In this stunning first collection Jack Alun draws on twenty years of living in a rural area of the Midi, France to go beyond the clichéd and the picturesque and to prise out the raw, timeless and human elements in plain and compelling language. And behind the characters is a landscape that is at once stark, familiar and impersonal that undercuts every human action. In the second part, Vertical Horizons recounts the discovery of the grave of Christian da Silva, the local raconteur, singer, editor, publisher, teacher, poet and bon viveur. In the ambitious imagined dialogue between the dead poet and the living poet it becomes a homage to language, to poetry and to the powerful effect that the past has on our perspectives. BUY NOW
A brand new collection of verse by Jack Alun, following on from his widely acclaimed first collection, Vertical Horizons.
Inspired by place but seeking out the unseen, redefining the experience of traveller but looking back and seeing the heartbreak, the fear, the simple joy and madness of the world, this is Jack Alun’s finest collection to date.
By turns haunting and confessional and full of fantastic story-telling, these poems witty and profound rekindle themes that touch us all: growing old, love, mortality, travelling and eating dodgy ice-cream and dreaming of death on a moped.
England’s greatest Romantic poet is dying and to ease the passing his doctors have prescribed a stay in Italy. But the journey is perilous and his companions carry their own secrets and sufferings. Richard Boden’s first novel is an extraordinary, poetic, moving and unflinching recreation of Keats’ last few months before his inevitable horrific death from ‘consumption’ in 1821. Based on careful research using contemporary letters and accounts, Keats’ very particular intellect and character are delicately brought to life as he is forced to deal with the meaning of his own life and death on board a ship with three equally lost and lonely companions, each with their own story to tell… BUY NOW
Novel, fiction part historical and part contemporary telling the story of Burgerman and the Circle, a place that lives outside the system. Out there, in Lardland, the world is on a descent into violence, rage, inequality and broken people. The Circle is everything Lardland isn’t. It’s about community, integrity, cooperation, safety, nature, creativity, a move away from money-driven things and status. Chapter 1 introduces us to Burgerman and his giving advice, Chapter 2 brings in Milton who is ultimately part of the Circle’s downfall but he has a terrible tale to tell of how he, too, has fallen off the edge and then the story begins to unfold of how the Circle is the target of an unholy partnership of gangster-capitalists and people with the power and means to destroy and take whatever they want. Burgerman and his group work to expose the identities of these people – millionaires with endless companies not paying tax, bent coppers, local gangsters running dodgy businesses and even local aristocracy looking for ways of making lots of money. Amongst all this we glimpse life as it is lived in the Circle and the stories of the people who have come to live there and…
Punched, kicked, spat at and publicly condemned, former golden boy of Iceland’s meteoric financial rise and author of its meltdown, Starkaður Levi, is facing a long prison sentence. In desperation he searches for a way out that leads him to The Firm and a way of saving his reputation…. In this brand new translation of Bjarni Bjarnason’s intelligent, ironic, comic and tragic novel he explores the motivations and weaknesses of the moneymen who brought so much misery to so many. And just how far they will go to save their reputations. Bjarni Bjarnason is a prolific prize-winning author with translations of his work in Arabic, Faeroese, German and English. And with The Reputation, (Mannorð) he established himself right at the forefront of modern Icelandic literature with its controversial portrait of a well-known Icelandic millionaire that has become a standard text for post-crash Icelandic studies. BUY NOW
From the mirthful and intoxicated world of performance poetry comes this extraordinary mix of poems for shouting, crying and laughing out loud. Lurking in the Plastic Bag of Poems is a riot of funny, irreverent and naughty words that you’ve probably thought but never thought you’d see put together quite like this, audaciously illustrated by Mr James Castleden’s seriously witty and eye-popping works of art. Trumpeted here in this unique collection in a glorious sympthongy is The Thong Cycle, the world’s most important literary work exploring this most understated of undergarments. Mr Eccles also peers into the imagination of the cabbage, the history of golf club banter, the clothes your mum buys you and the beauty of Britain’s tea towels. And a few other easy things like love, family and adultery. You’ll never look at plastic bags or poetry in quite the same way ever again. BUY NOW