‘This collection shows the versatility of the form with little vignettes of life that are funny, poignant and stuffed with the kind of ordinary people which go to highlight the fact that there really are no ‘ordinary people’.  All capture a moment in time and as the title suggest, make for a perfect read just before your head hits the pillow.’ - The Crack

‘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 thread which pulls through all of the stories is that they are adult versions of the fairy tales which we’ve used to explain the world to children as we tuck them up under the duvet and kiss them on the forehead. Reading The Route Book at Bedtime is like looking through a photograph album full of the snapshots which make up a life, but at the same time, it doesn’t shy away from showing us those photographs which didn’t quite make the album. We’re taken on a journey through teenage crushes, love gone bad, love growing old, trying to rebuild, trying to escape, dying. It’s a collection containing stories which are at once stunningly original and familiar. Just don’t plan on getting any sleep once you open the cover…’ – The Short Review

“Nothing’s real in this place, I reckon. Everything’s a performance, a place where truths are masked, words spoken without being said.”

‘In this modern age of tweets and wall-posts, where it’s concision not content that counts, it’s great to find a collection of short fiction that carries both. In the twelve short stories that make up The Route Book at Bedtime, we get the full canon of human experience filtered down to dreamily intimate ten-minute reads. We get the agony and the ecstasy of it all: from playschool through mid-life crises to the end of days, from small towns where everyone knows everyone to the anonymity of the Big City. We also see relationships in all their forms, beginning, flourishing, failing, ending.

Like dreams, some of the stories represent leaps of escape from the daily grind. In Cally Taylor’s ‘Imagination Avenue’, there’s a neat twist on the outbreak shocker, in which a street succumbs not to H1NI or even the Rage virus, but instead to a light-hearted dusting of neighbourhood frivolity, a residents’ backlash against “rubbish adult stuff” like gardening and microwave meals for one. And Sam Duda’s ‘The Parrot’ is a delightfully uncatchable road-trip tale of beaches, bird-sitting and tombstoning that sits somewhere between Fear and Loathing and The Old Man and the Sea.

At times, of course, dreams turn to nightmare, as in the opening story by Pippa Griffin, which chronicles the cold reality of an adolescent ‘Crush’ gone sour. And at the other end of the age spectrum, the final story, ‘Smoke and Dust’ by MY Alam is the real, crushing stand-out here, a two-time narrative on mortality that brilliantly captures the generational gap between those miners of yesteryear and us minors who will never set foot in a pit.

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

‘… the writing is the star of the show; Nath has a distinctive style that blends a lyrical and yet chatty stream of consciousness with flashes of magic realism. A curious and original aspect to the novel is that Mark is of mixed race and yet, in defiance of current literary trends, absolutely nothing is made of this. The struggle to be heroically masculine in the modern world is the novel’s overriding theme, and Mark and Ian are amusing and depressingly recognisable portraits of ungallant metropolitan men.’ – The Spectator

‘… a wonderfully intriguing novel… Nath sets the book in London during 2004 and gives a stark sense of life under New Labour’s middling years as he describes a generation of surplus university graduates who have to take what life gives them and lack the material ambitions of promotion and property… His descriptive powers give the novel a wonderful realism, his protagonist inhaling his Rothman’s ‘like a hoover’ as Ian tries to justify his past infidelities over another pint in their favourite pub. Fortunately, the author also has the wherewithal and wit to sustain this tale to its entertaining conclusion.’ – The Big Issue in the North

‘La Rochelle makes all other literary fiction seem so polite!’ – Leigh Wilson

‘This inspired and unpredictable debut novel impressed me with its infectious use of recollection and regret.’ – Hull Daily Mail

‘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. But it’s not a fable. It’s the subtle, semi-sad story of a lost man, who has wit enough to have found himself several times over if he had really been looking.’ –  Michael Wood

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

‘As someone born in Orwell’s year of ’84, I’ve always been a bit uneasy about being part of ‘a generation’. Growing up in the nineties and noughties, that whole notion of identity is so much more slippery now compared to those halcyon / bad-hair days of the 60s, 70s and 80s. And whereas that generation produced some of the most enduring popular icons ever, my generation is best represented by those novelty T-shirts with the Thundercats or the Transformers on the front… My Generation? They had The Who, and we got Limp Bizkit; say no more.

It’s this same paradoxical feeling of detachment in a never-better-connected world that cuts through Route’s latest short-story collection. These are tales of the re- and de-location that so often follows hitting your twenties, in an age where everything is derivative, and it’s harder and harder to carve out a place in the world.

Many of the stories deal with relationships in their many forms: with love/hate, with car-crash romances and family break-ups, with the helpless, sometimes hopeless cycles of the dating game. We see the full gamut of emotions from that hinterland between child- and adulthood: from the rose-tinted nostalgia for a simpler life left behind, to the spectre of mortality that haunts even so young an age. Most rewardingly, though, there are plenty of flashes of the self-deprecating, ironic humour that a generation weaned on the Spice Girls and social networking does so well.

Of the 10 stories, my personal favourites would be Sally Jenkinson’s ‘Brown Rice’ – a jaunty yet melancholic Polaroid of single, too-much-too-young parenthood – and Sam Duda’s ‘The Things I Learned About Leah Today’, a diary on office flirtation that slowly, almost imperceptibly skews into something far less sweet and innocent.

A provocative, comforting, challenging anthology.’

James Hogg

‘Funny and sharply observed.’ – Geoffrey Macnab, Independent

‘Endearing, crowd-pleasing fare.’ – Sukhdev Sandhu, Daily Telegraph

‘Very funny…it’s naturalistic comedy of the highest order.’ – Ray Bennett, Hollywood Reporter

‘Loach has tucked away a nice goal with this film.’ – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

‘Perfect …An extraordinary piece of magic realism.’ – James Christopher, The Times

‘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

‘This film’s the best movie medicine I’ve had all year. A fabulous movie.’ - Baz Bamigboye, Daily Mail

‘Touching and hilarious……A blinder.’ – Nev Pierce, Empire

‘As genuinely entertaining as it is politically relevant, it’s the feel-good hit of the summer. There’s little justice in this world, but if there was, this would be a massive, world-beating hit. It’s got all the heart and humour of a mainstream comedy-drama, with none of the tedious predictability.’ – Ellen E Jones, Little White Lies

‘A real crowd-pleaser with both heart and soul.’ – Dave Calhoun, Time Out Film of the Week

‘The storytelling spins a musical web, glistening with treasured encounters and centred on home and family. Remarkable from both musical and human points of view…(it) crystallises Clayton’s humanity, candour and generosity.’ – Felicity Greenland, English Folk Dance and Song Magazine

‘An acutely observed and lovingly told tale.’ – John Aizleword, Q Magazine

‘Deeply moving. Devastatingly beautiful.’ – Leeds Guide

‘An unforgettable journey. Vibrant, life affirming, immensely readable.’ – Waterstone’s Book of the Month

‘An engaging memoir. A trip down memory lane via Tin Pan Alley.’ – Simon Show, Daily Mail

‘Anthony Cropper is a real find; a truly original writer who uses words in quite a unique way. This is an extraordinary first novel.’ – Julia Darling

‘Cropper’s new novel is just dandy’ – Artscene

‘A very real and complex picture of contemporary relationships, of how life is lived for many of us – not poor, not rich, not sane, not crazy.’ -  Emily Penn

‘Here we have some really beautiful pieces. It is remarkable how he has mixed happiness and bitterness, love and cruelty, sadness with some hilarious parts, just like life does.’ - Manuel Lafuente

‘The underlying sadness of the doomed relationship is haunting. But that’s good. That’s the way it should be.’ – Michael Lyng

‘A diverting travelling companion.’ – The Guardian

‘Books that are making critics, and readers, sit up and take notice.’ – Yorkshire Post

‘The most interesting and vibrant publishing house around today.’ – Nottingham Evening Post

‘Gleamed from the length and breadth of the UK, these stories do not disappoint. There is a grittiness to these tales, variously dealing in love, and fading or faded dreams and a commendable lack of adornment and sentimentality in a well-chosen collection.’ – The Glasgow Herald

‘A wry glance at life through a refreshingly honest lens.’ – The Big Issue

‘If you want to keep abreast of current reflections on social change and expose yourself to some top-quality storytelling, this is the book for you.’ – Juice Magazine

‘Route has arrived at a format which could almost be described as a northern Granta. For any broad-minded soul that cares to check it out, it remains hard evidence of a valid literary sensibility beyond London.’  – Artscene

‘Punchy, pithy and darkly humorous.’  -  Liverpool Daily Post

‘A bit like going to a party and meeting one fascinating person after another.’ – Leeds Guide

‘Some of the best stories I have ever read.’ – BBCi

‘These stories drop you right into what’s going on behind the curtains and in the alleys of your own neighbourhood.’ – Bradford Telegraph and Argus

‘The eclectic, the humorous, the heartbreaking, the psychological, the fear and angst are all here in a collection that not only embodies the city but occupies the very soul of the urban landscape.’  -  Inc Writers

‘Any band that ever moaned about the freshness of the backstage towels should read this book. Chao Senior is a grey-haired presence among the Mohicans, primarily there to keep an eye on his sons. He becomes an excellent chronicler, placing us right in the thick of the action, a bone hard wooden bench for a bed and no guarantee of supper tomight.’ – Word

‘The real joy is in the detail, be it Chao Senior overheating in a polar bear costume until he loses consciousness or going so native that he gets himself tattooed as his son tuts disapprovingly. By the end you’re rooting for the cast of dysentery ridden, ceaselessly optimistic ne’er-do-wells and entranced by the madness of their undertaking.’ – Q Magazine

‘Few musicians would allow a journalist to accompany their band through one of the world’s most dangerous countries. Even fewer, one suspects, would be happy about that journalist being their father. But Manu Chao is not just any musician, and his father, Ramon, a critic for le Monde Diplomatique, is not just any journalist – so perhaps it should surprise no one that they ended up together on a legendary 1993 tour of Colombia by train, carrying not just musicians, acrobats and tattooists, but a fire-breathing dragon and an ice museum as well…For Manu’s growing army of admirers, the book provides a magical-realist insight into how his music has developed. ‘ – The Guardian

‘It was a trip we made in 1993. We went across Colombia by train to play in the countryside. At the time, I was touring a lot in South America, but when you are a rock band, you play in the big cities and you appreciate that the real border is not between one country and another, it’s between big cities and the countryside. It’s like two different countries. So, after playing so much in big cities, we wanted to go deep into the countryside, and play to the people in the heart of South America. My dad came with us. I’m so proud he’s my dad – he’s more crazy than me. He’s my professor of craziness.’ – Manu Chao

‘This book raises the spirit and engages one’s laugh at every kilometre advanced. For the reader with some knowledge of Colombia and South America, it will be unavoidable to laugh at the subtleties noted by Ramón. For the rest, the book will awake a pressing interest for the country and its people and undoubtedly will be lured into this voyage.’ – Candela

‘The grim living conditions, the injuries and illnesses, and the arguments that ended in the break-up of Mano Negra are all related – but the overriding sense is of the joy of doing something so out of the ordinary.’ – Metro

‘An enthralling look at the music, culture and politics of Columbia in the 90s.’ – Culture Critic

‘The sole objective of the journey, which is guaranteed to lose money, is to raise cultural horizons, giving the poorest people hope in the process.  A really inspiring book.’ – Kevin Ramage, The Watermill

‘A stomping, snorting, bucking bronco of a first novel from a thoroughbred storyteller who is here to stay. Think Black Beauty updated by Sporty Spice.’ – Joseph O’Connor

‘An excellent novel, witty, complex and full of insight. A joy to read.’ – Beryl Bainbridge

‘Painted with verve, vigour and technical excellence.’ – Peter Tinniswood