Jason Arthur

@foylesforbooks.bsky.social got the memo!

Nicola Barker’s TonyInterruptor published today and Foyles is doing it proud!

Two of my favourite books of the year being published today!

TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker
The Expansion Project by Ben Pester

*PersonalSuperThursday*

A yellow cover with Nicola Barker in big black font and TonyInterruptor smaller with a pencil sketch of some arty gathering with a man just off centre sporting a beret - a man and a woman in the foreground to the left of beret are holding their noses and if you follow the trail of what looks like smoke it’s farting out from another man’s trousers, to the right of beret!

Baby’s first Nicola Barker (I’ve always meant to read her!): TonyInterruptor is a great, silly, ridiculous, profound book on art, life, culture - and love!

@benpester.bsky.social, having signed copies of The Expansion Project (which is published tomorrow), takes a stroll in the beautiful grounds of Capmeadow (in, er, @foylesforbooks.bsky.social).

Welcome to Capmeadow Business Park (currently residing in @foylesforbooks.bsky.social Charing Cross Road).

The Expansion Project

Front Row - Peter Sellers at 100 - BBC Sounds The BFI has launched a new season of Peter Sellers films to mark his centenary.

'A new novel from Nicola Barker is always an event.'

Nicola Barker discusses her new novel TonyInterruptor with Samira Ahmed (starts at 16mins, 31 Seconds).

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Hot Books, Strange Tales — From Haunted Love to Literary Thrillers, Your August Reading Just Got Wild Think twisted romance, dark glamour and high-concept plots

‘Phenomenally good...Bristles with pain, compassion and controlled fury… Brilliant’

Every One Still Here

www.marieclaire.co.uk/entertainmen...

Wednesday to Freakier Friday: the week in rave reviews Jenna Ortega returns with the second season of the hit comedy, while Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reunite in the zany body-swap sequel. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guar...

'If you only read one book this week, make it TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker'

The week in raves!

www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

‘Donnie Darko has a fifth act so startling it carries that glancing flash of meaning that can only come with poetry. You feel raw almost, and heat-high by the end.'

Let’s Eat Grandma, ‘Donnie Darko’ - Ben Pester’s Expansion Project Playlist

buff.ly/BAVIVNi

TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker review – satire that sees right through you This brilliantly over-the-top comedy about an unworldly heckler explores art and authenticity – being tripped up by it is part of the fun

I’ve read this book. It’s terrific. Nicola Barker (along with Ali Smith and Peter Carey) is one of my three favorite writers in the world. She’s a proper genius, to use the overused. But more, she’s a *fun* genius.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Nicola Barker is one of the most daringly original and entertaining authors of our young 21st century and not nearly praised or read enough.

Do yourself a favor and pick up one of her books - you won't be disappointed!

Ben Pester’s dark satire on the world of work | The Observer In his surreal and unsettling debut novel The Expansion Project, Pester makes a dystopia of the modern office

‘Surreal & unsettling…With a steely commitment to its outlandish form & plot, @benpester.bsky.social’s novel is as nebulous, mind-bending & delightfully strange as the workplace it describes.’

The Expansion Project

observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Nicola Barker and the art of interruption | The Observer In TonyInterruptor, the singular novelist returns with a witty, hyperactive satire on art and authenticity

‘A witty, hyperactive satire on art & authenticity…An out-of-the-ordinary author doing what others don’t’

TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker

observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Ben Pester's surreal new book is a "horror novel about office work" where the monster is a business park. Here he takes us through the songs he played while writing and the songs the book seems to summon for him now it's finished

Ben Pester’s Expansion Project Playlist

buff.ly/BAVIVNi

She’s one of the best!

This might be the weirdest novel you’ll ever read – plus the best fiction of August Our critics review August’s latest fiction, from a surrealist comedy to a wacky musing on internet virality

‘A comic masterpiece… Revelatory & compulsively creative…This is smart, calculated, musical prose...TonyInterruptor is as obtrusive as it is resplendent. It demands to be read’ (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

Another rave for the one and only Nicola Barker!

www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-t...

August's Best New Book Releases If you’re anything like us, summer means one of two things: either you’re stuffing your suitcase with books to tear through on a sun lounger, or you’re staying local and grabbing every chance you

'Barrelling onto the short story scene is Every One Still Here...[Liadan] Ní Chuinn brings a fresh, unflinching voice to their precise, thoughtful & deeply affecting book...This one will linger long after the final page.'

www.service95.com/best-new-boo...

TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker review – satire that sees right through you This brilliantly over-the-top comedy about an unworldly heckler explores art and authenticity – being tripped up by it is part of the fun

‘Brilliantly over-the-top...This is satire that sees right through you, but forgives you & teaches you to forgive yourself. It’s that rare thing, a serious work of art that is also a giddy confection: a vehicle of pure delight’

TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

‘Splendidly inventive…The tricksiness & elusiveness of @benpester.bsky.social’s technique makes the reading experience abundantly worth it. The Expansion Project is a wonderfully strange & haunting book’ Literary Review

‘TonyInterruptor is a novel of hectic questions and formal tricks...Nicola Barker is our laureate of the edge. This, her latest dispatch from the periphery, is a brilliant, if bewildering, novel with an eccentric take on the many ways we fail to live our lives honestly’ Literary Review

This debut novel is a tour de force in surrealist comedy The Expansion Project is an absurdist answer to tech anxiety, dislocation and parenthood

Nice to wake up to a 5 star review of @benpester.bsky.social's The Expansion Project. From the brilliant Camilla Grudova, no less.

‘A tour de force in surrealist comedy…The Expansion Project is a novel about dislocation that feels dislocating'

www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-t...

An Interview with Liadan Ní Chuinn — TOLKA by Catherine Hearn

“What has happened in the past is still playing out now.”

New online — Tolka editor Catherine Hearn spoke to Liadan Ní Chuinn about their debut short story collection Every One Still Here, published by @grantabooks.bsky.social and @stingingfly.bsky.social. www.tolkajournal.org/read-online/...

It’s their life This debut collection by the Northern Irish writer Liadan Ní Chuinn (a pseudonym) is an indictment of British Army action during the Troubles. But it is

'An original, compassionate exploration of grief, faith, forgiveness, heritage & the foundations of shared humanity…Dark or deadpan humour sits alongside insights of dazzling precision & poignancy'

Another rave for Liadan Ní Chuinn’s Every One Still Here.

www.the-tls.com/literature/f...

Thanks, Rose. If it does come to blows, I'll happily act as your second!

Please read The Expansion Project. It is so achingly, absurdly good in intricate ways you need to discover for yourself.
Honestly, if you do not love it I will gladly meet you anywhere of your choosing for a full out square go (UK & Ireland only)

TONYINTERRUPTOR by Nicola Barker, a summer pick at @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk!

10 new fiction books for summer to get you through the heatwave The sun is orange, the planes are overhead and you’re horizontal with one of these summer reads — including the return of giants Irvine Welsh and Stephen King.

'[Ben] Pester carefully captures something specific of the alienation and disintegration that comes from ever-expanding ‘work’, all while making his central family story touching without veering into sentimental'

THE EXPANSION PROJECT

www.shortlist.com/health-and-f...

Every One Still Here by Liadan Ní Chuinn: A hard legacy - A life in books Book reviews, snippets of book news, and alerts about books outside the glare of the publicity spotlight.

'Loss, anger, grief & disappointment run through this powerful collection...Tough reading, at times, this is a striking collection, thoroughly deserving of the praise heaped upon it'

EVERY ONE STILL HERE by Liadan Ní Chuinn

alifeinbooks.co.uk/2025/07/ever...

With EVERY ONE STILL HERE, debut author LIADAN NÍ CHUINN is an instant hit Liadan Ní Chuinn’s debut short story collection Every One Still Here is a beautiful exploration of human nature and the search for meaning.

‘An instant hit...Uncanny & haunting, but deeply grounded in the human & mundane...This is literary fiction at its best...I would recommend EVERY ONE STILL HERE to anyone who wants to read something deeply human’

Yet another rave review for Liadan Ní Chuinn.

www.buzzmag.co.uk/every-one-st...

Another week, another new and extraordinary Irish short story collection. @davetynan.bsky.social's 'We Used to Dance Here' is gorgeous. From the opening smoking area pick up of 'Tourist', and the sharp revenge of 'Off Your Chest' through the great non Meet Cute of 'How Do You Know Them'...

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