Hans is a dreamer, a waiter, a security guard, a young man tending elderly parents, a layabout, an old man scribbling his memories. Driven out in his pajamas into a strangely black and white Scottish town, Hans sets off in search of both his girl and the one mysterious thing that will solve the riddle of his life. Clara is the art school girl with the lovely round face and ants in her pants, the crazy girl from the pub, always hindered by luggage or her dodgy innards, the sleepy waitress at the ball in the castle grounds, the blowzy dame with the world's most beautiful mouth. But can they find each other in time? This beautifully surreal romantic comedy combines the forms of the silent film and the Gothic city ghost tour. A cross between Kafka and Mary Poppins, it is filmic, funny, and lyrical in turns. Always moving, it follows two lives: a man and a woman, and their many attempts to find each other. Alan Bilton teaches American Studies at Swansea University. His nonfiction titles are An Introduction to Contemporary American Fiction and the three-volume (co-authored) America in the 1920s.

The Sleepwalkers' Ball

Literature & Fiction

Bilton, Alan

Contemporary

Alcemi

A collection of three interweaving stories, each presenting a character whose obsessions and attachments become magnified through chance encounters, leading to unforeseen and ultimately catastrophic results. The `bumping' of the title conveys something of these random processes. The themes include relationships with home and place, male preoccupation with mechanisms and systems, moral evasion, and the tyranny of random events.

Bumping

Bianchi, Tony

Literary

A collection of fifteen stories on relationships: the nuances of class; exile; sexual exploitation; the civilizing influence of women, and the accommodations made necessary by old age. Sinister impulses lurk behind Greg's acclaimed portraits of his wife. Mair loves her husband but sleeps with a television producer. A divorced couple find themselves staring at reunion. A talented tramp in a dirty pajama jacket shares lentil soup with an architect in full view of the neighborhood. Noi is an escapee Thai bride who learns just how different Britain really is. ""Lawrence writes in strong, direct sentences, ... With an impressive ability to delineate character with economy and apt detail and to energetically draw in the reader.""--Publishers Weekly.

Always the Love of Someone

Lawrence, Huw

In 1941, artist Antun Fiskovic experiences a change in his fortunes following the dramatic revelation of the identity of his parents, just as occupying forces take over the government of his country. Fifty years later, a young woman, Dagmar Petric, tries to solve the mystery surrounding her father's death. Antun and Dagmar's stories come together in 1998, three years after civil war has torn apart the former Yugoslavia. This novel weaves public and private history through the catalyst of family secrets unearthed, the fallout of war, and the journey to personal and national reconciliation. "Simpson mirrors the histories of her characters with the rage and despair of their war-ravaged country... Her deft handling and authority creates a satisfying and compelling tale."--Publishers Weekly.

The Deer Wedding

Simpson, Penny

A debut novel about sex, financial boom and bust, corruption, cultural collision, fertility, and altruism. A pseudo-Buddhist monk, an illegal immigrant, a teenager with precarious mental health, and a quixotic pair of young businessmen chancing their luck. From faux-Eastern objects to real estate; client-centered sperm-donation to gypsy magic, Bamboo Grove is a black comedy exploring themes surrounding mental illness and the nature of  mother-daughter relationships.

Bamboo Grove

Wood, Romy

A love letter to architecture, Perfect Architect is set in the dazzling and eccentric world of the star architect (starchitect) and is a passionate meditation on what it means to find the ideal dwelling. Following the death of her architect husband and the discovery of intimate correspondence with another woman, Gaia Ore is set to learn some harsh but rewarding lessons on the nature of erotic and artistic obsession. A competition emerges to design her perfect home, and the private world of international architects is opened up. Flowing between Spain, Italy, the US and the UK, four world class architects take up the challenge, the ultimate leveller, and set out to design the ideal dwelling for the widow of one of their greatest adversaries. But will they truly understand what is required of them? Accustomed as they are to large scale projects such as skyscrapers, bridges, museums and galleries, will the request for a modest home ultimately get the better of them? A joyous read filled with houses, architects - translucent concrete, and hand-carved penguins...

Perfect Architect

Joso, Jayne

Women's Fiction

Tim is emasculated by a gang of bullies at the age of fifteen and devotes his life to revenge. He plans to build a machine that will kill each member of the gang one by one. Each death must be aesthetically beautiful, and so Tim apprentices himself to a brilliant craftsman to acquire the skills he needs. Then he begins to practice the perfect murder. A psychological thriller set in Spain and south east Wales, focused on obsession and the far-reaching evils of perfectionism. Jeremy Hughes was one of the first students to study for the Master's in writing at Oxford University, from which he graduated with distinction. He is an award-winning poet and Dovetail is his first novel.

Dovetail

Hughes, Jeremy

Genre Fiction

In 2006, Richard Gwyn was given a year to live without a liver transplant. A novelist and poet, he lost nine years of his life as a vagrant alcoholic roaming the Mediterranean. This memoir is an account of his ""lost"" years: of addiction and reckless travel, serial hospitalizations, living under sentence of death, the life-saving gift of a hepatic graft, recovery, and at last, redemption via friendship, imagination, intellect, love, and fatherhood.

The Vagabond's Breakfast

Biographies & Memoirs

Gwyn, Richard

Memoirs

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Books by Alcemi