Alan Garner - Böcker

From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker and the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize-winning classic, The Owl Service Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David, four Manchester children, are led into Elidor, a twilight world almost destroyed by fear and darkness.On a gloomy day in Manchester, Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David are lured into a ruined church, where the fabric of time and place is weak enough to allow them into the twilight world of Elidor. It is a place almost destroyed by fear and darkness, and the children are charged with guarding its Treasures while a way is sought to save the dying land.Then the evil forces find a path through to this world…This new edition of Alan Garner’s classic includes a special “Why You’ll Love This Book” introduction from bestselling author, Jonathan Stroud.

‘I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration’ PHILIP PULLMAN ‘Entrancing … a creative manifesto’ TELEGRAPH ‘Mesmerising … vibrating with life and curiosity’OBSERVER In this lyrical and revelatory memoir, Alan Garner, Booker shortlisted author of Treacle Walker, traces the line of his life: from a working-class childhood in the landscape of Cheshire during World War II, through a grammar school education and on to the University of Oxford, and then home to see if he could become what he most desired: a writer.We see the serendipitous moments that drove his course, from coming-of-age in a period of great cultural change, to crossing paths with a famous mathematician while out long-distance running, to the fateful day he chanced across Blackden, the medieval hall, miraculously located next to the giant telescope at Jodrell Bank, that was to become his lasting home and the setting for Treacle Walker.As Garner tells us, a lifetime of working with a pen produces the powsels and thrums of research, imagination and story. These oddments can be shaped into something more than its parts: a vivid tapestry of a creative life that will inspire any reader, and what a celebration it is. ‘Advice is practical as well as profound … Garner is a magus. Read him’ Guardian ‘Offers a remarkable window into Garner’s mind and heart … Garner’s prose is as clear as glass’ Spectator ‘A creative manifesto … We are all the richer for it’ Byline Times

From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker and the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize-winning classic, The Owl Service A disturbing exploration of the inevitability of life.Under Orion’s stars, bluesilver visions torment Tom, Macey and Thomas as they struggle with age-old forces. Distanced from each other in time, and isolated from those they live among, they are yet inextricably bound together by the sacred power of the moon’s axe and each seek their own refuge at Mow Cop.Can those they love so intensely keep them clinging to reality? Or is the future evermore destined to reflect the past?

From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker and the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize-winning classic, The Owl Service Enthralling sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.It is the Eve of Gomrath – the night of the year when the Old Magic is aroused. Had Colin and Susan known this, they would never have lighted a fire on the Beacon, thereby releasing the uncontrollable ferocity of the Wild Hunt. Soon they are inextricably caught up in the struggle between their friend, the Wizard Cadellin, and the evil Morrigan.The strength of their courage will determine whether or not they survive the awaiting ordeal…

From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker Winner of both the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, this is an all-time classic, combining mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships. Featuring a new introduction by Philip Pullman.It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to effect everybody’s lives.Relentlessly, Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend – a modern drama played out against a background of ancient jealousies. As the tension mounts, it becomes apparent that only by accepting and facing the situation can it be resolved.

From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker and the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize-winning classic, The Owl Service Stunning new CollinsVoyager edition of Alan Garner’s collection of folklore.Boggarts and gowks, fools and hobgoblins are only some of the strange and wonderful creatures in A Bag of Moonshine – a veritable treasure trove of stories chosen from the folklore of England and Wales.There are 22 tales in all, beautifully illustrated in black and whitel by prize-winning illustrator Patrick Lynch.

A classic work of rural magic realism from one of Britain’s greatest children’s novelists.Through four interconnected fables of a way of living in rural England that has now disappeared, Alan Garner vividly brings to life a landscape situated on the outskirts of industrial Manchester.Smiths and chandlers, steeplejacks and quarrymen, labourers and artisans all live and work hand in hand with the seasons, the elements, and the land. There is a mutual respect and a knowledge of the magical here that has somehow, somewhere been lost to us. These fables beautifully recapture and restore that lost world in simple, searching prose.

From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker and the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize-winning classic, The Owl Service The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is one of the greatest fantasy novels of all time.When Colin and Susan are pursued by eerie creatures across Alderley Edge, they are saved by the Wizard. He takes them into the caves of Fundindelve, where he watches over the enchanted sleep of one hundred and forty knights.But the heart of the magic that binds them – Firefrost, also known as the Weirdstone of Brisingamen – has been lost. The Wizard has been searching for the stone for more than 100 years, but the forces of evil are closing in, determined to possess and destroy its special power.Colin and Susan realise at last that they are the key to the Weirdstone’s return. But how can two children defeat the Morrigan and her deadly brood?

The crowning achievement of an astonishing career, ‘Boneland’ concludes the story that began over fifty years ago in ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’.If the sleeper wakes, the dream dies…Professor Colin Whisterfield spends his days at Jodrell Bank, using the radio telescope to look for his lost sister in the Pleiades. At the same time, and in another time, the Watcher cuts the rock and dances, to keep the sky above the earth and the stars flying.Colin can’t remember; and he remembers too much. Before the age of twelve years and nine months is a blank. After that he recalls everything: where he was, what he was doing, in every minute of every hour of every day.But Colin will have to remember what happened when he was twelve, if he wants to find his sister. And the Watcher will have to find the Woman. Otherwise the skies will fall, and there will be only winter, wanderers and moon…

A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR From one of our greatest living writers, comes a remarkable memoir of a forgotten England. 'The war went. We sang in the playground, "Bikini lagoon, an atom bomb’s boom, and two big explosions." David’s father came back from Burma and didn’t eat rice. Twiggy taught by reciting “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and the thirteen times table. Twiggy was fat and short and he shouted, and his neck was as wide as his head. He was a bully, though he didn’t take any notice of me.’ In Where Shall We Run To?, Alan Garner remembers his early childhood in the Cheshire village of Alderley Edge: life at the village school as ‘a sissy and a mardy-arse'; pushing his friend Harold into a clump of nettles to test the truth of dock leaves; his father joining the army to guard the family against Hitler; the coming of the Yanks, with their comics and sweets and chewing gum. From one of our greatest living writers, it is a remarkable and evocative memoir of a vanished England.

‘Playful, moving and wholly remarkable’ Guardian‘A small miracle’ New Statesman‘Mastery of craft, resonance and deep feeling on every page’ TelegraphAn introspective young boy, Joseph Coppock squints at the world with his lazy eye. Living alone in an old house, he reads comics, collects birds’ eggs and plays with his marbles. When, one day, a rag-and-bone man called Treacle Walker appears, exchanging an empty jar of a cure-all medicine and a donkey stone for a pair of Joseph's pyjamas and a lamb's shoulder blade, a mysterious friendship develops between them.A fusion of myth, magic and the stories we make for ourselves, Treacle Walker is an extraordinary novel from one of our greatest living writers. ‘All the exuberance and eccentricity, all the deep thought and resounding mythology of [Garner’s] best work’ Observer ‘Spare and allusive… luminous and understated’ Rowan Williams, New Statesman ‘Cryptic, evocative, sparely told and deceptively simple’ Carolyne Larrington, TLS A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR • A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR • A GUARDIAN BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2021

From the author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker and the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize-winning classic, The Owl Service The definitive collection of traditional folk tales, selected and retold by the renowned Alan Garner.A collection of Alan’s folk tales, told with his unique storytelling skill and inimitably clear voice. Essential reading for young and old alike.Among the stories collected here are:• Kate Crackernuts• Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree• Yallery Brown

A collection of writings by the author of the 2022 Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker 'His work has a symphonic quality unique in fiction'THE TIMES ‘The autobiography of one of the most distinct and profound writers we have’GUARDIAN In this rich collection of writings, spanning more than twenty years, Alan Garner, the Booker shortlisted author of Treacle Walker, explores his interest in a dazzling range of subjects; from archaeology, myth and language, to education, literature, film, music and philosophy, as well as mental health and our most profound quest for the spiritual.The Voice That Thunders serves as an early poetic autobiography of one of England's best-loved but least public writers. These essays chart how, after hearing himself declared dead at the age of six, he went on to become the writer he is today: one drawing on the deep well of a rural working-class childhood and one inspired by a family of craftsmen who instilled in him the passion for excellence and innovation and humour that guides him to this day.Candid and illuminating, The Voice That Thunders is an enchanting collection from one of Britain’s greatest living writers. ‘A brilliant collection of essays’ INDEPENDENT

A captivating novel by the author of the 2022 Booker Prize-shortlisted Treacle Walker Based on a true story, Strandloper tells the incredible tale of a nineteenth-century Englishman, William Buckley, who was convicted and transported to Australia. Refusing to accept his fate he escaped and lived among Indigenous Australians for thirty years.In this visionary novel, Alan Garner is as true to William the Cheshire bricklayer and William the spiritual leader, as William is true to his fate. The result is extraordinary.

‘I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration’ PHILIP PULLMAN ‘Entrancing … a creative manifesto’ TELEGRAPH ‘Mesmerising … vibrating with life and curiosity’OBSERVER In this lyrical and revelatory memoir, Alan Garner, Booker shortlisted author of Treacle Walker, traces the line of his life: from a working-class childhood in the landscape of Cheshire during World War II, through a grammar school education and on to the University of Oxford, and then home to see if he could become what he most desired: a writer.We see the serendipitous moments that drove his course, from coming-of-age in a period of great cultural change, to crossing paths with a famous mathematician while out long-distance running, to the fateful day he chanced across Blackden, the medieval hall, miraculously located next to the giant telescope at Jodrell Bank, that was to become his lasting home and the setting for Treacle Walker.As Garner tells us, a lifetime of working with a pen produces the powsels and thrums of research, imagination and story. These oddments can be shaped into something more than its parts: a vivid tapestry of a creative life that will inspire any reader, and what a celebration it is. ‘Advice is practical as well as profound … Garner is a magus. Read him’ Guardian ‘Offers a remarkable window into Garner’s mind and heart … Garner’s prose is as clear as glass’ Spectator ‘A creative manifesto … We are all the richer for it’ Byline Times

A gripping time-slip novel by the author of the 2022 Booker Prize-longlisted Treacle WalkerHere John Turner was cast away in a heavy snow storm in the night in or about the year 1755. The print of a woman's shoe was found by his side in the snow where he lay dead. So reads an enigmatic memorial stone, high on the bank of a prehistoric Pennine track in Cheshire, a mystery that lives on in the surrounding hill farms. John Turner was a packman. With his train of horses he carried salt and silk, travelling distances incomprehensible to his community. John brought ideas as well as gifts, from market town to market town, from places as distant as the campfires of the Silk Road.In the twenty-first century, two hundred and fifty years after John's life, Ian and Sal's world resounds with the echo John's death. Walking on the moor one day they slip between time and are lost somewhere between Jack's vanished world and their own. This poetic, fantastical novel is is an evocation of the lives and the language of all people who are called to the valley of Thursbitch.'Eerie and immaculately written' Olivia Laing, Observer

In The Lobster's Birthday and Other Stories, discover what happens when you wake up thirsty in the middle of the night. How do you play a trick on the most insufferable boy in the village, while helping out Aunt Arabelle at the same time? What would you do on your birthday if you were a lobster? Find out when you join Harriet, Just William, and Harold and Gloria in this comical collection of short stories.Chucklers is a series of funny novels, short stories, anthologies and comics that make reading a pleasure for 7-11 year olds. There is something for everyone in this varied collection which is packed with fantastic illustrations.Books contain inside cover notes to support children in their reading. Help with children's reading development also available at www.oxfordowl.co.uk.The series is written by top children's authors and edited by award-winning author Jeremy Strong. The books are finely levelled, making it easy to match every child to the right book.