A funny book about a serious subject, Unruly is for anyone who has ever wondered how we got here – and who is to blame.

‘Clever, amusing, gloriously bizarre and razor sharp. Mitchell – a funny man and skilled historian – tells stories that are interesting and fun. Here is Horrible Histories for grownups’ GERARD DEGROOT, THE TIMES

‘Just fantastic. Delightfully contrary and hilariously cantankerous. Very, very funny’ JESSE ARMSTRONG, CREATOR OF SUCCESSION AND PEEP SHOW

‘Clever, funny. Makes you think quite differently about history’ DAN SNOW, HISTORIAN AND BROADCASTER

—-

Think you know your kings and queens? Think again.

Taking us right back to King Arthur (spoiler: he didn’t exist), Unruly tells the founding story of post-Roman England up to the reign of Elizabeth I (spoiler: she dies). It’s a tale of narcissists, inadequate self-control, excessive beheadings, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars, and at least one total Cnut.

How this happened, who it happened to and why it matters in modern Britain are all questions David Mitchell answers with brilliance, wit and the full erudition of a man who once studied history – and won’t let it off the hook for the mess it’s made.

*The Times Number One Bestseller October 2023*

—-

‘An enjoyable, rollicking read, definitely not a conventional history book’ THE TIMES
‘Chatty, irreverent and liberally sprinkled with gags and opinions. Horrible Histories with added swearing’ GUARDIAN

‘Mitchell clearly knows his history, with a book that owes as much to Monty Python as it does to Simon Schama’ ANDREW MARR, BROADCASTER

‘Who knew a history of England’s rulers could be this hilarious?‘ i

‘I can’t recommend this book enough. Very funny and interesting, it is above all a proper work of history’ CHARLIE HIGSON

‘JUST FANTASTIC. DELIGHTFULLY CONTRARY AND HILARIOUSLY CANTANKEROUS. VERY, VERY FUNNY’ JESSE ARMSTRONG, CREATOR OF SUCCESSION AND PEEP SHOW

‘CLEVER, AMUSING, GLORIOUSLY BIZARRE AND RAZOR SHARP. MITCHELL – A FUNNY MAN AND A SKILLED HISTORIAN – TELLS STORIES THAT ARE INTERESTING AND FUN. HERE IS HORRIBLE HISTORIES FOR GROWNUPS’ GERARD DEGROOT, THE TIMES

‘CLEVER, FUNNY, MAKES YOU THINK QUITE DIFFERENTLY ABOUT HISTORY’ DAN SNOW, HISTORIAN AND BROADCASTER

——–

Think you know your kings and queens? Think again.

In UNRULY, David Mitchell explores how England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky sods who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits.

Taking us right back to King Arthur (spoiler: he didn’t exist), David tells the founding story of post-Roman England right up to the reign of Elizabeth I (spoiler: she dies). It’s a tale of narcissists, inadequate self-control, excessive beheadings, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars, and at least one total Cnut, as the population evolved from having their crops nicked by the thug with the largest armed gang to bowing and paying taxes to a divinely anointed king.

How this happened, who it happened to and why it matters in modern Britain are all questions David answers with brilliance, wit and the full erudition of a man who once studied history – and won’t let it off the hook for the mess it’s made.

A funny book about a serious subject, UNRULY is for anyone who has ever wondered how we got here – and who is to blame.

——–

‘Mitchell clearly knows his history, with a book that owes as much to Monty Python as it does to Simon Schama’ ANDREW MARR, BROADCASTER

‘I don’t think anyone other than David Mitchell could have written this book. It’s clever, funny and makes you think quite differently about history we thought we knew’ DAN SNOW, HISTORIAN AND BROADCASTER

‘Who knew a history of England’s rulers could be this hilarious? A brilliantly entertaining romp through monarchs’ i

‘By turns fascinating and funny – there is a jewel of an insight or a refreshing blast of clarifying wit on every page. David brings a delightfully contrary and hilariously cantankerous eye to the history of the English Monarchy. Informative, illuminating and very very funny’ JESSE ARMSTRONG, CREATOR OF SUCCESSION AND PEEP SHOW

‘I can’t recommend this book enough. Very funny and interesting, it is above all a proper work of history’ CHARLIE HIGSON

A stranger greets you and invites you inside. At first, you won’t want to leave. Later, you’ll find that you can’t.

This unnerving, taut and intricately woven tale by one of our most original and bewitching writers begins in 1979 and comes to its turbulent conclusion around Hallowe’en, 2015. Because every nine years, on the last Saturday of October, a ‘guest’ is summoned to Slade House. But why has that person been chosen, by whom and for what purpose? The answers lie waiting in the long attic, at the top of the stairs . . .

‘ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY’ INDEPENDENT

? Longlisted for the Booker Prize
? Longlisted for the Folio Prize
? Winner of the World Fantasy Award

‘A triumph’
GUARDIAN

‘Epic’
EVENING STANDARD

‘Mind-spinning’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘Dazzling’
NEW YORK TIMES

Run away, one drowsy summer’s afternoon, with Holly Sykes: wayward teenager, broken-hearted rebel and unwitting pawn in a titanic, hidden conflict.

Over six decades, the consequences of a moment’s impulse unfold, drawing an ordinary woman into a world far beyond her imagining. And as life in the near future turns perilous, the pledge she made to a stranger may become the key to her family’s survival . . .

PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL

‘A thrilling and gifted writer’
FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good’
DAILY MAIL

‘Mitchell is, clearly, a genius’
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

‘An author of extraordinary ambition and skill’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘A superb storyteller’
THE NEW YORKER

The second novel from the critically-acclaimed author of GHOSTWRITTEN and CLOUD ATLAS.

As Eiji Miyake’s twentieth birthday nears, he arrives in Tokyo with a mission – to locate the father he has never met. So begins a search that takes him into the seething city’s underworld, its lost property offices and video arcades, and on a journey that zigzags from reality to the realm of dreams. But until Eiji has fallen in love and exorcised his childhood demons, the belonging he craves will remain, tantalizingly, just beyond his grasp.

As well as giving a specific account of every single time he’s scored some smack, this disgusting memoir also details:

• the singular, pitbull-infested charm of the FRP (‘Flat Roofed Pub’)
• the curious French habit of injecting everyone in the arse rather than the arm
• why, by the time he got to Cambridge, he really, really needed a drink
• the pain of being denied a childhood birthday party at McDonalds
• the satisfaction of writing jokes about suicide
• how doing quite a lot of walking around London helps with his sciatica
• trying to pretend he isn’t a total **** at Robert Webb’s wedding
• that he has fallen in love at LOT, but rarely done anything about it
• why it would be worse to bump into Michael Palin than Hitler on holiday
• that he’s not David Mitchell the novelist. Despite what David Miliband might think

‘ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY’ INDEPENDENT

Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial and Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes

‘Thrillingly suspenseful’
SUNDAY TIMES

‘Stunning’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘Brilliant’
THE TIMES

‘Entirely original’
OBSERVER

‘A classic’
WASHINGTON POST

The Sunday Times Number One bestseller from the author of Cloud Atlas and Utopia Avenue

In your hands is a place like no other: a tiny, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West. Here, in the dying days of the eighteenth century, a young Dutch clerk arrives to make his fortune. Instead he loses his heart.

Step onto the streets of Dejima and mingle with scheming traders, spies, interpreters, servants and concubines as two cultures converge. In a tale of integrity and corruption, passion and power, the key is control – of riches and minds, and over death itself.

PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL

‘A thrilling and gifted writer’
FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good’
DAILY MAIL

‘Mitchell is, clearly, a genius’
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

‘An author of extraordinary ambition and skill’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘A superb storyteller’
THE NEW YORKER

‘ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY’ INDEPENDENT

Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Booker Prize

‘Gorgeous’
DAILY MAIL

‘Uproariously funny’
EVENING STANDARD

‘Spellbinding’
TATLER

‘Brilliant’
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

‘Luminously beautiful’
THE TIMES

The Sunday Times bestselling fourth novel from the critically acclaimed author of Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas

January, 1982. Thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor – covert stammerer and reluctant poet – anticipates a stultifying year in his backwater English village. But he hasn’t reckoned with bullies, simmering family discord, the Falklands War, a threatened gypsy invasion and those mysterious entities known as girls. Charting thirteen months in the black hole between childhood and adolescence, this is a captivating novel, wry, painful and vibrant with the stuff of life.

PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL

‘A thrilling and gifted writer’
FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good’
DAILY MAIL

‘Mitchell is, clearly, a genius’
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

‘An author of extraordinary ambition and skill’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘A superb storyteller’
THE NEW YORKER

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, winner of Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year and a BBC Two Between the Covers Book Club pick

‘Miraculous’
Sunday Times

‘A masterful feast’
Evening Standard

‘Shamelessly exciting’
Spectator

‘Remarkable’
Guardian

‘Stunning’
Daily Mail

A novel of mind-bending imagination and scope from the author of Ghostwritten and Utopia Avenue

Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies . . .

Six interlocking lives – one amazing adventure. In a narrative that circles the globe and reaches from the 19th century to a post-apocalyptic future, Cloud Atlas erases the boundaries of time, genre and language to offer an enthralling vision of humanity’s will to power, and where it will lead us.

*Please note that the end of p. 39 and p. 40 are intentionally blank*

PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL

‘A thrilling and gifted writer’
Financial Times

‘Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good’
Daily Mail

‘Mitchell is, clearly, a genius’
New York Times Book Review

‘An author of extraordinary ambition and skill’
Independent on Sunday

‘A superb storyteller’
The New Yorker