Best books about books

Reading lists

The best books for book lovers

Selected Stories from the Booker Prize Winner

Medusa’s Ankles

A luminous single-volume selection of short stories from the Booker prize-winning imagination of A. S. Byatt

A luminous selection of short stories from the Booker prize-winning A. S. Byatt, celebrating over thirty years of writing 
 
With an introduction by David Mitchell 
 
Byatt takes her readers to a place that is rich in ideas, vivid in colour and wholly unforgettable. Mirrors shatter at the hairdressers when a middle-aged client explodes in rage. Snow dusts the warm body of a princess honing it into something sharp and frosted. Summer sunshine flickers on the face of a smiling child who may or may not be real. 
 
Peopled by artists, poets and fabulous creatures, these stories travel from the ancient mythic world to an English sweet factory, a Chinese restaurant to a Mediterranean swimming pool, a Turkish bazaar to a fairy-tale palace. Blazing with creativity, they show what lies beneath the veneer of the ordinary, and reveal the fantastical possibilities beyond. 
 
'A cabinet of curiosities... Glitteringly beautiful' Sunday Times 
 
'A cerebral extravaganza, bristling with ideas' Spectator 
 
'Moving, witty and shocking' Sunday Telegraph

It was a pleasure to be reacquainted with 'Medusa's Ankles'... There's an echo of Iris Murdoch here, herself the subject of several books by Byatt

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A luminous selection of short stories from the prize-winning imagination of A. S. Byatt 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL 
 
Mirrors shatter at the hairdressers when a middle-aged client explodes in rage. Snow dusts the warm body of a princess honing it into something sharp and frosted. Summer sunshine flickers on the face of a smiling child who may or may not be real. 
 
Medusa's Ankles celebrates the very best of A. S. Byatt's short fiction, carefully selected from a lifetime of writing. Peopled by artists, poets and fabulous creatures, the stories blaze with creativity and travel from Ancient myth to an English sweet factory, a Chinese restaurant to a Mediterranean swimming pool, a Turkish bazaar to a fairytale palace. 
 
Driven by curiosity, Byatt takes her readers beyond the veneer of the ordinary and the gloss of the fantastical, to a place rich in ideas, vivid in colour and wholly unforgettable. 
 
'A cabinet of curiosities... Glitteringly beautiful. Byatt is a vivid colourist' Sunday Times 
 
'A cerebral extravaganza, bristling with ideas' Spectator 
 
'These little stories by one of Britain's foremost grandes dames of the writing world are a delightful surprise, packing a much greater punch than many full-length novels... They are moving, thought-provoking, witty and shocking all at once' Sunday Telegraph

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation plus selected short stories

The Frederica Quartet: The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower & A Whistling Woman

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of A.S. Byatt's 'Frederica Quartet', plus selected short stories and a fascinating talk by the author 
 
Inspired by the novels of D.H. Lawrence, particularly The Rainbow and Women in Love, this ambitious quartet from Booker Prize-winning novelist A.S. Byatt charts the lives of the Potter family between 1953 and 1970. Set against the changing social and political landscape of England in the '50s and '60s, it follows the heroine, Frederica, from precocious teenager to TV talk show host, and from her Yorkshire home to the heart of swinging London. 
 
The Virgin in the Garden sees the Potters preparing to celebrate Elizabeth II's coronation, while Frederica auditions for a play about Elizabeth I written by the beautiful Alexander Wedderburn. Will she win the part, and Alexander's heart? In Still Life, Frederica's ambitions - both academic and sexual - come to fruition, as she gains a place at Cambridge University to study English - and men. In Babel Tower, she has given up her carefree, independent lifestyle - but as the Sixties' cultural revolution explodes and the quest for personal and public freedom becomes all-important, will settling down bring her happiness? And in A Whistling Woman, as events build to a tragic climax in Yorkshire, back in London, Frederica is faced with a difficult choice... These acclaimed adaptations star Rosemary Leach, Hannah Watkins and Indira Varma as Frederica. 
 
Also included are four fantastic short stories: 'The July Ghost', dramatised with a star cast including Kate Buffery and Clive Owen; and 'Rose-Coloured Teacups', 'Gode's Story' and 'A Stone Woman', read by Anna Massey, Sheila Mitchell and Penelope Wilton respectively. Plus, in Finding A Voice, A.S. Byatt reflects on her approach to her work, explaining where her desire to write came from and how she honed her craft. 
 
Track listing 
1: Introduction 
2-9: The Virgin in the Garden 
10-16: Still Life 
17-24: Babel Tower 
25-31: A Whistling Woman 
32: The July Ghost 
33: Rose-Coloured Teacups 
34: Gode's Story 
35-37: A Stone Woman 
38: Finding a Voice 
 
© 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p)2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
 
Text copyright © AS Byatt 1978 (The Virgin in the Garden), 1985 (Still Life), 1987 ('The July Ghost', 'Rose-Coloured Teacups'), 1994 ('Gode's Story'), 1996 (Babel Tower), 2002 (A Whistling Woman)

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of A.S. Byatt's 'Frederica Quartet', plus selected short stories and a fascinating talk by the author 
 
Inspired by the novels of D.H. Lawrence, particularly The Rainbow and Women in Love, this ambitious quartet from Booker Prize-winning novelist A.S. Byatt charts the lives of the Potter family between 1953 and 1970. Set against the changing social and political landscape of England in the '50s and '60s, it follows the heroine, Frederica, from precocious teenager to TV talk show host, and from her Yorkshire home to the heart of swinging London. 
 
The Virgin in the Garden sees the Potters preparing to celebrate Elizabeth II's coronation, while Frederica auditions for a play about Elizabeth I written by the beautiful Alexander Wedderburn. Will she win the part, and Alexander's heart? In Still Life, Frederica's ambitions - both academic and sexual - come to fruition, as she gains a place at Cambridge University to study English - and men. In Babel Tower, she has given up her carefree, independent lifestyle - but as the Sixties' cultural revolution explodes and the quest for personal and public freedom becomes all-important, will settling down bring her happiness? And in A Whistling Woman, as events build to a tragic climax in Yorkshire, back in London, Frederica is faced with a difficult choice... These acclaimed adaptations star Rosemary Leach, Hannah Watkins and Indira Varma as Frederica. 
 
Also included are four fantastic short stories: 'The July Ghost', dramatised with a star cast including Kate Buffery and Clive Owen; and 'Rose-Coloured Teacups', 'Gode's Story' and 'A Stone Woman', read by Anna Massey, Sheila Mitchell and Penelope Wilton respectively. Plus, in Finding A Voice, A.S. Byatt reflects on her approach to her work, explaining where her desire to write came from and how she honed her craft. 
 
Track listing 
1: Introduction 
2-9: The Virgin in the Garden 
10-16: Still Life 
17-24: Babel Tower 
25-31: A Whistling Woman 
32: The July Ghost 
33: Rose-Coloured Teacups 
34: Gode's Story 
35-37: A Stone Woman 
38: Finding a Voice 
 
© 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p)2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
 
Text copyright © AS Byatt 1978 (The Virgin in the Garden), 1985 (Still Life), 1987 ('The July Ghost', 'Rose-Coloured Teacups'), 1994 ('Gode's Story'), 1996 (Babel Tower), 2002 (A Whistling Woman)

Angels And Insects

Reissued with a beautiful new illustrative cover, two magical and timeless novellas from the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession

Like A.S. Byatt’s Booker Prize-winning novel, Possession, these two mesmerising novellas are set in the nineteenth century. In Morpho Eugenia, an explorer realises that the behaviour of the people around him is alarmingly similar to that of the insects he studies. In The Conjugal Angel, curious individuals – some fictional, others drawn from history – gather to connect with the spirit world. Throughout both, Byatt examines the eccentricities of the Victorian era, weaving fact and fiction, reality and romance, science and faith into a sumptuous, magical tapestry.

A Novel

The Shadow of the Sun

Reissued with a beautiful new illustrative cover, A.S. Byatt’s debut novel – the moving story of a young woman’s struggle for independence and identity

It is the height of summer. After she is expelled from boarding school, Anna Severell returns to the strict, orderly house of her father, a celebrated novelist. The family is soon joined by Oliver Canning, a talented young academic who urges her to take control of her future. As autumn begins and Anna enters university, the pair grow closer. A single mistake, however, could put her newfound independence at risk…

The Game

Reissued with a beautiful new illustrative cover. The bond between two sisters becomes strained when a mutual love from their past comes back into their lives

One of our finest living novelists, who manages to tease and to satisfy both the intellect and the imagination

Cassandra is an Oxford don; Julia, her sister, a bestselling novelist. They share a set of disturbing memories of a strange childhood game and of Simon, the handsome young neighbour who loved them both. 
 
Years later Simon re-enters their lives via a television programme on snakes and intrudes into their uneasy compromise of mutual antagonism and distrust. The old, wild emotions surge back, demanding and urgent, and this time the game is played out to a fatal finish.

The Biographer's Tale

Reissued with a beautiful new illustrative cover. How can you describe a ‘whole life’? Booker Prize-winner A. S. Byatt conjures a sparking, colour-filled novel about one man’s attempt to do so

Phineas G. Nanson, a disenchanted graduate student, decides to immerse himself in the messiness of ‘real life’ by writing a biography of a great biographer. But a ‘whole life’ is hard to find. Everywhere he looks he discovers only fragments – strange notes, boxes of marbles, undated postcards. 
 
As Phineas’s research continues, his mind roams from the deserts of Africa to the maelstroms of the Arctic. Along the way he meets others building wholes from bits and pieces – taxonomists, ecologists, even travel agents – and begins to puzzle out his future. But who will guide him from the labyrinth and back into his own life?

A. S. Byatt

Teeming with more ideas than a year's worth of ordinary novels

This is a novel for every taste: a heartbreaking Victorian love story, a take-no-prisoners comedy of contemporary academic life, and an unputdownable supernatural mystery. You turn the last page feeling stunned and elated, happy to have had the chance to read it

Possession is eloquent about the intense pleasures of reading. And, with sumptuous artistry, it provides a feast of them

As always, Byatt wields beautiful prose, and the mix of prose and poetry gives the book a sensuality as mysterious as anything in the plot

Intelligent, literary, and ambitious...combines the drive of the thriller with the 19th-century novel, and throughout she threads the poetry and passion of ''romance''....races to a riotous final scene of storms and graveyards

Proves that a serious, intricate book can also be a page turner...manifest intelligence, subtle humor and extraordinary texturing of the past within the present make Possession original and unforgettable

Shimmers with something close to genius ... If I become famous enough to be the castaway on Desert Island Discs, this is the book I'd choose. It requires effort but, trust me, it is a modern masterpiece

[AS Byatt’s] exhilarating genius came into its own with Possession

Possession perfectly demonstrated that she was more than capable of humour and of spinning the sort of yarn that would keep her readers feverishly turning the pages

A novel in which Byatt’s heady talent triumphantly comes into its own

A Romance

A romance, a literary quest, a modern classic. 
 
‘Possession is eloquent about the intense pleasures of reading. And, with sumptuous artistry, it provides a feast of them’ Sunday Times 
 
A pair of young scholars investigate the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time. Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. 
 
‘Exhilarating genius’ Guardian 
 
**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE**

Possession

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

prhuk-authors

author-avatar

author-menu

By signing up, I confirm that I'm over 16. To find out what personal data we collect and how we use it, please visit our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/about-us/notices/privacy-policy/">Privacy Policy</a>

Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

A. S. Byatt

Praise for Possession

A triumphant success on every level

Teeming with more ideas than a year's worth of ordinary novels

This is a novel for every taste: a heartbreaking Victorian love story, a take-no-prisoners comedy of contemporary academic life, and an unputdownable supernatural mystery. You turn the last page feeling stunned and ...

A triumphant success on every level

Teeming with more ideas than a year's worth of ordinary novels

This is a novel for every taste: a heartbreaking Victorian love story, a take-no-prisoners comedy of contemporary academic life, and an unputdownable supernatural mystery. You turn the last page feeling stunned and ...

A triumphant success on every level

Teeming with more ideas than a year's worth of ordinary novels

This is a novel for every taste: a heartbreaking Victorian love story, a take-no-prisoners comedy of contemporary academic life, and an unputdownable supernatural mystery. You turn the last page feeling stunned and ...

Books by A. S. Byatt

Series by A. S. Byatt

The Frederica Potter Novels

Articles featuring A. S. Byatt

The best books for book lovers

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter