Lloyd Jones

"A fantastic, uplifting book from the Welsh writer of the year 2007"Katie GramichLove, angels, addiction and death; they're all here in My First Colouring Book – a new collection of short stories from the prize-winning author of Mr Cassini and Mr Vogel. Themed on all the colours of the rainbow – and a few extra for luck – these stories and essays paint a superbly crafted picture of criss-crossing lives. They are spoken by an unexpected variety of voices: a young girl has adventures in the night; a surgeon becomes a shepherd; a middle-aged man seeks love for the last time. In a virtuoso performance, Lloyd Jones takes the traditional short story form and twirls it round his little finger. And his travel essays, sent from the compass points of his home country, are not to be missed." I think the short story is Lloyd's genre… its brevity intensifies the poignancy which he evokes so well. I cried and laughed while reading this book – and though often about addiction, abuse, betrayal and guilt, these stories are also wildly celebratory; they make you feel glad to be still alive. Lloyd's idiosyncratic and memorable characters are often obsessive, usually in search of something – in other words, very much like most of us." Katie Gramich, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Cardiff UniversityFormer farm-worker, newspaper editor, chamber-of-horrors employee and lecturer, Lloyd Jones lives in Llanfairfechan, on the north Wales coast. Following a bout of alcoholism which nearly killed him, he set off on an epic walk around Wales, the inspiration for his first novel, Mr Vogel, which won the McKitterick first novel prize 2005. His second novel Mr Cassini won Wales Book of the Year 2007.

In August 1905 a party of young men set sail for England. Amongst them were ordinary farmers and bootmakers, a miner and a bank clerk. Together they made up the All Blacks, an unknown rugby team from Auckland, New Zealand. And they had come to show the world what they could do. What they didn't know was that they were bound for fame. The first game was in Devon, 'played in golden farm light, a surprising victory'. By December they had become the 'wonderful All Blacks' who had beaten Yorkshire 40-0, England 15-0 and Ireland 15-0. People stopped them in the streets. In this melding of true history and imagination, Lloyd Jones has recreated an unforgettable journey from innocence to celebrity.

In a novel that is at once intense, beautiful, and fablelike, Lloyd Jones weaves a transcendent story that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the power of narrative to transform our lives. On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with most everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind: the eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dickens's classic Great Expectations. So begins this rare, original story about the abiding strength that imagination, once ignited, can provide. As artillery echoes in the mountains, thirteen-year-old Matilda and her peers are riveted by the adventures of a young orphan named Pip in a city called London, a city whose contours soon become more real than their own blighted landscape. As Mr. Watts says, "A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe." Soon come the rest of the villagers, initially threatened, finally inspired to share tales of their own that bring alive the rich mythology of their past. But in a ravaged place where even children are forced to live by their wits and daily survival is the only objective, imagination can be a dangerous thing.

In a cave set back from the ocean, on the coast of New Zealand, Louise and Schmidt hide along with two local boys frightened of being called up to fight in the Great War. But the sensual rhythm of the tango lessons which Schmidt teaches on that sandy cave floor will have devastating consequences for all of them. Two generations later, Schmidt's fiery granddaughter Rosa, running an Argentine restaurant, captivates a young man with the same sultry music that inspired seduction and deception so many years before.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize'Lloyd Jones brings to life the transformative power of fiction . . . This is a beautiful book' Sunday Times'You cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames.' Bougainville, 1991. A small village on a lush tropical island in the South Pacific. Eighty-six days have passed since Matilda's last day of school as, quietly, war is encroaching from the other end of the island. When the villagers' safe, predictable lives come to a halt, Bougainville's children are surprised to find the island's only white man, a recluse, re-opening the school. Pop Eye, aka Mr Watts, explains he will introduce the children to Mr Dickens. Matilda and the others think a foreigner is coming to the island and prepare a list of much needed items. They are shocked to discover their acquaintance with Mr Dickens will be through Mr Watts' inspiring reading of Great Expectations. But on an island at war, the power of fiction has dangerous consequences. Imagination and beliefs are challenged by guns. Mister Pip is an unforgettable tale of survival by story; a dazzling piece of writing that lives long in the mind after the last page is finished.

WINNER OF WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2007Seren is excited to announce the publication of Mr Cassini, a remarkable follow-up to the award-winning Mr Vogel. Mr Cassini is an amazing journey through the geography of one man's troubled mind as he tries to recover the lost years of his childhood. Duxie is a dreamer with holes in his memory. With the help of a mysterious and beautiful girl he sets out on a quest to fill the gaps in his history. And as they search the landscapes and myths of the past they uncover domestic and national tyranny. The tale twists together strands of dream, daydream and reality as Duxie journeys towards freedom - and a final understanding of what caused his amnesia. Because lurking deep within his dreams is a sinister, vampire figure called Mr Cassini, who drinks women's tears, keeps stolen mannequins in a darkened room, and gets up to terrible deeds with his policeman side-kick. Journeying through time, Duxie investigates caves and wells, mystics and madness, and seeks out four extraordinary champions to help him stage a showcase trial on a mountain in the centre of Wales. Mr Cassini is a novel with many themes, including monsters, snow, picnics, islands, drugs, rainbows, eating disorders, insects, justice and magic. Lloyd Jones walked around Wales – a journey of more than a thousand miles – while writing his first novel, the prize-winning Mr Vogel. For Mr Cassini he changed tack, walking across Wales seven times in seven different directions. The result is an ambitious and brilliant exploration of lost childhood and the distortions of the past. Learned, funny and tragic, Mr Cassini is told in dazzling colour. "Mr Cassini is a book that demands to be read and re-read. OP apocrypha, kaleidoscopic rainbows and cabbalistic numerals notwithstanding, Lloyd Jones's use of language and emotion is second to none in contemporary Welsh literature"The Independent"it is an exhilarating, amusing skip through multiple stories and fantastical factual forays... absurdist and resonant, this is a meditation on nation that is anything but straightforward"The GuardianFormer farm-worker, newspaper editor, chamber-of-horrors employee and lecturer, Lloyd Jones lives in Llanfairfechan, on the north Wales coast. Following a bout of alcoholism which nearly killed him, he set off on an epic walk around Wales, the inspiration for his first novel, Mr Vogel.

In 1991, with communism in tatters throughout Eastern Europe, Jones journeyed to a most unlikely destination: Albania. What he found was a relentlessly bizarre world of half-truths and fictions, a world where your status and sometimes your life hinged on your biografi. Named one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year. Map.