'Alasdair Gray was not always the rapidly ageing, fat Glasgow pedestrian he likes to describe on the inside leaf of his books. There was once a time when he was young. A time when he was really rather thin. Many years when he went unpublished and unrecognised. This book aims to document, as faithfully as possible, that journey from son of a box-maker, encouraged to paint, write and do whatever made him feel good, to septuagenarian "little grey deity" (as Will Self has called him). For the first time in his life, Alasdair claims to be completely satisfied and well-paid (he lived in debt until 1990), and now lives a settled, happy day-to-day existence with Morag, painting his mural at the Oran Mor arts centre five minutes walk from his home most days, while (at the time of writing) taking occasional periods off for writing several books. Aside from work, Gray's pleasures include daytime whisky, giving money away, reading books by people he doesn't have to meet and "having my way". This book will look in depth at the people, events, books, paintings, plays, poems and circumstances that conspired to make the man as he is today.' RODGE GLASS Suiting form to subject, Rodge Glass has brought the inventive techniques of Gray's fiction to bear on the biographer's role. Mixing a chronological narrative of his subject's life (at the rate of one chapter per decade) with his own diaries of meeting, getting to know and working with the artist, writer and campaigner, narrative and diaries eventually dovetail in a riotous final chapter on the publication of Alasdair Gray's latest novel, Old Men in Love, in October 2007.

Twenty-nine-year-old Lewis' family are the definition of dysfunctional: his brothers, living estranged and unknown lives in Texas and Toronto, his mother, confined in her self-imposed silent state in a room full of fish and amphibians and his father, at work in the Victory Barber Shop where customers are surrounded by souvenirs of wartime Europe. And Lewis, caught between working at a recruitment agency, helping his father out in the barbers and keeping his mother in touch with world news. But when he receives an email out of the blue from Christy, an old school friend, he is intrigued by her society for Hope for Newborns. Compared with the murkiness of home, the promises of her manifesto - freedom through friendship and love through sacrifice - appear so luminous, and the chance of romance so tangible.

Beautifully crafted, perceptive, sometimes shocking, and often heartbreaking stories that examine the impact of cheap international travel on modern lives and relationships A boys' weekend in Eastern Europe spirals out of control. A bleeding tourist is rescued by a stranger in downtown Toronto. A middle-aged woman vacationing in Tunisia considers the local options for love. An unemployed man shares his fantasies of a sex tour of Arizona with his long-suffering girlfriend. A woman is drawn into an impromptu but life-changing football game in the heart of the Amazon. With wit, wisdom, insight, and pathos, this collection examines men and women of all ages who, through the advent of discount air travel, play out their lives and loves across the globe. It brilliantly captures the isolation, dislocation, and occasional epiphanies of those who find themselves 1,000 miles from home, and those who long to be.