New Releases by Martyn Bedford

When an out-of-work actor discovers his bedsit once belonged to an obscure, suicidal painter, he turns his talents to re-creating the ultimate site-specific performance… As a teenage girl drifts from depression into a permanent state of sleep, she becomes the focus of both scientific interest and an unexpected, cult following... Against a backdrop of hooliganism and hostility, an asylum seeker writes letters home assuring his family how welcoming England is... Many of the characters in Martyn Bedford’s stories find themselves at a point of redefinition, trading in their old identity for something new. Whether it is an act of retreat or escape – fantasising about storming out of a thankless job, or just avoiding a bad-tempered husband for a few moments on Christmas day – they each understand the first step in changing a reality, is to reconstruct it. ‘Martyn Bedford is the genuine article, a writer of unmistakable flair and accomplishment.’ - New York Times ‘Haunting and intimate portraits of vividly different lives that get under your skin and stay there.’ - Jeremy Dyson ''Letters Home further establishes Martyn Bedford as a stand-out writer of highly memorable fiction.’ - Jacob Ross

Whatever happened to British protest? For a nation that brought the world Chartism, the Suffragettes, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, and so many other grassroots social movements, Britain rarely celebrates its long, great tradition of people power. In this timely and evocative collection, twenty authors have assembled to re-imagine key moments of British protest, from the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 to the anti-Iraq War demo of 2003. Written in close consultation with historians, sociologists and eyewitnesses – who also contribute afterwords – these stories follow fictional characters caught up in real-life struggles, offering a streetlevel perspective on the noble art of resistance. In the age of fake news and post-truth politics this book fights fiction with (well researched, historically accurate) fiction. Protests include the Peasants Revolt, Poll Tax Riots, Anti-Iraq War Demo and many more...

Two went on the run. One came back. The day Gloria first met Uman Padeem her life changed. He was the new kid in school with a mysterious past, confidence and charisma, but what attracts Gloria most is the way he sees her deep longing to escape her humdrum life. And so they do. When Gloria returns, she sits with her mother facing a detective. Uman has disappeared; they must find him. As she retells their story, Gloria begins to wonder if it was Uman that took her away, or if she had started to disappear much, much earlier . . . With each question, the mystery surrounding Gloria''s disappearance deepens.

The relationship between sleep and storytelling is an ancient one. For centuries, sleep has provided writers with a magical ingredient – a passage of time during which great changes miraculously occur, an Orpheus-like voyage through the subconscious daubed with the fantastic. But over the last ten years, our scientific understanding of sleep has been revolutionised. No longer is sleep viewed as a time of simple rest and recuperation. Instead, it is proving to be an intensely dynamic period of brain activity: a vital stage in the re-wiring of memories, the learning of new skills, and the processing of problems and emotions. How will storytelling respond to this new and emerging science of sleep? Here, 14 authors have been invited to work with key scientists to explore various aspects of sleep research: from the possibilities of ‘sleep engineering’ and ‘overnight therapies’, to future-tech ways of harnessing sleep’s problem-solving powers, to the challenges posed by our increasingly 24-hour lifestyles. Just as new hypotheses are being put forward, old hunches are also being confirmed (there’s now a scientific basis for the time-worn advice ‘to sleep on a problem’). As these responses show, sleep and the spinning of stories are still very much entwined. Featuring scientific contributions from: Prof Russell G. Foster, Isabel Hutchison, Dr. Simon Kyle, Dr. Penny Lewis, Dr. Paul Reading, Stephanie Romiszewski, Prof Robert Stickgold, Prof Manuel Schabus, Prof Ed Watkins, Prof Adam Zeman, Dr. Thomas Wehr. This project was supported by the Wellcome Trust.

Computers are changing. Soon the silicon chip will seem like a clunky antique amid the bounty of more exotic processes on offer. Robots are changing too; material evolution and swarm intelligence are creating a new generation of devices that will diverge and disperse into a balanced ecosystem of humans and ‘robjects’ (robotic objects). Somewhere in between, we humans will have to change also… in the way we interact with technology, the roles we adopt in an increasingly ‘intelligent’ environment, and how we interface with each other. The driving motors behind many of these changes will be artificial life (A-Life) and unconventional computing. How exactly they will impact on our world is still an open question. But in the spirit of collective intelligence, this anthology brings together 38 scientists and authors, working in pairs, to imagine what life (and A-Life) will look like in the year 2070. Every kind of technology is imagined: from lie-detection glasses to military swarmbots, brain-interfacing implants to synthetically ‘grown’ skyscrapers, revolution-inciting computer games to synthetically engineered haute cuisine. All artificial life is here. Featuring scientific contributions from: Martyn Amos, J. Mark Bishop, Seth Bullock, Stephen Dunne, James Dyke, Christian Jantzen, Francesco Mondada, James D. O''Shea, Andrew Philippides, Lenka Pitonakova, Steen Rasmussen, Thomas S. Ray, Micah Rosenkind, James Snowdon, Susan Stepney, Germán Terrazas, Andrew Vardy and Alan Winfield. Supported by TRUCE (Training and Research in Unconventional Computation in Europe).

A deeply affecting new novel by the award-winning author of Flip! When a family holiday ends in the tragic death of their young son, the grieving parents struggle to cope, and Shiv, their fifteen-year-old daughter, must come to terms with what happened . . . and her part in it. Off the rails and tormented by guilt, she is sent away to an exclusive clinic that claims to "cure" people like her. But this is no ordinary psychiatric institution, and Shiv discovers that her release--from her demons, and from the clinic itself--will come at a bizarre and terrible price.

Millgarth Police Station reverberates with the early adrenalin-rush of a case they won''t close for years. A teenage boy trails the city centre bars of the eighties in thrall to his hero - a Leeds United football hooligan. A single woman finds her frustrations with men confirmed speed-dating in a city re-invented as a party capital. Bringing together fiction from some of the city''s most celebrated writers, The Book of Leeds traces the unique contours that fifty years of social and economic change can impress on a city. These are stories that take place at oblique angles to the larger events in the city''s history, or against wider currents that have shaped the social and cultural landscape of today''s Leeds: a modern city with both problems and promise.

A coroner reveals a body''s tell-tale clues to his students, as he unwittingly dissects his own relationship. . . A breakdown driver turns his roadside routine into a quite different type of pick-up . . . Two creative writing tutors discuss the merits of hardboiled versus cosy schools of crime writing, while a murderous student points out that it''s really procedure that counts . . . The second in this series of anthologies from the CWA picks up the primary scent of any investigation: the modus operandi; the signature that identifies any repeat offender, the how that supersedes the why . From the ex-doctor tenderly administering a final prescription to his victims, the party of finishing school debutantes exacting revenge on their lecherous host... these stories demonstrate that, even with the most despicable of crimes, there s methodology in the madness.

“Flip is captivating from beginning to end, with rich characters and a fascinating mystery. . . . Highly recommended!” --James Dashner, author of the Maze Runner series What does it mean to have a soul whose will to live knows no limits? One morning fourteen-year-old Alex wakes up to find himself in the wrong bedroom, in an unfamiliar house, in a different part of the country. Six months have disappeared overnight. The family at the breakfast table? Total strangers. And when he looks in the mirror, another boy''s face stares back. A boy named Philip, known as Flip. Unless Alex finds out what''s happened and how to get back to his own life, he''ll be trapped forever inside a body that belongs to someone else. Martyn Bedford''s debut novel for young adults is fearless and fast-paced, a riveting psychological thriller about a boy coming undone in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Praise for Flip A Junior Library Guild Selection A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year "The mysteries are countless: What is a soul? Where does it go when its human host ceases to function? Bedford adeptly sweeps the existential curtain aside and tackles these heavy questions as the tension soars." --Kirkus Reviews, Starred

A fugitive turns up at a young widow''s door. Finn is a draft dodger. Afraid of dying and opposed to the war, he could see no way out until a stranger slipped him a calling card from an anti-draft network. Now on the run, he has the promise of a new identity and a new life, but if he is caught, the punishment will be brutal. Then he meets Bryher. Thrown together by war, united in grief, they take a chance on one another- a chance that could make or break them.

When Ethan discovers that Chloe Fortune is a dowser and that her acute sixth sense allows her to locate anything she sets her mind on, they seem made for each other. But as they hunt their quarry, they close in on other truths: about themselves, about each other and about obsession itself.

"Unusually deft and witty dialogue--. With great aplomb, [Bedford] has brought off an erotic thriller."--The New York Times Book Review In The Houdini Girl, award-winning mystery writer Martyn Bedford explores the pulsing spiritual chaos that lies at the heart of erotic obsession. Fletcher "Red" Brandon is a master magician who uses his talents to seduce Rosa, a flinty Irish woman. But when Rosa is killed suddenly, Red discovers secrets about the woman with whom he shared one sexy, combative, freewheeling year. Inside Rosa''s shoulder bag are a wig and a stranger''s passport. And when a routine investigation reveals that Rosa has vanished before--and that her father was a terrorist for the IRA--Peter suspects foul play. Red finds himself in Amsterdam, a stranger stumbling through his lover''s secret history. Following a trail of addiction, prostitution, and murder, Red''s search for the truth becomes more and more laden with mystery and forces him to reveal his own unsavory secrets. Masterfully plotted, The Houdini Girl transcends sleight-of-hand trickery for a stunning tale of love, loss, and the lure of illusion.

Een Brits mega-winkelcentrum wordt onveilig gemaakt door een vandaal die reageert op sociale misstanden.

Local newspaper reporter, Constance Amory, becomes embroiled in a battle of wits with a saboteur who has daubed blood on the doors of a shopping complex. Through this, her life is heading for a collision course with that of Thomas Amory, a saw grinder who lived 130 years before her.

As he goes through his dead mother''s papers Englishman Gregory Lynn, 35, discovers his unflattering school reports, which revive memories of humiliation at the hands of teachers. One called him a donkey, another said he had a girl''s name. Lynn decides to even the score with cold-blooded acts of revision. A first novel.