Rupert Thomson Book order

If he suddenly found what surrounded him unbearable, it was because it was artificial. Everything had been designed and manufactured, he was trapped in it. Philip Notman, a celebrated scientist turned historian, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London and to his wife and son, he finds himself irrevocably changed and unable to settle back into his normal life. Instead, he is overcome with a deep revulsion for the consumerism, powerlessness and emptiness of modern technological civilization. Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to unite with Ines, an attractive Spanish academic with whom he shared a connection, and after a chance encounter with a wealthy elderly couple, spends the summer in their house in Crete. But his efforts prove futile. He becomes consumed with his disgust for the modern world and with his feelings of hopelessness for the family that await him. Spiralling further into despair, he feels compelled to take action. He returns to London and finds refuge in a scaffolding yard in Vauxhall. In this fugitive underground existence, using his scientific knowledge, he embarks on a path that could lead to devastating destruction.

"In this unsettling, timely, and explosive novel, one of the UK's most admired and celebrated writers gives us a portrait of an ordinary man in an extraordinary dilemma, and asks questions that could be transformed, if only we could see through the illusions and disinformation that have us in their grasp. It's February 2019. Philip Notman, a respected academic with a German wife and a troubled nineteen-year-old son, is on his way back from a conference in Norway when he has an unexpected and disturbing experience that completely alters his view of the world. In an instant, the reality that he has always taken for granted becomes unbearable. Believing that Ines, a Spanish woman he met at the conference, can shed light on what he is feeling, he travels to Cadiz to see her. But his journey doesn't end there. In a progress that involves both the exploration of an idea and a quest for a simpler and more meaningful existence, he winds up in a small village on the south coast of Crete. Gradually, and yet inexorably, a drastic course of action occurs to him. He returns to London, knowing exactly what he must do, even if it ruins his life and the lives of those closest to him. How much are we prepared to sacrifice for our beliefs? Can love take second place to an idea? Is it possible to find a more authentic way of living?"-- Provided by publisher

Set on the eve of the financial crash of 2008, Barcelona Dreaming is made up of three stories that are linked by time and place, and also by the moving, unexpected interactions of a rich cast of characters.

Based on actual events, NEVER ANYONE BUT YOU is the gripping, beautifully written story of a love affair between Suzanne Malherbe and Claude Cahun - two extraordinary women who not only smashed gender barriers, but also played an influential role in the Surrealist movement in Paris, and ultimately risked their lives resisting the Nazis.

In the late 80s, Katherine Carlyle is created using IVF. Stored as a frozen embryo for eight years, she is then implanted in her mother and given life. By the age of nineteen Katherine has lost her mother to cancer, and feels her father to be an increasingly distant figure. Instead of going to college, she decides to disappear, telling no one where she has gone. What begins as an attempt to punish her father for his absence gradually becomes a testing-ground of his love for her, a coming-to-terms with the death of her mother, and finally the mise-en-scene for a courageous leap from false empowerment to true empowerment. Written in the beautifully spare, lucid and cinematic prose that Thomson is known for, Katherine Carlyle uses the modern techniques of IVF and cryopreservation to throw new light on the myth of origins. It is a profound and moving novel about where we come from, what we make of ourselves, and how we are loved.

A sculptor of the macabre. A sorcerer of wax. A criminal. A runaway. Zummo is exactly what the last great Medici ruler of Florence needs...

An ordinary policeman spends a long and thoughtful night guarding the body of one of Britain's most notorious criminals

25th anniversary edition, with a new introduction by the author

The utterly engrossing and disturbing novel from the author of Divided Kingdom

Wonderfully dark, relentlessly slippery ... I read this entire memoir with my breath held Julie Myerson, The Observer