Canongate Books – serie

THE EXTRAORDINARY HAPPENS EVERYDAYOne night, George Duncan is woken by a noise in his garden. Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow. Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the Chaimoment he watches it fly away, his life is transformed. The next day, a beautiful woman called Kumiko walks into his shop and begins to tell him the most extraordinary story. Wise, romantic, magical and funny, The Crane Wife is a celebration of the disruptive and redemptive power of love.

Vividly capturing the heat, sounds and smells of southern Italy, Conversations in Sicily astounds with its modernity, lyricism and originality. Driven by a sense of total disconnection, the narrator embarks on a journey from northern Italy to Sicily, the home he has not seen in some fifteen years. Through the conversations of the islanders and a reunion with his mother, he gradually begins to feel reconnected. But to what kind of world? Written during Mussolini's time in power, Conversations in Sicily is one of the great novels of anti-fascism.

WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE MONTHShortlisted for the British Psychological Society Book Award for Popular ScienceMuch of value has been written about sleep, but rest is different; it is how we unwind, calm our minds and recharge our bodies. The Art of Rest draws on ground-breaking research Claudia Hammond collaborated on: 'The Rest Test', the largest global survey into rest ever undertaken, completed by 18,000 people across 135 different countries. The survey revealed how people get rest and how it is directly linked to your sense of wellbeing.Counting down through the top ten activities which people find most restful, Hammond explains why rest matters, examines the science behind the results to establish what really works and offers a roadmap for a new, more restful and balanced life.

A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2016Shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2017Longlisted for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 20171950. A teenage girl is brutally murdered in a forest. But, somehow, her baby survives.1976. A mysterious and charming young man returns to the remote coastal village of Mulderrig, seeking answers about the mother who, it was said, had abandoned him on the steps of a Dublin orphanage.With the help of its oldest and most eccentric inhabitant, he will force the village to give up its ghosts. Nothing, not even the dead, can stay buried forever.

A DUA LIPA'S SERVICE95 'MUST READ' FOR 2026'A smart, razor-sharp takedown of the machismo of Big Oil' CAOILINN HUGHES'Propulsive and engrossing and deeply fascinating' SAFIA ELHILLO'A thrilling and emotionally complex ride ' ORE AGBAJE-WILLIAMS'Required reading for the Petroleum Age' DAVID HUEBERT'An utterly brilliant, searing, incisive novel' LUCIA OSBORNE-CROWLEY'Fast-paced, gripping and gloriously entertaining' TILLY LAWLESSBeing one of the boys was one thing. Being the boss of the boys was something else altogether.Expert driller Zainab is called to take charge of a high-stakes oil rig operation. Unable to resist the opportunity, she leaves behind her pregnant sister and heads offshore for the job of her life. But there's a catch. The rig is teetering on the edge of disaster - and Zainab is the only woman amongst a crew of hardened men who want absolutely nothing to do with her.At the helm but forced to prove herself at every turn, Zainab labours to investigate the rig's imminent collapse. She quickly grasps that the real danger lies in the cold calculations and base desires of the men she is forced to spend every waking moment with.As tensions rise and secrets unravel, Zainab races to uncover the truth bubbling below and fend off the looming catastrophe. Explosive and thought-provoking, At Sea is an exhilarating story about the clash of ambition, principle and prejudice, and the unexpected consequences of our choices.

A Guardian Best Book of 2014A 2014 Brain Pickings Best Book on Psychology, Philosophy, and How to Live MeaningfullyWhy is it hard to fall asleep the night before an important meeting? Or be charming and relaxed on a first date? What is it about a comedian whose jokes fall flat or an athlete who chokes? What if, contrary to what we have long been told, spontaneity - not striving - is the answer to success? Through stories of mythical creatures and drunken cart riders, jazz musicians and Japanese motorcycle gangs, Slingerland effortlessly blends Eastern thought and cutting-edge science to show us how we can embody a spontaneous way of being and live more fulfilling lives.

In The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way, Charles Bukowski considers the art of writing, and the art of living as writer. Bringing together a variety of previously uncollected stories, columns, reviews, introductions, and interviews, this book finds him approaching the dynamics of his chosen profession with cynical aplomb, deflating pretentions and tearing down idols armed with only a typewriter and a bottle of beer.From numerous tales of the author's adventures at poetry readings, parties, film sets, and bars, to an unprecedented gathering of Bukowski's singular literary criticism, the author discusses his writing practices and his influences. The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way is a perfect guide to the man behind the myth and the disciplined artist behind the boozing brawler.

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A formidable follow-up to her award-winning debut poetry collection, Len Pennie's poyums annaw is just like her: defiant, angry and trailblazing. These poems are a call to arms, confronting ideas of patriarchy, gender-based violence and societal injustice with equal parts tenderness, quick-wit and righteous fury. Incisive and fiercely honest, poyums annaw firmly underscores Len's place as a defining voice in contemporary poetry.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERLost in Portugal. Lost to grief.With nothing but a chimpanzee. A man thrown backwards by heartbreak goes in search of an artefact that could unsettle history. A woman carries her husband to a doctor in a suitcase. A Canadian senator begins a new life, in a new country, in the company of a chimp called Odo. From these stories of journeying, of loss and faith, Yann Martel makes a novel unlike any other: moving, profound and magical.A New York Times BestsellerAn Australian Independent Bookseller Bestseller#1 on The Globe & Mail's Bestseller List#1 on Toronto Star's Bestseller List#1 on Maclean's Bestseller List#1 on National Post's Bestseller List#1 on McNally Robinson's Bestseller ListAn ABA Indie Bestseller

The Blue Mountain is the first novel by one of Israel's most important and acclaimed contemporary writers and as with all his writing is a virtuoso example of Shalev's skill as a storyteller. Published to outstanding reviews all over the world, its publication in Britain re-affirms his reputation as a major international writer.Set in a small rural village prior to the creation of the State of Israel, this funny and hugely imaginative book paints an extraordinary picture of a small community of Ukrainian immigrants as they succeed in pioneering a new life in a new land over three generations. The Blue Mountain transcends its time and place by touching on issues of universal relevance whilst never failing to entertain and engage the reader. As with Four Meals, the writing is lyrical and of exceptional quality and illustrates why Shalev has been steadily winning an ever-increasing number of fans worldwide.

The Third Man Factor tells the revealing story behind an extraordinary idea: that people at the very edge of death, often adventurers or explorers, experience a benevolent presence beside them who encourages them to make one final effort to survive. If only a handful of people had ever experienced the Third Man, it might be dismissed as an unusual delusion but over the years the experience has occurred again and again: to mountaineers, divers, polar explorers, prisoners of war, solo sailors, aviators, astronauts and 9/11 survivors. All have escaped traumatic events only to tell strikingly similar stories of having experienced the close presence of a helper or guardian. In The Third Man Factor John Geiger combines history, scientific analysis and great adventure stories to explain this secret to survival, the Third Man who - in the words of legendary Italian climber Reinhold Messner - 'leads you out of the impossible'.

With an introduction by Richard FlanaganDove Findhorn is a naïve country boy who busts out of Hicksville, Texas in pursuit of a better life in New Orleans. Amongst the downtrodden prostitutes, bootleggers and hustlers of the old French Quarter, Dove finds only hopelessness, crime and despair. His quest uncovers a harrowing grotesque of the American Dream.A Walk in the Wild Side is an angry, lonely, large-hearted and often funny masterpiece that has captured the imaginations of every generation since its first publication in 1956, and that rendered a world later immortalised in Lou Reed´s classic song.

What did your face look like before your parents were born? Who are you? What is your true self? These are the questions in Ruth Ozeki's mind as she challenges herself to spend three hours gazing into her own reflection, recording every thought and detail.What follows are a lifetime's worth of meditations on race, ageing, family, death, the body, self-doubt and, finally, acceptance. In this profound encounter with memory and the mirror, Ozeki weaves together personal history, professional experience, Zen philosophy, Japanese culture and more to paint a rich, intimate and utterly unique portrait of a life as told through a face.

There are many ways civilisation could end, even with wise, benevolent leaders like Kim Jong-un, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin watching over us. Now, in this fun interactive story of global doom, YOU decide how humanity perishes.Will we be turned to grey goo by Elon Musk's nanobots?Driven collectively insane by Russia's most potent memes? Or smashed to atoms by someone sitting on the wrong button in North Korea?In this book, YOU will meet the leaders with the future of civilisation in their hands. And YOUR wits and judgement will decide how we all inevitably die. Or then again, maybe, just maybe, with a little positive thinking, YOU will find a way to keep us all safe long enough to expire of old age and global warming instead. Just don't get too hopeful. On every page of Choose Your Own Apocalypse with Kim Jong-un & Friends, the end of your choice is most definitely nigh.

Siân, troubled by dark dreams and seeking distraction, joins an archaeological dig at Whitby. The abbey's one hundred and ninety-nine steps link the twenty-first century with the ruins of the past and Siân is swept into a mystery involving a long-hidden murder, a fragile manuscript in a bottle and a cast of most peculiar characters. Equal parts historical thriller, romance and ghost story, this is an ingenious literary page-turner and is completely unforgettable.THIS EDITION ALSO FEATURES MICHEL FABER'S NOVELLA THE COURAGE CONSORT

- Private Sidney Phillips- First Lieutenant Austin Shofner- Ensign Vernon Micheel- Private Eugene Sledge- Sergeant John BasiloneThrough the eyes of these five fearless and devoted men, Hugh Ambrose tells the epic story of the war in the Pacific. It is an intimate, personal history of a brutal, unforgiving conflict.

Hugo Chávez was a true phenomenon. On his death in March 2013 tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets and honoured a seven-day period of national mourning. Chávez has been compared to Napoleon, Nasser, Perón and Castro but the truth is there has never been a leader like him. He was democratically elected, reigned like a monarch from a mobile television throne, and provoked adoration and revulsion in equal measure.How did a charismatic autocrat seduce not just a nation but a significant part of world opinion? And how did he continue to stay in power despite the crumbling of Venezuela? When he first came to power in 1999, Chávez became a symbol of hope and freedom for his people. Yet, in his fourteen years as president, Chávez seized control of the lucrative Venezuelan oil industry, allowed basic government functions to wither, jailed political opponents and courted Castro and Ahmadinejad, all while occupying much of Venezuela's airwaves with his long-running television show, Aló Presidente!.In Comandante, acclaimed journalist Rory Carroll breaches the walls of Miraflores Palace to tell the inside story of Chávez's life and his political court in Caracas. Blending the lyricism and strangeness of magical realism with the brutal, ugly truth of authoritarianism - a powerful combination reminiscent of Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Emperor - Rory Carroll has written the definitive account of Hugo Chávez's presidency, and the legacy he has left behind.

As we rush toward the end of Peanuts' second full decade, Snoopy finds himself almost completely engrossed in his persona as the World War I Flying Ace.Still, Snoopy looms large, so this volume (a particularly Snoopy-heavy one) sees him arm-wrestling Lucy as the "Masked Marvel" and then taking off for Petaluma for the national arm-wrestling championship; impersonating a vulture and a "Cheshire Beagle"; enjoying golf and hockey; attempting a jaunt to France for an ice-skating championship; running for office on the "Paw" ticket; being traded to Peppermint Patty's baseball team, then un-traded and installed as team manager by a guilt-ridden Charlie Brown; as well as dealing with the return of his original owner, Lila.Peppermint Patty, working toward her ascendancy as one of the major Peanuts players in the 1970s and 1980s, also has several major turns, including a storyline in which she's the tent monitor for three little girls (who call her "Sir" - a joke Schulz would pick up later with Peppermint Patty's friend Marcie). Linus's flippant comment to his Gramma that he'll kick his blanket habit when she kicks her smoking habit backfires; Lucy bullies Linus, pesters Schroeder, and organizes a "crab-in"; plus Charlie Brown copes with Valentine's Day depression, the Little Red-Haired Girl, the increasingly malevolent kite-eating tree, and baseball losses. In other words: Vintage Peanuts!All this, plus an introduction by beloved transgressive filmmaker John Waters and award-winning design by Seth.

The Greek scholar William Lorimer spent the last ten years of his life working on this project. Each Gospel has a different form of Scots to match the different forms of Greek used by the various apostles and scribes, and the vigour and immediacy of the language is everywhere apparent.Transcribed, edited and published by his son Robin Lorimer, this scholarly and dramatically fresh reading of an already familiar text caused a sensation when it first appeared in 1983. Beyond the poetry of the King James version, here are the voices of the disciples themselves, speaking, as they undoubtedly did, in 'plain braid Galilee'.

WHICH ONE OF YOU BITCHES IS MY MOTHER?1980. In Manhattan's most exclusive hotel, four friends come face to face with a young, mega-watt film star. She has a question for them that has brought her from the streets of Paris to the playgrounds of the rich and famous - and it has almost destroyed her. . . Kate, Maxine, Judy and Pagan have soared to the top in fashion, PR and interior design. Now they are forced to look back at their lives: their wicked behaviour at school, the building of careers and the breaking of hearts. These women have never questioned their friendship, but now they must answer to Lili.Lace is the book that every mother kept hidden from her daughter. Originally published in 1982, it is the debut novel from the million-copy bestselling author of Superwoman.

Lester Young fading away in a hotel room; Charles Mingus storming down the streets of New York on a too-small bicycle; Thelonius Monk creating his own private language on the piano... In eight poetically charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skilfully evokes the embattled lives of the players who shaped modern jazz. He draws on photos and anecdotes, but music is the driving force of But Beautiful and Dyer brings it to life in luminescent and wildly metaphoric prose that mirrors the quirks, eccentricity, and brilliance of each musician's style.

In Paris, two couples form an intimacy that will change their lives forever. As they discover the clubs and cafés of the eleventh arrondissement, the four become inseparable, united by deeply held convictions about dating strategies, tunnelling in P.O.W. films and, crucially, the role of the Styrofoam cup in American thrillers. Experiencing the exhilarating highs of Ecstasy and sex, they reach a peak of rapture - but the come-down is unexpected and devastating. Dyer fixes a dream of happiness - and its aftermath. Erotic and elegiac, funny and romantic, Paris Trance confirms Dyer as one of Britain's most original and talented writers.

The first sixteen tales in this collection were published by Canongate in 1983 with the title Unlikely Stories, Mostly. This collection also has fifty-seven tales from later books, plus sixteen new ones written for the hardback publication of this collection. This last section, Tales Droll and Plausible, shows that Gray's recent twenty-first-century fiction is as uncomfortably funny and up to date as his earliest.

1958. In a dorm room in Moscow, a young writer is woken by the sound of angry voices on the radio. Through the fog of a hangover he hears the news that a novel called Doctor Zhivago has earned its author the Nobel Prize. There is uproar. The author, Boris Pasternak, faces exile, the press hound him and demand that he refuse the award. A few days earlier the young writer found a copy of this book - could those simple pages really be so dangerous?Based on Ismail Kadare's own experience, Twilight of the Eastern Gods is a portrait of a city, a story of youthful disenchantment and a reminder of the incredible importance of the written word.

Airtight Willie and Me is a collection of six tales from the underground, all of them characterized by Iceberg Slim's distinctive and unforgettable prose. From the opening story, in which Slim meets Airtight Willie, one of New York's slickest con men, to Satin, a classic tale of revenge in which a heist goes badly wrong, the reader is hooked into a rollercoaster ride through the badlands of urban America. Compelling always, funny sometimes, and typically bleak in their endings, Slim's slices of city life are important social documents that scorch most contemporary into submission. There is no moralizing bullshit, no romanticized illusions, few redemming factors - just straight-up sawn-off shotgun blasts from the 'King of the Ghetto'.

The Thrie Estaitis was first performed in the mid-sixteenth century to an audience of royalty and commoners alike. With its high style and penetrating political satire, it pressed for reform in Church and State and even in kingship itself with a hilarious masque of vice and corruption in high places.Sir David Lindsay's great play is a milestone in world drama. After almost 400 years it was revived by Tyrone Guthrie in a famous production for the Edinburgh Festival of 1948. Ever since then this masterpiece has been recognized as a key text in the resurgance of political theatre in modern Scotland and it appears as irreverent today as it was in Lindsay's troubled times.This new editon has been fully edited and annotated by Professor Roderick Lyall.

'Half Scotland sniggered and the other half scowled, when in letters to the Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald, I put forward my suggestion that prisoners in Scottish jails be allowed to wear their kilts as their national birthright if such be their wish.'From his origins as an illegitimate child in the slums of Glasgow, Fergus Lamont sets out to reclaim his inheritance and to remake his identity as soldier, poet and would-be aristocrat.Covering the years from the turn of the century to the Second World War, Fergus's unforgettable voice recounts a tale of vanity, success and betrayal which shines its own sardonic light on Scotland and the cultural and political issues of the day.At odds with his origins and unsettled in his aristocratic pretensions, Fergus Lamont reaches middle age before he is offered at least the hope of redemption in a love affair with an island woman.How it turns out and what he learns too late, adds a tragic dimension to the scathing humour of this, Robin Jenkins's most searching exploration of the modern Scottish psyche.

MACCAIG * MORGAN * LOCHHEADThis book contains a selection of the finest work from three of Scotland's best-known and best-loved poets: Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan and Liz Lochhead. They have fascinated and charmed thousands of readers and listeners across Europe and America with the energy, humour and compassion of their vision.MacCaig's memorable celebrations of the physical world and the tragic-comic note of many of his short lyrics contrast strikingly with Morgan's poems on the modern world and city life. Liz Lochhead writes with an alert and sensitive eye on personal relationships and women's experience of them. The book provides an invaluable introduction to modern Scottish poetry and to the poets who are arguably its greatest practitioners.

Kidnapped - Catriona - The Master of Ballantrae - Weir of HermistonThese four great novels take us deep into Robert Louis Stevenson's imaginative and bitter-sweet relationship with his native country.Kidnapped, and its sequel Catriona, are renowned the world over as supreme stories of adventure and romance. On another level they also explore the subtle divisions of Scottish history and character in the eighteenth century, and (some would say) the present day.The Master of Ballantrae takes a darker and more disturbing turn, with its tale of rival brothers caught in a webof hatred, obsession, love and betrayal which draws them to their end in the frozen wastes of North America.Stevenson's fascination with the divided nature of the human self (most obviously demonstrated in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) appears again in the Weir of Hermiston with its terrible confrontation between a father and his son.With an unsurpassed combination of physical adventure and psychological insight, The Scottish Novels have moved and thrilled readers and writers from Stevenson's contemporaries to the present day.