Simon Wroe

This book was nominated for the 2014 Costa First Novel Award. Outrageously funny and completely original, Chop Chop by Simon Wroe is the story of a hapless young chef in the crazed world of the professional kitchen, featuring lust, revenge, neurosis and haute cuisine. "A greasy, hilarious tale of loyalty, revenge and dark appetites. A gripping look behind the kitchen wall." (Shortlist). Two months behind on his rent, young graduate Monocle swallows his dreams and takes the only job he can find: the lowest-rung chef in a gastropub in Camden. Here he finds himself surrounded by a group of deranged hoodlums (his co-workers) and at the mercy of an ingenious sadist (the head chef, Bob). What follows is a furiously-paced, ribald, raucous and unexpectedly touching tale of loyalty and revenge, dark appetites and fading dreams, and a young man finding his way in the world as he is plunged into the fat and the frying pan and everything else besides. "Perfectly baked [with] a rich, gooey pool of dark comedy hiding beneath the surface." (Independent). "Lively, amusing and alarmingly informative." (Daily Mail). "Arch comedy ...Dave Eggers channels Anthony Bourdain." (Kirkus). "Twisted, surprising and above all genuinely funny." (William Sutcliffe). "Raucous and inventive, peopled with technicolour characters and savagely funny." (A D Miller). "A complete page-turner. Reminiscent of Kitchen Confidential but with an entirely fresh voice." (Thomasina Miers). "A brutally funny look at the world of professional cooking." (Gary Shteyngart). "Furiously funny, fast, surreal." (Anya von Bremzen). Simon Wroe is a former chef who writes about food and culture for Prospect and the Economist, and has contributed to a wide range of publications including The Times, Guardian, Telegraph and Evening Standard. In 2014 Chop Chop was nominated for the Costa First Novel Award. Simon Wroe is 30 and lives in London.

Welcome to Kyrzbekistan, winner of Most Corrupt Country 2011 and 2012. A place where anyone can be happy - as long they aren't poor, ill, foreign, a pedestrian, or in any way interested in the truth. A country that takes fake news and false promises to new levels. Expelled from school, Ellis Dau has been forced to help his father out at the Chronicle, the last bastion of free speech in this strange world. But when the country's power supply fails and dark voices threaten the Chronicle's future, Ellis finds himself in an unlikely fight for freedom.'I loved this rollercoaster of a ride into a corrupt, fictitious country that feels only too hideously real' Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Full of wit, heart and charm, Ghost Month asks a timeless question: do we only value life when we are reminded that it will end?Perhaps youve already noticed little things, strange details. A shadow not attached to anything. A face in a window which might be a trick of the light. They come at dusk. Today. Every September, the spirits of the dead return before vanishing four weeks later in a puff of green ash.The haunting has become a holiday - part Christmas, part Halloween, full of annual reckonings with the past. The ghosts arent real in any way that can hurt you, so its hard to tell the silent spectres from ashen commuters: they linger on train platforms, they crowd buses, they take up space on your sofa. The proper term these days is people without pulses. This year, four strangers prepare for a visit from their dearly departed. The season forces them to confront all the things that haunt them, not just their dead. As suppressed truths emerge from the shadows, each of them will end Ghost Month changed in ways they never imagined. Happy Haunting.

«Una mirada brutalment divertida al món de la cuina professional. A vegades la veritat és tan estranya que cal cuinar-la amb la paella de la ficció.» Gary Shteyngart«Cuinar és això: una disculpa eleg

«En realidad, lo mío es ser escritor, pero como el éxito y la fama, que sin duda merezco, parecían demorarse, tenía que afrontar el problema más inmediato, o sea, pagar el alquiler para no tener que