Waking Up in Toytown, John BurnsideIn the early 80s, after a decade of drug abuse and borderline mental illness, John Burnside resolved to escape his addictive personality and find calm in a 'Surbiton of the mind'. But the suburbs are not quite as normal as he had imagined and, as he relapses into chaos, he encounters a homicidal office worker who is obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock and Petula Clark, an old lover, with whom he reprises a troubled, masochistic relationship and, finally,

trapped in a land of enemies

It brings together a collection of essays which Kuma wrote after disasters such as the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on 9/11 and the earthquake and tsunami that obliterated much of the built landscape on Japan’s northern shore in a matter of minutes in 2011

and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here

a mathematician from Hungary

and stands up for dogdom: not the wolf in canine clothes

economics and anthropology that marks all Diamond's work

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

and criminal corruption in which he thrived

How do we solve this urgent problem

Tolkien and he keeps falling hopelessly in love

a complex enchantment

but only on herself