Books published by publisher Canongate Books

SHORTLISTED FOR STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEARFrom a trip to The Lightning Field in New Mexico, to chasing Gauguin's ghost in French Polynesia, White Sands is a creative exploration of why we travel.Episodic, wide-ranging and funny, Geoff Dyer blends travel writing, essay, criticism and fiction with a smart and cantankerous wit that is unmatched. From one of the most original writers in Britain, this is a book for armchair travellers and procrastinating philosophers everywhere.

In Homer's "Odyssey", Penelope - wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy - is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife, her story a salutary lesson through the ages. Left alone for twenty years when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan War after the abduction of Helen, Penelope manages, in the face of scandalous rumours, to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca, bring up her wayward son, and keep over a hundred suitors at bay. When Odysseus finally comes home after enduring hardships, overcoming monsters and sleeping with goddesses, he kills her suitors and - curiously - twelve of her maids. In a splendid contemporary twist to the ancient story, Margaret Atwood has chosen to give the telling of it to Penelope and to her twelve hanged maids, asking: 'What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to?' In Atwood's dazzling, playful retelling, the story becomes as wise and compassionate as it is haunting, and as wildly entertaining as it is disturbing. With wit and verve, drawing on the storytelling and poetic talent for which she herself is renowned, she gives Penelope new life and reality - and sets out to provide an answer to an ancient mystery.

If you need cheering up... If you need guidance... If you want to laugh... If you need courage... Sometimes only a poem will do. In this magical new collection of our best-loved poems, selected and introduced by the creators of the bestselling app iF Poems, discover the joy, solace and beauty of poetry with your family. Whether you're after a poem that is charming, funny, sad, silly, magical, sleepy, long or short, there's something in here for everyone. From Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat to Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade to Eliot's Macavity the Mystery Cat, these are poems to pass down the generations. A favourite poem will stay with you for life, and this beautifully illustrated collection for children aged 0 to 90 is sure to delight and entertain for years to come.

One relentlessly hot summer, six children explore the scorched wheat fields that enclose their tiny Italian village. When the gang find a dilapidated farmhouse, nine-year-old Michele Amitrano makes a discovery so momentous that he dare not tell a soul. It is a secret that will force Michele to question everything and everyone around him, and will bring his innocent world toppling down. An unputdownable thriller, I'm Not Scared has become a contemporary classic in Italian literature, read and celebrated the world over.

WHO IS TO BLAME WHEN NO ONE IS INNOCENT?The papers want blood.The force wants results.The law must be served, whatever the cost.July 1973. The Glasgow drugs trade is booming and Bobby March, the city’s own rock-star hero, has just ODed in a central hotel.Alice Kelly is twelve years old, lonely. And missing.Meanwhile the niece of McCoy’s boss has fallen in with a bad crowd. When she goes AWOL, McCoy is asked―off the books―to find her.McCoy has a hunch. But does he have enough time?

'They say cometh the hour cometh the man. This means when a situation demands it, the right person - it could be a woman, despite what Sexist Dave would tell you - will appear. This was the hour and in this case the man was a Piper. A Pied Piper.'You'll be enchanted and revolted in equal measure by the host of characters you meet in Russell Brand's Hamelin: the anarchic rats, the arrogant townspeople, sharp-eyed Sam and of course the Pied Piper himself, all brought to life in Brand's inimitable style and with the illustrations of Children's Laureate Chris Riddell.

A battle is like lust. The frenzy passes. Consequence remains. Hannibal is an epic vision of one of history’s greatest adventurers, the almost mythical man who most famously led his soldiers on elephants over the Alps. In Ross Leckie’s unforgettable re-creation of the Punic wars, it is Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, who narrates the story, and who is carried by his all-consuming ambition through profoundly bloody battles against the great Roman armies of early empire. In this breathtaking chronicle of love and hate, heroism and cruelty, one of humanity's greatest adventurers is brought to life, who learns through suffering that man is but a shadow of a dream.

With this first book in Russell Brand’s Trickster Tales series, the famed comedian, actor, and bestselling author delivers a hilarious retelling of an old fairytale favorite that will appeal to adults and children alike. Once upon a time, long ago, in a time that seemed, to those present, exactly like now except their teeth weren’t so clean and more things were wooden, there was a town called Hamelin. The people of Hamelin were a pompous bunch who loved themselves and their town so much that if it were possible they would have spent all day zipped up in a space suit smelling their own farts. But space suits hadn’t been invented yet so they couldn’t. Then one day without warning a gang of rats bowled into the town and began causing a right rumpus…..