Reminiscent of Garrison Keiller's Lake Wobegon Days, Ian Sansom's Ring Road is a warm, humane, and sharply observed tale of small town life. Big Davey Jones is coming home. He's been gone almost 20 years now, but nobody's forgotten him. Davey's a local hero, his miracle birth as the seventh son of a seventh son brought fame to this little town and they've been grateful ever since. But Davey's home town has changed much in the intervening years. The traditional family business like Billy Finlay's Auto-Supplies and Calton's Bakery and Tea Rooms have been replaced with 'Exciting New Housing Developments!' and even a nightclub called 'Paradise Lost'. The locals haven't changed much though. Bob Savory who always had it in him, has made a million with his company Sandwich Classics, and he's branching out now, with an Irish themed restaurant on the ring road. Francie McGinn, the divorced minister at The People's Fellowship, is still trying to convert the town through his Fish-and-Chip Biblical Quiz Nights and his Good Friday Carvery &amp; Gospel Night. And Sammy, the town's best plumber, is depressed as ever and looking for solace at the bottom of the whisky bottle.

Ring Road

Literature & Fiction

SANSOM, IAN

Literary

Fourth Estate

The Impartial Recorder is an extraordinary book about ordinary people in a small town in the middle of nowhere. It may be the only funny book you will ever read about the weather. And the only novel that comes with its own handy index to help guide you straight to subjects such as "sushi, and Christian guilt," "adultery, brazened out" and "regretted bitterly," "snacks, between meals, inadvisability of," and the terrible "unfairness of having read Jeanette Winterson, and yet still having to work in an in-store bakery."
The Impartial Recorder takes its name from the tirelessly gossip-oriented local paper that reports on nothing in particular and on everything that's too interesting to have made a more dignified newspaper of record. The story kicks off with the return of a prodigal son, Davey Quinn, who is struggling to hide the fact that he hasn't done quite as well in the big city as friends and family have been led to believe. But that's only the beginning. The Impartial Recorder goes on to celebrate the heroic energies and comic failures of plumbers and ministers of religion, sandwich entrepreneurs and housewives, short-order cooks and owners of lingerie shops. In the tradition of Garrison Keillor and Roddy Doyle, Ian Sansom has given us a brilliant and hopeful comedy; in his words, a "book of profound inconsequence, as beautiful and moving as, say, the sight of an elderly couple standing outside a greengrocer's, trying to choose a cauliflower."

The Impartial Recorder: A Novel

British & Irish

Harper

Israel, a shy, passionate, intelligent, Jewish vegetarian has just arrived in Ireland to take up his first post as a librarian. But the library's been shut down and Israel ends up stranded on the North Antrim coast driving an old mobile library van.

The Case of the Missing Books

Harper-perennial

Israel Armstrong, one of literature’s most unlikely detectives, returns for more crime solving adventure in this hilarious second novel from ‘The Mobile Library’ series.
The second in the ‘The Mobile Library ‘ detective series, ‘Mr Dixon Disappears’ once again features the magnificently hapless Israel Armstrong – the young, Jewish, duffle-coat wearing librarian who solves crimes, mysteries, and domestic problems all whilst driving a mobile library around the coast of Northern Ireland.
Dixon and Pickering's, County Antrim's legendary department store, is preparing to celebrate its centenary. But the elderly Mr Dixon – a member of the Ulster Association of Magicians – has gone missing, along with one hundred thousand pounds in cash. It smells, pretty badly, of a kidnap.
Israel becomes a suspect in the police investigation and is suspended from his job by his boss, the ever-fearsome Linda Wei. He's having to fight to clear his name.
Does Israel's acclaimed five-panel touring exhibition showing the history of Dixon and Pickering's in old photographs and artefacts perhaps hold the key to Mr Dixon's mysterious disappearance? Will romance blossom between Israel and Rosie Hart, the barmaid at the First and Last? Will Linda Wei stick to her diet? And has nobody here heard of Franz Kafka? All will be revealed in this hilarious and endlessly inventive sequel to ‘The Case of the Missing Books’.

Mr Dixon Disappears:  The Mobile Library

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Israel Armstrong, one of literatures most unlikely detectives, returns for more crime solving adventure in this hilarious third novel from the Mobile Library series.Israel has been invited to attend the Mobile Meet in London, the annual mobile library convention, with his irascible companion Ted Carson. Back in the UK, Israel is reunited with his family, and there is much eating of paprika chicken, baklava and the drinking of good coffee. But within only twenty-four hours of their arrival, the mobile library has been nicked.Who on earth would want to steal a thirty-year old rust-bucket of a van, and who can the two men turn to for assistance Can Mr and Mrs Krimholz, the parents of Israel's childhood rival Adam Krimholz, help them out Amidst all this mayhem, will Israel and Ted, one of literature's oddest oddball couples, ever make it to the Mobile Meet In this, his most puzzling, personal and problematic case yet, Israel has never had it so bad neither has his library.

DELEGATES CHOICE MOBILE LIB (Mobile Library)

This novel features the Israel Armstrong - the duffle-coat wearing, navel-gazing Jewish librarian who solves crimes, mysteries, and domestic problems whilst driving a mobile library around the north coast of Ireland. Here, he finds himself on the verge of his 30th birthday and on the trail of a troubled missing teenager.

The Bad Book Affair (Mobile Library)

Harper-collins Publishers

Norfolk Mystery

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Harpercollins

Paper: An Elegy

What do reading a book, smoking a cigarette, throwing confetti and voting in an election have in common? The answer, of course, is paper.
Paper serves nearly every function of our lives. It is the technology with which we have made sense of the world.
Yet the age of paper is ending. Ebooks now outsell their physical counterparts. Still, there are some uses of paper that seem unlikely to change – Christmas won’t be Christmas without wrapped presents or crackers. And the language of paper – documents, files and folders – has survived digitisation.
In Paper: An Elegy Ian Sansom builds a museum of paper and explores its paradox – its vulnerability and durability. This book is a timely meditation on the very paper it’s printed on.

Arts & Photography

Graphic Design

A witty, personal and entertaining reflection on the history and meaning of paper during the (passing) era of its universal importance. Paper serves nearly every function of our lives. It is the technology with which we have made sense of the world. Yet the age of paper is ending. Ebooks now outsell their physical counterparts. Still, there are some uses of paper that seem unlikely to change - Christmas won't be Christmas without wrapped presents or crackers. And the language of paper - documents, files and folders - has survived digitisation. In Paper: An Elegy Ian Sansom builds a museum of paper and explores its paradox - its vulnerability and durability. This book is a timely meditation on the very paper it's printed on.

Fourth Estate Ltd.

Love Miss Marple? Adore Holmes and Watson? Professor Morley’s guide to Devon is a story of bygone England; quaint villages, eccentric locals—and murder…
Swanton Morely, the People’s Professor, sets off for Devon to continue his history of England, The County Guides. Morley’s daughter, Miriam, and his assistant, Stephen Sefton, pack up the Lagonda for a trip to the English Riviera. 
Morely has been invited to give the Founder’s Day speech at All Souls School in Rousdon. But when the trio arrive they discover that a boy has died in mysterious circumstances. Was it an accident or was it murder?
Join Morely, Sefton, and Miriam on another adventure into the dark heart of 1940s England. A must-read for fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Charles Todd, there’ll be plenty of murder, mystery, and mayhem to confound.

Death in Devon (The County Guides)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SANSOM, IAN. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by SANSOM, IAN

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SANSOM, IAN. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Ring Road

The Impartial Recorder: A Novel

The Case of the Missing Books

Mr Dixon Disappears: The Mobile Library

DELEGATES CHOICE MOBILE LIB (Mobile Library)

The Bad Book Affair (Mobile Library)

Norfolk Mystery

Paper: An Elegy

Paper: An Elegy

Death in Devon (The County Guides)