The Bottle Factory Outing

The Bottle Factory Outing PDF Author: Beryl Bainbridge
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 0748125744
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 118

Book Description
Short-listed for the Booker Prize and named 'one of the greatest novels of all time' by The Observer, this riveting novel shows Beryl Bainbridge at her darkly comic best. Freda and Brenda spend their days working in an Italian-run wine-bottling factory. A work outing offers promise for Freda and terror from Brenda; passions run high on that chilly day of freedom, and life after the outing never returns to normal. Inspired by author Beryl Bainbridge's own experiences working at a London wine-factory in the 1970s, The Bottle Factory Outing examines issues of friendship and consent, making the novel timelier than ever. Readers will be dazzled by this offbeat, haunting yet hilarious Guardian fiction prize-winning novel. 'An outrageously funny and horrifying story' Graham Greene (Observer)

The Dressmaker

The Dressmaker PDF Author: Beryl Bainbridge
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 0748125736
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 105

Book Description
'The book I wish I'd written . . . Witty, chilling, every word in place' Hilary Mantel, Guardian Wartime Liverpool is a place of ration books and jobs in munitions factories. Rita, living with her two aunts Nellie and Margo, is emotionally naïve and withdrawn. When she meets Ira, a GI, at a neighbour's party she falls in love as much with the idea of life as a GI bride as with the man himself. But Nellie and Margo are not so blind...

Master Georgie

Master Georgie PDF Author: Beryl Bainbridge
Publisher: Little Brown
ISBN: 9780349111698
Category : British
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 1998 SHORTLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FICTION PRIZE WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT MEMORIAL PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE WH SMITH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD When Master Georgie - George Hardy, surgeon and photographer - sets off from the cold squalor of Victorian Liverpool for the heat and glitter of the Bosphorus to offer his services in the Crimea, there straggles behind him a small caravan of devoted followers; Myrtle, his adoring adoptive sister; lapsed geologist Dr Potter; and photographer's assistant and sometime fire-eater Pompey Jones, all of them driven onwards through a rising tide of death and disease by a shared and mysterious guilt. Combining a breathtaking eye for beauty with a visceral understanding of mortality, Beryl Bainbridge exposes her enigmatic hero as tenderly and unsparingly as she reveals the filth and misery of war, and creates a novel of luminous depth and extraordinary intensity.

Injury Time

Injury Time PDF Author: Beryl Bainbridge
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504039408
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Book Description
Winner of the Whitbread Literary Award: A darkly humorous tale about a 1970s dinner party gone terribly wrong by one of Britain’s most renowned authors. Edward is normally a cautious man, especially when it comes to his mistress, Binny. But he feels bad that his lover never gets to enjoy the small intimacies of marriage, like sorting his socks or picking out gifts for his family. It is out of this guilt that Edward agrees to throw a dinner party with his “real friends” so Binny can feel more involved in his life and play hostess for a night. But there’s one catch: Edward has to be home no later than eleven to keep his wife from discovering his infidelity. The invitees to the secret soiree are a discreet couple: Simpson, an aspiring adulterer himself, and Muriel, a simultaneously disapproving and open-minded housewife. But as Binny haphazardly prepares the food, shoos her children out for the night, and frets about the aesthetics of her front lawn, the guests take an unintended detour through her run-down neighborhood. Edward, meanwhile, is silently panicking—and drinking. Simpson and Muriel finally arrive, and when everyone sits down to eat, it’s already a quarter past nine. Things get off to a decent, if awkward, start, until there’s a loud knock at the door. It’s Binny’s scandalously drunk old friend, Alma, who proceeds to vomit and pass out. But what should be the end of the evening is only the beginning. More unexpected guests arrive—this time it’s bank robbers with sawed-off shotguns. What follows is a chaotic and hilarious series of events, replete with a fake ping-pong match, a baby carriage full of cash, and a delirious getaway. Edward soon begins to worry less about getting home on time, and more about making it home at all. Equal parts dark comedy and thriller, Injury Time is a witty take on 1970s social mores by one of the most celebrated British authors, Beryl Bainbridge, who was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize five times. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Beryl Bainbridge including rare images from the author’s estate.

The Birthday Boys

The Birthday Boys PDF Author: Beryl Bainbridge
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0748125256
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 124

Book Description
A brilliantly realized evocation of the thoughts and voices of Captain Scott and the four men with him, who suffered extraordinary hardships before finally dying during their 1912 attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole. 'Bainbridge's account of the horribly familiar story is both fresh and sure-footed. The power of her imagination, her clarity of expression and mastery of language are more striking than anything else I have read this year' Jane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph The Birthday Boys is one of Beryl Bainbridge's most acclaimed novels, telling the story of Scott's doomed expedition through the voices of five men on the voyage. As Scott, Petty Officer Taff Evans, ship's doctor Dr Edward Wilson, Lieutenant Henry Bowers and Captain Lawrence Oates step forward for their place in the narrative, the reader is gripped by the the characters themselves alongside the vividly evoked period.

An Awfully Big Adventure

An Awfully Big Adventure PDF Author: Beryl Bainbridge
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 0748125264
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Book Description
'This is one of Bainbridge's best books. The close observation and hilarity are underlain by a sense of tragedy as deep as any in fiction' The Times SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE IN 1990 It is 1950 and the Liverpool repertory theatre company is rehearsing its Christmas production of Peter Pan, a story of childhood innocence and loss. Stella has been taken on as assistant stage manager and quickly becomes obsessed with Meredith, the dissolute director. But it is only when the celebrated O'Hara arrives to take the lead, that a different drama unfolds. In it, he and Stella are bound together in a past that neither dares to interpret.

Every Man For Himself

Every Man For Himself PDF Author: Beryl Bainbridge
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0748125213
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 137

Book Description
WINNER OF THE WHITBREAD PRIZE FOR FICTION 1996 WINNER OF THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS' PRIZE 1997 'A narrative both sparkling and deep . . . the cost of raising [the Titanic] is prohibitive; Bainbridge does the next best thing' Hilary Mantel 'Brilliant . . . do not miss this novel' Daily Telegraph 'A moving, microcosmic portrait of an era's bitter end' The Times For the four fraught, mysterious days of her doomed maiden voyage in 1912, the Titanic sails towards New York, glittering with luxury, freighted with millionaires and hopefuls. In her labyrinthine passageways the last, secret hours of a small group of passengers are played out, their fate sealed in prose of startling, sublime beauty, as Beryl Bainbridge's haunting masterpiece moves inexorably to its known and terrible end.

Naïve. Super

Naïve. Super PDF Author: Erlend Loe
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1847677126
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
Troubled by an inability to find any meaning in his life, the 25-year-old narrator of this deceptively simple novel quits university and eventually arrives at his brother's New York apartment. In a bid to discover what life is all about, he writes lists. He becomes obsessed by time and whether it actually matters. He faxes his meteorologist friend. He endlessly bounces a ball against the wall. He befriends a small boy who lives next door. He yearns to get to the bottom of life and how best to live it. Funny, friendly, enigmatic and frequently poignant - superbly naive.

The Local

The Local PDF Author: Joey Hartstone
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0593315197
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
A freewheeling, small-town attorney takes on a national murder trial when an out-of-town client is accused of killing a federal judge in Texas. “A spectacular courtroom thriller that kept me turning pages like the best of Grisham or Turow." —Michelle King, co-creator of The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and Evil The town of Marshall, Texas, is the epicenter of intellectual property law in the US—renowned for its speedy trials and massive payouts. One of its best lawyers is James Euchre. His newest client, Amir Zawar, is a CEO forced to defend his life’s work against a patent infringement claim. But when a beloved hometown hero is murdered, all signs point to Zawar, an outsider with no alibi. With the help of a former federal prosecutor and a local PI, Euchre hopes to uncover the truth. In his first criminal case, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Euchre fears either an innocent man will be sent to death row, or he’ll help set a murderer free. The Local is a small-town thriller crackling with courtroom tension right up to the final verdict.

Winter Garden

Winter Garden PDF Author: Beryl Bainbridge
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504039939
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Book Description
A satirical thriller about a British adulterer in Russia from the award-winning author of The Bottle Factory Outing. Middle-class, middle-aged, and middle-of-the-road lawyer Douglas Ashburner has never been much of a womanizer. So when he tells his wife he’s going on a fishing holiday, she takes his word for it. But instead of leaving London for Scotland, he departs from Heathrow to Moscow. Douglas is tagging along with his mistress, a sculptor named Nina St. Clair, on a tour of Russia arranged by the Soviet Artists’ Union. Accompanying them on the trip are two other artists: the impudent Bernard Douglas and the irritable Enid Dwyer. Once in Moscow, Ashburner starts to wish he really had gone fishing. He promptly loses his luggage, the food is terrible, the art is horrific, and their tour guide is downright militant. But when Nina slips out to a last-minute lunch appointment and never returns, things go from bad to disastrous. Motives are unclear. Identities are mistaken. And as the group travels from the capital to Lenigrad to Tblisi, confusion, contradictions, and even hallucinations abound. Ripe with the scathing wit, eccentric characters, and richly morbid atmosphere that have earned award-winning author Beryl Bainbridge both a cult following and mainstream praise, Winter Garden is a psychological thriller that turns an ironic lens on the social mores of modern life.