Bøker av Tim Parks

'Delves into the very essence of being a fan, while seamlessly exploring Italian history, politics, culture and society,' GuardianIs Italy a united country, or a loose affiliation of warring states?

The Medici are famous as the rulers of Florence at the high point of the Renaissance. Their power is derived from the family bank. This book tells the fascinating, frequently bloody story of the family and the dramatic development and collapse of their bank.

Henry Dodge's trials and tribulations continue in The Best Laid Plans, but this time around the stakes are much higher! He struggles with the aftereffects of the Summer of 1985 and all that happened in Los Angeles with King George and his minions, including his childhood crush Danny, confessing to murder.¿ He attempts to stop the storm of memories with drugs, and soon enough becomes addicted to crystal meth, which is provided by his dealer Jeff, who has a duplicitous side that Henry must also contend with.¿¿ Of course, his family and their creed of "nothing to see here," comes into play. Henry discovers a secret about his father and goes-to-toe with him upon his discovery of it. His mother Kate, tired of the homemaker routine, now that her nest is soon to be empty, enters the workforce and lets Henry in on some of the family's dirty laundry. Meanwhile, John also delivers some surprising news to the family.¿¿¿¿ All the while, Henry still yearns for a tribe to claim as his own, and finds it in new friends Nina, Derek, and Michael. He is also on the quest for love, with one encounter unraveling the very fabric of his being with an HIV scare. His love of pop culture reaches new heights, as he still uses the flickering glow of the television and movies, and getting lost in music and making mixtapes, to grant him much-needed solace from his complicated life.¿It becomes even more complex with several love interests, including a most unlikely candidate.¿¿ Like its predecessor The Scheme of Things, this novel has a thriller aspect and the turn-on-a-dime element of drama becoming comedy, pop culture references galore, and nods to the soap operas¿of the 1980's. Yet it stands alone as its own contained tale.

Daniel Burrow once began a beautiful walk from Konstanz to Como with Julia, mercurial professor of literature, mother to two of his pupils, married, and the love of his life.After years of their secret affair, they stepped out together on top of the world, full of delight in one another and in the future they imagined. Or was it only Dan who imagined it, really? He never had the chance to find out, because a few days into their adventure a single phone call changed everything.Now, at the height of summer, with only a rucksack, a few pages of DH Lawrence that had been Julia's, and his private strata of memory and forgetting, Dan is back on the trail. Step by step, with a tumult of emotions jostling with the demands of the dramatic Alpine landscape, he reckons with what his life is and what it might have been, had he been a different man with different choices.'A writer operating at the height of his powers. One follows the twists and turns of this story of discovery and self-discovery in a sustained state of delight' J.M. Coetzee'An intensely satisfying novel, superbly crafted' Nicholas Shakespeare

Following the critical and commercial success of A Literary Tour of Italy, acclaimed novelist Tim Parks presents a new selection of his latest essays on Italian literature, offering a lively, accessible and stimulating diorama of the cultural landscape of Italy.

Brought to you by Penguin.From the bestselling writer of Italian Ways, Europa and The Hero's Way, a story set during the first days of lockdown in Europe, about the unexpected kindness of strangers and one man's emotional reckoning.Milan, 2020. Drawn abruptly from his reclusive life in London for a friend's funeral, Frank finds himself in the eye of a pandemic he had barely registered on the news. From the relative comfort of his balcony at Hotel Milano, he surveys the train station across the piazza, seeing the mad dash for the last trains, hearing the sirens and watching the police stop people in the street. He feels himself remote from it all.Then, one night, the sound of a child's footsteps leads him to discover a family sheltering secretly above him: a family who need his help. As the days pass, this reserved and difficult man begins to open himself to others. Faced with the task of saving a life, he must also take stock of his own.(c)2023 Tim Parks (P)2023 Penguin Audio

From the bestselling, Booker-shortlisted writer of Italian Ways and Europa, a classic novel about a man's emotional reckoning in a changed world far from homeFrank's reclusive existence in a leafy part of London is shattered when he is summoned to Milan for the funeral of an old friend. Preoccupied by this sudden intrusion of his past, he flies, oblivious, into the epicentre of a crisis he has barely registered on the news.It is spring, his luxury hotel offers every imaginable comfort; perhaps he will be able to weather the situation and return home unscathed? What Frank doesn't know is that he's about to make a discovery that will change his heart and his mind.The arresting new novel from Booker Prize-shortlisted Tim Parks, Hotel Milano is a universal story from a unique moment in recent history: a book about the kindness of strangers, and about a complicated man who, faced with the possibility of saving a life, must also take stock of his own.Praise for In Extremis:'Parks's prose brings us closer to the pressures and rhythms of a lived life than the work of any other contemporary writer I can think of'Mike McCormack, New Statesman Books of the Year'Head and shoulders above so many of the books turned out by similar writers... A wonderfully written novel'Kirsty Gunn, Guardian'Tim Parks is a hugely talented writer'Sunday Times

From the bestselling, Booker-shortlisted writer of Italian Ways and Europa, a classic novel about a man's emotional reckoning in a changed world far from homeFrank's reclusive existence in a leafy part of London is shattered when he is summoned to Milan for the funeral of an old friend. Preoccupied by this sudden intrusion of his past, he flies, oblivious, into the epicentre of a crisis he has barely registered on the news.It is spring, his luxury hotel offers every imaginable comfort; perhaps he will be able to weather the situation and return home unscathed? What Frank doesn't know is that he's about to make a discovery that will change his heart and his mind.The arresting new novel from Booker Prize-shortlisted Tim Parks, Hotel Milano is a universal story from a unique moment in recent history: a book about the kindness of strangers, and about a complicated man who, faced with the possibility of saving a life, must also take stock of his own.Praise for In Extremis:'Parks's prose brings us closer to the pressures and rhythms of a lived life than the work of any other contemporary writer I can think of'Mike McCormack, New Statesman Books of the Year'Head and shoulders above so many of the books turned out by similar writers... A wonderfully written novel'Kirsty Gunn, Guardian'Tim Parks is a hugely talented writer'Sunday Times

From the bestselling author of Italian Neighbours, An Italian Education and Italian Ways, Italian Life is a particular reckoning with a beloved adopted country.

Bestselling author of Italian Ways Tim Parks follows the hair-raising journey of Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, 250-miles on foot from Rome to Ravenna, to explore Italy's past and present.In the summer of 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy's legendary revolutionary hero, was finally forced to abandon his defence of Rome. He and his men had held the besieged city for three long months, but now it was clear that only surrender would prevent slaughter and destruction at the hands of a much superior French army. Against all odds, Garibaldi was determined to turn defeat into moral victory. On the evening of 2 July, riding alongside his pregnant wife Anita, he led 4,000 hastily assembled volunteers out of the city to continue the struggle for national independence in the countryside. Hounded by both French and Austrian armies, the garibaldini marched hundreds of miles through Umbria and Tuscany, then across the Appenines, Italy's mountainous spine, until, after thirty-two exhausting days of skirmishes and adventures, 250 survivors boarded fishing boats on the Adriatic coast in an ill-fated attempt to reach the independent Republic of Venice. It would be ten years and much world-wandering before Garibaldi would astonish the world when his revolutionary campaign in Sicily became the catalyst to the unification of Italy. This is the lesser-known story, brought vividly to life by bestselling author Tim Parks, who in the blazing summer of 2019, together with his partner Eleonora, followed Garibaldi and Anita's arduous journey. The Hero's Way is a fascinating portrait of Italy past and present, and a celebration of determination, creativity, desperate courage and profound belief.

Late on night, the body of a young man is delivered to the morgue of an Italian town. The next day's newspapers report that he was killed in a police raid, and that went by the obviously false name "Carlo Nobodi." Spino, the morgue attendant on duty at the time, becomes obsessed with tracing the identity of the corpse. "Why do you want to know about him?" asks a local priest. "Because he is dead and I'm alive," replies Spino. In this spare yet densely packed cautionary tale, Tabucchi reminds us that it is impossible to reach the edge of the horizon since it always recedes before us, but suggests that some people "carry the horizon with them in their eyes."

After delighting us with his novels and many volumes of non-fiction, Tim Parks - who is not only an acclaimed author and a translator, but also a celebrated literary essayist - gives us a book to enjoy, savour and, most importantly, reread."

In the dramatic landscape of the Italian Alps a group of English canoeists arrive for an introduction to white water rafting. Rather than allowing them to forget their ordinary personalities, the dangerous river brings out qualities and failings in the group.

In Extremis is one of the most implacable, but also one of the funniest, novels about death and family you will ever read. Should he try to solve his friend's family crisis?In his most exhilarating book to date, Tim Parks explores how profoundly our present identity is rooted in our family past.

'Somehow it seemed to him the only thing that would really solve the problem would be to return to the sea and find the old ring with their names and the wedding date engraved inside, in 22-carat gold, and put it on again and then the world would magically return to what it had been before.

How do we find calm in our frantic modern world? The author - lifelong sceptic of all things spiritual - finds himself on a Buddhist meditation retreat trying to answer this very question. He recounts his journey from disbelief to something approaching inner peace and tackles one of the great mysteries of our time - how to survive this modern age.

Should you finish every book you start? How has your family influenced the way you read? What is literary style? How is the Nobel Prize like the World Cup? This collection of provocative pieces tells what readers want from books and how to look at the literature we encounter in a new light.

Acclaimed novelist and critic Tim Parks has long been fascinated by the complicated relationship between an author's life and work. Dissatisfied with the dominant modes of reading he encountered, he began exploring the underlying values and patterns that guide authors in both their writing and their lives. A In a series of provocative, incisive, and unflinching essays written over the past decade and collected for the first time here, he reveals how style and content in a novel reflect a whole pattern of communication and positioning in the author's ordinary and daily behavior. We see how life and work are deeply enmeshed in the work of writers as diverse as Charles Dickens, Feodor Dostoevsky, James Joyce, Anton Chekhov, Philip Roth, Julian Barnes, Peter Stamm, and Geoff Dyer, among others. Parks further shows us how readers' reactions to these writers and their works are inevitably connected to these communicative patterns, establishing a relationship that goes far beyond aesthetic appreciation. A This original and daring collection takes us into the psychology of some of our greatest writers and challenges us to see with more clarity how our lives become entangled with theirs through our reading of their novels.

Morris Duckworth has a dark past. Having married and murdered his way into a wealthy Italian family he has long left aside the paperweight and the pillow to become a respected member of Veronese business life. But it's not enough.

Through memorable encounters with ordinary Italians - conductors and ticket collectors, priests and prostitutes, scholars and lovers, gypsies and immigrants, this title captures what makes Italian life distinctive.

The bestselling author of "Italian Neighbors" returns with a wry and revealing portrait of Italian life--by riding its trains.

Trauma leaves her no alternative but to bury herself in the austere asceticism of a community that wakes at 4am, doesn't permit eye contact, let alone speech, and keeps men and women strictly segregated.

Tim Parks - who was described in a recent review as "one of the best living writers of English" - has delighted audiences around the world with his finely observed writing on all aspects of Italian life and customs. This volume contains a selection of his best essays on the literature of his adopted country.

A black comedy of family life, by the award-winning author of "Tongues of Flame" and "Loving Roger". Raymond has gone mad. His family have planned their lives so carefully, and a family casualty is definitely not part of the equation. Will Raymond let them help him anyway?

A sequel to "Cara Massimina". Morris can't get over the Italian girl who eloped with him two years ago, but perhaps the dear, dead Mimi can't get over him either. Living in Verona and married to her sister, he hears Mimi's voice and sees her endlessly reincarnated face in Renaissance madonnas.

An English geologist working on a Mediterranean island becomes embroiled in a nightmare web of deceit, corruption, lust and tragedy in Tim Parks' mesmeric story of a man whose life will be shattered like the fatal fragment of stone that obsesses him.