Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home. One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.

The New York Times–bestselling author of The First Bad Man returns with an irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious, and surprising novel about a woman upending her life A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey. Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.

Schelvis groeit op onder de rook van de staalfabriek in een klein dorp aan de kust. Alle dorpelingen werken in de fabriek, of in een van de omliggende magazijnen, tot aan hun dood. Maar Schelvis en hun vrienden dromen van een ander lot: ze willen geen dienaars, maar meesters worden. De grote stad lijkt mogelijkheden te bieden. Lukt het Schelvis om los te breken? En hoe radicaal moet hen daarvoor zijn? Overgave op commando gaat over het verschil tussen mensen die hun lot mogen kiezen en mensen die hun lot moeten ondergaan.

Schelvis groeit op onder de rook van de staalfabriek in een klein dorp aan de kust. Alle dorpelingen werken in de fabriek, of in een van de omliggende magazijnen, tot aan hun dood. Maar Schelvis en hun vrienden dromen van een ander lot: ze willen geen dienaars, maar meesters worden. De grote stad lijkt mogelijkheden te bieden. Lukt het Schelvis om los te breken? En hoe radicaal moet hen daarvoor zijn? Overgave op commando gaat over het verschil tussen mensen die hun lot mogen kiezen en mensen die hun lot moeten ondergaan.

Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith’s novels are like nothing else. A true original, she is a one-of-a-kind literary sensation. Her novels consistently attract serious acclaim and discussion—and have won her a dedicated readership who are drawn again and again to the warmth, humanity and humor of her voice. How to be both is a novel all about art’s versatility. Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it’s a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real—and all life’s givens get given a second chance. A NOTE TO THE READER: Who says stories reach everybody in the same order? This novel can be read in two ways and this book provides you with both. In half of all printed editions of the novel the narrative EYES comes before CAMERA. In the other half of printed editions the narrative CAMERA precedes EYES. The narratives are exactly the same in both versions, just in a different order. The books are intentionally printed in two different ways, so that readers can randomly have different experiences reading the same text. So, depending on which edition you happen to receive, the book will be: EYES, CAMERA, or CAMERA, EYES. Enjoy the adventure.

Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith’s novels are like nothing else. A true original, she is a one-of-a-kind literary sensation. Her novels consistently attract serious acclaim and discussion—and have won her a dedicated readership who are drawn again and again to the warmth, humanity and humor of her voice. How to be both is a novel all about art’s versatility. Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it’s a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real—and all life’s givens get given a second chance. A NOTE TO THE READER: Who says stories reach everybody in the same order? This novel can be read in two ways and this book provides you with both. In half of all printed editions of the novel the narrative EYES comes before CAMERA. In the other half of printed editions the narrative CAMERA precedes EYES. The narratives are exactly the same in both versions, just in a different order. The books are intentionally printed in two different ways, so that readers can randomly have different experiences reading the same text. So, depending on which edition you happen to receive, the book will be: EYES, CAMERA, or CAMERA, EYES. Enjoy the adventure.

"Mes croyances sont limitées, mais elles sont violentes. Je crois à la possibilité du royaume restreint. Je crois à l’amour" écrivait récemment Michel Houellebecq. Le narrateur de Sérotonine approuverait sans réserve. Son récit traverse une France qui piétine ses traditions, banalise ses villes, détruit ses campagnes au bord de la révolte. Il raconte sa vie d’ingénieur agronome, son amitié pour un aristocrate agriculteur (un inoubliable personnage de roman – son double inversé), l’échec des idéaux de leur jeunesse, l’espoir peut-être insensé de retrouver une femme perdue. Ce roman sur les ravages d’un monde sans bonté, sans solidarité, aux mutations devenues incontrôlables, est aussi un roman sur le remords et le regret.

Coming of age' roman over de 15-jarige Kafka Tamura die, om te ontkomen aan de voorspelling dat hij met zijn verdwenen moeder en zijn zus zal slapen, van huis wegloopt. Op onverklaarbare wijze wordt de jongen aangetrokken tot een bibliotheek in Takamatsu en tot de directrice, mevrouw Saeki. Kafka's pad kruist eveneens dat van het meisje Sakura, van een bibliothecaris, en van de geheimzinnige meneer Nakata, die met katten praat. De laatste was in de oorlog het slachtoffer van massahysterie en spoort niet helemaal. Als Kafka's vader op gruwelijke wijze in Tokyo vermoord wordt, raken de gebeurtenissen in een stroomversnelling.

Coming of age' roman over de 15-jarige Kafka Tamura die, om te ontkomen aan de voorspelling dat hij met zijn verdwenen moeder en zijn zus zal slapen, van huis wegloopt. Op onverklaarbare wijze wordt de jongen aangetrokken tot een bibliotheek in Takamatsu en tot de directrice, mevrouw Saeki. Kafka's pad kruist eveneens dat van het meisje Sakura, van een bibliothecaris, en van de geheimzinnige meneer Nakata, die met katten praat. De laatste was in de oorlog het slachtoffer van massahysterie en spoort niet helemaal. Als Kafka's vader op gruwelijke wijze in Tokyo vermoord wordt, raken de gebeurtenissen in een stroomversnelling.

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor. On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses--until things become much more serious. Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past. A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.