Joanna Kavenna is a British novelist and travel writer whose works explore the relationship between self and place, the country versus the city, and the plight of the individual in hyper-capitalist society. Her writing, which blends history, travel, literary criticism, and first-person narrative, is known for its illuminating and consequential insights into myths and travelers' tales. Kavenna focuses on a unique voice and literary significance, offering readers compelling perspectives on the human experience.
A narrator in retreat from suburban life, a shambolic draughty farmhouse in a scenic valley... A widowed survivalist called Cassandra White... A banker, a village-full of empty second homes, and scores of poor and elderly people with nowhere to go... A crazy utopian scheme to reclaim the valley for the locals.
A brand new collection of essays exclusively commissioned by Notting Hill Editions. Iain Sinclair writes in his luminous introduction, the contributors try to explain their impulse to write 'by way of personal anecdote, revelation, or hopeful punt in the dark'.
A story of idealism and ambition, wars and destruction, survival and memories, set against the haunting backdrop of the northern landscape. Blending travelogue, reportage, memoir, and literary essay, this book explores the life of the far North in the 20th Century.
Through the interwoven stories of four very different characters, The Birth of Love explores the intense, conflicting emotions of motherhood as few contemporary novels have dared to do
One corporation has made a perfect world based on a perfect algorithm ... now what to do with all these messy people? Lionel Bigman is dead. Murdered by a robot. Guy Matthias, the philandering founder and CEO of the mega-corporation Beetle, insists it was human error. But was it? Either the predictive algorithms of Beetle's supposedly omniscient 'lifechain' don't work, or, they've been hacked. Both scenarios are impossible to imagine and signal the end of Beetle's technotopia and life as we know it. Dazzlingly original and darkly comic, Zed asks profound questions about who we are, what we owe to one another, and what makes us human. It describes our moment--the ugliness and the beauty--perfectly. Kavenna is a prophet who has seen deeply into the present--and thrown back her head and laughed.
"Thus begins the piercingly wise and bitingly funny odyssey of Rosa Lane. Inexplicable to her friends and family, Rosa embarks on a quest for a sense of purpose, in which she runs afoul of all the rules of mating, morality, and money. Along the way, she is deceived by her lover, surprised by her friends, turned out by her roommate, threatened by her bank manager, picked over by prospective employers, befuddled by philosophy, and tormented by omnivorous London. Brought very low indeed, Rosa in her desperation makes a final assault on those who have done her wrong, leading to the beginning of her return to normality - whatever that is."--BOOK JACKET.
A conceptual tour de force and a satire of pseudo-philosophy and literary devices, from the brilliantly comic ironist and Granta Best of Young British author