Showing results by publisher "Canongate Books" in All Categories

Isserley spends most of her time driving. But why is she so interested in picking up hitchhikers? And why are they always male, well-built and alone? An utterly unpredictable and macabre mystery, Michel Faber's debut novel is an outstanding piece of fiction that will stay with you long after you...

A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE MAN ASIAN LITERARY PRIZE AND THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE Teoh Yun Ling was seventeen years old when she first heard about Aritomo and the garden. But a war would come to Malaya...

Why Women Grow is a much-needed exploration of why women turn to the earth, as gardeners, growers and custodians. This book emerged from a deeply rooted desire to share the stories of women who are silenced and overlooked. In doing so, Alice fosters connections with gardeners that unfurl into a tender exploration of women's lives, their gardens and what the ground has offered them, with conversations spanning creation and loss, celebration and grief, power, protest, identity and renaissance.

IN A WORLD THAT'S LIKE OURS BUT EVEN STRANGER . . . A TV star president is campaigning for a constitutionally dubious third term, normal Americans are falling into an unexplained weeping sickness and a wrestler claiming to be the reincarnated mystic Rasputin is making a spandex-clad entrance...

What did your face look like before your parents were born? In The Face: A Time Code, best-selling author and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki recounts, in moment-to-moment detail, a profound encounter with memory and the mirror. According to ancient Zen tradition, 'your face before your parents were born' is your original face. Who are you? What is your true self? What is your identity before or beyond the dualistic distinctions, like father/mother and good/evil, that come to define us?

My name is Anna, and for some time now, I have been trying to account for certain events in my life – my adult life, that is – which, from this vantage point of forty-five years, I often find baffling . . . In 1985 Dublin, nineteen-year-old Anna Hughes is in thrall to Peter Gallagher, an...

This is a guide to a life well-lived. It is about the wonder of the everyday and the lessons that age brings. Wear stripes. Eat chocolate. Don't leave empty-handed. But also embrace change, let go of what doesn't matter and take care of something or someone other than yourself. The Swedish Art of Ageing Well is a gentle and welcome reminder that, no matter your age, there are always fresh discoveries ahead and pleasures to be enjoyed every day.

The Girls of Slender Means is the third Muriel Spark audio release of 2012, following The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Complete Short Stories. It is 1945; a time of cultural and political change, and also one of slender means. Spark's evocative and sharply drawn novel focuses on a group of women living together in a hostel in Kensington who face new challenges in uncertain times. The novel is at once dramatic and character-based, and shows Muriel Spark at the height of her literary powers.

While cooking at Chez Panisse at the start of her career, Samin Nosrat noticed that amid the chaos of the kitchen there were four key principles that her fellow chefs would always fall back on to make their food better: Salt, Fat, Acid and Heat. By mastering these four variables, Samin found the confidence to trust her instincts in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients. And with her simple but revolutionary method, she has taught masterclasses to give both professionals and amateurs the skills to cook instinctively.  

Enter a world where people are murdered, ecosystems are destroyed, organised criminals terrorise communities and corporate gangsters operate outside the law. And, closely following their every move, are teams of secret agents, vigilantes and scientists who are fighting for our planet's future. Using insider sources and her expertise as a criminal psychologist, Julia Shaw takes us deep into some of the worst environmental crimes of our time.

The past is never done with: always the song continues Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home...

FOR THE FIRST TIME UNABRIDGED IN AUDIO READ BY ALAN CUMMING and ANGUS KING WITH ARCHIVAL RECORDINGS FROM ALASDAIR GRAY HIMSELF 'Probably the greatest novel of the century' Observer Lanark, a modern vision of hell set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, tells the interwoven...

In this masterpiece of nature writing, beautifully narrated by Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape.

Ruth’s life changes the day she stands in line with her mother to buy a new school uniform – and sees another girl and her aunt turned away, unable to afford one. The girl, Maria, meets Ruth’s stare without shame, and from that moment, Ruth can’t stop thinking about her. When school begins, and they turn out to be the only two girls attending on scholarship, Ruth musters the courage to introduce herself. A friendship forms – not by choice, but by something stronger. Ruth is drawn into Maria’s orbit, always circling: never too close, never quite able to pull away.

Bunny Munro sells beauty products and the dream of hope to the lonely housewives of the south coast. Set adrift by his wife's sudden death and struggling to keep a grip on reality, he does the only thing he can think of: with his young son in tow, he hits the road. While Bunny plies his trade...

In Exit Wounds, Peter Godwin considers the life of migrants, exiles and refugees, and grieves the many losses that make life both magnificent and unbearable. With generations of history behind him, he brings us into the spaces which make us question, suffer and celebrate the lives we have among family and friends, and the healing of our own scars.

In this fascinating and entertaining look at games throughout history, Tim Clare explores the legal highs of a good dice roll, the thrills of a predatory race game, and the tactile pleasures of the games that age with us through our lives. Drawing on Roman anti-cheating devices, organised crime card games, and dice contests that link Chaucer to Warren G, The Game Changers will show you why games are more popular now than ever, and how playing them helps us win more often, become better losers and stay one step ahead - on and off the board. Through play, we become fully ourselves.

David Lynch – co-creator of Twin Peaks and writer and director of groundbreaking films like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive – opens up about a lifetime of extraordinary creativity, the friendships made along the way and the struggles he faced – sometimes successful, sometimes not – to bring his projects to fruition.

When Max Dickins decided to propose to his girlfriend, he realised there was no one he could call on to be his best man. He quickly learned that that he wasn’t the only man struggling with friendships. For decades, countless studies from across the world have confirmed that men have fewer close friends than women–and the problem gets worse the older men get. But what goes wrong? And what can men do about it? Dickins is going to find out. His funny and charmingly candid search takes him to the doors of world-leading experts.

Many of us think of the arts as entertainment - a luxury of some kind. In Your Brain on Art, authors Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross show how activities from painting and dancing to expressive writing, architecture and more are essential to our lives. We're on the verge of a cultural shift in which the arts can deliver potent, accessible and proven solutions for the well-being of everyone.