Seven Rooms brings together highlights from Hotel, a magazine for new approaches to fiction, non-fiction & poetry which, since its inception in 2016, provided a space for experimental reflection on literature's status as art & cultural mediator. Co-published by Tenement Press and Prototype, this anthology captures, refracts, and reflects a vital moment in independent publishing in the UK, and is built on the shared values of openness, collaboration, and total creative freedom.

'I am a sick person. I am a spiteful person. An unattractive person, too . . .' In the depths of a cellar in St. Petersburg, a retired civil servant spews forth a passionate and furious note on the ills of society. The underground man's manifesto reveals his erratic, self-contradictory and even sadistic nature. Yet Dostoyevsky's disturbing character causes an uncomfortable flicker of recognition, and we see in him our own human condition.

A disturbing portrait of a modern American family 'Imagine Richard Yates becoming fascinated by Donald Antrim before writing Revolutionary Road and you'll have some idea of Love Orange. One of the most satisfying novels you will read this year. This book rules' Christian Kiefer, author of Phantoms 'I enjoyed every minute of it' Chris Power, author of Mothers 'A stunningly accurate portrayal . . . shining with vivid dialogue and observation' Chloe Aridjis, author of Sea Monsters '[A]n exuberant, comic, irresistibly dark examination of contemporary anxieties' Vanity Fair 'An exquisite balance of humour and pathos' Lunate An extraordinary debut novel by Natasha Randall, exposing the seam of secrets within an American family, from beneath the plastic surfaces of their new 'smart' home. Love Orange charts the gentle absurdities of their lives, and the devastating consequences of casual choices. While Hank struggles with his lack of professional success, his wife Jenny, feeling stuck and beset by an urge to do good, becomes ensnared in a dangerous correspondence with a prison inmate called John. Letter by letter, John pinches Jenny awake from the "marshmallow numbness" of her life. The children, meanwhile, unwittingly disturb the foundations of their home life with forays into the dark net and strange geological experiments. Jenny's bid for freedom takes a sour turn when she becomes the go-between for John and his wife, and develops an unnatural obsession for the orange glue that seals his letters... Love Orange throws open the blinds of American life, showing a family facing up to the modern age, from the ascendancy of technology, the predicaments of masculinity, the pathologising of children, the epidemic of opioid addiction and the tyranny of the WhatsApp Gods. The first novel by the acclaimed translator is a comic cocktail, an exuberant skewering of contemporary anxieties and prejudices.

A disturbing portrait of a modern American family 'Imagine Richard Yates becoming fascinated by Donald Antrim before writing Revolutionary Road and you'll have some idea of Love Orange. One of the most satisfying novels you will read this year. This book rules' Christian Kiefer, author of Phantoms 'I enjoyed every minute of it' Chris Power, author of Mothers 'A stunningly accurate portrayal . . . shining with vivid dialogue and observation' Chloe Aridjis, author of Sea Monsters '[A]n exuberant, comic, irresistibly dark examination of contemporary anxieties' Vanity Fair 'An exquisite balance of humour and pathos' Lunate An extraordinary debut novel by Natasha Randall, exposing the seam of secrets within an American family, from beneath the plastic surfaces of their new 'smart' home. Love Orange charts the gentle absurdities of their lives, and the devastating consequences of casual choices. While Hank struggles with his lack of professional success, his wife Jenny, feeling stuck and beset by an urge to do good, becomes ensnared in a dangerous correspondence with a prison inmate called John. Letter by letter, John pinches Jenny awake from the "marshmallow numbness" of her life. The children, meanwhile, unwittingly disturb the foundations of their home life with forays into the dark net and strange geological experiments. Jenny's bid for freedom takes a sour turn when she becomes the go-between for John and his wife, and develops an unnatural obsession for the orange glue that seals his letters... Love Orange throws open the blinds of American life, showing a family facing up to the modern age, from the ascendancy of technology, the predicaments of masculinity, the pathologising of children, the epidemic of opioid addiction and the tyranny of the WhatsApp Gods. The first novel by the acclaimed translator is a comic cocktail, an exuberant skewering of contemporary anxieties and prejudices.

A wounded solider vanishes into notoriety. A nose is found in a loaf of bread. Places - like the Nevesky Prospect - are not what they seem. Nikolai Gogol was one of the nineteenth century's greatest and most influential Russian writers, a realist whose witty and acerbic observations and his taste for the absurd give his writing its strange, comic voice. Selected from the work of Constance Garnett, one of Gogol's earliest translators, this edition presents a new, exclusive collection of Gogol's short fiction, selected and lightly revised by Natasha Randall. Contextualized by Randall's preface, and full of the wit of Garenett's work, this edition is the perfect introduction to Gogol, and a must for the enthusiast.

A masterpiece of Russian prose, Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time is translated with an introduction and notes by Natasha Randall, and a foreword by Neil LaBute, author of reasons to be pretty, in Penguin Modern Classics. The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled on publication. Its Byronic hero, twenty-five-year-old Pechorin, is a beautiful and magnetic but nihilistic young army officer, bored by life and indifferent to his many sexual conquests. In five linked episodes, Lermontov builds up a portrait of a man caught in and expressing the sickness of his times. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Anton Chekhov, holding up a mirror not only to Lermontov's time but also to our own. Mikhail Lermontov (1814-41) was a Russian Romantic writer and poet. As a young man Lermontov was an officer in the guards, and was sent to fight in the Caucasus after insulting the Tsar. His dramatic life ended after being shot down in a duel. Ifyou enjoyed A Hero of Our Time, you might like Andrei Bely's Petersburg, also available in Penguin Clasics. 'One of the most vivid and persuasive portraits of the male ego ever put down on paper' Neil LaBute, from the Foreword

As relevant today as when it was first published, We is the first modern dystopian novel which inspired both Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. The citizens of the One State live in a condition of 'mathematically infallible happiness'. D-503 decides to keep a diary of his days working for the collective good in this clean, blue city state where nature, privacy and individual liberty have been eradicated. But over the course of his journal D-503 suddenly finds himself caught up in unthinkable and illegal activities - love and rebellion. Banned on its publication in Russia in 1921, We is the first modern dystopian novel and a satire on state control that has once again become chillingly relevant.