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'Shelf Life is whip-smart, slyly heartbreaking, and I felt the truth of it in my bones.’ Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure Ruth is thirty years old. She works as a nurse in a care home and her fiancé has just broken up with her. The only thing she has left of him is their shopping list for the upcoming week. Starting with six eggs, and working through spaghetti and strawberries, apples and tea bags, this inventive novel builds a picture of a woman defined by the people she serves; her patients, her friends, and, most of all, her partner of ten years. Without him, Ruth needs to find out – with conditioner and single cream and a lot of sugar – who she is when she stands alone. With her fresh unpredictable style, Franchini skewers modern relationships and toxic masculinity, moving effortlessly between humour and heartbreak to tell the story of a woman rebuilding herself on her own terms.
*Spell-poems take us into a realm where words can influence the universe.* *Spells* brings together contemporary voices exploring the territory where justice, selfhood and the imagination meet the transformative power of the occult. These poems unmake the world around them so that it might be remade anew. Contributors include: Kaveh Akbar, Rachael Allen, Nuar Alsadir, Khairani Barokka, Emily Berry, A.K. Blakemore, Jen Calleja, Anthony Vahni Capildeo, CAConrad, Livia Franchini, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Will Harris, Lucy Ives, Rebecca May Johnson, Bhanu Kapil, Amy Key, Daisy Lafarge, Ursula K. Le Guin, Canisia Lubrin, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Lucy Mercer, Hoa Nguyen, Nat Raha, Nisha Ramayya, Ariana Reines, Tai Shani & Jane Yeh
Stranded on the outskirts of Ironopolis — nickname to a lost industrial Middlesbrough — the Burn Council Estate is about to be torn down to make way for regeneration. For the future ... But these streets know many stories, some hide secrets ... Jean holds the key to the disappearance of a famous artist ... Jim's youth is shattered during the euphoric raves of '89 ... A brutal boyhood prank scars three generations of Frank's family ... Corina's gambling addiction costs her far more than money ... And Alan, a man devastated by his past, unravels the darkness of his terrifying father, a man whose shadow has loomed large over the estate for a lifetime. And then there is the ageless Peg Powler, part myth, part reality: why is she stalking them all? 'Human nature? Class politics? Whatever it was, it wasn't us ... Deep down we were part of a whole, single energy, and all we had to do was be ready to sink down together.'
'As compelling as it is tough, sidestepping piety in favour of clear-eyed infectious anger' Sunday Times Irene Dalila Mwathi comes from Kenya with a brutally violent personal history. Once she wanted to be a journalist, now all she wants is to be safe. When she finally arrives, bewildered, in London, she is attacked by the very people paid to protect her, and she has no choice but to step out on her own into this strange new world. Through a dizzying array of interviews, lawyer’s meetings, regulations and detention centres, she realises that what she faces may be no less dangerous than the violence she has fled. Written with grace, humour and compassion, this timely and thought-provoking novel tackles its uncomfortable subject matter in a deeply affecting way. A book about forging dignity in a world of tragedy, and raising issues about immigration and asylum-seekers through the story of one woman’s plight, Dalila is a necessary tale of our times. It is also a work of great literary power: a slow-burning, spell-binding novel about how we treat the vulnerable and dispossessed that will leave its readers devastated.
'Consuming and sexy' The Times 'Unusually raw . . . so honest and hopeful' Financial Times A girl grows up in the north-east of England amid scarcity, fearing her own desires and feeling undeserving of love. Years later, living in tiny rented rooms and working in noisy bars across London and Paris, she meets someone who offers her a new way to experience the world. But when he invites her to join him in Barcelona, the promise of care makes her uneasy. In the shimmering Mediterranean heat, she is faced with both pleasure and shame, and must find out if she is able to change. 'Addictive, immediate, brilliant' Helen Mort 'A sharp and beguiling love story . . . Milk Teeth is a transporting, gorgeous novel' Independent
'BLISTERING' THE TIMES * 'EXTRAORDINARY' FINANCIAL TIMES SOON TO BE A MJAOR MOTION PICTURE A gut-wrenching love story set in the underbelly of New York, about the unexpected connection between an illegal Uyghur migrant and a damaged Iraq veteran. *Winner of the New York City Book Award for Fiction* *Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Fiction* Set in the underbelly of New York, Preparation for the Next Life exposes an America as seen from the fringes of society and, in devastating detail, destroys the myth of the American Dream through two of the most remarkable characters in contemporary fiction. Powerful, realistic and raw, this is one of the most ambitious – and necessary – novels of our time. New York Times Best of 2014 Wall Street Journal's Best of 2014 Vanity Fair's Best of 2014 Publishers Weekly's Best of 2014 BuzzFeed's Best of 2014 New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2015
'A brilliant debut' Guardian 1870s, the Black Country. Michael is a miner. But it's no life for a man. Michael exhausts himself working two jobs, to send his son Luke to school, so he won't have to be a miner too. Down the pit one day, he finds a seam of gold. If he gets it out, he can save his own life, and Luke's. But his workmate has other ideas... Mercia's Take summons an England in the heat of the industrial revolution, and the lives it took to make it. Gripping, powerful and intense, it is the debut of an astonishing new talent.
From Robin Sloan, the New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, comes Sourdough, "a perfect parable for our times" (San Francisco Magazine): a delicious and funny novel about an overworked and under-socialized software engineer discovering a calling and a community as a baker. Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Southern Living Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. ...
From the prize-winning author of Supper Club comes a wickedly funny and slyly poignant new satire on modern life - for fans of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Convenience Store Woman, and J. G. Ballard's High Rise 'This book is a serious vibe' Cosmopolitan 'Lara Williams is the queen of smart modern satire. I could read her all day' Emma Jane Unsworth Meet Ingrid. She works on a gargantuan luxury cruise liner, where she spends her days reorganizing the merchandise and waiting for long-term guests to drop dead in the changing rooms. On her days off, she disembarks from the ship and gets blind drunk on whatever the local alcohol is. It's not a bad life. And it distracts her from thinking about...
Women, Business and the Law 2021 is the seventh in a series of annual studies measuring the laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. The project presents eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they move through their lives and careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. This year’s report updates all indicators as of October 1, 2020 and builds evidence of the links between legal gender equality and women’s economic inclusion. By examining the economic decisions women make throughout their working lives, as well as the pace of reform over the past 50 years, Women, Business and the Law 2021 makes an important contribution to research and policy discussions about the state of women’s economic empowerment. Prepared during a global pandemic that threatens progress toward gender equality, this edition also includes important findings on government responses to COVID-19 and pilot research related to childcare and women’s access to justice.