
Born in Irvine, Ayrshire, Niven read English Literature at Glasgow University, graduating in 1991 with First Class honours. For the next ten years, he worked for a variety of record companies, including London Records and Independiente. He left the music industry to write full time in 2002 and published his debut novella Music from Big Pink in 2005 (Continuum Press). The novella was optioned for the screen by CC Films with a script has been written by English playwright Jez Butterworth. Niven's breakthrough novel Kill Your Friends is a satire of the music business, based on his brief career in A&R, during which he passed up the chance to sign Coldplay and Muse. The novel was published by William Heinemann in 2008 and achieved much acclaim, with Word magazine describing it as "possibly the best British Novel since Trainspotting". It has been translated into seven languages and was a bestseller in Britain and Germany. Niven has since published The Amateurs (2009), The Second Coming (2011), Cold Hands (2012) and Straight White Male (2013). He also writes original screenplays with writing partner Nick Ball, the younger brother of British TV presenter Zoë Ball. His journalistic contributions to newspapers and magazines include a monthly column for Q magazine, entitled "London Kills Me". In 2009 Niven wrote a controversial article for The Independent newspaper where he attacked the media's largely complacent coverage of Michael Jackson's death. Niven lives in Buckinghamshire with his fiancee and infant daughter. He has a teenage son from a previous marriage.
“Brilliant.”— GQ "Hilarious.”— The Times (London) “A novel about golf that is not only hilarious, but gripping, sexy, violent, and outrageous. . . . Niven combines his increasingly bizarre plots, and some shocking behavior, with considerable skill and, of course, large helpings of humor.”— The Mirror From Kill Your Friends author John Niven, The Amateurs is a side-splitting and whip-smart examination of golf, infidelity, and how little white balls make some men insane.
It's not dog-eat-dog around here...it's dog-gang-rapes-dog-then-tortures-him-for-five-days-before-burying-him-alive-and-taking-out-every-motherfucker-the-dog-has-ever-known.Meet Steven Stelfox.London 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power and Britpop is at its zenith. Twenty-seven-year-old A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, a world where 'no one knows anything' and where careers are made and broken by chance and the fickle tastes of the general public - 'Yeah, those animals'.Fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine Stelfox blithely criss-crosses the globe ('New York, Cologne, Texas, Miami, Cannes: you shout at waiters and sign credit card slips and all that really changes is the quality of the porn') searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification.But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.Kill Your Friends is a dark, satirical and hysterically funny evisceration of the record business, a place populated by frauds, charlatans and bluffers, where ambition is a higher currency than talent, and where it seems anything can be achieved - as long as you want it badly enough.
GOD'S COMING - LOOK BUSY!God really is coming, and he is going to be pissed. Having left his son in charge, God treated himself to a well-earned break around the height of the Renaissance. A good time to go fishing. He returns in 2011 to find things on earth haven't gone quite to plan...The world has been rendered a human toilet: genocide; starvation; people obsessed with vacuous celebrity culture; 'and,' God points out, 'there are fucking Christians everywhere.' God hates Christians. There's only one thing for it. They're sending the kid back.JC, reborn, is a struggling musician in New York City helping people as best as he can. Gathering disciples along the way - a motley collection of basket cases, stoners and alcoholics - he realises his best chance to win hearts and minds may lie in a TV talent contest. American Pop Star is the number one show in America, the unholy creation of English record executive Steven Stelfox... a man who's more than a match for the Son of God.
Quando Susan - a causa dei vizi nascosti del marito - si ritrova vedova e con la casa pignorata, insieme ad alcune amiche decide di compiere una rapina. Contro ogni probabilità, il colpo va a buon fine, e alle «cattive ragazze» non resta che raggiungere la Costa Azzurra, riciclare il denaro e sparire. Nulla che possa spaventarle, dopo tutto hanno più di un motivo per riuscire nella loro impresa: andare in crociera e fuggire il brodino dell'ospizio.
Kennedy Marr is a novelist from the old school. Irish, acerbic, and a borderline alcoholic and sex-addict, his mantra is drink hard, write hard and try to screw every woman you meet. He's writing film scripts in LA, fucking, drinking and insulting his way through Californian society, but also suffering from writers block and unpaid taxes. Then a solution presents itself - Marr is to be the unlikely recipient of the W. F. Bingham Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Modern Literature, an award worth half a million pounds. But it does not come without a price: he must spend a year teaching at the English university where his ex-wife and estranged daughter now reside.As Kennedy acclimatises to the sleepy campus, inspiring revulsion and worship in equal measure, he's forced to reconsider his precarious lifestyle. Incredible as it may seem, there might actually be a father and a teacher lurking inside this 'preening, narcissistic, priapic, sociopath'. Or is there.Straight White Male is a no-holds-barred look into the mid-life crisis and the contemporary male sexual psyche. It is a brilliant new satire from one of Britain's sharpest writers.
Frank Brill, a retired small-town newspaper editor, has just been given a terminal diagnosis. Rather than compile a bucket list of all the things he's ever wanted to do in his life, he instead has at the ready his 'fuck-it list'. Because Frank has had to endure more than his fair share of personal misfortune, not to mention having to live through two terms of a Trump presidency. Armed with the names of all those who are to blame for the tragedies that have befallen him, it's time for revenge.
The long-awaited sequel to KILL YOUR FRIENDSIt is 2017 – the time of Trump, Brexit and fake news. And time for the return of Steven Stelfox, exactly twenty years on from his Britpop heyday.Now forty-seven and rich beyond the dreams of avarice, Stelfox works only occasionally as a music industry ‘consultant’. A fixer. A problem solver. He’s had a call from his old friend James Trellick, now president of Unigram, one of the largest record companies in America. Trellick has a huge headache on his hands in the shape of...Lucius Du Pre. The biggest pop star on earth. Well, once the biggest pop star on earth. Now he’s a helpless junkie and a prolific, unrepentant sexual predator. Through a programme of debt restructuring so complex even Trellick can barely understand it, Du Pre is massively in hock to the record company. The only way he can possibly pay it off is to embark on a worldwide comeback tour he’s in no shape to do. The picture is further complicated when the parents of one of Du Pre’s ‘special friends’ begin blackmailing him. If their video gets out, Du Pre’s brand will be utterly toxic and will take Unigram down with it.Enter Stelfox stage right. Only he has the lack of morality to spin this one. With stealth and cunning he begins to chart a road out of the nightmare and to make a killing in the process. For this age of ‘American carnage’ – of populism, of the lowest common denominator, of the Big Lie – is truly Stelfox’s time to shine. But in this time of uncertainty, nothing is a given._____________________‘A banging action satirical thriller. But it’s also a proper novel about the Trumpian era, of the reality TV era, the fake news era. It’s managed to say a lot of things in a way that very few other novels are doing and in a very comedic way’ IRVINE WELSH'A bruising triumph; Amis' MONEY for the Trump generation. What a monster he's created' IAN RANKIN‘John Niven understands our era better than almost anyone’ DOUGLAS COUPLAND‘A scabrously entertaining satire of what it is like to be rich and white in the land of the free if you are utterly depraved, “where money doesn’t just talk, or swear, it nukes”. … There is a twisted poetry in Niven’s mastery of invective’ THE TIMES‘Savagely, viciously witty, this frantic hymn to greed is filthy, frenetic and totally fabulous’ SUNDAY MIRROR‘A full-throttle send up of toxic masculinity … Niven at full tilt is always something to behold.’ METRO
John Niven’s little brother Gary was fearless, popular, stubborn, handsome, hilarious and sometimes terrifying. In 2010, after years of chaotic struggle against the world, he took his own life at the age of 42. Hoping for the best while often witnessing the worst, John, his younger sister Linda and their mother, Jeanette, saw the darkest fears they had for Gary played out in drug deals, prison and bankruptcy. While his life spiralled downward and the love the Nivens’ shared was tested to its limit, John drifted into his own trouble in the music industry, a world where excess was often a marker of success. Tracking the lives of two brothers in changing times – from illicit cans of lager in 70s sitting rooms to ecstasy in 90s raves – O Brother is a tender, affecting and often uproariously funny story. It is about the bonds of family and how we try to keep the finest of those we lose alive. It is about black sheep and what it takes to break the ties that bind. Fundamentally it is about how families survive suicide, ‘that last cry, from the saddest outpost.’
***Now available for preorder: KILL 'EM ALL, the stunning sequel to KILL YOUR FRIENDS*** The viciously funny novel by John Niven, bestselling author of Kill Your Friends and Straight White Male.What do you do when a homeless man knows your name?How about when he turns out to be a friend you haven’t seen in twenty years?Do you treat him to a hot meal and see him on his way?Give him a wad of middle-class guilt money?Or take him in and get him back on his feet?For Alan, there’s no question – only natural that he’d want to see his old mate Craig off the streets, even if only for a few nights, and into some clean clothes.But what if the successful life you’ve made for yourself – good job, happy marriage, lovely kids, grand Victorian house (you did well out of the property boom, thank you very much) – is one that that your old pal would quite like to have too?Even if it means taking it from you?Following the divergent lives of two childhood friends, No Good Deed is a funny and painful examination of friendship, the strange currents of ambition, loathing, pity and affection that flow between people over the decades, and of men getting older as they fail and succeed.
You thought you could leave the past behind.Think again.Donnie Miller counts himself lucky. Living in a beautiful, spacious house in the wild and remote landscape of central Canada, he spends his days writing for the local newspaper, working on a film script, and acting as house-husband. After a troubled and impoverished upbringing in Scotland, he now has all he wants: a caring wife, a bright and happy son, a generous father-in-law. As the brutal northern winter begins to bite, he can sit back and enjoy life.But his peace is soon broken. There are noises in the nearby woods, signs of some mysterious watcher. When the family dog disappears, Donnie makes a horrifying discovery. Is it wolves, as the police suspect, or something far more dangerous, far darker? What secrets has Donnie been keeping? And why does he have the terrible sense that his dream was never going to last?A taut, shocking and visceral novel that will leave you gasping for breath, Cold Hands is the first thriller by the remarkable John Niven.
"Music From Big Pink is a moving book that succeeds not just in vividly evoking its time and place but in distilling one young man's cliched and minor destiny into something approaching tragedy....This well-written first novel captures not just some of the dreams of that bygone era, but the way those dreams died." -Greg Kamiya, The New York Times Book ReviewMusic From Big Pink is faction: real people like Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Bob Dylan and Albert Grossman rub shoulders with fictional characters and actual, documented events thread their way through text alongside imagined scenarios. Through the eyes of 23-year-old Greg Keltner, drug-dealer and wannabe musician, we witness the gestation and birth of a record that will go on to cast its spell across five decades - bewitching and inspiring artists as disparate as The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Travis, Wilco and Mercury Rev.
FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF O BROTHERIn a busy maternity ward, first-time father Dan meets Jada, a dad welcoming his fifth – no, sixth? – child into the world. Dan and Jada come from very different both called Glasgow. Dan is a successful TV writer with a townhouse in the West End and a shiny Tesla ready to drive his wife and baby home. Jada is a hustling, small-time criminal who is already planning how to separate Dan from some of the luxuries Jada has never been able to enjoy in his tiny flat in a Brutalist sixties council block.Both men find that the birth of their sons has fired their ambitions. Dan plans to walk away from his saccharine TV success and finally knuckle down to writing that novel he always felt he had in him. While, for Jada, it’s the opportunity for one last get-rich-quick scheme – ripping off a local airport. When a tragedy occurs, their worlds are brought closer than either could ever have imagined – close enough that it could mean destruction for both of them . . .
"Da kommt Gott - tut so, als wärt ihr beschäftigt!" Denn Gott ist stinksauer. Nachdem Er sich im Himmel eine einwöchige Auszeit für einen Angelurlaub gegönnt hat, kehrt Er nach etwa vierhundertfünfzig Jahren (ein Tag im Himmel entspricht 57 Erdenjahren) wieder zurück an Seinen Schreibtisch und muss mitansehen, wie die Erde in der Zwischenzeit den Bach runtergegangen ist. Umweltsünden, Kriege, moralischer Verfall, kirchliche Hassprediger, skrupellose Kommerzialisierung - die Menschen sind auf dem besten Weg, sich selbst zu zerstören. Und so bleibt Gott nichts anderes übrig, als Seinen Sohn Jesus Christus, dem es im Himmel blendend geht und der mit Jimi Hendrix Gitarre spielt und Joints raucht, wieder auf die Erde zu schicken, um Gutes zu tun und das einzig wahre Gebot SEID LIEB zu predigen. Widerwillig landet Jesus in New York und versucht zunächst erfolglos als Sänger und Gitarrist in einer Rockband Gehör zu finden. Derweil schart er seine ersten Jünger um sich - Drogenabhängige, Gescheiterte, Obdachlose, denen er zu helfen versucht. Als seine Mission, die Massen zu erreichen, zu scheitern droht, greift er zum letzten Er nimmt an einer Castingshow teil. Damit beginnt eine denkwürdige Odyssee quer durch Amerika.
Nivens gnadenlose Satire auf die Literatur- und Filmszene - scharfzüngig und wunderbar komisch. Kennedy Marr ist ein Autor der alten Schule. Irisch, zynisch bis zum Anschlag, ein Borderline-Alkoholiker und Sex-Süchtiger. Sein Mantra hart trinken, gut essen und jede Frau flachlegen, die bei drei nicht auf den Bäumen ist. Mittlerweile als Drehbuchautor in L. A. ansässig, flucht er sich durch die kalifornische Literatur- und Filmszene. Doch sein verschwenderischer Lebensstil bringt ihn an den Rand des Bankrotts, bis sich unverhofft eine Lösung anbietet. In England wird er für einen hoch dotierten Literaturpreis vorgeschlagen. Um an das Geld zu kommen, gilt es allerdings, mehrere konfliktbeladene Auflagen zu erfüllen.
by John Niven
Zwei Väter aus verschiedenen Welten, die für ihre Söhne nur das Beste wollen - SPIEGEL-Bestseller-Autor John Niven mit einem grandiosen neuen RomanZwei Väter auf einer überfüllten Entbindungsstation in Hier treffen Dan, prominenter Fernsehautor, der zum ersten Mal Vater geworden ist, und Jada, Kleinkrimineller mit fünf (oder sind es inzwischen schon sechs?!) Kindern aufeinander. Ihre Leben könnten nicht unterschiedlicher sein. Während Dan vom literarischen Durchbruch träumt, plant Jada seinen letzten kriminellen Coup, um sich danach zur Ruhe zu setzen. Durch eine dramatische Wendung des Schicksals kreuzen sich die Lebenswege der beiden Männer immer wieder – und plötzlich werden sie fast so etwas wie Verbündete. Mit schwarzem Humor und gleichzeitig großer emotionaler Tiefe erzählt John Niven von Vaterschaft, Männlichkeit, Klassenunterschieden und Verlust. »Zwei Väter« ist ein scharfsichtiger, beißend komischer Gesellschaftsroman über zwei Männer, die alles verlieren müssen, um sich selbst zu finden.
by John Niven
by John Niven
by John Niven
Donald Miller führt ein Leben, von dem man nur träumen kann. Mit seiner wohlhabenden Frau Sammy und seinem kleinen Sohn Walt bewohnt er ein luxuriöses Anwesen in der kanadischen Provinz. Donald kennt keine Geldsorgen, er liebt seine Familie, er ist umgeben von netten Leuten. Doch mit einem Schlag zerbricht diese heile Welt... Als er seinen abgeschlachteten Hund findet, ahnt Donald, dass etwas in sein Leben getreten ist, das ihn für immer zeichnen wird. Seine bösen Vorahnungen werden schnell zur bitteren Wahrheit. Während eines Schneesturms wird Sammy entführt. Kurz darauf findet man ihren brutal zugerichteten Leichnam. Mit der Präzision eines Uhrwerks zieht sich eine namenlose Bedrohung um Donald Er gerät zusammen mit seinem Sohn in die Gewalt eines Feindes, der scheinbar jede Menschlichkeit hinter sich gelassen hat...
by John Niven
Eine wilde Satire über Freundschaft, das Altern, die englische Mittelschicht und Gruppensex. Susan und Julie sind gerade 60 Jahre alt geworden. Sie leben in einem kleinen Dorf in Südengland und sind seit der Schulzeit miteinander befreundet. Susan führt ein bürgerliches Hausfrauendasein, Julie lebt in einer Sozialwohnung und arbeitet als Aushilfe in einem Pflegeheim. Als Susans Ehemann Barry tot aufgefunden wird, offenbart sich, dass er ein surreales Doppelleben als Swinger führte und Susan einen finanziellen Scherbenhaufen hinterlassen hat. Um nicht in Altersarmut abzurutschen, greifen sie zu einer radikalen Lö einem Banküberfall. Gerd Köster liest Nivens kluge, aber auch verrückte Satire mit seiner Charakterstimme gewohnt lässig und mit viel rauem Charme.
by John Niven
by John Niven
Please Note That The Following Individual Books As Per Original ISBN and Cover Image In this Listing shall be Dispatched Titles In This O Brother [Hardcover]Kill Your FriendsJohn Niven 2 Books Collection O Brother [Hardcover]:John Niven's little brother Gary was fearless, popular, stubborn, handsome, hilarious and sometimes terrifying. In 2010, after years of chaotic struggle against the world, he took his own life at the age of 42.Hoping for the best while often witnessing the worst, John, his younger sister Linda and their mother, Jeanette, saw the darkest fears they had for Gary played out in drug deals, prison and bankruptcy. While his life spiralled downward and the love the Nivens' shared was tested to its limit.Kill Your Meet Steven Stelfox. London 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power and Britpop is at its zenith. A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine, searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification. But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cut throat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.
by John Niven
John Niven 3 Books Collection Pack Set £34.72 Title In This Collection The Amateurs The Second Coming Kill Your Friends The Second Coming God really is coming, and he is going to be pissed. Having left his son in charge, God treated himself to a well-earned break around the height of the Renaissance. A good time to go fishing. He returns in 2011 to find things on Earth haven't gone quite to plan. The world has been rendered a human toilet. The Amateurs Only two things would improve Gary Irvine's life - children and a lower golf handicap. Both are Gary's wife Pauline is planning to leave him for a self-made carpet millionaire, and unfortunately Gary is an appalling golfer. Kill Your Friends Presents a dark, satirical and hysterically funny evisceration of the record business, a place populated by frauds, charlatans and bluffers, where ambition is a higher currency than talent, and where it seems anything can be achieved - as long as you want it badly enough.
by John Niven
by John Niven
Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2022 with the help of original edition published long back [1960]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - English, Pages 274. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.} The family of Niven, with biographical sketches. 1960 [Leather Bound] by Niven, John, active .
by John Niven