Kirjahaku

NOW A SELL-OUT PLAY: OUR LADIES OF PERPETUAL SUCCOURThe choir from Our Lady of Perpetual Succour School for Girls is being bussed to the national finals in the big, big city.

Winner of the James Tait Black Fiction PrizeFor 16-year-old Simon Crimmons there is not a lot to do. Too â??poshâ?? for the railways, too â??working classâ?? for Varie, Simon must navigate what it means to be a man as his world is turned upside down.

The Sopranos are back: out of school and out in the world, gathered in Gatwick to plan a super-cheap last-minute holiday reunion. Pitch perfect, darkly comic and brimming with life - in all its squalor, rage, tears and laughter - this is an unforgettable story of female friendship. Longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.

An aircrash investigator haunts the hinterlands of an island. A woman makes landfall on the island, and DJ Cormorant is trying to organise a rave on the adjacent airstrip. This work features twisted characters - The Arganout, the Knife Sharpener, The Devil's Advocate and others - converging for one final Saturday night at the Drome Hotel.

An utterly unforgettable novel that portrays a vast internal emptiness by using the cool, haunting voice of a young woman in Scotland lost in the profound anomie of her generation--from "one of the most talented, original and interesting voices around" (Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting). Morvern Callar, a low-paid employee in the local supermarket in a desolate and beautiful port town in the west of Scotland, wakes one morning in late December to find her strange boyfriend has committed suicide and is dead on the kitchen floor. Morvern's reaction is both intriguing and immoral. What she does next is even more appalling. Moving across a blurred European landscape--from rural poverty and drunken mayhem of the port to the Mediterranean rave scene--we experience everything from Morvern's stark, unflinching perspective. Morvern is utterly hypnotizing from her very first sentence to her last. She rarely goes anywhere without the Walkman left behind as a Christmas present by her dead boyfriend, and as she narrates this strange story, she takes care to tell the reader exactly what music she is listening to, giving the stunning effect of a sound track running behind her voice. In much the same way that Patrick McCabe managed to tell an incredibly rich and haunting story through the eyes of an emotionally disturbed boy in The Butcher Boy, Alan Warner's Morvern Caller is a brilliant creation.

After the critical success of his first novel, Morvern Callar, Alan Warner has written an extraordinary, stirring sequel to Morvern's odyssey, confirming him as one of the most original, uniquely gifted writers to have appeared this decade. An air-crash investigator haunts the hinterlands of an island--around the isolated honeymoon hot spot, the Drome Hotel--gathering the debris from fallen planes that the islanders have fashioned into makeshift sheds and fences; but what kind of jigsaw is he really assembling as he paces the runway? A young woman makes landfall on the island, crossing the interior to arrive at the Drome Hotel: desperate, strange--and strangely familiar. Meanwhile, DJ Cormorant is trying to organize The Big One, a rave on the adjacent airstrip, and from all over These Demented Lands come twisted characters, converging for one final Saturday night at the Drome Hotel.

High up in the Conrad Flats that loom bleakly over Acton, two future stars of the literary scene - or so they assume - are hard at work, tapping out words of wit and brilliance between ill-paid jobs writing captions for the Cat Calendar 1985 and blurbs for trashy novels with titles like Brothel of the Vampire. Just twenty-one but already well entrenched in a life eked out on dole payments, pints and dollops of porridge and pasta, Llewellyn and Cunningham don't have it too bad: a pub on the corner, a misdirected parental allowance, and the delightful company of Aoife, Llewellyn's model fiancée, mother of his young baby - and the woman of Cunningham's increasingly vivid dreams.Alan Warner's superb new novel sees the author of Morvern Callar at the top of his game.

'One of our finest writers' Michael Moorcock'Alan Warner is one of our best living writers' Jenni FaganIt's the late 70s: the country is on the cusp of the arrival of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, and Marko Morrell, guitarist in Fear Taker, is one of the biggest rock stars on the planet. His 'demanding' lifestyle means he is frequently in absentia at Kitchenly Mill Race, his idyllic country retreat; and so it is his butler (or 'help'), Crofton Park, who is charged with the maintenance and housekeeping of the rambling Tudorbethan gaff.When, one day, two young girls arrive looking for Marko clutching their copies of Fear Taker LPs, Crofton finds himself on a romantic misadventure involving a soiled carpet, a bed of roses, a classic car and a fine pair of stockings. All of which leads to the tragi-comic unravelling of the fantasies he has been living by.A novel about delusional male behaviour, opening and closing curtains, (a lack of) self-awareness, loneliness and 'getting it together in the country', Kitchenly 434 is a magnificent novel about the Golden Age of Rock in the bucolic English countryside.

'One of our finest writers' Michael Moorcock'Alan Warner is one of our best living writers' Jenni FaganKitchenly 434 is set in a sprawling Tudorbethan mansion in Sussex, Kitchenly Mill Race, on the cusp of the arrival of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. In some ways, the last days of an Age of Innocence.Marko Morrell, guitarist in Fear Taker, is one of the biggest rock stars in the world. His demanding lifestyle means he is frequently in absentia at Kitchenly, his idyllic country retreat, and so it is his butler (or 'help'), Crofton Clark, who is charged with the maintenance and housekeeping. When, one day, two young girls arrive looking for Marko clutching their copies of Fear Taker LPs, Crofton finds himself on a romantic misadventure which leads to the tragi-comic unravelling of the fantasies he has been living by.A novel about delusional male behaviour, opening and closing curtains, self-awareness, loneliness and 'getting it together in the country', Kitchenly 434 is a magnificent novel about the Golden Age of Rock in the bucolic English countryside.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTUREThe choir from Our Lady of Perpetual Succour School for Girls is being bussed to the national finals in the big, big city. There is no time for delays ââ?¬â?? or even for winningââ?¬Â¦But after the fifth bottle of alco-pop on the bus it's clear that all is not going to plan, for anyone.

Finally, a brilliant exploration of the German rock band Can's 1971 album Tago Mago. This hugely unique and influential album deserves close analysis from a fan, rather than a musicologist. Novelist Alan Warner details the concrete music we hear on the album, how it was composed, executed and recorded--including the history of the album in terms of its release, promotion and art work. This tale of Tago Mago is also the tale of a young man obsessed with record collecting in the dark and mysterious period of pop music before Google. Warner includes a backtracking of the history of the band up to that point and also some description of Can's unique recording approach taking into account their home studio set up.Interviews with the two surviving members: drummer Jaki Liebezeit, keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and bassist Holger Czukay make this a hilariously personal and illuminating picture of Can.

After the scandalous theft of a pub's World Cup cash kitty, a homeless drifter pursues his eccentric uncle: 'The Man Who Walks', up into the Highlands to recover the money - a cool -27,000. The nephew's frantic, stalled progress and other bizarre diversions form this wickedly hilarious novel. But who is The Man Who Walks? Is he simply a water-carrying madman with one glass eye and a fondness for whisky and pony nuts, and who has a physiological inability to handle slopes? Or is he a savant, touched by the hand of God, wandering the back roads along ancient, ancestral tracks? And as the sinister, unstable nephew gains on The Man Who Walks, can it be that it will all end in a field and that this field is Culloden Moor?

It is off-season in a remote Highland sea port: twenty-one-year-old Morvern Callar, a low-paid employee in the local supermarket, wakes one morning to find her strange boyfriend has committed suicide and is dead on their kitchen floor. Morvern's laconic reaction is both intriguing and immoral.

Shortlisted for The Winston Graham Historical Fiction Prize and The Highland Book Prize A battle lost. A daring escape. A long walk into obscurity. The ultimate failure… In the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Culloden, a lonely figure takes flight with a small band of companions through the islands and mountains of the Hebrides. His name is Charles Edward Stuart: better known today as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He had come to the country to take the throne. Now he is leaving in exile and abject defeat. In prose that is by turns poetic, comic, macabre, haunting and humane, multi- award-winning author Alan Warner traces the frantic last journey through Scotland of a man who history will come to define for his failure. 'Written in carefully crafted prose . . . this reimagining of Charles Edward Stuart’s escape from Culloden is a triumph' – Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman

Shortlisted for The Winston Graham Historical Fiction Prize and The Highland Book Prize A battle lost. A daring escape. A long walk into obscurity. The ultimate failure… In the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Culloden, a lonely figure takes flight with a small band of companions through the islands and mountains of the Hebrides. His name is Charles Edward Stuart: better known today as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He had come to the country to take the throne. Now he is leaving in exile and abject defeat. In prose that is by turns poetic, comic, macabre, haunting and humane, multi- award-winning author Alan Warner traces the frantic last journey through Scotland of a man who history will come to define for his failure. 'Written in carefully crafted prose . . . this reimagining of Charles Edward Stuart’s escape from Culloden is a triumph' – Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman

This book and CD gives you all that you need to play awesome lead Guitar, from Blues and Country licks to speed-picking and two-handed tapping.100 fantastic lead licks in tab and standard notation by Alan Warner.All of the licks are demonstrated on the CD by the author. Also includes stunning Guitar solos showcasing the licks in each style. This incredible collection provides every guitarist with an arsenal of lead guitar tricks to create jaw-dropping solos.