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Billy Childish

Born into the emerging middle classes of the 1950s, Billy Childish takes us on a nightmarish voyage through a childhood blighted by mental and sexual abuse. Stumbling onward into adolescence he lays bare a young man's desperate attempts to make sense of a world distorted by alcohol, bullies and yes men, This striking first novel, or 'creative confession', is at turns hilarious and harrowing. Laced with lindes of unforgettable poetry it is that rare and wonderful thing - a book which had to be written.

My Fault

Charles Bukowski

Henry Chinaski is a lowlife loser with a hand-to-mouth existence. His menial post office day job supports a life of beer, one-night stands and racetracks. Lurid, uncompromising and hilarious, Post Office is a landmark in American literature, and over 1 million copies have been sold worldwide. 
 
The new edition is augmented with an anecdotal introduction by the modern Welsh cult-literary author, Niall Griffiths - a writer who was working in a British post office when he first read Bukowski's Post Office.

Post Office

Charles Bukowski's brilliant, fantastical pastiche of a detective story. Packed with wit, invention and Bukowski's trademark lowlife adventures, it is the final novel of one of the most enjoyable and influential cult writers of the last century. 
 
Nicky Belane, private detective and career alcoholic, is a troubled man. He is plagued not just by broads, booze, lack of cash and a raging ego, but also by the surreal jobs he's been hired to do. Not only has been hired to track down French classical author Celine - who's meant to be dead - but he's also supposed to find the elusive Red Sparrow - which may or may not be real.

Pulp

A Novel

Spike Milligan

Murphy is Irish and poor. Even by the standards of the poorest of the poor in Ireland, Murphy is poor. 
Set sometime between the first and second World Wars, somewhere in Ireland and sometimes everywhere else besides - at one point Murphy is kidnapped by Irish aliens who take him in a spaceship to see St Patrick choose his National Lottery numbers - Murphy's story serves only to prove that the luck of the Irish is not bestowed upon all the sons of the nation. 
Unable to hold down his job on a building site he turns to robbery but is discovered trapped inside a suit of armour, almost drowns when he falls down a wishing well and catches a particularly revolting form of bronchitis whilst on religious retreat in a particularly revolting form of monastery.As you would expect, The Murphy is rude, irreverent and hugely funny. Classic, timeless Milligan.

The Murphy

Henry Chinaski, an outcast, a loner and a hopeless drunk, drifts around America from one dead-end job to another, from one woman to another and from one bottle to the next. Uncompromising, gritty, hilarious and confessional in turn, his downward spiral is peppered with black humour. 
 
Factotum follows Charles Bukowski's bestselling Post Office, his highly autobiographical first novel. Bukowski's Beat Generation writing reflects his slum upbringing, his succession of menial jobs and his experience of low life urban America. He died in 1994 and is widely acknowledged as one of the most distinctive writers of the last fifty years. 
 
Neeli Cherkovski was a close friend of Bukowski and is the author of Hank: The Life of Charles Bukowski (Random House, 1991)

Factotum

Laura Thornton

When Sasha comes across an old diary belonging to the late Lady Amelia Asher, the centuries-old manuscript transforms her life drastically. From the mundane and unappealing, Sasha finds herself erotically reawakened and she begins to push the boundaries of pleasure that she has never before experienced. 
 
Influenced by the diary’s tales of sexual exploits Sasha becomes more and more like the fervent Lady Amelia, but she is unaware that the passionate and powerful author is far from gone. Amelia’s ghostly presence lingers and Sasha’s climaxes become other-worldly…

Haunted

The latest in Spike's hilarious re-interpretations of classic works of literature, now available in paperback. This version of Robin Hood has Robin and his merry men when the King's deer manage to evade their arrows, dining out at McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and eating jam sandwiches, Nevertheless, they are still more than willing to do battle with Robin's arch enemy Sir Guy de Custard Gisborne. The fair Maid Marion, of course, is the object of much of Robin's attention, and his pursuit of the beautiful Marion leads him and his men into many adventures. Lucky for him that his band of outlaws inclu de the immensely strong Big Dick and immensely insolent Groucho Marx. Paying Scant regrd to any previous versions of this age old folk tale, Spike thunders through his riotous story like a runaway horse through Sherwood.

Robin Hood According to Spike Milligan

Sherlock Holmes and his trusty companion, Dr Watson, are working together once more to solve the mystery at Baskerville Hall. This time, however, there's something fishy about the hound, a woman cries in the night, Guiness and Newcastle Brown are taken intravenously and the Berlin Philharmonic keep running out of things to play...

The Hound Of The Baskervilles: According to Spike Milligan

In this last of Spike's hilarious reinterpretations of the classic works of litarature, all the familiar faces of Robert Louis Stevenson's original version appear: Squire Trelawney, Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver. But they are joined by Groucho Marx - and Long John's parrot plays a starring role. This rip-roaring adventure of the hunt for buried treasure unravels faster than Ben Gunn's pants, with plenty of laughs along the way. Rude and irreverent as ever, Spike's rendering of this classic tale is as chock-full of gems as Cap'n Flint's treasure chest.

Treasure Island According To Spike Milligan

Beginning in 1967, Bukowski wrote the column "Notes of A Dirty Old Man" for the underground newspaper Open City. Perennially drunk, broke and in search of a woman, Bukowski takes on the guise of a wise fool as he ventures through America's seedy lowlife. Peopled by Kerouac, Burroughs and other much less salubrious characters, his exploits provoke humour and despair, whilst highlighting the inherent beauty and futility of life.

Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Bob Powers

The Just Make a Choice Adventure Series is narrated by 'You', i.e. every ambivalent thirty-something on the planet. You want to make choices and define your life but what if you get it wrong? What if you can't go back and do it over again? 
 
In You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero the pretty girl you went out with last night has been kidnapped and you're expected to save her. Trouble is, what if saving her from the kidnappers will look like some sort of commitment? 
 
Luckily, every chapter offers you a variety of chances to save the girl, or to give up and run away. By making choices about the fate of Julia, you will also find yourself re-evaluating your life in a way you've been trying to avoid since leaving school. It's your story. All you have to do is make a choice!

You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero

A 'Just Make a Choice!' Adventure

Surfacing from the literary underground, Bukowski's wild and immortal stories have become cult favourites. This collection of anecdotal short stories demonstrates Bukowski's compelling semi-autobiographical style and his mastery of visceral language and the depiction of seamy underworlds. 
 
Focusing on themes that recur throughout his work, from Los Angeles and bar culture to alcoholism, gambling, sex and violence, these pieces also introduce unexpected elements of fantasy and surrealism.

The Most Beautiful Woman in Town

George R. R. Washington

‘There was a bloodied knife on Allbran’s bed. Lady Gateway Barker knew what she had to do; what all the royals in Summerseve did when somebody tried to kill a member of their family: gather up a bunch of people and horses, and go from one place to another.’ 
 
This is the hilarious parody of the George R. R. Martin bestseller A Game of Thrones.

A Game of Groans

Eric Sykes

Another tale from Grapplewick. The mayor is also chief of the fire brigade and bandmaster of the brass band. Into this world comes Terence, a crook fresh from jail. Commander Wilson Brown is determined to be the new mayor and he and the band are drawn into Terence's web of intrigue.

The Great Crime Of Grapplewick

Inspired by D.H. Lawrence, Chekhov and Hemingway, Bukowski's writing is passionate, extreme and has attracted a cult following, while his life was as weird and wild as the tales he wrote. This collection of short stories gives an insight into the dark, dangerous lowlife of Los Angeles that Bukowski inhabited. 
 
From prostitutes to classical music, Bukowski ingeniously mixes high and low culture in his 'tales of ordinary madness'. These are angry yet tender, humorous and haunting portrayals of life in the underbelly of Los Angeles.

Tales of Ordinary Madness

Robin Baker

Presumed dead, a group of undergraduate students who go missing on a deserted Pacific island emerge one year later in two groups of ragged (and naked) survivors. All but one of the surviving women have conceived, and two students, plus their professor, are said to have died. 
 
In the glare of the world's media, every survivor sticks to the same unconvincing version of events. Piece-by-piece the narrator examines the evidence and conducts interviews with the survivors, to work out exactly what happened on the island during that year. Slowly, a disturbing picture emerges of feral humans driven by rivalry and sexual tension ...a 'Lord of the Flies' scenario for adults that suspiciously seems to test the dead professor's theory that by nature people are no different from apes in the wild.

Primal

Robin Hunter

A thoughtful and civilised man shouldn't have to make this choice. 
 
Until the day his wife and children are gunned down by 
terrorists, Simon Quarry knows what kind of man he is. 
 
When the politicians and diplomats look the other way, he 
becomes a hunter, guided by rage as much as by the desire for 
justice. Wanted by the terrorists he's targeting as well as by the 
police he’s evading, Quarry's grief for his murdered family 
becomes the engine of his revenge. 
A revenge that exacts a heavy price.

The Fourth Angel

The universe is at risk and a message is sent to Earth - "UFOs are coming Wednesday". Is this a hoax, and if so who is the mysterious visitor to Norman Waterhouse's barber shop in Grapplewick, Lancashire?

Ufos Are Coming Wednesday

YOU CAN TAKE THE MAN OUT OF THE GUTTER, BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE THE GUTTER OUT OF THE MAN 
 
Low life writer and alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. Now, at the age of fifty, he is living the life of a rock star, running three hundred hangovers a year and a sex life that would cripple Casanova. Women is a riotous and uncompromisingly vivid account of life on the edge.

Women

Next was break me to harness. First, a stiff heavy collar on my neck. Then there was a bridle with great side-pieces called blinkers against my eyes. Then there was a small saddle strap that went under my tail: that was the crapper. I hated it, it stopped me having a crap. I never felt more like kicking so I kicked him in the goolies and they swelled up like melons. He had to put the harness on me while balancing his balls with one hand and could only move very slowly. In time I got used to everything (and he got used to swollen balls) and I could do my work as well as my mother. I used to wash up after dinner. Yes, I was a very good horse.

Black Beauty According to Spike Milligan

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