A powerfully poignant tale of one of the most turbulent moments in Scotland's history: the North Berwick Witch Trials. IT'S THE 4TH OF DECEMBER 1591. On this, the last night of her life, in a prison cell several floors below Edinburgh's High Street, convicted witch Geillis Duncan receives a mysterious visitor – Iris, who says she comes from a future where women are still persecuted for who they are and what they believe. As the hours pass and dawn approaches, Geillis recounts the circumstances of her arrest, brutal torture, confession and trial, while Iris offers support, solace – and the tantalising prospect of escape. Hex is a visceral depiction of what happens when a society is consumed by fear and superstition, exploring how the terrible force of a king's violent crusade against ordinary women can still be felt, right up to the present day. 'This series has already produced two works of note and distinction. It raises the question – if a country cannot re-tell its history, will it be stuck forever in aspic and condemned to be nothing more than a shortbread tin illustration? Hex and Rizzio are showing the way towards a reckoning, and about time too' – Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday
Named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais is covered in blood. Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counterculture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself. And yet despite the parade of horrors visited upon her early life, she greets the world with the witty, fierce insight of a survivor. Anais finds a sense of belonging among the residents of the Panopticon—they form intense bonds, and she soon becomes part of an ad-hoc family. Together, they struggle against the adults that keep them confined. But when she looks up at the watchtower that looms over the residents, Anais realizes her fate: She is an anonymous part of an experiment, and she always was. Now it seems that the experiment is closing in. Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content
These poems are alive with electricity, pulsating with a frequency that vibrates throughout. In a journey from there to here, The Bone Library examines and interprets all of human life. Throughout the collection Jenni Fagan responds to broader themes of identity, of place, of love and the unloved. Written in the old Dick Vet Bone Library during the author's time as writer-in-residence there, this is a vivid exploration that is honest and searching and cuts to the very core of what it is to be alive.
The stunning new novel from the highly-acclaimed author of The Panopticon It's November of 2020, and the world is freezing over. Each day colder than the last. There's snow in Israel, the Thames is overflowing, and an iceberg separated from the Fjords in Norway is expected to drift just off the coast of Scotland. As ice water melts into the Atlantic, frenzied London residents evacuate by the thousands for warmer temperatures down south. But not Dylan. Grieving and ready to build life anew, he heads north to bury his mother's and grandmother's ashes on the Scottish islands where they once lived. Hundreds of miles away, twelve-year-old Estella and her survivalist mother, Constance, scrape by in the snowy, mountainous Highlands, preparing for a record-breaking winter. Living out of a caravan, they spend their days digging through landfills, searching for anything with restorative and trading value. When Dylan arrives in their caravan park in the middle of the night, life changes course for Estella and Constance. Though the weather worsens, his presence brings a new light to daily life, and when the ultimate disaster finally strikes, they'll all be ready. Written in incandescent, dazzling prose, The Sunlight Pilgrims is a visionary story of courage and resilience in the midst of nature's most violent hour; by turns an homage to the portentous beauty of our natural world, and to just how strong we can be, if the will and the hope is there, to survive its worst. - NPR “Best Books of 2016” – Family Matters, Identity & Culture, Science Fiction & Fantasy, and Tales from Around the World
The Dead Queen of Bohemia is a journey through a life lived on the edge. With a poetic style influenced by Gertrude Stein and William Burroughs, this collection is woven with surrealistic imagery that is both unflinching and dislocating. Fagan's poetry is raw and tough yet beautiful and tender and with themes of loss and recovery, hope and defiance, represents a clarion call from a self-taught poet who started writing at the age of seven and so far has not stopped. The Dead Queen of Bohemia documents the progression of a voice and a life written over the last twenty years. It opens with Jenni's most recent work and includes her previous two collections, both now out of print.
These poems are alive with electricity, pulsating with a frequency that vibrates throughout. In a journey from there to here, The Bone Library examines and interprets all of human life. Throughout the collection Jenni Fagan responds to broader themes of identity, of place, of love and the unloved. Written in the old Dick Vet Bone Library during the author's time as writer-in-residence there, this is a vivid exploration that is honest and searching and cuts to the very core of what it is to be alive.
A powerfully poignant tale of one of the most turbulent moments in Scotland's history: the North Berwick Witch Trials. IT'S THE 4TH OF DECEMBER 1591. On this, the last night of her life, in a prison cell several floors below Edinburgh's High Street, convicted witch Geillis Duncan receives a mysterious visitor – Iris, who says she comes from a future where women are still persecuted for who they are and what they believe. As the hours pass and dawn approaches, Geillis recounts the circumstances of her arrest, brutal torture, confession and trial, while Iris offers support, solace – and the tantalising prospect of escape. Hex is a visceral depiction of what happens when a society is consumed by fear and superstition, exploring how the terrible force of a king's violent crusade against ordinary women can still be felt, right up to the present day. 'This series has already produced two works of note and distinction. It raises the question – if a country cannot re-tell its history, will it be stuck forever in aspic and condemned to be nothing more than a shortbread tin illustration? Hex and Rizzio are showing the way towards a reckoning, and about time too' – Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday
Beautiful, deep, transfixing . . . it will burn a home in your heart' LEMN SISSAY 'Essential reading, life-changing' SAMANTHA MORTON 'An astonishing piece of work' NIALL GRIFFITHS The government told a story about me before I was born. Jenni Fagan was property of the state before birth. She drew her first breath in care and by the age of seven, she had lived in fourteen different homes and had her name changed multiple times. Twenty years after her first attempt to write this powerful memoir, Jenni is finally ready to share her account. Ootlin is a journey through the broken UK care system – it is one of displacement and exclusion, but also of the power of storytelling. It is about the very human act of making meaning from adversity.
A bold, haunting, and startlingly unique novel about the secrets we leave behind and the places that hold them long after we are gone, a “quintessential novel of Edinburgh at its darkest.” (Irvine Welsh) There are stories tucked away on every floor of 10 Luckenbooth Close 1910, Edinburgh. Jessie MacRae has been sent to a tenement building by her recently deceased father to bear a child for a wealthy man and his fiancée. The harrowing events that follow lead to a curse on the building and its residents—a curse that will last for the rest of the century. Over nine decades, 10 Luckenbooth Close bears witness to emblems of a changing world outside its walls. An infamous madam, a spy, a famous Beat poet, a coal miner who fears daylight, a psychic: these are some of the residents whose lives are plagued by the building's troubled history in disparate, sometimes chilling ways. The curse creeps up the nine floors as an enraged spirit world swells to the surface, desperate for the true horror of the building's longest kept secret to be heard. Luckenbooth is a bold, haunting, and dazzlingly unique novel about the stories and secrets we leave behind—and the places that hold them long after we are gone.
Named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais is covered in blood. Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counterculture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself. And yet despite the parade of horrors visited upon her early life, she greets the world with the witty, fierce insight of a survivor. Anais finds a sense of belonging among the residents of the Panopticon—they form intense bonds, and she soon becomes part of an ad-hoc family. Together, they struggle against the adults that keep them confined. But when she looks up at the watchtower that looms over the residents, Anais realizes her fate: She is an anonymous part of an experiment, and she always was. Now it seems that the experiment is closing in. Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content
Do you know how the time of your birth affects your destiny? Have you chosen a career in tune with your ruling planet? Should you date that cute Virgo at the gym—or hold out for the Libra next door? The ancient art of astrology can tell you all this—and more! The Everything Astrology Book, 2nd Edition, is your key to unlocking the secrets of your past, present, and future. Completely revised and updated, this all-inclusive handbook reveals every critical aspect of this illuminating practice, from its earliest forms to its relevance to the modern world we live in today—including how you can apply astrology to your everyday life! You will quickly discover the mysterious origins of astrology, breakdowns of the Elements, true meanings of your birth signs and symbols, how the planets and their movements impact your life, which signs you are romantically compatible with, how to construct your own birth chart, and more! With acclaimed astrologer and psychic Jenni Kosarin as your guide, you can harness your own destiny—and uncover revelations about yourself that you may never have known before!
Keen to explore a different side of Portland? Like a Local is the book for you. This isn't your ordinary travel guide. Beyond Portland's iconic food trucks are hidden comic stores, eclectic dive bars and quirky galleries that locals love - and that's where this book takes you. Turn the pages to discover: - The small businesses and community strongholds that add character to this vibrant city, recommended by true locals. - 6 themed walking tours dedicated to specific experiences such as vintage shopping and waterfront walks. - A beautiful gift book for anyone seeking to explore Portland. - Helpful 'what3word' addresses, so you can pinpoint all the listed sights. Compiled by three proud Portlanders, this stylish travel guide is packed with Portland's best experiences and hidden spots, handily categorized to suit your mood and needs. Whether you're a restless Portlander on the hunt for a new hangout, or a visitor keen to discover a side you won't find in traditional guidebooks, Portland Like A Local will give you all the inspiration you need. About Like A Local: These giftable and collectible guides from DK Eyewitness are compiled exclusively by locals. Whether they're born-and-bred or moved to study and never looked back, our experts shine a light on what it means to be a local: pride for their city, community spirit and local expertise. Like a Local will inspire readers to celebrate the secret as well as the iconic - just like the locals who call the city home. Looking for another guide to Portland? Explore further with our DK Eyewitness guide to the Pacific Northwest.
This new book, The Witch in the Word Machine, is a collection that underpins Jenni Fagan's entire approach to words. Her spell poems are portraits of people, lovers and cities: Paris, New York, Edinburgh, Detroit, LA, and San Francisco. The excerpts of her Truth poem are a political response to great uncertainty in the world right now. This collection is an exploration of words as spells, incantations, curse and solace.
There is in the short story, at its most characteristic, something we do not often find in the novel, Frank O’Connor wrote, ‘an intense awareness of human loneliness.’ The stories shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award with BookTrust 2017 all feature characters that are disconnected, willingly or unwillingly, from those around them: a mysterious out-of-towner is shunned by her new colleagues; a grieving husband retreats into his old compulsion for hoarding; a promising academic risks his career for a casual liaison with a younger man. And whether we follow the characters’ need to be alone – like the fisherman drifting dangerously far from shore – or trace it back to its root – like the daughter burying her violent father – what we find there is always unexpected. Jenni Fagan, Benjamin Markovits and Helen Oyeyemi, three of Granta’s recent ‘20 under 40’, are joined by critic and novelist, Will Eaves and Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize winner, Cynan Jones on the 2017 shortlist. This year’s shortlist was selected by authors Eimear McBride, Jon McGregor and Sunjeev Sahota, as well as BBC Radio’s Di Speirs and acclaimed novelist Joanna Trollope who chaired the panel and introduces the collection.
The stunning new novel from the highly-acclaimed author of The Panopticon It's November of 2020, and the world is freezing over. Each day colder than the last. There's snow in Israel, the Thames is overflowing, and an iceberg separated from the Fjords in Norway is expected to drift just off the coast of Scotland. As ice water melts into the Atlantic, frenzied London residents evacuate by the thousands for warmer temperatures down south. But not Dylan. Grieving and ready to build life anew, he heads north to bury his mother's and grandmother's ashes on the Scottish islands where they once lived. Hundreds of miles away, twelve-year-old Estella and her survivalist mother, Constance, scrape by in the snowy, mountainous Highlands, preparing for a record-breaking winter. Living out of a caravan, they spend their days digging through landfills, searching for anything with restorative and trading value. When Dylan arrives in their caravan park in the middle of the night, life changes course for Estella and Constance. Though the weather worsens, his presence brings a new light to daily life, and when the ultimate disaster finally strikes, they'll all be ready. Written in incandescent, dazzling prose, The Sunlight Pilgrims is a visionary story of courage and resilience in the midst of nature's most violent hour; by turns an homage to the portentous beauty of our natural world, and to just how strong we can be, if the will and the hope is there, to survive its worst. - NPR “Best Books of 2016” – Family Matters, Identity & Culture, Science Fiction & Fantasy, and Tales from Around the World
There is in the short story, at its most characteristic, something we do not often find in the novel, Frank O’Connor wrote, ‘an intense awareness of human loneliness.’ The stories shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award with BookTrust 2017 all feature characters that are disconnected, willingly or unwillingly, from those around them: a mysterious out-of-towner is shunned by her new colleagues; a grieving husband retreats into his old compulsion for hoarding; a promising academic risks his career for a casual liaison with a younger man. And whether we follow the characters’ need to be alone – like the fisherman drifting dangerously far from shore – or trace it back to its root – like the daughter burying her violent father – what we find there is always unexpected. Jenni Fagan, Benjamin Markovits and Helen Oyeyemi, three of Granta’s recent ‘20 under 40’, are joined by critic and novelist, Will Eaves and Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize winner, Cynan Jones on the 2017 shortlist. This year’s shortlist was selected by authors Eimear McBride, Jon McGregor and Sunjeev Sahota, as well as BBC Radio’s Di Speirs and acclaimed novelist Joanna Trollope who chaired the panel and introduces the collection.
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