Russell Hoban

After Pilgermann, a German Jew in the year 1096, ravishes the tax collector's wife, an angry Christian mob retaliates by brutally castrating him. Bleeding and left for dead, Pilgermann experiences a vision of Jesus Christ and resolves to set out on a journey to the Holy Land. Along the way, he will be joined by a motley group of companions: the headless corpse of the tax collector, a lascivious talking pig, a dead bear, and Death himself. In the story of Pilgermann's quest, by turns funny and nightmarish, Russell Hoban is at his most original and most imaginative. 'Superb ... Pilgermann is history, metaphysics, a tangle of mysteries, profound and simple.' - Guardian 'Not an easy read, only a fascinating and rewarding one.' - Time 'A Mad Max of a metaphysical story ... intriguing ... mysterious.' - Los Angeles Herald Examiner 'Pilgermann wants to jump off the page to lay hands on your shirtfront.' - Washington Post

When Kleinzeit, an advertising copywriter whose name means either 'hero' or 'smalltime', depending on who you ask, picks up a sheet of yellow paper in the London Underground, he doesn't suspect that it will cause him to be fired from his job and admitted to hospital with geometrical pain in his hypotenuse. In Hospital Ward A4, Kleinzeit discovers he is not alone: his fellow patients also suffer from nonsensical but possibly deadly ailments which all have something strange in common. With the help of the beautiful night nurse and armed with a glockenspiel and a paperback of Thucydides, Kleinzeit escapes from hospital and finds himself plunged headlong into a wild and flickering netherworld of mystery involving the Underground, an enigmatic red-bearded man, a key, sheets of yellow paper, and Death himself ... A hilarious, surreal and completely unpredictable novel about one man's search for reality, Kleinzeit (1974) is one of Russell Hoban's best-loved works. 'Hoban is as funny and unusual as any writer around ... Kleinzeit is a sort of holy fool, a fierce, lonely intelligence desperately trying to make sense of a hopeless world. A tour de force.' - Evening Standard 'Hoban is an extraordinarily talented novelist, an original mind in the era of mass-produced philosophers.' - Irish Times 'Delightful ... Kleinzeit's language is forever astonishing.' - Boston Globe

Jachin-Boaz is a maker and seller of maps. In his shop are maps that will lead you to whatever it is you most desire: love, inspiration, wealth. But his greatest achievement is a master-map showing the location of everything that has ever been found in the world, which he intends to give to his son, Boaz-Jachin. There is only one thing missing from the map: lions - for there are no more lions left. Or are there? When Jachin-Boaz sets out on a quest to find a lion for his son, Boaz-Jachin will follow in search of his father, and both will discover something wholly unexpected ... Russell Hoban's first novel for adults, The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz (1973) was widely acclaimed by critics and earned comparisons to Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Both a humorous and light-hearted fantasy and an insightful meditation on the sometimes difficult relationships between fathers and sons, it is a perfect introduction to the work of this brilliant writer. 'A piece of invention as original as any of Tolkien's or C.S. Lewis's.' - New Statesman 'Magic at work ... Funny as well as beautiful.' - Irish Times 'Mr. Hoban is unclassifiable, thank goodness. His narrative is so minutely and compellingly realistic that after a time you cease to notice that he has stood reality on its head.' - Sunday Times 'Of outstanding quality ... unusually vivid imagination ... immensely striking use of words.' - Auberon Waugh, The Spectator

In The Lobster's Birthday and Other Stories, discover what happens when you wake up thirsty in the middle of the night. How do you play a trick on the most insufferable boy in the village, while helping out Aunt Arabelle at the same time? What would you do on your birthday if you were a lobster? Find out when you join Harriet, Just William, and Harold and Gloria in this comical collection of short stories. Chucklers is a series of funny novels, short stories, anthologies and comics that make reading a pleasure for 7-11 year olds. There is something for everyone in this varied collection which is packed with fantastic illustrations. Books contain inside cover notes to support children in their reading. Help with children's reading development also available at www.oxfordowl.co.uk. The series is written by top children's authors and edited by award-winning author Jeremy Strong. The books are finely levelled, making it easy to match every child to the right book.

Gloria's birthday is tomorrow, and everyone is looking forward to the celebration--except Frances. Frances can't help but think that it always seems to be someone else's birthday. To make matters worse, Gloria's birthday present costs Frances a whole two allowances Is there anything that can turn this disastrous day around?Full of warmth and humor, this new edition of Russell and Lillian Hoban's beloved classic is perfect for beginning readers.

"Hoban is the best sort of genius." Patrick Ness, The GuardianSomewhere in the Arctic Circle, Sixteen-Face John, a shaman, learns that his first child, a soonchild, cannot hear the World Songs from her mother's womb. The World Songs are what inspire all newborns to come out into the world, and John must find them for her. But how? The answer takes him through many lifetimes and many shape-shifts, as well as encounters with beasts, demons and a mysterious benevolent owl spirit, Ukpika, who is linked to John's past...

In Ariosto's epic sixteenth century poem Orlando Furioso, the beautiful Angelica is rescued by the valiant Ruggiero. He swoops in riding a hippogriff, a fantastical winged creature, the offspring of a griffin and a mare. Volatore, as this hippogriff calls himself, has escaped Ariosto's poem after being trapped within it for centuries and is now determined to find Angelica himself. Landing in San Francisco, he meets Angelica Greenberg and the unlikely couple falls in love. But events constantly conspire to separate them, and Volatore sets out to find the perfect form he must embody to consummate their love. Angelica Lost and Found contains life-enhancing wisdom and emanates with wicked drollery, aesthetic insight and the romance of Russell Hoban at his best.

With a new addition to the family, Frances is feeling left out. So Frances decides to run away--but not too far This new edition of Russell and Lillian Hoban's beloved classic is perfect for beginning readers.

Hoban spins a light, wry fantasy about a middle-aged writer's past misdeeds, faltering career and misapprehensions about love. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction--novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Father has had a sorely trying day, but what he finds when he comes home isn't going to make it any better. The cat is on top of the grandfather clock, and the dog is barking and trying to get at her, and all the children are "striking each other and speaking in unpleasantly harsh voices." Thus begins Russell and Lillian Hoban's wonderfully comic and deliciously quaint story of what lengths kids and adults will go to in order to pass the buck, before everyone owns up to having a part in the general mess and in the end things are fine. Unless, that is, it all begins again...The Sorely Trying Day is a classic picture book in which the beloved authors of Bread and Jam for Frances once again prove their power to both delight and instruct.

Recently separated, Phil Ockerman falls hard for Bertha Strunk at a tango lesson in Clerkenwell. Bertha also bears a strong resemblance to the seventeenth-century Venetian singer and composer Barbara Strozzi (with whom Phil happens to be obsessed), to the point where Phil is no longer sure which is which. Navigating several London underground lines and considerable planetary activity, Russell Hoban's intriguing romance tangos its way through a world of infidelity, artificial eyeballs, baseball bats and music - never missing a daring, seductive step.

Re-issued to coincide with the centenary of Messiaen's birth, The Messiaen Companion was the first major study to appear after the composer's death in April 1992. It was the first book to offer both a complete survey of Messiaen's extraordinary achievements and a comprehensive guide to his music, also examining in detail the enduring inspiration which Messiaen derived from his religious faith and from his lifelong passion for ornithology and the natural world. The contributors, all of whom have made a special study of the composer, include two biographers of Messiaen and a number of the foremost interpreters of his music. Messiaen's influential teaching is recalled in essays by three of his pupils (Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, and Peter Hill), and the composer is also remembered in a remarkable and moving contribution from his widow and devoted musical companion, the pianist Yvonne Loriod.

When eighty-three-year-old Irving Goodman falls in love with actress, Justine, she's been dead for 47 years. Irving may not know how he's going to attain his heart's desire but he knows a man who does. Istvan, a wizard of high technology, sees her on Irving's TV screen and hi-techs Justine out of the video tape and into present-day Soho.

Since the age of thirteen, Christabel Alderton has been troubled by a sort of second sight that works sometimes, but not always. Death is much on her mind because the men in her life tend to die before their time and she's come to think she's bad luck. Fascinated by Christabel, diabetologist Elias Newman is keen to know her better but she's afraid of what might happen. Taking the reader from the River Lea via a haunted woodland bog, out to the crash of the Pacific surf on Kahakuloa Head in the Hawaiian Islands, this is Russell Hoban at his engrossing, inimitable best.

'This is it ...this is my destiny woman,' Max blurted out when he first met Lola at the Coliseum shop. Not only was she aristocratic and wild at heart, but the two discovered an uncanny convergence of musical tastes. Soon they were converging at every level - Lola filling Max's emptiness and vice versa. But Max had also always craved the recognition of another sort of woman, the sort who had been Homecoming Queen at her high school - just as the tempting Lula Mae Flowers had been back in Texas. Why did Max have to meet Lula Mae just when he'd found his destiny woman in Lola? And if Lola embodied everything Max longed for, how could there be anything left over for Texan ex-Homecoming Queens?

Roswell Clark wants a bat tattoo. His ideal bat image is on a bowl in the V&A Museum. There he encounters Sarah Varley, also compelled by the same bat. What does it mean? This novel combines much about art with new angles on Christ, crash-test dummies, antiques and pornography.

Frances and Thelma are friends -- most of the timeThelma always seems to get Frances into trouble. When she tricks Frances into buying her tea set, it's the last straw. Can Frances show her that it's better to lose a bargain than lose a friend?

The first time Peter Diggs saw Amaryllis she was at a bus stop where the street sign said "Balsamic" although there was nothing vinegary about the place. That was a dream, and soon, their romance, as weird as it seems, begins to intersect with reality.

Angelica's Grotto is a pornographic website into which seventy-two-year-old art historian Harold Klein wanders one evening. Klein, a walking catalogue of infirmities, known to medical consultants as 'he who declines to hop the twig', may not be up to much physically but there's a lot of sex going on in his head. 'You're a tiger from the neck up, Professor,' says Melissa, the brains behind the website, when at last Klein faces the object of his desire. Harold first visits Angelica's Grotto after losing his 'inner voice', that censoring mechanism that keeps us from blurting out the first thing that pops into our heads and finding ourselves in Casualty as a result of it. Harold consults a therapist about this new lack of mental privacy and also has one-to-one onscreen dialogue in the Grotto. 'If I had an inner voice I wouldn't be telling you all this,' he explains to the as-yet-unmet Melissa. But when the flesh-and-blood Melissa and her large and well-hung colleague Leslie enter his life he finds it's good to keep the angina medicine at the ready. Harold Klein's odyssey takes him not only through erogenous zones but into various corners of the London art world, down the underground and up the buses.