Город под кожей

A cartographic thriller with so many twists and turns it requires its own map

A cartography-obsessed misfit clerk from an antique map store in a district that’s not quite trendy yet. A bold young woman chasing the answer to a question she can’t quite formulate. A petty criminal hoping the parking lot he’s just purchased is the ticket to a new life of respectability with his school-age daughter. A ruthless but vulnerable killer and his disgruntled accomplice. In , it’s not fate that will bind these characters together but something more concrete and sinister: the appearance of a group of mysterious women, their backs crudely and extensively tattooed with maps.

They have been kidnapped, marked, and released, otherwise unharmed. When one turns up on the doorstep of the map shop and abruptly bares her back, only to be hustled away by a man in a beat-up blue Cadillac, it’s the misfit clerk Zak, pushed by his curious new friend Marilyn, who finds himself reluctantly entering a criminal underworld whose existence he’d prefer to ignore.

In this haunting literary thriller, Geoff Nicholson paints a deft portrait of a city in transition. His sharply drawn characters are people desperate to know where they are but scared of being truly seen. A meditation on obsession and revenge, a hymn to the joys of urban exploration, is a wholly original novel about the indelible scars we both live with and inflict on others.

This handy series from Headway offers brief yet lucid introductions to the world's cultural icons. Each book examines the life, the work, and the legends surrounding its subject, and key terms and concepts are highlighted and clearly explained. Additionally, each chapter ends with a review section for easy reference and to help consolidate the reader's understanding of the text.

Mick is on his way to the Smoke from the provinces. He's got six guys to find with only their names to go on and no more help than the phone book and an A-Z. Stuart is determined to walk each of the capital's roads, streets and alleyways. But what will he do when there's nothing left of his A-Z but blacked out pages? Judy is set on creating her own unique map of each of the metropolis' boroughs…an A-Z of sex in the city. Three strangers in search of London's heart and soul, mapping out their stories from Acton to Hackney, Chelsea Harbour to Woolwich, in a comic dance of sex and death.

Guitar players change lives. Everybody knows that. Geoff Nicholson's deliriously funny Flesh Guitar is overstimulated love letter to the guitar, complete with feedback, reverb, and special guest appearances, with a lead player the likes of whom has not been seen since Hendrix departed this earth.Into the Havoc Bar and Grill, an end-of-the-world watering hole on the outer fringes of the metropolis, walks the entertainment, Jenny Slade. She has the look down: beat-up leather jacket, motorcycle boots, cheekbones, and wild hair. But she's no ordinary guitar heroine. Her guitar is like none her audience has ever seen, part deadly weapon, part creature from some alien lagoon. Is that hair? Are those nipples? Is it flesh? Where does Jenny Slade come from? Where does she go? Geoff Nicholson fans know that wherever that is, the fide will be like no other.

The "wickedly funny" () master of literary black comedy spins a thrillingly erotic homage to Manolo Blahnik-wearing, nail-polished, high arched, beautifully footed women.

Geoff Nicholson, the reigning master of obsessive black literary humor, brings us his riskiest novel yet, delving into the erotic world of a foot fetishist. Nicholson's unnamed narrator is a serious man with a full life. He reads newspapers, follows politics, and holds down a steady job. But one thing ismissing-a woman with a great pair of feet; silky smooth skin, perfect arches, delicate curvature of the nails. .

It's hard to meet the right woman, if you're a foot fetishist. Some slap your face. Some call thepolice. And then the narrator finds Catherine, who has just the feet he's been looking for his entire life. She leads him, wearing a staggering assortment of all the best shoes, on a foot fetishist's dream caper, combining the props from a Helmut Newton photo shoot and the twists of Antonioni's Blow-up. Sexy, blackly funny, is a novel of fetishism, murder and, ultimately, love.

Ian Blackwater was surprised when film rights to his novel Volkswagens and Velociraptors were sold. And more surprised to find himself on location in California, particularly as the novel was set in London. However Ian knows better than to interfere with the creative process and he wants to see how the director Josh Martin goes about transforming the novel into film.

Ian gets to see not just the movie making but also Motorhead's Phil's Famous Automotive Freak Show — an assortment of petrol heads and vagabonds rehearsing their own brand of culture fest on the neighbouring lot. Relations between the two — filmmakers and Automotive Freaks — are less than cordial and before long Ian finds himself far more involved with both than he intended.

Barry Osgathorpe, known in the seventies as Ishmael the Zen Road Warrior, has decided to hole up for the nineties. A person can't even drive his Volkswagen Beetle with a clear conscience any more, for fear of polluting the environment. Yet, powerful forces are converging that will get him on the road again. When Barry learns that Volkswagens are being blown up all over the country, that a gang of skinheads is cruising the streets in a fleet of customized Beetles, and that his ex-girlfriend's deranged, Volkswagen-obsessed father and her current VW-collecting boyfriend are missing, he knows it's time to put the pedal to the metal.

Renegade librarian Ishmael (aka Barry) takes to the open road in his customized VW Beetle in search of himself only to find that the M62 is a very poor substitute for Route 66. The sequel to this book, Geoff Nicholson's first novel, is called "Still Life with Volkwagons".

How we walk, where we walk, why we walk tells the world who and what we are. Whether it's once a day to the car, or for long weekend hikes, or as competition, or as art, walking is a profoundly universal aspect of what makes us humans, social creatures, and engaged with the world. Cultural commentator, Whitbread Prize winner, and author of  Geoff Nicholson offers his fascinating, definitive, and personal ruminations on the literature, science, philosophy, art, and history of walking.

Nicholson finds people who walk only at night, or naked, or in the shape of a cross or a circle, or for thousands of miles at a time, in costume, for causes, or for no reason whatsoever. He examines the history and traditions of walking and its role as inspiration to artists, musicians, and writers like Bob Dylan, Charles Dickens, and Buster Keaton. In , he brings curiosity, imagination, and genuine insight to a subject that often strides, shuffles, struts, or lopes right by us.

Майк Смит, выпускник Кембриджа с внешностью кинозвезды, живет в Лондоне, торгует книжными раритетами и тяготится своим унылым существованием. Но все меняется, когда бывший однокашник, простоватый и неказистый с виду Грегори Коллинз, обращается к Майку с просьбой позаимствовать его привлекательное лицо для обложки своего полубезумного романа. Так, совершенно неожиданно для себя, Майк становится “писателем”, и вскоре его приглашают в странноватую психиатрическую клинику – учить сумасшедших писательскому мастерству. Замкнутый, сюрреалистический мир дурдома, где трудно понять, кто истинный псих, а кто лишь притворяется, заставляет Майка решать загадку за загадкой, даже секс становится для него шарадой, граничащей с безумием.

Мистификации и сумасшествие всегда были излюбленными темами английских писателей. Джефф Николсон – один из наиболее интересных британских авторов – в своем плутовском романе посмеивается над нравами литературной богемы, психиатрией, поисками истины и своего “я”. “Бедлам в огне” – книга о писательском ремесле, о душевном здоровье, о том, как сохранить рассудок в этом мире, так похожем на бедлам.