Russell Hoban (1925-2011) was the author of many extraordinary novels including Turtle Diary, Angelica Lost and Found and his masterpiece, Riddley Walker. He also wrote some classic books for children including The Mouse and his Child and the Frances books. Born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, USA, he lived in London from 1969 until his death.
by the same author
THE BAT TATTOO Russell Hoban £6.99 0 7475 6163 X
‘Exhilarating and eccentric, angry and hopeful, lucid and surreal. Very beautiful’ Observer
When Sarah Varley, an antiques dealer, meets Roswell Clark, an inventor of unusual crash-test dummies, on the steps of the Victoria & Albert Museum it is the beginning of a strange and surprising romance. Roswell, lonely and recently widowed, has decided that he needs a tattoo. He has an image in mind – a bat from an eighteenth-century bowl in the museum. And Sarah, he discovers, is fascinated with the very same bat. Could it be a coincidence, or even divine intervention?
THE MEDUSA FREQUENCY Russell Hoban £6.99 0 7475 5909 0
‘Sparkles with classical allusions and a wisecracking humour at times suggesting the Marx Brothers... Hoban is one of the most truthful writers now at work’ Daily Telegraph
An inexplicable message flashing on the screen of his computer at 3 a.m. heralds the beginning of a startling quest for frustrated author Herman Orff. Taking up the offer of a cure for writer’s block plunges him into a semi-dreamland inhabited by a bizarre combination of characters from myth and reality: the talking head of Orpheus; a lost love; the young girl of Vermeer’s famous portrait – and a frequency of Medusas.
RIDDLEY WALKER Russell Hoban £6.99 0 7475 5904 X
A Twentieth-Anniversary edition with an introduction by Will Self
‘Extraordinary … a hero with Huck Finn’s heart, lighting by EI Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy … fiercely imagined and intensely ponderable’ New York Times Book Review
Composed in an English which has never been spoken and laced with a storytelling tradition that predates the written word, Riddley Walker is the world waiting for us at the bitter end of the nuclear road. Desolate, dangerous and harrowing, it is a modern masterpiece.
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by the same author
FREMDER Russell Hoban £6.99 0 7475 6164 8
‘Unputdownable, moving, ingenious... it will remain in my head with troubling images and scenes for a long time’ A.N. Wilson, Evening Standard
Fourth Galaxy, 4 November 2052. In the black sparkle of deep space a figure in a blue overall tumbles over and over, drifting … No space suit, no helmet, no oxygen. He can’t be alive, can he? But he is. First Navigator Fremder Gorn is the only survivor when the Corporation tanker Clever Daughter disappears. And everyone, including Fremder himself, would like to know how he did it.
MR RINYO-CLACTON’S OFFER Russell Hoban £6.99 0 7475 6165 6
‘A poignant and engaging fable of ownership and surrender’ Philip Hensher, Mail on Sunday
Jonathan Fitch is distraught when his girlfriend, Serafina, leaves him. And so desperate, in fact, that when the peculiar Mr Rinyo-Clacton makes him an offer of one million pounds with only one year to live, he agrees to the proposal. But soon both Fitch and Serafina find themselves embroiled in Rinyo-Clacton’s strange, sadistic games and Fitch begins to wonder quite what it is that he has agreed to …
PILGERMANN Russell Hoban £6.99 0 7475 5640 7
‘Superb … Pilgermann is history, metaphysics, a tangle of mysteries, profound and simple’ Guardian
He climbs a ladder to reach another man’s wife and gives himself up to her beauty, but then Pilgermann descends into a mob of peasants inspired to shed the blood of Jews. Alone, mutilated and unmanned, he cries out to God. Through time and war and Death itself, he makes his way to Jerusalem, struggling to find God in the horror that surrounds him.
AMARYLLIS NIGHT AND DAY Russell Hoban £6.99 0 7475 5381 5
‘Beautifully poised between Grimm and Greene … it’s delicious. Read it. Enjoy’ Sunday Times
The first time Peter saw Amaryllis was in a dream. She was at a bus stop where the street sign said Balsamic, although there was nothing vinegary about the place. The bus was unthinkably tall, lit from within like a Japanese lantern. ‘Trust me, I’m a weirdo,’ says Amaryllis as she and Peter embark on their nocturnal experimentation, which leaves no one on quite the same footing with reality …
To order from Bookpost PO Box 29 Douglas Isle of Man IM99 1BQ www.bookpost.co.uk
email:bookshop@enterprise.net fax: 01624 837033 tel: 01624 836000
www.bloomsbury.com/russellhoban