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A wonderful new historical novel from one of our best loved and most prolific writers. As a young man Ernest Burton was a bold and reckless journeyman blacksmith, seducing all young girls he comes across. We watch him grow to become a master Blacksmith, and a tyrannical father of eight who refuses even to try to remain faithful to the woman he married and who reigns over his young family with an iron fist, instilling in his sons and daughters a mixture of fear and hatred of him. Burton is an extraordinary fictional creation -- a bully who shows no mercy in his relentless terrorism of his sons, he can also be effortlessly charming, with a magnetic attraction that effects all he meets. Written in the sparse, plain language that Sillitoe has made his own, A Man of His Time is a mesmerising portrait of an extraordinary individual, aware that he is, in many ways, the last of a dying breed. It's a rich, absorbing, wonderfully readable novel that covers decades and crosses generations, depicting with singular brilliance an England poised on the brink of change.

In 1967, with a need to get away from his writing for a month or so, Allan Sillitoe set off in a blue Peugeot to Russia. Despite his desire to travel alone, he was provided with an official escort in the form of George Andjaparidze, who was to become a fellow journeyman and friend. This is a story of travelling, history, people and places: from the Nazis to perestroika; Pushkin to Tolstoy; yet another police check; racing in a German motor rally heading to Moscow; as well as late nights, vodka, getting lost and the mysteries of the Russian language. A speech in Moscow on freedom, and a visit to London by George with a Russian writer that resulted in an unexpected defection, would leave Sillitoe being viewed in a less-than-favourable light by the Soviets. In 2005, invited by the British Council, he found himself once again in Russia, offering the perfect opportunity to revisit his diaries of old to create this compelling book. Gadfly in Russia is a fascinating account of one man's relationship with Russia and its people, and their changing fortunes, over the past 40 years.

Alan Sillitoe is without doubt one of the most distinguished writers of the twentieth century, renowned for the themes of class and authority that run throughout his fiction. This impressive collection contains his greatest short stories, including his early classic, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. This volume, which includes previsouly unpublished stories, demonstrates the potency and timelessness of Sillitoe's work.