James HutcHesonb o ok cover s5

www.ur-sgeul.com

9 781900 901499

IS BN 978-1-900901-49-9

Julie MacAfee works for the International Technology

Database Project in South Uist. In an unhappy marriage and

only twenty-five years old, she has two young children, and

a domineering, drunk, unemployed German husband. The

credit crunch has hit hard, and she can’t afford to leave her

well-paid job. Despite being in charge of a substantial project,

and an IT genius fluent in five European languages, her

confidence is at an all time low.

Julie is looking for a way out. In desperation, she strikes

up a relationship on the internet with a fellow IT buff,

Damien, based in Seattle. The cyber friendship grows. And

amazingly, Julie has the perfect opportunity to explore her

friendship, when her Director asks her to accompany them on

a trip to the States.

Julie’s new American adventure is just beginning.

J A N E A N N E M A C P H I M E Y

Let’s Grow Old Together ...

Let’s Grow Old Together ...

J A N E A N N E M A C P H I M E Y

Let’s G

row O

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gether...

ew oems

COME ON IN!

BUKOWSKICHARLES

‘We all knew Bukowski was a tough guy, but who would have guessed that even the grave could not shut him up?’BILLY COLLINS

A sequence of poems you’ll want to read from beginning to end, Come On In! is Charles Bukowski at his sad, hilarious, renegade best.

Bukowski’s unmistakable charisma – an ex-down-and-outer who wrote of booze and loneliness in maverick, confident free verse – made him one of the world’s most popular poets long before he died in 1994. More than a decade later, death has not slowed his production. This collection is selected from an archive of verse that the author left to be published after his death. It includes poems of love and sex, advice to so-called losers (as he once was) to have confidence in themselves (as he did), gambling laments and humbling poems accepting his own imminent ultimate full stop.

‘The thing about Bukowski is, when you read what he has to say, he’s right.’ SEAN PENN

‘In an age of conformity Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad.’ OBSERVER

‘The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.’ JOYCE CAROL OATES

‘He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.’ LEONARD COHEN

‘A laureate of American low life.’ TIME

£12.99 978 1 84767 040 3

‘The best poet in America.’ JEAN GENET

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www.ur-sgeul.com

9 781900 901499

IS BN 978-1-900901-49-9

Some K

ind of Grace

Two British travellers, Donald Kemp and Margaret Duncan, have disappeared in the wild mountainous region of northern Afghanistan, a terrain into which western Europeans seldom venture. The authorities in Kabul say that they have been murdered by the inhabitants of a small and primitive village and that retribution has already been exacted in the form of wholesale reprisals.

John McLeod, a friend of the missing couple who has spent some years in Afghanistan as a diplomat, is deeply suspicious of these explanations. He returns to Kabul and starts his own enquiries, but everywhere he is met with obstruction and evasion. The quest becomes an obsession; John’s physical pursuit is linked with a personal desire to discover the truth of Donald and Margaret’s strange relationship.

This gripping novel, first published in 1960, helped confirm Robin Jenkins as one of the outstanding novelists of his generation. It was written shortly after he returned from two years in Kabul, and his experiences there add an unmistakeable ring of authenticity to his descriptions of this mysterious and remote country. Some Kind of Grace is a terrible warning of what outside interference can do to a country. Throughout the book Jenkins’ sympathy is with a people sacrificed on the altar of dogma and convenience by the great powers of East and West.

Some Kindof Grace

R O B I N J E N K I N S

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BIN

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9 781904 598190

ISBN 1-904598-19-6

www.birlinn.co.uk

Cover design by James Hutcheson, based on a photograph by Edgar Knobloch

‘Jenkins is quite simply a major contemporary writer’

T H E H E R A L D

Introduction byJ A M E S M E E K

‘[Jenkins] finds another rare spot, that place of honesty where multiple contradictory truths reside, where men and women can be both wicked and brave, vengeful and remorseful, bigoted and generous; where, when they go looking for absolute truths they fail to find them.’ J A M E S M E E K

www.jameshutcheson.co.uk