Bennett, Claire-Louise – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk Henley-on-Thames Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:54:40 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-Bell-Background-Blue-32x32.png Bennett, Claire-Louise – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk 32 32 Big Kiss, Bye-Bye https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/big-kiss-bye-bye/ Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=52005 A woman confronts the unquenchable half-life of passion, in a new novel by one of our most acclaimed and inventive writers of fiction.

]]> The things that hold life in place have been lifted off and put away. Uprooted by circumstance from city to deep countryside, a woman lives in temporary limbo, visited by memories of all she’s left behind. The most insistent are those of Xavier, who has always been certain he knows her better than anyone, better than she knows herself. Xavier, whom she still loves but no longer desires, a displacement he has been unable to accept. An unexpected letter from an old acquaintance brings back a torrent of others she’s loved or wanted. Each has been a match and a mismatch, a liberation and a threat to her very sense of self. The ephemera left by their passage – a spilled coffee, an unwanted bouquet, a mind-blowing kiss – make up a cabinet of curiosity she inventories, trying to divine the essence of intimacy. What does it mean to connect with another person? What impels us to touch someone, to be touched by them, to stay in touch? How do we let them go? In yet another tour de force of fiction, Claire-Louise Bennett explores the mystery of how people come into and go out of our lives, leaving us forever in their grasp.

]]> Pond https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/pond/ Mon, 10 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/pond/ Feverish and forthright, Pond is an absorbing chronicle of the pitfalls and pleasures of a solitudinous life told by an unnamed woman living on the cusp of a coastal town. Claire-Louise Bennett's startlingly original debut collection slips effortlessly between worlds and is by turns darkly funny and deeply moving.

]]> Feverish and forthright,  Pond  is an absorbing chronicle of the pitfalls and pleasures of a solitudinous life told by an unnamed woman living on the cusp of a coastal town. Broken bowls, belligerent cows, swanky aubergines, trembling moonrises and horrifying sunsets, the physical world depicted in these stories is unsettling yet intimately familiar and soon takes on a life of its own. Captivated by the stellar charms of seclusion but restless with desire, the woman’s relationship with her surroundings becomes boundless and increasingly bewildering. Claire-Louise Bennett’s startlingly original first collection slips effortlessly between worlds and is by turns darkly funny and deeply moving.

]]> Checkout 19 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/checkout-19-2/ Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/checkout-19-2/ ‘Extraordinary . . . radiant’ Sunday Times
‘An existential tour-de-force’ Eimear McBride
‘Elatingly risky’ Guardian

‘We read in order to come to life.’

With fierce imagination, a woman revisits the moments that shape her life; from crushes on teachers to navigating relationships in a fast-paced world; from overhearing her grandmothers’ peculiar stories to nurturing her own personal freedom and a boundless love of literature.

Fusing fantasy with lived experience, Checkout 19 is a vivid and mesmerising journey through the small traumas and triumphs that define us – as readers, as writers, as human beings.

* A ‘Books of 2021’ pick in the Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Irish Times Culture and New Statesman *

‘This is her new book to shake the world anew’ Sebastian Barry

‘Mesmerising, whip-smart, full of genius . . . It is also very funny’ Elaine Feeney

‘Her voice is all her own’ Anne Enright

]]> Checkout 19 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/checkout-19/ Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=15774 *A ‘BOOKS OF 2021’ PICK IN THE GUARDIAN, DAILY MAIL, DAILY TELEGRAPH, IRISH TIMES CULTURE AND NEW STATESMAN*

‘We read in order to come to life.’

With fierce imagination, a woman revisits the moments that shape her life; from crushes on teachers to navigating relationships in a fast-paced world; from overhearing her grandmothers’ peculiar stories to nurturing her own personal freedom and a boundless love of literature.

Fusing fantasy with lived experience, Checkout 19 is a vivid and mesmerising journey through the small traumas and triumphs that define us – as readers, as writers, as human beings.

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