Humour & Satire
Ye Olde Sceptred
There never had been a ship on the Seven Seas with the pomp and style of Ye Olde Sceptred. Perhaps, there never would be again.Commanded by a succession of fine sea captains, the magnificent liner crossed and re-crossed the oceans, seemingly unaware of the perils that lay ahead. However great their experience, however, profound their knowledge of all matters naval, the captains could only guess at the storms that lay ahead.
Could the liner survive these dangers? Could Captain Avon control his passions? Could Captain Ted acquire the requisite knowledge of English idiom to match his French? Was anybody safe under the command of the Snatcher? How could two heroes fulfil the identical destiny? And could Captain Igglepiggle and his successors retain control, resisting the ambitions of a devious, conniving crew?
The only book that recounts the glorious tale of our nation as it actually unfolded over the last seven decades, with so many of our most beloved leaders, including our dogs, our cats and our ghosts.
Thus Departeth Warren
Did you ever wonder just how exactly shrimp like David managed to conquer the mighty giant, Goliath? Or how a small group of solicitors and accountants, with a fear of water along with all other kinds of phobias, conquered the whole of Canaan? Or precisely why the omnipresent Almighty should have gone suddenly AWOL?
Providing a completely new take on the Bible, Thus Departeth Warren answers these questions and others. In this version no-one is quite how they appeared in the Bible, and the tolerant and gentle inventor, God, is nagged, hoodwinked and driven to distraction by his favourite creation, mankind. But along the way he gets to know all kinds of dialects, appears on chat shows and learns how to ski and to play cricket.
And when he leaves, it is as if the whole universe has lost a friend.
Historical
Three Boys
Three boys growing up in different corners of Europe; three boys who will change the world…
Moving between Georgia, during the days of the Tsarist empire, Austria, in the twilight of the Habsburg dynasty, and Victorian upper-class England, this factional tale interweaves the stories of the children who will grow up to dominate mid twentieth century Europe.
Combining imagined scenes with factual evidence, ‘Three Boys’ draws from historical accounts of the childhood experiences of Hitler, Stalin and Churchill, searching for the real people behind the myths. Each boy will grow up damaged in different ways; each will be drawn towards conflict; their personalities will ensure that others will follow.
Even a monster begins as a child.
A Moth Ate Words
Lionel’s academic career is chugging along, gently, ‘like a small train round a theme park rail track’. Finding that her role as a mother is receding, his wife, Adrienne, is busily researching her ancestry, searching for an imprint of the lives of others – some sign that somebody in her lineage might have achieved something worthy of recording. Meanwhile, their son, Julian, is attempting to evade thoughts of his own future mediocrity through his fantasies.
Then, rather by chance, Lionel becomes central to a research project that propels him into sudden prominence, connecting him to a political arena for which he is ill-equipped. His archeological research uncovers an uncertain world, in which an eighth century Celtic tribe struggles to survive in the face of aggressive Saxon movement across the English landscape, and where Christianity struggles to take root in pagan ground.
A Moth Ate Words moves between times, revealing the elusive nature of truth and the means by which it becomes distorted. On a grand epic scale at one moment, then comically mundane the next, the story explores individual and group identities. It is about betrayal, loss and heroism – and perhaps most disturbingly, the unravelling of memory.
Levi M 