Kirjahaku

Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel award 2013, this bitterly humorous debut is a novel of love, narcissism, and ailing cattle. Katherine and Daniel used to be together. Now Katherine hates everyone, but not as much as she hates herself, while Daniel tells his new girlfriend he loves her, because not telling her would be like telling her he doesn’t love her. From out of the blue comes a message from their old friend, rehabilitated party animal Nathan – now adjusting to his mother’s new career as a misery memoirist, her tales of maternal hardships the stuff of Twitter superstardom. Nathan suggests a reunion, but with the bad blood flowing like cheap wine, it can’t end well. As a bovine plague sweeps across the nation, a toxic dinner party gets underway – its atmosphere so poisonous that none of them will escape infection …

SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ENCORE PRIZE 2019LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2019LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 2019In Edmundsbury, a small town in eastern England, fear and loathing are on the rise. Brexit has happened and the ramifications are real. Grass-roots, right-wing political party 'England Always' is fomenting hatred. The residents of a failing housing estate are being cleared from their homes. A multinational tech company is making inroads into the infrastructure. A controversial tweet; a series of ill-judged think pieces; a riot of opinions - suddenly Edmundsbury is no longer the peaceful town it had always imagined itself to be.

Why be healthy when the world is so sick? From the author of Perfidious Albion, a darkly comic and profoundly affecting novel about resistance, radicalism and redemption.'Bold, unflinching. exceptional.' Observer'Unforgettable...' Times Literary Supplement'Outstanding...' Irish Times'Enthralling. a blistering critique of 21st century life.' Financial Times'Byers's mastery of tone and attentiveness to every psychological shift confirms him as one of the most accomplished novelists of his generation.' Sunday Times

A debut novel of love, narcissism, and ailing cattle Idiopathy (?d'?p i): a disease or condition which arises spontaneously or for which the cause is unknown. Idiopathy is a novel that is as unexpected as its title, in which Katherine, Daniel, and Nathan--three characters you won't forget in a hurry--unsuccessfully try to figure out how they feel about one another and how they might best live their lives in a world gone mad. Featuring a mysterious cattle epidemic, a humiliating stint in rehab, an unwanted pregnancy, a mom-turned-media personality ("Mother Courage"), and a workplace with a bio-dome housing a perfectly engineered cornfield, it is at once a scathing satire and a moving meditation on love and loneliness. With unusual verbal finesse and great humor, Sam Byers neatly skewers the tangled relationships and unhinged narcissism of a self-obsessed generation in a remarkable, uproarious first novel.