The Good Times

Literature & Fiction

Kelman, James

Contemporary

Anchor Books

Mo said she was quirky is a new novel by Booker prizewinner James Kelman. Her boyfriend said she was quirky but it was more than that. Some things were important in life. You had to fight for them. Helen was prepared for that - only she wasn't as strong as people thought. Working nightshift as a dealer in a London casino didn't help. Her young daughter at home in bed - just how safe was she? The gamblers staring you down, night after night after night. Then on the way home from work this tall, skinny, down-at-heel guy crossed the road in front of her taxi. Brian? Her long-lost brother? How could it be? Twenty-four hours in the life of Helen, an ordinary young woman - as ordinary, as unique, as each and every one of us. Praise for Mo said she was quirky: "A charming and often tender book. A small gem of a novel from one of our greatest living writers". (TimeOut). "What is remarkable about Mo said she was quirky is its gentleness, its compassion, its desire to understand, its art". (Herald). "A brilliant novel...The sort of threadbare life lived by Helen is so rarely given any unsentimental coverage in fiction that...Kelman may have written his most important novel yet. This should be the lead item on everyone's summer reading list". (Independent). "Absorbing, affecting...Helen is a character drawn with a rare empathy and patience...Kelman's dialogue is minimal but acute". (Financial Times). "Sad, tender...Kelman is not a growling and sanctimonious stereotype, but a bitter-sweet laureate of decency". (Stuart Kelly, The Times). "An urgent, compassionate, mesmerising reflection of our present moment". (Independent on Sunday). James Kelman was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His story collections include Greyhound for Breakfast, The Burn, The Good Times and most recently If it is your life. His novel How late it was, how late won the 1994 Booker Prize. Other novels include Translated Accounts, You Have to be Careful in the Land of the Free and Kieron Smith, boy. In 2009 and 2011 James Kelman was shortlisted for the MAN Booker International Prize. Mo said she was quirky was the Saltire Society Book of the Year for 2012.

Mo Said She Was Quirky

Penguin??Books

You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free

Jeremiah Brown, a Scottish immigrant in his early thirties, has lived in the United States for twelve years. He has moved as many times, from the east coast to the west coast and back again, all in the hope his luck would change. To add to his restlessness and indecision, he now has a nonrefundable ticket to Glasgow to visit his mother for the first time in seven years. The question is, will the visit help him get over the pain of separation from a woman he met and loved in New York and with whom he had a little girl, or will it make it worse? In this rich, funny, superbly crafted novel, Kelman has once again created a memorable character-compulsive, obsessive, self-doubting, beer-loving, and utterly engaging-and a singular portrait of an immigrant's America

British & Irish

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

I had cousins at sea. One was in the Cadets. I was wanting to join. My maw did not want me to but my da said I could if I wanted, it was a good life and ye saved yer money, except if ye were daft and done silly things. He said it to me. I would just have to grow up first. James Kelman’s triumph in Kieron Smith, boy is to bring us completely inside the head of a child and remind us what strange and beautiful things happen in there. Here is the story of a boyhood in a large industrial city during a time of great social change. Kieron grows from age five to early adolescence amid the general trauma of everyday life—the death of a beloved grandparent, the move to a new home. A whole world is brilliantly realized: sectarian football matches; ferryboats on the river; the unfairness of being a younger brother; climbing drainpipes, trees, and roofs; dogs, cats, sex, and ghosts. This is a powerful, often hilarious, startlingly direct evocation of childhood.

Kieron Smith, Boy

Genre Fiction

In the superbly crafted and critically acclaimed You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free, James Kelman has created an unforgettable character and a darkly comic portrait of a post-9/11 America. Jeremiah Brown, a Scottish immigrant in his early thirties, has lived in the United States for twelve years. He has moved as many times, from the East Coast to the West Coast and back again, all in the hope his luck would change. To add to his restlessness and indecision, he now has a nonrefundable ticket to Glasgow--by way of Seattle, Canada, Iceland, and England--to visit his mother. On his last night in the States, Jeremiah finds himself in a town south of Rapid City, moving from bar to bar, attracting and repelling strangers, losing count of the beers he has drunk. All the while he is haunted by memories and by an acute sense of foreboding.

You Have To Be Careful In The Land Of The Free

Mariner Books

Jeremiah Brown is 34, Scottish and an inveterate gambler. He's lived in the US for several years, drifting from job to job and woman to woman. Then he meets a young singer, has a daughter and things look up. But before long, Jeremiah's life slips back into its familiar pattern.

Hamish Hamilton

A brilliant collection of stories set in the tenements and cheap casinos of Glasgow, Manchester and London.

Greyhound for Breakfast (Picador Books)

Humor & Satire

Picador

Patrick Doyle, a Glasgow schoolteacher drowning in despair, can no longer control his students or his life and retreats into the world of corrugated cardboard pipes--a musical sanctuary of his own invention

A Disaffection

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

A collection of short stories revealing the toughness and the ironies of life among the inner cities and tenement blocks of Glasgow, Manchester, and London

Greyhound for Breakfast

How late it was, how late

Winner of the 1994 Booker Prize, this witty, controversial, and brilliant bestselling novel has been compared to the works of Joyce, Beckett, and many other masters. A raw, wry vision of human survival in a bureaucratic world, How Late It Was, How Late opens one Sunday morning in Glasgow, Scotland, as Sammy, an ex-convict with a penchant for shoplifting, awakens in a lane and tries to remember the two-day drinking binge that landed him there. Then, things only get worse. Sammy gets in a fight with some soldiers, lands in jail, and discovers that he is completely blind. His girlfriend disappears, the police probe him endlessly, and his stab at Disability Compensation embroils him in the Kafkaesque red tape of the welfare system. A masterpiece of black humor, subtle political parody, and Scottish lower-class vernacularHow Late It Was, How Late is a classic-to-be from one of today's most talented novelists.

How Late It Was, How Late

Delta

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kelman, James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kelman, James

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kelman, James. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Good Times

Mo Said She Was Quirky

You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free

Kieron Smith, Boy

You Have To Be Careful In The Land Of The Free

You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free

Greyhound for Breakfast (Picador Books)

A Disaffection

Greyhound for Breakfast

How Late It Was, How Late