Ring Road (44 page)

The Truth About Babies: From A–Z

Taking Cyril Connolly's ‘pram in the hall' for a spin round the block, Sansom offers a series of meditations on every aspect of babies – from bathing, boredom, breastfeeding and buggies to weaning, weight, words and work. The result is a profound, philosophical and frequently very funny Dictionary of Infants.

‘Packed full of wry, poignant observations on all aspects of babydom … One to enjoy with a nightcap'
New Baby

‘A true and beautiful book … Every new parent should have a copy for their journey through that first year'
Guardian

‘Funny and touching and true'
Evening Standard

The Scheme for Full Employment

Magnus Mills

Crushed by the wheels of indolence and infighting, a Utopian work scheme involving a fleet of white vans hits the buffers in a spellbinding novel that puts the K into Fred Kite.

Mondo Desperado: Stories

Patrick McCabe

Welcome to Barntrosna! As writer in residence Phildy Hackball reveals, this seemingly charming little Irish town has witnessed some mighty strange goings-on – go-go dancing swingers, exploding novice priests, lesbian nurses and Kung Fu superstars. Oh yes, all life is here, sister.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy

Laurence Sterne

The shaggiest dog of all shaggy dog tales, Sterne's masterpiece is the blueprint of every digressive, playful and textually adventurous novel since. See Robert McCrudden's Creative Writing course (Lecture 7: ‘
The Novel
–
Making Things Up for Pleasure and Profit')
at the institute.

The Third Policeman

Flann O'Brien

Murder, a mad scientist and the story of an unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle. O'Brien's absurdist satire about a village police force is a masterpiece.

Three Men in a Boat

Jerome K. Jerome

Three clerks (‘to say nothing of the dog') go on a jaunt up the River Thames in Jerome's whimsical but still wonderful comic classic.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Dave Eggers

Eggers's gambolling memoir about losing both his parents and raising his younger brother really does live up to its title.

Sweet Desserts

Lucy Ellmann

Surely, any novel with an index which actually has an entry for the index (Index, 143–5) deserves a place in your life and on your bookshelf? Tuna sandwiches feature to boot.

http://www.theenthusiast.co.uk

Two of Billy Nibbs's poems graced
The Enthusiast's
debut issue. Need we say more? I think not.

www.mcsweeneys.net

In the worldwide web, where ever more convenient shopping has usurped
Content, the Old King,
Dave Eggers's McSweeney's Internet Tendencies is an online institution worth clinging onto.

www.sandwich.org.uk

Home of the British Sandwich Association.

http://ukulele.org

Sadly, copies of Bill and Antoinetta Bell's masterwork
The Two Little Fleas
are rarer than hen's teeth these days. Visit this site, though, to discover more about this mellifluous stringed instrument and, perhaps, download a copy of
The Fleabag Songbook.

Harper Perennial
An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
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Hammersmith
London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk/harperperennial

First published by Fourth Estate 2004

Copyright © Ian Sansom 2004

PS section copyright © Travis Elborough 2005

PS
^™
is a trademark of HarperCollins
Publishers
Ltd

Ian Sansom asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007402472