Ian Sansom

A warm, humane, and sharply observed tale of small town life that is by equal turns hilarious and moving.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...

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...

This is a book about a poet, about a poem, about a city, and about a world at a point of change. More than a work of literary criticism or literary biography, it is a record of why and how we create and respond to great poetry.This is a book about a poet – W. H. Auden, a wunderkind, a victim-beneficiary of a literary cult of personality who became a scapegoat and a poet-expatriate largely excluded from British literary history because he left.About a poem – ‘September 1, 1939’, his most famous...

The Bad Book Affair features the magnificently hapless 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.In The Bad Book Affair Israel finds himself on the verge of his thirtieth birthday and on the trail of a troubled missing teenager, the daughter of a local politician.Why has the young woman disappeared? Does it have something to do with Israel’s...

Let us suppose for a moment that paper were to disappear. Would anything be lost? Everything would be lost.Paper is the technology through which and with which we have made sense of the world. The making of paper and the manifold uses of paper have made our civilization what it is.But the age of paper is coming to an end. In 2010, Amazon announced for the first time that it was selling more e-books than paper books: according to some, the paper book has no more than five years before it becomes...

Israel Armstrong, one of literature’s 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...

Introducing Israel Armstrong, one of literature’s most unlikely detectives in the first of a series of novels from the author of the critically acclaimed Ring Road.Israel is an intelligent, shy, passionate, sensitive sort of soul: he’s Jewish; he’s a vegetarian; he could maybe do with losing a little weight. And he’s 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...

The first book in The County Guides – introducing an exciting new detective series.The County Guides are a series of detective novels set in 1930s England.The books are an odyssey through England and its history.In each county, the protagonists – Stephen Sefton, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, and his employer, the People's Professor, Swanton Morley – solve a murder.The first book is set in Norfolk. The murder is in the vicarage.There are 39 books – and 39 murders – to follow.

‘Beautifully crafted by Sansom, Professor Morley promises to become a little gem of English crime writing; sample him now’ Daily MailWelcome to Westmorland. Perhaps the most scenic county in England! Home of the poets! Land of the great artists! District of the Great lakes! And the scene of a mysterious crime…Swanton Morley, the People’s Professor, once again sets off in his Lagonda to continue his history of England, The County Guides.Stranded in the market town of Appleby after a tragic rail...

CREAM TEAS! SCHOOL DINNERS! SATANIC SURFERS!Join our heroes as they follow up a Norfolk Mystery with a bad case of … DEATH IN DEVON.Swanton Morley, 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.Morley 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...

‘Beautifully crafted by Sansom, Professor Morley promises to become a little gem of English crime writing; sample him now’ Daily MailOctober 1937. Swanton Morley, the People’s Professor, sets off to Essex to continue his history of England, The County Guides. Morley’s daughter Miriam continues to cause chaos and his assistant Stephen Sefton continues to slide deeper into depression and despair.Morley is an honorary guest at the Colchester Oyster Festival. But when the mayor dies suddenly at the...

From Beachy Head to Brighton, and from Chichester to Rye, Flaming Sussex sees our intrepid trio plunge once again into the dark heart of England‘Beautifully crafted by Sansom, Professor Morley promises to become a little gem of English crime writing; sample him now’ Daily MailAt about four o’clock on 5th November 1937, Miss Lizzie Walter, a teacher at the King’s Road Primary School in Lewes, said goodbye to her young pupils. The children clattered out into the dark streets, preparing for that...