Books to get in mood for Christmas

Reading lists

Books to get you in the mood for Christmas

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Interviews

The Penguin Podcast: episode 5 – crime and mystery recommendations with Kate Atkinson 

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10 fascinating books about time travel

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Long books that are worth every minute of reading

Where to start reading Kate Atkinson books

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Where to start with Kate Atkinson

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Extracts

Jackson Brodie is back: exclusive extract from Big Sky by Kate Atkinson

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Clock-stopping books about time travel

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Features

Jackson Brodie the maverick

Death at the Sign of the Rook

How delicious to have Jackson Brodie back, this time in a story that starts off in Agatha Christie's world but soon becomes a landscape that could only have been crafted from the pen of the incomparable Kate Atkinson.

Inventive, funny, gripping, lovely to be back with Jackson Brodie - I loved it!

Kate Mosse, number one bestselling author of The Ghost Ship

Delicious character studies . . . fine writing, wit, originality and eccentricity – even as it induces a warm glow

Sharp, droll and knowing as ever, Atkinson has huge fun with the set-up; the supporting cast is terrific, and the rueful Brodie, ever more mindful of the passing years, feels like an old friend.

Christie would be proud . . . This stands alone as a crime novel, but it is better enjoyed having read the previous books in the Brodie series. And why wouldn’t you – they are all a delight. I defy you not to snort with laughter as the novel progresses to its farcical denouement. Atkinson is brilliant.

Superior writing and a highly entertaining read.

[A] delirious crime caper . . . Atkinson has tremendous fun manoeuvring her motley cast together for a climactic murder mystery weekend

Another brilliant addition to her impressive oeuvre, Atkinson masterfully blends intricate plotting with rich character development, delivering a mystery that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally engaging

The set-up is a delight, paying homage to traditional Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries . . . the characters are well-drawn, their stories unfolding alongside each other until gradually the strands unite, keeping the reader guessing how they will ultimately tie together . . . A great read.

A testament to Atkinson's versatility and mastery of the crime genre . . . pays a heartfelt homage to the golden age of detective fiction while offering a fresh, invigorating take on the classic murder mystery . . . a captivating escape into a world where every puzzle piece fits seamlessly into a perfectly choreographed mystery.

Atkinson brings to life an eccentric cast, leading them through a series of calamities and coincidences to help Jackson uncover the mystery

Few do literary thrillers quite as well as Atkinson

KATE ATKINSON is one of the world’s foremost novelists. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Life After Life, an acclaimed BBC TV series, won several prizes including the Costa Novel Award, as did A God in Ruins. Two further historical novels – Transcription and Shrines of Gaiety - were also Sunday Times bestsellers. She has published two critically acclaimed collections of short stories: Not the End of the World and Normal Rules Don’t Apply. 
 
Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog, became a BBC television series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie later returned in the novel Big Sky and the most recent, Death at the Sign of the Rook, was a number one bestseller. 
 
Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in 2011 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 
 
For information about Kate’s books, including her Jackson Brodie series, visit www.kateatkinson.co.uk

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
THE NEW JACKSON BRODIE NOVEL, FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SHRINES OF GAIETY 
 
'How delicious to have Jackson Brodie back, this time in a story that starts off in Agatha Christie's world but soon becomes a landscape that could only have been crafted from the pen of the incomparable Kate Atkinson' Ian Rankin 
 
'Christie would be proud . . . I defy you not to snort with laughter as the novel progresses to its farcical denouement. Atkinson is brilliant' Observer 
 
*****Welcome to Rook Hall. 
 
The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed. 
 
Ex-detective Jackson Brodie is staving off a bad case of midlife malaise when he is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town, and the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. 
 
But one theft leads to another, including the disappearance of a valuable Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to Lady Milton and her family. 
 
Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace has now partially been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends. 
 
As paying guests, a vicar, an ex-army officer, impecunious aristocrats, and old friends converge, we are treated a fiendishly clever mystery; one that pays homage to the masters of the genre—from Agatha Christie to Dorothy Sayers. 
 
Brilliantly inventive, with all of Atkinson’s signature wit, wordplay and narrative brio, Death at the Sign of the Rook may be Jackson Brodie’s most outrageous and memorable case yet. 
 
**** 
 
'Sharp, droll and knowing as ever, Atkinson has huge fun with the set-up; the supporting cast is terrific, and the rueful Brodie, ever more mindful of the passing years, feels like an old friend.' Guardian 
 
‘Delicious character studies… fine writing, wit, originality and eccentricity – even as it induces a warm glow’ Telegraph 
 
'Another brilliant addition to her impressive oeuvre, Atkinson masterfully blends intricate plotting with rich character development, delivering a mystery that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally engaging.’ Glamour 
 
‘The set-up is a delight, paying homage to traditional Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries – the characters are well-drawn, their stories unfolding alongside each other until gradually the strands unite, keeping the reader guessing how they will ultimately tie together. A great read.’ PA Media 
 
‘Superior writing...a highly entertaining read’ Grazia 
 
 
Kate Atkinson, Sunday Times bestseller, August 2024

(Jackson Brodie)

Case Histories

Jackson Brodie is a private investigator, originally from Yorkshire. A former soldier and policeman he now makes his money working from investigating infidelity and finding missing cats. Jackson's tough-guy exterior belies a deeply empathetic heart. He's unable to resist coming to the rescue and increasingly he becomes a magnet for the bereaved, the lost and the dysfunctional. His ability to connect comes from his own tragic childhood that still haunts him. 
 
Jackson Brodie has appeared in four of Kate Atkinson's novels. Each can be read in isolation but are best enjoyed in order of publication: Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, Started Early, Took My Dog.

The first Jackson Brodie novel: literary crime from the prizewinning, number-one bestselling author of Big Sky and Transcription. 
 
'An astonishingly complex and moving literary detective story that made me sob but also snort with laughter. It's the sort of novel you have to start rereading the minute you've finished it' Guardian 
 
Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - Lost on the left, Found on the right - and the two never seem to balance. 
 
Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragedy, Jackson attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realise that in spite of apparent diversity, everything is connected... 
 
 
Kate Atkinson, Sunday Times bestseller, September 2024

One Good Turn

KATE ATKINSON is one of the world’s foremost novelists. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Life After Life, an acclaimed BBC TV series, won several prizes including the Costa Novel Award, as did A God in Ruins. Two further historical novels – Transcription and Shrines of Gaiety - were also Sunday Times bestsellers. She has published two critically acclaimed collections of short stories: Not the End of the World and Normal Rules Don’t Apply. 
 
Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog, became a BBC television series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie later returned in the novel Big Sky and the most recent, Death at the Sign of the Rook, was a number one bestseller. 
 
Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in 2011 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 
 
For information about Kate’s books, including her Jackson Brodie series, visit www.kateatkinson.co.uk

The second Jackson Brodie novel (after Case Histories): literary crime from the prizewinning, number-one bestselling author of Big Sky and Transcription. 
 
'An absolute joy to read...the pleasure of One Good Turn lies in the ride, in Atkinson's wry, unvanquished characters, her swooping, savvy, sarcastic prose and authorial joie de vivre' Guardian 
 
It is summer, it is the Edinburgh Festival. People queuing for a lunchtime show witness a road-rage incident - a near-homicidal attack which changes the lives of everyone involved. Jackson Brodie, ex-army, ex-police, ex-private detective, is also an innocent bystander - until he becomes a murder suspect. 
 
As the body count mounts, each member of the teeming Dickensian cast's story contains a kernel of the next, like a set of nesting Russian dolls. They are all looking for love or money or redemption or escape: but what each actually discovers is their own true self.

When Will There Be Good News?

The third Jackson Brodie novel, winner of Richard &amp; Judy's Best Read: literary crime from the number-one bestselling author of Big Sky and Transcription. 
 
'An exhilarating read. Her wry humour, sharp eye for the quirks of human behaviour and subtle characterisation are a constant joy' Daily Mail 
 
In a quiet corner of rural Devon, a six-year-old girl witnesses an appalling crime. Thirty years later the man convicted of the crime is released from prison. 
 
In Edinburgh, sixteen-year-old Reggie, wise beyond her years, works as a nanny for a G.P. But her employer has disappeared with her baby, and Reggie seems to be the only person who is worried. Across town, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe is also looking for a missing person, unaware that hurtling towards her is a former acquaintance – Jackson Brodie – himself on a journey that becomes fatally interrupted.

Started Early, Took My Dog

The fourth Jackson Brodie novel: literary crime from the prizewinning number-one bestselling author of Big Sky and Transcription. 
 
'Crime has given Atkinson the freedom to write an ambitious, panoramic work, full of excitement, colour and compassion' Sunday Times 
 
A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a shocking impulse purchase. That one moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy's humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn. 
 
Witnesses to Tracy's outrageous exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an elderly actress teetering on the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie, who has returned to his home county in search of someone else's roots. All three characters learn that the past is never history and that no good deed goes unpunished.

Big Sky

The number 1 Sunday Times bestseller (Jackson Brodie 5)

'The stand-out read of the summer. It's a masterclass in brilliant writing and whether you've read the earlier books in the series or not, you'll enjoy it.' Independent 
 
'Like all good detectives, he is a hero for men and women alike.' The Times 
 
'Laced with Atkinson's sharp, dry humour, and one of the joys of the Brodie novels has always been that they are so funny.' Observer 
 
Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village in North Yorkshire, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son Nathan and ageing Labrador Dido, both at the discretion of his former partner Julia. It's a picturesque setting, but there's something darker lurking behind the scenes. 
 
Jackson's current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, seems straightforward, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into a sinister network-and back into the path of someone from his past. Old secrets and new lies intersect in this breathtaking new literary crime novel, both sharply funny and achingly sad, by one of the most dazzling and surprising writers at work today. 
_________ 
 
What readers are saying: 
 
***** 'A glorious tapestry of storytelling.' 
***** 'An intelligently written, gripping book with characters you fall in love with.' 
***** 'Sheer genius, with the characteristic thread of humour.' 
 
 
Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller, March 2024

Normal Rules Don't Apply

What really binds these stories is their underlying theme, which has perhaps always been Atkinson’s true subject: the nature of storytelling itself. She can be very funny, but she is highly serious about the idea that human existence is bound up with words… If you’re thinking about what fiction means, no invocation could be more thought-provoking or ironically complex

What joy! A loosely connected collection of short stories from Kate Atkinson. Life in all of its surreal, tragic and comic glory is perfectly captured within these pages.

Sublime … showcases her superb storytelling and the wit of her writing

All kinds of stories are inside these tales – fairy stories, creation myths, fantasy, Bible stories, tabloid headlines, soaps, movies and crime. Atkinson’s sly humour percolates all the way through, but there’s also humanity, hope and forgiveness... The simplicity of the short story form belies the book’s multi-layered approach. As soon as you get to the end, you’ll be tempted to just start at the beginning again to see the nuances you missed first time round, and tease out the threads that run between each tale.

Hilarious, breathtaking, horrific, irresistible ... [Atkinson is] always in command ... Heart in mouth, I never wanted this book to end

Atkinson has the happy knack of capturing the nature of her characters with arch aplomb

Dazzling ... Most striking of all is the abiding sense of infectious, slightly bonkers fun.

A deftly interconnected short-story collection [that is] varied and inventive

Here you will find lots of tricks, lots of playfulness, clever narrative engineering.

Clever... a crossword-like exercise in which the reader is always left guessing which element of each story will carry into the next. Much of the delight in Normal Rules Don't Apply comes from being surprised by who lands where.

Atkinson's sly humour percolates all the way through, but there's also humanity, hope and forgiveness... As soon as you get to the end, you'll be tempted to just start at the beginning again.

Funny and poignant in equal measure, you’ll want to read this captivating collection in one mystical sitting.

Fans of Atkinson will find all of her trademark qualities in these eleven loosely connected stories... rather brilliant

Scintillating, surrealistic and wise-cracking short stories from the wildly inventive Atkinson brain

The short form has always liberated Atkinson to meddle in myth and magic, and here she melds the fabular and the mundane as the universe blinks, the sun winks out, and those in the open are levelled in a “new Pompeii”... Atkinson has the control and charm to do with fiction whatever she fancies.

Mashes up the mythical and mundane with zest and mischief

Discover the fantastical Sunday Times bestselling short story collection from the award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life. 
 
'Simply one of the best writers working today, anywhere in the world' Gillian Flynn 
 
‘As soon as you get to the end, you’ll be tempted to just start at the beginning’ Independent 
 
‘Funny and poignant in equal measure, you’ll want to read this captivating collection in one mystical sitting.’ Daily Express 
 
 
Welcome to a world, where nothing is quite what it seems… 
In these pages, you’ll meet, among others, a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep, a secretary who watches over the life she has just left, and a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him. 
 
With clockwork intricacy, inventiveness and sharp social observation, Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination in a constantly changing multiverse. 
 
Atkinson’s first short story collection in twenty years, Normal Rules Don't Apply is a dazzling array of eleven interconnected tales. 
 
____________ 
 
‘Hilarious, breathtaking, horrific, irresistible ... [Atkinson is] always in command ... Heart in mouth, I never wanted this book to end’ Sydney Morning Herald 
 
‘Sublime … showcases her superb storytelling and the wit of her writing’ Good Housekeeping 
 
‘Life in all of its surreal, tragic and comic glory is perfectly captured within these pages’ Red 
 
‘Dazzling’ Reader's Digest 
 
Praise for Kate Atkinson: 
 
'Inexhaustibly ingenious' HILARY MANTEL 
 
'A brilliant and profoundly original writer' RACHEL CUSK 
 
'Atkinson is a novelist of unrivalled immediacy, authority, and skill' FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
'One of the country's most innovative, exciting and intelligent authors.' SCOTSMAN

Shrines of Gaiety

From the incomparable author of LIFE AFTER LIFE and DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK, a story of nightclub owners and socialites, gangsters and dancing girls set in 1920s Soho. 
 
'Seduction, betrayal, and larger-than-life characters that will have you hooked until the last page' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
 
Atkinson on her finest form. A marvel of plate-spinning narrative knowhow, a peak performance of consummate control.' OBSERVER 
 
'Brilliant' RICHARD OSMAN 
____ 
 
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. 
 
At the heart of this glittering world is notorious Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie's empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho's gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost. 
 
With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson brings together a glittering cast of characters in a truly mesmeric novel that captures the uncertainty and mutability of life; of a world in which nothing is quite as it seems. 
_____ 
 
'This is the perfect novel for uncertain times.' THE TIMES 
 
'I can think of few writers other than Dickens who can match it' SUNDAY TIMES 
'Kate Atkinson is simply one of the best writers working today, anywhere in the world' GILLIAN FLYNN 
 
'This book is one to savour, for the energy, for the wit, for the tenderness of characterisation that make Atkinson enduringly popular' GUARDIAN 
 
'As vividly filthy, populous, dangerous as anything described by Dickens, but writing is closer to Thackeray's...Atkinson is a novelist of unrivalled immediacy, authority, and skill.' FINANCIAL TIMES

A heady brew of crime, romance and satire set amid the sordid glitz of London nightlife in the 1920s . . . Shrines of Gaiety sees Atkinson on her finest form . . . A marvel of plate-spinning narrative knowhow . . . a peak performance of consummate control.

Sharp, witty and fiendishly plotted ... you don't so much as read it as surrender to it

Seduction, betrayal and larger-than-life characters that will have you hooked until the last page.

Kate Atkinson is on deliciously acerbic form in Shrines of Gaiety ... exposing the underbelly of London nightlife in the roaring 20s

Atkinson has a plotter's mind: intricate, clever, satisfying. Shrines of Gaiety is all about life's tangled lines, intersections and synchronicities...The kind of fine-tuned observation that can produce an enormous, vibrant cast is quite something and I can think of few writers other than Dickens who can match it. Shrines of Gaiety is engrossing and fun, powered by subtle skills.

This book is one to savour, for the energy, for the wit, for the tenderness of characterisation that make Atkinson enduringly popular.

As vividly filthy, populous, dangerous as anything described by Dickens, but writing is closer to Thackeray's... Atkinson is a novelist of unrivalled immediacy, authority, and skill.

Kate Atkinson is simply one of the best writers working today, anywhere in the world...she's a global treasure... [Shrines] is set during Jazz Age London, in all its fizzy madness and desperation for the new, the better, the hustle. Atkinson has a magician's ability to switch a reader's mood within a few paragraphs, and as dark as her stories can get, within them always shines a beacon of humanity.

Atkinson is a thoughtful writer with an astute understanding of 20th-century social history. This is the perfect novel for uncertain times, when comfort of a particularly English and nostalgic stripe is required.

A rich cast of characters, an elegantly intricate plot - this is classic Atkinson.

Atkinson has a tremendous gift for bringing the past to life but wearing her research lightly. With charismatic characters, witty dialogue and a compelling plot, she captures the reckless atmosphere of a city still coming to terms with the horrors of the First World War. It's an absorbing read and a novel to savour.

Dickensian, yes, but infused with a playful knowingness that's pure Atkinson.

A deliciously immersive novel full of deftly drawn characters.

This part-literary, part-thriller novel showcases a host of glittering characters...Full of dry wit and charm...if you loved Peaky Blinders, you'll love this.

Exuberant, immersive storytelling featuring intrigue and betrayal is matched with wit and tenderness

With charistmatic characters, witty dialogue, and a compelling plot, she captures the reckless atmosphere of a city still coming to terms with the horrors of the First World War. It's an absorbing read and a novel to savour.

DAILY EXPRESS, 'Fiction Highlights of 2022'

Atkinson captures both the glamour and the seediness of this heady period with consummate skill in a book teeming with memorable characters. Gorgeously vivid, often strange and always very funny, it should cement her reputation as one of our finest novelists.

If Dickens had lived to write about The Jazz Age, he would have produced a novel much like Kate Atkinson's "Shrines of Gaiety"... masterful.

There is the perfect balance throughout of sweetness and heartbreak. And, as always, there is the unmistakable zest of Ms. Atkinson's dry wit.

Combines the colour of a historical drama with the pace of a thriller and the detail of a police procedural... masterful.

The novel grabs the reader from the outset. It paints a picture of the capital's glittering nightlife and its seedier underside so vivid, that it is almost possible to smell the stale cigarette smoke and taste the alcohol... the story of Nellie and her family, and the characters they associate with, builds to a satisfying ending as the strands of their lives are deftly woven together.

Magnificent. A rich and vivid portrayal of sly, brilliant characters in the nightlife of 20s London. I fell in love with them all, even the villains ... I loved every minute.

Froths with all-night parties, corrupt policemen, sickly cocktails, swanky cars, gossip columnists, gambling dens and beautiful clothes... Ms Atkinson once again proves herself to be a consummate entertainer.

Atkinson's latest fictional treat is packed with intrigue... one can never underestimate the pleasurable power of [her] ability to stud her narrative with humor

The latest novel from an author who never lets you down

Kate Atkinson is one of the world's foremost novelists. She won the Costa Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her three critically lauded and prize-winning novels set around the Second World War are Life After Life, now an acclaimed BBC TV series starring Thomasin McKenzie, A God in Ruins (both winners of the Costa Novel Award) and Transcription. Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog, became a BBC television series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie later returned in the novel Big Sky. Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in 2011 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

From the incomparable author of LIFE AFTER LIFE and DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK, a story of nightclub owners and socialites, gangsters and dancing girls set in 1920s Soho. 
 
'Seduction, betrayal, and larger-than-life characters that will have you hooked until the last page' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 
 
Atkinson on her finest form. A marvel of plate-spinning narrative knowhow, a peak performance of consummate control.' OBSERVER 
 
'Brilliant' RICHARD OSMAN 
____ 
 
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. 
 
At the heart of this glittering world is notorious Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie's empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho's gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost. 
 
With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson brings together a glittering cast of characters in a truly mesmeric novel that captures the uncertainty and mutability of life; of a world in which nothing is quite as it seems. 
_____ 
 
'This is the perfect novel for uncertain times.' THE TIMES 
 
'I can think of few writers other than Dickens who can match it' SUNDAY TIMES 
'Kate Atkinson is simply one of the best writers working today, anywhere in the world' GILLIAN FLYNN 
 
'This book is one to savour, for the energy, for the wit, for the tenderness of characterisation that make Atkinson enduringly popular' GUARDIAN 
 
'As vividly filthy, populous, dangerous as anything described by Dickens, but writing is closer to Thackeray's...Atkinson is a novelist of unrivalled immediacy, authority, and skill.' FINANCIAL TIMES

Not The End Of The World

A stunning collection of short stories by the  three-times Costa prizewinner and number one bestseller winner Kate Atkinson.

Exceptional...Sharp, witty and completely compelling

I can think of few writers who can make the ordinary collide with the extraordinary to such beguiling effect...left me so fizzing with admiration

An exceptionally funny, quirky and bold writer

Moving and funny, and crammed with incidental wisdom

Inventive and moving, these are truly tales for the new millennium

Kate Atkinson is one of the world’s foremost novelists. She won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her three critically lauded and prizewinning novels set around World War II are Life After Life, A God in Ruins (both winners of the Costa Novel Award), and Transcription. She has also written five bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, the latest of which is Big Sky. 
 
Kate Atkinson was appointed MBE for services to literature in 2011.

I can think of few writers who can make the ordinary collide with the extraordinary to such beguiling effect...left me so fizzing with admiration' Observer 
 
A stunning collection of short stories by the three-times Costa prizewinner 
 
Not the End of the World is Kate Atkinson's first collection of short stories. Playful and profound, they explore the world we think we know whilst offering a vision of another world which lurks just beneath the surface of our consciousness, a world where the myths we have banished from our lives are startlingly present and where imagination has the power to transform reality. 
 
From Charlene and Trudi, obsessively making lists while bombs explode softly in the streets outside, to gormless Eddie, maniacal cataloguer of fish, and Meredith Zane who may just have discovered the secret to eternal life, each of these stories shows that when the worlds of material existence and imagination collide, anything is possible.

Human Croquet

The brilliant and profound second novel from the three-times Costa prizewinner and number one bestseller Kate Atkinson.

Vivid, richly imaginative, hilarious and frightening by turns

Huge, exhilarating, loving and detailed eruption of a novel...an utterly intoxicating display of novelistic elan...big and joyous, literary and accessible...storytelling at its buoyant best

Wonderfully eloquent and forceful Kate Atkinson goes at the same pace in her second novel as she did in her first...welcome back, wild north-easter...brilliant and engrossing

Vivid and intriguing...fizzles and crackles along...a tour de force

Part ghost story, part murder mystery, this is an exquisitely written, literary novel that reads as compellingly as any thriller

A stunner of a second novel...a gutsy book, wrenched from the heart and written with tremendous force, immersing you in its strange, eccentric world

The quirky imagination, subversive humour and instinct for domestic chaos that Atkinson displayed in her first novel...are rampantly evident again

Kate Atkinson is one of the world’s foremost novelists. She won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum: Human Croquet was her second novel. Her three critically lauded and prizewinning novels set around World War II are Life After Life, A God in Ruins (both winners of the Costa Novel Award), and Transcription. She has also written five bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, the latest of which is Big Sky. 
 
Kate Atkinson was appointed MBE for services to literature in 2011.

The brilliant and profound second novel from the three-times Costa prizewinner and number one bestseller Kate Atkinson. 
 
'Vivid, richly imaginative, hilarious and frightening by turns' Observer 
 
Once it had been the great forest of Lythe. And here, in the beginning, lived the Fairfaxes, grandly, at Fairfax Manor. 
 
But over the centuries the forest had been destroyed, replaced by Streets of Trees. The Fairfaxes have dwindled too; now they live in 'Arden' at the end of Hawthorne Close and are hardly a family at all. 
 
But Isobel Fairfax, who drops into pockets of time and out again, knows about the past. She is sixteen and waiting for the return of her mother - the thin, dangerous Eliza with her scent of nicotine, Arpège and sex, whose disappearance is part of the mystery that still remains at the heart of the forest.

Emotionally Weird

The hilarious third novel by the number one bestselling author of Life After Life &ndash; the ultimate 1970s campus novel.

The lustre, energy and panache of her writing are as striking as ever...Funny, bold and memorable

Beautifully written...brimming with quirky characters and original storytelling. Kate Atkinson has struck gold with this unique offering

Sends jolts of pleasure off the page...Atkinson's funniest foray yet...it is a work of Dickensian or even Shakespearean plenty

A truly comic novel - achingly funny in parts - challenging and executed with wit and mischief...hilarious and magical

Her novels are remarkable both in and of themselves, and as evidence of an important emerging body of work from a brilliant and profoundly original writer

With just two novels, Atkinson has added new colour to the British literary landscape

From the NUMBER 1 bestselling author of LIFE AFTER LIFE, SHRINES OF GAIETY and NORMAL RULES DON'T APPLY 
 
On a peat and heather island off the west coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother Nora take refuge in the large mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories. 
 
Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear, like who her father was - variously Jimmy, Jack, or Ernie. Effie tells of her life at college in Dundee, where she lives in a lethargic relationship with Bob, a student who never goes to lectures, seldom gets out of bed, and to whom the Klingons are as real as the French and the Germans (more real than the Luxemburgers). 
 
But strange things are happening. Why is Effie being followed? Why is everyone writing novels? Is someone killing the old people? And where is the mysterious yellow dog? 
 
'Sends jolts of pleasure off the page...Kate Atkinson's funniest foray yet...it is a work of Dickensian or even Shakespearean plenty' SCOTSMAN 
 
'A brilliant and profoundly original writer' DAILY TELEGRAPH

Behind The Scenes At The Museum

The unforgettable prizewinning debut novel

To celebrate the 25th anniversary since first publication, a new edition of Kate Atkinson’s brilliant and unforgettable first novel with an introduction by the author.

Delivers its jokes and its tragedies as efficiently as Dickens...outrageously funny on almost every page...will dazzle readers for years to come.

A debut novel of astonishing confidence and skill...Acutely observant, overflowing with good jokes, it is the work of an author who loves her characters and sets them playing with gleeful energy

An astounding book...without doubt one of the finest novels I have read for years

Little short of a masterpiece...Fizzing with wit and energy, Kate Atkinson's hilarious novel made me laugh and cry

A blinding debut from a Yorkshire mother-of-two who could be Alan Bennett's baby sister...straight-up simplicity veils the depth, poignancy and poetry of her story

A first novel written so fluently and wittily that I sailed through it as though blown by an exhilarating wind; a first novel with a touch so light I only felt its truth and sadness after I'd finished it. It lifted my spirits enormously. I loved it.

Enchanting. It hops with sprightly omniscence from past to future and back again

A really gripping, emotionally satisfying family saga written with warmth and wit. I've re-read it countless times.

The unforgettable, award-winning debut novel and modern classic from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Life After Life and Shrines of Gaiety. 
 
'Delivers its jokes and its tragedies as efficiently as Dickens...outrageously funny...will dazzle readers for years to come' - HILARY MANTEL, bestselling author of Wolf Hall 
 
Ruby Lennox was conceived grudgingly by Bunty and born while her father, George, was in the Dog and Hare in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress and a D-cup that he wasn't married. 
 
Bunty had never wanted to marry George, but here she was, stuck in a flat above the pet shop in an ancient street beneath York Minster, with her children - sensible and sardonic Patricia aged five, greedy cross-patch Gillian who refused to be ignored, and Ruby... 
 
In Behind the Scenes at the Museum, young Ruby tells the story of ‘The Family’, from the end of the nineteenth century when a travelling French photographer catches frail beautiful Alice and her children, to the startling, witty, and memorable events of Ruby's own life. 
 
Praise for Behind the Scenes at the Museum, winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year: 
 
'An astounding book...without doubt one of the finest novels I have read for years' The Times 
 
'Little short of a masterpiece...Fizzing with wit and energy, Kate Atkinson's hilarious novel made me laugh and cry' Daily Mail 
 
‘A really gripping, emotionally satisfying family saga written with warmth and wit. I've re-read it countless times.’ Red 
 
‘A debut novel of astonishing confidence and skill...Acutely observant, overflowing with good jokes, it is the work of an author who loves her characters and sets them playing with gleeful energy’ Spectator 
 
‘Written so fluently and wittily that I sailed through it as though blown by an exhilarating wind… It lifted my spirits enormously. I loved it.’ Margaret Forster

The global bestseller, now a major BBC series

Life After Life

WINNER OF THE 2013 COSTA NOVEL AWARD: the  acclaimed number one bestselling novel about a woman who lives her life over and over again through the most turbulent events of the 20th century, including the London Blitz.

The PRIZE-WINNING BESTSELLER, now a major BBC1 DRAMA SERIES starring Thomasin McKenzie, Sian Clifford and James McArdle, directed by BAFTA award-winning John Crowley. 
 
'Dazzling, witty, moving, joyful, mournful, profound... one of the best novels I've read this century' Gillian Flynn, bestselling author of GONE GIRL 
 
'A box of delights ... it grips the reader's imagination on the first page and never lets go.' HILARY MANTEL, author of THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT 
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What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? 
 
During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. 
 
During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale. 
 
What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to? 
 
Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life's bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves. 
 
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'Merging family saga with a fluid sense of time and an extraordinarily vivid sense of history at its most human level. A dizzying and dazzling tour de force' Daily Mail 
 
'Absolutely brilliant...it reminded me a bit of her first book Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which is one of my most favourite books ever.' Marian Keyes, author of Rachel, Again 
 
'An exceptional writer' Guardian 
 
'[A] magnificently tender and humane novel' Observer 
 
'A ferociously clever writer...a big, bold novel that is enthralling, entertaining' New Statesman 
 
'Exceptionally captivating' New York Times 
 
'Truly brilliant...Think of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife or David Nicholl's One Day.. a rare book that you want to start again the minute you have finished.' The Times

Kate Atkinson’s new novel is a box of delights. Ingenious in construction, indefatigably entertaining, it grips the reader’s imagination on the first page and never lets go. If you wish to be moved and astonished, read it. And if you want to give a dazzling present, buy it for your friends.

There aren't enough breathless adjectives to describe Life After Life: Dazzling, witty, moving, joyful, mournful, profound. Wildly inventive, deeply felt. Hilarious. Humane. Simply put: it's ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS I'VE READ THIS CENTURY.

Gillian Flynn, no1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl and Sharp Objects

Truly brilliant...Think of Audrey Niffenegger's The TimeTraveler's Wife or David Nicholl's One Day...[or] Martin Amis's Times Arrow...This is a rare book that you want, Ursula-like, to start again the minute you have finished.

Absolutely brilliant...it reminded me a bit of her first book Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which is one of my most favourite books ever.

What makes Atkinson an exceptional writer...is that she does so with an emotional delicacy and understanding that transcend experiment or playfulness. Life After Life gives us a heroine whose fictional underpinning is permanently exposed, whose artificial status is never in doubt; and yet one who feels painfully, horribly real to us.

Merging family saga with a fluid sense of  time and an extraordinarily vivid sense of history at its most human level. A dizzying and dazzling tour de force.

Deliriously inventive, sharply imagined and ultimately affecting...Atkinson has written something that amounts to so much more than the sum of its (very many) parts. It almost seems to imply that there are new and mysterious things to feel and say about the nature of life and death, the passing of time, fate and possibility.. . [a]magnificently tender and humane novel.

Brilliant...more than just a terrific story about the impact of one existence on another. Atkinson can knock the socks off any rival in terms of skill and style...The tour de force of the book, though, is Atkinson's recreation of the Blitz...unputdownable

Stunned with tiredness thanks to Kate Atkinson's LIFE AFTER LIFE. Couldn't stop reading. Terrific novel, may be her best yet. So enthralling, so well written, so beautifully constructed. Really, I can't fault it. Will be one of my books of the year.

World events, reimagined characters and second chances told with warmth, wit and consummate skill.

Life After Life is to be applauded for its inventiveness, and for reminding us of lives vanished without trace or memory in the waste and monstrosity of war.

Atkinson, like Audrey Niffenegger before her with the similarly ambitious The Time Traveller's Wife, is a confident enough writer to bear her high concept along well above water level

Atkinson's great skill is in portraying the exquisite tapestry of [life] with warmth, humour and immense humanity.

one of the most innovative, pacy plots of any recent novel

There aren't enough breathless adjectives to describe Life After Life: Dazzling, witty, moving, joyful, mournful, profound. Wildly inventive, deeply felt. Hilarious. Humane. 
Simply put: it's ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS I'VE READ THIS CENTURY.

Gillian Flynn,no1 New York Times author of Gone Girl, and Sharp Objects

Truly brilliant...Think of Audrey Niffenegger's The TimeTraveler's Wife or David Nicholl's One Day...[or] Martin Amis's Times Arrow, his rewinding of the Holocaust that was shortlisted for the Booker. Life After Life should have the popular success of the former and deserves to win prizes, too. It has that kind of thrill to it, of an already much-loved novelist taking a leap, and breaking through to the next level...This is a rare book that you want, Ursula-like, to start again the minute you have finished.

What makes Atkinson an exceptional writer – and this is her most ambitious and most gripping work to date – is that she does so with an emotional delicacy and understanding that transcend experiment or playfulness. Life After Life gives us a heroine whose fictional underpinning is permanently exposed, whose artificial status is never in doubt; and yet one who feels painfully, horribly real to us.

Deliriously inventive, sharply imagined and ultimately affecting...The scenes set in Blitz-stricken London will stay with me forever...Atkinson has written something that amounts to so much more than the sum of its (very many) parts. It almost seems to imply that there are new and mysterious things to feel and say about the nature of life and death, the passing of time, fate and possibility.. . [a]magnificently tender and humane novel.

Transcription

The magnificent new novel by the bestselling and award-winning Kate Atkinson: 'Masterpiece' - Telegraph; 'Pageturner' - Evening Standard; 'Wise, funny and paced like a thriller' - Observer

No other contemporary novelist has such supreme mastery of that sweet spot between high and low, literary and compulsively readable as Kate Atkinson. I look forward to a new Atkinson book like I look forward to Christmas…what lends the novel enchantment is that patented Atkinson double whammy: gravity and levity. Tragedy and comedy as so skilfully entwined that you find yourself snorting with mirth…brimming with dark wit that reminds you how deeply satisfying good fiction can be.

Transcription stands alongside its immediate predecessors as a fine example of Kate Atkinson's mature work, an unapologetic novel of ideas which is also wise, funny and paced like a thriller.

Kate Atkinson is a wonderful writer. I want to write like her when I grow up. Transcription shows she's at the peak of her powers. Full of beautiful, delicate, sharp sentences and characterisations. A spy novel that dismantles the whole genre. A class act, as ever.

Superb...Transcription is the sort of book that reminds you how profound and satisfying and moving and exhilarating good fiction can be. It’s the best novel I’ve read all year. I can’t praise it enough.

Never loses its sense of absurdity of human beings even in their most tragic or noble moments...How vehemently most novelists will wish to produce a masterpiece as good.

On a graph plotting the literary qualities versus saleability of contemporary British novelists, Kate Atkinson would surely occupy the highest point where the two meet...There are plenty of twists and turns in this terrific page-turner, some shocking moments, and a narrator whom the author encourages us to love.

Atkinson handles her mazy, Le Carre-style plot with complete authority. But there’s a lot more to the novel than its page-turning thrills. The increasingly sceptical Juliet makes for a very appealing heroine and the darker material is interspersed with some neat comedy. Above all, Atkinson recreates the atmosphere of both wartime and post-war London with utter conviction.

[A] superb story of wartime espionage...Hilary Mantel once said of Atkinson's ground-breaking first novel that she had a "game-plan more sophisticated than Dickens", and that skill is more than evident in this latest offering...remarkable...Transcription is a fine course in the art of deception. The sheer bravura of Atkinson's storytelling is such that you will find it impossible not to want to revisit those clues so cleverly placed, as you shake your head in disbelief at how effortlessly you have been taken in.

A new Kate Atkinson novel is always a reason to rejoice and Transcription was everything I was hoping for and more…The truly surprising denouement makes for one of the best conclusions of a novel I’ve ever read.I immediately wanted to read it all over again.

Kate Atkinson’s fluid identity as a novelist has long marked her out as one of Britain’s most interesting – and often underrated – writers…the playful always stands shoulder to shoulder with the painful, the grandiose with the grubby…Atkinson’s depiction of espionage and counter-espionage on the Home Front is nimble and convincing…But there is an immensely serious book here too, waiting in the wings to reveal itself on the very last pages; a book that asks us to question the entertainment we’ve just gobbled up, and to reckon with what lies beneath it.

A treat - cerebral and suspenseful, playful and empathetic.

This is a novel about identity in which no one and nothing is exactly as they seem - a spy novel, in short... Terms such as "postmodern" and "metafiction" seem far too heavy for novels as enjoyable as Atkinson's, but from Behind the Scenes onwards she has been chipping away at the fourth wall, and mischievously drawing attention to her craft. What elevates her fiction above mere playfulness is the emotional integrity of her characters... Atkinson always puts on a damn good show.

A triumph...inventive, atmospheric and witty.

Full of intrigue...sublimely suspenseful - droll,devious and deadly, beautifully serious.

In Transcription, Kate Atkinson recasts the bildungsroman within the fertile genre of the spy thriller… …As the plot of this accomplished novel hurtles towards its astonishing denouement, even the canniest reader may feel wrong-footed.

I loved Kate Atkinson's Transcription - you don't know if it's farce about spies, or a spy story about farce.

This intricate and captivating novel is a treat. Our advice? Cancel your plans and get lost in its pages.

Intricate, compelling, unpredictable…a gripping spy story …filled with the mystery, humour, and Britishness we have come to expect.

Murky, mysterious and with double bluffs,divided loyalties and untrustworthy narratives aplenty, Atkinson explores the nature of truth in this vibrant piece of historical fiction.

Atkinson’s poker-faced narration perfectly serves a twisty tale of innocence lost amid a fog of geopolitical double-dealing, framed with a deadly tragedy.

Glorious... beautiful and smart and everything you have ever loved about Kate Atkinson.

Totally gripping and extremely funny, with an excellent joke on practically every page...There won't be a better or more enjoyable book published this year.

The magnificent novel by bestselling and award-winning Kate Atkinson: 'A masterpiece' - Telegraph; 'Pageturner' - Evening Standard; 'Wise, funny and paced like a thriller' Observer 
 
In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever. 
 
Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence. 
 
Transcription is a work of rare depth and texture, a bravura modern novel of extraordinary power, wit and empathy. It is a triumphant work of fiction from one of this country’s most exceptional writers. 
 
'How vehemently most novelists will wish to produce a masterpiece as good' Telegraph 
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A God in Ruins

Costa Novel Award Winner 2015

WINNER OF THE 2015 COSTA NOVEL AWARD AND BESTSELLING LITERARY PAPERBACK OF 2016: NOW INCLUDING AN EXCLUSIVE SAMPLE FROM KATE ATKINSON'S NEW NOVEL TRANSCRIPTION.

Triumphant...such a dazzling read...Atkinson gives Teddy's wartime experiences the full treatment in a series of thrilling set pieces. Even more impressive,though, is her ability to invest the more everday events with a similar grandeur...almost as innovative as Atkinson's technique in Life After Life - a possibly more authentic as an expression of how it feels to be alive...it ends on one of the most devastating twists in recent fiction...it adds a further level of overwhelming poignancy to an already extraordinarily affecting book.

There are glimpses of Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong and Ian McEwan's Atonement...But most poignantly, this is a sweeping, all-consuming novel that finds its way into your bloodstream and writes off your Sunday afternoon...truly extraordinary.

Engrossing...convincing and moving...I doubt that Atkinson's readers will be disappointed.

Subtly fine new novel…Ms Atkinson’s artistry…is marvellously delicate and varied…devastating.

This book is particularly lovely and melancholy...one of those writers that really can make you weep on one page and laugh on the next... She just has such a vast humanity for her characters.

Heartbreaking...an ambitious, sensitive and beautifully written novel by one of our most gifted storytellers.

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