Hilary Mantel
A brilliant collection of short stories from the double Man Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.
Hilary Mantel is one of Britain’s most accomplished and acclaimed writers. In these ten bracingly subversive tales, all her gifts of characterisation and observation are fully engaged, summoning forth the horrors so often concealed behind everyday façades. Childhood cruelty is played out behind the bushes in ‘Comma’; nurses clash in ‘Harley Street’ over something more than professional differences; and in the title story, staying in for the plumber turns into an ambiguous and potentially deadly waiting game.
Whether set in a claustrophobic Saudi Arabian flat or on a precarious mountain road in Greece, these stories share an insight into the darkest recesses of the spirit. Displaying all of Mantel’s unmistakable style and wit, they reveal a great writer at the peak of her powers.
Reviews of The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
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- ‘An exhilarating, if dark, collection … ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ is a small triumph: a lesson in artfully controlled savagery’ Sunday Times
- ‘Remarkably good: taut, engaging and shocking … acutely observed’ Evening Standard
- ‘I would recommend the brilliantly chilling …The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher over most other long or short works this year.’ Telegraph, Books of the Year
- ‘What a fabulously nasty concoction Hilary Mantel has served up … It’s a fugu fish of a book; parts of which will leave you dizzily elated, while other parts may make you very ill indeed … The venom is distilled, bottled and dripped like slowly staining bitters into the cocktail of the entertainment … That title story, wickedly good, is alone worth the price of admission to the book’ Simon Schama, Financial Times
- ‘The best stories in the collection … combine sharp observation and sly wit with a subtle burrowing into the recesses of her protagonists’ heads. The darker stories recall both the metaphysical speculations of Jorge Luis Borges and the trickery of Roald Dahl’ Mail on Sunday
- ‘Infused with Mantel’s almost lush evocations of isolation and distress … All in all, these are alluring portraits of interior disquiet’ Observer
- ‘No one else quite sounds like Mantel in this vein, although a top-level summit of Muriel Spark and Alan Bennett might conceivably come close. Mantel takes absolutely nothing on trust. Bodies can, and will, malfunction; ditto minds, and marriages. Malice, power or simple chance may always undermine the ground beneath your feet’ Independent
- ‘These are the sticky slices of suburban noir that Mantel served up so well in her pre-Wolf Hall output and they never fail to deliver’ The Times
- ‘Much of Mantel’s glorious power comes from her unsentimental, forensic gaze and willingness to describe the uncomfortable … Mantel’s brutally dissecting eye is much in evidence here … Her prose is sublime … the glittering details exquisite’ Independent on Sunday
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The Mirror and the Light (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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The Mirror and the Light (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Wolf Hall (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Wolf Hall (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Bring Up the Bodies (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Bring Up the Bodies (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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The Mirror and the Light (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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The Mirror and the Light (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books
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Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books
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Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books
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The Mirror and the Light: An Adaptation in 30 Minute Episodes (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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The Mirror and the Light (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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The Mirror and the Light (The Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book 3)
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The Mirror and the Light
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Matchbook Classics Box Set
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A Place of Greater Safety (4th Estate Matchbook Classics)
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The School of English
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Bring Up the Bodies (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Wolf Hall (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
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Bring up the Bodies
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How Shall I Know You?
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Comma (Fast Fiction)
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Third Floor Rising (Fast Fiction)
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Learning to Talk (Fast Fiction)
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Curved is the Line of Beauty (Fast Fiction)
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King Billy is a Gentleman (Fast Fiction)
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Wolf Hall (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Beyond Black
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Wolf Hall (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Beyond Black
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Giving up the Ghost: A memoir
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The Giant, O’Brien
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The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
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The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
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Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies: RSC Stage Adaptation – Revised Edition
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Three-Book Edition: A Place of Greater Safety; Beyond Black; The Giant O’Brien
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Bring up the Bodies (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies: Two-Book Edition
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The Giant, O’Brien
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Bring Up the Bodies (The Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book 2)
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Every Day Is Mother’s Day
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Vacant Possession
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Learning to Talk: Short stories
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Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
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Wolf Hall: Winner of the Man Booker Prize (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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Wolf Hall: Winner of the Man Booker Prize (The Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book 1)
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Bring Up the Bodies (The Wolf Hall Trilogy)
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A Place of Greater Safety
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Beyond Black
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Giving up the Ghost: A memoir
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A Change of Climate
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An Experiment in Love
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Fludd
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Every Day Is Mother’s Day
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Vacant Possession
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Learning to Talk: Short stories
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Beyond Black
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The Giant, O’Brien
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An Experiment in Love
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