Small Things Like These: Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize

Claire Keegan

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church....

I'd Rather Not

Robert Skinner

"I was sleeping in what might reasonably be described as a ditch, though I tried not to think of it in those terms for morale reasons … " Robert Skinner arrives in the city, searching for a richer life. Things begin badly and then, surprisingly, get slightly worse. Pretty soon he’s sleeping rough and t...