Books by Jonathan Buckley

The small Tuscan town of Castelluccio is preparing for its annual festival, a spectacular pageant in which a leading role will be taken by the self-exiled English painter Gideon Westfall. A man proudly out of step with modernity, Westfall is regarded by some as a maestro, but in Castelluccio - as in the wider art world - he has his enemies, and his niece - just arrived from England - is no great admirer either. At the same time a local girl is missing, a disappearance that seems to implicate the artist. But the life and art of Gideon Westfall form just one strand of Nostalgia, a novel that teems with incidents and characters, from religious visionaries to folk heroes. Constantly shifting between the panoramic and the intimate, between the past and the present, Nostalgia is as intricately structured as a symphony, interweaving the narratives of history, legend, architecture - and much more - in a kaleidoscope of facts and invention.

Daniel Brennan, approaching the premature end of his life, retreats to a room in his brother's suburban house. To divert himself and to entertain Ellen, his carer, he writes the journal that is Telescope, blurring truth, gossip and fiction in vignettes of his own life and the lives of those close to him. Above all he focuses on his siblings: mercurial Celia, whose life as a teacher in Italy seems to have run aground, and kindly Charlie, the entrepreneur of the family. Enriched with remarkable observations on topics ranging from tattoos and Tokyo street fashion to early French photography, Telescope is a startlingly original and moving book, a glimpse of the world as seen by a connoisseur of vicarious experience. Jonathan Buckley's first five novels were published by Fourth Estate; his sixth by Sort of Books: The Biography of Thomas Lang (1997) Xerxes (1999) Ghost MacIndoe (2001) Invisible (2004) So He Takes the Dog (2006) Contact (2010)

"e;Buckley is a mighty creative force."e; The Sunday Times "e;Jonathan Buckley's intensely compassionate, astoundingly observed novels unfold with exquisite power, and The river is the river is perhaps his most perfectly written book yet. The surprise of its haunting ending makes other plot twists look like childish games."e; James McConnachie, Editor The Author "e;A quietly brilliant writer, almost eccentric in his craftsmanship."e; The Sunday Times A dazzlingly inventive novel that explores the whole nature of storytelling and writing. A woman called Naomi arrives at her sister's house, intending, it seems, to say goodbye. She is abandoning her city life for a remote Scottish retreat, which she will share with a man named Bernat, whom she considers some kind of visionary. In a sequence of stories filtered through multiple retellings, she illuminates the character of this elusive individual. One story seems of special significance: about Afonso, an Amazon boatman, who could be the last speaker of his mother tongue, a language of apparently unique simplicity and precision. Bernat and Naomi are not, however, the only storytellers here. Naomi's sister, Kate, is herself working on a novel that begins as a ghost story, but ends up as something rather different: The river is the river.

Dominic Pattison's life is one of level contentment. His marriage has proved happy and durable; his business is successful. And then Sam Williams, builder and ex-squaddie, enters his life. Sam claims to be his son. Yet is Sam who he says he is? After almost thirty years, Dominic can remember little of his affair with Sam's mother. His instinct is to recoil from this volatile and perhaps dangerous stranger. Sam, however, refuses to be dismissed. With its deft switches of sympathy between menaced 'father' and rebuffed 'son', Buckley's novel is both a thriller and a subtle exploration of the intricacies of memory. Jonathan Buckley's first five novels were published by Fourth Estate; The Biography of Thomas Lang (1997) Xerxes (1999) Ghost MacIndoe (2001) Invisible (2004) So He Takes the Dog (2006) Hi latest novel Telescope is also published by Sort of Books (2011)