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Canongate
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Set in contemporary Glasgow, The Cutting Room is narrated by Rilke, one of the most engaging, flawed and hedonistic fictional creation of recent years. When this dissolute and promiscuous auctioneer comes upon a hidden collection of violent, and highly disturbing, erotic photographs, he feels compelled to unearth more about the deceased owner who coveted them. What follows is a compulsive journey of discovery, decadence and deviousness. |
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Young Jaffy Brown never expects to escape the slums of Victorian London. Then, aged eight, a chance encounter with Mr Jamrach changes Jaffy's stars. And before he knows it, he finds himself at the docks waving goodbye to his beloved Ishbel and boarding a ship bound for the Indian Ocean. With his friend Tim at his side, Jaffy's journey will push faith, love and friendship to their utmost limits. |
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This is a brilliant new collection of stories from the Nobel Prize-winning author, available for the first time in English. Written in the years between Solzhenitsyn's return from exile to Russia in 1994, and his death in 2008, they confirm the author's position as not only a visionary political commentator but also as a true literary giant. APRICOT JAM AND OTHER STORIES presents a series of astonishing portraits of a Soviet and Russian life across the twentieth century. In 'The New Generation', a professor promotes a student purely out of good will. Years later, the same professor finds himself arrested and, in a striking twist of fate, his student becomes his interrogator. In 'Nastenka', two young women with the same name lead routine, ordered lives — until the Revolution exacts radical change on them both. Through their unforgettable cast of military commanders, imprisoned activists and displaced families, these stories play out the moral dilemmas and ideological conflicts that defined the century. The most eloquent and acclaimed opponent of government oppression, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, and his work continues to receive international acclaim. |
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Simon's Cat is now bite-sized! A pocket-sized collection of food-themed Simon's Cat cartoons, these adorable snapshots of life with a very demanding cat are selected from the first two Simon's Cat books, with 10 brand new cartoons. In full color for the very first time, the YouTube sensation is back on the page—only smaller and cuter. This cat will do anything to be fed. |
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This autumn Canongate invites you to join Howard Moon, Vince Noir, Naboo, Bollo, Bob Fossil, Old Gregg, the Moon, and all your other favourite characters on a unique journey in to the world of The Mighty Boosh. Incredibly funny, visually dynamic, surreal, musical, wildly creative... The Mighty Boosh is unlike anything else on British television, and this beautifully illustrated Christmas humour book promises to be the same. |
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I loved an anthropologist. She went to Mongolia to study the gays. At first she kept their culture at arm's length, but eventually she decided that her fieldwork would benefit from assimilation. She worked hard to become as much like them as possible, and gradually she was accepted. After a while she ended our romance by letter. It breaks my heart to think of her herding those yaks in the freezing hills, the peak of her leather cap shielding her eyes from the driving wind, her wrist dangling away, and nothing but a handlebar moustache to keep her top lip warm. |
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«Why did London Underground once employed a one-legged man to ride up and down the escalators at Earl's Court tube station? What did Hitler plan to do with Nelson's Column? Why is London's only medieval mummy a prostitute named Clarice la Claterballock? How did a beer flood in Tottenham Court Road drown nine people? Where can you see a pair of Queen Victoria's knickers? Containing chapters covering London past and present; buildings and streets; famous and unexpected Londoners; arts, literature and crime; plus much much more, the 180 lists will amaze, amuse and inform. More than simply a keepsake for tourists — every self-respecting Londoner needs this book. «If you do not want to live among wicked people, do not live in London».» |
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Step into Victorian London and meet our heroine, Sugar — a young woman trying to drag herself up from the gutter any way she can — and the host of unforgettable characters that make up her world. |
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The Death of Bunny Munro recounts the last journey of a salesman in search of a soul. Following the suicide of his wife, Bunny, a door-to-door salesman and lothario, takes his son on a trip along the south coast of England. He is about to discover that his days are numbered. With a daring hellride of a plot, The Death of Bunny Munro is also a modern morality tale of sorts, a stylish, furious, funny, truthful and tender account of one man's descent and judgement. The novel is full of the linguistic verve that has made Cave one of the world's most respected lyricists. It is his first novel since the publication of his critically acclaimed debut And the Ass Saw the Angel twenty years ago. |
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If you knew a book was cursed would you read it? When Ariel Manto uncovers a copy of The End of Mr. Y is a second-hand bookshop, she can't believe her eyes. She knows enough about its author, the outlandish Victorian scientist Thomas Lumas, to know that copies are exceedingly rare. And, some say, cursed. With Mr. Y under her arm, Ariel finds herself thrust into a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death and time-travel. |
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This is a story. In this ingenious and spell-binding retelling of the life of Jesus, Philip Pullman revisits the most influential story ever told. Charged with mystery, compassion and enormous power, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ throws fresh light on who Jesus was and asks the reader questions that will continue to resonate long after the final page is turned. For, above all, this book is about how stories become stories. |
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Legendary barfly Charles Bukowski's fourth novel, first published in 1982, is probably the most autobiographical and moving of all his books, dealing in particular with his difficult relationship with his father and his early childhood in LA. Ham on Rye follows the path of Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski through the high school years of acne and rejection and into the beginning of a long and successful career in alcoholism. The novel begins against the backdrop of an America devastated by the Depression and takes the Chinaski legend up to the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Arguably Bukowski's finest novel. |
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Presenting the Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington: Adventurer. Philosopher. Idiot. Karl Pilkington isn't keen on travelling. Given the choice, he'll go on holiday to Devon or Wales or, at a push, eat English food on a package holiday in Majorca. Which isn't exactly Michael Palin, is it? So what happened when he was convinced by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant to go on an epic adventure to see the Seven Wonders of the World? Travel broadens the mind, right? You'd think so... Find out in Karl Pilkington's hilarious travel diaries. He is a moron. A completely round, empty-headed, part-chimp Manc. He'd have been happier in medieval times in a village where you didn't travel beyond the local community. |
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In 1788 Daniel Rooke sets out on a journey that will change the course of his life. As a lieutenant in the First Fleet, he lands on the wild and unknown shores of New South Wales. There he sets up an observatory to chart the stars. But this country will prove far more revelatory than the stars above. Based on real events, The Lieutenant tells the unforgettable story of Rooke's connection with an Aboriginal child — a remarkable friendship that resonates across the oceans and the centuries. |
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«Alice Butler has been receiving some odd messages — all anonymous, all written in code. Are they from someone at PopCo, the profit-hungry corporation she works for? Or from Alice's long lost father? Or has someone else been on her trail? The solution, she is sure, will involve the code-breaking skills she learned from her grandparents and the key she's been wearing round her neck since she was ten. «PopCo» is a grown-up adventure of family secrets, puzzles, big business and the power of numbers.» |
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A man with a tree growing out of his head? A woman with children made of wax? A bird that can be milked? With more stories from his original celebration of African folktales, The Girl Who Married A Lion , let Alexander McCall Smith once again take you to a land where the bizarre is everyday and magic is real. |
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Fans of The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency can now share Alexander McCall Smith with their children An enchanting collection of simple, accessible tales introduced by the author, with integrated hand drawn illustrations High profile marketing campaign promoting both the illustrated children and the adult editions, including national advertising How can a girl possibly have married a lion? How can a man have a tress growing out of his head? And how can a woman have children made of wax? The stories in this collection make these questions seem simple, everyday ones — then supplies simple, everyday answers. Illustrated throughout, these delightful tales will enthrall and captivate children of all ages. |
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The nameless and beautiful narrator of The Gargoyle is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and wakes up in a burns ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned. His life is over — he is now a monster. But in fact it is only just beginning. One day, Marianne Engel, a wild and compelling sculptress of gargoyles, enters his life and tells him that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly burned mercenary and she was a nun and a scribe who nursed him back to health in the famed monastery of Engelthal. As she spins her tale, Scheherazade fashion, and relates equally mesmerising stories of deathless love in Japan, Greenland, Italy and England, he finds himself drawn back to life — and, finally, to love. |
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He wants to go out. She wants to stay in. For some reason, they are best friends. Luke is twenty-five, allergic to the sun and housebound. He's stuck in his bedroom where the world comes to him through TV, the internet and Julie's visits. Julie meanwhile is brilliant, kind and could be changing the world. Unfortunately she is too terrified of aeroplane crashes, road accidents and potentially life-threatening bacteria to leave her home town. When someone contacts Luke and claims that he can cure him, Luke and Julie have to deal with their fears and face the world outside. With four friends, wellies and a homemade space suit, they set off in a VW Camper van, along Britain's B-roads. It is a journey that might just change their lives. |
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By 1910, Leo Tolstoy, the world's most famous author, had become an almost religious figure, surrounded on his lavish estate by family and followers alike. Set in the tumultuous last year of the count's life, The Last Station centres on the battle for his soul waged by his wife and his leading disciple.Torn between his professed doctrine of poverty and chastity on the one hand and the reality of his enormous wealth, his thirteen children, and a life of hedonism on the other, Tolstoy makes a dramatic flight from his home. Too ill to continue beyond the tiny station of Astapovo, he believes he is dying alone, while outside over one hundred newspapermen are awaiting hourly reports on his condition.Narrated in six different voices, including Tolstoy's own from his diaries and literary works, The Last Station is a richly inventive novel that dances bewitchingly between fact and fiction. |
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