

BLACK BRICK PUBLISHING
THE BOOKS
Check out extracts from some of our latest books here at Black Brick Publishing. These snippets will give you a better idea of the flavours within. All titles are available at Black Brick Publishing, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the usual online outlets. Feel free to contact us through this site or on Twitter.

The Suited Freeman
ISBN: 9784990885106
The Suited Freeman is the story of a share trader who gives up everything to set an idea in motion that had burned inside him for years. On the eve of the financial crisis, he puts an age-old theory into practice while ignoring the fix.

The Art of Walking
ISBN: 9784990885113
The Art of Walking - Spencer Lurie's farewell account of how he learned to walk himself to a better state of mind - is now available at Smashwords and Amazon.
It's a guide to exercise, the mind and how to use space to change the way you look at the world. Lurie breaks down how he went from learning to walk properly to freeing his mind.

The Lost Artists
ISBN: 9784990885120
Set in the near future, The Lost Artists is a story of the organization of art and artists according to government sponsorship.
Perfectly arranged art zones provide a utopia for commercial artists. Meanwhile, the Artistic Foundation is shoring up the unlicensed areas of artistic expression in the city.

The Handbook of Hypochondria
ISBN: 9784990885137
After years of research, Dr. Eva Sounder comes with a comprehensive guide to living with hypochondria. Unlike other books full of vignettes of medical anomalies, Dr. Sounder provides a practical guide to find value in life while living with hypochondria. After a brief trip through the history, Dr. Sounder outlines the fundamentals, prevailing conditions, alternative approaches and how to self-actualize with hypochondria. Lead the most valuable life you can with The Handbook of Hypochondria.

The Great Equalizer
ISBN: 9784990885144
I didn’t get the chance to be off-hand with her the next morning – she kicked me out before dawn in some self-hating moment of clarity. I stayed calm while she criticised my jacket, which wasn’t real animal skin, oblivious to her own collection of leather shoes. Somehow, they were different. She especially didn’t like my easy acceptance of being turfed out onto a pre-dawn Helsinki side street. As I left, she dismissed me with a hiss. That final scene made it a lot easier when four weeks later she phoned me. I couldn’t remember giving her my number – I’m not usually that sloppy. But I know she had the character of someone who wouldn’t flinch at ransacking my mobile phone while I was in the bathroom. It had been a shitty morning, one of the first of those cancer countdowns when I felt a different type of sick… as if disconnected from the living. She was furious. Everything was my fault. Millions of years of mammalian evolution was no defence. I was a bad man and what was I going to do about it? I did the best for everybody involved, even if it wasn’t the most honourable action. I fucked off to Copenhagen.

My default position was to like Kashmiri families, even when I saw the signs of the hustle approaching loud and clear. And as my hosts brought in that night’s dinner, on hilarious silverware, they had no idea how happy I was to see the simplicity of the food. Stewed spinach, boiled potatoes and cardamom-infused dhal sat beside some of the lightest rice you can find in Central Asia; this wasn’t South Asia anymore. The sharp features and doleful eyes of the Kashmiris barely concealed a softness brought on by centuries of wonder. As I wolfed down the meal, I could feel the eyes of the family sizing up my reaction. The ancient father sported a look of casual acceptance; he’d seen all this before. His thirty-year-old doughy son, who initiated marriage chatter whenever the conversation would rest on anything non-food, was trying to place me in the spectrum of tourists to India, throwing mentions of Pink Floyd in the same sentence as shopping for trinkets. The mother, mid-fifties and crying poverty at every opportunity while lounging in an ocean of silk pillows, was eying me up with a mixture of pleading and suspicion. I knew what was coming. As she shuffled out to the kitchen to prepare the post-dinner tea, the son opened up. “I’m sorry about my mother. She is sick.”
“Here we fucking go,” I thought. I quickly traced my mind back through the various houseboats I had stayed on over the years. My sample size was starting to become undeniable as I pictured myself as some white grim reaper. Every mother needed an operation. Their tack was so old that it was in danger of looping back on itself. “Don’t worry about it. She doesn’t have to do anything for me,” I replied with gracious selfishness.

Darius removed his sunglasses to appease the jacked-up security guards at the entrance to the only casino he still went to. He no longer felt disdain at the charade of thugs in tuxedos fronting sophistication for a sanctioned cash grab. Anyway, he’d been warned off the other casinos in the Bay Area for having the nerve to engage his brain while gambling. Now, his sporadic visits were only an outlet for memories of when he was a true gambler. He needed that connection.
Walking past the VIP Slots section for good luck, Darius smiled at its comedy. He settled for one of the classic fruit machines, its pirate theme adding romance to the coinage it might dispense. As soon as he sat down, an obese old white men from the generation that gave the world freedom piped up. “That one’s due to pay out.”
“Lucky me,” Darius replied.

“What language is that you’re speaking?”
“English.”
“It’s hardly the Queen’s English is it?”
“You’re correct. It’s not weighed down with her myopic codifications.” The comedian tutted and tried to mutter, but nothing came. “Are you out of material?” Ben asked. “Has your factory of gritty, urban comic writers knocked off for the night?”
“What do you want… money I suppose? Or are you just jealous of my success?”
Ben smirked. “Don’t confuse fame with success. Your only achievement is in repackaging and selling to the masses.”
“You’re just another hater.” The comedian squirmed half-heartedly before physically admitting defeat with a petulant slump into his makeshift seat.
“I feel no hate for anybody. In fact, it’s my lack of hate that allows me to see your worth. And that’s bad news for you.” Ben shrugged and scanned the walls for openings.
“Do you really think you’re normal?” The comedian’s face was reddening the closer he came to truth.
“There’s no such thing as normal,”