Books published by London Books

They Won''t Let You Live is the story of two small shop-owners - one Christian, one Jewish - in 1930s London. Simon Blumenfeld''s 4th and final novel, first published in 1939, critically revisits the themes evoked by Shakespeare''s The Merchant Of Venice. Blumenfeld sets out to confound the reader''s prejudices and expectations in a plot that does not shy away from the difficult and the disturbing. In an ever-growing atmosphere of violence in both public and private life, Blumenfeld explores how language that springs from our emotions and misapprehensions shapes our world and, indeed, how it appears to us.

British author Martin Knight was born at the end of the 1950s on the outskirts of semi-rural South London. Broken Wafers tells the story of his life on a council estate as he navigates the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s. Knight charts a period when Britain emerged from post-war austerity into a more vibrant, hopeful, comfortable and colourful age. He recalls everyday life in his multi-racial family and the thrill of the gradual arrival of such innovations as the refrigerator, the telephone, the colour television and hormones. Broken Wafers is an unashamed and forensic wallow in nostalgia.

First published to critical acclaim as Gypsy Joe, with The Observer selecting it as Sports Book Of The Year, Cushty is a revised and expanded edition. Encouraged as a child to reject the gypsy tradition of fighting and take up golf, Joe rose through the ranks of the professional sport. However, after having to leave his club due to false accusations, he fell into bare-knuckle fighting and crime. Only when prison loomed did he reflect on his life''s course and left the underworld. A redemptive, uplifting account of a young man''s determination to realise his dream regardless of prejudice.

Strange things happen on social media, such as the almost chance encounter between a London born-and-bred fitness instructor and a drug-fueled Spanish witch. At first Maria Remedios and Martin Cooper share their love for super-dumb, two-chord stomp in private messages, but when they meet magic happens. Maria knows that she and Martin have been lovers in past lives, and sets out to convince the former skinhead that her occult beliefs are true.

A lifelong engagement with veganism is presented in this story of a frustration with the meat and dairy industries heading towards a potentially violent and vengeful culmination. Author of "The Football Factory".