RESULTS

The Behindlings, prize-winning author Nicola Barker's seventh book, is a weird and wonderful tale of oddballs, misfits and outcasts who live on the margins of British society. Wesley is a charismatic prankster who is being stalked by a group of eccentrics called the Behindlings, eventually leading them to the boggy estuaries of Canvey Island. Barker's language is original and inventive, her plots surreal and her comic energy is manic and absurd.

If History is just a sick joke which keeps on repeating itself, then who exactly might be telling it, and why? Could it be John Scogin, Edward IV's infamous court jester, whose favourite pastime was to burn people alive -- for a laugh? Or could it be Andrew Boarde, Henry VIII's physician, who kindly wrote John Scogin's biography? Or could it be a tiny Kurd called Gaffar whose days are blighted by an unspeakable terror of -- uh -- salad? Or a beautiful, bulimic harpy with ridiculously weak bones? Or a man who guards Beckley Woods with a Samurai sword and a pregnant terrier? Darkmans is a very modern book, set in Ashford (a ridiculously modern town), about two very old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. It's also a book about invasion, obsession, displacement and possession, about comedy, art, prescription drugs and chiropody. And the main character? The past, which creeps up on the present and whispers something quite dark -- quite unspeakable -- into its ear.

A collection of stories by the award-winning author of Love Your Enemies. They feature a fantastical world in which an unborn baby escapes an unsuitable mother through a belly-button zip, a disgruntled job applicant steals his interviewer's garden pond, and a new father feeds his hand to an owl.

A novel about stripping off layers of pride and lies, about the possibility of redemption, and laying bare the truth. It is also about coming to terms with the past, and about the fantasies people construct in order to protect their fragile inner selves.