Showing results by publisher "Canongate Books" in All Categories

This is a tale of mice and magic. It is also a tale of great love (of cheese) and great danger. And learning the lesson that what matters most - when it comes to cheese and life - is not how strongly you smell but how strong you are on the inside.

People who believe ageing brings wisdom live longer. Lucky charms really do improve an athlete’s performance. Taking a placebo, even when you know it is a placebo, can still improve your health. Welcome to The Expectation Effect. David Robson takes us on a tour of the cutting-edge research happening right now that suggests our expectations shape our experience. Of course, you can’t just think yourself thinner, happier or fitter, but using this book you can reframe many different facets of your life. 

The most acclaimed Scottish novel of all time, Sunset Song is a powerful portrait of a land and people in turmoil, seen through the life and struggles of its heroine Chris Guthrie. In the years up to and beyond the First World War, Chris's resilience, like the land itself, endures despite...

It is the 1970s in LA, and Jacaranda Leven - child of sun and surf - is swept into the dazzling cultural milieu of the beautiful people. Floating on a cloud of drink, drugs and men, she finds herself adrift, before her talent for writing, and a determined literary agent, set her on a course for...

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013 Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you.' Ruth discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home. Within it lies a diary that expresses the hopes...

It's late one night at the Spanish port of Algeciras, and two fading Irish gangsters are waiting on the boat from Tangier. A lover has been lost, a daughter has gone missing, their world has come asunder - can it be put together again? Night Boat to Tangier is a novel drenched in sex and death and narcotics, in sudden violence and old magic, but it is obsessed, above all, with the mysteries of love. A tragicomic masterwork from a multi-award-winning writer, Night Boat to Tangier is both mordant and hilarious, lyrical yet laden with menace.

At the age of 17, after a childhood in an fostered family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. Here Sissay recounts his life story. It is a story of neglect and determination. Misfortune and hope. Cruelty and triumph.  

Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted from spending eternity doing her job, and now she seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer, is well acquainted with death but until now hadn't met Death in person - a Black, working-class woman who shape-shifts and does her work unseen. Enthralled by her stories, Wolf becomes Mrs Death's scribe and begins to write her memoirs. Using their desk as a conduit, Wolf travels across time and place with Mrs Death to witness deaths of past and present and discuss what the future holds for humanity.

1959 saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the other members of Miles's sextet come together to record the seminal jazz album of all time Kind of Blue. 3 Shades of Blue is a magnificent blended biography on the meandering paths which led Miles, Coltrane and Evans to the mountaintop of 1959 and the aftermath. It's a book about music, business, race, addiction and the cities that gave jazz its home; from New York and LA to Philadelphia, Chicago and Kansas City. Kaplan meditates on creativity and the great forebears of this golden age who would take the music down strange new paths.

When Cora meets Sam at a baby group in their small town, the chemistry between them is instant and undeniable. But both are happily married, and neither is the type to cheat. So as their lives intertwine and the romantic tension between them heightens, Cora turns to her imagination: in her head, she and Sam pursue their feelings; in reality, they resist.

This is a story of something like survival. Sal planned it for almost a year before they ran. She nicked an Ordnance Survey map from the school library. She bought a compass, a Bear Grylls knife, waterproofs and a first aid kit from Amazon using credit cards she'd robbed. She read the SAS Survival Handbook and watched loads of YouTube videos. And now Sal knows a lot of stuff. Like how to build a shelter and start a fire. How to estimate distances, snare rabbits and shoot an airgun.

1629. Embarking on a journey in search of her father, a young girl called Mayken boards the Batavia, the most impressive sea vessel of the age. During the long voyage, this curious and resourceful child must find her place in the ship's busy world and she soon uncovers shadowy secrets above and below deck. 1989. Gil, a boy mourning the death of his mother, is placed in the care of his irritable and reclusive grandfather. Their home is a shack on a tiny fishing island off the Australian coast, notable only for its reefs and wrecked boats.

'No regrets.' You've heard people proclaim it as a philosophy of life. That's nonsense, even dangerous, says Daniel H. Pink in his latest bold and inspiring work. Everybody has regrets. They're a fundamental part of our lives. And if we reckon with them in fresh and imaginative ways, we can enlist our regrets to make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school and deepen our sense of meaning and purpose.

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...

Created from more than forty hours of intimate conversations with the journalist Seán O’Hagan, it is a profoundly thoughtful exploration, in Cave’s own words, of what really drives his life and creativity. The audiobook has been recorded so that the listener, especially when playing through headphones, sits between Cave and O’Hagan. The book draws candidly on Cave’s life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years.

'Quite possibly the best living writer in Britain' Daily Telegraph Much attention has been paid to so-called late style - but what about last style? When does last begin? How early is late? When does the end set in? In this endlessly stimulating investigation, Geoff Dyer sets his own encounter...

'One of the most accomplished and important science writers of our time' ED YONG 'Chanda Prescod-Weinstein brings light to our universe' ROBIN INCE In The Edge of Space-Time, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein takes readers to the boundaries of the universe, inviting us to spend time at the edge of what...

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...

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.