Author:Javier Marías

In these short, capricious and irreverent portraits of twenty-six great writers, from Joyce to Nabokov, Sterne to Wilde, Javier Marías, winner of the Dublin IMPAC prize and author of the bestselling A Heart So White, throws unexpected, and very human, light on authors too often enshrined in the halo of artistic sainthood. Revealing that Conrad actually hated sailing and Emily Brontë was so tough she was known as 'The Major', among many other stories of eccentricity, drunkenness and even murder, this joyful book uses unusual angles and peculiar details to illuminate writers' lives in a new way.
Javier Marías was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published ten novels, two collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into thirty-two languages and won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for A Heart So White. He is also a highly practised translator into Spanish of English authors, including Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Thomas Browne and Laurence Sterne. He has held academic posts in Spain, the United States and in Britain, as Lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University.
Accomplished, moving and unnerving, Sweet Home is a tour de force.
—— IndependentShades of Angela Carter colour Bray's title story while Fay Weldon and Jane Gardam are godmothers to Bray's fiction, bringing gifts of satire and observation that can prick and draw blood.
—— Guardian[Bray] explores parenthood, loss, childhood and belonging with razor-sharp prose, a killer eye for stop-you-in-your-tracks detail and a real understanding of the hidden cruelties and unexpectedly sharp comforts of family life
—— Jenn Ashworth, author of The Friday GospelsSuburbia in all its tarnished glory - Carys Bray teases at the cracks, and pulls at the loose threads dangling, in short stories that are funny sad and achingly true
—— Rob ShearmanA terrific emotional and atmospheric read
—— Elizabeth Buchan on 'The Tea Planter's Wife'Dinah Jefferies has once again created a gloriously atmospheric and tension-filled novel. Immensely enjoyable, poignant and compelling.
—— Isabel Wolff on 'The Tea Planter's Wife'My ideal read; mystery, love heart-break and joy - I couldn't put it down
—— Santa Montefiore on 'The Tea Planter's Wife'The ideal book...always wanting to know what happens next, together with the description of the period and characters, all make this a compelling read
—— Woman's WeeklyBeautifully atmospheric, with twists to keep you enthralled
—— My WeeklyLush and romantic, with an authentic feel of place and period, Jefferies should have another hit on her hands here
—— Sunday MirrorHistorical writing of wonderful intelligence
—— Kate Saunders , Saga MagazineClark expertly spins a story of people trying to work out who they are amid the wreckage of old social certainties. Acute and perceptive
—— Daily MailThe Magicians is a spellbinding, fast-moving, dark fantasy book for grownups that feels like an instant classic. I read it in a niffin-blue blaze of page turning, enthralled by Grossman's verbal and imaginative wizardry, his complex characters and most of all, his superb, brilliant inquiry into the wondrous, dangerous world of magic
—— Kate Christensen , author of The Epicure's Lament and The Great ManThe Magicians is Harry Potter as it might have been written by John Crowley...This is one of the best fantasies I've read in ages
—— Elizabeth Hand , Fantasy & Science FictionThe author has taken all that is held dear in the fantasy genre, reverently (most of the time) tipping the hat to Rowling, Tolkien, Lewis, Le Guin and others, and shown it from a completely different and unique angle
—— Fantasy Book Review...a gripping fantasy thriller that will please all the older Harry Potter fans out there
—— Yours MagazineSumell’s compulsively readable novel in stories introduces a restless underachiever as irresistible as he is detestable, surely one of the most morally, violently, socially complex personalities in recent literature…. Sumell’s debut is humbly macho, provoking outrage, pity, and finally tenderness. Perhaps this is a book readers will hate to love, but only because it feels, like Alby, all too real
—— BooklistThere's a special alchemy here that you are going to want to witness...offhand and funny, and then the tender heart emerges from the shadows, so tender, and comes at us with a knife. Every story here is two: one the fun, the other the blade
—— Ron CarlsonFocusing on the single reality that human beings die, Sumell wakes up, and boy oh boy is he ever pissed off... Sumell, on Alby's behalf, fights back, and he fights dirty. Using cunning, reckless rage, and bravura comic timing, he kicks death's ass... Bystanders get hurt, the reader got hurt, but at least I was reminded that I was part of this whole shitty deal. You'd like to believe that there are consolations, and there are. Being sentient, for example. Being able to read, for instance. Having read Making Nice
—— Geoffrey WolffThe self-destructive narrator lashes out with reckless intimacy, random violence, and an often hilarious misplaced rage that shoots to wound rather than kill. What saves its victims and the reader is a naked rendering of a heart sorting through its broken pieces to survive. The result is an eloquent empathy, an uplift of hope-filled grace
—— Mark RichardMaking Nice will grab you by the throat, raise your blood pressure, and cause you to chortle in a crowd. It will also break your heart. When they're writing the history of the best characters of our time, Alby will be there, telling the others to get in line
—— Matthew Thomas , author of We Are Not OurselvesMaking Nice is a little bit special. A truly original portrayal of grief
—— Benjamin Judge , Book MunchMaking Nice has an anarchic humour and a goofy, ingenuous humanity that makes every page feel new… Some jokes…aren’t just funny, they are insightful, unexpected and hilarious. In its rampage to nowhere, Making Nice achieves the remarkable feat of making it feel better to travel hopelessly than to arrive.
—— Sandra Newman , Guardian