See larger image The Trapeze Artist (Paperback) By (author) Will Davis List Price: 12.99 GBP New From: 6.11 In Stock Used from: 10.25 In Stock

A man will endlessly torture his muscles until they shriek and complain. But he will not give in. He will take a hammer to his ceiling until neighbours begin to watch from the window and journalists knock at the door. He will continue to train and hack away at the house until it is finished and the trapeze is in place. Although his parents thought he was nice and kind-hearted and teachers saw him as a good boy, secretly he hated his drab, ordered world and longed for more. Then, when he was fourteen, a new boy arrived at his school. Edward exuded the coolness of a latter-day Oscar Wilde. Edward listened to Patti Smith, watched Fassbinder films and knew the writings of Gore Vidal, and one evening, would kiss him in the moonlight. Forty years old and fleeing from a life he can no longer handle, he stumbles upon the circus. Not knowing why, only that he must, he gets in his car and follows after it, refusing to listen to the doubts that plague him, determined to build a new home and family.

The Trapeze Artist draws together the past, present and future of one life to create a work of startling dexterity and vision – a haunting and heartbreaking account of a child, a boy, a man, desperate to free himself from the suffocating weight of his desires, his family and his grief. It speaks of what it is to grow up gay in a straight world, to be unable to communicate with those you love, of the sweat, passions and tempers of circus life, and above all, the longing to break free, and to swing higher and higher…

Titles being given away this year include:

• Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (Vintage)
• The Player of Games, by Iain M Banks (Little, Brown)
• Sleepyhead, by Mark Billingham (Little, Brown)
• Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson (Transworld)
• The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho (HarperCollins)
• The Take, by Martina Cole (Headline)
• Harlequin, by Bernard Cornwell (HarperCollins)
• Someone Like You, by Roald Dahl (Penguin)
• A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens (Penguin)
• Room, by Emma Donoghue (Pan Macmillan)
• Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier (Little, Brown)
• The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber)
• Misery, by Stephen King (Hodder)
• The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella (Transworld)
• Small Island, by Andrea Levy (Headline)
• Let the Right One In, by John Ajvde Lindqvist (Quercus)
• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (Pan Macmillan)
• The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger (Vintage)
• The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, by Maggie O’Farrell (Headline)
• The Damned Utd, by David Peace (Faber)
• Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman (Transworld)
• How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff (Penguin)
• Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson (Vintage)
• I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith (Vintage)
• The Book Thief, by Markus Zuzak (Transworld)

Find out more at the World Book Night website!

Provinces of Night, The Long Home & Twilight

Playing catch-up, we published his second novel, Provinces of Night in 2001 and followed it in 2002 with The Long Home (his US debut). Both novels met with great critical acclaim, here and in Ireland (‘his slurred, sublime lyricism is indivisible from the land’s brooding beauty or the baleful souls who roam it’ Sunday Times), but facing that frustrating and too-often-encountered problem in UK publishing, we didn’t feel able to publish his story collection I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down. I would recommend tracking this down however, with its wonderfully atmospheric stories – the title story, ‘Death in the Woods’, ‘The Paperhanger’ to pick out just a few – which all display his unique gift for writing about place and character (as well as his love for local, old-time music). Some of these stories were the first things he ever published and, as with all his work, they are solely written in the third person.

We then had our most successful publication with his 2007 novel, Twilight. Blurbed for us by George Pelecanos, among others, it was superbly reviewed on publication and went on to be named by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly as his novel of the year (‘think No Country for Old Men crossed with Deliverance, then double the impact’). It’s the easiest of his novels in many respects, with a glint of genre and wickedness in its eye, but it’s also perhaps his most soulful piece of writing, due to the empathy and compassion you feel for its teenage hero, Kenneth Tyler, and his sister, Corrie, as they try to face down Fenton Breece (the misbehaving local undertaker) and then, more ominously, Granville Sutter (the demonic hitman Fenton puts on their trail). For me this is a true cult classic, and includes a sublimely enigmatic ending, that you will have to read again and again.

‘Quite a Life’

His was quite a life too: the son of Tennessee sharecroppers, he reportedly began writing at the age of fifteen, but as a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy, and later worked for most of his adult life as a carpenter and drywall-hanger, it wasn’t until 1998 that he published those first short stories, at the age of fifty-five.

So it was always a frustration that, despite our best efforts, we could never manage to get anyone from the UK press to interview William. Here’s a great clip of an interview with William via Oxford American:

Hoisting the ‘Heavy Wet’

If you’ve never read William, he will be a treat to discover, truly, and definitely one for any fans of the great rural American writers, from William Faulkner to Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy to James Lee Burke. As Daniel Woodrell wrote in an email to me around the time we published Twilight, ‘He’s one of the big talents in the dark Americana vein, that is for certain sure. I run into William once in a while in Memphis or Oxford, Mississippi, and he is always interesting to hoist a bit of “the heavy wet” with, as well.’

Caitlin was the overall winner of the public vote which comprised winners of all eleven categories from the Galaxy National Book Awards.

The other contenders for the Galaxy Book of the Year were: The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst (Waterstone’s UK Author of the Year), A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French (Specsavers Popular Fiction Book of the Year), Before I Go to Sleep by S J Watson (Crime & Thriller of the Year), Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin (Daily Telegraph Biography of the Year), A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (International Author of the Year), The Good Cook by Simon Hopkinson (Food & Drink Book of the Year), Room by Emma Donoghue (WHSmith Paperback of the Year), A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (National Book Tokens Children’s Book of the Year), My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young, read by Dan Stevens (Audible.Co.UK Audiobook of the Year), When God was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (Galaxy New Writer of the Year).

Caitlin Moran on How To Be A Woman from Bookhugger on Vimeo.

About How To Be a Woman…

See larger image How To Be a Woman (Paperback) By (author) Caitlin Moran List Price: 11.99 GBP New From: 5.49 In Stock Used from: 2.05 In Stock Release date June 16, 2011.

1913 – Suffragette throws herself under the King’s horse.

1969 – Feminists storm Miss World.

NOW – Caitlin Moran rewrites The Female Eunuch from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller.

There’s never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven’t been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain…

Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should you get Botox? Do men secretly hate us? What should you call your vagina? Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you’re going to have a baby?

Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers these questions and more in How To Be A Woman – following her from her terrible 13th birthday (‘I am 13 stone, have no friends, and boys throw gravel at me when they see me’) through adolescence, the workplace, strip-clubs, love, fat, abortion, TopShop, motherhood and beyond.

• Read an extract

See larger image The Sense of an Ending (Hardcover) By (author) Julian Barnes List Price: 12.99 GBP New From: 5.96 In Stock Used from: 2.46 In Stock

Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.

Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove.

The Sense of an Ending is the story of one man coming to terms with the mutable past. Laced with trademark precision, dexterity and insight, it is the work of one of the world’s most distinguished writers.

• Read the Bookgeeks review of The Sense of an Ending

The shortlist consisted of:

• The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes
• Jamrach’s Menagerie, by Carol Birch
• The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick deWitt
• Pigeon English, by Stephen Kelman
• Half Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan 
• Snowdrops, by A. D. Miller

The ten authors in The (W)riters’ Library are: Bret Easton Ellis, David Nicholls, Hephzibah Anderson, Geoff Dyer, Ned Beauman, Alex Preston, Naomi Alderman, Sloane Crosley, Jake Arnott and Craig Taylor. Between them, they have chosen 100 books from classics to graphic novels, including Warhol, Fitzgerald, Dr Seuss and Atwood.

Unlike most rooms for books, The (W)riters’ Library isn’t dusty, or hushed or boring.  There is no dull person peering over shoulders or stopping people reading something they shouldn’t.  Instead, it is a stylish sanctuary, a place with comfortable nooks to sink into, cocktails on hand to help ease into a literary journey and best of all, each book tells its very own personal story of how it came to be there.

“The (W)riters’ Library offers visitors a view of what inspires and excites ten influential writers. We are thrilled to work with all these inspirational authors and introduce their personal recommendations to our guests”, says Kevin Rockey, General Manager, W London – Leicester Square.

The (W)riters’ Library is open to W London guests and the public now.

W London – Leicester Square is located at 10 Wardour Street, London, W1D 6Q.  A stay at W London – Leicester Square starts from £335 per double room per night, including taxes and charges.  To book call 00800 325 25252 or visit www.wlondon.co.uk.

Fiction Uncovered

Fiction Uncovered will create the opportunity for eight UK-based fiction writers to be part of a major promotion supported by retailers, and a major publicity and marketing campaign.

So without further ado, the 2011 Fiction Uncovered winners are:

See larger image The Water Theatre (Paperback) By (author) Lindsay Clarke List Price: 7.99 GBP New From: 2.81 In Stock Used from: 0.01 In Stock

The Water Theatre, by Lindsay Clarke

As war-reporter Martin Crowther arrives in Umbria, still raw from a recent assignment in Africa, and from a failing love affair back home, a storm hits and the sky opens. Things are powerfully on the move inside him too as he comes to the small village of Fontanalba, on a mission to track down two friends from a lifetime ago. Adam and Marina are the estranged children of his mentor, Hal Brigshaw, who is nearing the end of a turbulent life and wants to summon them home. But there are good reasons for their self-imposed exile, and not all of them are understood, and not all are in the past. An air of secrecy also surrounds preparations for an event at Fontanalba in which Adam and Marina have an extraordinary role to play. As Martin waits, trapped between duty and desire, he is both intrigued and dismayed by his dealings with a close-knit community, who seem bent on protecting their own – and on shaking the ground of Martin’s life.

See larger image The English German Girl (Paperback) By (author) Jake Wallis Simons List Price: 12.99 GBP New From: 6.85 In Stock Used from: 0.01 In Stock

The English German Girl, by Jake Wallis Simons

‘Rosa must carry her suitcase herself. She heaves it up, walks through the doorway, looks back one final time: Papa and Mama are standing arm in arm, they are waving, but their masks have fallen away, they look hopeless, and that is the worst thing of all; Rosa turns her back and they are gone.’

The Klein family is slowly but surely losing everything they hold dear or ever took for granted as Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws take hold in 1930s Berlin. In desperation, fifteen-year-old Rosa is put on a Kindertransport train out of Germany, to begin a new life in England. In a foreign country, barely able to make herself understood, she struggles to find a way to rescue her parents. Overtaken by the war, however, they gradually lose touch. Now Rosa must face the prospect of not only being unable to fulfil her vow to save her family but also of an unknown future, quite alone.

One of Britain’s most compelling and original new voices, Jake Wallis Simons blends meticulous research with powerful storytelling in an epic journey from heartbreak to hope.

See larger image Night Waking (Paperback) By (author) Sarah Moss List Price: 12.99 GBP New From: 0.24 In Stock Used from: 0.01 In Stock

Night Waking, by Sarah Moss

Historian Anna Bennett has a book to write. She also has an insomniac toddler, a precocious, death-obsessed seven-year-old, and a frequently-absent ecologist husband who has brought them all to Colsay, a desolate island in the Hebrides, so he can count the puffins. Ferociously sleep-deprived, torn between mothering and her desire for the pleasures of work and solitude, Anna becomes haunted by the discovery of a baby’s skeleton in the garden of their house. Her narrative is punctuated by letters home, written 200 years before, by May, a young, middle-class midwife desperately trying to introduce modern medicine to the suspicious, insular islanders. The lives of these two characters intersect unexpectedly in this deeply moving but also at times blackly funny story about maternal ambivalence, the way we try to control children, and about women’s vexed and passionate relationship with work. Moss’s second novel displays an exciting expansion of her range – showing her to be both an excellent comic writer, and a novelist of great emotional depth.

See larger image The Proof of Love (Paperback) By (author) Catherine Hall List Price: 12.99 GBP New From: 0.01 In Stock Used from: 0.01 In Stock

Proof of Love, by Catherine Hall

‘Who are you Spencer Little?Why are you here?’

During the long hot summer of 1976, a brilliant young Cambridge mathematician arrives in a remote village in the Lake District and takes on a job as a farm labourer. Painfully awkward and shy, Spencer Little is viewed with suspicion by the community and his only real friendship is with scruffy, clever ten-year-old Alice. When he saves Alice from a wild-fire, the locals at last begin to accept him, but as he is drawn deeper into their lives, he also becomes aware of their secrets – and of the difficulty of keeping his own. As the heat-wave intensifies and the web of complicity tightens around him, it becomes clear that Spencer will eventually have to make a choice: between passion and logic, and between loyalty and truth…

See larger image Nimrod's Shadow (Paperback) By (author) Chris Paling List Price: 7.99 GBP New From: 0.01 In Stock Used from: 0.01 In Stock

Nimrod’s Shadow, by Chris Paling

Reilly is an impoverished painter who lives alone in a shabby garret, with only his unsold canvases and his faithful dog Nimrod for company. He seems destined to remain in artistic obscurity until the most influential art critic of the time begins to notice his talent. But no sooner has he found a patron than the critic is found downed in a local canal and the trail leads directly back to Reilly. From Reilly’s prison cell in Edwardian London to an exclusive gallery in contemporary Soho, the clues that lead to the real murderer lie carefully hidden, until the day when Samantha, a young office assistant, finds herself drawn to one of Reilly’s pictures and decides to embark on her own investigation…

Steeped in atmosphere and laced with intrigue, Nimrod’s Shadow is a gripping tale of genius, jealousy, and revenge – with a few twists and turns along the way.

See larger image Disputed Land (Hardcover) By (author) Tim Pears List Price: 12.99 GBP New From: 6.27 In Stock Used from: 0.01 In Stock

Disputed Land, by Tim Pears

Leonard and Rosemary Cannon summon their middle-aged offspring, along with partners and children, to the family home in the Welsh Marches for the Christmas holiday. As the gathered family settle in to their first Christmas together for some years, the grown siblings – Rodney, Johnny and Gwen – are surprised when they are invited to each put stickers on the furniture and items they wish to inherit from their parents.

Disputed Land is narrated by Leonard and Rosemary’s thirteen-year-old grandson, Theo, who observes how from these innocent beginnings age-old fissures open up in the relationships of those around him. Looking back at this Christmas gathering from his own middle-age – a narrator at once nostalgic and naïve – Theo Cannon remembers his imperious grandmother Rosemary, alpha-male uncle Johnny, abominable twin cousins Xan and Baz; he recalls his love for his grandfather Leonard and the burgeoning feelings for his cousin Holly. And he asks himself the question: if a single family cannot solve the problem of what it bequeaths to future generations, then what chance does a whole society have of leaving the world intact?

See larger image Forgetting Zoe (Paperback) By (author) Ray Robinson List Price: 7.99 GBP New From: 1.15 In Stock Used from: 0.01 In Stock

Forgetting Zoe, by Ray Robinson

Zoë Nielsen was just like any other ten-year-old walking to school, not knowing that a chance encounter with Thurman Hayes would lead to her abduction and imprisonment in a converted nuclear bunker, 4,000 miles away, beneath a remote ranch house in Arizona. Enslaved in her underground tomb, deprived of food and light and water, the girl Zoe once was steadily begins to disappear…

But over time Thurman grows tired of the rapidly maturing Zoë, and when he decides it is time to get rid of her, Zoë must finally make her bid for freedom. Forgetting Zoë is a moving, epic tale of courage, survival, horror and loss, that explores how a bond of affection and intimacy can develop between captive and captor.

See larger image The London Satyr (Hardcover) By (author) Robert Edric List Price: 16.99 GBP New From: 4.60 In Stock Used from: 1.62 In Stock

The London Satyr, by Robert Edric

It is the summer of 1891 and London is simmering under an oppressive heatwave. The air is thick with tension and sexual repression. But another wave is about to rock the capital – one of morality – as Oliver Wheeler and the puritans of his London Vigilance Committee seek out perversion and aberrant behaviour in all its forms.

Charles Webster, an impoverished photographer working for famed actor-manager Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre, has been sucked into a shadowy demi-monde which exists beneath the surface of civilized society. It is a world of pornographers and prostitutes, corralled under the sinister leadership of master photographer and manipulator Marlow, to whom Webster illicitly provides theatrical costumes for pornographic shoots.

But knowledge of this enterprise has somehow reached the Lyceum’s upright theatre manager, Bram Stoker, who suspects Webster’s involvement. As the net appears to tighten around Marlow and his cohorts, a member of the aristocracy is accused of killing a child prostitute, and public outrage sweeps the capital. It is the worst possible time for Webster’s wife to announce she is to become a professional medium…

The London Satyr is a brilliant summoning of the last decade of Victorian England. At a time when public morality has never been more extreme nor superstition more prevalent, below the surface swirls a fetid and ever-quickening current of perversity and exploitation…

• Read more about Fiction Uncovered

• YARNers can take part in a very grown up game of consequences during 5-Aside Story. Hosted by Acorn Independent Press and running for the duration of the festival, everyone can head online to create a story together, with writers only able to add 5 sentences to the mix.
• If you fancy getting your pens, pencils and crayons out, YARNers can take part in the creation of a zine at a workshop hosted by Hato Press, Cure Studio and Soupa Creative Network.
• The Illustrationarium will be open throughout the weekend, where you can come and create your own illustrations – come down on the Sunday night for Illustrationarium – LIVE! to see authors and storytellers perform their stories whilst illustrators simultaneously take up the challenge of illustrating the story, live!
• For the more wordy amongst us, if trying to add five sentences to a story just isn’t playful enough for you Acorn Independent Press will be hosting Libations, Laughs and Literature on Sunday afternoon – the ultimate pub-quiz for people who can get more than 3 words from a boggle!
• The almighty Scat Pack will be presenting whole movies live on stage on Sunday evening in Lights! Camera! Improvise! If you came down to Movies in Minutes last year, this is like that, but on speed!
• On Monday evening, YARNfest is honoured to have Hanif Kureishi join us to judge Cover Wars. We’re taking The Buddha of Suburbia, handing it over to four London Illustration Networks, and see them battle it out Live on the night, creating their new versions of the cover artwork! Hanif Kureishi will read from the novel and judge the artworks created, alongside Jon Gray of Gray318.
• On Tuesday evening, YARN presents The Special Relationship – A night of literary entertainment where award-winning writers, poets, comedians and filmmakers have a story to tell.
• And our finally this year will be Ten Stories about Smoking. If you enjoyed YARNs Four Stories High then you will love this event. Join us in a smoky underbelly to launch Stuart Evers new collection Ten Stories about Smoking. See the collection interpreted into film, theatre, music and spoken word by artists including The Strumpettes, Quattro Formaggio, Verity Flecknell, The Android Angel and Camila Fiori.

YARN HQ and Bookhugger can’t wait to see you there! Make sure to purchase your tickets in adavance at www.YARNfest.com.

And you can enter the competition for a chance to win a VIP Pass for Two to ALL of the YARN events listed above, plus bonus goodies!

The Finkler Question is a novel about love, loss and male friendship, and explores what it means to be Jewish today.

Chaired by Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate, the 2010 judges were Rosie Blau, Literary Editor of the Financial Times; Deborah Bull, formerly a dancer, now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster; Tom Sutcliffe, journalist, broadcaster and author and Frances Wilson, biographer and critic.

For more information visit the Man Booker Prize website.

This is how it works:

• Tell us a bit about yourself, your reading habits and preferences and your online life
• We will send you books carefully selected for your reading tastes, before they are published, so you can tell us – and the world – what you think
• There will also be chances to get books for friends and family, attend exclusive author events and share your thoughts with authors and publishers
• Please note that you must be resident in the UK or Republic of Ireland to take part

If you are interested in joining Real Readers please follow the link below, fill in the form, tell us as much about your likes and dislikes as you can, and we will take it from there!

To apply, visit the Read Readers website