Matthew Kneale Book order (chronological)

A captivating, thought-provoking road trip through a rapidly changing Europe in the 1930s from the award-winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of Sweet Thames and Rome: A History in Seven Sackings.

A warm and affectionate portrait of a city and a people under lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis, from the award-winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of Rome: A History in Seven Sackings.

The year 1289. A rich farmer fears he'll go to hell for cheating his neighbours. His wife wants pilgrim badges to sew into her hat and show off at church. A poor, ragged villager is convinced his beloved cat is suffering in the fires of purgatory and must be rescued. A mother is convinced her son's dangerous illness is punishment for her own adultery and seeks forgiveness so he may be cured. A landlord is in trouble with the church after he punched an abbot on the nose. A sexually driven noblewoman seeks a divorce so she can marry her new young beau. These are among a group of pilgrims that sets off on the tough and dangerous journey from England to Rome, where they hope all their troubles will be answered. Some in the party who have their own, secret reasons for going. Matthew Kneale is the author of English Passengers and Rome: A History in Seven Sackings. His new novel, Pilgrims, is a riveting, sweeping narrative that shows medieval society in a new light, as a highly rule-bound, legalistic world, though religious fervour and the threat of violence are never far below the surface. Told by multiple narrators, Pilgrims has much to say about Englishness, then and now.

A fascinating history of the city of Rome, seen through the eyes of its most significant sackings, from the Gauls to the Nazis and everything in between.

The man of his family, nine-year-old Lawrence watches protectively over his mother and little sister, especially when, feeling endangered by their estranged father, his mother decides the three of them must leave their life in England to seek refuge in Rome, where, although short of money, they build a new life, until the trouble that brought them to Italy returns. 20,000 first printing.

Lawrence ist noch ein Kind, aber er ist der Mann der Familie. Der Vater ist schon länger weg, also passt er auf seine kleine Schwester auf, die ihn, zugegeben, manchmal ganz schön nervt, und auch auf seine Mutter, die in letzter Zeit viel zu selten lächelt. Eigentlich ist sie meistens traurig und hat Angst, der Vater könnte plötzlich auftauchen und irgendwas anstellen. Aber dann hat die Mutter eine wunderbare Idee, sie packen Hamster Hermann und alles, was reinpasst, ins Auto und fahren in den Süden, nach Rom, wo sie einst glücklich war. Was als Abenteuer beginnt, entwickelt sich jedoch allmählich zum Alptraum, und Lawrence muss einige schwere Entscheidungen treffen, um seine Familie zu retten.

From a smugly well-intentioned English family who leave their tour group in china to travel alone, to a ploddingly respectable London lawyer who chances upon a stash of cocaine and discovers it offers the wealth and status he hungers for, to a self-doubting suicide bomber. Kneale transports readers across frontiers in an instant.

An East–West culture clash beats at the heart of this wry first novel by Matthew Kneale—author of English Passengers, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.