Canongate

  • Paper Cup

    £14.99

    Rocked by a terrible accident, homeless Kelly needs to escape the city streets of Glasgow. Maybe she doesn’t believe in serendipity, but a rare moment of kindness and a lost engagement ring conspire to call her home. As Kelly vows to reunite the lost ring with its owner, she must return to the small town she fled so many years ago. On her journey from Glasgow to the south-west tip of Scotland, Kelly encounters ancient pilgrim routes, hostile humans, hippies, book lovers and a friendly dog, as memories stir and the people she thought she’d left behind forever move closer with every step.

  • Baggage

    £9.99

    ‘Baggage’ chronicles the actor’s life in Hollywood and the ways in which work has repeatedly whisked him away from personal calamities to sets and stages around the world. Taking us through the highs and lows of his career, his struggle with mental health, each failed relationship or encounter with a legend (Liza! X-Men! Gore Vidal! Kubrick! Spice Girls!), every bad decision or moment of sensual joy, Cumming shows how every experience – good or bad – has shaped who he is today: a happy, flawed, vulnerable, fearless middle-aged man, with a lot of baggage. Startlingly honest, both poignant and joyous, ‘Baggage’ shines a light on how to embrace the complicated messiness of life.

  • The Book of Form and Emptiness

    £9.99

    After the tragic death of his father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house and sound variously pleasant, angry or sad. Then his mother develops a hoarding problem, and the voices grow more clamorous. When ignoring them doesn’t work, Benny seeks refuge in the silence of a large public library. There he meets a mesmerising street artist with a smug pet ferret; a homeless philosopher-poet who encourages him to find his own voice amongst the many; and his very own Book, who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.

  • The Startup Wife

    £8.99

    Halfway through her PhD and already dreaming of running her own lab, computer scientist Asha has her future all mapped out. Then a chance meeting and whirlwind romance with her old high-school crush, Cyrus, changes everything. Dreaming big, together with their friend Jules they come up with a revolutionary idea: to build a social networking app that could bring meaning to millions of lives. While Asha creates an ingenious algorithm, Cyrus’ charismatic appeal throws him into the spotlight. When the app explodes into the next big thing, Asha should be happy, shouldn’t she? But why does she feel invisible in the boardroom of her own company? Why are decisions being made without her?

  • The Fire People

    £16.99

    This is an anthology of black British poets which has been edited by the acclaimed Mancunian poet Lemn Sissay. It includes the dynamic power of Benjamin Zephania and the roots poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson.

  • More Fiya

    £16.99

    In this blistering anthology, poet, editor and DJ Kayo Chingonyi brings together a selection of exceptional Black British poets. This is his dream mixtape featuring a cross-generational span of current poets extending and inhabiting the spirits of the ancestors. Following in the tread of Lemn Sissay’s ‘The Fire People’, ‘More Fiya’ aims to lodge in the mind of its readers for a lifetime, radiating to touch the lives of many.

  • Blood Legacy

    £10.99

    Through the story of his own family’s history as slave and plantation owners, Alex Renton looks at how we owe it to the present to understand the legacy of the past. When slavery was abolished across most of the British Empire in 1833, it was not the newly liberated who received compensation, but the tens of thousands of enslavers who were paid millions of pounds in government money. The ancestors of some of those slave owners are among the wealthiest and most powerful people in Britain today.

  • Lost Woods

    £9.99

    Rachel Carson’s enduring fame was secured by the publication of just four books: her trilogy about the sea and ‘Silent Spring’. This collection of her previously unpublished and lesser-known writing gives a more personal picture of Carson’s evolution as an environmental thinker. Here are both her public and private voice, bringing together youthful writing, essays, field journals, speeches, articles and letters. ‘Lost Woods’ reveals her developing awareness of the fragility of the natural world and our impact on it, and of her campaign, ultimately successful, to bring international attention to the breadth of the challenges facing us. That we are finally becoming aware of the environmental emergency is thanks in no small part to Carson’s prescient call to alarm.

  • The Comfort Book

    £9.99

    ‘The Comfort Book’ is a collection of little islands of hope. It gathers consolations and stories that give new ways of seeing ourselves and the world. Matt Haig’s mix of philosophy, memoir and self-reflection builds on the wisdom of philosophers and survivors through the ages, from Marcus Aurelius to Nellie Bly, Emily Dickinson to James Baldwin. This is the book to pick up when you need the wisdom of a friend, the comfort of a hug or just to celebrate the messy miracle of being alive.

  • How Beautiful We Were

    £8.99

    Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, ‘How Beautiful We Were’ tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean-up and financial reparations to the villagers are made – and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest only. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. But their fight will come at a steep price, one which generation after generation will have to pay.

  • The Instant

    £14.99

    Wishing to leave behind the quiet isolation of her Orkney island life, Amy Liptrot books a one-way flight to Berlin. Searching for new experiences, inspiration and love, she rents a loftbed in a shared flat and looks for work. She explores the streets, nightclubs and parks and seeks out the city’s wildlife – goshawks, raccoons and hooded crows. She looks for love through the screen of her laptop. Over the course of a year Amy makes space hoping for the unexpected. And it comes with an erotic jolt, in the form of a love affair that obsesses her. ‘The Instant’ is an unapologetic look at the addictive power of love and lust. It is also an exploration of the cycles of the moon, the flight paths of migratory birds, the mesmerising power of Neolithic stonework and the trails followed by a generation who exist online.

  • Don’t Ask the Dragon

    £12.99

    It’s Alem’s birthday and he sets off on an adventure but who knows where he can go to celebrate? Maybe the bear, the fox, the meercat, the treefrog, or the fruit bat will know but don’t ask the dragon or he will eat you!