Penguin Books Australia

'An outstanding good collection . . . the best I have ever come across'
Spectator

ROBERT HARRIS * COLIN FIRTH * ZADIE SMITH * NICK NORNBY * DAVE EGGERS * RODDY DOYLE * HELEN FIELDING * IRVINE WELSH * JOHN O'FARRELL * MELISSA BANK * GILES SMITH * PATRICK MARBER

Speaking with the Angel is a sparkling collection of original short stories by twelve of the most exciting, innovative and entertaining writers...

Do you know your desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups?

For many people watching football is mere entertainment; to some it's more like a ritual; but to others, its highs and lows provide a narrative to life itself. For Nick Hornby's devotion to the game has provided one of the few constants in a life where the meaningful things – like growing up, leaving home and forming relationships– have rarely been as simple or as uncomplicated as his love...

'A stunner of a novel.  Utterly read-in-one-day, forget-where-you-are-on-the-tube gripping'
MARIE CLAIRE

'How cool was Will Freeman?'

'How cool!  At thirty-six, he's as hip as a teenager.  He's single, child-free, goes to the right clubs and knows which trainers to wear.  He's also found a great way to score with women: attend single parents' groups full of available (and grateful)...

A famous account of growing up to be a fanatical football supporter. Told through a series of match reports, FEVER PITCH has enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success since it was first published in 1992. It has helped to create a new kind ofsports writing, and established Hornby as one of the finest writers of his generation.

Nick Hornby returns to his roots - music and messy relationships - in this funny and touching new novel which thoughtfully and sympathetically looks at how lives can be wasted but how they are never beyond redemption.

Annie and Duncan fit together naturally, like jigsaw pieces, though Duncan's passionate obsession with Tucker Crowe, the reclusive, tortured-genius songwriter, has never left much time for anything more meaningful - marriage, kids, conversation about something other than Tucker Crowe and his disappearance after a mysterious incident in a nightclub toilet twenty years previously. In fact, she's starting...

'Whether you are interested in football or not, this is tears-running-down-your-face funny, read-bits-out-loud-to-complete-strangers funny, but also highly perceptive and honest about Hornby's obsession and the state of the game.

Perma-tanned Martin Sharp's a disgraced breakfast TV presenter who had it all – the family, the pad, the great career – and wasted it away. Killing himself is Martin's logical response to an unliveable life...

Ten voices, ten completely new stories, narrated by ten different characters. And all written by ten of the most exciting and popular writers around.

This sparkling collection has been put together by bestselling novelist...