The Restraint of Beasts

The Restraint of Beasts

Author: Magnus Mills

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.

Published: 2012-07

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1611455138

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When sloth and alcohol lead to a horribly botched job, two fence-builders named Tam and Richie flee their native Scotland to England, where all hell quickly breaks loose, in an offbeat novel in the British comic tradition.


Book Synopsis The Restraint of Beasts by : Magnus Mills

Download or read book The Restraint of Beasts written by Magnus Mills and published by Skyhorse Publishing Inc.. This book was released on 2012-07 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When sloth and alcohol lead to a horribly botched job, two fence-builders named Tam and Richie flee their native Scotland to England, where all hell quickly breaks loose, in an offbeat novel in the British comic tradition.


The Restraint of Beasts

The Restraint of Beasts

Author: Magnus Mills

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-11-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1628723661

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Once upon a time in Scotland, there were three men who built high-tension fences, the kind that keep animals in and humans out—or maybe the other way around. Magnus Mills gives us a wiry novel of tensile strength that proves him a writer of ferocious talent. Eerie, resonant, spare yet rich in tones both hilarious and ominous—as if a work by Irvine Welsh, or perhaps Macbeth, had been adapted by the Coen brothers—his story has a finale so ingenious, insidious, and satisfying, it remains locked in the mind long after the last wire has been strung into place.


Book Synopsis The Restraint of Beasts by : Magnus Mills

Download or read book The Restraint of Beasts written by Magnus Mills and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-11-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once upon a time in Scotland, there were three men who built high-tension fences, the kind that keep animals in and humans out—or maybe the other way around. Magnus Mills gives us a wiry novel of tensile strength that proves him a writer of ferocious talent. Eerie, resonant, spare yet rich in tones both hilarious and ominous—as if a work by Irvine Welsh, or perhaps Macbeth, had been adapted by the Coen brothers—his story has a finale so ingenious, insidious, and satisfying, it remains locked in the mind long after the last wire has been strung into place.


All Quiet on the Orient Express

All Quiet on the Orient Express

Author: Magnus Mills

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-05-01

Total Pages: 127

ISBN-13: 1611459494

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Magnus Mills’s first novel, The Restraint of Beasts, was hailed by Thomas Pynchon as a “comic wonder.” His second novel, All Quiet on the Orient Express, is an equally edgy blend of high-grade comedy and low-grade paranoia. With insidiously beguiling deadpan charm, Mills draws us again into the world of contract employment, this time in England’s Lake District. The novel’s narrator, an itinerant odd-jobber, is camping out, waiting for summer to end so that he can set off for some vague notion of the East . . . Turkey, Persia, overland to India. In the meantime, he agrees to do a small painting job for the owner of his campsite. One job leads to another. Before long, our hero is hopelessly and hilariously enmeshed in the off-season mysteries of the placid northern English community, grappling with dark forces beyond his power—some of which hang out at the local pub. To think it all began with a simple paint job . . .


Book Synopsis All Quiet on the Orient Express by : Magnus Mills

Download or read book All Quiet on the Orient Express written by Magnus Mills and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magnus Mills’s first novel, The Restraint of Beasts, was hailed by Thomas Pynchon as a “comic wonder.” His second novel, All Quiet on the Orient Express, is an equally edgy blend of high-grade comedy and low-grade paranoia. With insidiously beguiling deadpan charm, Mills draws us again into the world of contract employment, this time in England’s Lake District. The novel’s narrator, an itinerant odd-jobber, is camping out, waiting for summer to end so that he can set off for some vague notion of the East . . . Turkey, Persia, overland to India. In the meantime, he agrees to do a small painting job for the owner of his campsite. One job leads to another. Before long, our hero is hopelessly and hilariously enmeshed in the off-season mysteries of the placid northern English community, grappling with dark forces beyond his power—some of which hang out at the local pub. To think it all began with a simple paint job . . .


The Maintenance of Headway

The Maintenance of Headway

Author: Magnus Mills

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1632860376

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From the Booker-shortlisted author acclaimed as having "no literary precedent" (Independent) comes a gently absurd examination of the systems that trap and frustrate us daily. Fans of dry humor will enjoy this tale of mishap and folly, told from the point of view of a bus driver who's been charged to maintain a precise distance between himself and other buses--a directive that leads him to ignore the very passengers he's meant to serve. Witty, allegorical, and intelligent, this is a novel for all those who have ever run for a bus, only to have it pull away as they reach its doors. Showcasing all of Mills' strengths, it is the perfect reintroduction for American readers to an incomparable talent.


Book Synopsis The Maintenance of Headway by : Magnus Mills

Download or read book The Maintenance of Headway written by Magnus Mills and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Booker-shortlisted author acclaimed as having "no literary precedent" (Independent) comes a gently absurd examination of the systems that trap and frustrate us daily. Fans of dry humor will enjoy this tale of mishap and folly, told from the point of view of a bus driver who's been charged to maintain a precise distance between himself and other buses--a directive that leads him to ignore the very passengers he's meant to serve. Witty, allegorical, and intelligent, this is a novel for all those who have ever run for a bus, only to have it pull away as they reach its doors. Showcasing all of Mills' strengths, it is the perfect reintroduction for American readers to an incomparable talent.


Beasts of No Nation

Beasts of No Nation

Author: Uzodinma Iweala

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 0061844543

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“Remarkable. . . . Iweala never wavers from a gripping, pulsing narrative voice. . . . He captures the horror of ethnic violence in all its brutality and the vulnerability of youth in all its innocence.” —Entertainment Weekly (A) The harrowing, utterly original debut novel by Uzodinma Iweala about the life of a child soldier in a war-torn African country As civil war rages in an unnamed West-African nation, Agu, the school-aged protagonist of this stunning novel, is recruited into a unit of guerilla fighters. Haunted by his father’s own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander. While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started—a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family, still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality continues to spin further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. In a powerful, strikingly original voice, Uzodinma Iweala leads the reader through the random travels, betrayals, and violence that mark Agu’s new community. Electrifying and engrossing, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary writer.


Book Synopsis Beasts of No Nation by : Uzodinma Iweala

Download or read book Beasts of No Nation written by Uzodinma Iweala and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Remarkable. . . . Iweala never wavers from a gripping, pulsing narrative voice. . . . He captures the horror of ethnic violence in all its brutality and the vulnerability of youth in all its innocence.” —Entertainment Weekly (A) The harrowing, utterly original debut novel by Uzodinma Iweala about the life of a child soldier in a war-torn African country As civil war rages in an unnamed West-African nation, Agu, the school-aged protagonist of this stunning novel, is recruited into a unit of guerilla fighters. Haunted by his father’s own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander. While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started—a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family, still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality continues to spin further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. In a powerful, strikingly original voice, Uzodinma Iweala leads the reader through the random travels, betrayals, and violence that mark Agu’s new community. Electrifying and engrossing, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary writer.


Screwtop Thompson

Screwtop Thompson

Author: Magnus Mills

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2010-10-04

Total Pages: 78

ISBN-13: 1408817624

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All of the Booker-shortlisted Magnus Mills' darkly comic and hugely entertaining short stories are here collected in one book for the first time 'Imagine The Office crossed with Brave New World ... hilarious' Express 'He has no literary precedent, and he also appears to have no imitators. He mines a seam that no one else touches on, every sentence in every book having a Magnus Mills ring to it that no other writer could produce' Independent In 'Hark the Herald', a guest stays at an eerie guesthouse over Christmas without encountering any other residents, despite constant reassurance from the landlord that he would see them if only he arrived for breakfast slightly earlier; in 'Only When the Sun Shines Brightly' Aesop's fable about a competition between the Sun and the Wind to get a man to take his coat off, gets a new look involving a railway arch, a builder and a piece of plastic sheeting. In 'Once in a Blue Moon' a man arrives home to find the family house under siege, with his mother armed, dangerous and firing at the police with a shotgun, and attempts to appease her with an invitation to seasonal hospitality; and in the title story, rivalry between three cousins over a faulty toy gets out of hand as the cousins unwittingly imitate the toy they're fighting over. Magnus Mills has published two collections of stories - Only When the Sun Shines Brightly and Once in a Blue Moon - which are collected here for the first time, along with three new stories.


Book Synopsis Screwtop Thompson by : Magnus Mills

Download or read book Screwtop Thompson written by Magnus Mills and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-10-04 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All of the Booker-shortlisted Magnus Mills' darkly comic and hugely entertaining short stories are here collected in one book for the first time 'Imagine The Office crossed with Brave New World ... hilarious' Express 'He has no literary precedent, and he also appears to have no imitators. He mines a seam that no one else touches on, every sentence in every book having a Magnus Mills ring to it that no other writer could produce' Independent In 'Hark the Herald', a guest stays at an eerie guesthouse over Christmas without encountering any other residents, despite constant reassurance from the landlord that he would see them if only he arrived for breakfast slightly earlier; in 'Only When the Sun Shines Brightly' Aesop's fable about a competition between the Sun and the Wind to get a man to take his coat off, gets a new look involving a railway arch, a builder and a piece of plastic sheeting. In 'Once in a Blue Moon' a man arrives home to find the family house under siege, with his mother armed, dangerous and firing at the police with a shotgun, and attempts to appease her with an invitation to seasonal hospitality; and in the title story, rivalry between three cousins over a faulty toy gets out of hand as the cousins unwittingly imitate the toy they're fighting over. Magnus Mills has published two collections of stories - Only When the Sun Shines Brightly and Once in a Blue Moon - which are collected here for the first time, along with three new stories.


In the Garden of Beasts

In the Garden of Beasts

Author: Erik Larson

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2012-05-01

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 030740885X

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Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Devil in the White City, delivers a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Nazi Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.


Book Synopsis In the Garden of Beasts by : Erik Larson

Download or read book In the Garden of Beasts written by Erik Larson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of Devil in the White City, delivers a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Nazi Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition. Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.


Explorers of the New Century

Explorers of the New Century

Author: Magnus Mills

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2011-09-05

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1408825309

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The brilliant new novel by the author of The Restraint of Beasts


Book Synopsis Explorers of the New Century by : Magnus Mills

Download or read book Explorers of the New Century written by Magnus Mills and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-09-05 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The brilliant new novel by the author of The Restraint of Beasts


A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in

A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in

Author: Magnus Mills

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2012-08-01

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1408821974

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Far away, in the ancient empire of Greater Fallowfields, things are falling apart. The imperial orchestra is presided over by a conductor who has never played a note, the clocks are changed constantly to ensure that the sun always sets at five o' clock, and the Astronomer Royal is only able to use the observatory telescope when he can find a sixpence to put in its slot. But while the kingdom drifts, awaiting the return of the young emperor, who has gone abroad and communicates only by penny post, a sinister and unfamiliar enemy is getting closer and closer...A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In is Magnus Mills's most ambitious work to date. A surreal portrait of a world that, although strange and distant, contains rather too many similarities to our own for the alien not to become brilliantly familiar and disturbingly close to home. It is comic writing at its best - and it is Magnus Mills's most ambitious, enjoyable and rewarding novel to date.


Book Synopsis A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in by : Magnus Mills

Download or read book A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in written by Magnus Mills and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Far away, in the ancient empire of Greater Fallowfields, things are falling apart. The imperial orchestra is presided over by a conductor who has never played a note, the clocks are changed constantly to ensure that the sun always sets at five o' clock, and the Astronomer Royal is only able to use the observatory telescope when he can find a sixpence to put in its slot. But while the kingdom drifts, awaiting the return of the young emperor, who has gone abroad and communicates only by penny post, a sinister and unfamiliar enemy is getting closer and closer...A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In is Magnus Mills's most ambitious work to date. A surreal portrait of a world that, although strange and distant, contains rather too many similarities to our own for the alien not to become brilliantly familiar and disturbingly close to home. It is comic writing at its best - and it is Magnus Mills's most ambitious, enjoyable and rewarding novel to date.


Three to See the King

Three to See the King

Author: Magnus Mills

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2002-12-06

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 9780312306106

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A novel rich in comic menace from the author of The Restraint of Beasts In a setting Samuel Beckett might have found homey lives a man in a house made of tin. He is content. The tin house is well constructed and located miles from the tin houses of his nearest neighbors. Though he seems to have escaped society, however, society finds him. One day, a woman arrives and moves in. Soon a neighbor comes to visit, and then another. Soon, moving figures silhouette the horizon. People dismantling their tin houses and setting off to find a master builder with a revolutionary message. The gravitational pull cannot be resisted. Nor can this novel. Part mystery, part parable, Three to See the King stalks the reader’s imagination and grows inexorably and irresistibly in the telling.


Book Synopsis Three to See the King by : Magnus Mills

Download or read book Three to See the King written by Magnus Mills and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2002-12-06 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel rich in comic menace from the author of The Restraint of Beasts In a setting Samuel Beckett might have found homey lives a man in a house made of tin. He is content. The tin house is well constructed and located miles from the tin houses of his nearest neighbors. Though he seems to have escaped society, however, society finds him. One day, a woman arrives and moves in. Soon a neighbor comes to visit, and then another. Soon, moving figures silhouette the horizon. People dismantling their tin houses and setting off to find a master builder with a revolutionary message. The gravitational pull cannot be resisted. Nor can this novel. Part mystery, part parable, Three to See the King stalks the reader’s imagination and grows inexorably and irresistibly in the telling.