Andrew Martin

Cool for America is bookended by the misadventures of Leslie, a young woman first introduced in Early Work, who moves from New York to Missoula, Montana, to try to draw herself out of a lingering depression and, over the course of the book, gains painful insight into herself through a series of intense friendships and relationships. Other stories follow young men and women, alone and in couples, pushing hard against, and often crashing into, the limits of their abilities as writers and partners. In one story, two New Jersey siblings with substance-abuse problems relapse together on Christmas Eve; in another, a young couple tries to make sense of an increasingly unhinged veterinarian who seems to be tapping, deliberately or otherwise, into the unspoken troubles between them. In stories that follow characters as they age from punk shows and benders to book clubs and art museums, and the promise of community acts, at least temporarily as a stay against despair. Running throughout is the characters’ yearning for a transcendence through art: the hope that, maybe, the perfect, or even just the good- enough sentence, can finally make things right.

'A highly enjoyable game of cat-and-mouse with perfect period texture and some nicely wry humour' The Guardian'This playful caper is equally successful as a detailed, culture-rich evocation of its period and an English reworking of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley' The Sunday TimesLondon, 1976. In Belgravia in the heat of summer, Lee Jones, a faded and embittered rock star, is checking out a group of women through the heavy cigarette smoke in a crowded pub. He makes eye contact with one, and winks. After allowing glances to linger for a while longer, he finally moves towards her. In that moment, his programme of terror - years in the making - has begun. Months later, the first of the many chilling headlines to come appears: 'Police hunting winking killer.' Meanwhile in France. Charles Underhill, a wealthy Englishman living in Paris, has good reason to be interested in the activities of the so-called Winking Killer. With a past to hide and his future precarious, Charles is determined to discover the Winker's identity. In the overheating cities of London, Oxford, Paris and Nice, a game of cat and mouse develops, and catching someone's eye becomes increasingly perilous. But if no one dares look, a killer can hide in plain sight . . . From 'a master of historical crime fiction' (The Guardian), The Winker is a gripping thriller that won't let you look away.

Moquette is the carpet-like fabric covering the seats we sit on in London's Tubes, buses, trams and Overground trains - and here is a brilliantly colourful guide to all its patterns. London Transport has always wanted the best design, be it Charles Holden's superb art deco Tube stations on the Piccadilly Line, its elegant Johnston typeface or Harry Beck's Tube map. And this pursuit of excellence has extended even to the design of the fabrics it covers our bus and Tube seats with: moquette. In the Thirties top artists like Paul Nash and Enid Marx were commissioned to design patterns; nowadays every line like Crossrail or the Overground gets its own unique, colour-co-ordinated moquette pattern. Now, in conjunction with the London Transport Museum, which has the definitive London Transport moquette archive, Andrew Martin has written a delightful, surprising and covetable guide to all these patterns, from the first horse bus to the latest Tube train.

The King's Indian Defence is one of the great classical counter-attacking openings. The most aggressive world champions (including Mikhail Tal, Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov) have all scored brilliant knockout victories with this opening. In this book the highly experienced coach international master Andrew Martin explains the basic ideas behind all the different variations that occur after 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6. The focus on strategic elements such as pawn structures, attacking plans and typical piece manouevres allows the reader to quickly gain an excellent feel for this complex opening. First Steps is an opening series that is ideal for improving players who want simple and straightforward explanations. First Steps emphasizes: * the basic principles * the basic strategies * the key tricks and traps First Steps books are based around carefully selected instructive games which demonstrate exactly what both sides are trying to achieve. There is enough theory to enable the improving player to get to grips with the opening without feeling overwhelmed. If you want to take up a new opening, First Steps is the ideal place to start.

"What a debut Early Work is one of the wittiest, wisest (sometimes silliest, in the best sense), and bravest novels about wrestling with the early stages of life and love, of creative and destructive urges, I've read in a while. The angst of the young and reasonably comfortable isn't always pretty, but Andrew Martin possesses the prose magic to make it hilarious, illuminating, moving." --Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask and The Fun Parts For young writers of a certain temperament--if they haven't had such notions beaten out of them by MFA programs and the Internet--the delusion persists that great writing must be sought in what W. B. Yeats once called the "foul rag and bone shop of the heart." That's where Peter Cunningham has been looking for inspiration for his novel--that is, when he isn't teaching at the local women's prison, walking his dog, getting high, and wondering whether it's time to tie the knot with his college girlfriend, a medical student whose night shifts have become a standing rebuke to his own lack of direction. When Peter meets Leslie, a sexual adventurer taking a break from her fianc , he gets a glimpse of what he wishes and imagines himself to be: a writer of talent and nerve. Her rag-and-bone shop may be as squalid as his own, but at least she knows her way around the shelves. Over the course of a Virginia summer, their charged, increasingly intimate friendship opens the door to difficult questions about love and literary ambition. With a keen irony reminiscent of Sam Lipsyte or Lorrie Moore, and a romantic streak as wide as Roberto Bola o's, Andrew Martin's Early Work marks the debut of a writer as funny and attentive as any novelist of his generation. "Beautifully executed and very funny, Early Work is a sharp-eyed, sharp-voiced debut that I didn't want to put down." --Julia Pierpont, author of Among the Ten Thousand Things and The Little Book of Feminist Saints

'Ingeniously constructed . . . Andrew Martin's wry, amused tone is a constant joy . . . An altogether superior performance, The Martian Girl is a violent, funny, deadly serious entertainment' Irish TimesLondon, present day. Jean, a failing journalist in her late thirties, finds herself entertaining a married man - a handsome, arrogant ex-barrister, universally known by his surname: Coates. Unsure of the relationship and wanting to develop her career, she begins to write a one-woman show about a mind-reader she comes across in her research - a woman who performed in the 19th Century under the name The Martian Girl, before disappearing without a trace. *London, 1898. Kate French, a striking young woman with a love for the stage, is honing her craft in the music halls of East London at the turn of the century. As the Martian Girl, she performs each night with her mind-reading partner, the cynical and money-grubbing Joseph Draper. As Jean makes progress on her show, Kate - long since dead - begins to consume her thoughts. Jean starts to suspect that Draper fully believed in Kate's ability to read minds and that he found the idea deeply disturbing. What really happened between the two of them all those years ago? And why does Jean feel such an intense bond with The Martian Girl? As the line between Jean and Kate begins to blur, the fates of the two women are destined to transcend time, and finally to intersect. Brilliantly conceived, The Martian Girl is a dazzling thriller that will get inside your mind.

Two great books from the Everyman Chess Library, Starting Out: The King's Indian by Joe Gallagher and Starting Out: The Sicilian Dragon by Andrew Martin, brought together in one volume. ----- The King's Indian is one of the most exciting defences in chess and is favoured by ambitious and aggressive players. At the highest level it has been a major weapon for World Champions Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov. In this easy-to-read guide, Grandmaster Joe Gallagher goes back to the basics of the King's Indian, studying the key principles of its many variations. Throughout the book there are an abundance of notes, tips, warnings and exercises to help the improving player, while important strategies, ideas and tactics for both sides are clearly illustrated. ----- In Starting Out: The Sicilian Dragon Andrew Martin studies this famous opening in a simplistic way, introducing the crucial initial moves and ideas and taking care to explain the reasoning behind them, something that has sometimes been neglected or taken for grantedFew would disagree that the Sicilian Dragon is one of the most exciting, high profile and controversial openings in chess history. Right from the very beginning of the game Black chooses to unbalance the position, thus maximising his or her chances of playing for a win. The positions reached are dynamic and of a highly tactical nature, with both players very often going straight for each other's throats in search of a quick-fire knockout blow. In these razor-sharp encounters, it goes without saying that one slip by either side can prove to be fatal. Because of its aggressive nature, the Sicilian Dragon is very popular at all levels of chess, while it received an ultimate seal of approval when Garry Kasparov used it as his main weapon to beat Vishy Anand in a World Championship match.

The Caro-Kann Defence arises after the moves 1 e4 c6. With this first move Black (as is also the case with the French Defence - 1 e4 e6) plans 2 ... d5, establishing a well-protected central pawn. The Caro-Kann has a reputation as a rock solid defence that minimises the risk of Black being subjected to undue early pressure. Rather than inviting the opponent to engage in immediate warfare, Black focuses on completing development comfortably and postponng the serious battle until the middlegame. It is notable that the White systems which try to batter the Caro-Kann into early submission are highly double-edged and often rebound badly. ----- First Steps is a new opening series and is ideal for improving players who want simple and straightforward explanations. First Steps emphasizes: ----- * the basic principles --- * the basic strategies --- * the key tricks and traps ----- First Steps books are based around carefully selected instructive games which demonstrate exactly what both sides are trying to achieve. There is enough theory to enable the improving player to get to grips with the opening without feeling overwhelmed. If you want to take up a new opening, First Steps is the ideal place to start.

A literary thriller, set mainly in late 18th-century York. Highly atmospheric and populated with a cast of unforgettable characters, it brings to life 18th-century England with its villains and heroes.

Night trains have long fascinated us with the possibilities of their private sleeping compartments, gilded dining cars, champagne bars and wealthy travellers. Authors from Agatha Christie to Graham Greene have used night trains to tell tales of romance, intrigue and decadence against a rolling background of dramatic landscapes. The reality could often be as thrilling: early British travellers on the Orient Express were advised to carry a revolver (as well as a teapot). In Night Trains, Andrew Martin attempts to relive the golden age of the great European sleeper trains by using their modern-day equivalents. This is no simple matter. The night trains have fallen on hard times, and the services are disappearing one by one. But if the Orient Express experience can only be recreated by taking three separate sleepers, the intriguing characters and exotic atmospheres have survived. Whether the backdrop is 3am at a Turkish customs post, the sun rising over the Riviera, or the constant twilight of a Norwegian summer night, Martin rediscovers the pleasures of a continent connected by rail. By tracing the history of the sleeper trains, he reveals much of the recent history of Europe itself. The original sleepers helped break down national barriers and unify the continent. Martin uncovers modern instances of European unity - and otherwise - as he traverses the continent during 'interesting times', with Brexit looming. Against this tumultuous backdrop, he experiences his own smaller dramas, as he fails to find crucial connecting stations, ponders the mystery of the compartment dog, and becomes embroiled in his very own night train whodunit.

First published in 1984. This book represents a major study of union responses to the economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. Abjuring governmental or managerial outlooks, it argues that unions, as representatives of essential producer groups, would be central to the renegotiation of the economic world. The work also stresses the importance of situating union responses to the crisis within the socio-historical evolution of their political economies during the rise and decline of the post-war economic boom. The Social Democratic affiliation of unions in Britain, West Germany and Sweden make them particularly comparable. This title will be of interest to students of politics and economics.

Founded by Al O'Connor in 1973, the steelband program at Northern Illinois University was the first of its kind in the United States. Thanks to the talent and dedication of O'Connor, Cliff Alexis, Liam Teague, Yuko Asada, and a plethora of NIU students and staff members, the program has flourished into one of the most important in the world. Having welcomed a variety of distinguished guest artists and traveled to perform in locales around the US and in Taiwan, Trinidad, and South Korea, the NIU Steelband has achieved international acclaim as a successful and unique university world music program. This fascinating history of the NIU Steelband traces the evolution of the program and engages with broader issues relating to the development of steelband and world music ensembles in the American university system. In addition to investigating its past, Steelpan in Education looks to the future of the NIU Steelband, exploring how it attracts and trains new generations of elite musicians who continue to push the boundaries of the steelpan. This study will appeal to musicians, music educators, ethnomusicologists, and fans of the NIU Steelband.

The Queen's Gambit is one of the great classical openings. All the world champions and elite players have played this opening - most of them for both sides. In this book the highly experienced coach international master Andrew Martin explains the basic ideas behind all the different variations you can encounter after 1 d4 d5 2 c4. This includes the classical defences (such as the Orthodox, the Lasker and the Slav) as well as the weird and wonderful (such as the Albin Counter-Gambit, the Hennig-Schara Gambit and Marshall's Defence). First Steps is a new opening series and is ideal for improving players who want simple and straightforward explanations. First Steps emphasizes: *the basic principles*the basic strategies*the key tricks and traps First Steps books are based around carefully selected instructive games which demonstrate exactly what both sides are trying to achieve. There is enough theory to enable the improving player to get to grips with the opening without feeling overwhelmed. If you want to take up a new opening, First Steps is the ideal place to start.

Detective Superintendent George Quinn - Mayfair resident and dandy with a razor-sharp brain - has set up a new police unit, dedicated to investigating the super-rich. When he is shot in mysterious circumstances, DI Blake Reynolds is charged with taking over. But Reynolds hadn't bargained for Quinn's personal assistant - the flinty Victoria Clifford - who knows more than she's prepared to reveal... The trail left by Quinn leads to a jewellery theft, a murderous conspiracy among some of the most glamorous (and richest) Russians in London - and the beautiful Anna, who challenges Reynolds' professional integrity. Reynolds and Clifford must learn to work together fast - or risk Quinn's fate. Set in the heart of twenty-first-century Mayfair, a world of champagne, Lamborghinis and Savile Row suits, The Yellow Diamond is a brilliant new venture from one of our best loved crime authors - meticulously plotted, wonderfully humane and hugely enjoyable.

First published in 1984. This book represents a major study of union responses to the economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. Abjuring governmental or managerial outlooks, it argues that unions, as representatives of essential producer groups, would be central to the renegotiation of the economic world. The work also stresses the importance of situating union responses to the crisis within the socio-historical evolution of their political economies during the rise and decline of the post-war economic boom. The Social Democratic affiliation of unions in Britain, West Germany and Sweden make them particularly comparable. This title will be of interest to students of politics and economics.