The Edinburgh Dead

Author: Brian Ruckley
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 0316126926
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
Edinburgh: 1828 In the starkly-lit operating theaters of the city, grisly experiments are being carried out on corpses in the name of medical science. But elsewhere, there are those experimenting with more sinister forces. Amongst the crowded, sprawling tenements of the labyrinthine Old Town, a body is found, its neck torn to pieces. Charged with investigating the murder is Adam Quire, Officer of the newly- formed Edinburgh Police. The trail will lead him into the deepest reaches of the city's criminal underclass, and to the highest echelons of the filthy rich. Soon Quire will discover that a darkness is crawling through this city of enlightenment -- and no one is safe from its corruption. The Edinburgh Dead is a powerful fusion of gothic horror, history, and the fantastical.

Edinburgh History of Reading

Author: Mary Hammond
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474446094
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
Reveals the experience of reading in many cultures and across the agesCovers reading practices from China in the 6th century BCE to Britain in the 18th centuryEmploys a range of methodologies from close textual analysis to quantitative data on book ownershipExamines a wide range of texts and ways of reading them from English poetry and funeral elegies to translated books in PeruChallenges period-based models of readership historyEarly Readers presents a number of innovative ways through which we might capture or infer traces of readers in cultures where most evidence has been lost. It begins by investigating what a close analysis of extant texts from 6th-century BCE China can tell us about contemporary reading practices, explores the reading of medieval European women and their male medical practitioner counterparts, traces readers across New Spain, Peru, the Ottoman Empire and the Iberian world between 1500 and 1800, and ends with an analysis of the surprisingly enduring practice of reading aloud.

The Finishing School

Author: Muriel Spark
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 178211758X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 111

Book Description
'One of her funniest novels . . . Spark at her sharpest, her purest and her most merciful' ALI SMITH In The Finishing School Muriel Spark is once again at her biting, satirical best. On the edge of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, a struggling would-be novelist and his wife run a finishing school of questionable reputation to keep the funds flowing. When a seventeen-year-old student's writing career begins to show great promise, tensions begin to run high. A keen portrait of devouring regret, psychological unravelling and the glittering promise of youth, The Finishing School is the perfect natural partner to Muriel Spark's most famous novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy

Author: Mark Hodkinson
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1786899981
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Book Description
Mark Hodkinson grew up among the terrace houses of Rochdale in a house with just one book. Today, Mark is an author, journalist and publisher. He still lives in Rochdale but is now surrounded by 3,500 titles, at the last count. No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy is his story of growing up a working-class lad during the 1970s and 1980s. It’s about the schools, the music, the people – but pre-eminently and profoundly the books and authors that led the way and shaped his life. It’s about a family who didn’t see the point of reading, and a troubled grandad who taught Mark the power of stories. It’s also a story of how writing and reading has changed over the last five decades.

Restless

Author: William Boyd
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408835185
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian émigrée living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious Englishman, and under his tutelage she learns to become the perfect spy, to mask her emotions and trust no one, including those she loves most. Since the war, Eva has carefully rebuilt her life as a typically English wife and mother. But once a spy, always a spy. Now she must complete one final assignment, and this time Eva can't do it alone: she needs her daughter's help.

A Truth Lover

Author: John Herdman
Publisher: Leamington Books
ISBN: 1914090829
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 113

Book Description
Living as if an outsider, but functionally ingratiate to normal social circles, Duncan has his morality rocked by bearing witness to a violent act. Where can one land on judgement of abject behaviour when inflicted upon a person, perhaps more abject than the act itself? Pressure to testify pushes Duncan into various forms of escapism and a consequential number of captivating encounters, all whilst trapped in a brooding vacuum of self-reflection. Herdman's writerly magic is an underappreciated facet of Scotland's continually great literary output. "John Herdman's impressive first novel, A Truth Lover, is written as though it had been very well translated from the nineteenth-century Russian ... Mr Herdman and his book are much too good to be localised." P.J. Kavanagh, The Guardian "Both brilliant and very moving indeed ... If there is to be any vigorous tradition of novel writing in Scotland then this is the kind of book which will open up that prospect." Archie Hind, The Glasgow Herald ".... a very fine piece of imaginative writing .... This unusual novel whets one's interest in a new and most promising talent in the Scottish literary scene." Cuthbert Graham, Press & Journal "I find A Truth Lover the most impressive debut by a Scottish novelist for years." Douglas Eadie, Scottish International

J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography

Author: Philip W. Errington
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474297374
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 753

Book Description
This is the definitive bibliography of the writings of J. K. Rowling. In addition to bibliographical details of each edition of all her books, pamphlets and original contributions to published works, there is detailed information on the publishing history of her work, including fascinating extracts from correspondence, and information on Rowling at auction. This edition has been fully revised and updated to include over 50 new editions published since 2013, including the newly jacketed 2014 children's editions of the Harry Potter books as well as the 2015 illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The works of Robert Galbraith are also included.

Edinburgh Twilight

Author: Carole Lawrence
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
ISBN: 9781477848814
Category : City and town life
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
As a new century approaches, Edinburgh is a city divided. The wealthy residents of New Town live in comfort, while Old Town's cobblestone streets are clotted with criminals, prostitution, and poverty. Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton is no stranger to Edinburgh's darkest crimes. Scarred by the mysterious fire that killed his parents, he faces his toughest case yet when a young man is found strangled in Holyrood Park. With little evidence aside from a strange playing card found on the body, Hamilton engages the help of his aunt, a gifted photographer, and George Pearson, a librarian with a shared interest in the criminal mind. But the body count is rising. As newspapers spin tales of the "Holyrood Strangler," panic sets in across the city. And with each victim, the murderer is getting closer to Hamilton, the one man who dares to stop him.

Life Ceremony

Author: Sayaka Murata
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802159591
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Book Description
The long-awaited first short story-collection by the author of the cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, tales of weird love, heartfelt friendships, and the unsettling nature of human existence With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness. In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor and horror to portray both the loners and outcasts as well as turning the norms and traditions of society on their head to better question them. Whether the stories take place in modern-day Japan, the future, or an alternate reality is left to the reader’s interpretation, as the characters often seem strange in their normality in a frighteningly abnormal world. In “A First-Rate Material,” Nana and Naoki are happily engaged, but Naoki can’t stand the conventional use of deceased people’s bodies for clothing, accessories, and furniture, and a disagreement around this threatens to derail their perfect wedding day. “Lovers on the Breeze” is told from the perspective of a curtain in a child’s bedroom that jealously watches the young girl Naoko as she has her first kiss with a boy from her class and does its best to stop her. “Eating the City” explores the strange norms around food and foraging, while “Hatchling” closes the collection with an extraordinary depiction of the fractured personality of someone who tries too hard to fit in. In these strange and wonderful stories of family and friendship, sex and intimacy, belonging and individuality, Murata asks above all what it means to be a human in our world and offers answers that surprise and linger.

J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography 1997-2013

Author: Philip W. Errington
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1849669767
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 559

Book Description
'As someone who respects comprehensive research, I am in awe of the level of detail and amount of time Philip Errington has dedicated to this slavishly thorough and somewhat mind-boggling bibliography.' J. K. Rowling This is the definitive bibliography of the writings of J. K. Rowling. In addition to complete bibliographic details of each edition of all her books, pamphlets and original contributions to published works, there is detailed information on the publishing history of her work, including fascinating extracts from correspondence, and information on Rowling at auction. This will be the first source on Rowling consulted by textual scholars, book dealers and collectors, auction houses, critics and researchers. The aim of the book is to record fact and dispel rumour on the fascinating publishing history of the Harry Potter series.