Narrow Dog To Indian River

Following the triumph of thier trip through France to Carcassonne, these two pensioners (and thier whippet, Jim) now cast off in thier narrowboat down the Intracoastal Waterway of the USA - from VIrginia to the Gulf of Mexico.

The hilarious and true story of two senior-citizens and their whippet dog who hatch, plan and carry out a “lunatic scheme” to sail from Stone in Staffordshire to Carcassonne in the South of France.

Having survived their voyage to Carcassonne, you would expect pensioners Terry and Monica Darlington to retreat with their whippet to a corner in the nearest public house. But no, they looked to the New World and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, that runs from Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico... No-one has ever sailed an English narrowboat in the US before, for reasons that become clear during the 9-month voyage of the Phyllis May GÇô including 30-mile sea crossings, blasting heat, tornadoes, hurricanes, starving alligators, killer fish, insects from hell and the walking dead. But the real danger comes from the Good Ole Boys and Girls of the Deep South. Colonels and bums, captains and planters, heroes and drunks, gongoozlers, dancing dicks and beautiful spies GÇô they all want to meet the Brits on the painted boat and their thin dog and take them home and party them to death. On the narrowboat Phyllis May a thousand miles of the little-known South-East Seaboard unfold at six miles an hourGÇô the golden marshes of the Carolinas, the incomparable cities of Charleston and Savannah, and the lost arcadias of Georgia and Florida. Beautifully written, lovingly observed, and very very funny, Narrow Dog to Indian River takes you on a dangerous, surprising and always entertaining journey through a wonderland. Having survived their voyage to Carcassonne, you would expect pensioners Terry and Monica Darlington to retreat with their whippet to a corner in the nearest public house. But no, they looked to the New World and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, that runs from Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico... No-one has ever sailed an English narrowboat in the US before, for reasons that become clear during the 9-month voyage of the Phyllis May GÇô including 30-mile sea crossings, blasting heat, tornadoes, hurricanes, starving alligators, killer fish, insects from hell and the walking dead. But the real danger comes from the Good Ole Boys and Girls of the Deep South. Colonels and bums, captains and planters, heroes and drunks, gongoozlers, dancing dicks and beautiful spies GÇô they all want to meet the Brits on the painted boat and their thin dog and take them home and party them to death. On the narrowboat Phyllis May a thousand miles of the little-known South-East Seaboard unfold at six miles an hourGÇô the golden marshes of the Carolinas, the incomparable cities of Charleston and Savannah, and the lost arcadias of Georgia and Florida. Beautifully written, lovingly observed, and very very funny, Narrow Dog to Indian River takes you on a dangerous, surprising and always entertaining journey through a wonderland.

At seventy-five, Terry and Monica Darlington had done everything they could think of doing, including starting a business and becoming athletes and running a literary society.Lately they had become boating adventurers and Terry a bestselling writer. But in their Midlands canal town in November, life was looking dull and short on surprises. Then their famous canal boat was destroyed by fire. Within a few days they had bought a new one and soon headed north in the Phyllis May 2 – to Liverpool, Lancaster, the Pennines and Wigan Pier. Terry recorded the journey, and alongside it the story of his life and his marriage and his dog Jim, with his broken ear like a flat cap, and Monica’s dog Jess, known with heartbreaking reason as the Flying Catastrophe. Funny, affecting and beautifully told, this is a story that brims with incident and excitement, and is full of the famous and fascinating people the Darlingtons have met - a story of an adventurous life well lived.

At seventy-five, Terry and Monica Darlington had done everything they could think of doing, including building a business, becoming athletes and running a literary society. Lately they had become boating adventurers and Terry a bestselling writer. But in their Midlands canal town in November, life was looking dull and short on surprises. Then their famous canal boat was destroyed by fire. Within a few days they had bought a new one and they headed north in the Phyllis May 2 - to Liverpool, Lancaster, York, the Pennines and Wigan Pier. Terry recorded the journey and alongside it the story of his life and his marriage and his whippet Jim, with a broken ear like a flat cap, and Monica's whippet Jess, the Flying Catastrophe. Funny, affecting and beautifully told, this story brims with canals and rivers and whippets, and adventures all over the world, and the famous and fascinating people the Darlingtons have met. It's another classic Narrow Dog book.

In elegant, sensual prose, Michael Crummey crafts a haunting tale set in Newfoundland at the turn of the 19th century. A richly imagined story about love, loss and the heartbreaking compromises—both personal and political—that undermine lives, River Thieves is a masterful debut novel. Published in Canada and the United States, it joins a wave of classic literature from eastern Canada, including the works of Alistair MacLeod, Wayne Johnston and David Adams Richards, while resonating at times with the spirit of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain and Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy. An enthralling story of passion and suspense, River Thieves captures both the vast sweep of history and the intimate lives of a deeply emotional and complex cast of characters caught in its wake.

There but for the is the sparkling satirical novel by bestselling Ali Smith 'There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party . . .' As time passes by and the consequences of this stranger's actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbours and the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they at first appear. There but for the was hailed as one of the best books of 2011 by Jeanette Winterson, A.S. Byatt, Patrick Ness, Sebastian Barry, Boyd Tonkin, Erica Wagner and Nick Barley. 'Dazzlingly inventive' A.S. Byatt 'Whimsically devastating. Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly affecting' Guardian 'A real gem' Erica Wagner, The Times 'Eccentric, adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling. This is a novel with serious ambitions that remains huge fun to read' Literary Review 'If you liked Smith's earlier fiction, you will know that she enjoys setting up a situation before chucking in a literary Molotov cocktail then describing what happens' Sunday Express 'Wonderful, word-playful, compelling' Jeanette Winterson 'Smith can make anything happen, which is why she is one of our most exciting writers today' Daily Telegraph 'I take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul' Evening Standard

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An extraordinary, harrowing, endlessly surprising novel set in 1946, starring two brothers and a Jewish girl who fall into alignment in pogrom-poised Moscow—from "one of the most gifted novelists of his generation” (Time). “A bullet train of a novel that barrels deep into the heart of darkness that was the Soviet gulag and takes the reader along on an unnerving journey into one of history’s most harrowing chapters.” —The New York Times The brothers' fraternal conflict then marinates in Norlag, a slave-labor camp above the Arctic Circle, where a tryst will haunt all three lovers long after the brothers are released. And for the narrator, the sole survivor, the reverberations continue into the new century.