From the subsistence farms of nineteen fifties Ireland to the hedonistic life of Left Bank Paris, from the bleak beauty of the West of Ireland to Pragues post communist rudderless freedom, from life on swinging Sohos unforgiving streets to the excitement of the stag hunt in County Meath, from the life and death struggle of the skyscraper construction workers of New York City to the longings of a lovelorn Dublin office worker, from the Sisters of Mercy slave labour laundries to the virginit...

Finalist for the 2015 Giller PrizeAmong The National Post's Top 5 Books of 2015Among The Toronto Star's Top 5 Fiction Books of 2015Among Largehearted Boy's Favourite Novels of 2015One of Quill & Quire’s Books of the Year, 2015Among The Edmonton Journal's Top 5 Books of 2015A 49th Shelf Book...

One man. One bike. A whole lotta trouble. MEET SLIM. He bought his first motorcycle, a Bridgestone 175 cc, at age sixteen in 1968. Since then, he's been in and out of trouble (mainly in) and experienced the thrills and perils of riding on the highway. He's been a guest inside some of Australia's toughest jails where he learned a lifetime's worth of human behaviour and handy life skills, such as how not to do an armed hold-up. Never one to shy from a punch or retreat from a fight, Slim is a...

A bumper collection of yarns from motorcyclist enthusiasts around Australia.Get out on the highway and into this new collection of all-Australian motorcycle stories - the latest addition to ABC Books' bestselling Great Australian series. Edited by John Bryant and full of laconic Aussie humour, the collection features 40 stories that capture the freedom, fun, independence and adventure that comes with having a bike - no matter how big or small. Meet tex and his blue heeler Bundy who ...

122 fantastic stories from Britain's best crime writersFor ten years the Mammoth Best British Crime series has been publishing an annual volume of the most outstanding crime and mystery short fiction published in the UK. Over 400 stories by the very best writers in the field have been published. Contributors have included, among many others, Mark Billingham, Liza Cody, Roger Jon Ellory, Reginald Hill, Peter James, Simon Kernick, Alexander McCall Smith, Val McDermid...

The U.S. debut of leading U.K. author David Szalay, named one of The Daily Telegraph's twenty best British novelists under fortyJames is a man with a checkered past—sporadic entrepreneur, one-time film producer, almost a dot-com millionaire—now alone in a flat in Bloomsbury, running a shady horse-racing-tips operation. Katherine is a manager at a luxury hotel, a job she'd intended to leave years ago, and is separated from her husband. The novel unfolds in ...

Something Special, Something Rare presents outstanding short fiction by Australia’s finest female writers. These are tales of love, secrets, doubt and torment, the everyday and the extraordinary.A sleepy town is gripped by delusory grief after the movie being filmed there wraps and leaves. A lingering heartbreak is replayed on Facebook. An ordinary family walks a shaky line between hopelessness and redemption.Brilliant, shocking and profound, these tales will leave...

This remarkable memoir begins with Don Walker's early life in rural Australia and goes up to the late ’80s. In mesmerising prose, Walker evokes childhood and youth, wild times in the ’70s, life on the road and in Kings Cross, music-making and much more. Shots is a stunningly original book, a set of word pictures – shots – that conjure up the lowlife and backroads of Australia.‘Singular, strong and beguiling’ —The Sydney Morning Herald‘Better than good. Mos...

Featuring:Sarah Hall, Lucy Wood, Lisa Blower, Lavinia Greenlaw and Lionel Shriver.Edgar Allan Poe once claimed the greatest literary works were those that could be read ’in one sitting’. ‘Brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect,’ he argued, once the effect has been established, of course.The stories shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2013 all use brevity with striking results, whether presenting a comp...

The third book in the delightful series, set in Carrington’s Department Store.Alexandra Brown’s new novel, Ice Creams at Carrington’s, has been serialized into 4 parts – this is PART 3 OF 4 (Chapters 16 to 22 of 26).*The first three parts of Ice Creams at Carrington’s are being released every few days from 22nd May 2014, before the full novel is published. The final part will be released on 5th June 2014, when the full novel will also be available to buy in ebook and paperb...

The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its sixth year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the b...

From the author of City of Bohane and Dark Lies the Island, a debut collection that "could easily have been titled ‘These Are Little Masterpieces'" (The Irish Times)This award-winning story collection by Kevin Barry summons all the laughter, darkness, and intensity of contemporary Irish life. A pair of fast girls court trouble as they cool their heels on a slow night in a small town. Lonesome hillwalkers take to the high reaches in pursui...