Atlantic Books - New titles

Autumn Laing

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Alex Miller

Trade Paperback, 456 pages
ISBN: 978 1 74237 883 1
Published: May 2012
RRP: £12.99

Autumn Laing seduces Pat Donlon with her lust for life and art. In doing so she not only compromises the trusting love she has with her husband, Arthur, she also steals the future from Pat's young and beautiful wife, Edith, and their unborn child. Fifty-three years later, cantankerous, engaging, unrestrainable 85-year-old Autumn is shocked to find within herself a powerful need for redemption. As she tells her story, she writes, 'They are all dead and I am old and skeleton-gaunt. This is where it began...' Written with compassion and intelligence, this energetic, funny and wise novel peels back the layers of storytelling and asks what truth has to do with it. Autumn Laing is an unflinchingly intimate portrait of a woman and her time - she is unforgettable.

Pictures of You

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Caroline Leavitt

Paperback, 464 pages
ISBN: 978 1 74237 921 0
Published: May 2012
RRP: £7.99

Two cars collide on a foggy highway, and a woman dies. The survivor, Isabelle, is left to pick up the pieces, not only of her own life, but of the lives of the devastated husband and fragile son that the other woman, April, has left behind. Together, they try to solve the puzzle of where April was running to, and why. As these three lives intersect, questions arise: How well do we really know those we love - and how do we forgive the unforgivable? In the hands of Caroline Leavitt, nothing is quite as it seems; Pictures of You is a riveting mystery and a wholly satisfying read.

The Life

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Malcolm Knox

Paperback, 416 pages
ISBN: 978 1 74237 761 2
Published: May 2012
RRP: £8.99

He looked into the Pacific and the Pacific looked back into him. Now bloated and paranoid, former champion surfer and legend Dennis Keith is holed up in a retirement village, trying not to think about the waves he'd made his own and the breaks he once ruled like a god. Years before he'd been robbed of the world title that had his name on it - and then drugs, his family, and the disappearance of his girlfriend had done the rest. Out of the blue, a young would-be biographer comes knocking and stirs up memories he thought he'd buried. It takes Dennis a while to realise that she's not there to write his story at all. Funny, heartbreaking and humane, The Life confirms what the Literary Review has known all along - 'Knox is, quite simply, a fabulous writer.'

The Ralph Steadman Book of Dogs

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Ralph Steadman

Hardback, 96 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84887 675 0
Published: October 2010
RRP: £12.99

Ralph Steadman - artist of distinction, caricaturist of brilliance, long time unsentimental dog-lover - here shows us dogs - everywhere. Dogs in furniture; dog dictators; fashion dogs; blot dogs; beer dogs and wine dogs, bugs that live on dogs and uninvented dogs. Ranging from the fierce and furious to the whimsical and wistful, the whole world of canine life is here. In a dog book like no other, there is nothing soppy about Steadman's eye as he exposes the heart and bone and sinew of man's best friend.

The Twelve Caesars

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Matthew Dennison

Hardback, 400 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84887 683 5
Published: May 2012
RRP: £20.00

One of them was a military genius; one murdered his mother and fiddled while Rome burned; another earned the nickname 'sphincter artist'. Six of their number were assassinated, two committed suicide - and five of them were elevated to the status of gods. They have come down to posterity as the 'twelve Caesars' - Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. Under their rule, from 49 BC to AD 96, Rome was transformed from a republic to an empire, whose model of regal autocracy would survive in the West for more than a thousand years. Matthew Dennison offers a beautifully crafted sequence of colourful biographies of each emperor, triumphantly evoking the luxury, licence, brutality and sophistication of imperial Rome at its zenith. But as well as vividly recreating the lives, loves and vices of this motley group of despots, psychopaths and perverts, he paints a portrait of an erao of political and social revolution, of the bloody overthrow of a proud, 500-year-old political system and its replacement by a dictatorship which, against all the odds, succeeded more convincingly than oligarchic democracy in governing a vast international landmass.

A Fine and Private Place

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Christobel Kent

Paperback, 336 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84354 951 2
Published: May 2012
RRP: £7.99

As Sandro gets to grips with the dispiriting realities of life as a private detective, touting for business among old contacts and following errant teenagers, an old case comes back to haunt him... Once the subject of a routine investigation back in Sandro's early days as an investigator, Loni Meadows - the glamorous, charming and ruthless director of an artistic Trust based in a castle in the hills outside Florence - is found dead in circumstances Sandro cannot convince himself are accidental. However inconvenient his suspicions might be, both to Sandro - whose marriage appears to be disintegrating - and to Meadows's erstwhile employers at the Trust, he presses ahead with the case. And as Sandro attempts to uncover the truth of Loni Meadows's violent and lonely death, he finds himself drawn into the lives of the castle's highly strung community and the closed world they inhabit in the Casentino's isolated hills.

The Dead Season

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Christobel Kent

Hardback, 432 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84354 952 9
Published: May 2012
RRP: £12.99

Every August, Florence shimmers in the summer heat. But this year the heatwave is fiercer than usual, and the city's inhabitants have fled to the cool of the hills and beaches of the surrounding countryside. So it is no surprise that amidst the shrubbery of a normally busy roundabout, a corpse lies unnoticed, bloating in the humid air. Sandro Cellini will not be joining the crowds of holidaymakers this year. The former policeman turned private detective has a case: a man who seems to have vanished into thin air - leaving his pregnant young wife alone in the city. Meanwhile, bankteller Roxana Delfino is also stuck in the city for the season, with nothing to do but worry for her aging mother and puzzle over the disappearance of one her regular clients. As all Florence sweats it out, Cellini attempts as best he can to grapple with his case and the complications it throws up. And when the weather finally breaks, it brings with it a shocking revelation...

Satantango

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

László Krasznahorkai

Hardback, 288 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84887 764 1
Published: May 2012
RRP: £12.99

In the darkening embers of a Communist utopia, life in a desolate Hungarian town has come to a virtual standstill. Flies buzz, spiders weave, water drips and animals root desultorily in the barnyard of a collective farm. But when the charismatic Irimias - long-thought dead - returns to the commune, the villagers fall under his spell. The Devil has arrived in their midst. Irimias will divide and rule: his arrival heralds the beginning of a period of violence and greed for the villagers as he sets about swindling them out of a fortune that might allow them to escape the emptiness and futility of their existence. He soon attains a messianic aura as he plays on the fears of the townsfolk and a series of increasingly brutal events unfold. Satantango follows the villagers as they are exploited and taken in by Irimias; as they drink and stumble their way toward the gradual realization of their mistake and ultimate demise. In its measured prose and long, Tolstoyan sentences, Satantango is nothing short of a literary masterpiece; a formal meditation on death and avarice, human fallibility and faith.

The Great Railway Revolution

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Christian Wolmar

Hardback, 432 pages
ISBN: 978 0 85789 035 1
Published: May 2012
RRP: £25.00

In the 1830s, The United States underwent a second revolution. The opening of the Baltimore Ohio line, the first American railroad, set in motion a process which, by the end of the century, would enmesh the vast country in a latticework of railroad lines, small-town stations and magisterial termini, built and controlled the biggest corporations in America. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, as the automobile and the aeroplane came to dominate American journey-making, the historic importance of the railroads began to be erased from America's hearts and minds. In The Great Railway Revolution, Christian Wolmar tells us the extraordinary one-hundred-and-eighty-year story of the rise, fall and ultimate shattering of the greatest of all American endeavours, of technological triumph and human tragedy, of visionary pioneers and venal and rapacious railway barons. He also argues that while America has largely disowned this heritage, now is the time to celebrate, reclaim and reinstate it. The growth of the US railroads was much more than just a revolution in mode, speed and convenience. They united the far-flung components of a vast and disparate country and supercharged the economic development that fuelled its rise to world-power status. America was created by its railroads and the massive expansion of trade, industry and freedom of communication that they engendered came to be an integral part of the American dream itself.

The Quest for Anna Klein

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Thomas H. Cook

Paperback, 352 pages
ISBN: 978 0 85789 641 4
Published: May 2012
RRP: £7.99

One freezing night in 1939, Thomas Danforth accepts a mission that will change his life forever: travel to Nazi Germany as cover for an enigmatic female assassin, Anna Klein. Danforth is captivated by this beautiful, mysterious woman. But just as he starts to discover more about her, she disappears... Desperately searching for her through a Europe ravaged by war, Danforth becomes ensnared in a maelstrom of love and vengeance, of shifting loyalties and betrayals. His quest will span decades, implicate him in a world-wide conspiracy, and take him to the brink of madness. But he cannot shake the obsession that drives his every waking moment: Who is Anna Klein?

Silk Road

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Colin Falconer

Paperback, 464 pages
ISBN: 978 0 85789 110 5
Published: May 2012
RRP: £7.99

1260 AD: Josseran Sarrazini is a man divided in his soul. A Christian Knight Templar haunted by a shameful past, he hopes to find redemption in a dangerous crusade: a journey from Palestine to Xanadu, to form a crucial allegiance against the Saracens at the legendary court of Kubilai Khan - the seat of the Mongol Empire. Instead he finds the solace he seeks in a warrior-princess from a heathen tribe. Beautiful and ferocious, Khutelun is a Tartar, a nomadic rider of the Mongolian steppe. Although their union is utterly impossible, she will find in Josseran what she cannot find in one of her own. Parched by desert winds, pursued by Saracen hordes, and now tormented by a passion he cannot control, Josseran must abandon Khutelun if he is to complete his journey and save his soul. Worse, he must travel with William, a Dominican friar of fearsome zeal who longs for matyrdom, but whose life Josseran is sworn to protect. And worse yet, he will arrive in Xanadu just as the greatest empire in human history plunges into civil war. Winding through the plains of Palestine and over the high mountains of the Hindu Kush, from the empty wastes of the Taklimakan desert to the golden palaces of China, Silk Road weaves a spellbinding story of sin, desire, conflict and human frailty onto the vast tapestry of the medieval orient.

Rome's Executioner

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Robert Fabbri

Hardback, 368 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84887 912 6
Published: May 2012
RRP: £12.99

Thracia, AD30: Even after four years military service at the edge of the Roman world, Vespasian can't escape the tumultuous politics of an Empire on the brink of disintegration. His patrons in Rome have charged him with the clandestine extraction of an old enemy from a fortress on the banks of the Danube before it falls to the Roman legion besieging it. Vespasian's mission is the key move in a deadly struggle for the right to rule the Roman Empire. The man he has been ordered to seize could be the witness that will destroy Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard and ruler of the Empire in all but name. Before he completes his mission, Vespasian will face ambush in snowbound mountains, pirates on the high seas, and Sejanus's spies all around him. But by far the greatest danger lies at the rotten heart of the Empire, at the nightmarish court of Tiberius, Emperor of Rome and debauched, paranoid madman.

Dead Water

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Simon Ings

Paperback, 368 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84887 890 7
Published: May 2012
RRP: £7.99

25 May, 1928: Over the frozen seas of the Arctic, an airship falls out the sky. Among the survivors is a young scientist on the verge of a discovery that will redefine physics. 3 October 1996: Through the dusty industrial towns of India's Great Trunk Road, a disgraced and disfigured female detective starts tracking a criminal syndicate whose tentacles spread from forgery to smuggling to piracy. Her life has been ruined, but she will have her revenge. 26 December 2004: On the island of Bali a tsunami washes up a rusting container. Locked within this aluminium tomb, the mummified remains of a shipping magnate missing for 29 years and a hand-written journal of his last days. 13 December 2011: Off the coast of Sri Lanka, a tramp steamer is seized by pirates. The captain has his wife and son aboard, and their survival depends on following the pirates' every demand. But what can they possibly want with his worn-out ship and its cargo of junk? We know what they want. We know the ship was carrying a Dead Water cargo. And we know Dead Water is the key to everything. We could spin a thousand stories from this toxic Cold War secret but there's only one of them that can really make a difference. And this is it.

The Second World War

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Gordon Corrigan

Paperback, 648 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84354 895 9
Published: May 2012
RRP: £10.99

In this major new history, Gordon Corrigan argues that what we call the Second World War was in fact two separate conflicts: one against Germany (and, for a while, Italy) in Western Europe, Soviet Russia and North Africa; the other against Japan in the Far East and Pacific. Each conflict had distinct causes and had to be fought in different ways against very different enemies, who rarely, if ever, coordinated their efforts. This is a new and cogent account of an immense, exhausting six-year conflict that continues to fascinate. Corrigan examines the agendas of the warring nations and offers fresh and vivid interpretations; Britain's own part in the war comes in for particularly close scrutiny: militarily, the British suffered an agonising series of defeats before the tide turned. The country emerged economically broken, with the loss of her empire a virtual certainty. The Second World War is vast in its erudition and epic in its execution. It will change forever the way we think about the titanic conflicts that dominated the years 1939 to 1945.

The Ralph Steadman Book of Cats

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Ralph Steadman

Hardback, 96 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84887 676 7
Published: May 2012
RRP: £12.99

Ralph Steadman - artist of distinction, caricaturist of brilliance and long-time unsentimental cat-lover here shows us cats everywhere. Cats in furniture; cat dictators; T. S. Eliot cats and Samuel Johnson cats; fashion cats and CATalogues; blot cats; splat cats and fallen-from-skyscraper cats. There are bugs that live on cats and uninvented cats, too. Ranging from the fierce and furious to the whimsical and wistful, the whole world of feline life is here. In a cat book like no other, there is nothing soppy about Steadman's eye as he exposes the heart and bone and sinew of these most independent and lovable pets.

The Lovers

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Vendela Vida

Paperback, 240 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84887 521 0
Published: May 2012
RRP: £7.99

Yvonne is newly widowed, her children grown. Hoping to revisit memories of a happier time, she travels to Turkey. Despite the sand and sea, Yvonne's memories of her past are overwhelming and she clings to a newfound friendship with Ahmet, a local boy who makes his living as a shell collector. With Ahmet as her guide, Yvonne finally begins to enjoy the shimmering waters and relaxed pace of the Turkish coast. But when a devastating accident suddenly upends her hard-won peace, she finds her life thrown into chaos and with it her fragile sense of belonging.

Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Lynn Knight

Paperback, 272 pages
ISBN: 978 1 84887 417 6
Published: May 2012
RRP: £8.99

150 Station Road, Wheeldon Mill - a short stride across the Chesterfield Canal in the heart of Derbyshire - was home to the Nash family and their corner shop, serving a small mining community with everything from Brasso to Dolly Blue, from cheap dress rings to Lemon Sherbets. However, this was no ordinary home and no ordinary family. Three generations were adopted - Lynn Knight's great grandfather, a fairground boy given away when his parents left for America in 1865, her great aunt, rescued from an Industrial School in 1909, and her mother, adopted in London as a baby and brought north in 1930. Their story spans centuries and the changing society of twentieth century Britain. But more than that it is a story of community and of love. Full of colour, light and life, Lemon Sherbet & Dolly Blue is a story of what it really means to be family.

Australians Volume 2

Wed, 08 May 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Thomas Keneally

Hardback, 464 pages
ISBN: 978 1 74237 448 2
Published: May 2012
RRP: £19.99

In this companion volume of Thomas Keneally's widely acclaimed history of the Australian people, the vast range of characters who have formed their national story are brought vividly to life. Immigrants and Aboriginal resistance figures, bushrangers and pastoralists, working men and pioneering women, artists and hard-nosed radicals, politicians and soldiers all populate this richly drawn portrait of a vibrant land on the cusp of nationhood and social maturity. From the 1860s to the great rifts wrought by World War I, an era commenced in which Australians pursued glimmering visions: of equity in a promised land. It was a time of social experiment and reform, of industrial radicalism and women's rights. But as much as larrikin anti-authoritarianism was celebrated, Australians retained a provincialism - there was no Australian revolution. With a rich assortment of contradictory, inspiring and surprising characters, Tom Keneally brings to life the people of a young and cocky nation.