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John Altman

John Altman

Born in 1969, John Altman is a musician and a freelance writer.

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Books by John Altman

A Game of Spies

A Gathering of Spies

View all books by John Altman

John Altman -

John Altman

Born in 1969, John Altman is a musician and a freelance writer. A member of an extended family of writers, he is currently at work on his next novel.

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4thestatebooks

OUT NOW IN PAPERBACK. @yomi.adegoke’s phenomenal

To celebrate ten years since publication, we are d

To celebrate ten years since publication, we are delighted to share a beautiful new edition of the cult-classic novella WOMEN by @chloeeeecaldwell. Featuring the stunning artwork of @jennagribbon. Out 6th June.

💙 WOMEN is an intimate exploration of one young writer’s whirlwind and whiplash affair as she falls deeply in love with a woman for the first time. 💙

✨ ‘A beautiful read / a perfect primer for an explosive lesbian affair / an essential truth’ @lenadunham

✨ ‘Beautiful, touching, and brave’ @emrata

One of @cosmopolitanuk’s Best Erotic Novels of All Time

A young woman moves from the countryside to the city.

Inexplicably, inexorably and immediately, she falls in love with another woman for the first time in her life.

Finn is nineteen years older than her, wears men’s clothes, has a cocky smirk of a smile – and a long-term girlfriend.

With precision, wit and tenderness, Women charts the frenzy and the fall out of love.

✨‘A sparks-flying, gorgeously composed queer novel that’s about so much more than romantic love’ @voguemagazine

✨‘You’ll devour it in one sitting’ @britishvogue

✨‘Her prose has a reckless beauty that feels to me like magic’ @cherylstrayed

Design by @olagalewicz
#women #womenchloecaldwell #chloecaldwell #literary #literaryfiction #4thestatebooks

✨Beautiful proofs are here of GOLD RUSH, the stu

✨Beautiful proofs are here of GOLD RUSH, the stunning debut novel from @oliviapetter✨

We give celebrities a power they don’t deserve. Power they haven’t earned. What happens when they exploit it?

GOLD RUSH is a story about consent, celebrity culture, and trying to figure out where women fit in a world that consistently devalues and disrespects their bodies. Out July 18th.

‘One to put on your summer books list right now’ Independent

Some copies are making their way to lucky readers now but please comment below if you’d like to be added to the list 💌

Design by @byjotho
Cover art by @martinejohanna

#goldrush #oliviapetter #4thestatebooks

Feast your eyes upon these absolute beauties, fini

Feast your eyes upon these absolute beauties, finished copies of @ois_mck91's stunning debut novel EVENINGS AND WEEKENDS. Out 9th May.
🌞
Summer in London stops for no-one. Not the half-naked boozers, stoners, and cruisers, the hen parties glugging from bejewelled bottles, the drag queens puffing on hurried fags. It’s June 2019, and everyone has converged on the city’s parks, beer gardens and street corners to revel in the collective joys of being alive.
🌆
Everyone but Maggie. She’s 30, pregnant and broke. Faced with moving back to the town she fought to escape, she’s wondering if having a baby with boyfriend Ed will be the last spontaneous act of her life. Ed, meanwhile, is trying to run from his past with Maggie’s best friend Phil and harbouring secret dreams of his own.
🧡
Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend, while falling for his housemate, Keith. But there’s a problem: Keith has a boyfriend and there might not be room for three people in the relationship. Then there’s Rosaleen, Phil’s mother, who’s tired of feeling like a side character in her own life. She’s just been diagnosed with cancer and is travelling to London to tell Phil, if she can ever get hold of him.
💛
As Saturday night approaches, all their lives are set to change forever. It’s the hottest summer on record and the weekend is about to begin…
〰️
'ZADIE SMITH-ESQUE IN ITS KALEIDOSCOPE OF LONDON' NIAMH CAMPBELL
〰️
'A MASTERPIECE. THIS SEARING TALE OF LOVE, SEX AND CLASS WILL RESONATE FOR GENERATIONS TO COME' OWEN JONES
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#eveningsandweekends #oisinmckenna #literaryfiction #debutnovel #bookstagramuk #irishwriters #4thestatebooks

We are beyond excited to share the cover of ONCE M

We are beyond excited to share the cover of ONCE MORE FROM THE TOP by @emilylayden with you all. Get ready to immerse yourself in the world of legendary country pop star Dylan Read.
🌟
Dylan has spent fifteen years learning to craft the perfect good girl image. But Dylan is privately haunted by the loss of her best friend Kelsey, who went missing the year before Dylan’s meteoric rise to fame.
💿
When Kelsey’s body is found at the bottom of a New England lake where they grew up, Dylan is drawn back to her home town where she must revisit their ill-fated teenage friendship and reckon with secrets that have stayed hidden for decades…
🎙️
Once More From the Top is a propulsive novel about music, coming of age and the cost of fame, for fans of Megan Abbott and Daisy Jones and the Six.
✨
Proofs coming very soon. We are *so* excited for you all to read this one!
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#oncemorefromthetop #emilylayden #dylanread #countrymusic #books #bookstagramuk #4thestatebooks

The real question is, who *wouldn’t* want a tiny

The real question is, who *wouldn’t* want a tiny precious enamel butter badge? 🧈

Get yours when you buy a copy of Asako Yuzuki’s BUTTER from any @foylesforbooks bookshop. 🐄

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story. 🍜

BUTTER is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan. 🇯🇵

📸: @foylesforbooks

#butter #asakoyuzuki #japanesefiction #translatedfiction #literaryfiction #literary #4thestatebooks

The haunting debut novel from beloved, Irish numbe

The haunting debut novel from beloved, Irish number one bestselling author, @sineadgleeson. HAGSTONE is out now.
🌊
On a wild and rugged island cut off and isolated to some, artist Nell feels the island is her home. It is the source of inspiration for her art, rooted in landscape, folklore and the feminine. The mysterious Inions, a commune of women who have travelled there from all over the world, consider it a place of refuge and safety, of solace in nature.
🌊
All the islanders live alongside the strange murmurings that seem to emanate from within the depths of the island, a sound that is almost supernatural – a Summoning as the Inions call it. One day, a letter arrives at Nell’s door from the reclusive Inions who invite Nell into the commune for a commission to produce a magnificent art piece to celebrate their long history. In its creation, Nell will discover things about the community and about herself that will challenge everything she thought she knew.
🌊
Beautifully written, prescient and eerily haunting, Sinéad Gleeson’s debut novel takes in the darker side of human nature and the mysteries of faith and the natural world.
🌊
‘Intelligent, probing’ MAGGIE O'FARRELL
🌊
‘Wild, singular… gripped me from the start’ DOUGLAS STUART
🌊
'Passionate, wild, hugely atmospheric' DAVID NICHOLLS
🌊
‘A gorgeous, mysterious read’ AISLING BEA
🌊
‘Wild, elemental… I adored it’ LOUISE KENNEDY
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#hagstone #sineadgleeson #bookstagramuk #books #literary #irishwriters #4thestatebooks

Reading any of these proofs this weekend? 🌞🌷

Reading any of these proofs this weekend? 🌞🌷🍃🌸🌻🌼😎

📚:
Evenings and Weekends by @ois_mck91
Bad Habit by Alana S. Portero tr. Mara Faye Lethem
Clean by @aliatrabuccozeran tr. Sophie Hughes
Private Rites by @juliakarmfield

#eveningsandweekends #badhabit #clean #privaterites #bookstagramuk #literary #4thestatebooks

The return of Joseph O’Neill, with a story on th

The return of Joseph O’Neill, with a story on the scale of the international phenomenon NETHERLAND: the odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African football prodigy who might change their fortunes.
🔹
Let us know in the comments if you'd love to read as we have proofs copies available!
🔹
'I wish there were more books like this' ELIF BATUMAN
🔹
Mark Wolfe, a brilliant if self-thwarting technical writer, lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Sushila, and their toddler daughter. His half-brother Geoff, born and raised in the UK, is a desperate young football agent. He pulls Mark across the ocean into a scheme to track down an elusive prospect known only as “Godwin” – an African teenager Geoff believes could be the next Messi.
🔹
Narrated in turn by Mark and his work colleague Lakesha Williams, the novel is both a tale of family and migration, and an international adventure story that implicates the brothers in the beauty and ugliness of football, the perils and promises of international business, and the dark history of transatlantic money-making.
🔹
As only he can do, Joseph O'Neill investigates the legacy of colonialism in the context of family love, global capitalism, and the dreaming individual.
🔹
‘A fantastic novel, brilliantly crafted’ MARCUS DU SAUTOY
🔹
'Among the best novels I’ve read in a long time' BILL BUFORD
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#josephoneill #books #bookstagram #literaryfiction #bookstagramuk #4thestatebooks

Beautiful proofs of THE UNWILDING by Marina Kemp a

Beautiful proofs of THE UNWILDING by Marina Kemp are here. A stunning novel of power, desire and the secrets all families carry. Coming 4th July.
💙
Let us know in the comments if you're a UK-based bookstagrammer who'd love to read it. We will be sending copies out this week.
🍋
When fledgling writer Zoe arrives at the Sicilian holiday house of famed novelist Don Travers, she feels that she has made it. And yet as the week unfolds it is not Don but his children and unknowable wife, Lydia, who come to intrigue Zoe most.
✨
On the fringes, Don’s youngest, Nemony, watches as her older siblings begin to navigate the treacherous waters of the adult world. When her adored oldest sister makes a terrible mistake, the holiday ends suddenly, exposing the fissures in their parents’ marriage and leaving her to confront the fallibility of the siblings she so reveres.
🦪
Years later the events of that summer continue to haunt. As Nemony, now a new mother herself, strikes up an unusual friendship with Zoe, she finds solace – but it is soon threatened when she is forced to question the depth of Zoe’s fascination with her family.
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#theunwilding #marinakemp #literaryfiction #literarynovel #contemporaryfiction #familydrama #bookstagramuk #4thestatebooks

‘I have been glued to Asako Yuzuki’s new novel

‘I have been glued to Asako Yuzuki’s new novel Butter’ NIGEL SLATER
🧈
‘Compelling, delightfully weird’ PANDORA SYKES
🐄
‘A full-fat, Michelin-starred treat’ THE TIMES
🧈
‘A salty morsel with one hell of a bite’ ALICE SLATER
🐄
‘Nothing short of ingenious’ INEWS
🧈
‘Ambitious and unsettling’ GUARDIAN
🐄
The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.
🧈
Asako Yuzuki’s BUTTER is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.
🐄
A big thank you to everyone for the BUTTER love. 💛 We’ve absolutely loved reading your reviews, and a special shout-out to all the brilliant booksellers for their udderly delicious displays in shops across the country.
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#butter #butterbook #asakoyuzuki #translatedfiction #japanesefiction #womenintranslation #translatedliterature #4thestatebooks

🌸🌸🌸 These beautiful editions of #TheVirgi

🌸🌸🌸 These beautiful editions of #TheVirginSuicides by Jeffrey Eugenides have us feeling like spring is just around the corner 🌸🌸🌸

Cover designs by @byjotho

#jeffreyeugenides #thevirginsuicides #thevirginsuicidesedit #collinsmodernclassics #literaryclassics #literary #4thestatebooks

Thrilled to share the cover of THE LASTING HARM, t

Thrilled to share the cover of THE LASTING HARM, the explosive account of the trial of the century by award-winning author of My Body Keeps Your Secrets @luciaoc.
➖
In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors, and now faces 55 years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of four girls. The trial was meticulously covered by journalist and legal reporter Lucia Osborne-Crowley, one of only four reporters allowed into the courtroom every day.
➖
The Lasting Harm is her account of that trial, a gripping true crime drama and a blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors, no matter the outcome.
➖
Centring the stories of four women and their testimonies, and supplemented by extra material to which Osborne-Crowley has exclusive access, The Lasting Harm brings this incendiary trial to life, questions our age-old appetite for crime and punishment and offers a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice.
➖
‘Powerful, vivid and affecting. A compassionate account of the consequences of crime’ @davidnichollswriter
➖
‘Urgent, necessary and courageous’ @elizabday
➖
‘The definitive voice on the Epstein horror’ @owenjones84
➖
‘A brave and essential voice’ @oneilllou
➖
‘Osborne-Crowley a tenacious and empathetic chronicler of the world who provides a voice for those who have been silenced’ @rebeccawhatsun
➖
‘Lucia is helping the world to understand the legacy of the trauma that comes with abuse of power’ @vicky.spratt
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#luciaosbornecrowley #thelastingharm #4thestatebooks

New proofs of the incredible BAD HABIT by Alana S.

New proofs of the incredible BAD HABIT by Alana S. Portero are here. ❣️ We have limited copies available for book bloggers, comment below if you are keen to read.
〰️
‘I urge you to read it’ PEDRO ALMÓDVAR
〰️
‘An engulfing novel’ AVNI DOSHI
〰️
‘A ballad, a quest, a revelation. It made me weep more than once’ SABA SAMS
〰️
‘Painful yet unquestionably hopeful’ NICOLA DINAN
〰️
An unnamed young trans woman grows up in a working-class suburb that has no place for her. She discovers community and kinship in downtown Madrid, amid a dazzling party scene animated by charming junkies, glamorous pop divas, and fallen angels. With each step she takes forward in the city, she finds herself confronted by an antagonism she does not yet know how to counter. In this thrilling and yet often frightening place each decision can have the highest of stakes and yet she knows that only she can forge a path forward to the life she truly wants to live.
〰️
Blistering and compassionate, Bad Habit by Alana S Portero is translated by Mara Faye Lethem, and deftly illuminates the ties between gender and class, the search for identity, and the power of chosen family. Shimmering in its lyrical beauty and vivid in its realism, Bad Habit is a searing, mesmerising story of self-realisation that speaks to the outsider in all of us.
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#badhabit #alanasportero #translatedfiction #translatedliterature #lgbtqibooks #literaryfiction #bookstagramuk #4thestatebooks

‘Katherine Heiny has the comic writer’s knack

‘Katherine Heiny has the comic writer’s knack of taking a character’s idiosyncrasies and making them joyfully relatable. She has a genius for spinning universality out of the absurdly specific’ GUARDIAN
✨
Friendships formed at the airport bar, ex-husbands with benefits, mothers of suspiciously sweet teenagers, ill-advised trysts. The games and rituals performed by the characters in these pages range from mischievous to tender.
🌷
Marlee, suffering from a laundry and life crisis, wears a massive bridesmaid’s dress to work. Erica’s elderly father mistakes his four-thousand-dollar hearing aid for a cashew and eats it. Charlene pays the true price of infidelity and is forced to help her husband’s ex-wife move out of the family home.
🪥
From the beloved author of #StandardDeviation and #EarlyMorningRiser, these eleven glittering stories show us love in all its forms, both ridiculous and sublime. #GamesandRituals is out in paperback now.

Just a few gems we’ve published so far this year

Just a few gems we’ve published so far this year, and with so many more to come 💎😌✨

#4thestatebooks #bookstagramuk #literaryfiction

We are so excited to share the cover of @oliviapet

We are so excited to share the cover of @oliviapetter’s stunning debut novel, GOLD RUSH. Coming 18th July.
✨
We give celebrities a power they don’t deserve. Power they haven’t earned. What happens when they exploit it?
✨
Imagine you’ve just spent the night with the most famous man on the planet. Except you don’t quite remember it. That is what happens to Rose, a twenty-something woman who seemingly has everything going for her.
✨
Working for one of the most powerful news outlets in the country, Rose spends her days doing PR for glossy magazines. There are tedious spreadsheets, fashion divas, and many A-list parties. It’s at one of those parties where she meets Milo Jax, the world-famous, globally adored, British pop sensation. An unlikely flirtation turns into an even more unlikely evening and then Rose wakes up, unable to piece it all together. What happens next changes everything.
✨
Gold Rush is a story about consent, celebrity culture, and trying to figure out where women fit in a world that consistently devalues and disrespects their bodies. Proofs coming soon.
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Cover design by @byjotho
Cover art by @martinejohanna

#goldrush #oliviapetter #bookstagramuk #books #debutnovel #debut #contemporaryfiction #4thestatebooks

So happy to share that @safiyasinclair has been sh

So happy to share that @safiyasinclair has been shortlisted for the @womensprize for Non-Fiction with HOW TO SAY BABYLON! 💛💚🖤

Huge congratulations, Safiya! 🎉

‘A beautiful, lyrical book about growing up Rastafari in rural Jamaica. It’s exquisitely written and extremely beautiful and enchanting’ @womensprize

‘Dazzling. Potent. Vital’ TARA WESTOVER

‘To read it is to believe that words can save’ MARLON JAMES

‘I adored this book … Unforgettable, heartbreaking and heartwarming’ ELIF SHAFAK

‘A breathless, scorching memoir of a girlhood’NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

#womensprizefornonfictionfiction #womensprize #womensprize2024 #books #bookstagram #howtosaybabylong #safiyasinclair #4thestatebooks

Delighted to share the cover of THE UNWILDING by @

Delighted to share the cover of THE UNWILDING by @marinakempull, a stunning new novel of power, desire and the secrets all families carry. Coming 4th July.
💙
When fledgling writer Zoe arrives at the Sicilian holiday house of famed novelist Don Travers, she feels that she has made it. And yet as the week unfolds it is not Don but his children and unknowable wife, Lydia, who come to intrigue Zoe most.
✨
On the fringes, Don’s youngest, Nemony, watches as her older siblings begin to navigate the treacherous waters of the adult world. When her adored oldest sister makes a terrible mistake, the holiday ends suddenly, exposing the fissures in their parents’ marriage and leaving her to confront the fallibility of the siblings she so reveres.
🦪
Years later the events of that summer continue to haunt. As Nemony, now a new mother herself, strikes up an unusual friendship with Zoe, she finds solace – but it is soon threatened when she is forced to question the depth of Zoe’s fascination with her family.
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Cover design @byjotho
Cover artwork by @ignasi
#theunwilding #marinakemp #bookstagramuk #books #literaryfiction #literary #4thestatebooks

Obsessed with this #CollinsModernClassics edition

Obsessed with this #CollinsModernClassics edition of IF NOBODY SPEAKS OF REMARKABLE THINGS by @jon_mcgregor.
〰️
On a street in a town in the North of England, ordinary people are going through the motions of their everyday existence – street cricket, barbecues, painting windows… A young man is in love with a neighbour who does not even know his name. An old couple make their way up to the nearby bus stop. But then a terrible event shatters the quiet of the early summer evening. That this remarkable and horrific event is only poignant to those who saw it, not even meriting a mention on the local news, means that those who witness it will be altered for ever.
〰️
Jon McGregor’s first novel brilliantly evokes the histories and lives of the people in the street to build up an unforgettable human panorama. Breathtakingly original, humane and moving, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is an astonishing debut.
〰️
‘A magical, spellbinding, profound novel’ Maggie O’Farrell
〰️
‘A sensationally accomplished debut … A convincing and moving vision of contemporary Britain’ Sunday Times
〰️
‘This is a novel of wonders’ Observer

Design @byjotho
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#jonmcgregor #ifnobodyspeaksofremarkablethings #bookstagram #bookstagramuk #collinsmodernclassics #4thestatebooks

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