An illustration of a television on a yellow and blue background with a rubber ring and a man checking his phone

Reality20TV20Fans-Main201800x1200.jpg

Reading lists

The best books for reality TV obsessives

Writing advice: Tips from those who've learned the hard way

Main-Writing-Tips-1800×1200201.jpg

Features

Writing tips from our bestselling authors

Kill ’Em All

The long-awaited sequel to Kill Your Friends.

A banging action satirical thriller. But it’s also a proper novel about the Trumpian era, of the reality TV era, the fake news era. It’s managed to say a lot of things in a way that very few other novels are doing and in a very comedic way.

John Niven understands our era better than almost anyone.

The off-colour banter, hellbent on causing offence to all and sundry, masks an unimpeachable commitment to social justice … [A] full-throttle send up of toxic masculinity … Niven at full tilt is always something to behold.

‘A bruising triumph; Amis’ Money for the Trump generation. What a monster he’s created.’

‘Savagely, viciously witty, this frantic hymn to greed is filthy, frenetic and totally fabulous.’

‘Brace yourself for another expletive-strewn adventure … Niven pulls no punches … Ingeniously plotted ... A scabrously entertaining satire of what it is like to be rich and white in the land of the free ... There is a twisted poetry in Niven’s mastery of invective … The payoff is absolutely priceless.’

‘Niven is still able to deliver his foul-mouthed, inventive zingers with gusto, and Stelfox is a fittingly amoral hero for the age of Trump.’

A brilliant depiction of the mind of a sociopath. Be warned: this is edgy.

John Niven was born in Irvine, Ayrshire. He is the author of ten novels and has written for a wide range of publications, including a weekly column for the Scottish Sunday Mail. He lives in Buckinghamshire.

_____________________ 
 
The long-awaited sequel to KILL YOUR FRIENDS 
 
A Guardian Book of the Year 2018 
 
It is 2017 – the time of Trump, Brexit and fake news. And time for the return of Steven Stelfox, former A&amp;R man who made his millions from a hit reality TV show. 
 
Now Stelfox works occasionally as a music industry ‘consultant’. A fixer. He’s had a call from his old friend James Trellick, president of one of the largest record companies in America. Trellick has a huge problem on his hands in the shape of... 
 
Lucius Du Pre. Once the biggest pop star on earth. Now he’s a helpless junkie, a prolific sexual predator, and massively in debt to Trellick’s record company. And the picture only gets bleaker when the parents of one of Du Pre’s ‘special friends’ begin blackmailing him. 
 
Enter Stelfox stage right. He’s the perfect man to find a way out of this nightmare, and to make a killing in the process. There’s no line he won’t cross. 
_____________________ 
 
‘A banging action satirical thriller. But it’s also a proper novel about the Trumpian era, of the reality TV era, the fake news era. It’s managed to say a lot of things in a way that very few other novels are doing and in a very comedic way’ IRVINE WELSH 
 
'A bruising triumph; Amis' MONEY for the Trump generation. What a monster he's created' IAN RANKIN 
 
‘John Niven understands our era better than almost anyone’ DOUGLAS COUPLAND 
 
‘A scabrously entertaining satire of what it is like to be rich and white in the land of the free if you are utterly depraved, “where money doesn’t just talk, or swear, it nukes”. … There is a twisted poetry in Niven’s mastery of invective’ THE TIMES 
 
‘Savagely, viciously witty, this frantic hymn to greed is filthy, frenetic and totally fabulous’ SUNDAY MIRROR 
 
‘A full-throttle send up of toxic masculinity … Niven at full tilt is always something to behold.’METRO

No Good Deed

The long-awaited new novel by John Niven, bestselling author of Kill Your Friends and Straight White Male.

‘He’s a funny writer, John Niven. Not funny peculiar: funny ha ha. Properly funny, in a scabrous and scatological sort of way, and in his latest book he doesn’t disappoint. It’s a big, comic tableau, painted in bright, broad shades with plenty of splatter marks … Niven makes sentences beautifully – which, in whatever genre you are writing, is what matters most – and this novel clips along as enjoyably as all his others … There are two John Nivens in this novel. One provides the broad farce … But the other supplies something that’s closer to Nick Hornby territory … Niven is particularly good on how easy it is to resent our friends, how charity can be covertly aggressive, and how psychological power dynamics don’t really shift from our teenage years … There’s a poignancy here ... Always worth reading. He’s a writer – or two – who still has a lot more in the tank.’

Underneath the scabrous wit, the raucous brio, the bracing rudeness, Niven is genuinely, brilliantly warm and funny and wise about men and women and the things they do to one another and themselves. This is his best novel yet.

No Good Deed is about the fall that waits one floor down for every male member of the chattering classes. Charles Dickens with a good strong dollop of Martin Amis and Quentin Tarantino – vintage Niven. Loved it.

Niven is a master at probing dark, uncomfortable areas of the male psyche that most novelists – indeed, most men – would rather not have to deal with.

Snort-in-public comic excellence … One darkly humorous episode after another … The fact that I had such a visceral reaction to this book is testament to Niven’s great skill as a writer. He is a master of probing the dark, uncomfortable areas of the male psyche that most novelists – and indeed, most men – would rather not have to deal with … No Good Deed always feels rooted in the real world, even in its most outrageously improbable moments.

[A] riotous black comedy … A deliciously readable morality tale about social climbing, this bursts with off-colour gags and satire of middle-class lifestyles.

John Niven is surely the most rollickingly outrageous novelist of his generation …emotionally satisfying, entertaining, dazzlingly written.

***Now available for preorder: KILL 'EM ALL, the stunning sequel to KILL YOUR FRIENDS*** 
 
The viciously funny novel by John Niven, bestselling author of Kill Your Friends and Straight White Male. 
 
What do you do when a homeless man knows your name? 
 
How about when he turns out to be a friend you haven’t seen in twenty years? 
 
Do you treat him to a hot meal and see him on his way? 
Give him a wad of middle-class guilt money? 
Or take him in and get him back on his feet? 
 
For Alan, there’s no question – only natural that he’d want to see his old mate Craig off the streets, even if only for a few nights, and into some clean clothes. 
 
But what if the successful life you’ve made for yourself – good job, happy marriage, lovely kids, grand Victorian house (you did well out of the property boom, thank you very much) – is one that that your old pal would quite like to have too? 
 
Even if it means taking it from you? 
 
Following the divergent lives of two childhood friends, No Good Deed is a funny and painful examination of friendship, the strange currents of ambition, loathing, pity and affection that flow between people over the decades, and of men getting older as they fail and succeed.

The Sunshine Cruise Company

The side-splittingly funny and razor-sharp new novel from John Niven, author of Kill Your Friends and Straight White Male.

A hearty bloodstained handshake, then, for John Niven’s The Sunshine Cruise Company ... sparky, unfussy writing; a fast-moving plot; and, most notably, an ability to be thoroughly outspoken about matters sexual and scatological whilst retaining a surprising degree of empathy for the human trials of his characters …Engaging, utterly accessible and boundary-bending

The fun is considerable…a caper…it may well be the funniest thing you’ll read this year.

John Niven manages the trick of being both profane and humane.

Fast-moving, acerbic, occasionally tasteless but never dull, this will delight anyone who thinks old people get a raw deal…A great comic romp with deft touches.

The wild man of literature… [The Sunshine Cruise Company is] Fast and furious and, characteristically, brutal in places.

[I was] hooked by this tale of rampaging women growing old disgracefully…An enjoyable romp spiced up by the author’s sharp and perceptive eye.

Featuring the greatest female duo since Thelma and Louise, John Niven’s novel is a total gem.

This is a bawdy, gaudy, rock ‘n’ roll spree of a book. The first chapter reads like a Radio 4 afternoon play, but we’re soon off and running (or should I say lurching?), burping, boozing, cursing and carousing our way through the high jinks. It’s as filthy as a weekend in Clacton-on-Sea, with the requisite pain and loss hidden just beneath the bedsheets.

A rollicking road caper…hugely enjoyable.

A broad tongue-in-cheek comedy that rattles along.

A hysterically funny book…and [it] combines the humour with a tight, gripping plot.

This is a high-speed comedic chase novel which shows women entering their later years misbehaving in the most fantastic way…The Sunshine Cruise Company enthusiastically smashes stereotypes of women heading into retirement and it’s a funny fast-paced thriller.

Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham are turning sixty. Susan has just discovered that her recently deceased husband was not only a swinger but had run up a fortune in debts in pursuing his extravagant double life. Julie's not faring better: living in a council house and working in an old people's home, she's desperate for excitement. 
 
When the bank threatens to take Susan's beloved home to clear the debt, the women seek the help of an octogenarian gangster named Nails. Rather than let the bank take everything Susan has, they're going to take the bank. With the help of Nails and a thrill-crazy, wheelchair-bound friend they pull off the daring robbery, and discover that getting away with it is not so easy and that the adventure is only just beginning.

Cold Hands

From the author of the highly-acclaimed KILL YOUR FRIENDS, a terrifying, evocative and gut-wrenching thriller

Perhaps the most cleverly constructed and incendiary thriller I've ever read. The great books in this genre take you on an emotional roller-coaster, but the best, like this one, also have you trampling through a moral minefield.

Niven is a deft writer who pumps unease like gas into the space between what Donnie was and what he has become…[a] gripping piece of work.

[Niven has] a depth and empathy for his characters that few modern thrillers can match…The pace, dialogue and narrative voice are all pitch-perfect, and the flashback scenes of Donnie’s childhood are frighteningly realistic. Niven proves himself expert at creating a sense of foreboding, and when all Donnie’s worst fears come to pass, the author clearly uses his own experience as an occasional screenwriter to ramp up the tension to almost unbearable levels. A thriller that delivers on every level, Cold Hands is a fantastic change of style and pace for Niven.

A heart-racing page-turner of redemption and retribution... The book's twists and turns come to a cinematic, savage climax and it seems destined to join John's other books and be bought up for the big screen.

Cold Hands is certainly one of the year’s smartest thrillers, as well as its most blood-soaked.

Deeply, intelligently satirical… Niven provides hilarious, perceptive entertainment

An intense, breath-taking read... a tense thriller designed to keep the reader turning the pages long after bedtime; at its core, a character who does not necessarily deserve our sympathies, but who receives them nonetheless... Cold Hands is John Niven’s first foray into crime/thriller territory (hence the addition of the middle initial), and shows a writer who is more than up to the task... From its slow beginnings to its violent and blood-spattered conclusion, Cold Hands is a good old-fashioned thriller. With a handful of twists designed to keep the reader on their toes, Niven’s first thriller is an intense and gripping examination of one man’s determination to protect his family from a past he has long forgotten. This is thriller writing at its best, and John J. Niven is definitely one to watch in a genre that can, at times, suffer from saturation of offerings.

A gut-wrenching debut...This thriller announces the arrival of a tremendous new talent...It drives the breath from your body with its pace, suspense and enveloping horror...Terrifying and mysterious. Superbly told and achingly sad, this book grabs your heart strings and threatens to tear them out.

Niven’s debut on the thriller scene is ridiculously, disturbingly compelling.

Well-written, tense and with some very nasty images, this isn’t Niven’s first book…, but it is his first thriller, and…a good one.

Brilliantly written, Cold Hands is that rarest of things – a gripping thriller with real depth. An intense, exhilarating adrenaline rush, I found myself staying up all night to finish it in one sitting. Wonderful.

You thought you could leave the past behind. 
 
Think again. 
 
 
Donnie Miller counts himself lucky. Living in a beautiful, spacious house in the wild and remote landscape of central Canada, he spends his days writing for the local newspaper, working on a film script, and acting as house-husband. After a troubled and impoverished upbringing in Scotland, he now has all he wants: a caring wife, a bright and happy son, a generous father-in-law. As the brutal northern winter begins to bite, he can sit back and enjoy life. 
 
But his peace is soon broken. There are noises in the nearby woods, signs of some mysterious watcher. When the family dog disappears, Donnie makes a horrifying discovery. Is it wolves, as the police suspect, or something far more dangerous, far darker? What secrets has Donnie been keeping? And why does he have the terrible sense that his dream was never going to last? 
 
A taut, shocking and visceral novel that will leave you gasping for breath, Cold Hands is the first thriller by the remarkable John Niven.

The Second Coming

The Son of God is back on Earth and starring on American Pop Star...

Believe me, this book is going to cause one almighty stink...Deeply, intelligently satirical. In lesser hands it could easily have become a crass rant. Yet Niven provides hilarious, perceptive entertainment...Only the truly ignorant will take offence. But then they usually do

An entertaining novel...In the midst of it all, there is compassion, and insight into the way the impulse for truth can lead to dark acts indeed... Bloody funny

Consistently entertaining...Behind all the curses and the gags, orthodoxy reigns in Niven's MTV-style gospel as Jesus battles oppression, hypocrisy and the satanic forces of Simon Cowell - sorry, "Steven Stelfox". Consistently funny and smart...Trendy vicars might even consider distributing it after their Easter sermons

John Niven tore the music industry apart with his coruscating debut novel and now he's back again, along with Kill Your Friends obscene anti-hero Steven Stelfox, to get stuck into religion and celebrity culture... the story rattles along at a breakneck speed, delivering wonderful abuse at all and sundry

A humorous, quirky take on what Jesus would do, think and be if he was on Earth today

God takes a look at the Earth around the time of the Renaissance and everything looks pretty good – so he takes a holiday. In Heaven-time this is just a week’s fishing trip, but on Earth several hundred years go by. When God returns, he finds all hell has broken loose: world wars, holocausts, famine, capitalism and ‘fucking Christians everywhere’. There’s only one thing for it. They’re sending the kid back. 
 
JC, reborn, is a struggling musician in New York City, trying to teach the one true commandment: Be Nice! His best chance to win hearts and minds is to enter American Pop Star. But the number one show in America is the unholy creation of a record executive who’s more than a match for the Son of God ... Steven Stelfox.

Straight White Male

Another brilliant comic satire, but Niven's most accessible yet.

Straight White Male is a heartbreaker; a poignant literary treatise on the all-too-mortal battle between human individual desire and social need, disguised as a high-octane novel of laddish excess.

There's nothing faster, sadder or funnier than John Niven on men. I cried three times and laughed fifty. Magnificent.

John Niven has much, much more fun with Kennedy’s drinking, fornicating, fighting, time-wasting antics than with his putative rehabilitation, and the reader does, too. We can’t help rooting for Kennedy, a seducer but never a misogynist; a charmer who rushes at life with zest and brio … Straight White Male is a sharp and knowing satire of the film industry, publishing and academia ... Thoroughly enjoyable.

It takes confidence to write a book critiquing books and writers, with a central character who’s abundantly free with his views, but Niven shouldn’t be underestimated…The tone here is authentic … Funny and angry, for sure, yet also thought and humane … Straight White Male is strong indeed.

Straight White Male is in some ways a return to the coruscating satirical landscape of Niven’s debut, yet blended with a maturity and emotional depth that will have the reader shedding a tear as well as laughing in guilty outrage …[Niven] creates a truly moving examination of male midlife crisis, and what it means to be a son, a father, a husband and all the rest. Hilarious and heartfelt in equal measure, this is another candidate for novel of the year.

With Straight White Male John Niven takes humour to another level …Cleverly combining side-splitting humour and unexpected poignancy Niven’s assessment of the excesses of the male psyche is one of the best things I have read in a long time … Straight White Male had me laughing, crying, cringing and blushing all at once.

Uproariously funny, this brims with black comedy, but has an incredibly moving story of redemption.

John Niven is probably the most exciting British writer working today and Straight White Male is addictive, biting, scathing, hilarious and true. I wish I'd never read it so I could read it all again.

The most loveable rogue since John Self in Money. Funny as hell and moving.

Deliciously hyperbolic, obscenely funny, unexpectedly affecting. Niven never, ever, pulls a punch.

The prose is quick, with a distant narrative voice controlling the multiple characters with such assurance that it becomes a character in itself. There are some car-crash scenes that fans of Niven’s work will be familiar with, but he carefully balances farce with emotive drama, and as Marr begins to plummet towards rock bottom, he’s left to deal with consequences that prove no one can have everything ... For pure entertainment it’s a triumph.

It’s an incredible piece of satire, this time about the Hollywood film industry, with a protagonist easily as vile as ‘Kill your Friends’’ Stelfox … Niven created a full-on flesh-and-blood, multilayered, breathing and growing character with depth to his soul that he himself needs to uncover in equally funny and agonising steps, sucked in by his contempt and debauchery, only to find himself struggling to dig his way out of the mire of consequences and heartbreak …. Straight White Male is a novel that has ripped right through me.

[A] page-turning satire that’s a masterclass in plate-spinning comic timing.

Straight White Male revisits the familiar Niven world … but this time with a more mature edge – this is a novel about family, growing up, and even love – and a smart assault on academia and the nature of literature … It’s as though Martin Amis decided after Money that being entertaining as well as smart was the way to go … Most fun.

If such a thing as the anti-Hilary Mantel exists in British literature, Niven is probably it. All his stories are madcap cavalcades of disorder, violence, vomit, sex, cocaine, moral turpitude, waste matter and money …Straight White Male is more measured than its predecessors, but only in the sense that Eraserhead is more measured than Cannibal Holocaust … At no point in Straight White Male do you get bored… A kinder, gentler Niven wouldn’t be much use to anybody…Its wordview is dodgy, its execution is brutalist, and it’s much funnier than it has any right to be.

[Kennedy] is a wonderfully appalling anti-hero, in the mould of Martin Amis’s John Self, but also acquires an increasingly prominent and moving backstory as the novel progresses. Fizzing with energy and full of laughs.

belly laughs and some surprising tenderness.

There seems to be a number of books out recently about middle-aged men’s neurosis … but this book is far away and the best I’ve read on this topic.  It’s hilarious … This book is funny and brilliant as it attacks the literary and film world.  Don’t miss it.

tack-sharp dialogue and [an] enviable turn of phrase…This book will make readers cry with both laughter and sadness.  It’s not for the faint of heart, but man, what a yarn.

Niven really does capture the pretensions of lit-scenes outside the London loop extraordinarily well … [There is] a sense of elegy and complication that stays with you long after the final page.

Straight White Male is a horrid little book in lots of ways, a bleary squint into the squalid world of a deeply rancid person. Its worldview is dodgy, its execution is brutalist, and it’s much funnier than it has any right to be.

John Niven’s debut, 2008’s Kill Your Friends, eviscerated the music business, and the hedonistic depths plumbed by its protagonist, the A&amp;R man Steven Stelfox, enough to cause a mortified blush in even the brassiest reader. While maintaining the key essence of that debut – a groove of exhilarating outrageousness that never lets up – Niven’s latest is a more mature work…Niven’s plotting is deft and precise…Straight White Male is caustic and poignant, yet consistently, addictively funny…Clever and joyous, this deserves to do even better than Niven’s bestselling debut.

[S]harply written ... a seriously funny book ... the writing ... is so buzzy and fresh it’s still wet on the page.

A hugely entertaining and surprisingly moving book.

The novel is as much comic as tragic…Hilarious…The gimlet-eyed descriptions of celebrity life are impossible to read without smirking…[Niven] can provoke tears of sorrow as well as laughter. . . The complexity and inexplicability of love is a serious subject but, thanks to Niven’s talent, the manopause (sic) has never been such fun.

[O]ne of my favourite reads of the year … Funny, irreverent, touching and well-written, this is definitely recommended.

Kennedy Marr is a novelist from the old school. Irish, acerbic, and a borderline alcoholic and sex-addict, his mantra is drink hard, write hard and try to screw every woman you meet. 
 
He’s writing film scripts in LA, fucking, drinking and insulting his way through Californian society, but also suffering from writers block and unpaid taxes. Then a solution presents itself – Marr is to be the unlikely recipient of the W. F. Bingham Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Modern Literature, an award worth half a million pounds. But it does not come without a price: he must spend a year teaching at the English university where his ex-wife and estranged daughter now reside. 
 
As Kennedy acclimatises to the sleepy campus, inspiring revulsion and worship in equal measure, he’s forced to reconsider his precarious lifestyle. Incredible as it may seem, there might actually be a father and a teacher lurking inside this ‘preening, narcissistic, priapic, sociopath’. Or is there… 
 
Straight White Male is a no-holds-barred look into the mid-life crisis and the contemporary male sexual psyche. It is a brilliant new satire from one of Britain’s sharpest writers.

Kill Your Friends

A scabrous, darkly humourous satire of the music industry, by a former A&amp;R man.

Magnificently eloquent...A vicious, black-hearted howl of a book... Cripplingly funny

Brilliant. It made me ill with laughter. The filthiest, blackest, most shocking, most hilarious debut novel I've read in years

Might well be the best British novel since Trainspotting

An all-out assault, a withering, scabrous attack on every part of the filthy machine... Stelfox is a creation of unparalleled awfulness, chronically sexist, racist and everything else-ist. He is funny, too... You laugh though you know you shouldn't

Niven's insider knowledge, coupled with the kind of headlong, febrile prose that would have Hunter S. Thompson happily emptying both barrels into the sky, results in a novel that is cripplingly funny

Wonderfully nasty...Extraordinarily vicious, deeply cynical and thoroughly depraved, but it's also bed-wettingly funny... American Psycho meets Spinal Tap... except more evil, more shocking and much, much funnier

A rollicking tale of record company excess...Hysterical...Niven worked in the UK music industry for 10 years and his insider knowledge pays off...This is truly an account of a lost era, a brilliant description of the last decadent blow-out.

The fickle music industry is ripe for satire and here former record-label man Niven creates a compelling and hilarious portrait.

Dark, twisted...and also laugh-out-loud funny

Everyone knows someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop or Radio One’s back catalogue. So if you’re fed up of second-guessing which albums are missing from their collection, but want a more personal gift than just another iTunes voucher, try John Niven’s satirical look at the music industry. Recently adapted for film, this is a hard and fast story based within the cutthroat music industry. Give this book as a gift and you’re sure to have any muso singing your praises.

***Now available to buy: KILL 'EM ALL, the stunning sequel to KILL YOUR FRIENDS*** 
 
Meet Steven Stelfox. 
 
London 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power and Britpop is at its zenith. A&amp;R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine, searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification. 
 
But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cut throat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.

The Amateurs

From the author of Kill Your Friends comes a tale of infidelity, contract killing and ... golf.

Believe it or not, this novel makes golf look interesting.  Trust me.  This is a writer who could wring laughs out of pretty well anything... Hilarious

Screamingly funny...beneath the rough surface of effing and blinding lies a surprisingly sweet story of family, friendship and romance....uproarious entertainment...Unlike the amateurs in his plot, Niven's prose is executed with the comic timing of a pro. He gets the golf right, and just about everything else too

A novel about golf that is not only hilarious, but gripping, sexy, violent and outrageous...Niven combines his increasingly bizarre plots, and some shocking behaviour, with considerable skill and, of course, large helpings of humour

A story so completely filmic you will yell 'it's Gregory's Girl meets Local Hero with weapons-grade swearing!' while still sat in your armchair. Brilliantly funny too

Niven is a very funny writer and the pace and colourful characters recall the dizzying daftness of early Carl Hiaasen

The most riotously funny writing on golf, sex and violence since the police report on a certain golfer's marital dispute

GARY is a sweet and decent man. Only two things would improve his life - having children with his gorgeous wife Pauline, and a lower golf handicap. Both are unlikely. 
 
PAULINE is wondering how she ended up living in an ugly little house, driving a second-hand car and making a living dressing up as Tinkerbell. She's planning to leave Gary for a self-made carpet millionaire. 
 
FINDLAY, the Carpet King of Scotland, wants to trade in his obese wife for a younger model. But if he goes for a divorce she'll take him to the cleaners. If only there was some way she could be made to disappear... 
 
LEE, Gary's luckless brother, has botched one too many drug deals. Local crime overlord Ranta Campbell gives him one more job - one last chance to get it right. Lee's done some bad things - but murder? 
 
When Gary gets smashed on the head by a golf ball and miraculously develops an absolutely perfect swing, everyone finds their fates rest on the final day of the Open Championship...

John Niven

Gripping, terrifying and hilarious – John Niven is our Hunter S. Thompson.

Terrifying and brilliant and gripping and tragic and humane ... it becomes progressively more tense … This should be mandatory reading for every U.S. citizen … Such a well-written book, with such vivid efficient prose, a powerful political plea disguised as a revenge novel. It’s brilliant.

Loved it. A ferocious revenge story which also manages to be sweetly uplifting. A book Donald Trump would call f*cking nasty.

[The F*ck-it List] took me by surprise – a thriller with humanity as well as tension.

Of course, of course, John Niven does it again. It is impossible to read him without laughing out loud one second, and feeling guiltily exhilarated the next. His perfectly observed writing has taken us to many dark places over the years, but this may be the darkest yet: an America of the very-near future, whose stifling horrors he conjours all-too-believably. Niven is a writer of wicked humour and outrageous charm – but he is a profoundly moral writer, too. And while this is a brilliantly observed revenge story, it’s also a terrifyingly unsettling satire of a world just around the corner. Its warnings will stay with me as long as its wit.

Hilarious and horrifying in equal measure ... [A] compulsive revenge thriller ... Niven vividly portrays the terror of a world where children are encouraged to take guns to school and protesters get so badly beaten it’s a wonder they bother. Mind-blowingly brilliant.

This road trip through America of 2026, with Ivanka Trump now president, niftily combines a case study of one life wrecked by her father (who reverses legal abortion) with a satirical speculative survey of his legacy, for minimal gun control to a cowed media, migrant detention gulags to wars with Iran and North Korea. And, as fans of Niven’s music-biz novel Kill Your Friends will expect, his anger-powered prose is not short of bite and verve.

[T]he book is masterfully controlled and highly entertaining, with surprising elements of serious reflection on ageing, regret, and mortality. Think Elmore Leonard, only politicised

The most excoriating, shocking thing I have ready about Trump’s America

John Niven’s latest acerbic novel offers a short, sharp dose of misery and hopelessness – a glimpse into a near-future America that will shock to the core […] It is a shocking book on so many levels, but most of all because it is scarily easy to imagine some of it playing out in reality.

I absolutely loved this book. I read it in two sittings, it would have been one but I started late at night and I couldn't keep my eyes open! […] I'm giving this book 5 out of 5 stars. The writing is just brilliant and makes me want to read everything else John Niven has written.

Nobody does cutting satire quite like John Niven. For years he has been the spiky in-your-face voice of Britain's Generation-X

Just the right side of absurd, it's a compelling and bloody page-turner

John Niven's The F*ck it List has a similar setup to the film Falling Down, but with a dodgy president running a dodgier US at its core. It's sharp, funny and unlikely to see its author invited to many Republican golf tourneys.

An utterly addictive revenge novel.

An utterly addictive revenge novel [...] The heartbreak and hilarity ratchet up simultaneously

[Niven] writes with all the savage, righteous energy needed to carry us along with it.

Is this the most shocking thriller of the year?

_____________________________ 
'Hilarious' ADAM KAY 
'Mind-blowingly brilliant' DAILY MAIL 
'Highly entertaining' EVENING STANDARD 
'Loved it' ROBERT WEBB 
_____________________________ 
Frank Brill, a retired small-town newspaper editor, has just been given a terminal diagnosis. 
 
Rather than compile a bucket list of all the things he's ever wanted to do in his life, he instead has at the ready his 'fuck-it list'. Because Frank has had to endure more than his fair share of personal misfortune, not to mention having to live through two terms of a Trump presidency. 
 
Armed with the names of all those who are to blame for the tragedies that have befallen him, it's time for revenge.

John Niven

Books by John Niven

Articles featuring John Niven

The best books for reality TV obsessives

Writing tips from our bestselling authors

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter