Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize An extraordinary, "playful, moving, and wholly remarkable" (The Guardian) coming-of-age novel filled with myth and magic from one of England's greatest living writers.An introspective young boy, Joseph Coppock is trying to make sense of the world. Living alone in an old house, he spends his time reading comic books, collecting birds' eggs, and playing with marbles. When one day a rag-and-bone man called Treacle Walker appears on a horse and cart, offering a cure-all medicine, a mysterious friendship develops and the young boy is introduced to a world beyond his wildest imagination. Luminous, evocative, and sparely told, Treacle Walker is a stunning fusion of myth, folklore, and the stories we tell ourselves.

Alan Garner is an exceptional lecturer and essayist. This collection, taken form the work of more that twenty years, explores an enviable range of scholarly interests: archaeology, myth, language, education, philosophy, the spiritual quest, mental health, literature, music and film.The book also serves as a poetic autobiography of one of England's best-loved but least public writers. He hears himself declared dead at the age of six; he draws on the deep vein of a rural working-class childhood in a family of craftsmen who instilled the passion for excellence and for innovation and humour. The disciplines he learnt as a Classicist give a shape and clarity to that passion in this richly various book that would have fascinated his forebears, whose work and lives are also celebrated here. This most unusual, most candid, most vivid picture of an English family and its home, its country's history, is also a devastating revelation of a writer's own life....

More than a million people have learned the secrets of effective conversation using Conversationally Speaking. This revised edition provides more ways to improve conversational skills by asking questions that promote conversation, learning how to listen so that others will be encouraged to talk, reducing anxiety in social situations and more.

The much-loved classic, finally in ebook. Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David, four Manchester children, are led into Elidor, a twilight world almost destroyed by fear and darkness. On a gloomy day in Manchester, Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David are lured into a ruined church, where the fabric of time and place is weak enough to allow them into the twilight world of Elidor. It is a place almost destroyed by fear and darkness, and the children are charged with guarding its Treasures while a way is sought to save the dying land. Then the evil forces find a path through to this world... This new edition of Alan Garner's classic includes a special "Why You'll Love This Book" introduction from bestselling author, Jonathan Stroud.

Fantasy. 181345 words long. First published in SynergEbooks, 2008

The much-loved classic, finally in ebook. Enthralling sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen It is the Eve of Gomrath -- the night of the year when the Old Magic is aroused. Had Colin and Susan known this, they would never have lighted a fire on the Beacon, thereby releasing the uncontrollable ferocity of the Wild Hunt. Soon they are inextricably caught up in the struggle between their friend, the Wizard Cadellin, and the evil Morrigan. The strength of their courage will determine whether or not they survive the awaiting ordeal... Book two in the Weirdstone trilogy.

Product DescriptionA classic work of rural magic realism from one of Britain's greatest children's novelists Four interconnected fables of a way of living in rural England that is now disappeared. Craftsmen pass on, or withhold, secrets of their relationship with the natural world, which gives them the material from which they create useful and beautiful things. Smiths and chandlers, steeplejacks and quarrymen, all live and work hand in hand with the seasons, the elements and the land. There is a mutual respect and a knowledge of the magical here that somehow, somewhere was lost to us. These fables beautifully recapture and restore it to us. And a very particular landscape, on the outskirts of industrial Manchester, is brought vividly to life. About the AuthorAlan Garner is one of Britain's greatest living writers for children, the author of such classics as Elidor and The Owl Service. He has done much to explore the disappearing beliefs & traditions of agricultural England. In 1996 he published an acclaimed and unsettling novel for adults, Strandloper (Harvill).

Science Fiction. 166140 words long. First published in SynergEbooks, 2007

Susan and Colin have been sent to their mother’s nurse for 6 months. The two children rapidly adjust to life in the country around Alderley Edge, but find an unusual interest in Susan’s “Tear”, a stone hanging from a bracelet passed to their mother by Bess Mossack, the nurse. They find that this stone has been the object of a prolonged search by both light and dark forces. Myths awake, and the children and their mentors, human, dwarf and elf, set out on a quest to return the stone before the twilight of the gods can descend.

The much-loved classic, finally in ebook. Winner of both the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, this is an all-time classic, combining mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships. It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to effect everybody's lives. Relentlessly, Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend -- a modern drama played out against a background of ancient jealousies. As the tension mounts, it becomes apparent that only by accepting and facing the situation can it be resolved.

In second-century Britain, Macey and a gang of fellow deserters from the Roman army hunt and are hunted by deadly local tribes. Fifteen centuries later, during the English Civil War, Thomas Rowley hides from the ruthless troops who have encircled his village. And in contemporary Britain, Tom, a precocious, love-struck, mentally unstable teenager, struggles to cope with the imminent departure for London of his girlfriend, Jan. Three separate stories, three utterly different lives, distant in time and yet strangely linked to a single place, the mysterious, looming outcrop known as Mow Cop, and a single object, the blunt head of a stone axe: all these come together in Alan Garner's extraordinary Red Shift, a pyrotechnical and deeply moving elaboration on themes of chance and fate, time and eternity, visionary awakening and destructive madness.

From one of our greatest living writers, comes a remarkable memoir of a forgotten England. 'The war went. We sang in the playground, "Bikini lagoon, an atom bomb's boom, and two big explosions." David's father came back from Burma and didn't eat rice. Twiggy taught by reciting "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and the thirteen times table. Twiggy was fat and short and he shouted, and his neck was as wide as his head. He was a bully, though he didn't take any notice of me.' In Where Shall We Run To?, Alan Garner remembers his early childhood in the Cheshire village of Alderley Edge: life at the village school as 'a sissy and a mardy-arse'; pushing his friend Harold into a clump of nettles to test the truth of dock leaves; his father joining the army to guard the family against Hitler; the coming of the Yanks, with their comics and sweets and chewing gum. From one of our greatest living writers, it is a remarkable and evocative memoir of a vanished England.

The much-loved classic, finally in ebook. First published over 50 years ago, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is one of the greatest fantasy novels of all time. When Colin and Susan are pursued by eerie creatures across Alderley Edge, they are saved by the Wizard. He takes them into the caves of Fundindelve, where he watches over the enchanted sleep of one hundred and forty knights. But the heart of the magic that binds them -- Firefrost, also known as the Weirdstone of Brisingamen -- has been lost. The Wizard has been searching for the stone for more than 100 years, but the forces of evil are closing in, determined to possess and destroy its special power. Colin and Susan realise at last that they are the key to the Weirdstone's return. But how can two children defeat the Morrigan and her deadly brood? Book one in the Weirdstone trilogy, followed by THE MOON OF GOMRATH.

The much-loved classic, finally in ebook. In 'The Lad of the Gad' Alan Garner has reworked five stories from the Gaelic layers of British folktale. Folk and fairy tales have not always been relegated to children, and older readers will appreciate Garner's ability to give these stories a new vitality for our time.

The much-loved classic, finally in ebook. Stunning new CollinsVoyager edition of Alan Garner's collection of folklore. Boggarts and gowks, fools and hobgoblins are only some of the strange and wonderful creatures in A Bag of Moonshine -- a veritable treasure trove of stories chosen from the folklore of England and Wales.There are 22 tales in all, beautifully illustrated in black and whitel by prize-winning illustrator Patrick Lynch.

Science Fiction. 66931 words long. First published in SynergEbooks, 2007

I sing the eagle."Bone of the Cloud. The Clashing Rock.The Hard Darkness."It hangs above the grave mound.I sing, dreaming...William Buckley was transported to Australia in 1801. He escaped and lived as an Aborigine for thirty-one years. In this visionary novel, Alan Garner is true to William the Cheshire bricklayer and William the Aboriginal spiritual leader, as William is true to his fate. The result is extraordinary.

Science Fiction. 141288 words long. First published in SynergEbooks, 2007