Carol Birch Knihy

Píše se rok 1857. Chudý chlapec Jaffy Brown se potuluje uličkami londýnského East Endu od ničeho k ničemu. A najednou stane tváří v tvář tygrovi… Z náručí smrti ho zachrání pan Jamrach — cestovatel, badatel, provozovatel atrakcí a sběratel nejpodivnějších tvorů světa. A Jaffyho úkolem bude přidat do této sbírky dalšího: mořského draka… V oslnivě napsaném a fascinujícím románu zkušené britské autorky Carol Birchové ožívají vůně, dojmy a chutě devatenáctého století, od londýnských doků až k bouřlivému Indickému oceánu. Je to velké historické dobrodružství, poutavé vylíčení našeho vztahu ke světu přírody a divočiny. Autorka se díky této knize ocitla v užší nominaci na Man Booker Prize.

Gorton, Manchester. 1930. Greyhound racing at Belle Vue, the buses going up and down Hyde Road, the siren of Peacock's foundry going off every night at six. This is Bessie and Sam Holloway's place, home for Nell and little brother Bobby and older step-child Violet. Precious visits from Dad's sister Benny, a Queen of the music hall trailing clouds of glory and whisky, provide infrequent brushes with glamour. 'Alright for some,' grunts Bessie. Nell grows up to work in a factory and there, from the tailgate of a truck in the yard, she first hears fellow factory worker Harry Caplin play trombone break on the old jazz classic, Clarinet Marmalade. Harry's talent will take him far and introduce him to such jazz legends as Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden; but not as far as poor feckless Bobby, who finds himself fighting in the jungles of Malaya. Spanning the twentieth century, this is a poignant story about a brother and a sister and three generations of a northern working-class family.

A ghost novel set in a girls' school in 1960s Manchester. Amidst the resurgence of ghost stories and superstition among the girls, a tragedy is about to occur, one that will send Sally more and more down an uncanny rabbit hole...

The dazzling new novel, evoking the strange and thrilling world of the Victorian carnival, from the Man Booker-shortlisted author of Jamrach's Menagerie

Did you hear? Big landslip over by Ercol. Last night. The road into Gully's closed off. They found a body. Got police tape. All that stuff. They only do that for murder, don't they? Murder! A body has been uncovered in a mudslide just outside the village of Andwiston. In the pub they talk of murder, but Dan sometime mechanic, constant drunk is finding it hard to sift through his jumbled memories. Watching him from the dark is Lorna, a lost soul living in the woods, haunted by ghosts and a vision from her childhood: a cold boy standing alone in Gallinger's field. Fusing the ghost story with sharp, psychological insight, this brilliant, timely novel about loneliness, buried secrets and the havoc they play on the mind, cements Carol Birch as one of our most important literary writers.

Cathy Wren, aged 37, lives alone in a small town, surviving on waitressing and piano teaching. Nursing her quiet, drab life, she keeps memories of her tumultuous past at bay—until one stray remnant of that old life knocks on her front door. Suddenly, Cathy is thrown into a weird and haphazard journey that turns into much more than a search for the little sister she hasn't seen for 10 years. This is a remarkable novel about life and death, fact and fiction, desire, envy, families, and forgiveness.

In Ballinaphuca gibt es eine Kirche, einen Laden, ein Postamt und sechs Kneipen. Ein irisches Dorf eben. Die Frauen, die hier leben, sind getrieben von der Angst, das Leben könnte an ihnen vorübergehen...

»Ein Buch über Liebe, Tod und Neuanfang – mit Sogwirkung.« Max Sie will mir bloß wieder die Schau stehlen! Das ist Cathys erster, nicht sehr freundlicher Gedanke, als sie von einem alten Freund hört, ihre extravagante Schwester sei aus London verschwunden und womöglich todkrank. Zehn Jahre hat sie nicht mehr mit ihrer Schwester gesprochen, die zeitlebens ein egoistisches, herzloses Biest war. Dennoch läßt sich Cathy zu einer spontanen Suchaktion hinreißen, die sie durch halb England führt und an deren Ende sie weit mehr findet, als sie gedacht hatte. Ein amüsanter, aber auch anrührender Roman über die Schattenseiten der bösen Mädchen und den unscheinbaren Anblick des Glücks.