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Obsessed with finding the last great unifying theory of the 20th century, Doctor Darren White loses his job, and most of his sanity, only to find a new obsession in a cheap computer full of surprises.

You wouldn't expect to find a mature woman of twenty-eight years of age mixed up with a bunch of swingers in a small town like Barntrosna. But that's exactly what happened according to Walter Bunyan. And he should know, she was his wife. As for Declan Coyningham - there wasn't a holier boy in all of Barntrosna - you couldn't move in town without finding a bit of him in your path or under a hedge. And what exactly did come over Noreen Tiernan that made her shriek to wake the dead as she left the...

It's all go in the little oasis of nature that lies at the heart of Palmers Green, in this stirring tale of surrealism and subterfuge among the shrubbery 'A clever and quirky tale...You'll find Nicola Barker's writing as easy to swallow as a glass of milk.' Cosmopolitan Small Holdings is set in an attractive park in north London. The protagonists are Phil, a chronically shy gardener; Doug, his imposing and unpredictable supervisor; and a malevolent one-legged ex-museum curator called Saleem....

Iolanthe has an extraordinary family: eccentric, chaotic and bursting with life and warmth. Waifs and strays (children or animal) are always welcomed, and while her father charms them, it is her kind and gentle mother who they inevitably fall in love with and never want to leave. Agata, their Polish neighbour, arrives uninvited one evening and quickly becomes a permanent part of the family, dispensing advice and looking after their increasingly fragile mother. Then Carol arrives, more in need of...

"Tired of gathering banal quotes from the B-list on the sidelines of the red carpet. Emma Swanson publicly yearns for a more substantial career but privately dreams of a hot shot boyfriend to transport her into the beating heart of the Hollywood scene. Instead she meets Jessica - beautiful, cavalier, manipulative - who shamelessly trades sex for the gifts it can bring. Convinced that writing a story about Jessica and her ilk would seriously boost her journalistic cred, Emma soon finds herself s...

Bruno Dante, aspirant playwright, part-time depressive and long-time drunk has hitch-hiked cross country. Escaping the sunshine, have-a-nice-day culture of LA, for the more cynical climate of New York. He should fit right in. But if there's money for beer he's sure to fuck up. A rut of deadbeat tempting jobs follow. But Dante won't play office politics or kiss ass. So they don't last long. Longer stints as the night manager of a run-down hotel, a window cleaner and, finally, a cabbie, are punctu...

Already hailed and persecuted for its perverse humor and wildly wicked sensibility, Undone is the tour-de-force black comedy by International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Nominee John Colapinto. In modern day America, Dez is a former lawyer and teacher -- an ephebophile with a proclivity for teenage girls, hiding out in a trailer park with his latest conquest, Chloe. Having been in and out of courtrooms (and therapists' offices) for a number of years, Dez is adrift, at odds with a society that pe...

Longlisted for the 2024 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour In this darkly funny debut from Lucie Pagé, characters collide in unexpected ways as they search to create meaning in their lives. A university English sessional teacher searches for his missing blind pit bull, not entirely aware that his relationship is coming unravelled. Katherine, his girlfriend, pays far more attention to her walk-on role in an alternative theatre production. Fourteen-year-old Becca struggles to get her mother...

Presents the tale of a lonely caregiver and a cranky hoarder who tackle notions of forgiveness, independence, sainthood, duty, and connections before dark family secrets are brought to light, revealing the sinister fate of a missing local schoolgirl.

The characters in this extraordinary collection are often - on the surface - depraved, vicious, cowardly and manipulative, but their essential humanity is never undermined. Stereotypes are at once celebrated and destroyed, as the protagonists find themselves on unfamiliar ground: two professors of philosophy turn pugilists; Leith removal men become objects of desire for Hollywood goddesses; God turns Boab Coyle into a house-fly; and in the novella, 'A Smart Cunt', the drug-addled young hero spin...

When his marriage and career fall apart, a young lawyer sets out on a desperate mission to recapture the promise of his youth. His attempt leaves him stranded between a past he no longer recognizes and a life that’s no longer his—and he soon begins to suspect that the surest path to happiness lies in simply giving up. A moving, tragicomic novel about defeat, memory, and the seductive prospect of losing it all.

Grattan Fletcher and Suck Ryle are on the road, risking their dignity and occasionally their lives to renew the civic spirit of Ireland. Grattan is an idealistic, ageing civil servant who has enlisted Ryle, a skeptic prone to violent temper, in a quixotic quest to make a better Irish future for Grattan’s granddaughter. Along the way, they encounter politicians, protesters, and power brokers, some of whom are fascinated and others only flummoxed by Grattan’s wide sympathies and wild philosophical...

When her heart is stolen by a seductive stranger, a young woman is swept away to a house atop a mountain of blood-red clay: a place filled with secrets that will haunt her forever. Between desire and darkness, between mystery and madness, lies the truth behind Crimson Peak. From acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro.

The End centers on five friends in Rio de Janeiro who, nearing the end of their lives, are left with memories - of parties, marriages, divorces, fixations, inhibitions, bad decisions - and the physical indignities of aging. For all of them, successful careers, personal revelations, and Zen serenity are out of the question, blocked by a seemingly insurmountable wall of frustrations. Orbiting around them are a priest questioning his vocation and a cast of complicated women, neglected and embattled...

'"The Engineer Of Human Souls" spins its own story from the torn entrails of Central Europe. Yet what emerges is comedy - clack, grimacing and explosively funny, as peculiarly middle European as the despairing wit of prague's own Franz Kafka' - "Time".