A pair of novellas, set over two pivotal summers in the lives of two young men from Belfast, recall the constraints of the place where they were born and the times in which they are living. Capturing the innocence of adolescent boys, their passion, confusion and yearning, Two Summers is for anyone who has ever been young.Â
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Although this was Thomas's only play, it is the culmination of his most spontaneous talents, combining the lyricism of the poems, the fantasy of the early tales, the comic realism of the short stories, and the scenic techniques of the filmscripts. -
Utopia Avenue might be the most curious British band you've never heard of. Emerging from London's psychedelic scene in 1967, folksinger Elf Holloway, blues bassist Dean Moss, guitar virtuoso Jasper de Zoet and jazz drummer Griff Griffin together created a unique sound, with lyrics that captured their turbulent times. The band produced only two albums in two years, yet their musical legacy lives on. This is the story of Utopia Avenue's brief, blazing journey from Soho clubs and draughty ballrooms to the promised land of America, just when the Summer of Love was receding into something much darker - a multi-faceted tale of dreams, drugs, love, sexuality, madness and grief; of stardom's wobbly ladder and fame's Faustian pact; and of the collision between youthful idealism and jaded reality as the Sixties drew to a close. -
Villages are full of tales: some are forgotten while others become a part of local folklore. But the fortunes of one West Country village are watched over and irreversibly etched into its history as an omniscient, somewhat crabby, presence keeps track of village life. In the late sixties a Californian musician blows through Underhill where he writes a set of haunting folk songs that will earn him a group of obsessive fans and a cult following. Two decades later, a couple of teenagers disturb a body on the local golf course. In 2019, a pair of lodgers discover a one-eyed rag doll hidden in the walls of their crumbling and neglected home. Connections are forged and broken across generations, but only the landscape itself can link them together. A landscape threatened by property development and superfast train corridors and speckled by the pylons whose feet have been buried across the moor. -
A spectacularly daring and original novel of our times, of the culture wars and cancel culture, Vladimir explores issues of sex, gender, power, and desire from its own unique perspective. -
In her second collection, Claire Keegan observes an Ireland wrestling with its past, and it is against this landscape that the stories so beautifully articulate all the yearnings of the human heart. -
WAY OUT WESTÂ is a gentle coming-of-age story that will enthral with its texture and world-building, the many delicately and affectionately observed characters and its subtle reflections on trauma, loss and a hope that somehow renews.
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Ben Brennan, is 17, gay, and happy most of the time. He's finished school and is on track to a great career - all that's missing is falling in love. Can Ben navigate the pitfalls of modern gay dating, with all its expectations, and be true to himself?
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Five toasts. Five people. One lifetime. Tonight will be the most important night in the life of 84-year-old Maurice Hannigan. Over the course of one evening, at the bar of the Rainsford House Hotel in Ireland, he will raise five toasts to five different people. All five changed him, in their own way, and all five are now gone. Tonight, he will finally lay bare his own life, with all its loves and triumphs, regrets and tragedies. And before the sun comes up, he must work out how his story ends. -
How long can you protect your heart? For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens. -
Discover how to reconnect with the child in you and unlock the transformative power of play to live a more joyful life. Can you remember the utter delight of playing chase, flying a kite, or getting messy with a box of paints? As children, playing is how we make sense of the world and our place in it. Why then, as adults, do we forget how to play? Drawing on over twenty years of neuroscientific research and clinical practice, psychotherapist Joanna Fortune has discovered that play is central to the human experience - and is the key to living a happier, joyful life. -
As Ballina prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer, Cillian English, and County Mayo's fraternal enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum. When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night he finds Doll - Cillian's bruised, sullen, teenage brother - in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins, goaded by his dead mother's dog and struck by spinning lights, Dev is unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina. -
Sifting through memories, simple scenes nestled into one another like her own beloved wooden doll, the Matryoshka, Maja struggles to unearth her identity. She is marked by a lingering absence - of homeland, mother tongue, mother, warmth. Raised in an unfamiliar country by her taciturn aunt, Maja has brief moments of connection with her fading past such as through her childhood friendship with Marek, a Polish refugee with his own stories of love and loss in the face of war and displacement. An adult Maja finds herself again and again on the outside of her relationships with others, and with herself. This poetic, yet unadorned, account invites an open-ended exploration of the relationship between language and identity. -
Winner of the Man Booker Prize
The first book in Hilary Mantel's award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, with a new cover design to celebrate the publication of the much anticipated The Mirror and the Light
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This is no ordinary apocalypse...
Hannah wakes up to silence. The entire city around her is empty, except for one other person: Leo.Â
Together, they search for answers amid crushing isolation. But while their empty world may appear harmless, it's not. Perfect for fans of John Green.
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A new love, a secret sister, and a summer she'll never forget . . . -
A powerful and heart-rending novel, set in 80s Glasgow, from Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize- and British Book Award-winning author of Shuggie Bain. -
Youth dives into the lives of four teenagers in Ireland's most diverse town, Balbriggan. Isolated and disorientated by the white noise and seemingly insurmountable expectations of adolescence, our protagonists are desperate to find anything that helps them belong.
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Former rock singer Hollis Henry has lost money in the crash, which means she can't turn down the offer of a job from Hubertus Bigend, sinister proprietor of a mysterious ad agency. Ex-addict Milgrim is working for Bigend too. So together Hollis and Milgrim are at the forefront of his attempts to get a slice of the military budget. -
Troubleshooter and environmentalist, Sangaman Taylor has his work cut out exposing contaminators and embarrassing powerful corporations. Now he has to worry about being chased by the FBI, the Mafia, and a group of satanists.