Books by Russell Hoban

"A hero with Huck Finn's heart and charm, lighting by El Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy. . . . Riddley Walker is haunting and fiercely imagined and—this matters most—intensely ponderable." —Benjamin DeMott, The New York Times Book Review "This is what literature is meant to be." —Anthony Burgess "Russell Hoban has brought off an extraordinary feat of imagination and style. . . . The conviction and consistency are total. Funny, terrible, haunting and unsettling, this book is a masterpiece." —Anthony Thwaite, Observer "Extraordinary . . . Suffused with melancholy and wonder, beautifully written, Riddley Walker is a novel that people will be reading for a long, long time." —Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World "Stunning, delicious, designed to prevent the modern reader from becoming stupid." —John Leonard, The New York Times "Highly enjoyable . . . An intriguing plot . . . Ferociously inventive." —Walter Clemons, Newsweek "Astounding . . . Hoban's soaring flight of imagination is that golden rarity, a dazzlingly realized work of genius." —Jane Clapperton, Cosmopolitan "An imaginative intensity that is rare in contemporary fiction.' —Paul Gray, Time Riddley Walker is a brilliant, unique, completely realized work of fiction. One reads it again and again, discovering new wonders every time through. Set in a remote future in a post-nuclear holocaust England (Inland), Hoban has imagined a humanity regressed to an iron-age, semi-literate state—and invented a language to represent it. Riddley is at once the Huck Finn and the Stephen Dedalus of his culture—rebel, change agent, and artist. Read again or for the first time this masterpiece of 20th-century literature with new material by the author.

When Irving Goodman falls in love with Justine Trimble he is close to the end of his life and she's been dead for forty-seven years. Irving doesn't know how he's going to attain his heart's desire but he knows a man who does. Justine was a star of 1950s black-and-white westerns, an expert horsewoman much admired for her seat, and when Istvan Fallok, a wizard of high technology, sees her in Irving's video of Last Stage to El Paso, he hi-techs Justine out of the videotape and into present-day Soho - in black-and-white. It's amazing what you can do with magnetised particles in a suspension of disbelief. As any reader of Bram Stoker will know, blood is the (full-colour) life. Istvan is Justine's first donor but in order not to be walking around in black-and-white, she has to be topped up now and then by Irving and his friends and the odd passer-by. Not surprisingly, the curiosity of the police is soon aroused. Things become a little complicated when Grace Kowalski brings a Justine Two into the picture. Where will this all end? Linger Awhileand find out.

A traveler on the road to Jerusalem during the First Crusade of 1096, moving across a landscape of grotesque horror and extravagant beauty, meets God and Satan in all their forms

Roswell Clark wants a bat tattoo. His ideal bat image is on a bowl in the V&A Museum. There he encounters Sarah Varley, also compelled by the same bat. What does it mean? This novel combines much about art with new angles on Christ, crash-test dummies, antiques and pornography.

Fourth Galaxy, 4 November 2052: in the black sparkle of deep space a figure in a blue overall tumbles over and over as it drifts towards the planet Badr-al-Budur. No space suit, no helmet, no oxygen. He can't be alive, can he? But he is. First Navigator Fremder Gorn is the only survivor when the Corporation tanker Clever Daughter disappears. Nobody knows how he did it, and everybody, including Fremder himself, wants to know. Caroline Lovecraft, Head of the Physio/ Psycho unit at Newton Centre, Hubble Straits finds that intimacy doesn't lead to answers and Fremder's own memories are resolutely obscure. Fremder's name means stranger, and his story, as one would expect from Russell Hoban, is full of strangeness and brilliant imagery.

Two lonely Londoners bond over a plan to free the sea turtles at the city zoo in this touching novel from a cult-favorite author who has drawn comparisons to J.D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut. A wise and touching classic that “crackles with witty detail, mordant intelligence and self-deprecating irony,” from the author of Riddley Walker (Time) Life in a city can be atomizing, isolating. And it certainly is for William G. and Neaera H., the strangers at the center of Russell Hoban’s surprisingly heartwarming novel Turtle Diary. William, a clerk at a used bookstore, lives in a rooming house after a divorce that has left him without home or family. Neaera is a successful writer of children’s books, who, in her own estimation, “looks like the sort of spinster who doesn’t keep cats and is not a vegetarian. Looks…like a man’s woman who hasn’t got a man.” Entirely unknown to each other, they are both drawn to the turtle tank at the London Zoo with “minds full of turtle thoughts,” wondering how the turtles might be freed. And then comes the day when Neaera walks into William’s bookstore, and together they form an unlikely partnership to make what seemed a crazy dream become a reality.

On a day like any other, Kleinzeit gets fired. Hours later he finds himself in hospital with a pair of adventurous pyjamas and a recurring geometrical pain. Here he falls instantly in love with a beautiful night nurse called Sister. And together they are pitched headlong into a wild and flickering world of mystery ... Kleinzeit. In German that means 'hero'. Or 'smalltime'. It depends on whom you ask. 'Russell Hoban is our Ur-novelist, a maverick voice that is like no other' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Enter the eye-opening, mind-expanding world of Russell Hoban's latest novel. Set in a solidly detailed London, this compellingly lucid but disorienting narrative will leave no reader on quite the same footing with reality as before.

In a not-so-distant future when lions are extinct Jachin-Boaz, a middle-aged mapmaker, leaves home with the wonderful map that was to tell his son where to find everything. In the ruins of a palace at Nineveh, his son Boaz-Jachin finds the wall-carving of a great lion dying on the spear of an ancient king.

Written in an idiosyncratic yet authentic voice, an ingenious account describes Riddley Walker's attempt to understand the past and the present of a world which continues to exist two thousand years after the ultimate catastrophe occurred

Jonathan Fitch was shocked by Mr. Rinyo-Clacton's offer a million pounds and one year to live, but what happened next was even more shocking. In a state of desperation after being left by beautiful Serafina, Jonathan does his best to pull up his socks with varying success. Beginning with the chance meeting of two strangers in Piccadilly Circus Underground Station, MR RINYO-CLACTON'S OFFER is full of the loving and carefully observed London detail that Russell Hoban and his readers so enjoy. Some love stories are about triangles, but what happens between Jonathan and Serafina and Katerina and Mr. Rinyo-Clacton is perhaps more of a trapezoid, in the pointy corners of which a long hard look is taken at what goes on between consenting, relenting, and dissenting adults. Sharp and witty but written with affection, MR RINYO-CLACTON'S OFFER reaches parts not reached by other Hoban novels.

Phil Ockerman falls hard for Bertha Strunk at a tango lesson in a church crypt in Clerkenwell. Bertha also bears a strong resemblance to the 17th century Venetian singer and composer Barbara Strozzi - with whom Phil happens to be obsessed. On their first serious date, they watch 'The Rainmaker', a tale of battered wives and the murder of an ex-husband. Could it be that Barbara's choice of film is not entirely innocent - especially considering that Phil afterwards finds himself carrying around a potential murder weapon?

In the cold north, when Sixteen-Face John, a shaman, learns that his first child, a soonchild, cannot hear the World Songs that inspire all newborns from their mother's wombs, he sets out on a quest that takes him through many lifetimes and many shape-shifts, as well as encounters with beasts, demons and a mysterious benevolent owl spirit, Ukpika, who is linked to John's past.

Falling head over heels for the spirited Lola, who shares his musical tastes and complements him on every level, Max nevertheless pursues a secret second relationship when the unattainable high-school homecoming queen he loved years earlier reenters his life.

In Ariosto's epic sixteenth century poem Orlando Furioso, the beautiful Angelica is rescued by the valiant Ruggiero. He swoops in riding a hippogriff, a fantastical winged creature, the offspring of a griffin and a mare. Volatore, as this hippogriff calls himself, has escaped Ariosto's poem after being trapped within it for centuries and is now determined to find Angelica himself. Landing in San Francisco, he meets Angelica Greenberg and the unlikely couple falls in love. But events constantly conspire to separate them, and Volatore sets out to find the perfect form he must embody to consummate their love. Angelica Lost and Found contains life-enhancing wisdom and emanates with wicked drollery, aesthetic insight and the romance of Russell Hoban at his best.

Because Tom''s aunt disapproves of his constant fooling around, she calls in Captain Najork to teach him a lesson. Tom, however, has a splendid idea!

Russell Hoban’s moving, unflinching tale of a boy who finds bravery during illness is reimagined in graphic-novel format with art by Alexis Deacon. Asleep in his hospital bed, Jim dreams of a great lion with white teeth and amber eyes. This lion is Jim’s finder. According to Nurse Bami, everyone has a finder, a creature who comes looking for us when we are lost. But when the time comes for Jim’s operation, will his lion be able to find him and bring him safely home? Dramatically reimagined as a graphic novel by award-winning illustrator Alexis Deacon, with the inclusion of powerful dream sequences, Russell Hoban’s tale of a boy’s search for strength and courage will resonate with any child dealing with adversity.

Frances is jealous of her sister's birthday, but birthday spirit moves her to reluctantly give her coveted gift.

John goes for a ride in the sky on Ace Dragon's back and finds him not so limited after all.

"Russell Hoban has had a loyal following among parents and children for his popular books about Frances the badger."--BOOK JACKET. "A Russell Hoban Omnibus presents four of Hoban's novels: the haunting The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz; the popular Turtle Diary (which was made into a movie starting Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley); Pilgermann; and his newest work, Mr. Rinyo-Clacton's Offer, a Faustian comedy published here for the first time in the United States."--BOOK JACKET. "Russell Hoban has also excelled as a writer of short stories, essays, and poetry. Samples of his best work from The Moment under the Moment and The Last of the Wallendas and Other Poems are included in this volume."--BOOK JACKET. "Finally, for true Hoban aficionados, there is part of an unfinished sequel to The Mouse and His Child featuring the further adventures of Manny Rat."--BOOK JACKET.

"Jam on toast," sings Frances about the food she likes most--until she has it for the sixth meal in two days

After receiving a blow to the head from a bully at school and a mysterious puzzle from a melancholy magician, twelve-year-old Nick enters a strange and frightening reality that changes his life.