Based on actual events, NEVER ANYONE BUT YOU is the gripping, beautifully written story of a love affair between Suzanne Malherbe and Claude Cahun - two extraordinary women who not only smashed gender barriers, but also played an influential role in the Surrealist movement in Paris, and ultimately risked their lives resisting the Nazis.
Set on the eve of the financial crash of 2008, Barcelona Dreaming is made up of three stories that are linked by time and place, and also by the moving, unexpected interactions of a rich cast of characters.
In an edgy psychological thriller that is as mesmerizing as it is profound, Rupert Thomson fearlessly delves into the darkest realm of the human spirit to reveal the sinister connection between sexuality and power. Stepping out of his Amsterdam studio one April afternoon to buy cigarettes for his girlfriend, a dashing 29-year old Englishman reflects on their wonderful seven-year relationship, and his stellar career as an internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer. But the nameless protagonist's destiny takes an unthinkably horrifying turn when a trio of mysterious cloaked and hooded women kidnap him, chain him to the floor of a stark white room to keep as their sexual prisoner, and subjected him to eighteen days of humiliation, mutilation, and rape. Then, after a bizarrely public performance, he is released, only to be held captive in the purgatory of his own guilt and torment: The realization that no one will believe his strange story. Coolly revelatory, meticulously crafted, The Book of Revelation is Rupert Thomson at his imaginative best.
A sculptor of the macabre. A sorcerer of wax. A criminal. A runaway. Zummo is exactly what the last great Medici ruler of Florence needs...
Nel giorno della Riorganizzazione, i bambini sono stati strappati alle madri, le famiglie smembrate e la memoria si è perduta. Il nuovo sistema politico si fonda sulla teoria medievale degli umori. Collerici, malinconici, flemmatici e sanguigni sono stati deportati nei quattro quartieri dai confini invalicabili in cui il Regno è stato diviso. Per limitare i conflitti, il simile dovrà convivere con il simile. Da adulto, uno di questi bambini perduti ricostruisce l’avventuroso e doloroso percorso che lo conduce ad accettare il proprio passato negato. Allo stordito conformismo dell’infanzia, seguono un’improvvisa ribellione e una fuga che la lascia senza fiato. Divided Kingdom è una potente distopia, magnificamente scritta, densa di eventi, luoghi e personaggi miracolosamente credibili: un flemmatico terrorizzato dal sole perché convinto di essere di burro, un indimenticabile museo delle lacrime dove il pianto dei malinconici è stato archiviato in fiale numerate, le corse in bicicletta su autostrade ormai deserte, i Bianchi che vivono come animali, vagando tra i confini senza usare parole. Nelle continue invenzioni di Rupert Thompson si riverberano, con una luce nuova, molte delle tragedie del Novecento, un secolo sempre in bilico tra la tentazione di dimenticare e la necessità di non dimenticarsi.
The waitress Glade Spencer -- white-blond hair, perfect skin, just 22 years old -- drifts innocent and waiflike through life, thus far avoiding harm to herself. . . Barker Dodds, hoping to shed his hard-man reputation, has fled his native Plymouth for a fresh start in London. There, meanwhile, in an act of desperate inspiration, an ambitious young executive faced with a saturated market, contrives a revolutionary strategy for introducing a new beverage, Soft!, that has all the potential of becoming the soft drink of the 21st century. Once this highly confidential strategy develops unforeseen complications, Barker is paid a visit by a friend from the old life, and soon is presented with an unthinkable dilemma. And the person with whom he now shares a destiny -- unbeknownst to her -- is Glade.
"In this unsettling, timely, and explosive novel, one of the UK's most admired and celebrated writers gives us a portrait of an ordinary man in an extraordinary dilemma, and asks questions that could be transformed, if only we could see through the illusions and disinformation that have us in their grasp. It's February 2019. Philip Notman, a respected academic with a German wife and a troubled nineteen-year-old son, is on his way back from a conference in Norway when he has an unexpected and disturbing experience that completely alters his view of the world. In an instant, the reality that he has always taken for granted becomes unbearable. Believing that Ines, a Spanish woman he met at the conference, can shed light on what he is feeling, he travels to Cadiz to see her. But his journey doesn't end there. In a progress that involves both the exploration of an idea and a quest for a simpler and more meaningful existence, he winds up in a small village on the south coast of Crete. Gradually, and yet inexorably, a drastic course of action occurs to him. He returns to London, knowing exactly what he must do, even if it ruins his life and the lives of those closest to him. How much are we prepared to sacrifice for our beliefs? Can love take second place to an idea? Is it possible to find a more authentic way of living?"-- Provided by publisher
If he suddenly found what surrounded him unbearable, it was because it was artificial. Everything had been designed and manufactured, he was trapped in it. Philip Notman, a celebrated scientist turned historian, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London and to his wife and son, he finds himself irrevocably changed and unable to settle back into his normal life. Instead, he is overcome with a deep revulsion for the consumerism, powerlessness and emptiness of modern technological civilization. Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to unite with Ines, an attractive Spanish academic with whom he shared a connection, and after a chance encounter with a wealthy elderly couple, spends the summer in their house in Crete. But his efforts prove futile. He becomes consumed with his disgust for the modern world and with his feelings of hopelessness for the family that await him. Spiralling further into despair, he feels compelled to take action. He returns to London and finds refuge in a scaffolding yard in Vauxhall. In this fugitive underground existence, using his scientific knowledge, he embarks on a path that could lead to devastating destruction.
Original Stories by Britain's Best New Young Writers
A collection of short stories by young British writers, this provides an introduction to the work of Iain Banks, Peter Benson, H.S. Bhabra, James Buchan, Patricia Ferguson, Ronald Frame, Patrick Gale, Carlo Gebler, James Lasdun, Deborah Levy, Adam Lively, Aidan Mathews, Candia McWilliam, Geoff Nicholson, Tim Parks, Philip Ridley, Joan Smith, Rupert Thomson, Daisy Waugh and Mathew Yorke. Many of these have already received critical acclaim. The collection is introduced by Graham Swift, author of "Waterland" and "Out of this World".
