Route Publishing
Away From the Light of Day
Idrissa Keïta, Ann Wright, Amadou and Mariam
Amadou and Mariam with Idrissa. Translated by Anne WrightAmadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia met at an institute for young blind people in Bamako, Mali, and fell in love both musically and romantically. Following several years of performing and releasing cassettes in the their native West Africa, they went on to become stars of the international stage with a ..
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It’s The Beer Talking
Winner of The British Guild of Beer Writers Award for Best Writer about Pubs Where do we go to meet old friends? What is our first port of call when we want to show new mates something that speaks about our identity? The pub of course, or better still our local. Author Ian Clayton embarked on a lifelong love affair with local pubs in the middle of the ..
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Song For My Father
What happens when you only know your dad when you’re a young boy and then, one day, when you are middle-aged, he phones to say he’d like to see you again before he dies? In the space of one year, Ian Clayton makes a voyage around China, America and his father to ponder the familiar questions: Is blood thicker than water? Does it matter who teaches us so l..
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Nothing Ever Happens In Wentbridge
June 1981: That night. The night we made love in desperation. So much emotion, so much need. But now I’m sure of one thing. It’s rapid cell division rather than stress that has been messing with my biology. Dallas is on the telly, Abba are number one, Starsky and Hutch are on her bedroom wall – and Janet is falling in love for the first time. In the warm ..
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King of Clubs
King of Clubs is an intimate portrait of visionary showman James Lord Corrigan. Written by Corrigan’s confidant Maureen Prest, this is the only insider’s account of what really went on at his world famous Batley Variety Club, both in front of house and behind closed doors. From his origins on a travelling funfair, his audacious climb through the world of ..
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Red Army Faction Blues
A coalition government. A widely mistrusted ruling elite. Riots in the streets and heavy-handed police tactics. Welcome to West Berlin, 1967. Undercover agent Peter Urbach is tasked with infiltrating a group of radical students whose anti-consumerist message is not without propaganda value on both sides of the Wall. Soon, high-minded political activism wi..
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British Story
MORNING STAR BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘Characters are like a scent bottle. To meet them is to lift the stopper; to get to know them, never to put it back; then the scent, it spreads around the world.’ What’s haunting Kennedy? He believes that literary characters exist just like you or me, but he’s getting nowhere trying to prove it. His Falstaff project is an ..
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La Rochelle
Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial PrizeThis darkly comic and highly original novel is set over two weeks in 2004, where we find protagonist Dr Mark Chopra, a chaste and passive neurologist. One evening Mark is summoned to help his intriguing friend Ian, whose girlfriend Laura has, simply, vanished. When we learn of the images of Laura that play i..
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Rites
Winner of the Next Great Novelist Award 2012 ‘When I was fourteen I did something terrible. At least, that’s what some people tell me.’ Four teenagers make a pact to lose their virginity away from the watchful eyes of parents and priest. Fifteen years later, they reflect on the past and unravel how it all went so horribly wrong. What really went on ..
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Because Cuba is You
Ramón Chao. Translated by Ann WrightA young man listens as his grandmother (Dolores) recounts stories from her life, which he writes down in the hope of making sense of them all. Following a fortune-telling Galician childhood and romantic adventures with a much older lover, Dolores’s story takes her to Cuba at the end of the nineteenth century. Finding work ..
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