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A washed-up, middle-aged British philosopher teams up with an incompetent, one-armed bank robber to plan the ultimate bank job.
Set in post-war Hungary between 1944 and 1956, the story follows the lives of two young men and in particular their careers in a travelling basketball team. They spend most of their time in the avoidance of work and army service and in the pursuit of sex.
Using the credit card and identity of a handA-cuffs salesman, professional failure Tyndale Corbett arrives in Miami for a law-enforcement conference to discover the joys of luxury hotels and above all the delight of being someone else, someone successful. Feeling his previous lack of success might be due to insufficient ambition, Tyndale decides on a new money-making scheme. He will up the ante substantially, exponentially, and pretend to be someone really important and successful: God.His mission to convince the citizenry of Miami that he is, despite appearances, the Supreme Being results in him taking over the Church of the Heavily Armed Christ. His duties there involve him in forming a private army, hiring call girls, trafficking coke, issuing death threats, beating off church-jackers and sorting out (as almightily as possible) various problems his parishioners are having with pets. All the while he is working on his grand project, the clincher miracle, dying and coming back to life...
A dazzling collection of short fiction, containing stories published in New Writing and the Times Literary Supplement, as well as several new stories. The Novella 'I Like being Killed' takes the lid off the comedy scene in London, investigates where jokes come from and how you can make people laugh with only one toothpick and a foreskin. Other stories visit Brixton prison and German bookshops, contemplate the tanning of Russian bottoms on the Côte d'Azur, offer advice on driving during Romanian revolutions, explain what to do with fifty uselessnesses, give tips on successful and painless serial killing and demonstrate conclusively that no-one should live in South London. Praise for Don't Re...
London. A city robbing and killing people since 50BC. The Vizz: an industry in crisis. Baxter Stone, a film maker and television veteran, a lifelong Londoner (who thinks he sees better than others) is having problems in the postbrain, crumbling capital. Swindled by an insurance company, he's in in debt; a Lamborghini is blocking his drive and MI6 is blocking his mobile reception. He hopes to turn it round and get the documentary series that will get him the Big Money. But what do you do if history is your sworn enemy and the whole world conspires against you? Is there any way, you could, for a moment, rule the world justly? Darkly comic, How to Rule The World follows Baxter's battle for trut...
A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A concise, sharp-witted and illuminating account of the lives of Britain’s prime ministers from Walpole to May, illustrated by Martin Rowson. For the reader who has heard of such giants as Gladstone and Disraeli, and has drunk in a pub called the Palmerston, but has only the haziest idea of who these people were, Gimson’s Prime Ministers offers a short account of them all which can be read for pleasure, and not just for edification. With Gimson’s wonderful prose once again complemented by Martin Rowson’s inimitable illustrations, this lively and entertaining aide-memoire and work of satirical genius brings our parliamentary history to life as never before. PRAISE FOR GIMSON'S PRIME MINISTERS: 'The most engaging and insightful account of PMs to have been published' Arthur Seldon, Standpoint 'Learned witty and wise, and splendidly illustrated' Tibor Fischer 'Hugely enjoyable' Tom Holland Gimson's Kings and Queens is also available.
An antique bowl that comes into the possession of a lovelorn London art appraiser is no ordinary piece of clay; it is a ceramic sage, an urn of uncommon erudition that has witnessed all of history's major convulsions. Through its mantel-eye view, the pottery narrates the hilarious events which unfold in this brilliant comic romp.
Brilliant, painful, dazzling, and funny as hell, Yellow Dog is Martin Amis’ highly anticipated first novel in seven years and a stunning return to the fictional form. When “dream husband” Xan Meo is vengefully assaulted in the garden of a London pub, he suffers head injury, and personality change. Like a spiritual convert, the familial paragon becomes an anti-husband, an anti-father. He submits to an alien moral system -- one among many to be found in these pages. We are introduced to the inverted worlds of the “yellow” journalist, Clint Smoker; the high priest of hardmen, Joseph Andrews; and the porno tycoon, Cora Susan. Meanwhile, we explore the entanglements of Henry England: hi...
In 1989, the memorable year when the Wall came down, a university student in Berlin on his early morning run finds a corpse lying on a park bench and alerts the authorities. This classic police-procedural scene opens an extraordinary novel, a masterwork that traces the fate of myriad Europeans - Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsies - across the treacherous years of the mid-twentieth century. The social and political circumstances of their lives may vary richly, their sexual and spiritual longings may seem to each of them entirely unique, yet Peter Nádas's magnificent tapestry unveils uncanny, reverberating parallels that link them across time and space. Three unusual men are at the heart of P...