This collection charts some of the ways in which site continues to be a concern for contemporary practice, and introduces the concept of “plot” as an alternative. The critical concept of site-specificity once seemed to harbour the potential for disruption. But site-specific work has become increasingly assimilated into the capitalist logic of regeneration and value creation. The materialist critique of the art object has been shortcircuited by the franchised idiosyncrasies of international nomad flâneurs. And on a planet whose entire surface is mapped and apped, the concept of “site” itself becomes ever more problematic. How can we do justice to the particularity of local sites while unearthing their material conditions? What do a contemporary “geo-philosophy” and the historical legacy of site-specific art have to offer each other? Can we develop methods for the controlled unpacking of the local into the global, avoiding trivial reconciliations between local sites and their global conditions? When Site Lost the Plot charts some of the ways in which site continues to be a concern for contemporary practice; and introduces the concept of “plot” as an alternative approach. Alongside artists discussing their practice and their approach to site and plot, contributors from various disciplines introduce concepts from cartography, mathematics, film, fiction, design, and philosophy.

Funny, charming and captivating, with a plot within a plot, and a girl who is looking for love in all the wrong places. 'I loved it! It's got a kind of Bridget Jones feel and such a page turner. Great fun but with such beautiful heart. I've already cast the film/series in my head!' Rebecca Gibney 'A warm and very funny read.' Who, 4 stars Vanessa Rooney is a thirty-something dental hygienist who finds herself a single mum with a hole in her heart where her husband had been. Somehow she finds the courage to fulfil her childhood dream of writing a romance novel but soon discovers that her novel has been plagiarised by her idol, celebrity author Charlotte Lancaster. Vanessa reluctantly sues Charlotte with the help of suburban solicitor Dave Rendall, who's nursing some unfulfilled dreams of his own. When gun QC Marcus Stafford agrees to join their legal team, Vanessa feels like her perfect man has stepped right out of the pages of her book and into her life. As all hell breaks loose publicly and privately, Vanessa confronts a painful past and realises what Dave already knew - that she's an intelligent, funny, amazing woman and Marcus Stafford is, well, a tosspot. Vanessa finally understands that what she wanted wasn't what she needed, but has this realisation come too late?

From New York Times bestseller Kody Keplinger comes an astonishing and thought-provoking exploration of the aftermath of tragedy, the power of narrative, and how we remember what we've lost. It's been three years since the Virgil County High School Massacre. Three years since my best friend, Sarah, was killed in a bathroom stall during the mass shooting. Everyone knows Sarah's story--that she died proclaiming her faith. But it's not true. I know because I was with her when she died. I didn't say anything then, and people got hurt because of it. Now Sarah's parents are publishing a book about her, so this might be my last chance to set the record straight . . . but I'm not the only survivor with a story to tell about what did--and didn't--happen that day. Except Sarah's martyrdom is important to a lot of people, people who don't take kindly to what I'm trying to do. And the more I learn, the less certain I am about what's right. I don't know what will be worse: the guilt of staying silent or the consequences of speaking up . . .

In Losing the Plot, well-known scholar and writer Leon de Kock offers a lively and wide-ranging analysis of postapartheid South African writing which, he contends, has morphed into a far more flexible and multifaceted entity than its predecessor. If postapartheid literature’s founding moment was the ‘transition’ to democracy, writing over the ensuing years has viewed the Mandelan project with increasing doubt. Instead, authors from all quarters are seen to be reporting, in different ways and from divergent points of view, on what is perceived to be a pathological public sphere in which the plot – the mapping and making of social betterment – appears to have been lost. The compulsion to detect forensically the actual causes of such loss of direction has resulted in the prominence of creative nonfiction. A significant adjunct in the rise of this is the new media, which sets up a ‘wounded’ space within which a ‘cult of commiseration’ compulsively and repeatedly plays out the facts of the day on people’s screens. This, De Kock argues, is reproduced in much postapartheid writing. And, although fictional forms persist in genres such as crime fiction, with their tendency to overplot, more serious fiction underplots, yielding to the imprint of real conditions to determine the narrative construction.

A mysterious archive. A powerful enemy. And a cunning plan. Danger is part of the day job for a Librarian spy. So Irene’s hoping for a relaxing weekend. However, her jaunt to Guernsey proves no such thing. Instead of retrieving a rare book, she’s almost assassinated, Kai is poisoned and Vale barely escapes with his life. Then the attacks continue in London – targeting those connected with the Fae-dragon peace treaty. Irene knows she must stop the plot before the treaty fails. Or someone dies. But when Irene and friends are trapped underground, in a secret archive, things don’t look so good. Then an old enemy demands vengeance, and a shocking secret is revealed. Can Irene really seize victory from chaos? The Dark Archive is the seventh book in the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman. Genevieve is also the author of the Sunday Times bestselling Scarlet - which reimagines the tale of the Scarlet Pimpernel, but with vampires, mages and magic. . . Praise for the series: 'I absolutely loved this' - N. K. Jemisin, author of The Fifth Season 'Irene is a great heroine: fiery, resourceful and no one's fool' - Guardian 'Brilliant and so much fun. Skullduggery, Librarians, and dragons – Cogman keeps upping the ante on this delightful series!' - Charles Stross, author of the Merchant Princes series

They say everyone has a book inside them; well Rick Bateman has a whole library bursting to get out. Told in amusing style, through letters, emails and diary entries, Rick quits his lucrative sales job to devote his daylight hours to writing The Great Novel. But as the weeks go by and the rejection letters start flooding in, Rick’s bruised ego elicits increasingly vehement rants on everything from the publishing industry to reality TV stars. Doggedly persistent, Rick begins to drastically ramp up the wow factor in his ideas which become ever more ridiculous and increasingly plagiaristic. Losing the plot asks the questions: How far would you go to achieve a dream? And how far is too far?

An examination of the relationship between literature and classical Hollywood cinema reveals a profound longing for plot in modernist fiction. The modernist novel sought to escape what Virginia Woolf called the “tyranny” of plot. Yet even as twentieth-century writers pushed against the constraints of plot-driven Victorian novels, plot kept its hold on them through the influence of another medium: the cinema. Focusing on the novels of Nella Larsen, Djuna Barnes, and William Faulkner—writers known for their affinities and connections to classical Hollywood—Pardis Dabashi links the moviegoing practices of these writers to the tensions between the formal properties of their novels and the characters in them. Even when they did not feature outright happy endings, classical Hollywood films often provided satisfying formal resolutions and promoted normative social and political values. Watching these films, modernist authors were reminded of what they were leaving behind—both formally and in the name of aesthetic experimentalism—by losing the plot.