Damian Barr Book order

An Observer, Guardian, Financial Times, Irish Times, Irish Independent, Big Issue and Strong Words Pick of the Year'This is a book that tilts the world' STYLIST'A gripping, heartbreaking tale of uncomfortable histories and the resilience of love' GRAHAM NORTON'I want you to read this ... I enjoy a lot of books but few stay with me like this has' PHILIPPA PERRY'Completely gripping and profoundly moving' MAGGIE O'FARRELL'Very beautiful. Only a truly wise and kind person could write such a book' MAX PORTER'Heart-wrenching ... redemptive and full of love' JOJO MOYESA BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIMEThe book that will change the way you see the world. 2010. Sixteen-year-old outsider Willem just wants to be left alone with his books and his dog. Worried he's not turning out right, his ma and her boyfriend send him to New Dawn Safari Training Camp. Here they 'make men out of boys'. Guaranteed.1901. The height of the second Boer War in South Africa. Sarah van der Watt and her son are taken from their farm by force to Bloemfontein Concentration Camp where, the English promise: they will be safe.

It's 12 October 1984. An IRA bomb blows apart the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Miraculously, Margaret Thatcher survives. In small-town Scotland, eight-year-old Damian Barr watches in horror as his mum rips her wedding ring off and packs their bags. He knows he, too, must survive. Damian, his sister and his Catholic mum move in with her sinister new boyfriend while his Protestant dad shacks up with the glamorous Mary the Canary. Divided by sectarian suspicion, the community is held together by the sprawling Ravenscraig Steelworks. But darkness threatens as Maggie takes hold: she snatches school milk, smashes the unions and makes greed good. Following Maggie's advice, Damian works hard and plans his escape. He discovers that stories can save your life and - in spite of violence, strikes, AIDS and Clause 28 - manages to fall in love dancing to Madonna in Glasgow's only gay club. Maggie & Me is a touching and darkly witty memoir about surviving Thatcher's Britain; a story of growing up gay in a straight world and coming out the other side in spite of, and maybe because of, the iron lady.