Originally published in 1999, The Haunt, set in a seedy, decaying hotel on the Cornish coast, was to be the final entry in A.L. Barker's brilliant fifty-year writing career.'The Haunt is the novel that A. L. Barker had just finished [in 1998] when she was struck down by a disabling illness... [It] is probably her best... It is an examination of what being haunted means, and whether we can do anything about it. Auden once said that there is nothing to be done about it. We must sit it out. This is grim advice. But if A. L. Barker is saying this too - and I think she is - she doesn't say it grimly. She says it lightly, not cynically but hilariously. She understands that there can be pleasure alongside unease: the delicious first stirrings of infidelity, the comforts of offered love to the old and ridiculous. She knows us all.' Jane Gardam,Spectator Views: 31
INCLUDES THE THREE BEST GHOST STORIES EVER Who among us, lying in bed at night, listening to the noises of the house – that creak in the stairs, the clock ticking away in the empty hall – has not experienced a momentary chill, that first tremor of fear? What is it about Britain, asks Andrew Martin, that makes it such a fitting playground for the supernatural? We are, it seems, a nation primed for ghostliness; our history, our landscape, our very climate are inherently eerie. In Ghoul Britannia, Martin takes a wry look at our haunted isle, goes to cursed houses, talks to psychics and believers, and studies exorcisms. He asks why some ghosts appear in libraries and others at the end of the bed, what ghosts like to wear, and whether you should feel nervous on a foggy, moonlit night... In this engrossing new book, Martin searches out the dark corners of our subconscious in an attempt to explain our most deep-seated fears – why, despite famously being a nation of... Views: 29
Tom Teal and Albert Barnes are government employees tasked with visiting a hard-to-reach house and convincing its inhabitant, a member of the Zarene family that controls the whole valley, that a large dam project is a good idea. But the Zarenes have their own way of doing things, and they don't take kindly to outsiders...At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied. Views: 29
'An extraordinary achievement.' A. S. ByattJohn Brown's Body, first published in 1969, was A.L. Barker's fourth novel and was shortlisted for the second annual Booker Prize in 1970.Marise Tomelty is the young wife of a travelling salesman, who dislikes sex and is terrified of open spaces. Ralph Shilling, a dealer in pesticides, lives in the flat above the Tomeltys'. One day Marise's husband casually mentions that he recognizes Ralph as John Brown: a man acquitted, for lack of evidence, of the gruesome double murder of two sisters. Nevertheless, Marise encourages Ralph's attentions, intoxicated by a heady mix of passion and fear.'She is formidable, and from a bare corner of human relations gathers a rich harvest.' Adam Mars-Jones'It would be hard to find anyone who chooses words more exactly or constructs with more precision.' Penelope Fitzgerald Views: 28
After his widely celebrated debut, Mr. Peanut, Adam Ross now presents a darkly compelling collection of stories about brothers, loners, lovers, and lives full of good intentions, misunderstandings, and obscured motives.A hotshot lawyer, burdened by years of guilt and resentment, comes to the rescue of his irresponsible, irresistible younger brother. An unsettling story resonates between the dysfunctional couple telling it and their listening friends as well. A lonely professor, frequently regaled with unbelievably entertaining tales by the office handyman, suddenly fears he’s being asked to abet a murderous fugitive. An awkward but nervy adolescent uses his brief career as a child actor to further his designs on a WASPy friend’s seemingly untouchable sister. A man down on his luck closes in on a mysterious, much-needed job offer while doing a good turn for his fragile neighbor, with results at once surreal and hilarious. And when two college kids goad each other on in an escalating series of breathtaking dares, the outcome is as tragic as it is ambiguous.Laced with glimmers of redemption, youthful energy, and hard-won wisdom, these noirish stories unspool purposefully and fluidly; together they confirm the arrival of—as Michiko Kakutani put it in The New York Times—“an enormously talented writer.” Views: 24
"What a debut! Early Work is one of the wittiest, wisest (sometimes silliest, in the best sense), and bravest novels about wrestling with the early stages of life and love, of creative and destructive urges, I've read in a while. The angst of the young and reasonably comfortable isn't always pretty, but Andrew Martin possesses the prose magic to make it hilarious, illuminating, moving." —Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask and The Fun PartsFor young writers of a certain temperament—if they haven't had such notions beaten out of them by MFA programs and the Internet—the delusion persists that great writing must be sought in what W. B. Yeats once called the "foul rag and bone shop of the heart." That's where Peter Cunningham has been looking for inspiration for his novel—that is, when he isn't teaching at the local women's prison, walking his dog, getting high, and wondering whether it's time to tie the knot with his college... Views: 24
A Vomit of Diamonds follows Balzac Bouchard, a first year student at the ANU, whose violent curiosity and natural interest in astronomy motivates him to apply for astro camp; a one-week event awarded to ten select candidates. Views: 24
Tracy Farr's debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt: musician, octogenarian, junkie. Documentary filmmaker Mo Patterson approaches veteran musician Lena Gaunt after watching her play at a festival in Perth: her first performance in 20 years. While initially suspicious of Mo's intentions and reluctant to have her privacy invaded, Lena finds herself sharing stories from her past. Views: 22
