Lise has been driven to distraction by working in the same accountants' office for sixteen years. So she leaves everything behind her, transforms herself into a laughing, garishly-dressed temptress and flies abroad on the holiday of a lifetime. But her search for adventure, sex and the obsessional experience takes on a far darker significance.
Pieces together the author's family's past and uncovers their secrets - from his grandparents' life in colonial Rhodesia to his mother's time as a nun.
This is the story of four people whose intertwined lives span 70 years in Asia. The complacency of colonial life in the 1930s; the horrors of the Japanese occupation during World War II; and the post-war boom and transformation of Hong Kong all surface in this epic novel.
Mr Phillips is an accountant who lies in bed with his wife and dreams of other women. When he loses his job and tells no one, his first day out of work takes in a false journey to the office, a stroll with a pornographer in Battersea Park, a blue film, and a bank robbery in Knightsbridge.
There's probably a word in German for that feeling you get when you can understand something while it's being explained to you, but lose hold of the explanation as soon as it stops. A lot of writing about the credit crunch has that effect. This title makes it possible for all of us to grasp how we found ourselves in this predicament.
A memoir in which John Lanchester joins the dots of his parents' history, their extraordinary secrets and the shape of their shared life. From his grandparents' beginnings in rural Ireland and colonial Rhodesia, Lanchester navigates through his parents lives. He illuminates their characters and Julia's motives.
Draws the reader, through descriptions of food and cooking, into a world of murder and art. Narrated by Tarquin, an ironist, epicurean and a snob, this novel is constructed around a series of seasonal menus, which unfold his autobiography.