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Bruges-la-MorteBy: Georges Rodenbach Bruges-la-Morte, which first appeared in 1892, concerns the fate of Hugues Viane, a widower who has turned to the melancholy, decaying city of Bruges as the ideal location in which to mourn his wife and as a suitable haven for the narcissistic perambulations of his inexorably disturbed spirit. Bruges, the 'dead city', becomes the image of his dead wife and thus allows him to endure, to manage the unbearable loss by systematically following its mournful labyrinth of streets and canals in a cyclical promenade of reflection and allusion. The story itself centres around Hugues' obsession with a young dancer whom he believes is the double of his beloved wife. The consequent drama leads Hugues onto a plank walk of psychological torment and humiliation, culminating in a deranged murder. This is a poet's novel and is therefore metaphorically dense and visionary in style. It is the ultimate evocation of Rodenbach's lifelong love affair with the enduring mystery and haunting mortuary atmosphere of Bruges. RRP: £7.99 |
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Memoirs of a Gnostic DwarfBy: David Madsen 'Inquisitions, religious sects and orgies in Renaissance Italy makes for a historical caper with a blinding plot;and the eponymous street-urchin-turned-papal-envoy is an unforgettable narrator.' Sophie Ratcliffe in The Times RRP: £8.99 |
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PfitzBy: Andrew Crumey "Rreinnstadt is a place which exists nowhere - the conception of a 18th century prince who devotes his time, and that of his subjects, to laying down on paper the architecture and street-plans of this great, yet illusory city. Its inhabitants must also be devised: artists and authors, their fictional lives and works, all concocted by different departments. When Schenck, a worker in the Cartography Office, discovers the 'existence' of Pfitz, a manservant visiting Rreinnstadt, he sets about illicitly recreating Pfitz's life. Crumey is a daring writer: using the stuff of fairy tales, he ponders the difference between fact and fiction, weaving together philosophy and fantasy to create a magical, witty novel." Sunday Times RRP: £7.99 |
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SimplicissimusBy: Johann Jakob Christoffel Von Grimmelshausen "It is a story of the most basic kind of grandeur - gaudy, wild, raw, amusing, rollicking and ragged, boiling with life, on intimate terms with death and evil - but in the end, contrite and fully tired of a world wasting itself in blood, pillage and lust, but immortal in the miserable splendour of its sins." Thomas Mann RRP: £13.99 |
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The Arabian NightmareBy: Robert Irwin In a city of sultans, seductresses and apes, Balian of Norwich is pursued through a maze of streets by the Father of Cats, Fatima the Deadly, Shikk the half-man and many others. The Arabian Nightmare pervades the darkness of medieval Cairo. It haunts the labyrinth of its streets. It is a dream without awakening, a flight without escape, a tale without end. RRP: £6.99 |
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The Book of NightsBy: Sylvie Germain "The Book of Nights is a masterpiece. Germain is endowed with extraordinary narrative and descriptive abilities... She excels in portraits of emotional intensity and the gritty realism of raw emotions gives the novel its unique power." Ziauddin Sardar in The Independent RRP: £8.99 |
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The Decadent HandbookBy: James Doyle, Amelia Hodsdon, Rowan Pelling The ultimate lifestyle guide for the people who want to transform the spirit of the age, or failing that, ignore it altogether. Featuring contributions by the bad, dangerous and eccentric free spirits of contemporary society, The Decadent Handbook will become the bible for the modern libertine. Contributors include Hari Kunzru,Tom Holland,Salena Godden,Michael Bywater, Lisa Hilton, Helen Walsh, Michael Bywater, Vanora Bennett, Medlar Lucan, Andrew Crumey, Durian Gray,Nicholas Royle,Mark Mason, Alan Jenkins and Robert Irwin. RRP: £9.99 |
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The Dedalus Book of the 1960s: Turn Off Your MindBy: Gary Lachman It is the 60s – yes it is magic, sex, drugs and rock and roll. In The Dedalus Book of the 1960s: Turn Off Your Mind, Gary Lachman uncovers the Love Generation's roots in occultism and explores the dark side of the Age of Aquarius. His provocative revision of the 1960s counterculture links Flower Power to mystical fascism, and follows the magical current that enveloped luminaries like the Beatles, Timothy Leary and the Rolling Stones, and darker stars like Charles Manson, Anton LaVey, and the Process Church of the Final Judgment. Acclaimed by satanists and fundamentalist Christians alike, this edition includes a revised text incorporating new material on the 'suicide cult' surrounding Carlos Castaneda; the hippy serial killer Charles Sobhraj; the strange case of Ira Einhorn, 'the Unicorn'; the CIA and ESP; the new millennialism and more. From H.P. Lovecraft to the Hell’s Angels, find out how the Morning of the Magicians became the Night of the Living Dead. RRP: £12.99 |
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The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis WheatleyBy: Phil Baker One of the giants of popular fiction, with total sales of around fifty million books, Dennis Wheatley held twentieth-century Britain spellbound. His Black Magic novels like The Devil Rides Out created an oddly seductive and luxurious vision of Satanism, but in reality he was as interested in politics as occultism. Wheatley was closely involved with the secret intelligence community, and this powerfully researched study shows just how directly this drove his work, from his unlikely warnings about the menace of Satanic Trade Unionism to his role in a British scheme to engineer a revival of Islam. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished material, Phil Baker examines Wheatley’s key friendship with a fraudster named Eric Gordon Tombe, and uncovers the full story of his sensational 1922 murder. Baker also explores Wheatley’s relationships with occult figures such as Rollo Ahmed, Aleister Crowley, and the Reverend Montague Summers, the shady priest and demonologist who inspired the memorably evil character of Canon Copely-Syle, in To The Devil – A Daughter. RRP: £25.00 |
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The Father of LocksBy: Andrew Killeen Baghdad, the capital of the world, is a city crowded with stories, and founded on secrets. But some secrets, and some stories, can be deadly...Ismail al-Rawiya is a thief who dreams of being a poet. He is drawn to Baghdad, and to the court of the Khalifah Harun al-Rashid, where fabulous wealth can be attained by those who survive the rivalries, the politics and the whims of the capricious monarch. In the turbulent city, Ismail falls into the company of the poet Abu Nuwas, known as the Father of Locks. Abu Nuwas is a brilliant artist, but also a decadent drunkard with a taste for trouble. The Father of Locks has his own secret: he is an irregular and reluctant agent of the scheming Wazir, Ja'far al-Barmaki, who now assigns him to investigate reports that the Devil is stalking the streets of Baghdad. Together the poet and the thief uncover a hidden world, of forbidden cults, foreign spies, and a mysterious Brass Bottle. When children start to disappear, it seems that there must be substance to the dark rumours of evil spirits and human sacrifice that haunt the city. But the truth that Ismail and the Father of Locks uncover is more shocking still. The Father of Locks weaves together history and legend into a tale of murder and espionage in the world of the 'Thousand and One Nights.' RRP: £9.99 |
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The MaiasBy: Eca de Queiroz Winner of PEN/Book-of-the-Month-Club Translation Prize for 2008. Winner of The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize for 2008 Carlos is the grandson of Afonso da Maia, the last surviving member of one of Lisbon’s wealthiest and most illustrious families. Carlos is good, handsome, clever, eager to contribute something to society, and yet he appears, as he himself puts it, 'to be one of those weak hearts, soft and flaccid, incapable of preserving any true emotion'. Then, one day, walking along Lisbon's grubby streets he sees a woman who seems to him like a goddess who has just stepped down from the clouds. When he finally meets the beautiful Maria Eduarda, the attraction proves to be as mutual as it is profound. In the plenitude of that love, Carlos seems, in his best friend Ega's words, 'a truly fortunate being', until Fate steps in - in the form of a grizzled, left-wing newspaper hack from Paris - and everything unravels. RRP: £15.00 |
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The Word TreeBy: Teolinda Gersão Teolinda Gersão paints an extraordinarily evocative picture of childhood in Africa and the stark contrast between warm, lush, ebullient Mozambique and the bleak, poor, priggish Portugal of Salazar. RRP: £9.99 |