Author:Thomas Lynch

The facts of life and death remain the same. We live and die, we love and grieve, we breed and disappear. And between these existential gravities, we search for meaning, save our memories, leave a record for those who will remember us.'So writes Thomas Lynch in Bodies in Motion and at Rest - the second collection of essays by the award-winning author of The Undertaking.As poet and funeral director, Lynch examines the relations between the literary and the mortuary arts - the connection between obsequies and prosodies; the effort to give voice to unspeakable things: great love, great heartbreak, great wonder, great pain; how icons, metaphors and ritualised speech are engaged in poems and in funerals.The essays assembled here explore a species at the intersection of millennia, beleaguered by choices and changes, encumbered by merger and acquisition, numbed by maths and technologies, in search of the meaning of Life and Time, our lives and times. In an age that seeks to define human experience in retail, high-tech or pop-psyche terms, these wise, exquisite essays explore the distance between birth and death, the condition of the human being and the state of ceasing to be.
Readers of Berlin's letters will find the same bubbling flow of malice, wit and human insight on the written page
—— The EconomistA dazzling display of intellectual pyrotechnics
—— Vernon Bogdanor , New StatesmanAs well as being sometimes profoundly wise, these letters are often laugh-out-loud funny
—— Brian Lunch , Irish TimesThey delight in flashing the stiletto, these donnish types, and impossible to conceive would be a college in which no academic grown had a dagger sticking out of the back. It is precisely this kind of malice which constitutes a naughty proportion of the book's appeal
—— GuardianIronic, gossipy, witty, intermittently profound and always intensely human
—— Justin Cartwright , Sunday Telegraph, Books of the YearIn turns modern and folkloric, this is an ambitious and unique debut
—— Historial Novels ReviewPure delight to revel in ... rich and rare ... Anna Lawrence Petroni has a remarkable talent
—— Susan Hill , The LadyA rich, tightly woven web... Ruby's Spoon is a book of dark near-realism, a study of complex family relationships and secrets in a world as pained and impoverished as it is fanciful
—— Oxford TimesA heartbreakingly realistic account of social upheaval and family tragedy... A spellbinding first novel, distinguished by unforgettable storytelling
—— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)I'm going to stick my neck out and predict prize-winning nominations for this debut novelist's astonishing first book
—— Lesley McDowell , Sunday HeraldSpirited
—— Catherine Taylor , GuardianA wonderful coming-of-age tale...she twists gritty realism with folklore themes in a truly mesmerising prose
—— Good Book GuideJilly's descriptions of the glorious Cotswold countryside are some of the most lyrical ever written and her comedies of manners rival Nancy Mitford, if not Jane Austen
—— Daily MailAs plots go you can't get more charming than this
—— Daily ExpressThe narrative zips along, pierced with her characteristically brilliant ear for dialogue and empathy for human relationships of all kinds... You won't be able to put it down once you get going
—— Daily MailA rollicking fantasy
—— Horse and HoundI loved it
—— Rosie BoycottSit back and enjoy the ride as the queen of the bonkbuster, Jilly Cooper, delivers another fabulously entertaining saga
—— Good HousekeepingSharp, funny and touching
—— Times Literary SupplementThe Spoiler - set in the halcyon days before phone hacking - was one of the funniest and sharpest fleet street novels in years.
—— David Robson , Sunday Telegraph SevenMcAfee - herself a former journalist - evokes two distinct eras and styles of journalism, that of fearless frontline reportage and that of its successor: style-oriented, celebrity-obsessed features coverage... This is a pacy read that leaves little doubt in the reader's mind that one school of journalism deserves more mourning than the other
—— Alex Clark , GuardianMarvellous satire...the novel is cunningly plotted and satisfyingly nuanced
—— Independent on SundayIf the peek into the world of newspaper journalism afforded by the Leveson inquiry has you gasping for more, then this timely paperback release is perfect...a fiendishly funny (and frighteningly plausible) world of fiddled expenses and suspect tactics
—— ShortlistThoroughly enjoyable behind-the-scenes expose of an ambitious celebrity journalist's attempt to nail the scoop of her life
—— MetroThis is the paperback edition. The hardback appeared before the News Corporation bosses were dragged into the Commons. McAfee was either very prescient or close to the action, holding her fictional hacks to account for printing false stories gleaned from disreputable sources
—— Julia Fernandez , Time Out