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With contributions by: William Boyd, Candice Carty-Williams, Imtiaz Dharker, Roddy Doyle, Pico Iyer, Robert Macfarlane, Andy Miller, Jackie Morris, Jan Morris, Sisonke Msimang, Dina Nayeri, Chigozie Obioma, Michael Ondaatje, David Pilling, Max Porter, Philip Pullman, Alice Pung, Jancis Robinson, S.F.Said, Madeleine Thien, Salley Vickers, John Wood and Markus Zusak'This story, like so many stories, begins with a gift. The gift, like so many gifts, was a book...' So begins the essay by Robert Macfarlane that inspired this collection.In this cornucopia of an anthology, you will find essays by some of the world's most beloved novelists, nonfiction writers, essayists and poets.'You will see books taking flight in flocks, migrating around the world, landing in people's hearts and changing them for a day or a year or a lifetime.'You will see books sparking wonder or anger; throwing open windows into other languages, other cultures, other minds; causing people to fall in love or to fight for what is right.'And more than anything, over and over again, you will see books and words being given, received and read - and in turn prompting further generosity.'Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of global literacy non-profit, Room to Read, The Gifts of Reading forms inspiring, unforgettable, irresistible proof of the power and necessity of books and reading.Inspired by Robert MacfarlaneCurated by Jennie Orchard

‘A brilliant, one-of-a-kind writer’ DAVID NICHOLLSAt sixty-six, Paula Spencer – mother, grandmother, widow, survivor – is finally living her life.A job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, a man – Joe – with whom she shares what she wants, friends who see her for who she is, and four grown children. Despite its ghosts, Paula has started to push her past aside.That is until Paula’s eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep. Independent, a loving wife and mother, “a success” – Nicola is suddenly determined to leave it all behind.Over the next few days, as Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, they find themselves embracing the bruised but beautiful symmetry of what each means to the other.‘His best yet…full of energy and life’ OBSERVER‘Reading [Paula Spencer’s] voice for the first time sent a pang of recognition through me, followed by love’ ANNE ENRIGHT‘Storytelling genius’ i PAPERA GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2024

From the Booker Prize winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Commitments: the story of an ordinary woman whose extraordinary character will stay with you long after reading.‘He loved me and he beat me. I loved him and I took it. It’s as simple as that’Paula Spencer is thirty-nine, the mother of four and learning to live without Charlo, her violent, abusive husband.Paula’s started drinking more and dreaming more, taking herself back to her contented childhood and audacious teenage years. Everything was better then, not least the music, the soundtrack to her romance with Charlo. As the past floats by and mingles with the present Paula Spencer finds herself coming alive, in all her vulnerability and her strength.‘Roddy Doyle's unsparing examination of a brutal marriage transcends the boundaries of class and nationhood’ The Times

'ENDLESSLY ABSORBING' Mail on Sunday'MASTERPIECE' The Times'RUTHLESS' Daily Telegraph'INCOMPARABLE' Sunday Mirror'SEARINGLY HONEST' The SunThe No.1 bestselling memoir of Roy Keane, former captain of Manchester United and IrelandIn a stunning collaboration with Booker Prize-winning author Roddy Doyle, Roy Keane gives a brutally honest account of his days as a player, the highs and lows of his managerial career and his life as an outspoken ITV pundit.As part of a tiny elite of football players, Roy Keane has had a life like no other. His status as one of football's greatest stars is undisputed, but what of the challenges beyond the pitch? How did he succeed in coming to terms with life as a former Manchester United and Ireland leader and champion, reinventing himself as a manager and then a broadcaster, and cope with the psychological struggles this entailed?THE SECOND HALF blends anecdote and reflection in Roy Keane's inimitable voice. The result is an unforgettable personal odyssey which fearlessly challenges the meaning of success.

A Ghostly Little Book brings you five brand new spooky stories from five of the best writers on the planetFrom Edgar Allan Poe to Charles Dickens, from Shirley Jackson to Toni Morrison, the greatest writers have always been drawn to that ancient, mysterious thing: the haunting.A Ghostly Little Book is a slim, beautiful testament to the enduring appeal of the spook, a landmark collection of specially composed modern ghost stories from Roddy Doyle, Olga Ravn, Eliza Clark, Tom Crewe and Helen Oyeyemi, five of the most acclaimed and exciting authors at work today.With surprising scares and anguished apparitions, with chance encounters, spectral phones and vengeful spirits, these tales chart the many twists and turns the ghost story might take: strange, unsettling, heartwarming, hilarious and, of course, blood-chilling.

Bullfighting moves from classrooms to graveyards, local pubs to bullrings; featuring an array of men at their working day and at rest, taking stock and reliving past glories. Each is concerned with loss in different ways - of their place in the world, of power, virility, love - of the boom days and the Celtic Tiger. Brilliantly observed, funny and moving, the stories in Bullfighting present a new vision of contemporary Ireland, of its woes and triumphs.

Short, sometimes sweet and often strange, here are seven great stories by some of the best writers from around the world...Anne EnrightYoko OgawaDavid SzalayNadifa MohamedAndrey KurkovYael van der Woudenand Roddy DoyleThe Booker Prizes celebrate the world’s best fiction. In this book, Roddy Doyle, who won in 1993, has chosen a range of brilliant stories written by other winners and nominees. Discover short stories that give us whole worlds.A Quick Read for 2026

Meet the Rabbitte family, motley bunch of loveable ne'er-do-wells whose everyday purgatory is rich with hangovers, dogshit and dirty dishes. When the older sister announces her pregnancy, the family are forced to rally together and discover the strangeness of intimacy.But the question remains: which friend of the family is the father of Sharon's child?By the bestselling author of The Commitments, now a long-running West End stage show. 'Unstoppable fun. A big-hearted, big-night out' The Times

FULL OF FIZZ AND VARIETY' Sunday Times'JOLLY GOOD FUN' i Paper'WHIP-SMART' Daily Mail'FUN AND FROLICS FOR THE FESTIVE SEASON' Saga MagazineFEATURING HUGE NAMES FROM LITERATURE, COMEDY AND BEYOND - INCLUDING RODDY DOYLE, FRANK SKINNER AND ALAN TITCHMARSH - THIS ANTHOLOGY OF STORIES REIMAGINES JEEVES AND WOOSTER THROUGH FRESH EYES. The irrepressible duo first appeared on the page in 1915, coming to feature in more than 35 short stories and eleven novels over the course of Wodehouse’s lifetime.Each story in this new collection offers a delightful and original reimagining of the incomparable Bertie Wooster and his gentleman’s gentleman – seeing them journey to the horse races in Paris, solve puzzles at a wartime Bletchley Park, and even transported forward in time to the year 2025.Frank SkinnerRoddy DoyleAlan TitchmarshDominic SandbrookDeborah Frances-WhiteAndrew Hunter MurrayScarlett CurtisJasper FfordeJohn FinnemoreIan MooreWilliam Rayfet HunterFergus CraigJEEVES AGAIN is a joyful celebration of Wodehouse as a much-beloved British literary icon – as well as a timely and entertaining reminder of the lasting impact of his characters on a whole new generation of readers and writers.***HEAR FROM THE WRITERS . . . 'A Wodehouse book is a journey into joy.' RODDY DOYLE, Booker Prize-winning author of PADDY CLARKE HA HA HA'Anybody who has even a vague interest in good writing should read Wodehouse.' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, author and co-host of THE REST IS HISTORY'I simply adore Wodehouse.' ALAN TITCHMARSH MBE, broadcaster and writer'To stumble into the world of Wodehouse is like sinking into a warm bath.' SCARLETT CURTIS, Sunday Times bestselling author of FEMINISTS DON'T WEAR PINK (AND OTHER LIES)'What Wodehouse is still today, just as much as ever, is funny.' JOHN FINNEMORE, creator of CABIN PRESSURE

Key features of this text: How to study the text Author and historical background General and detailed summaries Commentary on themes, structure, characters, language and style Glossaries Test questions and issues to consider Essay writing advice Cultural connections Literary terms Illustrations Colour design

Mary, spöket och resan genom natten är ett sprakande äventyr fyllt av drastisk humor, ömsint vemod, realism och magi. Den har översatts till ett flertal språk, och älskas av både läsare och kritiker. Tolvåriga Mary OHaras kära mormor Emer är döende. Varje kväll besöker Mary henne på sjukhuset och ingenting tyder på att Emer någonsin kommer kunna ta sig därifrån. Men så en dag dyker en mystisk kvinna upp. Säg åt din mormor att allt kommer att gå bra, viskar hon till Mary. Kvinnan visar sig vara Emers döda mor som inte lämnat sin dotters sida. Nu vill hon hjälpa Emer att ta farväl av sina nära och kära och våga släppa taget om livet. Så kommer det sig att fyra generationer kvinnor en mörk natt ger sig ut på en magisk resa.

*A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOKER PRIZE GEM* WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 1993Paddy Clarke is ten years old.Paddy Clarke lights fires. Paddy Clarke's name is written in wet cement all over Barrytown. Paddy Clarke's heroes are Father Damien (and the lepers), Geronimo and George Best. Paddy Clarke knows the exact moment to knock a dead scab from his knee. Paddy Clarke hates his brother Francis because that’s the rule. Paddy Clarke loves his Ma and Da, but it seems like they don't love each other, and Paddy wants to understand, but can't.

Two men meet for a pint in a Dublin pub...In 2012, Roddy Doyle showed us the world anew: through the back-and-forth of two Dublin pub-dwellers. They chewed the fat, set the world to rights, slagged each other unmercifully. And along the way, they chased the ebb and flow and stupidity of the year right to the bottom of their pints.Today, they're still at it - even over Zoom, if needs be. Collected for the first time, here is almost a decade's worth of elections and referendums, births and deaths, football, financial crashes, pandemics and the philosophical questions of life, as told through the wit and warmth of Roddy Doyle's comic genius.Includes: Two Pints, Two More Pints, Two for the Road - and, for the first time in print, Two Pints: The Play and The Zoom Pints

An imaginative short story inspired by real events, taken from the collection, BEYOND THE STARS, and written and illustrated by two award-winning talentsTold from the perspective of the Russian dog Tsygan, this is the story of the first living creatures to be sent into space – the `star dogs’ of the title.Roddy Doyle’s typically accessible voice is complemented by the illuminating illustrations of Steve Simpson, together immersing a new generation of young readers in the incredible true story of the Soviet space dogs, one of the twentieth century’s true feats of science.

'A masterpiece' Irish Times'Exhilarating' Daily TelegraphBorn in the Dublin slums of 1901, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast.By the time he can walk he's out robbing and begging, often cold and always hungry, but a prince of the streets. By Easter Monday, 1916, he's fourteen years old and already six-foot-two, a soldier in the Irish Citizen Army. A year later he's ready to die for Ireland again, a rebel, a Fenian and a killer. With his father's wooden leg as his weapon, Henry becomes a Republican legend - one of Michael Collins' boys, a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bikeDiscover Roddy Doyle's latest novel THE WOMEN BEHIND THE DOOR now.

In Vintage Living Texts, teachers, students and any lover of literature will find the essential guide to the major works of Roddy Doyle. Also included is an exclusive in-depth interview with Roddy Doyle relating specifically to the novels under discussion. Roddy Doyle's themes, genre and narrative techniques are put under scrutiny and the emphasis is on providing a rich source of ideas for intelligent and inventive ways of approaching the novels. Amongst many other features you'll find inspirational reading plans and contextual material, suggested complementary and comparative reading and an indispensable glossary. Featuring the texts: Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, The Van and A Star Called Henry.

It's 1924, and New York is the centre of the universe. Henry Smart, on the run from Dublin, falls on his feet. He is a handsome man with a sandwich board, behind which he stashes hooch for the speakeasies of the Lower East Side. He catches the attention of the mobsters who run the district and soon there are eyes on his back and men in the shadows. It is time to leave, for another America...Chicago is wild and new, and newest of all is the music. Furious, wild, happy music played by a man with a trumpet and bleeding lips called Louis Armstrong. His music is everywhere, coming from every open door, every phonograph. But Armstrong is a prisoner of his colour; there are places a black man cannot go, things he cannot do. Armstrong needs a man, a white man, and the man he chooses is Henry Smart.

Ten years on from The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Booker Prize-winning author, Roddy Doyle, returns to one of his greatest characters, Paula Spencer.Paula Spencer is turning forty-eight, and hasn’t had a drink for four months and five days. Her youngest children, Jack and Leanne, are still living with her. They're grand kids, but she worries about Leanne.Paula still works as a cleaner, but all the others doing the job seem to come from Eastern Europe. You can get a cappuccino in the café and the checkout girls are all Nigerian. Ireland is certainly changing, but then so too is Paula – dry, and determined to put her family back together again. ‘A phenomenally rewarding read… Could not be bettered in its depiction of the minutiae of the life of a recovering alcoholic: relentless, trivial, terrified’ Observer

We last saw Henry Smart, his leg severed in an accident with a railway boxcar, crawl into the Utah desert to die - only to be discovered by John Ford, who's there shooting his latest Western. The Dead Republic opens in 1951. Henry is returning to Ireland for the first time since his escape in 1922. With him are the stars of Ford's latest film, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and the famous director himself, who has tried to suck the soul out of Henry and turn it into Hollywood gold-dust.Ten years later Henry is in Dublin, working in Ratheen as a school caretaker. When he is caught in a bomb blast, he loses his leg for the second time. He is claimed as a hero, and before long Henry will discover he has other uses too, when the peace process begins in deadly secrecy...

Longlisted for the 2015 IMPAC Dublin Literary AwardJimmy Rabbitte is back.The man who invented the Commitments back in the eighties is now forty-seven, with a loving wife, four kids ... and bowel cancer. He isn’t dying, he thinks, but he might be.Jimmy still loves his music, and he still loves to hustle. On his path through Dublin he meets two of the Commitments – Outspan, whose own illness is probably terminal, and Imelda Quirk, still as gorgeous as ever. This warm, funny novel is about friendship and family, about facing death and opting for life.Includes the short story Jimmy Jazz

Here, in one volume, are Roddy Doyle’s three acclaimed novels about the Rabbitte family from Barrytown, Dublin. In them we follow the rapid rise of Jimmy Rabbitte’s soul band, the Commitments, and their equally rapid fall; Sharon Rabbitte’s attempts to keep the identity of her unborn child’s father a secret, amid intense speculation from her family and friends; and the fortunes of the travelling fish ‘n’ chips van that Jimmy Rabbitte Sr and his friend Bimbo launch for the good people of Barrytown. ‘Mr Doyle has made his own the gritty world of modern Dublin’New York Times‘An absurd comedy of the commonplace…a charming, truthful and immensely funny story which leaves you gasping for more’ Sunday Times on The Commitments‘A superb creation, exploding with cheerful chauvinism and black Celtic humour… You finish the book hungry for more’The Times on The Snapper ‘A wonderfully funny book, that crackles and spits like fat in the fryer. It is also very touching…fine entertainment’ Daily Telegraph on The Van