Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut Series) by Kurt Vonnegut from RosettaBooks (£0.99) is the Amazon UK
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Adapted for a magnificent George Roy Hill film three years later (perhaps the only film adaptation of a masterpiece which exceeds its source), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) is the now famous parable of Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran and POW, who has in the later stage of his life become "unstuck in time" and who experiences at will (or unwillingly) all known events of his chronology out of order and sometimes simultaneously.
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralmafadorians who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
The "unstuck" nature of Pilgrim's experience may constitute an early novelistic use of what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; then again, Pilgrim's aliens may be as "real" as Dresden is real to him. Struggling to find some purpose, order or meaning to his existence and humanity's, Pilgrim meets the beauteous and mysterious Montana Wildhack (certainly the author's best character name), has a child with her and drifts on some supernal plane, finally, in which Kilgore Trout, the Tralmafadorians, Montana Wildhack and the ruins of Dresden do not merge but rather disperse through all planes of existence.
Slaughterhouse-Five was hugely successful, brought Vonnegut an enormous audience, was a finalist for the National Book Award and a bestseller and remains four decades later as timeless and shattering a war fiction as Catch-22, with which it stands as the two signal novels of their riotous and furious decade.
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The Blackheath Séance Parlour by Alan Williams from Cutting Edge Press (£0.99) is the Amazon UK
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Two sisters dabble in the dark arts in Victorian London in this tale featuring murder, vampires, malevolent spirits, and a life-size chocolate gorilla
In 1842, two drunken sisters debate their future. Business at the family chocolate shop has ground to a halt, and change is needed. For once, domineering elder sister Maggie doesn't get her way, and a month later Judy, Maggie, and Netta Walters—a medium with big hair and a bigger secret—open their séance parlor. The locals are shocked, but soon the shop is crammed with people wanting to contact the dead. Despite their change in fortune, a rift grows between the sisters, as Judy gets her gothic novel published, finds a man, and proves to be more capable of contacting spirits than Maggie. Spurred on by jealousy, Maggie tries harder, and soon the Church decides they must be stopped.
For fans of the classics—Holmes, Dickens, and Abfab.
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Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd by Mark Blake from Aurum Press (£0.99) is the Amazon UK
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In July 2005 in Hyde Park, Pink Floyd performed together on stage for the first time in 24 years with founder member Roger Waters. Almost a year later, reclusive founder-member Syd Barrett died and then in 2008 the death of keyboard player Rick Wright confirmed there would be no more reunions of one of the world's biggest bands.
In this superbly comprehensive and engrossing history of the group, Mark Blake tells how a group of Cambridge school friends went on to conquer the world with classic albums like Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, and put on some of the most spectacular shows of all time. Drawing on over a hundred original interviews, Pigs Might Fly follows Pink Floyd all the way from the early psychedelic nights at UFO in the mid-sixties through the acrimonious schism, to the recent appearances of David Gilmour and Nick Mason with Roger Waters at the London date on his The Wall tour.
Meticulous, exacting and ambitious as any Pink Floyd album, Pigs Might Fly has rightly been acclaimed as the definitive book on the band.
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Crystal's Song by Millie Gray from Black & White Publishing (£0.99) is the Amazon UK
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The streets in Leith are rife with news of the war raging in Europe and the Glass family is struggling to make ends meet. With father Tam taken captive by the Germans, his wife Dinah and his children are left to fear the worst. While Dinah seeks comfort in the arms of visiting G.I.s, the children, including the headstrong Crystal, must learn to cope with the hardships of war, especially when they are forced to evacuate their beloved home. When, miraculously, Tam returns alive, the family realises that only by facing the consequences of the past can they hope to build a more promising future in post-war Scotland.
Bestselling author Millie Gray returns to wartime Leith to weave another tale full of warmth and humour, hardship and survival.
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