Showing results by publisher "Fourth Estate" in All Categories

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘Talking to you in English’, he said, ‘is like touching you with gloves.’ A language barrier is no match for love. New Yorker journalist Lauren Collins discovers this first-hand when, in her early thirties, she moves to London and falls for Olivier, a...

In 1938, with the Japanese army approaching from Nanking, Huan Hsu’s great-great grandfather, Liu, and his five granddaughters, were forced to flee their hometown on the banks of the Yangtze River. But before they left a hole was dug as deep as a man, and as wide as a bedroom, in which was...

‘I could not put it down’ MADELINE CASH The acclaimed author of The Art of Fielding returns with a long-awaited, immersive new novel. The Brightness follows the electric, chaotic, everything-can-happen lives of Pella Affenlight and her best friend, Irma, as they fumble their way into a...

A big-hearted, funny and sad novel about the messiness of love, family and belief LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD ‘Hilarious and timely, a dazzling debut’ John Boyne ‘Bustling, bubbly, bittersweet fun’ Daily Mail ‘Bulging...

From the author of THE HOURS ‘Luminously written … page-turningly enjoyable, this is a profound novel about love from a highly regarded, Pulitzer-winning novelist’ Sunday Times Walking through Central Park, Barrett Meeks sees a translucent light in the sky that regards him in a distinctly...

For readers of Hideous Kinky, Dadland and Bad Blood; the astonishing, beguiling story of Sarah Aspinall’s harum scarum childhood, and a love letter to a woman who defied convention to live a life less ordinary. My Mother attracted unusual people and events to her, and she made things happen…...

The charming, funny successor to the hugely popular ‘Notes to my Mother-in-Law’, from the inimitable Phyllida Law. Following Phyllida Law’s wonderful and acclaimed ‘Notes to my Mother-in-Law’ – which comically and tenderly documented the author’s relationship with her husband’s...

Sure to be hailed alongside H is for Hawk and The Hare with Amber Eyes, an exceptional work that is at once an astonishing journey across countries and continents, an immersive examination of a great artist’s work, and a moving and intimate memoir. At the age of 42, his father not long dead...

Life is going well for Marie. She and her husband, Laurent, live a comfortable life in a large apartment in the 11th arrondissement in Paris. Laurent has a good job at a big law firm, and Marie enjoys her work at a bank, where she feels appreciated by her clients and colleagues. Comfortable, secure and ready for family life, the couple begin to try for a baby. But not long afterwards Marie experiences a shocking encounter which threatens to derail their plans completely, and her world slowly starts to fall apart.

A Short History of Falling – like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and When Breath Becomes Air – is a searingly beautiful, profound and unforgettable memoir that finds light and even humour in the darkest of places. We keep an old shoebox, Gill and I, nestled in a drawer in our room...

A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR In the vein of the Costa-winning Dadland, with the biographical elements of H is for Hawk, The Fragments of my Father is a powerful and poignant memoir about parents and children, freedom and responsibility, madness and creativity and what it means to be a carer...

‘Eleanor Henderson is in possession of an enormous talent’ Ann Patchett ‘A superb novel whose roots can be traced to Harper Lee and Carson McCullers‘ Oprah Magazine Genus Jackson was killed in Cotton County, Georgia, on a summer midnight in 1930, when the newborn twins were fast asleep...

‘An unflinchingly honest portrayal of Londoner life with great empathy, style and humour … A Vanity Fair of our times … Tamsin Jarvis will resonate long after the final page is turned.’ Stylist Daringly, radically honest and very, very funny, this is the best novel yet about the ‘lost...

The author of ‘The House of the Spirits’ returns with a gritty yet transcendent tale of teenage addiction. The narrator and protagonist of MAYA'S NOTEBOOK is a 19 year old girl who grows up in Berkeley, California, and falls into a life of drug addiction and crime. To rescue Maya, and save...

From the award-winning author of Darkmans comes a comic epistolary novel of startling originality and wit. Reading other people’s letters is always a guilty pleasure. But for two West Yorkshire policemen – contemplating a cache of 27 undelivered missives, retrieved from a back alley behind...

A laugh-out-loud love story with big ideas – and squirrels SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016 Can squirrels speak? Do snails scream? Will a young couple, newly engaged, make it to their wedding day? Will their dysfunctional families ruin everything? Will they be undone...

‘Shocking, tender and funny… as gripping as a thriller’ Miranda Sawyer Mind-boggling, heart-rending and darkly comic, this is the full story for the first time, from the writer of the Guardian column Midlife Exwife…. When her husband fell in love with someone else, Stella Grey thought...

Society tells that us that being shy is a fault, but Annie Ridout says it’s a gift. Shy: How being quiet can lead to success teaches us how to embrace this misjudged attribute, instead of trying to fix it. Most of us have some understanding of shyness. From birthday parties as children to...

'Witty and daring … with a hearse-black wit and a quiet wisdom' GUARDIAN 'A profoundly affecting book' TORONTO STAR Internationally bestselling author Miriam Toews recounts her father's life as he might have told it, right up to his final day. One morning Mel Toews put on his coat and hat and...

Joan Didion was a writer’s writer; not only a groundbreaking journalist, essayist, novelist and screenwriter, but a keen observer who honed her sights on life’s telling details. Her insights continue to influence creatives and admirers, encouraging them to become close observers of the world. The World According to Joan Didion is a meditation on the people, places, and objects that propelled Didion’s prose and an invitation to journalists, storytellers, and life adventurers to “throw themselves into the convulsions of the world,” as she once said.