Deborah Moggach

________________'This anthology will help turn your intellectual understanding of oppression into an emotional one' - New Statesman'Thanks for being who you are and for giving us such exposure to wonderful people. Palestine is proud of you' - Suad Amiry________________The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringing together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, ‘the power of culture over the culture of power’.Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems and stories from some of the world’s most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and courage in the most desperate of situations.Contributors: Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Jehan Bseiso, Teju Cole, Molly Crabapple, Selma Dabbagh, Mahmoud Darwish, Najwan Darwish, Geoff Dyer, Yasmin El-Rifae, Adam Foulds, Ru Freeman, Omar Robert Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Mohammed Hanif, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, John Horner, Remi Kanazi, Brigid Keenan, Mercedes Kemp, Omar El-Khairy, Nancy Kricorian, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, China Miéville, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Muiz, Maath Musleh, Michael Palin, Ed Pavlic, Atef Abu Saif, Kamila Shamsie, Raja Shehadeh, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Will Sutcliffe, Alice WalkerWith messages from China Achebe, Michael Ondaatje and J. M. Coetzee________________'Every literary act, whether it is a great epic poem or an honest piece of journalism or a simple nonsense tale for children is a blow against the forces of stupidity and ignorance and darkness … The Palestine Festival of Literature exists to do just that – and I salute it for its work. Not only this year but for as long as it is necessary' - Philip Pullman

A sensual tale of art, lust, and deception--now a major motion picture In 1630s Amsterdam, tulipomania has seized the populace. Everywhere men are seduced by the fantastic exotic flower. But for wealthy merchant Cornelis Sandvoort, it is his young and beautiful wife, Sophia, who stirs his soul. She is the prize he desires, the woman he hopes will bring him the joy that not even his considerable fortune can buy. Cornelis yearns for an heir, but so far he and Sophia have failed to produce one. In a bid for immortality, he commissions a portrait of them both by the talented young painter Jan van Loos. But as Van Loos begins to capture Sophia's likeness on canvas, a slow passion begins to burn between the beautiful young wife and the talented artist. As the portrait unfolds, so a slow dance is begun among the household's inhabitants. Ambitions, desires, and dreams breed a grand deception--and as the lies multiply, events move toward a thrilling and tragic climax. In this richly imagined international bestseller, Deborah Moggach has created the rarest of novels--a lush, lyrical work of fiction that is also compulsively readable. Seldom has a novel so vividly evoked a time, a place, and a passion. Praise for Tulip Fever"Sumptuous prose . . . reads like a thriller."--The New York Times Book Review "An artful novel in every sense of the word . . . deftly evokes seventeenth-century Amsterdam's vibrant atmosphere."--Los Angeles Times "Need a brief escape into a beautiful and faraway world? Deborah Moggach's wonderful Tulip Fever can offer you that."--New York Post "Taut with suspense and unexpected revelations."--Entertainment Weekly "Elegantly absorbing."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

Sophia's husband Cornelis is one of the lucky ones who grew rich dealing with the Tulip flower. To celebrate, he commissions a young artist to paint him with his beautiful young bride. But as the portrait grows, so does the passion between Sophia and the painter; and ambitions, desires and dreams breed an intricate deception and a reckless gamble.

First published in 1978, this is Deborah Moggach's first novel, newly republished by Tinder Press__________________'Moggach is at the height of her powers' Sunday Times'She really is the Nora Ephron of North London' Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures'She writes unflinchingly about family life, divorce, children, and the ups and downs of relationships' Independent'She writes beautifully' Sunday Telegraph__________________Three sisters, Claire - a model daughter, a teacher, straightforward, happy yet wanting love. Laura, the wild one, a student, a beauty, yearning to break the bounds of family life. And Holly, their little sister, the one they don't really know, but who watches everything.Leaving home, seduction, coming of age and growing up abound in this delicious novel of sibling rivalry, partnership and love.

First published in 1979, this is bestselling author Deborah Moggach's second novel.__________________'Moggach is at the height of her powers' Sunday Times'She really is the Nora Ephron of North London' Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures'She writes unflinchingly about family life, divorce, children, and the ups and downs of relationships' Independent__________________Kate Cooper has been married to James for six years, and is trying very hard to be the model wife while he enjoys his high-flying career, but there's always something she feels she doesn't get quite right, whether it's her inability to remove their toddler son's pencil squiggles from the freshly painted walls, to the grubby button holes on her new blouse. Then she meets aspiring novelist Sam, her next door neighbour, a man who shouldn't, but does, have time on his hands. And he makes her laugh. But what about his wife, and their daughter Marion, dreaming her way through adolescence?CLOSE TO HOME is a novel of one hot summer, of passion and dislocation, and of lives converging in unexpected ways.

In one new volume, an irresistible collection of stories from two previous works, SMILE and CHANGING BABIES, with additional stories, previously unpublished in book form.'What informs Moggach's excellent stories is not just the exactness of her observation, but the quality of warmth and affection' Sunday Times From swimming on Hampstead Heath to house-sitting with troublesome dogs, or illicit afternoon trysts in Soho to pedicures in Florence with recalcitrant teenagers, this collection of short stories includes some previously unpublished in book form, and covers the gamut of human nature - our foibles, our loves, our desires, hopes, ambitions and failures. Rich in observation and speckled with a delicious dark humour, FOOL FOR LOVE: THE SELECTED SHORT STORIES confirms Deborah Moggach's place as one of our finest observers of human life.'I love clever books that make me laugh. Deborah Moggach, queen of social comedy, is on top form' Cathy Rentzenbrink

"Disturbing and witty . . . A deftly-described odyssey that places the battle of the sexes in a new arena" from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (The Sunday Times).Meet Desmond Fletcher. At forty-two years old, his marriage has ended and he finds himself all alone in an apartment above an electrical repair shop lent to him by his soon-to-be-ex-wife's brother. With not much else to do besides his job driving coaches, Desmond has a lot of time to think. Mostly about where his life has gone wrong, the women he has failed, and the child he has never known.More than a decade ago, a woman Desmond was seeing became pregnant but wanted nothing to do with marrying him-or any man for that matter. Now, with his life in limbo, Desmond becomes obsessed with finding his son. Hijacking a coach, he travels across England, unearthing clues and following in his son's footsteps-from London to the mountains to the fens. It's a quest that will take Desmond deep into his own heart, where he just might discover what he's really looking for . . ."Poignant and funny . . . Deborah Moggach is brilliant at capturing just the right voice for her characters." -Cosmopolitan"Moggach, for the purposes of this book, has turned herself into a bloke. His monologue throughout strikes me as totally authentic, but not only does Moggach get his lingo right, she thinks through his head, dramatizing his confusion, decency, wit, pain, and determination. This is not just ventriloquism, but empathy so complete as to be phenomenal." -The Irish Times"Acutely funny and sad." -The Mail on Sunday

A "funny, affectionate and unpretentious" novel about what goes on behind the closed doors of a marriage, from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (New Statesman).Brinsley Street is your normal bustling city thoroughfare with four-story houses abutting the sidewalk. But their rather unremarkable exteriors hide surprisingly rural gardens-and family dramas.In number twenty-three live the Coopers. Married for six years, Kate is a stay-at-home mother of two young sons. Her husband travels frequently for work, leaving Kate alone to care for the kids, the house, and herself . . . if there's time. Their marriage hasn't quite turned out the way she thought it would; Kate and her husband seem to live in different worlds, moving further and further apart. It's no wonder that she sometimes relishes his absence . . .Next door are the Greens. Samuel has left the corporate world to work on his novel. His very competent wife, a psychiatrist, is the sole breadwinner. Their union works like a well-oiled machine, including their relationship with their sixteen-year-old daughter, who struggles to find ways to rebel against such perfectly understanding parents.But in the midst of a blistering hot summer, the neighbors, who share a wall, will find their lives entwined. Seeing and hearing Kate throughout the day, Samuel becomes obsessed with her. Kate, lonely and feeling unappreciated, finds herself unmoored, ultimately discovering that danger doesn't come from outside their safe and comfortable world, but from within . . .

From the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: "Tainted love, jealousy and, brilliant revenge-this book has got the lot" (New Woman).Thirty-eight-year-old Jules Sampson is barely getting by as a working actor in London-until she gets a job as a stand-in for American movie star Lila Dune. Being the same age and in the same business, the two hit it off, but their careers couldn't be more different. Jules may not be as beautiful and successful as Lila, but she's a far better actor. Her impersonation of Lila is spot-on, and the two even slip into each other's lives. It's all just fun and games.But Jules has made a dreadful miscalculation-one that takes her already simmering resentment of Lila to the boiling point. Consumed by jealousy, Jules is ready for her close-up-and no one is better prepared than her for her next big role . . .Taking readers on a whirlwind of madness and obsession from London to New York to Los Angeles, "Moggach's examination of the unbalanced mind is spellbinding, and the characters horribly believable. . . . This is her] best novel yet" (Options)."Compulsively readable . . . a triumph." -Sunday Express"Intelligent, persuasive, sensuous, perceptive . . . what an accomplishment " -Fay Weldon, author of The Life and Loves of a She Devil"An exciting, deftly executed thriller with considerable psychological intrigue." - Publishers Weekly"With a marvelous snap of a windup, an absorbing, inventive chiller, complete with undertones of a sour, wry humor." -Kirkus Reviews

The bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel delves into what it means to be a sister, a husband, a wife, and-most importantly of all-a family.Though sisters, Ann and Viv couldn't be more different. Ann is reserved, sensible, and-some would say-boring. Viv, always their father's favorite, is messy and impulsive, and a mother to two gorgeous daughters. Meanwhile, Ann has struggled to have children, her last attempt ending in a hysterectomy, which has devasted her and her husband, Ken.Pained to see her sister left so sad and wanting, Viv offers to have a baby-and give it to Ann. Viv's husband, Ollie, is not on board with the idea, especially when it becomes clear that Viv will be carrying Ken's child, not his. But with the mechanics figured out, the men are pushed to the sidelines as the sisters roll full-steam ahead. What were once strong relationships are strained to the brink as fault lines in both marriages are exposed-leaving them all to realize that starting a new life just might end the ones they already have . . ."A very good novel indeed." -The Times (London)

The author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel pens "the happiest, saddest, funniest, most perceptive truth about growing up since The Catcher in the Rye" (Over 21).Laura and Claire Jenkins were born just a few years apart, but they're as different as night and day. Sensible, level-headed Claire has settled into her teaching job in London, sharing an apartment with two other girls, while free-spirited Laura starts her first year at university, where she sets about to find herself-no matter where that may lead . . .Soon Claire falls for a man who may not set the world on fire, but offers her the stability she craves. Laura, always the rebel, moves out of the dorms and into a relationship with a frustrated artist-turned-bus conductor. But as Claire begins to question her motives and Laura's bohemian life begins to lose its charm, the sisters start to realize that they may be more alike than they thought. And that's not such a bad thing when it comes to family, sisterhood, and growing up."Assured and successful. . . . Altogether a most satisfying and intelligent first novel." -Financial Times"Sensitive and humorous." -Daily Express"A delightful story of young love." -The Times (London)"It is thrilling to find a writer who could capture our world, and our emotions, so accurately." -Wellington Evening Post"Warm and witty . . . family life most achingly bared." -New Statesman

"A nicely balanced account of marital breakdown in peculiarly difficult circumstances" from the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (The Sunday Times).As flirtatious as she is rebellious, Marianne has always wanted out of her hometown of Ashford. And at eighteen, she's found the perfect man to take her away. Pakistani Salim Siddiqi is ridiculously handsome and stunningly smart. While Marianne waltzes through town in suede miniskirts and knee-high boots (it is the sixties after all), Salim reads Wordsworth and Keats.After their wedding, the honeymoon seems to last forever. But having two children and buying a house reveal differences that become impossible to ignore. Marianne refuses to just stay at home, taking a job at her friend's catering company, while Salim becomes increasingly jealous and possessive of her time. And when Marianne turns to another man, her life explodes around her.Salim bolts, taking their daughter and son with him back to Pakistan. Legally, there's little Marianne can do. For years, she desperately fights to regain custody. Adjusting to her new normal isn't an option as long as her children are caught between two warring parents, two cultures, and two continents . . ."Captures brilliantly the basic incompatibilities and misunderstandings that arise when two people have little knowledge of each other's culture . . . both funny and moving." -Sunday Express"A likeable protagonist . . . The themes are those of an ambitious, dynamic novel . . . Absorbing . . . dramatic and disturbing." -The Guardian

The bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel delivers a "provocative, enthralling, bang up-to-the-minute" thriller (Daily Mail). It all starts with a prize. The Price family wins a holiday trip to Florida and gets their photo in the paper. They're all there, the picture-perfect family in front of their gorgeous home. But it's awkward, adolescent, seventeen-year-old Hannah who catches someone's eye. And only days later, she's gone. Val and Morris Price try not to panic when Hannah doesn't return from Camden Market on Sunday night. After all, she is a teenager. But when Hannah still hasn't shown up on Monday, they start to think the worst--then the ransom note comes with a demand for 500,000 and no police. After days of tallying assets and scrambling for money, Val makes the drop. Hannah comes home. Only what should be the end of a nightmare is just the beginning . . . The Prices' have lost their business and their home. Their sudden change in fortune takes its toll, and family bonds slowly begin to disintegrate. Meanwhile, the desperate couple who kidnapped Hannah embark on a life of luxury that only fuels their twisted love. But what goes up must come down . . . with a crash. "A neat plot . . . with] dark flashes of hubris and nemesis." --The Guardian "Moggach's subject is the rickety edifice we call the family, which she comes at armed with both a wrecking ball and an insatiable curiosity to note the particular way it collapses." --The Independent "Deborah Moggach is a delight to read--her characters are wonderfully alive, and their stories grip us unequivocally. . . . The novel is enjoyable from first to last." --The Daily Telegraph "It is characterisation at which Moggach excels. Her gift is to perceive and describe our confusions about life . . . and to write with feeling about the continual quest for love and happiness that is part of the human condition." --The Sunday Times

The bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel "marries comedy and canniness into a novel that's warm, tolerant, shrewd and exuberant" (The Sunday Times).The demise of Russell Buffery's latest marriage has put the sixty-one-year-old actor in a reflective mood. After all, his three ex-wives-the journalist, the new-age housewife, the antique dealer-have easily found their way without "Buffy", and his connections to his children are tenuous at best. Spurned and alone, he still wonders where it all went wrong. Until he meets Celeste . . .Only twenty-three and new to London, the fresh-faced young woman has given Buffy, the hopeless romantic, a new lease on life. But, unknown to Buffy, Celeste has her own agenda. She begins to delve into his past, but discovering each ex-wife leads to another one-not to mention the women on the side. And though Celeste may be in over her head, what is revealed to her will transform her life-and give both her and Buffy a chance to get it right this time around.Praise for Deborah Moggach"Deborah Moggach is brilliant at capturing just the right voice for her characters." -Cosmopolitan"You'll be hooked from the first page of this original, funny book . . . Just delicious." -New Woman"Wonderfully funny." -Daily Mail"Cracking good dialogue, excellent jokes and laser sharp." -The Daily Telegraph

"Wincingly funny. . . An ambitious book showing Asia through British and American eyes" from the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Daily Mail).In 1975, an English couple arrives in Karachi, Pakistan. Donald Manley, of Cameron Chemicals, has taken a job as the local sales manager. In Karachi, he hopes to follow in the footsteps of his beloved grandfather, who served there during the war. Donald's wife, Christine, is banking on a change of scenery to help restart their marriage-and their ability to conceive. At the airport, their paths cross with American Duke Hanson, who is seeing his wife off. She's returning to Kansas, while he's staying on to oversee the development of a hotel project.In the stifling heat and dusty, teeming streets, each one of these visitors will face their own crises: Donald, a devastating family secret; Christine, lead astray by her well-intentioned efforts to embrace the culture and start a family; Duke, both professional and personal temptations to his no-nonsense, uncorruptible image of himself. During a season of sweltering days and sultry nights, deals will be made, bonds will be broken, and the spirit of a city with one foot in the past and one in the future will take everyone by surprise."Original, perceptive and very entertaining." -Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Foreign Affairs"Entertaining, subtle and intelligent." -The Sunday Telegraph"No neater entertainment has emerged from the debris of our past on the sub-continent." -The Guardian"A piece of technical wizardry." -The Daily Telegraph

The bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel "illuminates with great compassion how love can so easily go off the rails" (Daily Mail). In the shadow of Heathrow airport, a girl grows up in a family of four with her unaffectionate, absent mother, her precocious younger brother, and her father. Once a traveling fairground worker, her father's been forced to settle down. Now he sits at home, dreaming up schemes to make money, drinking with his friends, raising pigs . . . It's those pigs that give Heather her nickname. The mean girls at school call her "Porky," as much as for her animals as for her weight and pink complexion. They don't live in a decrepit bungalow like she does, surrounded by airport traffic and muck. And they don't have a father like she does, one who steals her innocence and makes her grow up too fast. This is Heather's story. It's easier for her to tell a stranger reading a book than her best friend, a counselor, the man who now loves her. Maybe you will understand her attempts to work, to live, to survive, to fly away as far as possible--as if her wings weren't already clipped . . . "Deborah Moggach conveys with chilling skill the process by which a fundamentally bright, decent child becomes infested by corruption." --The Spectator "At once eerily exuberant and bleak, this is a compassionate, tough book." --The Observer " An] extraordinarily skilful account of a childhood blasted by what is now acknowledged to be a more widespread offence than was previously recognised: incest." --London Review of Books "Sustain s] a first-person register so level in its tone of quiet desperation, so careful to avoid blatant shock, as to hold back the tidal wave of revulsion and pity which threatens, but never quite engulfs the reader." --The Times (London)

" A] social comedy with some brilliant people observations about ageing and a devilish plot twist" from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (The Times, London).After their elderly father's fall, Phoebe and her brother, Robert, couldn't be happier with his new caregiver, Mandy. She came to them with great recommendations and has given the brilliant, yet lonely, widower a new lease on life-though he is gossiping about the locals' love affairs instead of debating science and politics.But Phoebe and Robert soon become suspicious of Mandy-her rummaging about in their father's papers, her strange inheritance from a former client, her habit of speaking her mind no matter the consequences. Then Robert discovers that their father has changed his will. Suddenly Mandy seems more devil than angel . . .For the first time in years, Phoebe and Robert are bonding over something-even if it is their mutual distrust of Mandy. And what happens next will make the siblings question everything they thought they knew about their parents-and themselves."Moggach addresses an all too common nightmare with ruthless honesty and sublime wit-The Carer is one of the funniest novels I have read for ages." -The Times (London)"Unputdownable, fun and tender with characters that jump off the page. Perfection." -Marian Keyes, international-bestselling author of Again, Rachel"Joyous . . . a sustained satire on smug middle-class mores." -Daily Mail"The most endearing of humorists, Deborah Moggach casts a penetrating eye on our foibles and fantasies. Neither ageing, nor death-as The Carer so beautifully demonstrates-can resist her comic scrutiny." -Lisa Appignanesi, award-winning author of Mad, Bad, and Sad

"A darkly funny novel about betrayal, loneliness and the surprising pleasure of being single again" from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Good Housekeeping).At sixty-nine years old, Pru has found herself alone for the first time in her life. Her grown children are out of the house, and her husband, Greg, has filed for divorce. She attributes Greg's betrayal to a cancer scare and a more-than-midlife crisis, but that doesn't make her feel any better-or less lonely. It seems that nothing-not even her eccentric, free-spirited best friend, Azra-can pull her out of her depression. Until Pru sees a black dress in a thrift store window . . .Its sleek silhouette calls to mind long-gone days of cocktail parties and sophisticated conversation. And it gives Pru a brilliant idea: where better to wear a black dress-and find age-appropriate single men-than at a funeral? As Pru combs through the obituaries and attends masses and wakes, she finds comfort among the bereaved. After all, they're all grieving someone they have lost. But Pru's about to discover that though her new dating plan may get her out of the house and back on the market, the life she's so desperately trying to leave behind isn't done with her yet . . ."With dry wit and observation, Moggach tackles the perils of ageing with brutal honesty." -Daily Express"This page-turner is like the best wakes, it will make you feel hungry and alive." -The Times (London)"As ever with Moggach, the joy is in her witty observations of middle-class life and bracingly tart portrayal of family relationships." -Daily Mail