'Poignant, thought-provoking and very funny' JOANNA CANNON'Darkly comic and deeply felt' GRACE FLAHIVEFull of wit, heart and charm, Ghost Month asks a timeless question: do we only value life when we are reminded that it will end?Perhaps you've already noticed little things, strange details. A shadow not attached to anything. A face in a window which might be a trick of the light. They come at dusk. Today.Ev...

**Kirkus Review“Arch comedy . . . Dave Eggers channels Anthony Bourdain.”An outrageously funny and original debut set in the fast-paced and treacherous world of a restaurant kitchen**Fresh out of university with big dreams, our narrator is determined to escape his past and lead the literary life in London. But soon he is two months behind on rent and forced to take a menial job in the kitchen of The Swan, a gastro-pub with haute cuisine aspirations.M...

* * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2014 COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD * * *Outrageously funny and completely original, Chop Chop by Simon Wroe is the story of a hapless young chef in the crazed world of the professional kitchen, featuring lust, revenge, neurosis and haute cuisine.'A greasy, hilarious tale of loyalty, revenge and dark appetites. A gripping look behind the kitchen wall' ShortlistTwo months behind on his rent, young graduate Monocle...

Welcome to Kyrzbekistan, winner of Most Corrupt Country 2011 and 2012. A place where anyone can be happy - as long they aren't poor, ill, foreign, a pedestrian, or in any way interested in the truth. A country that takes fake news and false promises to new levels. Expelled from school, Ellis Dau has been forced to help his father out at the Chronicle, the last bastion of free speech in this strange world. But when the country's power supply fails and dark voices threaten the C...

'Poignant, thought-provoking and very funny' JOANNA CANNON'Darkly comic and deeply felt' GRACE FLAHIVEFull of wit, heart and charm, Ghost Month asks a timeless question: do we only value life when we are reminded that it will end?Perhaps you've already noticed little things, strange details. A shadow not attached to anything. A face in a window which might be a trick of the light. They come at dusk. Today.Ev...

Penguin Presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Chop Chop, by Simon Wroe, read by Daniel Weyman.Two months behind on his rent, young graduate Monocle swallows his dreams and takes the only job he can find: the lowest-rung chef in a gastropub in Camden. Here he finds himself surrounded by a group of deranged, criminal hoodlums (his co-workers) and at the mercy of an ingenious sadist (the head chef, Bob). What follows is a furiously-paced, ribald, raucous and deep...

Following his expulsion from school, seventeen-year-old dreamer Ellis Dau is sent to work with his father. His father is editor of The Chronicle, the last bastion of free speech in their strange, strange land. And it is under threat: from heavy-handed policemen, mysterious revolutionaries, and the resident Russian billionaire.As Ellis navigates his collapsing, blacked-out city - and his feelings for the oligarch's beautiful daughter - he realises that some things are worth...

From the acclaimed Rick Moody, a darkly comic portrait of a man who comes to life in the most unexpected of ways: through his online reviews.Reginald Edward Morse is one of the top reviewers on RateYourLodging.com, where his many reviews reveal more than just details of hotels around the globe -- they tell his life story. The puzzle of Reginald's life comes together through reviews that comment upon his motivational speaking career, the dissolution of his marriage,...

This is the title story from the collection Wild Child and was originally published in McSweeney's.It is at the end of the eighteenth century, in the new French Republic, when the savage is first seen outside the village of Lacaune. The boy quickly becomes a legend among the townsfolk. Is he truly a human child or a wild beast?"Wild Child" is based on the story of Victor of Aveyron, the feral child brought from the French wilderness to Paris in an attempt ...

Alice McDermott's powerful new novel wittily captures the social, political and spiritual upheavals of the mid-twentieth century through the story of a family, and the changing world in which they live.While Michael and Annie Keane taste the alternately intoxicating and bitter first fruits of the sexual revolution, their older, more tentative brother lags behind, until he finds himself on the way to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Clare, the youngest child of their aging parents, seeks to maint...

“Hystericaland often touching. . . . Domestic Violets is a fast, fun, hilariousread."" —Jessica Anya Blau, critically-acclaimed author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and DrinkingCloser to HomeInthe tradition of Jonathan Tropper and Tom Perrotta comes Matthew Norman's Domestic Violets—adarkly comic family drama about one man’s improbable trials of love, loss, andambition; of attraction, impotence, and infidelity; and of mid-life malaise,poorly-planne...

Daddy is going to camp. That's what I told my children. A child psychologist suggested it. “Words like prison and jail conjure up dangerous images for children,” she explained. But it wasn't camp . . .Neil White, a journalist and magazine publisher, wanted the best for those he loved—nice cars, beautiful homes, luxurious clothes. He loaned money to family and friends, gave generously to his church, and invested in his community—but his bank account couldn't keep up. Soon W...