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Serpent's Tail

@serpentstail

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Independent publisher of diverse writers who challenge, entertain, provoke change, and leave you hungry for more. 📚🐍

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The End of Everything by M. John Harrison is on the 2026 Booker Prize shortlist! 🐚

We are absolutely delighted to see this magnificent, timely novel on this year’s shortlist. A huge congratulations to our wonderful author, M. John Harrison, and all the other shortlisted authors!

Join #TheEndOfEverything’s legion of fans…

🪼 ‘A visionary and brilliant investigation of anxious times’ China Miéville

🪼 ‘Elucidates humanity’s disintegrating existence with strange clarity’ Guardian

🪼 ‘Speaks with uncanny indirectness to our deepest fears about collective memory and big tech’ Telegraph

🪼 ‘Memorable, haunting ... a world that’s all the more uncanny on account of its proximity to our own’ Irish Times

🪼 ‘Everything to do with the tenor of how we live now. It will get deep into your bones’ Chris Power by @serpentstail

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6 days ago

Observer best debut novel #Saraswati, by Gurnaik Johal, is one of @waterstones's #PaperbacksOfTheYear!

A Book of the Year in the Independent, Telegraph, Nerve and Guardian, this panoramic debut deftly animates the passions that bind us to our histories and each other.

Find it at a Waterstones near you or online this gifting season 🎁

#LiteraryFiction #DebutNovel by @serpentstail

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19 hours ago

Great to see international bestseller #Air, by Christian Kracht, chosen as one of @waterstones's #PaperbacksOfTheYear!

From one of the most significant European writers working today and bestselling author of Eurotrash, #Air blends the inventiveness of contemporary speculative fiction with the literary verve of Knausgaard.

Find it at a Waterstones near you or online this gifting season 🎁

#TranslatedFiction #ChristianKracht by @serpentstail

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20 hours ago

💚 WIN A PROOF 💚

We are giving 10 very lucky readers the chance to win a proof of #SnowBirds by Roisin Maguire, the irresistible winter story set in the world of the hit Irish novel of 2025 #NightSwimmers.

To enter…
✨ Like this post
✨Tag a friend in the comments or share to your stories for an extra entry
✨ Giveaway closes 23:59pm Sunday 20th September

Winners will be contacted from the Serpent’s Tail Instagram account only.

Standing on the edge of the icy Irish sea, the village of Ballybrady typically has a warm embrace for locals and a cold shoulder for outsiders. So when corporate interests threaten the nearby island colony of rare birds, all-weather swimmer Grace – usually so keen to do things on her own – is alarmed to find that her allies in the fight are the Duckie Divers Swimming Club, a raft of city women with expensive gear and good intentions. Irreverent and irrepressible like Grace herself, Snow Birds is a delightful celebration of found family, unlikely friendship and the thrill of open water.

Snow Birds is out in hardback on 8th October 🌊 by @serpentstail

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12 days ago

We are delighted to reveal the paperback cover of #Intelligence by Robert Newman! The unputdownable novel from one of the UK’s best-loved writers and comedians.

‘A plucky page-turner’ Mail on Sunday

‘Written with great aplomb’ William Boyd

‘Joyful, sad, smart and surprising’ Nick Hornby

Oxford, 1938. Ida and Medora are two brilliant young philosophers at the heart of a group who gather in storied rooms to dance, drink and debate theories of right and wrong.

When they stumble across secret Nazi information that could radically change the direction of the war, it’s up to Ida and Medora to capture the attention of London’s spymasters in time to save thousands of lives.

Out in paperback January 2027. by @serpentstail

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a month ago

❤️‍🔥 COVER REVEAL ❤️‍🔥

‘I never realised what it meant, to give yourself fully to a character. Every part of you. Would I go through it again, despite everything? In a heartbeat.’

When aspiring actor Natalie is offered her first major role in the new film by Robert Langford – a revered director with an intimidating reputation – she instantly accepts. It would be madness to turn down this career-making opportunity – wouldn’t it? As always, he demands total immersion: extended rehearsals in a remote location, close bonding among the cast, a set cloistered away from outsiders and even loved ones.

Langford claims his take on the horror genre will expose prejudice itself as the hidden terror plaguing society. But as filming gets underway and the project tightens its grip on Natalie’s body and mind – exposing her disability in ways she’s never experienced before – normal boundaries seem to shift. There are freak incidents and sudden disappearances, murmured secrets and hidden meetings. What, exactly, is Langford’s purpose? And what has Natalie truly sacrificed in her pursuit of success?

#Distortion by Kathryn Bromwich is coming February 2027.

#CoverReveal #Bookstagram by @serpentstail

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a month ago

‘Whenever Susan Stryker speaks, I listen’ – Torrey Peters

Gender is one of the most contested topics of our age, as ideologies are weaponised by the far right and real trans lives are targeted. But what are we talking about when we talk about gender? What are the origins of the concept itself, and where might it take us in the future?

Rooted in decades of deep research and first-hand experience, Susan Stryker’s sharp-eyed analysis invites us into her lifelong quest to uncover what gender means and does. From nineteenth-century phrenology to present-day anti-trans conspiracies to examples from her lifetime as an agenda setting historian, filmmaker and activist, Stryker finds surprising places to tune into the origins, idiosyncrasies and generative possibilities of the gender concept.

#ChangingGender publishes today.

#SusanStryker #LGBTBooks by @serpentstail

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a month ago

🩵 ‘One of our most original writers’ IRISH INDEPENDENT 🩵

Summer, 1923. Six-year-old Catherine Carolan grows restless on her parents’ farm. It’s already clear that her intellect will soon outgrow the two-room schoolhouse across the fields. But in post-Civil War Ireland, an education is not an easy thing for a girl to access, and young Catherine is not the only one in her family who will come to tire of rural life.

Summer, 1951. To ease him through his final days, Dr. Josef Alois calls for someone from his past. Enter Catherine Carolan, now an Oxford professor. As Alois’s mind and body falter, Catherine must decide how far she will follow this man that she loves.

A novel in two strands, #AThoughtWithoutCollision by award-winning Irish writer Adrian Duncan is a beautiful meditation on how we construct our relationship to the world around us.

We publish today with Tuskar Rock.

#IrishAuthor #IrishLiterature #AdrianDuncan #Bookstagram by @serpentstail

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2 months ago

The Serpent’s Tail Classics edition of #BoyA by Jonathan Trigell is out now, with a new introduction by Colin Walsh.

✨ The book behind the BAFTA award-winning film, starring Andrew Garfield ✨

‘A compelling narrative, a beautifully structured piece of writing, and a thought-provoking novel of ideas’ Sarah Waters

His new name is Jack. To his new friends, he is a good guy with occasional flashes of unexpected violence. To his new girlfriend, he is strangely inexperienced and unreachable. To his case worker, he’s a victim of the system and of media-driven hysteria.

And to himself, Jack is on permanent trial: most of his life has been spent in juvenile institutions, guilty of a monstrous childhood crime. Searing and heartfelt, Boy A is a devastating exploration of guilt, retribution and the blurred lines between fact and fabrication. by @serpentstail

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2 months ago

Bora Lee Reed’s debut novel #SongForAnotherHome is out today!

A stunning historical novel, following one family’s experience of love and survival during the Korean War – perfect for readers of Pachinko and Homegoing.

‘Fans of Pachinko will love this’ Good Housekeeping

‘Exceptional, immersive and evocative ... full of spirit’ Buzz Magazine

1950, Pyongyang. Oksoon’s father - confident that the war is over - has left for Seoul in search of opportunity. There is nothing to do but wait, until the Chinese army attacks and forces Oksoon, her mother and her brother to flee southward themselves. But the journey is dangerous, and wartime makes enemies of even the kindest of friends.

What readers are saying:

‘Put this on your TBR list! 5 golden stars for me’

‘Highly recommended ... as emotionally rich as it is historically illuminating’

‘An impressive debut that is a page turner’

‘Oh my heart. This is a must-read book!’ by @serpentstail

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2 months ago

We’re over the moon (over the sun…?) that Camille Bordas’ sharp and witty short story collection #OneSunOnly by Camille Bordas has been picked by Barack Obama for his Summer Reading List ☀️

A young woman takes stock following a burglary. A teenager becomes obsessed with the obituaries in a weekly magazine. Grandchildren mourn the grandparents who loved them and the ones who didn’t. Painters and almost-painters try to distinguish Good Art from Bad Art. People grapple with life-altering illness, unrequited love and promises they have every intention of keeping. Some win the lottery. Some don’t.

This prismatic new collection is essential reading for fans of Curtis Sittenfeld. Are you reading #OneSunOnly this summer?

#BarackObamaReadingList #CamilleBordas by @serpentstail

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2 months ago

The End of Everything by M. John Harrison is on the 2026 Booker Prize longlist! 🐚

With a 60-year-strong writing career, plus a turn on the Booker Prize judging panel in 2022, we are so delighted to see M. John Harrison on this year’s longlist.

Here’s what the judges had to say about this slyly satirical apocalyptic adventure:

‘Two beachcombers meet and exchange words at the intertidal; we are in Kent, and it is the near-future, but one that recognises itself to be in the middle of a catastrophe. The sky is glitching, and something strange, formless and growing is soon to come out of the sea, to imitate our speech, forms, and customs. Our left-behind inhabitants scavenge where and what they can, provisional alliances are made and broken, shocking violence occurs, and no one can agree on exactly what has happened. A book not just about everything but about now. Shimmering and oblique, it holds the reader to the surface of something very grave and deep.’

Huge congratulations to the other longlisted authors. We are counting down the days until the shortlist is announced on 22nd September.

Join #TheEndOfEverything’s legion of fans…
‘This is the kind of mind-blowing, exceptionally brilliant novel that every reader longs to discover’
‘Beautifully written, deeply human, simultaneously compassionate and creepy’
‘Without a doubt the best novels I’ve read so far this year… a true modern masterpiece’ by @serpentstail

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2 months ago