This autobiography traces Amadou’s early years in Mali, first accepting his blindness, then adapting, to finding a source of joy in music and playing alongside some of the country’s leading musicians. On meeting Mariam at an institute for the blind in Bamako, he discovers they share a passion for music and for life, they fall in love and begin their career as a duo in search of an international stage.

Away from the Light of Day is an inspiring story which reveals the source of this golden duo’s contagious music, threading its way between tradition, religion, hope and superstition.

‘I don’t think there’s ever been a band from Africa with whom people have engaged in quite such a way.’  – Damon Albarn

‘The fizziest afro-pop blues ever bottled.’  – Observer

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Like the gales that blow around the equinox, the disappearance of his friend’s woman stirs up the life of a doctor, placing him in the power of a subtle enchanter and threatening professional ruin. Will it make or break him?

Set during the hostage crisis of 2004, against a background of superheated thinking and sexual oblivion, this study in modern heroism tests adoration to the limit.

‘Original, funny and absolutely spot-on.’ – The Independent

‘Stylish, very funny, discreetly surprising, this remarkable novel reads at times like a fable of England under New Labour, where nothing is quite what it seems and not much is worth what it costs.’ –
Michael Wood

‘Jules et Jim with a postmodern twist.  Nath has a confidence and attitude that rocks you on every page.’ – Daisy Goodwin

*Ebook format is epub, suitable for Sony reader, iPhone and most ebook readers.
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Presenting twelve bedtime stories for adult reading that capture those moments of deep emotional significance which return to us in our dreams. This nocturnal collection reveals intimate insights into individual fantasy, the pursuit of our deepest desires, the urge to escape, the pull of love, the debris of days.

Book at Bedtime is a title in the Route series of contemporary stories.

‘Adult bedtime books don’t come much better than this. The manner in which each story carries such bountiful emotion over only a few pages makes this an ideal bedtime companion.’ – The Big Issue in the North

‘A twilight dreamscape of hopes, fears, love and loss, The Route Book at Bedtime contains twelve highly individual, contemporary tales, all of which are a reflection of life and truth. A highly enjoyable read.’ – The Short Review

‘If you’re still yet to experience the joys and growing significance of the short story, you’d struggle to find a better place to start.’  – James Hogg

Click here if you prefer to buy The Route Book at Bedtime on Amazon

*Ebook format is epub, suitable for Sony reader, iPhone and most ebook readers.
Read them on your computer with the free Adobe Digital Editions

Click here for more about ebook formats.

Eric the postman is slipping through his own fingers… His chaotic family, his wild stepsons, and the cement mixer in the front garden don’t help, but it is Eric’s own secret that drives him to the brink. Can he face Lily, the woman he once loved thirty years ago? Despite outrageous efforts and misplaced goodwill from his football fan mates, Eric continues to sink.

In desperate times it takes a spliff and a special friend from foreign parts to challenge a lost postman to make that journey into the most perilous territory of all – the past. As the Chinese, and one Frenchman, say, ‘He who is afraid to throw the dice, will never throw a six.’

Features the full screenplay, including extra scenes, sixteen pages of colour photographs, plus introductions from Paul Laverty, Ken Loach, Eric Cantona and production notes from the cast and crew.

‘A surprising, beguiling comedy from Ken Loach, who, would you believe it, has made what’s certain to be his most crowd-pleasing and popular film since Kes, 40 years ago.’ – Jason Solomons, Observer

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Up close and personal, Born in the 1980s tells the story of a generation coming of age. As the reality of the adult world begins to bite, love and lust, broken dreams and heartbreak and emotional take the place of teenage hopes. This is a generation finding its feet and carving out its place in the world.

Born in the 1980s (Route 21) is a title in the Route Series of Contemporary Stories.

‘If you were born in the 1980s and want to reminisce abolut “growing up”, are twentysomething and want to show your feelings instead of telling them, or not twentysomething and just want to learn something about the “next wave”, this is the book for you. It definitely captures the spirit of a generation up and coming.‘ – The Bloomsbury Review

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Available as Paperback book and Ebook*
Cover Print Price: £7.99 Web: £6.99
Ebook Price (epub) Download Price: £3.99

*Ebook format is epub, suitable for Sony reader, iPhone and most ebook readers.
Read them on your computer with the free Adobe Digital Editions

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Click here if you’d prefer to buy the paperback on Amazon

Colombia, November 1993: a reconstructed old passenger train, bespangled with yellow butterflies, is carrying one hundred musicians, acrobats and artists on a daring adventure through the heart of a country soaked in violence. The intention is to put on free shows for locals at railway stations along the way: vibrant spectacles involving music, trapeze, tattoo-art, an ice museum and, star of the show, Roberto the fire-breathing dragon. Leading this crusade of hope is Manu Chao with his band Mano Negra.

Ramón Chao is on board to chronicle the journey. As the train climbs 1,000 kilometres from Santa Marta on the Caribbean Coast to Bogota in the Altiplano, Ramon keeps one eye on the fluctuating morale of the train’s eccentric cargo, and the other on the ever-changing physical and social landscape. As the papa of the train, he endures personal discomfort, internal strife, derailments, stowaways, disease, guerrillas and paramilitaries. When the train arrives in Aracataca, the real-life Macondo of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Mano Negra disintegrates, leaving Manu to pick up the pieces with those determined to see this once-in-a-lifetime adventure through to the end.

The Train of Ice and Fire is a book about hope and dreams in troubled times. It is about a father accompanying his son through an experience which will change his life. But most of all it is about Colombia, the flora, the fauna, the history, the politics and, more than any of that, it is a book about people.

Foreword by Ignacio Ramonet

Translated by Ann Wright
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Paperback version includes a set of colour photographs from El Espectador

Hardback Cover
With photos by Youri Lenquette
ISBN: 9781901927375
£8.99

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In Every Word Knows Something of a Vicious Circle Herta Müller describes how living under a dictatorship shapes her work. She outlines how words and writing allowed her to turn humiliation into a type of dignity that takes time to arouse suspicion.

Herta Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. This book is a transcript of her acceptance speech and includes a telephone interview and an introduction by Georgia Brown.

Available as epub (iPhone, Sony reader etc) and pdf ebook formats.

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Nature’s Magician is a specially commissioned collection which seeks to ask the simplest of questions. Why does ice float? When do birds sing? What do children dream of? These ten stories touch on the beautiful innocence of youth, the spellbinding tension of friendship and the dynamic nature of love. With fiction, as with magic, anything can happen.

Khalil Khan was a good boy. He had a certain past and an equally certain future awaited until gangsters decided to turn his world upside down. They shattered his safe family life with baseball bats but that’s only just the beginning. They turned good, innocent and honest Khalil into someone else: Kilo, a much more unforgiving and determined piece of work. Kilo cuts his way through the underworld of Bradford street crime, but the closer he gets to the top of that game, the stronger the pull of his original values become. When he finally begins to rub shoulders with the men who inadvertently showed him the allure of crime, the more convinced he becomes that it is sometimes necessary to do bad in order to achieve good.

‘Just as you’re about to consign the gangster thriller to the bin of obsolescence, bored stiff by a tide of clichèd storylines, along comes a belter which deserves the highest praise.’ – The Big Issue

It’s not easy to write when you work in a shop. Customers can tend to break your concentration.

It’s not easy to deal with rejection from an editor either, especially when he reminds you of that little fat bloke from the film Deliverance.

It’s not easy listening to rumours from people who don’t know the difference between fact and fiction.

No wonder all his stories are about killers.

Ammy’s a writer and he writes. And now, he’s going for it, the big time. The problem is, nobody’s interested. Things have to change. And they do. The police are outside his house, giving it the Ringo Starr with his doors.

Annie Potts, they tell him, is dead. And what’s more, they think he did it.