Will Self Books

He's like Banksy -- but not as big...They're Not Pets, Susan,' says a stern father who has just shot a bumblebee, its wings sparkling in the evening sunlight; a lone office worker, less than an inch high, looks out over the river in his lunch break, 'Dreaming of Packing it all In'; and a tiny couple share a 'Last Kiss' against the soft neon lights of the city at midnight. Mixing sharp humour with a delicious edge of melancholy, Little People in the City brings together the collected photographs of Slinkachu, a street-artist who for several years has been leaving little hand-painted people in the bustling city to fend for themselves, waiting to be discovered. . . 'Oddly enough, even when you know they are just hand-painted figurines, you can't help but feel that their plights convey something of our own fears about being lost and vulnerable in a big, bad city.' The Times

What is a city? Do people make cities or do cities make people? And can cities have second lives? We all inhabit cities, but what do they mean to us? What do we mean to them? Is the city a real thing in the 21st century? How do we integrate their pasts to their futures? What are the threats facing cities in the western world? These are just some of the questions posed by the fascinating studies in this book. Through essays, poems, psychogeography, short stories, and more, an array of today’s leading writers and thinkers join together to look at cities in the western world. Focusing on the two former industrial heartlands of Glasgow and Pittsburgh, this international and diverse collection is asking the big questions and getting the most creative answers. From Will Self’s psychogeography of Glasgow, to National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes’ stunning poetry, this collection will make you think, feel, fear, and fight for what part cities play in our daily lives. Bold, diverse, and daring, these pieces are a must for anyone who cares about where we live and what it means to live in the urban sprawl of now. Will Self, Jane Mccaffery, Edwin Morgan, Ewan Morrison, Terrance Hayes, Allan Wilson, Louise Welsh, Kapka Kassabova, Gerald Stern, Doug Johnstone, Lori Jagielka, Hilary Masters, David Kinloch, Yona Harvey, Sharon Dilworth, Lee Gutkind, Richard Wilson, and many more.

This single volume brings together all of Poe's stories and poems, and illuminates the diverse and multifaceted genius of one of the greatest and most influential figures in American literary history.

Ten little books in a shelf box. Box itself shows a bit of shelf wear but is intact with no tears. The little books are all intact, but some are slightly yellowed with age but are clean and have been well protected.

From the Booker-shortlisted author of Umbrella, a world-girdling collection of writings inspired by a life lived in and for literature.

How far would you go to escape the real world? The underground man had always felt like an outsider. He doesn't want to be like other people, working in the 'ant-hill' of society. So he decides to withdraw from the world, scrawling a series of darkly sarcastic notes about the torment he is suffering. Angry and alienated, his only comfort is the humiliation of others. Is he going mad? Or is it the world around him that's insane?

Set in 1950s America, the story follows Elaine as she grapples with her dissatisfaction in a seemingly perfect life with her Ivy League husband and child. Standing by her mailbox, she questions her choices and ultimately seeks freedom through a reckless affair. This decision leads to the unraveling of her marriage and forces her to confront the consequences of her actions, exploring themes of identity, desire, and the constraints of societal expectations.

The unforgettable, challenging and experimental second novel from the author of Lanark. Introduced by Will Self schovat popis

Snake venom that digests human flesh, a building cleared of life by tiny spiders, and an infant insect consuming its prey from within are just a few examples of the deadly natural engineering explored in this masterful, poetic, and often humorously dry examination of predators encountered in rural Oklahoma. The author serves as a witty and intrepid guide through a world where mating can lead to cannibalism and where lethal toxins challenge our notions of a benevolent God. Spider remains scattered like "the cast-off coats of untidy children" tell a story of violent self-extermination, revealing a familiar yet exotic world. Grice immerses himself in this realm, abandoning objectivity with dark humor—collecting spiders, decorating a tarantula's terrarium, or orchestrating insect battles, deeming one "too stupid to live." Through starkly graceful essays, he charts the brutal lives of these predators, leading us to startling truths about our own predatory nature. The narrative confronts the inadequacy of our distinctions between normal and abnormal, dead and alive, innocent and evil, ultimately bringing us face to fanged face with the complexities of existence.

This anthology presents 32 science fiction short stories inspired by the prophetic dystopias of J. G. Ballard, a titan of 20th-century literature. Featuring contributions from notable authors like Will Self, Iain Sinclair, Christopher Fowler, Chris Beckett, and a new Jerry Cornelius story by Michael Moorcock, it pays homage to Ballard’s unique vision of a bewildering and alienating world. Ballard’s works, including Empire of the Sun, Crash, and Cocaine Nights, explore the disjointed nature of contemporary reality and classic dystopias such as The Drowned World and High Rise, leaving an indelible mark on literature. This groundbreaking collection, edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Rick McGrath, showcases the uncanny and uneasy relationship between humanity and the future, reflecting Ballard’s influence on literary and science fiction. The anthology includes stories from a diverse array of authors, such as Jeff Noon, Preston Grassmann, Toby Litt, Christine Poulson, and many more, each offering their interpretation of the themes that Ballard so masterfully explored. Through this compilation, readers are invited to engage with the unsettling visions that define our empires of concrete, seen through the warped lens of Ballard's legacy.

Shark turns upon an actual incident in WWII - mentioned in the film Jaws - when the ship which had delivered the fissile material to the south Pacific to be dropped on Hiroshima was subsequently sunk by a Japanese submarine with the loss of 900 men, including 200 killed in the largest shark attack ever recorded.

Opening with a dazzling new essay on walking to New York from Heathrow, this stunningly produced book brings together for the first time, fifty of Will Self's unforgettable Independent Columns

In this short story collection, we learn, amongst other things, the dark and terrible secret of Ward 9, why you're right to think that London is full of dead people and that each and every human being is caught up in a colossal balancing act between the sane and the insane.

A five-hundred-quid worry bead - and all I worry about is losing the bloody thing . . . ' Dementia-addled, 78-year-old antipsychiatrist Dr Zack Busner, turfed out of his home by his ungrateful progeny, is no longer certain of anything - except the persistent ringing of the phone in his pocket. Meanwhile, his autistic grandson Ben, drowning in conspiracy theories as he investigates the ruse known as the Iraq war, is urgently calling. Elsewhere, MI6 agent Jonathan De'Ath (aka the Butcher) is trying to conceal the one secret he knows will ruin him - his affair with tank commander Colonel Gawain Thomas, whose unit is busy shooting up Iraq. And somewhere a phone is ringing . . .

Dorian, an Imitation is a British novel by Will Self. The book is a modern take on Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. The novel was originally published by Viking Press in 2002 and subsequently by Penguin in 2003. Self was originally asked to adapt the Wilde novel into a film screenplay, but this project did not come to fruition. Instead, Self took this uncompleted screenplay and re-worked it into a novel, which he described as "an imitation - and a homage" to the Wilde original.

Fans of Will Self's satirical fiction and stunning prose will not be disappointed in the latest from the author who brought readers through the bizarre war between the sexes in Cock & Bull and into the costly world of high-stakes business in My Idea of Fun. With Great Apes, Self takes readers into a sort of "Planet of the Apes" with a twist. Simon Dykes is a London painter whose life suddenly becomes Kafkaesque. After an evening of routine debauchery, traipsing from toilet to toilet and partaking in a host of narcotics, the middle-aged painter wakes to discover that his girlfriend, Sarah, has turned into a chimpanzee. Simon is also a chimp, but he does not accept this fact—he is convinced that he is still human.He is then confined to an emergency psychiatric ward and placed under the care of alpha-psychiatrist Dr. Zack Busner. Simon finds chimp behavior a bit unnatural; he can't bring himself to use gestures rather than speech to communicate. He also finds it difficult to mate publicly or accept social grooming. Dr. Zack Busner—also a medical doctor, radical psychoanalyst, maverick axiolytic drug researcher, and former television personality—is prepared to help Simon get used to "chimpunity". It is during Simon's gradual simianization that Self's true satirical genius shines, as he examines anthropology, the trendy art world, animal rights, and much more.

From the Booker-shortlisted author of Umbrella comes a world-spanning collection of writings inspired by a life dedicated to literature. Will Self, hailed as "the most daring and delightful novelist of his generation" by The Guardian, presents a rich array of insightful and witty essays on writing and literature. He takes readers on a journey from the quirks of his typewriter repairman to the irradiated exclusion zone of Chernobyl and the Australian outback, exploring literary forms both past and future. With intellectual vigor, Self examines literary giants like Woolf, Kafka, Orwell, and Conrad, reflecting on W. G. Sebald's childhood in Germany and the transformation of William S. Burroughs's Junky from a shocking pulp novel to a cult classic. Expanding on his Literary Hub column, he poses vital questions about how and why we should read in an ever-evolving world. Whether discussing the rise of the bookshelf as a furniture item in the nineteenth century or the challenges of Googling his own name in a digital age, Self's intoxicating prose and sharp humor enliven each essay. This collection delves into the human stream of consciousness as it intertwines with literature, appealing to both longtime fans and new readers of this contemporary literary icon.

The New York Times Book Review has called Will Self "a defiant satirist with a peculiar mastery of the vocabulary of modern neurosis," and Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys is a dazzling foray into his funhouse world. Status-conscious New Yorkers navigate the perils of dating along with their very literal "inner children." A man is seduced into a misanthropically charged symbiosis with the insects infesting his cottage. In "The Rock of Crack as Big as the Ritz," a black Londoner discovers an enormous rock of crack cocaine underpinning his house--and quickly turns it into an efficient little empire. In the title story a psychoanalyst strips away all the sang froid of his professionalism to find beneath ... precisely nothing. Sharp, funny, and packed with verbal fireworks, Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys confirms yet again Will Self's stature as one of the most accomplished and original writers of his generation.

GENERAL & LITERARY FICTION. What if a demented London cabbie called Dave Rudman wrote a book to his estranged son to give him some fatherly advice? What if that book was buried in Hampstead and hundreds of years later, when rising sea levels have put London underwater, spawned a religion? What if one man decided to question life according to Dave? And what if Dave had indeed made a mistake? Shuttling between the recent past and a far-off future where England is terribly altered, "The Book of Dave" is a strange and troubling mirror held up to our times: disturbing, satirizing and vilifying who and what we think we are.

Takes both subject and style seriously. This title features the locations, characters, plot and epigrams transposed from the 1890s to the 1990s.

Nine new stories from the fiendishly witty Will Self, whose limitless imagination and technical brilliance have made him one of the most highly praised comic writers. Already published to critical acclaim in England, Grey Area is a dazzling collection by one of the most talented and original writers of his generation.

Will's mother's hokey homily, Waste not, want not... hisses in his ears as he oscillates furiously on the spot, havering on the threshold between the bedroom and the dying one... all the while cradling the plastic leech of the syringe in the crook of his arm. Oscillating furiously, and, as he presses the plunger home a touch more... and more, he hears it again and again- Waaaste nooot, waaant nooot..! whooshing into and out of him, while the blackness wells up at the periphery of his vision, and his hackneyed heart begins to beat out weirdly arrhythmic drum fills - even hitting the occasional rim-shot on his resonating rib cage. He waits, paralysed, acutely conscious, that were he simply to press his thumb right home, it'll be a cartoonish death- That's all folks! as the aperture screws shut forever.

'Some people lose their sense of proportion; I've lost my sense of scale.' The short story 'Scale' was taken from the collection Grey Area.

Ian Wharton is a rather sad, lonely boy, growing up in a small town in Sussex, dominated by his over-sexual mother. He becomes the familiar of Samuel Northcliffe, a ridiculously obese caravan dweller and neighbour who intimidates and enchants Ian into a Faustian pact.

Often characterised as the bad boy of English literature, Will Self has earned his reputation through a body of innovative, experimental and to some upsetting work. All his fiction is available in Penguin editions and the two stories in this collection illustrate Self's gift for finding the extraordinary, the surreal and the downright absurd amidst the mundanities of modern life.- Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo- A Story for Europe

This work contains two novellas which are a dark trip down that obscure cul-de-sac of desire, where gender isn't so much bent as snapped in two. Other work by the author includes The Quantity Theory of Insanity.

An examination of lives out of control. It offers a collection of stories about egos, appetites and addictions.

'The Book of Dave' is based around the rants of Dave Rudman - a disgruntled East End taxi driver - who writes his woes down and buries them, only to have them discovered 500 years later and used as the sacred text for a religion that has taken hold in the flooded remnants of London.

Scabrous, vicious and unpleasant in life, Lily Bloom has not been noticeably mellowed by death. She has changed addresses, of course, and now inhabits a basement flat in Dulston - London's borough for those no longer troubled by breathing - but if anything her temperament has worsened. Finding it hard to deal with the (enforced) company of a calcified, pop-obsessed foetus, her dead, foul-mouthed son and three gruesome creatures made of her own unwanted fat, she must find something to do with her time. So how do the dead live? And what happens when they stop being dead?

A brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella. James Joyce, Ulysses Recently having abandoned his RD Laing-influenced experiment in running a therapeutic community - the so-called Concept House in Willesden - maverick psychiatrist Zack Busner arrives at Friern Hospital, a vast Victorian mental asylum in North London, under a professional and a marital cloud. He has every intention of avoiding controversy, but then he encounters Audrey Dearth, a working-class girl from Fulham born in 1890 who has been immured in Friern for decades. A socialist, a feminist and a munitions worker at the Woolwich Arsenal, Audrey fell victim to the encephalitis lethargica sleeping sickness epidemic at the end of the First World War and, like one of the subjects in Oliver Sacks' Awakenings, has been in a coma ever since. Realising that Audrey is just one of a number of post-encephalitics scattered throughout the asylum, Busner becomes involved in an attempt to bring them back to life - with wholly unforeseen consequences.

Will Self's uncomfortable and disturbing allegory of the liberal West in the post-9/11 era

One of contemporary fiction’s most “wickedly brilliant…endlessly talented” (Publishers Weekly) satirists delivers a dystopian novel skewering global politics and Big Brother-style government post-9/11.When Tom Brodzinksi tries to give up smoking, he inadvertently sets off a chain of events that threaten to upset the tenuous balance of peace in a not-too-distant land. When he flips the butt of his final cigarette off the balcony of his vacation apartment, it lands on elderly Reggie Lincoln, lounging on the balcony below. Lincoln suffers a burn, and the local authorities charge Tom with assault—in a country with draconian anti-smoking laws, a cigarette is a weapon of offense. For reparation, Tom must leave his family behind and wander through the arid center of the country’s deserted territory. Joining Tom on his journey is Brian Prentice, a mysteriously sinister presence, who has his own sins to make up for. Inevitably, the two men encounter violence, forcing them to come together despite their seething mistrust. A profoundly disturbing allegory, The Butt reveals the heart of a distinctly modern darkness.

Folded page panoramas: one side "North"; verso "South."

Ein Mann sucht das Weite und die verlassene Frau anschließend Trost bei einer Freundin Doch kaum ist sie dort eingezogen, geht merkwürdigerweise auch die Beziehung der Freundin in die Brüche. Kein Einzelfall, wie sich bald herausstellt. Wo immer die unglückliche Heldin auftaucht, ist es mit dem Beziehungsglück vorbei. Am Ende bleibt ihr nur der Gang zur Psychiaterin, aber auch die scheint ihr plötzlich irgend etwas sehr übel zu nehmen...§Mit herrlich boshaftem Unterton erzählt Will Self die außergewöhnlichen Stories. Und bereitwillig folgt man ihm in die absurdesten Winkel seiner Fantasie.§

Un homme croise sa mère morte quelques mois plus tôt. Un ethnologue étudie une tribu d’Amazonie qui se considère elle-même comme la plus ennuyeuse du monde. Un médecin découvre un hôpital où les plus fous ne sont pas les patients. Un journaliste infiltre une secte de coursiers au sens de l’orientation démesuré… Six nouvelles loufoques, grinçantes et terriblement inquiétantes.

Mit diesem Erzählband wurde Will Self als "Retter der britischen Literatur" bekannt. Er enthält sechs brillante Satiren auf die moderne Gesellschaft. Scheinbar unverbunden, erschaffen sie doch allmählich einen kohären Kosmos, in dem die Grenzen zwischen Absurdem und Banalem, zwischen Normalität und Wahnsinn verschwimmen.

En vacances sur une île avec femme et enfants, Tom Brodzinski décide d'arrêter de fumer. Mais son ultime mégot atterrit par inadvertance sur la tête d'un autochtone et sa bonne résolution tourne au cauchemar : Tom est accusé de tentative de meurtre. Il est condamné par une mystérieuse tribu, les Tayswengos, et ne peut quitter l'île. Naïf, il réagit à cette situation kafkaïenne avec passivité. Il ignore qu'un étrange périple l'attend, avec chamanes, rituels initiatiques et paysages lunaires... Déjanté, angoissant, No smoking est une satire de nos sociétés occidentales. En ligne de mire : le politiquement correct, le colonialisme post-11 Septembre et les valeurs que l'"Axe du Bien" a tenté d'imposer au monde entier.

Kniha je pekným a hodnotným darčekom nie len pre menovcov svätého Pavla. Pútavo prerozprávaný Pavlov životopis zachytáva dôležité udalosti z jeho života a približuje Pavlovu osobnosť, jeho pôsobenie, ľudí, s ktorými sa stretal, ale aj prostredie,kde žil. Nádherné ilustrácie obohacujú rozprávanie a robia putovanie s Pavlom autentickejším.