Literaire roman, novelle
Usual Desire to Kill
'Deeply funny and knowing' MEG WOLITZER
'Witty, moving' ANN NAPOLITANO
'Poignant, funny and brilliantly told' POSY SIMMONDS
An often hilarious, surprisingly moving portrait of a long-married couple, seen through the eyes of their wickedly observant daughter – for fans of A Man Called Ove and The Royal Tenenbaums.
Miranda’s parents live in a dilapidated house in rural France that they share with two llamas, eight ducks, five chickens, two cats, and a freezer full of food dating back to 1983.
Miranda’s father is a retired professor of philosophy who never loses an argument. Her mother likes to bring conversation back to the War, although she was born after it ended. Married for fifty years, they are uncommonly set in their ways. Miranda plays the role of translator when she visits, communicating the desires or complaints of one parent to the other and then venting her frustration to her sister and her daughter.
A wry, propulsive, exquisitely observed story of a singularly eccentric family and the sibling rivalry, generational divides, and long-buried secrets that shape them. This is an extraordinary debut novel from a seasoned playwright with a flare for dialogue and, in the end, immense empathy.
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‘Hilarious and heartbreaking. Barnes’s dialogue is pitch-perfect, and her characters dance off the page and straight into your heart’ Monica Ali, author of Love Marriage
‘Camilla Barnes deftly deciphers the secret language of one family, often with deeply funny and knowing results. I loved spending time in the very specific, complicated and memorable world of this novel’ Meg Wolitzer, author of The Wife
‘I love nothing more than reading about eccentric families, and the family in The Usual Desire to Kill is just that. Miranda and her sister work to uncover the true story of their parents' marriage, only to have their brilliant, quirky mother and father deflect them at every turn. Barnes has written a witty, moving novel about characters who, even when they seem incapable of speaking honestly, are worth listening to nonetheless’ Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful
‘An account of two ageing, secretive, disputatious and thoroughly maddening parents – poignant, funny and brilliantly told through gritted teeth’ Posy Simmonds, author of Cassandra Darke
EARLY READERS' REVIEWS FOR THE USUAL DESIRE TO KILL:
‘Family saga at its very best told with a tenderness that matches the dark humour in equal parts. I think this a book a lot of people will identify with’
‘Hugely relatable. Endearingly flawed characters with real depth and an insightful understanding of the ways in which family dynamics play out’
‘A unique yet weirdly relatable family saga’
‘Funny, honest, and engaging’
‘An observant and darkly witty debut’ Lees meer
Utopia Avenue
'ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY' INDEPENDENT
The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller
'Wildly entertaining'
SPECTATOR
'A stand-out triumph'
SUNDAY TIMES
'Superb'
LITERARY REVIEW
'Impressive'
NEW YORKER
'Highly entertaining'
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
A story of music and dreams, drugs and madness, love and grief, from the acclaimed author of Cloud Atlas
The year is 1967 and word is spreading about a new band on London's psychedelic scene - an unlikely combination of a female folksinger, a blues bassist, a jazz drummer and an electric guitarist. Strangers to each other and from widely different backgrounds, together they create magic. Meet Utopia Avenue.
This is the story of a unique band's brief, blazing journey from Soho dives to chart success and on to the promised land of America, just when the Summer of Love was giving way to something much darker - a tale of dreams, drugs, sexuality, madness and grief, and of fame's pitfalls. Capturing a time when youthful idealism collided with jaded reality, this bewitching novel celebrates the power of music to connect across divides, define an era and thrill the soul.
PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL
'A thrilling and gifted writer'
FINANCIAL TIMES
'Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good'
DAILY MAIL
'Mitchell is, clearly, a genius'
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
'An author of extraordinary ambition and skill'
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
'A superb storyteller'
THE NEW YORKER Lees meer
Vaim
Jatgeir has come from Vaim to the big city, Bjørgvin, on his wooden boat, Eline, named after the long-lost love of his teenage years. He intends to buy a needle and thread to sew a button but he is cheated, twice. That night, while sleeping on his boat, he hears a familiar voice: unexpectedly, it is Eline, who wants to come home to Vaim with him. She leaves a note for her husband Frank, packs her bags and runs away while he is out fishing. Vaim, Jon Fosse’s first novel since he received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the story of this triangle, a novel about little boats and big boats, love and death, passive men and an incredibly determined woman. And all, of course, was strange…
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Vaim Hotel
There is something wrong with the Vaim Hotel, though The Guest cannot say what, or why he has come to stay. The only other person there is the hotel’s owner, Brita, who runs it with brisk authority and swears she has seen him somewhere before, though he’s sure she hasn’t. As he acquaints himself with village life, eating each night at the restaurant Brita also owns, The Guest begins to sense that Vaim is not like other places. Then his belongings begin to slip away: fishing gear, shoulder bag, wallet, car keys – each loss drawing him deeper into debt. With no way to settle his bill, he must accept that his short trip has become an indefinite stay. Discomfiting, propulsive and shot through with dark humour, Vaim Hotel is a striking new novel from Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Jon Fosse, where everything is as it has always been, and nothing is as it seems.
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