Massimo Bocchiola Books

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies. When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* Mark Renton is finally a success. An international jet-setter, he now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with his life. He's then rocked by a chance encounter with Frank Begbie, from whom he'd been hiding for years after a terrible betrayal and the resulting debt. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist and - much to Mark's astonishment - doesn't seem interested in revenge. Sick Boy and Spud, who have agendas of their own, are intrigued to learn that their old friends are back in town, but when they enter the bleak world of organ-harvesting, things start to go so badly wrong. Lurching from crisis to crisis, the four men circle each other, driven by their personal histories and addictions, confused, angry - so desperate that even Hibs winning the Scottish Cup doesn't really help. One of these four will not survive to the end of this book. Which one of them is wearing Dead Men's Trousers? Fast and furious, scabrously funny and weirdly moving, this is a spectacular return of the crew from Trainspotting.

The New York Trilogy is an astonishing and original book: three cleverly interconnected novels that exploit the elements of standard detective fiction and achieve a new genre that is all the more gripping for its starkness. In each story, the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of what it means to be human. Auster's book is modern fiction at its finest: bold, arresting and unputdownable. Three stories on the nature of identity. In the first a detective writer is drawn into a curious and baffling investigation, in the second a man is set up in an apartment to spy on someone, and the third concerns the disappearance of a man whose childhood friend is left as his literary executor.

An astonishing feat - The Times. A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into bizarre new forms; a blind old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr, Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive - a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war. What they find turns all their worlds upside down.

Six months after losing his wife and two sons in a plane crash, Professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in grief. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon the great silent comedian Hector Mann. His growing obsession with the mystery of Mann's true life story will take Zimmer on a strange and intense journey into a shadow-world of lies, illusions and unexpected love . . .

'I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I traveled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain...' So begins Paul Auster's remarkable new novel, The Brooklyn Follies. Set against the backdrop of the contested US election of 2000, it tells the story of Nathan and Tom, an uncle and nephew double-act. One in remission from lung cancer, divorced, and estranged from his only daughter, the other hiding away from his once-promising academic career, and, indeed, from life in general. Having accidentally ended up in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood, they discover a community teeming with life and passion. When Lucy, a little girl who refuses to speak, comes into their lives, there is suddenly a bridge from their pasts that offers them the possibility of redemption. Infused with character, mystery and humour, these lives intertwine and become bound together as Auster brilliantly explores the wider terrain of contemporary America - a crucible of broken dreams and of human folly.

Shortlisted for the 2015 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction A rampaging force of nature is wreaking havoc on the streets of Edinburgh, but has top shagger, drug-dealer, gonzo-porn-star and taxi-driver, ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson, finally met his match in Hurricane ‘Bawbag’? Can Terry discover the fate of the missing beauty, Jinty Magdalen, and keep her idiot-savant lover, the man-child Wee Jonty, out of prison? Will he find out the real motives of unscrupulous American businessman and reality-TV star, Ronald Checker? And, crucially, will Terry be able to negotiate life after a terrible event robs him of his sexual virility, and can a new fascination for the game of golf help him to live without… A DECENT RIDE? A Decent Ride sees Irvine Welsh back on home turf, leaving us in the capable hands of one of his most compelling and popular characters, ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson, and introducing another bound for cult status, Wee Jonty MacKay: a man with the genitals and brain of a donkey. In his funniest, filthiest book yet, Irvine Welsh celebrates an un-reconstructed misogynist hustler – a central character who is shameless but also, oddly, decent –and finds new ways of making wild comedy out of fantastically dark material, taking on some of the last taboos. So fasten your seatbelts, because this is one ride that could certainly get a little bumpy…

Several months into his recovery from a near-fatal illness, novelist Sidney Orr enters a Brooklyn stationery shop and buys a blue notebook. It is September 18th, 1982, and for the next nine days Orr will live under the spell of this blank book, within a world of eerie premonitions.

Part noir, part psychedelic romp, and all Pynchon, "Inherent Vice" spotlights private eye Doc Sportello who occasionally comes out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era, as the free love of the 1960s slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog.

'Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.' In Casino Royale, the first of Fleming's 007 adventures, a game of cards is James Bond's only chance to bring down the desperate SMERSH agent Le Chiffre. But Bond soon discovers that there is far more at stake than money.

L'amore secondo Irvine Welsh: una storia ambienta in un'anonima cittadina di una popolosa regione a nord di Edimburgo e raccontarla in prima persona dai due protagonisti, Jason King e Jenni Cahill da Cowdenbeath, Fife centrale, Scozia. Lui, ventisei anni e poco più di un metro e mezzo d'altezza, ha archiviato le giovanili speranze di diventare un fantino professionista e si barcamena in un presente non troppo radioso da sottoccupato cronico e stella locale del subbuteo. Tra una partita e l'altra del «meraviglioso gioco da tavolo» e lavoretti più o meno leciti, Jason inganna la monotonia delle giornate di provincia ascoltando Cat Stevens, scolandosi quantità esagerate di Guinness e tampinando quasi ogni ragazza gli capiti a tiro. Da un po', però, a dare materia alle sue fantasie sono le morbide forme della dolce Jenni Cahill. Cavallerizza di scarso talento, con una passione per Marilyn Manson e vaghe aspirazioni suicide, lei non sembra tuttavia troppo entusiasta di ricambiare le attenzioni di quel «nanerottolo schifoso» di Jason. Ma si sa, le apparenze possono ingannare e al cuor non sempre si comanda, e saranno prima il caso e poi un tragico incidente a far scoprire ai due ragazzi di poter condividere qualcosa: il sogno di una nuova vita, lontana dal grigiore di ogni Cowdenbeath del mondo.

Tyler makes things look so easy that she never gets enough credit, yet she portrays everyday Americans with such humor, grace and, ultimately, emotional force that her books are always deeply satisfying. In Saint Maybe her protagonist Ian Bedloe, stricken with guilt over the death of his older brother, raises three children unrelated to him by blood. He is strengthened in this Herculean task by the storefront Church of the Second Chance, to which he devotes himself with equal fervor. Someone once said all great writers are comic writers. Among living Americans, Tyler is exhibit A.

Mr Bones is the canine sidekick and confidant of Willy G. Christmas, a brilliant but troubled poet-saint from Brooklyn. Together they sally forth in search of Willy's beloved high-school teacher, who years ago knew him in his previous incarnation as William Gurevitch, son of Polish war refugees.

August Brill is recovering from a car accident. Plagued by insomnia, he tries to push back thoughts about his wife's death and the horrific murder of his granddaughter's boyfriend, Titus. He is joined in the early hours by his granddaughter, and he opens up to her and recounts the story of his marriage and confronts the reality of Titus' death.

On a day in April, just after three o'clock in the afternoon, Robert Maitland's car crashes over the concrete parapet of a high-speed highway onto the island below, where he is injured and, finally, trapped. What begins as an almost ludicrous predicament in Concrete Island soon turns into horror as Maitland--a wickedly modern Robinson Crusoe--realizes that, despite evidence of other inhabitants, this doomed terrain has become a mirror of his own mind. Seeking the dark outer rim of the everyday, Ballard weaves private catastrophe into an intensely specular allegory. Author Biography: J. G. Ballard is the author of numerous books, including Empire of the Sun, the underground classic Crash, and The Kindness of Women. He is revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. His latest book is Super-Cannes. He lives in England.

Qual è l'attività segreta che consente a un (apparentemente) rispettabile libraio antiquario londinese di condurre una vita lussuosa e spregiudicata, in compagnia della sua segretaria e amante? Be', sempre di libri si tratta, ma... Il lettore scoprirà il mistero lungo le avvincenti pagine di questo racconto, il cui epilogo imprevedibile è quello di una detective story, amara e scanzonata al tempo stesso. Al Libraio che imbrogliò l'Inghilterra fa seguito Lo Scrittore automatico , la storia di un giovane aspirante scrittore che, stanco di vedere le sue creazioni rifiutate dalle riviste letterarie, risolve il problema inventando una strana macchina... I due racconti, dunque, si fondono in un insieme perfettamente amalgamato, accomunati come sono dallo sguardo impietoso che Roald Dahl sa gettare sul mondo dei libri e della cultura, mostrando ancora una volta la sua originalità di visione, il suo stile rapido e graffiante, la sua straordinaria bravura nel delineare situazioni e personaggi.

Unnoticed in the uproar, George quietly begins to go mad. The way a family of damaged people fall apart - and come together - is the true subject of Haddon's hilarious and disturbing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

'Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block?' For disgraced TV presenter Martin Sharp the answer's pretty simple: he has, in his own words, 'pissed his life away'. And on New Year's Eve, he's going to end it all . . . But not, as it happens, alone. Because first single-mum Maureen, then eighteen-year-old Jess and lastly American rock-god JJ turn up and crash Martin's private party. They've stolen his idea - but brought their own reasons. Yet it's hard to jump when you've got an audience queuing impatiently behind you. A few heated words and some slices of cold pizza later and these four strangers are suddenly allies. But is their unlikely friendship a good enough reason to carry on living? 'Extremely funny . . . and wise' Sunday Times 'A page-turning plot and rich, funny characters with several big laughs on every page . . . Hornby's best yet.' Literary Review 'Hornby pins down the age in which we live with precision and comic brilliance.' Guardian 'Hugely enjoyable.' Irish Times 'Masterful . . . some of the finest writing, and some of the most outstanding characters I've ever had the pleasure of reading.' Johnny Depp

Gautam Malkani tells of a Britain that has never before been explored in the novel: a country of young Asian and white boys (desis and goras) trying to work out a place for themselves in the shadow of the divergent cultures of their parent's generation.