Available from Clinicality Press…

This Book is Fucking Stupid by Christopher Nosnibor

Ben and Stuart are old friends. Having known one another since school, they’ve grown up together and remained friends into adulthood. But now into their thirties, their lives have taken very different paths, and they’re now very different people, leading very different lives, following different careers. Ben is a conformist: office job, moderately successful, and teetering on the brink of a premature midlife crisis. Stuart is a rebellious non-conformist, a lifelong student and a writer who sneers at the humdrum and derides ‘corporate sell-outs’.

Ben is tortured by the tedium of his job and is struggling with his work / life balance and worries about money and living a life unfulfilled, while Stuart worries about his thesis and living a life unfulfilled and pretends not to care about money. But are they really so very different?

However, true to form, Nosnibor shatters all sembance of continuity to forge a work that stretches what can be considered a novel to breaking point. Identities crumble beneath the weight of self-negating ideas and linear narrative dissolves in a corrosive tsunami of conflicting concepts and contradictory commentaries. This Book is a challenging and labyrinthine work designed to confuse, bewilder and frustrate, as well an beguile, amuse and entertain. This Book may be stupid, or it may be a work of genius. Either way, it’s a book like no other.

First edition: e-book only. Published 1 April 2012. Launch price just $0.99 only via Smashwords.

Second editio: special ‘Fifty Shades of Shit’ Kindle edition out now.

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Hack by James Wells

Rob Price is a music journalist. He’s a hard-drinking hack who’s frustrated, skint and cynical, and he’s drowning in a pile of CDs to review that he simply doesn’t have the time to listen to. He’s not only got money issues, but girlfriend issues, flatmate issues, personal hygiene issues and a rampant libido he’s incapable of keeping in check after a few pints.

Hack follows Rob round endless seedy dive venues as he finds himself at odds with the people he meets in an industry teeming with hangers on, wannabes, maybes and no-hopers, as he sneers, snorts, tokes and spews his way through a succession of sordid encounters and dangerous liaisons in his quest for that ‘big’ story.

A graphic and darkly comic tale of misanthropy, music and misadventure, Hack makes Lester Bangs seem positively straight edge in comparison to Price. This book is to music journalism what John Niven’s Kill Your Friends is to A&R – only grimier, slimier and grittier. While some writers go for the jugular, James Wells just goes straight for the jugs.

ebook published October 2011, available via Smashwords and as a Kindle edtion from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Print edition due Autumn 2012.

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From Destinations Set by Christopher Nosnibor

Tim and Anthony are very different people, leading very different lives, following different careers in different cities. Tim is a conformist: office job, moderately successful, and teetering on the brink of a premature midlife crisis. Anthony is a rebellious non-conformist: a writer who sneers at the humdrum and derides ‘corporate sell-outs.’ But are they really so very different?

Tim is tortured by the tedium of his job and is struggling with his work / life balance. The combined pressures of his circumstances and his mindset are contriving to push him close to losing the plot. The fact that he keeps finding himself in strange places and situations, ith no recollection of how he got there only exacerbates his fear that he’s going mental.

Anthony has a book to write, and a deadline. He has plenty of ideas, but is having difficulty expressing them. as time begins to run short, he hits the bottle and embarks on a frenzy of revision, through which author and narrative become difficult to separate from one another The two narratives of From Destinations Set trace these characters’ activities as they occur in parallel – not only in terms of time, but also literally, the page divided into two columns with one story in the left, the other in the right. As events and personalities unravel in each of the two separate stories, the similarities, rather than the differences, become apparent. But more than this, as the two plots develop, questions are raised as to precisely who’s writing the script: is Tim’s dislocation symptomatic of his breakdown, or is there some connection between him and Anthony?

These questions are not intended to be answered: From Destinations Set does not seek narrative closure, and is not primarily a plot-driven work. nstead, the narrative, in which time shifts and repition are frequent, is forged from the fabric of everyday life, exposing the idea of ‘character’ and ‘plot’ as social and literary constructs and posing questions to which the reader must find their own answers.

Paperback, 98 pages. Published September 2010. Available from all major on-line outlets and direct from Clinicality Press.

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