One of the best (and longest) crime novels ever written, it is the heart of Ellroy's four-novel masterpiece, the LA Quartet, and an example of crime writing at its most powerful.
The first novel in Ellroy's extraordinary Underworld USA Trilogy as featured on BBC Radio 4's A Good Read.
1958. America is about to emerge into a bright new age - an age that will last until the 1000 days of John F Kennedy's presidency.
Three men move beneath the glossy surface of power, men allied to the makers and shakers of the era. Pete Bondurant - Howard Hughes's right-hand man, Jimmy Hoffa's hitman. Kemper Boyd - employed by J Edgar Hoover to infiltrate the Kennedy clan. Ward Littell - a man seeking redemption in Bobby Kennedy's drive against organised crime.
The festering discount of the age that burns brightly in these men's hearts will go into supernova as the Bay of Pigs ends in calamity, the Mob clamours for payback and the 1000 days ends in brutal quietus in 1963.
Startlingly brilliant' Spectator 'A triumph' Daily Mail 'One of America's most powerful writers' Times Literary Supplement Twelve-year-old Caitlin lives alone with her mother - a docker at the local container port - in subsidised housing next to an airport in Seattle. Each day, while she waits to be picked up after school, Caitlin visits the local aquarium to study the fish. Gazing at the creatures within the watery depths, Caitlin is transported to a shimmering universe beyond her own.
When she befriends an old man at the tanks one day, who seems as enamoured by the fish as she, Caitlin cracks open a dark family secret and propels her once-blissful relationship with her mother towards a precipice of terrifying consequence.
A shocking, suspenseful and daring new novel from one of the greatest American writers at work today, whose previous books include Caribou Island, Dirt and Legend of a Suicide.
In David Vann's searing novel Goat Mountain, an eleven-year-old boy is eager to make his first kill at his family's annual deer hunt. But all is not as it should be. His father discovers a poacher on the land, a 640-acre ranch in Northern California, and shows him to the boy through the scope of his rifle. With this simple gesture, tragedy erupts, shattering lives irrevocably.
Set over the course of one hot and hellish weekend, Goat Mountain is the story of a family struggling to contend with a terrible crime and its repercussions. David Vann creates a haunting and provocative novel that explores our most primal urges and beliefs, the bonds of blood and religion that define and secure us, and the consequences of our actions - what we owe for what we've done.
Hazel has just moved into a trailer park of senior citizens, with her father and Diane - his sex doll companion. Life with Hazel''s father is strained at best, but it''s got to be better than her marriage to dominating tech billionaire, Byron Gogol. For over a decade, Hazel has been quarantining in Byron''s family compound, her every movement and vital sign tracked. So when Byron demands to wirelessly connect the two of them via brain chips, turning Hazel into a human guinea pig, Hazel makes a run for it. Will Hazel be able to free herself from Byron''s virtual clutches before he finds her?>
** Shortlisted for the NME Best Music Book Award 2018 ** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR A HERALD BOOK OF THE YEAR AN IRISH INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 'The definitive book on Bowie' The Times Drawn from a series of conversations between David Bowie and Dylan Jones across three decades, together with over 180 interviews with friends, rivals, lovers, and collaborators - some of whom have never before spoken about their relationship with Bowie - this oral history is an intimate portrait of a remarkable rise to stardom and one of the most fascinating lives of our time.
Profoundly shaped by his relationship with his schizophrenic half-brother Terry, Bowie was a man of intense relationships that often came to abrupt ends. He was a social creature, equally comfortable partying with John Lennon and dining with Frank Sinatra, and in Dylan Jones's telling - by turns insightful and salacious - we see as intimate a portrait as could possibly be drawn.
Including illuminating, never-before-seen material from Bowie himself, drawn from a series of Jones's interviews with him across three decades, DAVID BOWIE is an epic, unforgettable cocktail-party conversation about a man whose enigmatic shapeshifting and irrepressible creativity produced one of the most sprawling, fascinating lives of our time.
***Soon to be a major TV series starring Kenneth Branagh*** OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A MAIL ON SUNDAY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A DAILY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 AN IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017 NOMINATED FOR THE 2018 INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS WEEK AWARD 'This novel is astonishing, uplifting and wise. Don't miss it' Chris Cleave 'No historical novel this year was more witty, insightful or original than Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow' Sunday Times, Books of the Year 'Charming ... shows that not all books about Russian aristocrats have to be full of doom and nihilism' The Times, Books of the Year '[A] supremely uplifting novel ... It's elegant, witty and delightful - much like the Count himself.' Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol.
Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. But instead of his usual suite, he must now live in an attic room while Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval.
A neo-noir crime novel from the legendary crime novelist James Ellroy. Los Angeles, 15th January 1947: a beautiful young woman walked into the night and met her horrific destiny. Two cops are caught up in the investigation and embark on a hellish journey that takes them to the core of the dead girl's twisted life...
Florida is a magnificent collection, executed with tremendous depth and precision, unsettling in the best possible way. Lauren Groff is a virtuoso.' Emily St John Mandel, author of Station Eleven In her vigorous and moving new book, Lauren Groff brings her electric storytelling and intelligence to a world in which storms, snakes and sinkholes lurk at the edge of everyday life, but the greater threats and mysteries are of a human, emotional and psychological nature. Among those navigating it all are a resourceful pair of abandoned sisters; a lonely boy, grown up; a restless, childless couple; a searching, homeless woman; and an unforgettable, recurring character a steely and conflicted wife and mother.
The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida - its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind - becomes its gravitational centre: an energy, a mood, as much as a place of residence. Groff transports the reader, then jolts us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty, as she writes about loneliness, rage, family and the passage of time. With shocking accuracy and effect, she pinpoints the moments and decisions and connections behind human pleasure and pain, hope and despair, love and fury - the moments that make us alive. Startling, precise and affecting, Florida is a magnificent achievement.
A really powerful novel' President Obama AMAZON.COM's 2015 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER BARACK OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR A FINALIST FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD Every story has two sides.
Every relationship has two perspectives.
And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets.
________________________ 'Ellroy writes with raw power ... undeniably one of the most influential crime writers of our time' THE TIMES 'a tangled fever-dream ... Ellroy offers a grandiose, Wagnerian vision of wartime LA' SUNDAY TIMES ________________________ A brilliant historical crime novel, set in Los Angeles and Mexico during the pulse-pounding aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
January, '42. L.A. reels behind the shock of Pearl Harbor. Local Japanese are rounded up and slammed behind bars. Massive thunderstorms hit the city. A body is unearthed in Griffith Park.
The cops tag it a routine dead-man job. They're wrong. It's an early-warning signal of Chaos.
There's a murderous fire and a gold heist exploding out of the past. There's Fifth Column treason - at this moment, on American soil. There are homegrown Nazis, commies and race racketeers. There's two dead cops in a dive off the jazz-club strip. And three men and one woman have a hot date with History.
Elmer Jackson is a corrupt Vice cop. He's a flesh peddler and a bagman for the L.A. Chief of Police. Hideo Ashida is a crime-lab whiz, lashed by anti-Japanese rage. Dudley Smith is a PD hardnose working Army Intelligence. He's gone rogue and gone all-the-way fascist. Joan Conville was born rogue. She's a defrocked Navy lieutenant and a war profiteer to her core.
L.A., '42. Homefront madness ascendant. Early-wartime inferno - This Storm is James Ellroy's most audacious novel yet. It is by turns savage, tender, elegiac. It lays bare and celebrates crazed Americans of all stripes.
________________________ 'Epic crime writing from a master' DAILY MAIL 'Ellroy is unique. There is nobody writing this way ... Nobody has done or is doing what he is doing' BOOKMUNCH
________________________________________ The iconic author of the bestselling phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians returns with the glittering tale of a young woman who finds herself torn between two men. On her very first morning on the jewel-like island of Capri, Lucie Churchill sets eyes on George Zao and she instantly can''t stand him. She can''t stand it when he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so that she can have a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, she can''t stand that he knows more about Casa Malaparte than she does, and she really can''t stand it when he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins of a Roman villa. The daughter of an American-born Chinese mother and a blue-blooded New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself, and she adamantly denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears in East Hampton, where Lucie is weekending with her new fiance, she finds herself drawn to him again. Soon, Lucie is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiance and ultimately herself, as she tries to deny George entry into her world - and her heart. Moving between summer playgrounds of privilege, peppered with decadent food and extravagant fashion, Sex and Vanity is a truly modern love story, a daring homage to A Room with a View , and a brilliantly funny comedy of manners set between two cultures. PEOPLE WATCHING HAS NEVER BEEN SO MUCH FUN. ________________________________________ '' Sex and Vanity scores high on all intended fronts ; the opening half, set in Capri, is bathed in sunshine and sexual tension. The novel reads like travel porn, listing the island''s best and lesser-known sights, places to eat, stay and drink. And then there is the story of Lucie Tang Churchill, a biracial New York princess from the Upper East Side, attending an eye-wateringly extravagant wedding.'' GUARDIAN
Lee is a magnetic new voice in historical fiction and CUNNING WOMEN is sure to be loved by fans of The Essex Serpent and The Mercies . Spring of 1620 in a Lancashire fishing community and the memory of the slaughter at Pendle is tight around the neck of Sarah Haworth. A birthmark reveals that Sarah, like her mother, is a witch. Torn between yearning for an ordinary life and desire to discover what dark power she might possess, Sarah''s one hope is that her young sister Annie will be spared this fate. The Haworth family eke out a meagre existence in the old plague village adjoining a God-fearing community presided over by a seedy magistrate. A society built upon looking the other way, the villagers'' godliness is merely a veneer. But the Haworth women, with their salves and poultices, are judged the real threat to morality. When Sarah meets lonely farmer''s son Daniel, she begins to dream of a better future. Daniel is in thrall to the wild girl with storms in her eyes, but their bond is tested when a zealous new magistrate vows to root out sins and sinners. In a frenzy of fear and fury, the community begins to turn on one another, and it''s not long before they direct their gaze towards the old plague village ... and does Daniel trust that the power Sarah wields over him is truly love, or could it be mere sorcery?
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 'A triumph on every level. One of the losses to literature is that Harper Lee never found a way to tell a gothic true-crime story she'd spent years researching. Casey Cep has excavated this mesmerizing story and tells it with grace and insight and a fierce fidelity to the truth.' DAVID GRANN, author of Killers of the Flower Moon _____________________________ The stunning story of an Alabama serial killer and the true-crime book that Harper Lee worked on obsessively in the years after To Kill a Mockingbird Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted - thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend.
As Alabama is consumed by these gripping events, it's not long until news of the case reaches Alabama's - and America's - most famous writer. Intrigued by the story, Harper Lee makes a journey back to her home state to witness the Reverend's killer face trial. Harper had the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood, the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research. Lee spent a year in town reporting on the Maxwell case and many more years trying to finish the book she called The Reverend.
Now Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South. At the same time, she offers a deeply moving portrait of one of the country's most beloved writers and her struggle with fame, success, and the mystery of artistic creativity.
This is the story Harper Lee wanted to write. This is the story of why she couldn't.
_____________________________ 'Fascinating ... Cep has spliced together a Southern-gothic tale of multiple murder and the unhappy story of Lee's literary career, to produce a tale that is engrossing in its detail and deeply poignant... [Cep] spends the first third of Furious Hours following the jaw-dropping trail of murders ... Engrossing ... Cep writes about all this with great skill, sensitivity and attention to detail.' SUNDAY TIMES 'It's been a long time since I picked up a book so impossible to put down. Furious Hours made me forget dinner, ignore incoming calls, and stay up reading into the small hours. It's a work of literary and legal detection as gripping as a thriller. But it's also a meditation on motive and mystery, the curious workings of history, hope, and ambition, justice, and the darkest matters of life and death. Casey Cep's investigation into an infamous Southern murder trial and Harper Lee's quest to write about it is a beautiful, sobering, and sometimes chilling triumph.' HELEN MACDONALD, author of H is for Hawk 'This story is just too good ... Furious Hours builds and builds until it collides with the writer who saw the power of Maxwell's story, but for some reason was unable to harness it. It lays bare the inner life of a woman who had a world-class gift for hiding ... [this] book makes a magical leap, and it goes from being a superbly written true-crime story to the sort of story that even Lee would have been proud to write.' MICHAEL LEWIS, author of Moneyball and The Big Short
«THE HOTTEST STATE»INDEH: A STORY OF THE APACHE WARS»ASH WEDNESDAY» AN UNFORGETTABLE FABLE ABOUT A FATHER'S JOURNEY AND A TIMELESS GUIDE TO LIFE'S MANY QUESTIONS.
A KNIGHT, FEARING HE MAY NOT RETURN FROM BATTLE, WRITES A LETTER TO HIS CHILDREN IN AN ATTEMPT TO LEAVE A RECORD OF ALL HE KNOWS. IN A SERIES OF RUMINATIONS ON SOLITUDE, HUMILITY, FORGIVENESS, HONESTY, COURAGE, GRACE, PRIDE, AND PATIENCE, HE DRAWS ON THE ANCIENT TEACHINGS OF EASTERN AND WESTERN PHILOSOPHY, AND ON THE GREAT SPIRITUAL AND POLITICAL WRITINGS OF OUR TIME. HIS INTENT: TO GIVE HIS CHILDREN A COMPASS FOR A JOURNEY THEY WILL HAVE TO MAKE ALONE, A SHORT GUIDE TO WHAT GIVES LIFE MEANING AND BEAUTY.
When the daughter of an enigmatic cult horror film director is found dead in an abandoned Manhattan warehouse, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath, disbelieving the official suicide ruling, probes into the strange circumstances of the young woman's death while being drawn into the director's eerie world. By the author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics .
__________________________ mountweazel, noun: a fake entry deliberately inserted into a dictionary or work of reference. Often used as a safeguard against copyright infringement. In the final year of the nineteenth century , Peter Winceworth has reached the letter ''S'', toiling away for the much-anticipated and multi-volume Swansby''s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary . Overwhelmed at his desk and increasingly uneasy that his colleagues are attempting to corral language and regiment facts, Winceworth feels compelled to assert some sense of individual purpose and exercise artistic freedom, and begins inserting unauthorised, fictitious entries into the dictionary. In the present day , young intern Mallory is tasked with uncovering these mountweazels as the text of the dictionary is digitised for modern readers. Through the words and their definitions she finds she has access to their creator''s motivations, hopes and desires. More pressingly, she must also field daily threatening anonymous phone calls. Is a suggested change to the dictionary''s definition of marriage (n.) really that controversial? What power does Mallory have when it comes to words and knowing how to tell the truth? And does the caller really intend for the Swansby''s staff to ''burn in hell''? As their two narratives combine, Winceworth and Mallory must discover how to negotiate the complexities of an often nonsensical, untrustworthy, hoax-strewn and undefinable life. __________________________ The Liar''s Dictionary explores themes of trust and creativity, naming the unnameable, and celebrates the rigidity, fragility and absurdity of language. It is an exhilarating debut novel from a formidably brilliant young writer. __________________________ ''This tale of lexical intrigues is an absolute joy to read! It''s gloriously inventive and playful, but with just the right amount of heart.'' LUCY SCHOLES
This book is the one. Think Sapiens and triple it.' - Julia Hobsbawm, author of Fully Connected We all have ten types of human in our head.
They're the people we become when we face life's most difficult decisions. We want to believe there are things we would always do - or things we never would. But how can we be sure? What are our limits? Do we have limits?
The Ten Types of Human is a pioneering examination of human nature. It looks at the best and worst that human beings are capable of, and asks why. It explores the frontiers of the human experience, uncovering the forces that shape our thoughts and actions in extreme situations.
From courtrooms to civil wars, from Columbus to child soldiers, Dexter Dias takes us on a globe-spanning journey in search of answers, touching on the lives of some truly exceptional people.
Combining cutting-edge neuroscience, social psychology and human rights research, The Ten Types of Human is a provocative map to our hidden selves. It provides a new understanding of who we are - and who we can be.
'I emerged from this book feeling better about almost everything... a mosaic of faces building into this extraordinary portrait of our species.' - Guardian 'The Ten Types of Human is a fantastic piece of non-fiction, mixing astonishing real-life cases with the latest scientific research to provide a guide to who we really are. It's inspiring and essential.' - Charles Duhigg 'Uplifting and indispensable.' - Howard Cunnell What readers are saying about 'the most important book in years':
'utterly compelling...this one comes with a warning - only pick it up if you can risk not putting it down' - Wendy Heydorn on Amazon, 5 stars 'one of the most remarkable books I've read... I can genuinely say that it has changed the way I view the world' - David Jones on Amazon, 5 stars 'Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the human condition... a thrilling and beautifully crafted book' - Wasim on Amazon, 5 stars 'This is the most important book I have read in years' - Natasha Geary on Amazon, 5 stars 'an important and fascinating read... It will keep you glued to the page' - Hilary Burrage on Amazon, 5 stars 'a journey that I will never forget, will always be grateful for, and I hope will help me question who I am... a work of genius' - Louise on Amazon, 5 stars 'This is a magnificent book that will capture the interest of every type of reader... one of those rare and special books that demand rereading' - Amelia on Amazon, 5 stars 'I simply couldn't put it down... one of the most significant books of our time' - Jocelyne Quennell on Amazon, 5 stars 'Read The Ten Types of Human and be prepared to fall in love' - Helen Fospero on Amazon, 5 stars
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Gnomon is an extraordinary novel, and one I can't stop thinking about some weeks after I read it. It is deeply troubling, magnificently strange, and an exhilarating read.' Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven 'Nick Harkaway's most ambitious novel yet. [A] story of near-future mass surveillance, artificial intelligence and human identity ... An amazing and quite unforgettable piece of fiction.' Guardian 'Harkaway dazzles.' Daily Mail 'Wonderfully good.' Sunday Times Near-future Britain is a state in which citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of 'transparency.' Every action is seen, every word is recorded and the System has access to thoughts and memories.
When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in custody, it marks the first time a citizen has been killed during an interrogation. Mielikki Neith, a trusted state inspector, is assigned to find out what went wrong. Immersing herself in neural recordings of the interrogation, what she finds isn't Hunter but rather a panorama of characters within Hunter's psyche.
Embedded in the memories of these impossible lives lies a code which Neith must decipher to find out what Hunter is hiding. The staggering consequences of what she finds will reverberate throughout the world.
The New York Times bestseller and Guardian Book of the Month 'This flawless masterpiece deserves to be a bestseller.' DAILY EXPRESS 'Tough, tense and twisty - but tender, human and deeply affecting, too ... I don't have a sister, but when I finished the book I called my brother, just to hear his voice.' LEE CHILD 'An outstanding crime novel.' PAULA HAWKINS, author of The Girl on the Train _____________________________________ KENSINGTON AVE, PHILADELPHIA:
THE FIRST PLACE YOU GO FOR DRUGS OR SEX.
THE LAST PLACE YOU WANT TO LOOK FOR YOUR SISTER.
Mickey Fitzpatrick has been patrolling the 24th District for years. She knows most of the working women by name. She knows what desperation looks like and what people will do when they need a fix. She's become used to finding overdose victims: their numbers are growing every year. But every time she sees someone sprawled out, slumped over, cold to the touch, she has to pray it's not her sister, Kacey.
When the bodies of murdered sex workers start turning up on the Ave, the Chief of Police is keen to bury the news. They're not the kind of victims that generate a whole lot of press anyway. But Mickey is obsessed, dangerously so, with finding the perpetrator - before Kacey becomes the next victim.
_____________________________________ 'A remarkable, profoundly moving novel about the ties that bind and the irrevocable wounds of childhood. It's also a riveting mystery, perfectly paced. I loved every page of it.' DENNIS LEHANE 'Outstanding . . . an intense family thriller . . . The clever plot and involving characters set a high standard for this new year.' DAILY MAIL 'This is a thrilling and heartbreaking exploration of the strain the opioid crisis puts on families. A masterpiece.' DAILY MIRROR
The world has finally awoken to the reality of climate breakdown and ecological collapse. Now we must face up to its primary cause. Capitalism demands perpetual expansion, which is devastating the living world. There is only one solution that will lead to meaningful and immediate change: degrowth. If we want to have a shot at surviving the Anthropocene, we need to restore the balance. We need to change how we see the world and our place within it, shifting from a philosophy of domination and extraction to one that''s rooted in reciprocity with our planet''s ecology. We need to evolve beyond the dusty dogmas of capitalism to a new system that''s fit for the twenty-first century. But what about jobs? What about health? What about progress? This book tackles these questions and offers an inspiring vision for what a post-capitalist economy could look like. An economy that''s more just, more caring, and more fun. An economy that enables human flourishing while reversing ecological breakdown. By taking less, we can become more.
When Wendy White disappears, the small town of Haeden, New York, is shaken to its core. But, six months later, Wendy's body is found in the nearby woods. With no one willing to talk, the investigation slows to a halt. But local reporter Stacy Flynn and high school student Alice Piper have their own reasons for finding out what really happened.
America's greatest crime writer investigates his mother's murder. On 21 June 1958, Geneva Hilliker Ellroy left her home in California. She was found strangled the next day. Her ten year-old son James had been with her estranged husband all weekend and was informed of her death on his return. Her murderer was never found, but her death had an enduring effect on her son - he spent his teens and early adult years as a wino, petty burglar and derelict.
Only later, through his obsession with crime fiction, triggered by his mother's murder, did Ellroy begin to delve into his past. Shortly after the publication of his groundbreaking novel WHITE JAZZ, he determined to return to Los Angeles and, with the help of veteran detective Bill Stoner, attempt to solve the 38-year-old killing.
The result is one of the few classics of crime non-fiction and autobiography to appear in the last few decades; a hypnotic trip to America's underbelly and one man's tortured soul.
