Marina Lewycka

An idyll of the English countryside: a beautiful summer's evening in a Kent field, and around their two caravans a little group of strawberry pickers is getting ready to celebrate a birthday. But who picks our strawberries these days? The Ukrainians: Irina, just off the coach from Kiev, and eager to improve her excellent English and find true love with a romantic Englishman; Andriy, the miner's son from the other Ukraine; the Poles: Bob Dylan fan, Tomasz, (whose smelly trainers will soon punish those in the men's caravan), Yola, the petite, voluptuous gangmistress and her religious niece Marta, who finds the wild mushrooms to cook with the sliced loaf; then there is Vitaly, king of the new mobilfon world of the shiny new Eastern Europe; two Chinese girls; Emanuel, the round eyed eighteen-year-old from Malawi, come to England to look for his sister. and although he can't exactly help pick strawberries, there's also the Dog... But these are a group leading dangerous lives - exploitative employers, British regulations and gang masters with guns will all threaten their existence as they take to the caravan road until each of them peels off to find their destiny. Hilarious, gritty, moving, and slapstick by turns Two Caravans has every bit of the extraordinary distinctiveness and wit and heart that made A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian so successful.

Two Caravans

Most normal parents, you'd think, would be pleased to have a son not yet thirty and earning ninety grand a year. But not Doro and Marcus. They'd consider it the ultimate betrayal of his ideals, meaning their ideals, because Serge doesn't claim to have any ideals apart from a vague general sense of goodwill towards mankind. And womankind. Especially Maroushka. Marcus and Doro were part of a left wing commune from the late 1960s until the early 1990s- lentils, free love, spliffs, Left politics, cheesecloth blouses, sex, housework and cooking rotas, crochet, allotments. Their children have grown up rather different from them- primary schoolteacher Clara craves order and clean bathrooms, son Serge is pretending to his parents that he is still doing a Maths PhD at Cambridge, while in fact working making loadsamoney in the City; third child Oolie Anna, who has Downs Syndrome, is desperate to escape home and live on her own. Set half in Doncaster, half in London, this is a very funny riff on modern values, featuring hamsters, cockroaches, poodles, a Chicken and multiplying rabbits, told by Marina Lewycka in her unique and brilliant combination of irony, farce and wit.

Various Pets Alive and Dead

"North London in the twenty-first century- a place where a son will swiftly adopt an old lady and take her home from hospital to impersonate his dear departed mother, rather than lose the council flat. A time of golden job opportunities, though you might have to dress up as a coffee bean or work as an intern at an undertaker or put up with champagne and posh French dinners while your boss hits on you. A place rich in language - whether it's Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, Swahili or buxom housing officers talking managementese. A place where husbands go absent without leave and councillors sacrifice cherry orchards at the altar of new builds. "

The Lubetkin Legacy

Ali Smith

Inua Ellams

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Chris Cleave

David Herd

Patience Agbabi

Stephen Collis

Carol Watts

Dragan Todorovic

Jade Amoli-Jackson

Avaes Mohammed

Hubert Moore

Michael Zand

Two unaccompanied children travel across the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat that has been designed to only make it halfway across… A 63-year-old man is woken one morning by border officers ‘acting on a tip-off’ and, despite having paid taxes for 28 years, is suddenly cast into the detention system with no obvious means of escape… An orphan whose entire life has been spent in slavery – first on a Ghanaian farm, then as a victim of trafficking – writes to the Home Office for help, only to be rewarded with a jail sentence and indefinite detention… These are not fictions. Nor are they testimonies from some distant, brutal past, but the frighteningly common experiences of Europe’s new underclass – its refugees. While those with ‘citizenship’ enjoy basic human rights (like the right not to be detained without charge for more than 14 days), people seeking asylum can be suspended for years in Kafka-esque uncertainty. Here, poets and novelists retell the stories of individuals who have direct experience of Britain’s policy of indefinite immigration detention. Presenting their accounts anonymously, as modern day counterparts to the pilgrims’ stories in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, this book offers rare, intimate glimpses into otherwise untold suffering.

Refugee Tales

For years, Nadezhda and Vera, two Ukrainian sisters, raised in England by their refugee parents, have had as little as possible to do with each other - and they have their reasons. But now they find they'd better learn how to get along, because since their mother's death their aging father has been sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine, seems to think their father is much richer than he is, and she is keen that he leave this world with as little money to his name as possible. If Nadazhda and Vera don't stop her, no one will. But separating their addled and annoyingly lecherous dad from his new love will prove to be no easy feat - Valentina is a ruthless pro and the two sisters swiftly realize that they are mere amateurs when it comes to ruthlessness. As Hurricane Valentina turns the family house upside down, old secrets come falling out, including the most deeply buried one of them all, from the War, the one that explains much about why Nadazhda and Vera are so different. In the meantime, oblivious to it all, their father carries on with the great work of his dotage, a grand history of the tractor.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

Dave Eggers

Alexander McCall Smith

Francine Prose

Lloyd Jones

M. J. Hyland

Jane Smiley

D. B. C. Pierre

Sophie Cunningham

Fiona Kidman

From Lonely Planet, the world's leading travel guide publisher, Better Than Fiction 2, the follow-up to 2012's Better Than Fiction, is a second serving of true travel stories told by some of the world's best fiction writers including Dave Eggers, Jane Smiley and Karen Joy Fowler. Varied in place, plot and voice, these are stirring and evocative pieces that all share one common characteristic-they manifest a passion for the precious gift of travel, from its unexpected but inevitably enriching lessons about other peoples and places, to the truths, sometimes uncomfortable but always enlarging, it reveals about ourselves. By turns comic, dramatic, and moving - from Francine Prose's confrontation of the mysteries of India to DBC Pierre's search for Hemingway's muse in Italy - these 30 short tales reveal the joys, perils, and surprises of travel, and that truth can often be stranger (and better) than fiction. Whether on a plane en route to your own travel adventure, or at home settling in for a vicarious experience of world adventures, embark on this literary journey around the world and explore your passion for travel now! Authors: Lonely Planet, Don George, Dave Eggers, Jane Smiley, Karen Joy Fowler, Stefan Merrill Block, Francine Prose, DBC Pierre, Fiona Kidman, Alexander McCall Smith, Keija Parssinen, MJ Hyland, Catherine Lacey, Rebecca Dinerstein, Lloyd Jones, Porochista Khakpour, Jack Livings, Marina Lewycka, Lydia Millet, Suzanne Joinson, Sophie Cunningham, Christina Nichol, Mandy Sayer, Steven Amsterdam, Marie-Helene Bortino, Shirley Streshinsky, Steven Hall, David Shafer, Avi Duckor-Jones, Lily King, Aliya Whitely, and Natalie Baszile About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in. Lonely Planet's award-winning list travel literature anthologies include An Innocent Abroad (Independent Publishers Award, Silver for Essays, 2015) and A Fork in the Road (Lowell Thomas Award, Bronze for Travel Book, 2014; James Bear Award, Nominated for Travel Fiction, 2014). 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' -- Fairfax Media 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times Lonely Planet guides have won the TripAdvisor Traveler's Choice Award in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.

True Travel Tales from Great Fiction Writers

Better Than Fiction 2

Putting aside a lifetime of rivalry when they learn that their recently widowed father is planning to remarry a gold-digging woman, sisters Vera and Nadezhda find themselves outmaneuvered by their father's scheming fiancée, a situation that is compromised by a hurricane, family secrets, and their father's obsession with tractor history. Reprint.

Kate Atkinson

Rose Tremain

Nicholas Shakespeare

Ian Rankin

Vikram Seth

Hanif Kureishi

Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Buckley

Marti Leimbach

Ox-Tales is a set of four compelling and collectible books, each themed on one of the elements. 'Earth' features stories by Rose Tremain, Jonathan Coe, Marti Leimbach, Kate Atkinson, Ian Rankin, Marina Lewycka, Hanif Kureishi, Jonathan Buckley and Nicholas Shakespeare, and a poem by Vikram Seth. The idea behind Ox-Tales is to raise money for Oxfam and along the way to highlight the charity's work in project areas: agriculture in Earth, water projects in Water, conflict aid in Fire, and climate change in Air. The four books will play a central role in the first ever Oxfam Bookfest, a new annual event launching in July 2009. Created in partnership with Hay Festival, the program includes more than 300 events across the UK.

Ox-Tales:Earth

Sophie Zeitz

Georgie Sinclair soll das baufällige Haus der alten Mrs Shapiro hüten, doch dabei geschieht einiges Unvorhergesehene: Geldgierige Makler wollen sich die Immobilie unter die Nägel reissen, eine Sozialarbeiterin spielt falsch und Georgies jüngst geschasster Ehemann mischt auch noch mit ...

Roman

Das Leben kleben

Sabine Porte

Rien N'est Trop Beau Pour les Gens Ordinaires

George Pantis is in a pickle. After walking out on his wife Rosie on Referendum night 2016 to shack up with hairdresser 'Brexit Brenda' next door, he thinks he's got it made - especially when he wins millions on a Kosovan lottery he only vaguely remembers entering. Unfortunately, he's forgotten his password and can't get at his money. Which is a problem because he suddenly has to contend with lots of forceful new friends desperate to know his mother's maiden name. As things quickly get out of hand, George must make a mad dash from Sheffield to the Adriatic - and into the arms of organized crime gangs who specialize in illegal kidney transplants and heroin smuggling. George is in need of rescue - both from this pickle and from himself. But will his son Sensible Sid, Brenda and Rosie put aside their differences long enough to help? And might the journey bring this dysfunctional family back together?

The Good, the Bad and the Little Bit Stupid

From bonding to bondage, from B&Q to Belarus, along with seven smelly cats, three useless handymen, two slimy estate agents, social workers, a bonker lady. The story of a very unlikely friendship. Georgie Sinclair's husband has walked out; her sixteen-year-old son is busy surfing born-again websites; and all those overdue articles for Adhesives in the Modern World are getting her down. So when Georgie spots Mrs Shapiro, an eccentric old Jewish émigré neighbour with an eye for a bargain and a fondness for matchmaking, rummaging through her skip in the middle of the night, it's just the distraction she needs. And although they mistrust each other at first - Georgie doesn't like the look of that past-its-sell-by-date fish, while Mrs Shapiro thinks Georgie needs to smarten herself up and grab a new husband - a firm friendship is formed over the reduced-price shelf at the supermarket. Then Mrs Shapiro is admitted to hospital and to Georgie's surprise, she is named as her next of kin. But sorting out Mrs Shapiro's semi-derelict mansion in Highbury, home to seven stinky cats with agendas of their own, is no easy job when the handyman called in to change the locks turns out to be not what he seems and his two assistants, 'the Uselesses', are doing more breaking than fixing. And what about the two slimy estate agents (one with a charming taste for bondage) who start competing to trick Mrs Shapiro into selling her rickety old house, or the social worker determined to commit her to a nursing home? As Georgie steps in to help her new friend, she finds herself unravelling a mystery which takes her from Highbury to wartime Europe to the Middle East, and learning a bit about DIY along the way.

We are All Made of Glue

For twenty years Doro and Marcus lived in a commune, convinced lentils and free love would change the world. They didn't. What they did do was give their children a terror of radicalism, dirt, cooking rotas and poverty. Their daughter Clara wants nothing less conformist than her own, clean bathroom. Their son Serge hides the awkward fact that he's a banker earning loadsamoney. So when Doro and Marcus spring a surprise on their kids - just as the world is rocked in ways they always wished for - the family is forced to confront some thorny truths about themselves . . . 'Wonderfully funny. A dizzy, eye-watering treat. Lewycka is somewhere between Hilary Mantel in her satirical mode and Sue Townsend.' Independent 'Made me laugh at least once every chapter. Lewycka's fiction is unlike anything else around at present. The warmth of its zest, its blend of quirky, humane comedy and intellectual seriousness make this a novel to treasure.' New Statesman 'Uses farce, irony and biting wit to explore serious issues . . . features sharply drawn and sharp-tongued characters . . . a series of sparklingly humorous vignettes. Never has reading about something serious been quite so much fun.' Economist 'Hilarious. Lewycka's trademark humour is present in abundance . . . she is not only witty but astute. A charming, beautifully observed novel.' Independent on Sunday 'Every bit as funny as A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.' Good Housekeeping

Caravan

Iki Karavan

Vom Traktor aufs Erdbeerfeld - der neue wunderbare Roman von Marina Lewycka! Die Abenteuer einer Truppe ausländischer Erdbeerpflücker in England. Sie kommen aus Polen, der Ukraine, Afrika und China, haben alle gänzlich verschiedene Lebenswege und sehr bestimmte Ansichten darüber, was im Leben wichtig ist. Und nicht selten bestaunen sie die fremde und seltsame Welt Englands mit grossen Augen. Doch diese Welt ist auch voller Gefahren, in Gestalt von erpresserischen Arbeitgebern, regelwütigen Behörden und bewaffneten Gangstern. Als der ausbeuterische Erdbeerfarmer überfahren wird, ergreift die ganze Mannschaft in einem klapprigen Wohnwagen die Flucht. Was sie bei ihrer Fahrt durch England erleben, kann sich so nur Marina Lewycka (oder vielleicht das Leben) ausdenken. Marina Lewycka wurde nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg als Kind ukrainischer Eltern in einem Flüchtlingslager in Kiel geboren und wuchs in England auf. Sie lebt in Sheffield und unterrichtet an der Sheffield Hallam University. Ihr erster Roman "Kurze Geschichte des Traktors auf Ukrainisch" wurde zu einer beispiellosen Erfolgsgeschichte, eroberte die internationalen Bestsellerlisten, wurde in 33 Sprachen übersetzt und mit zahlreichen Preisen ausgezeichnet. Marina Lewycka gilt als eine der wichtigsten und populärsten englischen Autorinnen der Gegenwart.

Caring for Someone with a Sight Problem

Marina Lewycka returns to the characters from A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, with a hilarious erotic twist, in this laugh-out-loud short story, A Shorter History of Tractors in Ukrainian with Handcuffs. 'Ever since she'd first read Sherlock Holmes, Laura Carter had dreamed of being a detective . . . Books were both her escape and her guilty pleasure, which eased her through the boring days and enlivened the nights when her husband was too tired for love. She devoured everything from Proust to Harry Potter, from James Joyce to EL James, she adored detective stories, but maybe her favourite author was Marina Lewycka, whose A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian had strangely echoed a case she had once worked on.' Marina Lewycka was born in Kiel, Germany, after the war, grew up in England and lives in Sheffield. Her first novel, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, longlisted for the Man Booker and won the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction and the Waverton Good Read Award. Her second novel, Two Caravans, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Two Caravans, We Are All Made of Glue and Marina's fourth novel, Various Pets Alive and Dead, are all available in Penguin.

Marina Lewycka

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