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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

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

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Shotaro Ikenami

It has been half a year since Akiyama Daijiro became a samurai; half a year since he left his father Kohei – the wisest swordsman in the land – to set up his own blade school by the cool of the river. Ever since, amid the swaying bamboo groves, he waits patiently for his first disciple.But his serenity is soon disrupted by the visit of a mysterious samurai with an unhonourable offer: in exchange for a vast sum of gold, he must attack and injure the daughter of the Shogun’s most senior counsellor. Troubled by the proposal, Daijiro, alongside his father and Mifuyu, a female warrior without match, soon set out into the underworld of Edo-era Japan to uncover the conspiracy, before quickly finding themselves embroiled in a series of increasingly perilous adventures . . .Widely considered to be the greatest work by Shotaro Ikenami, the master of Japanese historical fiction, The Samurai Detectives is a twisting, page-turning portrayal of one of the most intriguing, evocative periods in the history of Japan.

The Samurai Detectives: Volume 1

Various Authors

Step into the terrifying world of ghostly apparitions, grotesque monsters and terrible, creeping dread – but be careful, who knows if you'll make it out alive? 
 
This collection brings together ten of the greatest literary horror stories every written, from Mary Shelley’s iconic tale of a ‘body swap’ gone wrong, to Edgar Allen Poe's terrifying account of a great family’s downfall, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s chilling description of female subjugation. A treasure trove of scares and spooks, Classic Horror: An Anthology is a timeless celebration of all that curdles the blood and goes bump in the night …

Classic Horror

An Anthology

Edith Wharton

Known for writing some of the most incisive and elegant novels of the early twentieth century, Edith Wharton was also a master practitioner of the ghost story, producing dozens of frightful tales throughout her lifetime. Combining pristine prose with strange, suffocating atmospheres and profound sense of the uncanny, this collection of her very best haunting narratives detail spectral handwriting, isolated houses in lonely landscapes, and a husband with a terrible secret… 
 
 ‘Masterly stories of horror and unease’ New Yorker

Pomegranate Seed and Other Ghostly Tales

Fay Weldon

“Down among the women. What a place to be!” 
So says Wanda, a former radical who left her husband and raised her daughter Scarlet to be as liberated as she. But twenty-year-old Scarlet, with an abortion already behind her, is about to discover real liberation – as a single mother in Fifties’ London.Yet Scarlet’s not alone. Meet her friends: Sylvia, the born victim; respectable Jocelyn, willingly trapped in a dull, bourgeois marriage; Audrey, bristling to break free of her conventional life; and Helen, beautiful, vibrant – and very doomed. 
 
Over the course of twenty years, from the Fifties to the Seventies, Scarlet, Wanda and their friends will wonder if they can ever become the women they always dreamed of being.

Down Among the Women

Lettice Cooper

Yorkshire teacher Ellen Fenwick has never been abroad. But when her mother dies, this young woman finds herself taking a position as governess to an English girl in Florence in the summer of 1933. Little does Ellen realise how this girl, Juliet, and her family will claim her.For as the summer passes, Ellen falls so in love with Italy and her new home that she cannot bear to leave – even when her own hopes of love are cruelly thwarted. Even when the shadow of war falls across the country, she doesn’t flee but clings on – for her friends, for those she loves more than herself.Ellen – selfless, big-hearted, accepting – cannot know what is coming. Yet, she will not face it alone . . .

Fenny

Margaret Kennedy

‘People seem to get over things, don’t they? I don’t know how, but they do – ordinary people. I’m very ordinary, so I expect I shall do what they do.’ 
 
Lucy Carmichael is jilted at the altar. But no matter. Her loving and kind family never liked her explorer fiancé anyway. 
 
Instead of moping or falling into her supportive family’s arms, however, Lucy abandons their suburban home. Heading for the country, she takes up a teaching position in the industrial town of Ravonsbridge. 
 
There, she finds solace in her work, in her new (rather gossipy) colleagues – and rediscovers her sensible young self. But if Lucy has, despite everything, kept her head – where lies her heart?

Lucy Carmichael

Harper Lee

ONE OF THE GREATEST AMERICAN NOVELS EVER WRITTEN 
 
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 
 
'No one forgets this book' Independent 
'One of the best first novels I remember ... uniquely unsentimental' Guardian 
'There is humour as well as tragedy in this book, besides its faint note of hope for human nature; and it is delightfully written' Sunday Times 
'A rare literary phenomenon' Vogue 
 
The iconic modern classic and coming-of-age novel exploring racism in the American South. 
 
'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.' 
 
A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with a serious crime. 
 
Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. 
 
The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. 
 
But the weight of history will only tolerate so much. 
 
'Someone rare has written this very fine novel, a writer with the liveliest sense of life and the warmest, most authentic humour. A touching book; and so funny, so likeable.' Truman Capote

To Kill A Mockingbird

Françoise Sagan

Published when she was only nineteen, Françoise Sagan’s astonishing first novel Bonjour Tristesse became an instant bestseller. It tells the story of Cécile, who leads a carefree life with her widowed father and his young mistresses until, one hot summer on the Riviera, he decides to remarry – with devastating consequences. In A Certain Smile Dominique, a young woman bored with her lover, begins an encounter with an older man that unfolds in unexpected and troubling ways. These two acerbically witty and delightfully amoral tales about the nature of love are shimmering masterpieces of cool-headed, brilliant observation.

Bonjour Tristesse AND A Certain Smile

Robin Lane Fox

Homer's Iliad is the famous epic poem set among the tales of Troy. Its subject is the anger of the hero Achilles and its dreadful consequences for the warring Greeks and Trojans. It was composed more than 2,600 years ago, but still transfixes us with its tale of loss and battle, love and revenge, guided throughout by the active presence of the gods. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving but great questions remain: where, how and when it was composed and why it has such enduring power? 
 
In this compelling book Robin Lane Fox addresses these questions, drawing on a life-long love and engagement with the poem. He argues for a place, a date and a method for its composition, giving us a sense of alternative approaches and grounding his own in discoveries about long heroic poems composed elsewhere in the world, and the ever-growing evidence of archaeology. 
 
Unlike other books on the Iliad, this one combines the detailed expertise of a historian with the sensitivity of a teacher of it as poetry. Lane Fox goes on to consider hallmarks of the poem, its values, implicit and explicit, its characters, its women, its gods and even its horses. He argues repeatedly for its beautiful observation and addresses its parallel use of what is, to us, the natural world. Thousands of readers turn to the Iliad every year. In this superbly written and conceived tribute, Lane Fox expresses and amplifies what old and new readers can find in it. It is pervaded, he argues, by a poignant hardness which is not just a poetic trick. It is a deeply held view of the world.

Homer and His Iliad

Gabriel García Márquez

'César Montero was dreaming about elephants. He'd seen them at the movies on Sunday...' 
 
Moments later, César is arrested by police who clear the crowds away from the man he has just killed. 
 
But César is not the only man riled the rumours spread in his hometown - someone creeps through the streets sticking malicious posters to walls and doors. Paranoia seeps through the town - can the perpetrator be uncovered before leaving the inhabitants' sanity in tatters? 
 
In Evil Hour is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books as ebooks for the first time.

In Evil Hour

'Suddenly, as if a whirlwind had set down roots in the center of the town, the banana company arrived, pursued by the leaf storm' 
 
A blizzard of slums descends on Macondo; the inhabitants reel at the accompanying stench. When the banana company leaves town as fast as it arrived, they are left with a void of decay. 
 
Living in this soulless wasteland is one last honourable man, who is determined to fulfil a longstanding promise, however unpalatable. 
 
Leaf Storm is re-issued on Gabriel García Márquez 's birthday to celebrate the publication of his books in ebook for the first time.

Leaf Storm

P.G. Wodehouse

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY ANDREW HUNTER MURRAY 
 
'For as long as I'm immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one' MARIAN KEYES 
 
'Sunlit perfection' STEPHEN FRY 
 
'Wodehouse is as loved as ever, and his vivid prose style and unique comic invention are major contributions to English fiction' GUARDIAN 
 
A summertime collection of stories at delight and to entertain, fit for Wodehouse fans and anyone who wants an uplifting, amusing read. 
 
'Paper has rarely been put to better use' CAITLIN MORAN 
 
'Ingenious. Worth reading again and again' SPECTATOR 
 
'Incomparable and timeless genius' KATE MOSSE 
 
'The funniest writer ever to put words to paper' HUGH LAURIE

Fine Weather, Jeeves

'A colourful universe of aristocratic buffoonery and public school nonsense' Greg James, host of BBC Radio 1 Breakfast 
 
Poor Pongo Twistleton only has to endure his energetic seventy-year-old Uncle Fred for lunch, once a year, but when he descends from Ickenham (he's the fifth Earl, don't you know) he has a plan that will make Pongo's hair stand on end and re-introduce him to his long-lost fiancée Sally Painter. 
 
But Pongo is busy impressing his future father-in-law Sir Aylmer Bostock (Pongo's engaged to Hermione Bostock, don't you know) when Uncle Fred asks him to smash a priceless bust and replace it with one of Sally's in a scheme he is doomed to fail at. Enter Major Brabazon-Plan, an incognito Uncle Fred and enter Pongo's worst nightmare. Will Uncle Fred have his way? Will Pongo end up with the right wife and is a pot of raspberry jam ever truly safe from pink-suited invaders?

Uncle Dynamite

Alexander Lernet-Holenia

In Baron Bagge, a cavalry officer stationed in Eastern Europe during the First World War, receives orders to ride into a platoon of Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a strangely peaceful land where festivities are in full swing. There he meets Charlotte Szent-Kiraly, and finds himself falling in a strange, enchanted love - a love harrowed at its edges by the threat of the enemy, and the peculiar fragility of this country's otherworldly peace... 
 
 
In Count Luna Alexander Jessiersky, Austrian aristocrat and shipping magnate, finds the Nazis distasteful - but in war and in business, distaste can lead to negligence. When Jessiersky's board of directors sends his mysterious neighbour Count Luna to a concentration camp on trumped-up charges in order to seize his land, Jessiersky can't shake the feeling that Count Luna blames him - and, after the war ends, that Count Luna will have his revenge. So begins a wild, weird and witty cat-and-mouse chase through windswept moors, shadow-filled houses and, eventually, the catacombs of Rome, as an increasingly paranoid Jessiersky asks himself: who is Count Luna? Where is he hiding? And will he stop at nothing - not even the edges of the plausible and canny - to exact his bloody venegance?

Count Luna and Baron Bagge

Two Stories

Gabriel García Márquez has been one of the literary giants of the past century; his body of work is an undisputed cultural landmark and a touchstone for countless readers and writers alike. 
 
One Hundred Years of Solitude is a true classic, a timelessly fascinating and intricately patterned work of fiction and a joyful, irrepressible celebration of humanity. This iconic work is the perfect celebration of Marquez's extraordinary impact on the modern world and his phenomenal literary achievements.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

C. E. McGill

A gripping gothic adventure inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The perfect spooky season read for fans of Shirley Jackson, Weyward by Emilia Hart and Rosie Andrews' The Leviathan. 
 
'Darkly brilliant and sumptuously gothic, this atmospheric debut left me reeling' C.J. Cooke, bestselling author of THE LIGHTHOUSE WITCHES 
 
‘A masterful work of Gothic horror that will leave readers on the edge of their seat.’ GLAMOUR 
 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BETTY TRASK PRIZE *THE WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE* EDMUND WHITE DEBUT PRIZE*THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD* LONGLISTED FOR THE HWA DEBUT PRIZE 
 
_____ 
 
Mary is the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein. 
 
She knows her great uncle disappeared in mysterious circumstances in the Arctic, but she doesn't know why or how. 
 
The 1850s is a time of discovery and London is ablaze with the latest scientific theories and debates. Mary, with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue, is keen to make her name in this world of science. But as a woman without wealth and connections, her options are limited. 
 
The comes the discovery - among some old family papers, Mary finds notes that allude to the shocking truth behind her great-uncle's past. But might they also hold the key to her future? 
 
Mary's quest takes her to the wilds of Scotland, and a deadly chase with a rival who is out to steal her secret... 
 
Deliciously gothic, inventive, queer, this subversive twist on a classic tale brims with adventure. 
 
 
Praise for Our Hideous Progeny: 
 
'Compelling and utterly absorbing ... an artfully crafted debut that echoes the dark essence of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein while maintaining a fascinating originality all of its own' Susan Stokes-Chapman, bestselling author of PANDORA 
 
'A wonderful book; dark, passionate, multi-layered' Joanne Harris, bestselling author of CHOCOLAT 
 
'Exquisitely written... a story worthy of Mary Shelley' Sean Lusk, bestselling author of THE SECOND SIGHT OF ZACHARY CLOUDESLEY 
 
'A gripping Gothic tale of grief and ambition, passion and intrigue' Jess Kidd, author of THE HAUNTING SEASON and THE WINTER SPIRITS

Our Hideous Progeny

Georges Simenon

A bus stops on the road to Montluçon, and there two strangers meet: Tati, a steely widow, who runs the farm her late husband left behind, and Jean, an odd, quiet man with nowhere to go. There is between them an affinity and Jean agrees to lodge with Tati, and help with the farm as he can. In the still and heat of the summer, they labour together and, inevitably, begin their affair. But nothing is at it seems, and as affections strain and stray, their relationship hurtles toward a disturbing doom . . . 
 
First published in 1942 at the same time as Albert Camus' The Outsider, this is Simenon's existentialist masterpiece - a powerful exploration of desire and death, of the barbarous edge that encircles the human soul.

The Widow Couderc

Douglas Jackson

AD 400. Rome and its Empire are failing . . . 
 
Veteran cavalry commander Marcus Flavius Victor sets out with his regiment to make what may be his final tour of the forts along Hadrian's Wall. 
 
Through a combination of military prowess, brutality and bribery, Marcus has spent twenty years keeping the savage Picts at bay. Feared by his enemies and hated by his superiors, his strength of will is the only thing that has held the disgruntled, poorly paid garrisons of the Wall in place as the failing Roman Empire's grip on Britannia weakened. 
 
Yet as this tour of the wall progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that this is more than a routine inspection. Why is Marcus stripping the defences of cavalry to strengthen his own force? Is he negotiating with the Picts - or conspiring with them? And who is the mysterious figure who follows Marcus' every move and yet hides in the shadows? 
 
Segeduno, Cilurno, Brocolitia, Vindolanda: each fort holds memories and friendships, hides rivals, or conceals enemies. But what exactly is Marcus Flavius Victor's ultimate objective? It would appear he is willing to risk bloody civil war in a bid to seize Britannia for himself. Or is he raising an army to save the province from the chaos that waits on the other side of the Wall? 
 
Hailed as one of our very best historical novelists, Douglas Jackson returns to the world of ancient Rome with this epic novel of a failing empire and a world on the brink . . .

The Wall

The pulse-pounding epic about the end times of an empire

Anthony Burgess

Tristram Foxe and his wife, Beatrice-Joanna, live in their skyscraper world where official family limitation glorifies homosexuality. Eventually, their world is transformed into a chaos of cannibalistic dining-clubs, fantastic fertility rituals, and wars without anger.

The Wanting Seed

Derek B. Miller

It's 1936, war is brewing, tempers are running high, and by his thirteenth birthday, Sheldon Horowitz has been orphaned - twice. While a terrible accident took his mother, Sheldon is convinced that his father was murdered. But no-one else thinks so, least of all the police. 
 
Determined to track down the culprit, and leaving behind his only friend Lenny, Sheldon moves to Hartford, Connecticut to live with his uncle. He is told to keep his head down and forget the past. But that just isn't his style. 
 
Fired up by his politically-minded cousin Abe (and quite possibly in love with other cousin Mirabelle), he sets out on a quest to discover the truth that will take him from industrial Hartford to a ritzy hotel in the Catskills, back to his childhood home and finally on to New York. 
 
Sheldon quickly discovers that it's a jungle out there, and to survive, he will have to learn to make his own luck. Fortunately, that's one thing he's very good at...

How to Find Your Way in the Dark

The powerful and epic coming-of-age story from the author of Norwegian By Night

Gill Hornby

Early evening, 1804: Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent. 
 
Alone and desperately in need of an independent income, she is to become a governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. 
 
But her new role in this large household where she is neither a servant nor a member of the family is an awkward one, and Anne is keenly aware that one wrong move may result in her instant dismissal. 
 
Then dashing Henry Austen and his younger sister Jane come to stay. 
 
Both take an immediate interest in the pretty, clever governess, and Anne quickly becomes drawn into the above-stairs life of the Austen family. 
 
Soon, and despite her best efforts, she finds she is falling in love. 
 
But has her survival at Godmersham Park just become a good deal more precarious?

Godmersham Park

Stephen Fry

The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for ten whole years. It is a terrible war with casualties on all sides as well as strained relations between allies, whose consequences become tragedies. 
 
In Troy you will find heroism and hatred, love and loss, revenge and regret, desire and despair. It is these human passions, written bloodily in the sands of a distant shore, that still speak to us today.

Troy

Our Greatest Story Retold

'There was no longer that ambivalent inconsistency between her words and thoughts, no more fever, no more artificial heat, no more vagueness. Instead was the truth in all its rawness, in black and white, in stark, cruel lines.' 
 
Adrift and alone, Betty finds herself propped up at the bar of a sleazy establishment on the Champs-Élysées. When an older woman takes her under her wing, Betty's tortured past returns to haunt her: excluded by her high-society peers and overwrought with jealousy, she struggles with a desperate compulsion to tear her picture-perfect life apart. 
 
Originally published in 1961, this gripping psychological thriller caused a sensation and inspired a film adaptation by Claude Chabrol. 
 
'A brilliant portrait of betrayal, hypocrisy, love and loss' - Chicago Tribune

Betty

Olaf Stapledon

Driven out into the night by the bitterness of his life, an Englishman finds himself contemplating the night sky - its immensity, its mystery. Without explanation, he suddenly finds himself floating out into its depths. There he explores strange worlds, links with other conscious beings, and witnesses the birth and death of civilizations. As the scope of his experiences expands, the universe itself is revealed to him - its startling origins, its potential fate, and our place within its vastness... 
 
One of greatest and most influential science fiction novels ever written, Olaf Stapledon's philosophical masterwork is the ultimate exploration of the cosmos.

Star Maker

Few mere mortals have ever embarked on such bold and heart-stirring adventures, overcome myriad monstrous perils, or outwitted scheming vengeful gods, quite as stylishly and triumphantly as Greek heroes. 
 
In this companion to his bestselling Mythos, Stephen Fry brilliantly retells these dramatic, funny, tragic and timeless tales. Join Jason aboard the Argo as he quests for the Golden Fleece. See Atalanta - who was raised by bears - outrun any man before being tricked with golden apples. Witness wily Oedipus solve the riddle of the Sphinx and discover how Bellerophon captures the winged horse Pegasus to help him slay the monster Chimera. 
 
Heroes is the story of what we mortals are truly capable of - at our worst and our very best.

Heroes

The myths of the Ancient Greek heroes retold

Arthur Conan Doyle

'When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' 
 
In this, the final collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures, the intrepid detective and his faithful companion Dr Watson examine and solve twelve cases that puzzle clients, baffle the police and provide readers with the thrill of the chase. 
 
These mysteries - involving an illustrious client and a Sussex vampire; the problems of Thor Bridge and of the Lions Mane; a creeping man and the three-gabled house - all test the bravery of Dr Watson and the brilliant mind of Mr Sherlock Homes, the greatest detective we have ever known.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

J. D. Salinger

In May of 1942, Buddy Glass, second son of the eccentric Glass family, comes home on leave from military service. He is back in New York City to attend the wedding of his eldest brother, Seymour. But the celebration is overcast by a sense of suspended weight, a strange and muted dread. Perhaps everyone is aware, on some level, of what is to come. And in the years after the tragedy, Buddy is haunted by memories of Seymour, turning over in his mind everything that came to pass with his unhappy older brother. 
 
In two communicating stories from his acclaimed Glass series, J. D. Salinger unfolds a subtle and poignant story of family tragedy.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters; Seymour - an Introduction

It's Christmas and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school. Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters - shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. 
 
The city is beautiful and terrible in all its lonesome neon glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning. 
 
The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic coming-of-age story: an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

The Catcher in the Rye

Nancy Mitford

The formidable fox-hunting obsessed Lady Bobbin has put together a Christmas house party at Compton Bobbin, including her rebellious daughter Philadelphia, the girl's pompous suitor, a couple of children obsessed with newspaper death notices, and an aspiring writer whose deadly (in more ways than one) serious first novel has been acclaimed as the funniest book of the year, to his utter dismay. And then there is beautiful ex courtesan Amabelle Fortescue and her group of guests staying in a nearby cottage ... As the house parties starts to unravel, so the jokes increase: this is Nancy Mitford's second novel and one of her earliest forays into the world of the Bright Young Things.

Christmas Pudding

John Banville

'What was freedom, she thought, other than the right to exercise one's choices?' 
 
Isabel Osmond, a spirited, intelligent young heiress, flees to London after being betrayed by her husband, to be with her beloved cousin Ralph on his deathbed. After a sombre, silent existence at her husband's Roman palazzo, Isabel's daring escape to London reawakens her youthful quest for freedom and independence, as old suitors resurface and loyal friends remind her of happier times. 
 
But soon Isabel must decide whether to return to Rome to face up to the web of deceit in which she has become entangled, or to strike out on her own once more.

Mrs Osmond

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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