Every line tells a different story ...
A troubled young woman travels across London to end an abusive relationship. An agitated father gets lost in the city with an injured toddler. Two men - who unknowingly cross paths every day - finally meet one life-changing afternoon. A sudden death on the platform at Blackfriars sparks rumours of murder.
Underground, we are at once isolated and connected. We avoid eye contact and conversation while our lives literally intersect with those of strangers. As we stand on the tube, it becomes possible to travel far further than expected - and this sense of possibility lies at the heart of this stunning collection.
Twelve writers explore life on the London Underground through eleven short stories and one memoir, commissioned to mark the opening of the Elizabeth line.
ItÕs okay if you donÕt believe in the afterlife. The people who live there donÕt believe in you, either.
What if you went to heaven and no one there believed in Earth? This is the question at the heart of Beforelife, a satirical novel that follows the post-mortem adventures of widower Ian Brown, a man who dies on the bookÕs first page and finds himself in an afterlife where no one else believes in Òpre-incarnation.Ó The other residents of the afterlife have mysteriously forgotten their pre-mortem lives and think that anyone who remembers a mortal life is suffering from a mental disorder called the ÒBeforelife Delusion.Ó
None of that really matters to Ian. All he wants to do is reunite with Penelope, his wife. Scouring the afterlife for any sign of her, Ian accidentally winds up on a quest to prove that the beforelife is real. This puts him squarely into the crosshairs of some of historyÕs greatest heroes and villains, all of whom seem unhealthily obsessed with erasing IanÕs memories and preventing him from reminding anyone of their pre-mortem lives. Only by staying a step ahead of his enemies can Ian hope to keep his much-needed marbles, find Penelope, and restore the publicÕs memories of the beforelife.
'' Elizabeth McKenzie, author of The Portable Veblen'I loved Elefant! It was ' Seni Glaister, author of The Museum of Things Left Behind' because it's easy to fall in love with its main character, a tiny, glowing, pink elephant.' Homer Hickam, author of Carry Albert Home
What would you do if you woke up to see a living, breathing, tiny, glowing, pink elephant? If you're anything like Schoch, who lives on the streets of Zürich and is decidedly down on his luck, you might well think it's time to put away the bottle before your hallucinations get any stranger, and go back to sleep.But what if the tiny pink elephant is still there when you wake up? And clearly needs someone to take care of it? And what if you discover that it's been created through genetic engineering, by a group of scientists who just want to use it to get rich and don't care about the elephant's welfare? And that they're in cahoots with a circus and will stop at nothing to get it back?What if this little elephant is about to change your life?
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