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As the 1950s draw to a close, and the Cold War escalates, the shape of
Drummond Moore's life is changed beyond measure when he strikes up an
unlikely friendship with James Carter, a rich and well-connected fellow
national serviceman. Carter leads him to Doom Town – an army base that
seeks to recreate the effects of a nuclear war – where he meets Gwen, a
barmaid with whom he shares an instant connection.
Set over sixty years of British history, The Blind Light by Stuart
Evers is the compelling story of one family as they deal with the
personal and political fallout of their times.
Peter Jernigan's life is slipping out of control. His wife's gone,
he's lost his job and he's a stranger to his teenage son. Worse,
his only relief from all this reality - alcohol - is less effective
by the day. And when the medicine doesn't work, you up the dose.
And when that doesn't work, what then? (Apart from upping the dose
again anyway, because who knows?) Jernigan's answer is to slowly
turn his caustic wit on everyone around him - his wife Judith, his
teenage son Danny, his vulnerable new girlfriend Martha and,
eventually, himself - until the laughs have turned to mute horror.
But while he's busy burning every bridge back to the people who
love him, Jernigan's perverse charisma keeps us all in thrall to
the bitter end. Shot through with gin and irony, Jernigan is a
funny, scary, mesmerising portrait of a man walking off the edge
with his eyes wide open - wisecracking all the way.
The twelve unforgettable stories in Your Father Sends His Love
explore the complex, baffling, and vital relationship between
parents and their children. Set in the past, present and future,
they are unified by their compassion, animated by the unsaid, and
distinguished by how beautifully they extract the luminous from the
ordinary. With wit, subtllety, and uncommon sensitivity, Evers
captures the powerful emotions of family life: joy, fear,
vulnerability, duty, betrayal, loss, anger, and unconditional love.
While his characters often feel more than they can express, they
are in the hands of a masterful story teller who gives time to what
might otherwise seem incidental. Your Father Sends His Love is a
powerful, haunting, and deeply felt work about the most important
relationships we will ever know.
Eight authors were given after hours freedom at their chosen
English heritage site. Immersed in the history, atmosphere and
rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into
a series of extraordinary new ghost stories. Sarah Perry's intense
tale of possession at the Jacobean country house Audley End is a
work of psychological terror, while Andrew Michael Hurley's story
brings an unforgettably shocking slant to the history of Carlisle
Castle. Within the walls of these historic buildings each author
has found inspiration to deliver a new interpretation of the
classic ghost story. Relish the imagined terrors at these
exhilarating locations: Kate Clanchy, Housesteads Roman Fort |
Stuart Evers, Dover Castle | Mark Haddon, York Cold War Bunker |
Andrew Michael Hurley, Carlisle Castle | Sarah Perry, Audley End |
Max Porter Eltham Palace | Kamila Shamsie, Kenilworth Castle |
Jeanette Winterson, Pendennis Castle
This title features ten stories of allure, betrayal, nostalgia,
solitude, seduction, damage, desire and loss; of silence broken by
the click of a lighter; insomnia defined by a glowing ember; a
magician's trick; a lover's scent; and, a final wish. These are
stories that go to the heart of things. 'In this remarkable
collection, Stuart Evers winds a course through worlds of yearning,
secrets and mortification in prose as lithe as a ribbon of smoke' -
Wells Tower. 'Love, loss and recovery are the real themes of these
quiet, haunting stories, which add up into an unexpectedly powerful
book. An impressive debut' - Aravind Adiga. 'Evers has found
possibility in even the bleakest and smallest of lives, with each
delicately linked not only by a cigarette but also by a glimpse
into how terrifyingly empty a life can be' - David Vann. 'With
powerfully understated writing, Evers has an eye for the humor that
lives alongside sadness, and above all for the humanity in the
smallest of actions' - Evie Wyld.
Shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award 2021 'The Blind Light reads
like a British Don DeLillo, telling the social history of Britain
through two generations of a family.' - Alex Preston, Observer 'A
powerful and affecting novel' - Jim Crace, author of Harvest In the
late 1950s, during his National Service, Drummond meets the two
people who will change his life: Carter, a rich, educated young man
sent down from Oxford; and Gwen, a barmaid with whom he feels an
instant connection. His feelings for both will be tested at a
military base known as Doom Town - a training ground where
servicemen prepare for the aftermath of an Atomic Strike. It is an
experience that will colour the rest of his - and his family's -
life. Told from the perspectives of Drum and Gwen, and later their
children Nathan and Anneka, The Blind Light moves from the Fifties
through to the present day, taking in the global and local events
that will shape and define them all. From the Cuban Missile Crisis
to the War on Terror, from the Dagenham strikes to Foot and Mouth,
from Skiffle to Rave, we see a family come together, driven apart,
fracture and reform - as the pressure of the past is brought,
sometimes violently, to bear on the present. The Blind Light is a
powerful, ambitious, big yet intimate story of our national past
and a brilliant evocation of a family and a country. It will remind
you how complicated human history is - and how hard it is to do the
right thing for the right reasons.
Mark Wilkinson has three names. He left his own behind in the rainy
north of England. U.S. immigration know him as Joe Novak. And at
the Valhalla, the mysterious complex in Vegas where he sells lofty
ambition and dark desires, he goes by Mr Jones. Since the age of
eighteen, Mark has been running away, and hard. Away from
everything that is flat and dull and ordinary: his market town.
Away from disappointment: his vanished mother, his broken father.
And away from heartbreak. Bethany Wilder, beautiful goth, carnival
queen, partner in dreams, tragic ghost, never made it with him to
America. He's thirty now and again it's time to flee - in the
opposite direction, towards home. With shades of JG Ballard,
Murakami, and Joseph O'Neill, this is an inventive and emotional
novel about the power of dreams to destroy, of memory to distort,
and of courage, ultimately, to heal.
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Transit (Paperback)
Anna Seghers; Translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo; Introduction by Stuart Evers
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R250
R198
Discovery Miles 1 980
Save R52 (21%)
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Ships in 3 - 5 working days
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INTRODUCED BY STUART EVERS: 'A genuine, fully fledged masterpiece
of the twentieth century; one that remains just as terrifyingly
relevant and truthful in the twenty-first' An existential,
political, literary thriller first published in 1944, Transit
explores the plight of the refugee with extraordinary compassion
and insight. Having escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in
Germany and a work camp in Rouen, the nameless narrator finds
himself in the dusty seaport of Marseille. Along the way he was
asked to deliver a letter to Weidel, a writer in Paris whom he
discovered had killed himself as the Nazis entered the city. Now he
is in search of the dead man's wife. He carries Weidel's suitcase,
which contains an unfinished novel - and a letter securing Weidel a
visa to escape France. Assuming the name Seidler - though the
authorities think he is in fact Weidel - he goes from cafe to cafe
looking for Marie, who is in turn anxiously searching for her
husband. As Seidler converses with refugees over pizza and wine,
their stories gradually break down his ennui, bringing him a deeper
awareness of the transitory world they inhabit as they wait and
wait for that most precious of possessions: transit papers. 'This
novel, completed in 1942, is in my opinion the most beautiful
Seghers has written . . . almost flawless' - Heinrich Boll
Short Circuit fills a real gap in the text book market. Written by
24 prizewinning writers and teachers of writing, this book is
intensely practical. Each expert discusses necessary craft issues:
their own writing processes, sharing tried and tested writing
exercises and lists of published work they find inspirational.
Endorsed by The National Association of Writers in Education, it
became recommended or required reading for Creative Writing courses
in the UK and beyond, including Goldsmiths, The University of Kent
at Canterbury, Glasgow University, John Cabot University in Rome,
Stockholm University in Sweden, Sussex University, Brighton
University, Edge Hill University, Chichester University, The
National University of Ireland in Galway, and University Campus
Suffolk, at Ipswich.
Whatever happened to British protest? For a nation that brought the
world Chartism, the Suffragettes, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and so
many other grassroots social movements, Britain rarely celebrates
its long, great tradition of people power. In this timely and
evocative collection, twenty authors have assembled to re-imagine
key moments of British protest, from the Peasants' Revolt of 1381
to the anti-Iraq War demo of 2003. Written in close consultation
with historians, sociologists and eyewitnesses - who also
contribute afterwords - these stories follow fictional characters
caught up in real-life struggles, offering a streetlevel
perspective on the noble art of resistance. In the age of fake news
and post-truth politics this book fights fiction with (well
researched, historically accurate) fiction.
The second in a brand-new series of annual anthologies, "The Best
British Short Stories 2012" reprints the cream of short fiction, by
British writers, first published in 2011. These stories first
appeared in magazines from "Ambit" to "Granta," in anthologies
across various genres from publishers big and small, and in
authors' own short story collections. They were broadcast on radio
and delivered by mobile phone app. They appeared online at
"Metazen" and "Paraxis."
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