Canongate U S imprint: 22 books

In the latest retelling of the world’s greatest stories in the Myth series from Canongate, the highly regarded novelist Salley Vickers brings to life the Western world’s most widely known myth, Oedipus, through a shrewdly told exploration of the seminal story in conversation between Freud and Tiresias.It...

Margaret Atwood returns with a shrewd, funny, and insightful retelling of the myth of Odysseus from the point of view of Penelope. Describing her own remarkable vision, the author writes in the foreword, “I’ve chosen to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids. The...

In these hilarious stories of perverse meetings, casual dates and romantic encounters, we are enthralled, saddened, inspired and surprised by the encounters we’re made privy to. McCall Smith, a master of the unexpected and a seamless storyteller, revels in offering us the quirky complications inherent...

Brits and Americans dress the same, eat at the same chain restaurants, pass music back and forth across the Atlantic, and our national leaders are practically conjoined twins. But the second the Brits open their mouths, all bets are off. So don’t dream of visiting the UK, dating a Brit, or truly understanding...

“Human beings have always been mythmakers.” So begins best-selling writer Karen Armstrong’s concise yet compelling investigation into myth: what it is, how it has evolved, and why we still so desperately need it. She takes us from the Paleolithic period and the myths of the hunters right up to the...

John Egan is a misfit - "a twelve year old in the body of a grown man with the voice of a giant" - who diligently keeps a "log of lies." John's been able to detect lies for as long as he can remember, it's a source of power but also great consternation for a boy so young. With an obsession for the Guinness...

1593 and London is a city on edge. Under threat from plague and war, it's a desperate place where strangers are unwelcome and severed heads grin from spikes on Tower Bridge.Playwright, poet, spy and man of prodigious appetites, Christopher Marlowe is working on his latest literary effort and enjoying...

The Earth Hums in B Flat is a story of dark family secrets unraveled by the shrewd insight of twelve-year-old Gwenni Morgan, a child with an irrepressible spirit living in a Welsh village that is reluctantly entering the modern age. From the small bed that she shares with her sister at night she flies...

“Multilayered narratives come together as an exploration of femininity, identity, mortality, and folklore’s wondrous powers.” —Booklist According to Slavic myth, Baba Yaga is a witch who lives in a house built on chicken legs and kidnaps small children. In Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, internationally...

A new literary take on the biblical story of Samson, by the prize-winning author of A Horse Walks into a Bar: “Original and very clever” (The Times, London). From one of Israel’s most lauded contemporary writers, this book retells the myth of Samson—one of the most tempestuous, charismatic,...

A thought-provoking retelling of the Gospel story from an atheist perspective. Upon its hardcover publication, renowned author Philip Pullman’s The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ provoked heated debates and stirred a frenzy of controversy throughout the clerical and literary worlds...

“Doctor Zhivago . . . Anna Karenina . . . A Hero of Our Time . . . The People’s Act of Love will remind you of all these books . . . Magnificent” (The Washington Post Book World). Set in a time of great social upheaval, warfare, and terrorism, and against a stark, lawless Siberia at the...

A teenager yearns to escape her roots—but feels like an outsider with the wealthy family that takes her in—in this novel from a Booker Prize finalist.   “Sixteen-year-old Australian exchange student Louise (Lou) is ecstatic that she has left behind her rough family, who mock her for using big...

A working-class family struggles to overcome prejudice in this “utterly gripping” novel of pride, loyalty and love from the acclaimed author of Brass (She). On the coldest night of 1975, Robbie Fitzgerald sprints through the snowy streets of a northern British town. With a Van Morrison-meets-Robert...