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A A Gill

Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

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Arthur Schnitzler

Following the death of his sister, middle-aged Dr Graesler leaves his winter home in Lanzarote for a health resort in Germany, where he practised medicine for many years. There he meets the Schleheim family, and is particularly drawn to their daughter Sabine. But a simple, stilted courtship soon unravels a web of hushed-up suicide and illicit sexual liaisons. Arthur Schnitzler’s tumultuous psychodrama remains as startling now as it did on first publication.

A Confirmed Bachelor

Katherine Mansfield

She drew a long, soft breath, as though the paper daffodils between them were almost too sweet to bearKatherine Mansfield was a magician of the short story, whose work was described by Virginia Woolf as ‘the only writing I have ever been jealous of’. These eight tales show her gift for transforming fleeting moments – a chance meeting, a letter received, a careless remark – into small miracles of language and feeling.

A Dill Pickle

Mikhail Bulgakov

What would happen if a doctor implanted the pituitary gland and testicles of a man into the body of a stray dog? In Mikhail Bulgakov’s topsy-turvy world, the dog starts to walk on two legs, drink, smoke, thieve, chase women and recite every swear word in Russian. The perfect candidate for a government official, in other words. This rude, riotous send-up of the Soviet Union, banned immediately on publication, is satire red in tooth and claw.

A Dog's Heart

Franz Kafka

The whole town got involved with the hunger-artist; from day to day of his starving, people’s participation grew; everyone wanted to see the hunger-artist at least once a day; on the later days there were season-ticket holders who sat for days on end in front of his little cageReading these stories by the master of the absurd is like entering a dreamworld in which nothing, and yet somehow everything, makes sense.

A Hunger-Artist

Willa Cather

How light and alive she was! Like a bird caught in a net . . . 
 
Marian Forrester enchants everyone around her: her husband, an elderly railroad pioneer; the small town of Sweet Water; and Niel Herbert, her unwavering confidant. Yet, her irresistible charm and dazzling wit conceal a dangerous vulnerability – and her greatest secret. A significant inspiration for The Great Gatsby, this exquisite novella is a poignant elegy for a bygone era, fading into history.

A Lost Lady

Irmgard Keun

Arrested in Cologne for remarking that the Fuhrer looked sweaty, nineteen-year-old Sanna has fled to Frankfurt. But her troubles are far from over. Her best friend Gerti has fallen for a Jewish boy, her brother writes books that have been blacklisted, and her own aunt could turn her in to the authorities at any moment. Darkly humorous and utterly heart rending, this gripping novel vividly captures the terror and hysteria of pre-war Nazi Germany.

After Midnight

Chester Himes

Best known for his hardboiled Harlem Detective series, Chester Himes was also a superb literary writer, beginning his creative life by writing short stories in the 1930s while serving jail time for armed robbery. Selected here are some of his best stories – from a satirical tale about a student bet that purportedly disproves the existence of racism in Los Angeles to a chilling drama in which a snake invades a family home.

All God's Chillun Got Pride

César Aira

It is 1837 and a brilliant German artist sets out to cross the mountains between Chile and Argentina. Perhaps nobody before him has been able to paint the sights that unfold: vast chasms, surreal plants and animals… But then something goes appallingly wrong. 
 
This is one of Aira’s great works, filled with his baffling ability to veer between grandeur and absurdity. Each page fails to provide clues as to what lies in wait for the reader on the next.

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

Alexander Lernet-Holenia

Baron Bagge, a cavalry officer during the First World War, receives orders from his unhinged commander to ride into Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a peaceful, otherworldly country where festivities are in full swing… Alexander Lernet-Holenia, championed in his lifetime by Roberto Calasso, Stefan Zweig and Rainer Maria Rilke, triumphs in this dreamlike novel of mystery and yearning.

Baron Bagge

Stefan Zweig

My delight in playing turned to a lust for playing, my lust for playing into a compulsion to play, a mania, a frenetic fury that filled not only my waking hours but also came to invade my sleep. I could think of nothing but chess, I thought only in chess moves and chess problems . . .As a chess obsessive, what if you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play the world champion, but it might send you to the edge of madness . . . and tip you over?

Chess

A Novel

Federico García Lorca

Now you slip away in sleep. 
Your boat is sea-mist, dreaming, by the shore.Spain’s most beloved poet, Federico García Lorca brilliantly captures the beauty and brutality of the twentieth century. His creative imagination transcends his own experiences – be it from the perspective of an ant, a gypsy nun, or Socrates – to meditate on death, love and honour, and to interrogate the decay and pretence of his society. Lorca’s poetry excites, moves and disarms.

Cicada!

Bohumil Hrabal

Closely Watched Trains tells the story of Miloš Hrma, a young railroad apprentice coming of age in wartime Czechoslovakia. Miloš is overwhelmed with worries – about his virginity, his love for the conductor, and ongoing scandals in the stationmaster’s office – besides which the idea of fighting the Germans seems a simple affair. Poignant, humorous and the inspiration behind the 1966 Academy Award-winning film, this is a small masterpiece from one of the best Czech writers of the twentieth century.

Closely Watched Trains

Audre Lorde

‘I am Black because I come from the earth’s inside 
now take my word for jewel in the open light.’ 
 
Impassioned and profound, the poems in Coal showcase Audre Lorde in all her dazzling elegance and multiplicity. Mournful, celebratory, politically conscious, this early collection is a testament to Lorde’s beloved and hugely influential lyric voice, which faithfully captures the complex interiority of the self. These timeless poems resonate down the years.

Coal

Dylan Thomas

Luminous and intensely lyrical, Dylan Thomas’ works have captivated generations of readers, inspiring artists like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Igor Stravinsky, and Phoebe Bridgers. This selection includes some of his best poetry, celebrating both inner and outer landscapes in the face of mortality, decay, human weakness, and beckoning readers to ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ Together, they exemplify his legacy as the greatest Welsh poet of the twentieth century.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Leo Tolstoy

‘I’m not the sort of husband you dream of when you’re walking alone along the avenue in the evening, am I? And it would be a disaster, wouldn’t it?’How does love die? This question lies at the heart of Tolstoy’s desperately sad novella. It tells the story of seventeen-year-old Masha who, despite their differences, falls passionately in love with an older man, and marries him. Soon, however, the gap between them becomes unbridgeable.

Family Happiness

Dante

Lay down all hope, you that go in by me . . . 
 
Through the gates of Hell, past whirling hurricanes, leering devils and rivers of blood, lies the ultimate evil: Satan himself. Masterfully translated by Dorothy L. Sayers, this first instalment of The Divine Comedy tells the captivating tale of Dante and Virgil’s arduous journey through the nine circles of the underworld, and remains one of the most influential works in literary history.

Hell

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories have lost none of their power to horrify. He remains a destabilizingly terse sketcher out of ideas, a writer who allows the reader to fill in the many ghastly blanks in his narratives of violence, retribution and animalism. It is hard to recommend Hop-Frog wholeheartedly (its original subtitle was: Or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs) as it is such an affront to decency, but you will certainly never forget it.

Hop-Frog

Dorothy Parker

What can you say, when a man asks you to dance with him? I most certainly will not dance with you. I’ll see you in hell first. Why, thank you, I’d like to awfully, but I’m having labor pains.Acerbic, pithy and vibrant, Dorothy Parker’s writings capture the dizzying decadence of Jazz Age New York. Though Parker refuses to be swept along: she gleefully deconstructs its hypocrisy, prejudice and taboos with style and precision.

Horsie

Hafez

May I remember always when, 
Your glance in secrecy met mine, 
And in my face your love was like 
A visibly reflected sign. 
 
May I remember always when, 
Your chiding eyes were like my death, 
And your sweet lips restored my life, 
Like Jesus’s reviving breath. 
 
May I remember always when, 
We drank our wine as darkness died, 
My friend and I, alone at dawn, 
Though God was there too, at our side.

I am a Bird from Paradise

Eileen Chang

‘But how sweet a fruit the ‘suppose’ must be, that people will sup and sup on it! A juicy fruit, like a lychee but without the pit, sparkling and light green: a fruit that hides the tart within the sweet.’ 
 
In this haunting collection of stories, a young man’s obsession leads to tragedy and a woman’s bitterness poisons a family’s legacy. In delicate, piercing prose, Chang captures a world of quiet cruelties and calamitous desires in pre-revolutionary China.

Jasmine Tea

Romain Gary

‘Why should I bother to invent things? My life has been far more exciting and wonderful than any fairy-tale’ 
 
In the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by irritatingly polite relatives and hopeless sycophants, Lady L. is celebrating her eightieth birthday. But as the guests disperse, she feels the undeniable pull of a mysterious pavilion in the lush grounds, and the terrible secret she buried there many years ago . . .

Lady L.

Roald Dahl

No author perfected the twist in the tale better than Roald Dahl. His stories – many of which were filmed as Tales of the Unexpected – take us into a world that is shocking, cruelly funny and always has a sinister edge. What if plants could feel pain? What kind of father would bet his daughter in a wager? And what is the secret behind that delicious lamb dinner…?

Lamb to the Slaughter

Elizabeth Gaskell

Beware the self-righteous man of faith, the wicked-eyed child, the jealous lover. For this is Salem, in 1691, where rumours fly on the wind and witchcraft is abroad. Lois Barclay, cursed in childhood, is a stranger in a strange land – and the devil will work his mischief on Lois’s neighbours before the season of madness is out.

Lois the Witch

Wu Cheng’en

Wu Cheng’en’s 16th-century novel Journey to the West is widely regarded as one of the most important Chinese novels ever written. Here, in Julia Lovell’s witty and charismatic translation, we meet one of its heroes: Sun Wukong, or Monkey King, whose powers include shape-shifting, immortality and being incredibly rude. Though he rises to a position of power in the heavenly bureaucracy, Monkey King’s arrogant exploits attract the attention of the Buddha – with very unfortunate consequences.

Monkey King Makes Havoc in Heaven

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Fabien tonight was wandering over the vast splendour of a sea of clouds, but below him lay eternity.Inspired by his career as an aviator, Saint-Exupéry’s soaring novel follows the journeys of three pilots delivering mail overnight. The author’s beautiful, weightless prose is as haunting as his own disappearance in flight, eerily foreshadowed by his protagonist Fabien, who becomes lost in otherworldly darkness. Letter to a Hostage, Saint-Exupéry’s meditation on displacement and friendship, also explores solitude and questions the human condition.

Night Flight

Nikolay Leskov

'I decided that my trip had evidently been in vain, since nothing of interest could possibly occur on this visit. I was mistaken.' 
 
Condemned to sleeplessness by the chatter permeating his guesthouse room, a forlorn traveller turns his ear to the riotous tale spun by the garrulous, meddlesome, inane and utterly unprincipled Márya Martýnovna next door. Her exuberant deformations of morality and language scandalized Tsarist society, and she remains one of Russian literature’s most uproarious anti-heroes.

Night Owls

Emily Brontë

Yes, as my swift days near their goal, 
’Tis all that I implore; 
In life and death, a chainless soul, 
With courage to endure. 
 
In this new selection of Emily Brontë’s heart-rending poems, we uncover a soul unafraid to confront mortality, tragedy and the wild cruelty – and beauty – of nature. These verses capture her profound passion and indomitable spirit, plumbing the depths of the human heart and revealing the raw power of Brontë’s poetic genius.

No Coward Soul Is Mine

Gérard de Nerval

In October Nights, Gerard de Nerval takes us on a gentle meander through nighttime Paris – a dreamlike journey towards getting lost. Also included in this volume is Sylvie, his haunting novella of love and memory, the ‘masterpiece’ that inspired Proust to write In Search of Lost Time. Together, these works by the French poet, visionary and pioneering modernist are a testament to the power of jewelled thinking, and an inspiration for flaneurs and romantics everywhere.

October Nights

D. H. Lawrence

This small group of stories by D. H. Lawrence show him in a number of moods. The hope is that in such a limited number of pages, the reader will come away with a compressed, rich sense of Lawrence’s wonderful prose style, precision of language and expansive vision of the human struggle and how it can be transcended. Is ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’ perhaps the greatest of all English short stories?

Odour of Chrysanthemums

June Jordan

‘we are the ones we have been waiting for’ 
 
These poems of radical love, urgency and global consciousness reach across borders to break open the silence of oppression and the taboo, liberating both body and soul. 
 
Lively and enigmatic, Passion is June Jordan’s most accomplished and animated collection. Her virtuosic, resolute words have inspired generations of readers and activists across the world, from Nobel Laureates to US Presidents.

Passion

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

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