{"title":"Books by Michael Stewart","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781912436408","title":"Couples","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Bleak but wonderful ... familiar, and of course funny.” \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ci\u003eAlan Bennett\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Dark, funny and twisted, but surprisingly tender.” \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ci\u003eA.L. Kennedy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eCouples \u003c\/i\u003eis a blackly comic sequence of poems that explore the nature of co-dependency – of two people who want to be together, but at the same time cannot help but push each other away. \u003cbr\u003e The layout of the book is itself a commentary on the phenomenon – the poems are placed in their own ‘couples’, pairs that face each other across the page. Sometimes they exchange a glance, sometimes they stand side-by-side, staring out into the abyss; only when the book is closed, and they are in darkness, do they truly come together. \u003cbr\u003e Originally published on Valentine’s Day 2013, the seven-year itch has brought Michael Stewart back to his old flame for a new edition in 2020; reworking the original poems, and adding a dozen more. The result is an unnervingly perceptive volume, to be shared with your ‘other half’ at your own risk – you may never look at a couple, or each other, the same way again.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205839618226,"sku":"9781912436408","price":7.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781912436408_9f18fc93-866a-45df-8bbe-7f90fee49e6c.jpg?v=1786030216"},{"product_id":"9780008596118","title":"Black Wood Women","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe know the truths men have forgotten…          ‘Visceral, twisting, propulsive – Black Wood Women begs to be devoured’ Stacey Halls          'Grim and glorious' Daily Mail          'Will leave you breathless’ Sunday Post          'A vivid, inventive narrative' Sunday Times\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe last wolf in England hunts for prey. Exhausted, hungry and alone, she fears for the litter of pups she carries, and the men who seek to wipe her out.                       Yorkshire, 1649.             Since they fled Ireland, Caragh and her family have hidden their true identities to enable them to start a new life in England. But when Caragh finds her parents brutally murdered by a Protestant determined to rid the area of Catholics, she must flee again.             Travelling east, she comes to a forest, where she meets a coven of women who wear their hair loose and refuse to follow men’s rules.             Having found acceptance at last, Caragh is unaware that a different kind of persecution stalks the black wood women, and their days in the forest are numbered.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55896379752821,"sku":"9780008596118","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008596118_9aa6ac23-de16-4cf6-9572-dee1eb1cc5df.jpg?v=1785658953"},{"product_id":"9780008430221","title":"Walking The Invisible","description":"See through the eyes of the Brontës as you immerse yourself in their lives and landscapes, wandering the very same paths they each would have walked in search of the inspiration behind their novels and poetry.An ‘imaginative and elegant trek through the landscape of the Brontës’ GraziaIn his journey to get closer to the Brontës, award-winning author Michael Stewart began walking the historic paths they trod while writing their most famous works. From Liverpool to Scarborough, across wild, windy, and often unforgiving scenery, he discovered echoes of the siblings’ novels. And with the help of an unlikely cast of Yorkshire’s inhabitants, Michael found himself falling further into their lives and writings than he could ever have imagined.Vivid and evocative, and including a series of beautiful maps of walks Michael devised when creating the iconic Brontë Stones project, Walking the Invisible invites you to experience the lives and landscapes that inspired the Brontës as they’ve never been experienced before. Along the way, you’ll find yourself getting closer to classics such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Agnes Grey, discovering the real locations behind their fictional settings, and uncovering the myths that surround this much acclaimed and wholly unique family.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56221490119029,"sku":"9780008430221","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008430221_a084e4f7-f516-4f15-a287-15369d52acf4.jpg?v=1785658594"},{"product_id":"9780956687609","title":"King Crow","description":"\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56295185449333,"sku":"9780956687609","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780956687609_8ee3c1fb-6cd0-46f1-ab39-0955a54ee9ce.jpg?v=1786016368"},{"product_id":"9781739173029","title":"The Dogs","description":"\u003cp\u003eA book about what humans have done to the world and what we have done to ourselves. Specifically, it is a book about ‘Man’s best friends’ – their origin-myths, and their place in the world before they were coopted into human society and ideas of pure breeding and dysgenics. The Dogs also imagines a future where dogs develop the power of speech; led by the non-violent UnderDogs and the more radical Der Uberhünd, the animals of the world begin demanding their rights.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303931687285,"sku":"9781739173029","price":7.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781739173029_39422ba3-bd94-4739-a242-d276407f3ae8.jpg?v=1786024544"},{"product_id":"9781908853608","title":"Mr Jolly - Short Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMr Jolly\u003c\/em\u003e is the first collection of short stories by Michael Stewart, and contains some of the award-winning novelist’s most extraordinary writing to date. Each tale offers a unique, utterly compelling insight into the human condition, framed by a mind-bendingly original concept that no other writer working today could – or indeed would – have concocted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReaders will meet a conformity-obsessed league of bald men, breaking into homes for an extended debate about the nature of freedom; discuss the nomenclature of the marshmallow with a man whose single goal in life is to witness them accidentally skewered on stiletto heels; and meet God, in perhaps the most frustrating (yet believable) depiction of the divine being in modern literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLast phone calls, alien abductions, murders and more are grounded in stories of struggling parents, baffled lovers and lost children (some of who may live permanently on\u003cbr\u003ethe number 606 bus). However long you live, and however much you read, you’ll never come across another book quite like this.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308898201973,"sku":"9781908853608","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781908853608_aee90ba7-7892-4c7b-928d-4025f22702c8.jpg?v=1786029079"},{"product_id":"ill-will","title":"ILL WILL PB","description":"\u003cp\u003e‘An astonishing novel’ The Independent\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘A terrific tribute to the Brontë’s' Guardian* * * * *\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI am William Lee: brute; liar, and graveside thief. But you will know me by another name. Heathcliff has left Wuthering Heights, and is travelling across the moors to Liverpool in search of his past. Along the way, he saves Emily, the foul-mouthed daughter of a Highwayman, from a whipping, and the pair journey on together. Roaming from graveyard to graveyard, making a living from Emily’s apparent ability to commune with the dead, the pair lie, cheat and scheme their way across the North of England. And towards the terrible misdeeds – and untold riches – that will one day send Heathcliff home to Wuthering Heights.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePraise for Michael Stewart:‘A vivid, inventive narrative’ Sunday Times ‘Stewart’s descriptions of nature are superb’ Daily Mail 'Will leave you breathless’ Sunday Post ‘This book is a terrific tribute to the Brontë’s. It also beautifully shows how landscape grows in the imagination’ The Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466705346933,"sku":"9780008248192","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008248192.jpg?v=1785654765"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-michael-stewart.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}