Constellations Press – förlag

Dr Heidi Edmundson is an Emergency Medicine consultant at a London hospital. Belly Full is a forthright and unflinching account of the ill-health of the NHS in general and Emergency Medicine services in particular - and a bold record of her own health crisis. It offers a candid view of what it is really like to work on the front line of the nation's health emergency, and the devastating implications for the well-being of our doctors and nurses. The book is also alive to the rewards of living, and to the commitment to a specialism that prizes the incandescent work of decision-making, risk and recovery - values that are at the heart of emergency medicine and, maybe, also at the heart of life.

David Algar draws on psychological analysis, research studies and his own experiences as businessman, husband, son, father and friend to offer the reader different ways of mapping the contested and continually revised terrains of masculinity.The collection examines how men conduct relationships with each other, with women and with their work. It shines a particular light on what happens to masculine identity when it is challenged by political or personal events, the zeitgeist, or the process of ageing. It ranges from serious issues such as loneliness and tribalism through to the impulsive madness that might result in the purchase of, say, a seventeenth-century windmill or a peacock.Reading these essays – funny, thought-provoking, unexpectedly moving and ultimately bonding – is like eavesdropping on the kinds of conversations, both intimate and raucous, that men might have with each other in pubs.

When the gods unite a child of the earth with a child of the sky, a powerful alliance is unleashed, but can it survive betrayal, revenge, love and war? Born into a nomadic tribe in 13th-century Central Asia, Gulzura tends the sheep and dreams of adventure. When she rescues a baby eagle, her life changes completely. She embarks on a perilous quest ordained by the gods, where the fate of her clan lies entirely in her hands. Battling competing loyalties and devastating betrayals, she must fight for freedom, love and vengeance against the tyranny of a life where girls and women have no power or voice. This warm-hearted novel is a compelling tale of self-discovery and female empowerment.

Vulpe Tempest, thwarted in love and disappointed in her hopes to be an artist, has been left in charge of her uncle’s detective agency for the summer. Against the backdrop of a series of murders in which the victims are all mermaids, she takes on what appears to be the simple case of a missing person. To solve the mystery, she must descend into the dark underworld of the City of Light, its rivalries and its disconcerting and fantastical stories. Part detective novel, part ghost story, here the magical and the real are almost indistinguishable. Everything is visible and nothing is as it seems, and Vulpe brings both tenderness and tenacity to the challenges she must face.  This intricately woven tale invites us into a world where instinct delivers as many insights as intellect; where the light is fractured, shattering certainties only to illuminate brilliant hunches, before directing our attention elsewhere, like magic.

After nearly twenty years at the helm of a small winery, Brunello expert Laura Gray here brings together a dazzling range of eclectic knowledge about both city and wine, with an analytic eye for detail and an irreverent attitude to life. Is The Magpie’s Guide to Montalcino a guide-book? Is it a lexicon? A glossary? A wine compendium? It is all of these and more. The format is A-Z but the selection criteria are entirely personal. Expect everything from etymology to cultural observation, historical curiosity to contemporary quirk. Laura’s ability to convey huge amounts of information with levity and wit underpins a deep understanding of the wine, the culture and the quotidian rewards of life in the extraordinary and singular city of Montalcino.

Perfect for lovers of travel, art, cultural wonder and the natural world, The Endurance of Things is a rich and accessible collection of short, affectionate essays, chiefly about the life and culture of Italy. Each essay illuminates a different aspect of the country and stems from the author’s experience of places, paintings and people during half a century’s genial explorations. Autobiographical moments develop into reflections on the nature of history, perception, artistic representation, and the passing of time. Inevitably, literature often underlies these discussions. Fragments of Wordsworth and Wallace Stevens and Philip Larkin find a home here, alongside comments on paintings by Piero della Francesca, Titian and Tiepolo amongst many other artists, together with descriptions of Tuscan village life. Indeed, there is almost nothing that might not find a place in these essays. They revel in the pleasures of miscellany: the portrait and the altarpiece; the ragbag and the jewel box.

Alfie O'Brien, soon to rename himself Bogboy, is born an orphan into a house of dead things, presided over by his imperious, ailing aunt. This is a place where the past won't let the present go, where ghosts confer with the living, and where discovering who you are means coming face to face with some uncomfortable truths. It is a house cursed by shadows, secrets and dynasty.While the wind blows in from the Atlantic across these Irish peatlands, old enmities bite down, and when Bogboy is left for dead, he must learn how to trust love, discover where he belongs, and reconcile himself with his destiny. The ancestors are gathering and Bogboy is about to become a man.An audacious, rousing story of hope and beauty rising out of the dying embers of a corrupt and redundant regime, Bogboy is a story for our times, reminding us that attention to the natural world offers solace and healing, and that love - wherever we may find it - is always stronger than hatred.

Set in South London during the 1970s, Becoming Henry is a sharply observed, big-hearted and brilliantly funny coming-of-age novel. Henry has grand ideas and even grander ambitions. He longs to be recognised - by his family, his peers, and the world - as the comic genius he believes himself to be.Told with emotional precision and wry humour, the story traces Henry's life from his earliest memories in a conventional, emotionally constrained household to the brink of adulthood. Raised in a family where tenderness is elusive and communication often tips into absurdity, Henry finds early refuge in his imagination, music, and books.Adolescence brings contradictions: Henry's idealised sense of himself clashes with a desperate need for connection - particularly romantic or sexual. As he enters his teens, his desire to be desired, combined with a fear of not being enough, results in a phase of anorexia and self-effacement. He lurches from one misjudged crush to another, suffering social humiliations, but also forming deep bonds with other misfit boys who share his anarchic sense of humour.With wit, psychological insight and finesse, the novel explores themes of identity, aspiration, class, and masculinity. It captures the ache of wanting to belong while needing to be seen as different - the longing to be both accepted and exceptional - and the lengths one boy will go to in order to matter.Blending the depth of literary fiction with the accessibility of great storytelling, Becoming Henry is a poignant, funny, and unforgettable portrait of growing up on the fringes.

The Art of the Matter is a montage of memory, meditation and creative migration, centred around the idea that art is where we go to discover the things we don’t yet know. As well as its attention to painting, it also engages with the art of managing grief. It offers the reader a way of looking at endurance, both in terms of resilience and everlastingness. Art prompts a kind of expansion in the chest: we become more human, more curious, more alive when we are in the presence of a really great painting. Focusing on the relationship with her painter father, Claire Steele considers his works as posthumous conversations – dynamic, ongoing and full of mysterious surprises. Almost tactile in its language, The Art of the Matter is rich with surprise and vitality.

David Algar, author of Man Trouble, shines a very particular light on some of the major adjustments required of men as they move from their glory days to their golden years. What happens to identity with the loss of the camaraderie and prestige of the workplace? In an age of bewildering technology and social media, how do men connect with their sense of purpose and each other? Written with his characteristically affectionate sense of humour, this is a celebration of a life still very much in the making – full of spirit and resilience. Algar highlights the gentle satisfaction of doing things not perfectly, but personally. There are plans, half-plans, and happily abandoned plans; there are arduous adventures that take in the length of Britain alongside ill-fated journeys to the chemist; there are meditations on the minutiae of life as well as some of the more serious issues that threaten to undermine men’s well-being. The mix is a kind of lucky dip: sincere man-talk for the man on the street, which opens up a space for vulnerability, alongside hilarious accounts of small mishaps that turn into great stories. Full of warmth, wit and a good dose of British charm, this is a great accompaniment for any journey – where every essay prompts a new insight or resolution… or at least justifies a well-earned pint with your mates.

Vulpe Tempest – quirky and clever art student and trainee detective – returns to the City of Light to investigate her next case. She embarks upon a series of journeys that intersect in ways both inevitable and shocking.Blurring the distinctions between ghost story and detective fiction, Flight of Fancy plots a fine line between the real and the imagined. Vulpe experiences life as a series of mysteries, filled with half-understood connotations and allusions. The crime she must unravel unfolds in ways both haunting and beguiling, calling into question the whole moral landscape of the novel.In this powerful exploration of the consolations and challenges of love, where Vulpe must wrestle with the conflicting provocations of conscience and temptation, even the houses have stories to tell.

When Cora inherits a house in rural County Down from a grandmother she never knew, she steps into a family history shaped by absence, silence, and restraint. Ballybrae House is both shelter and a place of renewal, holding the imprints of those who came before and the hope of something new. Told through the shifting perspectives of three women across generations, Familiar follows Annie as she approaches death and discovers unexpected freedom in letting go; Joyce, her daughter, almost mute with grief, who finds liberation in Cora's arrival; and Cora, who must learn to inhabit a place - and a past - that was deliberately withheld from her, and find the courage to begin again.Familiar is a story about belonging and the uneasy intimacy of family, asking what it means to survive within inherited structures - and how, at moments of rupture, those structures might be remade.