines consider the ethical,
emotional and intellectual challenges of their work, and describe
ways in which genuine containment and change can be achieved
despite numerous perceived assaults on therapeutic relationships,
and on the therapeutic milieu itself. Combining clinical case
studies with organisational perspectives and clear descriptions of
theoretical processes, they explore key issues including the
challenges of maintaining role-appropriate, 'boundaried'
relationships; the tensions between public protection and
individual confidentiality; questions of risk and responsibility;
duty of care and respect for individual liberty; the challenges
posed by inter-professional tensions and rivalries; as well as
specific clinical dilemmas. The difficulties they experience in
fulfilling specific therapeutic roles in the face of uncertainties
about the funding and commissioning of their services are
addressed, and the final part of the book outlines some of the ways
in which individuals, particular services and whole organisations
may protect themselves when under attack. This unique and highly
original book is essential reading for all those working, or
training to work, in both forensic and non-forensic inpatient
therapeutic milieux and for academics and lay readers interested in
the societal dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that are
replicated and magnified in these settings.
Mamma was fast asleep at home, her spirit lapped in
unconsciousness. Her dreams would not divine that her daughter had
stolen out to meet a lover. And next door also they slept unawares,
while one of them broke from the circle and came alone to clasp a
stranger . . .' Judith Earle, over-earnest and inexperienced, has
always been a little in love with each of the four cousins who come
to stay next door and, on her return from Cambridge, becomes madly
in love with one of them - Roddy, the 'sensation-hunter'. DUSTY
ANSWER traces with delicate nostalgia childhood friendships and the
pangs of thwarted young love.
Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics,
which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid
power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control, and
transmission of power by the use of pressurised liquids. This book
discusses hydraulic mechanical applications and roles in
engineering. Topics include axial piston pumps; turbulence
structure and related mass transfer mechanisms in vegetated canopy
open-channel flows; the hydraulic mechanism features of jet-curtain
operation; experimental design and calibration of grid gates used
in open channels; surface runoff simulation models; and
applications of static and dynamic infinite elements to hydraulic
engineering problems involving infinite domains.
Winner of the Writers' Guild Best Fiction Award in England and the Prix Médicis in France
Like a surreal and highly caffeinated version of The Big Chill, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows four students who knew each other in college in the eighties. Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events. Robert has his life changed forever by the misunderstandings that arise from her condition. Terry spends his wakeful nights fueling his obsession with movies. And an increasingly unstable doctor, Gregory, sees sleep as a life-shortening disease which he must eradicate.
But after ten years of fretful slumber and dreams gone bad, the four reunite in their college town to confront their disorders. In a Gothic cliffside manor being used as a clinic for sleep disorders, they discover that neither love, nor lunacy, nor obsession ever rests.
The Accidental Woman is a wickedly funny novel from bestseller
Jonathan Coe For Maria, nothing is certain. Her life is a chain of
accidents. Untouched by friendship, unimpressed by devoted Ronny
and his endless marriage proposals, she lives in a world of her
own, but not of her own making. Even as she stumbled on through
university, work, marriage and motherhood, Maria finds it hard to
see what all the fuss is about. Will our heroine ever be able to
control the direction of her life, or will it end, as it began, by
accident? What does chance next have in store for her? From the
author of the award-winning The Rotters' Club and What a Carve Up!,
The Accidental Woman will be enjoyed by readers of Nick Hornby and
William Boyd and centres on a quirky and highly individual woman
who is still struggling to find her place in life. 'The Accidental
Woman has a cocky individual voice of its own. . . here's
precocious, rebellious talent' Mail on Sunday 'Slyly parodies the
cliches of most first novels' Guardian 'A convincing stuffy of the
random impetuses by which human lives tend to be governed. It is
also very funny' Spectator Jonathan Coe's novels are filled with
biting social commentary, moving and astute observations of life
and hilarious set pieces that have made him one of the most popular
writers of his generation. His other titles, What a Carve Up!
(winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), A Touch of Love,
The Rotters' Club (winner of the Everyman Wodehouse prize), The
Closed Circle, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, The House of
Sleep (winner of the1998 Prix Medicis Etranger), and The Rain
Before it Falls, are all available in Penguin paperback.
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