Rosa Lane is a fashionable journalist in her thirties, already the picture of London achievement. Her handsome boyfriend is something in politics and her other friends are confident, prosperous and ambitious. But one afternoon, staring at her computer screen at work, she fails to see the point, walks out of her job - and begins her long fall from modern grace.
In Vienna, in 1865, Ignaz Semmelweis has been hounded into a lunatic asylum, ridiculed for his claim that doctors' unwashed hands are the root cause of childbed fever. The deaths of thousands of mothers are on his conscience and his dreams are filled with blood. In 2153, humans are birthed and raised in breeding centres, nurtured by strangers and deprived of familial love. Miraculously, a woman conceives, and Prisoner 730004 stands trial for concealing it. In London in 2009, Michael Stone's novel about Semmelweis has been published, after years of rejection. But while Michael absorbs his disconcerting success, his estranged mother is dying and asks to see him again. As Michael vacillates, Brigid Hayes, exhausted and uncertain whether she can endure the trials ahead, begins the labour of her second child. Through the interwoven stories of these four characters, The Birth of Love explores the intense, conflicting emotions of motherhood as few contemporary novels have dared to do. A beautifully constructed and immensely powerful work, it is also a story of rebellion, isolation and the damage done by rigid ideologies. It confirms Joanna Kavenna, winner of the Orange New Writers Award for Inglorious, as one of the most ambitious and talented authors writing today
A darkly ironic novel of ideas, a dystopia, and an absurdist thriller, from the award-winning novelistSelf-anointed guru of the Digital Age, Guy Matthias, CEO of Beetle, has become one of the worlds most powerful and influential figures.
Self-anointed guru of the Digital Age, Guy Matthias, CEO of Beetle, has become one of the world's most powerful and influential figures. Untaxed and ungoverned, his trans-Atlantic company essentially operates beyond the control of Governments or the law.But trouble is never far away, and for Guy a perfect storm is brewing: his wife wants to leave him, fed up with his serial infidelities; malfunctioning Beetle software has led to some unfortunate deaths which are proving hard to cover up; his longed for deal with China is proving troublingly elusive and, among other things, the mystery hacker, Gogol, is on his trail.With the clock ticking- Guy, his aide Douglas Varley, Britain's flailing female PM, conflicted national security agent Eloise Jayne, depressed journalist David Strachey, and Gogol, whoever that may be - the question is becoming ever more pressing, how do you live in reality when nobody knows anything, and all knowledge, all certainty, is partly or entirely fake?
Una joven londinense, abandonada por su marido por ser estéril, decide retirarse al campo. Va a convivir y trabajar con Cassandra White, una vieja granjera ecologista y con muy malas pulgas, que vive en un valle espectacular en el Distrito de los Lagos. Un lugar lleno de segundas viviendas de lujo, vacias la mayor parte del año, y de campesinos pobres que estan a punto de perder sus casas. Asi surge un plan utopico para devolver el valle a los vecinos. Y una historia de amor. Venid hasta el borde, les dijo es una satira desternillante que, mientras nos hace reir, nos muestra lo que puede suceder cuando las desigualdades sociales se vuelven insostenibles.