Service

'The exhilarating and exhausting life of a high-end restaurant is beautifully recreated' Irish Independent When Hannah learns that star chef Daniel Costello is facing accusations of sexual assault, she's thrown back to her summer waitressing at his high-end Dublin restaurant. A glamorous world of talent and testosterone, where attention from Daniel morphed into something darker... Now the restaurant is shuttered and Daniel is faced with the reality of the courtroom. His wife Julie is hiding from paparazzi lenses behind the bedroom curtains. Surrounded by the wreckage of the past, their three voices reveal a story of power, complicity and the courage that it takes to face the truth. 'Superb' Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days 'Rich, rare and well done' Irish Times 'Coolly furious' Marie Claire 'Smart, stylish and darkly funny' Aingeala Flannery, author of The Amusements 'Powerful and compelling' Joseph O'Connor, author of Starless Sea 'A hugely gripping literary page-turner' Claire Powell, author of At the Table 'Prose as sharp as a chef's best knife' Victoria Kennefick, author of Egg/Shell

'The exhilarating and exhausting life of a high-end restaurant is beautifully recreated' Irish Independent When Hannah learns that star chef Daniel Costello is facing accusations of sexual assault, she's thrown back to her summer waitressing at his high-end Dublin restaurant. A glamorous world of talent and testosterone, where attention from Daniel morphed into something darker... Now the restaurant is shuttered and Daniel is faced with the reality of the courtroom. His wife Julie is hiding from paparazzi lenses behind the bedroom curtains. Surrounded by the wreckage of the past, their three voices reveal a story of power, complicity and the courage that it takes to face the truth. 'Superb' Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days 'Rich, rare and well done' Irish Times 'Coolly furious' Marie Claire 'Smart, stylish and darkly funny' Aingeala Flannery, author of The Amusements 'Powerful and compelling' Joseph O'Connor, author of Starless Sea 'A hugely gripping literary page-turner' Claire Powell, author of At the Table 'Prose as sharp as a chef's best knife' Victoria Kennefick, author of Egg/Shell

A PARIS REVIEW BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Highly accomplished, deeply satisfying ... I marked up almost every page' TLS 'Laugh-out-loud funny' DAILY MAIL 'My favourite nihilistic romantic' RACHEL KUSHNER 'A brutally honest, insightful, intelligent and absolutely hilarious novel' MICHAEL IMPERIOLI What's this book about? Is there a restroom? Do you have gluten-free bagels? Do you work here? Do you have a restroom? Do I buy books or rent books or what? Still a bookseller in his late forties, Sean knows that the worst thing about a bookshop is the customers. Then there's the gift-wrapping, the invoicing, the Yelp reviews. The overwhelming sense of self-loathing after another day of not writing a novel yourself. While Sean's book remains unfinished, his city has changed around him. As have friends and acquaintances, at least the ones who keep in touch. The service industry is different, too. But what, or whom, is he serving anyway? Biting, hilarious and self-aware, John Tottenham's debut novel is a razor-sharp dissection of gentrification, friendship, jealousy and the role of literature in a digital age.

A PARIS REVIEW BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Highly accomplished, deeply satisfying ... I marked up almost every page' TLS 'Laugh-out-loud funny' DAILY MAIL 'My favourite nihilistic romantic' RACHEL KUSHNER 'A brutally honest, insightful, intelligent and absolutely hilarious novel' MICHAEL IMPERIOLI What's this book about? Is there a restroom? Do you have gluten-free bagels? Do you work here? Do you have a restroom? Do I buy books or rent books or what? Still a bookseller in his late forties, Sean knows that the worst thing about a bookshop is the customers. Then there's the gift-wrapping, the invoicing, the Yelp reviews. The overwhelming sense of self-loathing after another day of not writing a novel yourself. While Sean's book remains unfinished, his city has changed around him. As have friends and acquaintances, at least the ones who keep in touch. The service industry is different, too. But what, or whom, is he serving anyway? Biting, hilarious and self-aware, John Tottenham's debut novel is a razor-sharp dissection of gentrification, friendship, jealousy and the role of literature in a digital age.

A darkly comic novel set on the lower slopes of the Los Angeles literary world. I stepped out to behold a crimson-streaked sky that would soon be adorning ten thousand Instagram posts, and walked down the sleepy residential streets, suffused with a soft and forgiving evening light, to the main drag. It felt like the end here, both sanctuary and termination: a soft place of harsh realities where a sun that once meant something barely brushed against the world. The perfect spring evening was blighted only by the citizenry. A journalist in his late forties--having lost his job as a consequence of the death of print media--finds himself working at a bookstore in a rapidly gentrifying Los Angeles neighborhood, where he is thrown into the company of a younger generation with whom he has little in common. Embittered by his lowly position at this late stage of what had once been a promising career, he collapses his longtime ambition of writing a novel into a hilariously cathartic litany of contempt for his present circumstances. Service examines the plight of the unrepentant artistic outsider in an unforgiving day and age. It alternates between passages that painstakingly describe the protagonist's fraught attempts to write his novel and such scenes of service work as wrapping children's books for Silver Lake moms and being "pilloried by dunces" on Yelp. As his writing process stalls in a "stale ceremony" of indolence and self-doubt, these unfamiliar humiliations become a toxic wellspring for his irascible observations. With his notoriously dry wit, John Tottenham's debut novel reflects on a farrago of contemporary afflictions: gentrification, debt, friendship, aging gracelessly, self-medication, male vanity, professional jealousy, the perils of political correctness, and the role of literature in the digital era. Eventually, after endlessly agonizing about matters of form and style, he finds that despite himself he has actually written a book.

A darkly comic novel set on the lower slopes of the Los Angeles literary world. I stepped out to behold a crimson-streaked sky that would soon be adorning ten thousand Instagram posts, and walked down the sleepy residential streets, suffused with a soft and forgiving evening light, to the main drag. It felt like the end here, both sanctuary and termination: a soft place of harsh realities where a sun that once meant something barely brushed against the world. The perfect spring evening was blighted only by the citizenry. A journalist in his late forties--having lost his job as a consequence of the death of print media--finds himself working at a bookstore in a rapidly gentrifying Los Angeles neighborhood, where he is thrown into the company of a younger generation with whom he has little in common. Embittered by his lowly position at this late stage of what had once been a promising career, he collapses his longtime ambition of writing a novel into a hilariously cathartic litany of contempt for his present circumstances. Service examines the plight of the unrepentant artistic outsider in an unforgiving day and age. It alternates between passages that painstakingly describe the protagonist's fraught attempts to write his novel and such scenes of service work as wrapping children's books for Silver Lake moms and being "pilloried by dunces" on Yelp. As his writing process stalls in a "stale ceremony" of indolence and self-doubt, these unfamiliar humiliations become a toxic wellspring for his irascible observations. With his notoriously dry wit, John Tottenham's debut novel reflects on a farrago of contemporary afflictions: gentrification, debt, friendship, aging gracelessly, self-medication, male vanity, professional jealousy, the perils of political correctness, and the role of literature in the digital era. Eventually, after endlessly agonizing about matters of form and style, he finds that despite himself he has actually written a book.

Marcus Luttrell, author of the #1 bestseller Lone Survivor , share war stories about true American heroism from himself and other soldiers who bravely fought alongside him. Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell returned from his star-crossed mission in Afghanistan with his bones shattered and his heart broken. So many had given their lives to save him -- and he would have readily done the same for them. As he recuperated, he wondered why he and others, from America's founding to today, had been willing to sacrifice everything-including themselves-for the sake of family, nation, and freedom. In Service , we follow Marcus Luttrell to Iraq, where he returns to the battlefield as a member of SEAL Team 5 to help take on the most dangerous city in the world: Ramadi, the capital of war-torn Al Anbar Province. There, in six months of high-intensity urban combat, he would be part of what has been called the greatest victory in the history of U.S. Special Operations forces. We also return to Afghanistan and Operation Redwing, where Luttrell offers powerful new details about his miraculous rescue. Throughout, he reflects on what it really means to take on a higher calling, about the men he's seen lose their lives for their country, and the legacy of those who came and bled before. A thrilling war story, Service is also a profoundly moving tribute to the warrior brotherhood, to the belief that nobody goes it alone, and no one will be left behind.

Marcus Luttrell, author of the #1 bestseller Lone Survivor , share war stories about true American heroism from himself and other soldiers who bravely fought alongside him. Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell returned from his star-crossed mission in Afghanistan with his bones shattered and his heart broken. So many had given their lives to save him -- and he would have readily done the same for them. As he recuperated, he wondered why he and others, from America's founding to today, had been willing to sacrifice everything-including themselves-for the sake of family, nation, and freedom. In Service , we follow Marcus Luttrell to Iraq, where he returns to the battlefield as a member of SEAL Team 5 to help take on the most dangerous city in the world: Ramadi, the capital of war-torn Al Anbar Province. There, in six months of high-intensity urban combat, he would be part of what has been called the greatest victory in the history of U.S. Special Operations forces. We also return to Afghanistan and Operation Redwing, where Luttrell offers powerful new details about his miraculous rescue. Throughout, he reflects on what it really means to take on a higher calling, about the men he's seen lose their lives for their country, and the legacy of those who came and bled before. A thrilling war story, Service is also a profoundly moving tribute to the warrior brotherhood, to the belief that nobody goes it alone, and no one will be left behind.