An inventive, thought-provoking and characteristically bold collection of short fiction and essays from Hanif Kureishi, centred around the vexed relationship between love and hate.

Hate skews reality even more than love.

In the story of a Pakistani woman who has begun a new life in Paris, an essay about the writing of Kureishi's acclaimed film Le Week-End, and an account of Kafka's relationship with his father, readers will find Kureishi also exploring the topics that he continues to make new, and make his own: growing up and growing old; betrayal and loyalty; imagination and repression; marriage and fatherhood.

The collection ends with a bravura piece of very personal reportage about the conman who stole Kureishi's life savings - a man who provoked both admiration and disgust, obsession and revulsion, love and hate.