Kieron Smith, boy


Book Description

Rejected by his brother and largely ignored by his parents, Kieron Smith finds comfort - and endless stories - in the home of his much-loved grandparents. But when his family move to a new housing scheme on the outskirts of the city, a world away from the close community of the tenements, Kieron struggles to find a way to adapt to his new life. Warm, funny, with searing insight and astonishing empathy, in Kieron Smith, James Kelman has created an unforgettable boy.




How Late It Was How Late


Book Description

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE ‘A passionate, scintillating, brilliant song of a book’ Guardian Sammy's had a bad week. Most of it's just a blank space in his mind, and the bits that he can remember, he'd rather not. His wallet's gone, along with his new shoes, he's been arrested then beaten up by the police and thrown out on the street - and he's just gone blind. He remembers a row with his girlfriend, but she seems to have disappeared; and he might have been trying to fix a bit of business up with an old mate, he's not too sure. Things aren't looking too good for Sammy and his problems have hardly begun.




Mo Said She Was Quirky


Book Description

James Kelman, the Man Booker Prize–winning author of How Late It Was, How Late, tells the story of Helen—a sister, a mother, a daughter—a very ordinary young woman. Her boyfriend said she was quirky but she is much more than that. Trust, love, relationships; parents, children, lovers; death, wealth, home: these are the ordinary parts of the everyday that become extraordinary when you think of them as Helen does, each waking hour. Mo Said She Was Quirky begins on Helen’s way home from work, with the strangest of moments when a skinny, down-at-heel man crosses the road in front of her and appears to be her lost brother. What follows is an inspired and absorbing story of twenty-four hours in the life of a young woman.




Pigeon English


Book Description

Eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku, the second best runner in Year 7, races through his new life in England with his personalised trainers - the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen - blissfully unaware of the very real threat around him. Newly-arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister Lydia, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of city life, from the bewildering array of Haribo sweets, to the frightening, fascinating gang of older boys from his school. But his life is changed forever when one of his friends is murdered. As the victim's nearly new football boots hang in tribute on railings behind fluorescent tape and a police appeal draws only silence, Harri decides to act, unwittingly endangering the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe.




If it is Your Life


Book Description

'Kelman portrays his world with bleakly beautiful honesty . . . a fine collection and an excellent window on Kelman's brooding world' The Times 'Perhaps you don't know the Man Booker International-shortlisted James Kelman but you should. You only have to read one phrase to recognise his utterly distinctive voice- lyrical, philosophical as a pub stool resident and steeped in the street. The result, for those who take words seriously, is canonical and pure joy' Metro 'The musings on men and women, and on the difficulty of connecting with other people, ring touchingly true. Kelman still has the power to compel' Sunday Telegraph 'As well as being a keen observer of society's underclasses and disenfranchised, Kelman also has a great eye for the absurdity of everyday life, something which comes to the fore in this collection' Independent on Sunday 'A collection by turns heart-breaking, profound and bitterly funny. It is a tour de force from a writer who treats language as carefully as if it were gold, and ends up turning it into something even more precious' Herald




Smashing It Up: A Decade of Chaos with The Damned


Book Description

From rank outsiders to pop stardom a decade later, The Damned blazed an anarchic trail through punk rock to achieve massive chart success. A beacon for the Sex Pistols and The Clash to follow, they flung down the musical gauntlet in 1976 with Britain’s first punk single ‘New Rose’. Smashing It Up: A Decade of Chaos with The Damned is their definitive biography, drawing on new, in-depth research and interviews with associates and band members – including founders Brian James, Chris Millar (Rat Scabies), Raymond Burns (Captain Sensible) and David Lett (David Vanian). Conflict was rife: managers and labels came and went; bridges were burnt; opportunities squandered; and Kieron Tyler reveals how – and why – the wayward, wild and wilful Damned are the punk band that survived, and why they truly led the British Punk movement and outshone their contemporaries.




The Busconductor Hines


Book Description

Living in a bedsit, just coping with the boredom of being a busconductor, and fully aware that his plans to emigrate to Australia won't come to anything, Robert Hines is a young Glaswegian leading a pretty drab life. There are compensations, however, in his wife and child, and his eccentric, anarchic imagination. Kelman provides a brilliantly executed, uncompromising slice of Glasgow life – an intelligent, funny and humane novel.




Carry Me Down


Book Description

Ireland, 1971, John Egan is a misfit, 'a twelve year old in the body of a grown man with the voice of a giant who insists on the ridiculous truth'. With an obsession for the Guinness Book of Records and faith in his ability to detect when adults are lying, John remains hopeful despite the unfortunate cards life deals him. During one year in John's life, from his voice breaking, through the breaking-up of his home life, to the near collapse of his sanity, we witness the gradual unsticking of John's mind, and the trouble that creates for him and his family.




Netherland


Book Description

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • WINNER OF THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD • "Netherland tells the fragmented story of a man in exile—from home, family and, most poignantly, from himself.” —Washington Post Book World In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, and left alone after his English wife and son return to London, Hans van den Broek stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. As the two men share their vastly different experiences of contemporary immigrant life in America, an unforgettable portrait emerges of an "other" New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality.




AWOL 3: Last Boy Standing


Book Description

Young Bond meets Alex Rider and Cherub in this brilliantly written, fast-paced spy action thriller. All credibly delivered from somebody who knows all about counter-intelligence . . . Special Agent Bex arranges to meet teenage Kieron in a café to tell him that she can't risk his life any more. She parks her car and seconds later it blows up, scattering flaming wreckage everywhere. She needs to get Kieron out of danger's way - but just as they get to the flat, it too explodes. Bex is forced to face the possibility that someone wants to kill her team, but whoever it is doesn't know about Kieron. That may be their only saving grace. But how were the explosions managed? And who wants them dead? High-octane action and fast-paced adventure - guaranteed.