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From the brilliantly unconventional Nicola Barker, the short
stories in 'Love Your Enemies' present a loving depiction of the
beautiful, the grotesque and the utterly bizarre in the lives of
overlooked suburban Britons. Layla Carter, 16, from North London,
is utterly overwhelmed by her plus-size nose. Rosemary, recently
widowed and the ambivalent owner of a bipolar tomcat, meets a satyr
in her kitchen and asks, 'Can I feel your fur?' In these ten
enticingly strange short stories, a series of marginalised
characters seek truth in the obsession and oppression of everyday
existence, via a canine custody battle, sex in John Lewis and some
strangely expressive desserts.
Hilarious, poignant and frequently surreal, Small Holdings is a is
a comedy of errors from a neglected corner of everyday life by the
brilliantly unconventional Nicola Barker. An attractive park in
Palmers Green plays host to Phil, a chronically shy gardener who
feels truly at home only with his plants. He and his gentle
colleague Ray, a man with all the sense of a Savoy cabbage, are
tortured by Doug, their imposing and unpredictable supervisor, and
a malevolent one-legged ex-museum curator called Saleem. In love
with the truck-obsessed Nancy, Phil strives nobly to maintain his
equilibrium despite being systematically mystified, brutalised,
drugged, derided and seduced. But when he loses his eyebrows, he
decides to fight back.
The destinies of three mysterious lost children entwine in this
James Tait Black Memorial Prize-winning fable by the radical Nobel
Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, introduced by Nicola
Barker. A figure had condensed out of the shuddering backdrop of
the glare. He is born in fire: a naked child in the blood-red
flames of London's Blitz. Miraculously saved but grotesquely
burned, this mysterious orphan is named Matty. Doomed to a life of
torment, he becomes a wanderer, a spiritual seeker after unknown
redemption. They are also lost children: neglected twins, as
exquisitely beautiful as they are loveless and sinful. Toni
explores political terrorism; Sophy, sexual dominance and violent
criminality. But their destinies will soon collide in an
apocalyptic climax - one that illuminates the inner and outer
darkness of modern humanity. 'Exceptional ... Irresistibly
transcendent ... Golding seduces us, transfixes, bewitches and
confounds us.' Nicola Barker 'The most powerful, and strangest, of
all Golding's novels, and one of the great masterpieces of the
twentieth-century.' Philip Hensher 'A master craftsman in [his]
magic ... Golding's best book ... Wonderfully creepy.' London
Review of Books 'A vision of elemental reality so vivid we seem to
hallucinate the scenes ... Magic.' NYTBR 'One of the most moving
books I've ever read.' The Times
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Wide Open (Paperback)
Nicola Barker
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R299
R242
Discovery Miles 2 420
Save R57 (19%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Winner of IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2000, Wide Open is the
first of Nicola Barker's Thames Gateway novels. Poking out of the
River Thames estuary, the strange Isle of Sheppey is home to a
nudist beach, a nature reserve, a wild boar farm and not much else.
The landscape is bleak, but the people are interesting. There's
Luke, who specialises in join-the-dots pornography and lippy,
outraged Lily. They are joined by Jim, the 8-year-old Nathan and
the mysterious, dark-eyed Ronnie. Each one floats adrift in
turbulent currents, fighting the rip tide of a past that swims with
secrets. Only if they see through the lies and prejudice will they
gain redemption. Wide Open is about coming to terms with the past,
and the fantasies people construct in order to protect their
fragile inner selves.
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.
The Civil Partnership Act 2004 (CPA) and the Marriage (Same Sex
Couples) Act 2014 (MSSCA) are important legal, social and
historical landmarks, rich in symbolic, material and cultural
meanings. While fiercely opposed by many, within mainstream
narratives they are often represented as a victory in a legal
reform process that commenced with the decriminalisation of
homosexuality. Yet, at the same time, for others they represent a
problematic and ambivalent political engagement with the
institution of marriage. Consequently, understood or labelled as
'revolutionary', 'progressive' and 'conservative', these legal
reforms provide a space for thinking about issues that arguably
affect everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or relationship
status. This edited collection brings together scholars and
commentators from a range of backgrounds, generations and
disciplines to reflect on the first ten years of civil partnerships
and the introduction of same-sex marriage. Rather than rehearsing
the arguments 'for' and 'against' relationship recognition, the
essays ask original questions, draw on a variety of methods and
collectively provide a detailed and reflective 'snap shot' of a
critical moment, a 'history of the present' as well as providing a
foundation for innovative ways of thinking about and engaging with
the possibilities and experiences arising from the new reality of
relationship recognition for gays and lesbians.
The Civil Partnership Act 2004 and the Marriage (Same Sex Couples)
Act 2013 are important legal, social and historical landmarks, rich
in symbolic, material and cultural meanings. While fiercely opposed
by many, within mainstream narratives they are often represented as
a victory in a legal reform process that commenced with the
decriminalisation of homosexuality. Yet, at the same time, for
others they represent a problematic and ambivalent political
engagement with the institution of marriage. Consequently,
understood or labelled as 'revolutionary', 'progressive' and
'conservative', these legal reforms provide a space for thinking
about issues that arguably affect everyone, regardless of sexual
orientation or relationship status. This edited collection brings
together scholars and commentators from a range of backgrounds,
generations and disciplines to reflect on the first ten years of
civil partnerships and the introduction of same-sex marriage.
Rather than rehearsing the arguments 'for' and 'against'
relationship recognition, the essays ask original questions, draw
on a variety of methods and collectively provide a detailed and
reflective 'snap shot' of a critical moment, a 'history of the
present' as well as providing a foundation for innovative ways of
thinking about and engaging with the possibilities and experiences
arising from the new reality of relationship recognition for gays
and lesbians.
'Open yourself up again to all that terrible light and savage bliss
and deafening reverberation ...' In the Summer of 1971, a
charismatic family seeks refuge in the quiet, English coastal
backwater of Pett Level. Bran Cleary is a controversial Irish
muralist; his fractious and promiscuous wife (and muse) 'Lonely'
Allaway is half Aboriginal; their strange, sickly daughter, Orla
Nor, is almost a Saint. Thirteen years later, a shifty individual
turns up in Pett Level, apparently determined to get to the bottom
of the bizarre and ultimately tragic events which unfolded in the
aftermath of that arrival. But does he really want to understand,
or is he just way too close to the story to make any clear sense of
it? And what of the locals who seem so determined to resist and
undermine his investigations? 'In The Approaches' is a fabulously
twisted comedy of very bad manners which starts out as a seaside
idyll and ends up as a pilgrimage - sometimes sacred, sometimes
profane, and frequently both at once. Set in a 1984 which seems
almost as distantly located in the past as Orwell's was in the
future, Nicola Barker's tenth novel offers a captivating glimpse of
something more shocking than any dystopia - the possibility of
faith.
The first novel from the brilliantly unconventional Nicola Barker
is a tale of gambling, allergies, music and dogs, set in some of
London's less scenic locations. Chance meetings between its cast of
eccentric individuals - Ruby the bookie's cashier, violently
disturbed (and disturbing) Vincent, Samantha the would-be cabaret
singer, wilfully sickly Sylvia and Little Buttercup the
never-quite-made-it greyhound - result in the unlikeliest of
couples; and there's always the risk that it could all work out
disastrously as characters select each other and try or don't try
to make winning combinations. But, as Ruby, the story's
soft-centred heroine, observes: 'Losing, that's the whole point of
the gamble.'
Heading Inland is a funny, broody, saucy collection of stories
about the kind of people you sometimes meet but might prefer to
ignore. Barker creates a wonderfully fantastical and unimaginable
world: an unborn baby escapes an unsuitable mother through a secret
belly-button zip; a wayward and yet enigmatic man attempts to
rescue eels from an East End pie shop; a young woman discusses her
fascination in other women's breasts; a boy with his inside organs
back to front desperately seeks attention; and a bitter old woman
becomes bent on war with a tramp. This collection confirms Nicola
Barker as one of the most versatile and original writers of her
generation with a brilliant unconventional imagination she creates
a new world that sparkles with dark humour.
The hilarious Man Booker-longlisted novel from the author of
'Darkmans' and 'The Burley Cross Postbox Theft'. 2006 is a foreign
country; they do things differently there. Tiger Woods' reputation
is entirely untarnished and the English Defence League does not
exist. But storm-clouds are gathering above the bar of the
less-than-exclusive Thistle Hotel in Luton. Among those caught up
in the unfolding drama are a man who's survived cancer seven times,
a woman priest with an unruly fringe, the troubled family of a
notorious local fascist, an interfering barmaid with three E's at
A-level but a PhD in bullshit, a free-thinking Muslim sex therapist
and his considerably more pious wife. But at the heart of every
intrigue and the bottom of every mystery is the repugnantly
charismatic Stuart Ransom - a golf star in free-fall.
From the Man Booker Prize shortlisted author of Darkmans comes a
comic epistolary novel of startling originality and wit. Reading
other people's letters is always a guilty pleasure. But for PC
Roger Topping contemplating a cache of 27 undelivered missives,
retrieved from a back alley in Skipton, it's a job of work. The
quaint village of Burley Cross has been plunged into turmoil by the
theft of the contents of its postbox, and no-one is above
suspicion. Yet Topping's investigation into the curtain-twitching
lives of the eminently respectable Burley Cross residents not only
uncovers the dark underbelly of his beat, but reveals a hitherto
unknown strength of character buried deep within the young
flatfoot. The denizens of Burley Cross inhabit a world of epic
pettiness, where secrets are the currency. From complaints about
dog shit to passive-aggressive fanmail, from biblical amateur
dramatics to an Auction of Promises that goes staggeringly wrong,
Nicola Barker's epistolary novel is a work of immense comic range.
Irresistibly mischievous, Burley Cross Postbox Theft is Alan
Bennett with added Tamiflu, sex-therapy and cheap vodka.
Longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. A raucous, exuberant
novel about the outrageous circus surrounding David Blaine's 2003
starvation stunt at Tower Bridge, from Nicola Barker, a Granta Best
of British Novelist. On 5th September 2003, New York illusionist
David Blaine entered a small perspex box beside the River Thames
and began starving himself. Forty-four days later he left the box.
The end. The real show, of course, was on the sidelines: the
crowds, the chaos, the hype and most enjoyably, the hypocrisy.
Through the eyes and exploits of Adair Graham MacKenney, bitter,
shameless and irreverent, we see this world for what it is: a place
of illusion, delusion, celebrity and hunger. And, naturally, lust.
With her Tupperware and awful shoes, Adair finds himself
unaccountably drawn to the reluctant Aphra. But when has futility
ever stopped anyone? Just think of the guy in the perspex box.
Wickedly comic, caustic and uncommonly astute, this outrageous peep
show of a novel gives us our contemporary world laid bare.
Some people follow the stars. Some people follow the soaps. Some people follow rare birds, or obscure bands, or the form, or the football.
Wesley prefers not to follow. He thinks that to follow anything too assiduously is a sign of weakness. Wesley is a prankster, a maverick, a charismatic manipulator, an accidental murderer who longs to live his life anonymously. But he can't. It is his awful destiny to be hotly pursued - secretly stalked, obsessively hunted - by a disparate group of oddballs he calls The Behindlings. Their motivations? Love, boredom, hatred, revenge.
This book is an autobiographical account of the early years of
James McBey, the self-taught boy from a humble north-east village
who became one of Scotland's most successful and celebrated
artists. Writing with charismatic frankness and realism, McBey
describes his passionate desire to be an artist, from his first
etchings (printed with the help of an old mangle) to the moment
when he left a stultifying job to strike out for Holland to create
a life of his own. McBey's journey was not an easy one. Poverty,
ignorance, his family's indifference, the petty routines of an
Aberdeen bank, his mother's suicide, all these are evoked with
gravity, clarity and a lightness of touch - like the etchings
themselves - which will long remain in the reader's mind.
Introduced by Nicolas Barker, who edited the original manuscripts,
this book offers a real-life portrait of the artist as a young man
and establishes James McBey as a gifted prose stylist in his own
right.
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H(A)PPY (Hardcover)
Nicola Barker
1
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R601
R491
Discovery Miles 4 910
Save R110 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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*WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2017* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON
BURN PRIZE 2018* *LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
2018* A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR AN
INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR From the internationally acclaimed,
Man Booker-shortlisted Nicola Barker comes a new novel, a post-post
apocalyptic story that overflows with pure creative talent. Imagine
a perfect world where everything is known, where everything is
open, where there can be no doubt, no hatred, no poverty, no greed.
Imagine a System which both nurtures and protects. A Community
which nourishes and sustains. An infinite world. A world without
sickness, without death. A world without God. A world without fear.
Could you...might you be happy there? H(A)PPY is a post-post
apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland, a story which tells itself and
then consumes itself. It's a place where language glows, where
words buzz and sparkle and finally implode. It's a novel which
twists and writhes with all the terrifying precision of a tiny fish
in an Escher lithograph - a book where the mere telling of a story
is the end of certainty.
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Cauliflower (Hardcover)
Nicola Barker
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R855
R710
Discovery Miles 7 100
Save R145 (17%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Darkmans (Paperback)
Nicola Barker
2
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R521
R453
Discovery Miles 4 530
Save R68 (13%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize, an epic novel of
startling originality which confirms Nicola Barker as one of
Britain's most exciting literary talents. If history is a sick joke
which keeps on repeating, then who keeps on telling it? Could it be
John Scogin, Edward IV's jester, whose favourite skit was to burn
people alive? Or could it be Andrew Boarde, physician to Henry
VIII, who wrote John Scogin's biography? Or could it be a Kurd
called Gaffar whose days are blighted by an unspeakable terror of
salad? Or a beautiful bulimic with brittle bones? Or a man who
guards Beckley Woods with a Samurai sword and a pregnant terrier?
Darkmans is a very modern book, set in ridiculously modern Ashford,
about two old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. And the main
character? The past, creeping up on the present and whispering
something quite dark into its ear. Darkmans is the third of Nicola
Barker's visionary Thames Gateway novels. Following Wide Open
(winner Dublin IMPAC award 2000) and Behindlings it confirms one of
Britain's most original literary talents.
__________________________________________ 'One of the funniest,
most finely achieved comic novels, even by her own standard ... I
think it's a masterpiece.' ALI SMITH 'I think Nicola Barker is
incapable of a dull page. [Her work] is unified by its spirit of
adventure.' KEVIN BARRY How long does it take to change the world?
Could it happen in approximately twenty minutes? Charles, a
forty-year-old teddy bear maker, is trying to sell his late
mother's house, helped by his estate agent Avigail (who thinks
Charles is an imbecile). The prospective buyers: the fearsome Wang
Shu - who has no desire to make idle chit-chat - and her
downtrodden daughter, Ying Yue. During the twenty-minute viewing a
huge number of things happen, although it is also entirely possible
that nothing happens at all. Which is it? Can the world really turn
on its axis during a mundane discussion about cheese preservation?
Has fiction the power to do that? Should it even want to?
__________________________________________ 'She really is a
genius.' GUARDIAN 'Life-affirming hilarity - Evelyn Waugh on
ecstasy.' NELL ZINK 'A madly brilliant little book that asks who at
any point is in control of what. I loved it.' DAILY MAIL 'Nicola
Barker's wildness and capacity for the absurd often delight me.'
SARAH MOSS 'What an audacious writer Nicola Barker is ... In an era
when plot is king, Barker has typically, joyously, dispensed with
one ... Barker's pleasure in the novella feels defiant.' EVENING
STANDARD 'I Am Sovereign is bursting with energy, compassion and
humour.' LITERARY REVIEW 'Barker is a writer in a class of her own
... A work of coruscating intelligence, of deep humanity.' OBSERVER
'A riotous burst of a novel that scrutinises the nature of fiction
with the lightest of touches.' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'A bracing,
brilliantly bonkers comic novel ... This is freewheeling fiction
that delights in the visual.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Barker's writing is
very, very funny, both ha ha and strange ... Fans of Ali Smith's
"Seasonal Quartet" will enjoy a similarly arch, detached view on
the banality of contemporary Britain ... A gloriously audacious
blend of, well, the deep and the trite.' INDEPENDENT
On September 5, 2003, illusionist David Blaine entered a small
Perspex box adjacent to London's Thames River and began starving
himself. Forty-four days later, on October 19, he left the box,
fifty pounds lighter. That much, at least, is clear. And the rest?
The crowds? The chaos? The hype? The rage? The fights? The lust?
The filth? The bullshit? The hypocrisy?
Nicola Barker fearlessly crams all that and more into this
ribald and outrageous peep show of a novel, her most irreverent,
caustic, up-to-the-minute work yet, laying bare the heart of our
contemporary world, a world of illusion, delusion, celebrity, and
hunger.
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