Anita Desai

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Margaret Kennedy

‘She is not only a romantic but an anarchist, and she knows the ways of men and women very well indeed’ Anita Brookner 
 
 
Hugo Potts is a successful London playwright enjoying his moment of notoriety. Adored by critics and pursued by women, he’s the darling of the literary scene. But his public personae is exactly that – a personae – and he works exhaustedly day and night to portray the person the public expect him to be. One weekend he attends a party at a country house alongside the most important publishers and writers of the time. It’s an opportunity, of course, to meet interesting women. But over the course of the weekend he finds himself scorned by one, and unexpectedly profoundly understood by another, and his values and everything he’s held to be important abruptly come into question.

Return I Dare Not

Pierre Boulle

The Bridge on the River Kwai tells the story of three POWs who endure the hell of the Japanese camps on the Burma-Siam railway - Colonel Nicholson, a man prepared to sacrifice his life but not his dignity; Major Warden, a modest hero, saboteur and deadly killer; Commander Shears, who escaped from hell but was sent back. 
 
Ordered by the Japanese to build a bridge, the Colonel refuses, as it is against regulations for officers to work with other ranks. The Japanese give way but, to prove a point of British superiority, construction of the bridge goes ahead - at great cost to the men under Nicholson's command.

The Bridge On The River Kwai

R K Narayan

Assuming the character of a wise village storyteller, R K Narayan sits in the cool of an imaginary evening to recount the tales of the centuries.Taken from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and other Indian epics, the gods and demons, saints and sinners assume their symbolic and philosophical roles without ever losing their human characteristics. It is a measure of the author's achievement that he so subtly imbues them with his own distinctive wit and vision.This book is illustrated throughout by Narayan's brother R K Laxman, with woodcuts based on temple carvings.

Gods Demons And Others

W. Somerset Maugham

Bertha Ley comes of age, inherits her father's money and promptly marries a handsome, calm and unimaginative man. Bertha is wildly in love with Edward and believes she can be happy playing the role of a dutiful wife in their country home. But, intelligent and sensual, she quickly becomes bored by her oppressively conventional life, and finds her love for her husband slipping away. 
 
Originally rejected by publishers, Mrs Craddock was first published only on condition that certain 'shocking' passages were removed. It was thirty years before the full text could be published.

Mrs Craddock

Ford Madox Ford

A brilliant and heart-rending evocation of destructive passion. 
 
When John Dowell and his wife befriend Edward and Leonora Ashburnham they appear to be the perfect couple. He is a distinguished soldier and she is beautiful and intelligent. However, what lies beneath the surface of their marriage is far more sinister and their influence leads John into a tragic drama that threatens to destroy everything he cares about. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZOE HELLER

The Good Soldier

Looking out upon the backstreets, the suburbs and the high society haunts of Edwardian London, the delightfully witty and independent spinster Miss Ley surveys a tangled web of lives; she sympathetically observes the struggle under the pressures of convention, and the complex interplay between love and reason. Through Miss Ley's eyes we witness the brief but happy marriage of a dying poet; a woman's adulterous passion for a young rascal, and finally, an honourable man's decision to take virtue to extremes.

Merry Go Round

Nevil Shute

Young pilot Donald Ross has little in common with the Oxford don who has employed him on an expedition to the Arctic - and still less with his beautiful but stubborn daughter, Alix.But once the three of them reach the treacherous shores of Greenland their destinies are inextricably bound by the events that unfold there.

An Old Captivity

Ten-year-old Swaminathan is living in exciting times. The sleeping giant of India is beginning to stir to the dwelling reverberations which herald the great struggle for independence. But it's all rather confusing for the boy. For like his family and friends, Swami has been immutably moulded by his British rulers - and though he might happily demonstrate against them, he wouldn't dream of missing cricket practice.

Swami And Friends

Saadat Hasan Manto

A rebellious yet human portrait of India's bustling Bombay, as told by one of the greatest Urdu writers of the last century: Saadat Hasan Manto. 
 
'The undisputed master of the modern Indian short story' Salman Rushdie, Observer 
 
In the 1930s and 40s, Bombay was the cosmopolitan capital of the subcontinent - an exhilarating hub of license and liberty, bursting with both creative energy and helpless degradation. It was also muse to the celebrated short story writer of India and Pakistan, Saadat Hasan Manto. 
 
Manto's hard-edged, moving stories remain, a hundred years after his birth, startling and provocative. In searching out those forgotten by humanity - prostitutes, conmen and crooks - Manto wrote about what it means to be human.

Bombay Stories

Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker, abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live his life as a painter. Whilst his betrayal of family, duty and honour gives him the freedom to achieve greatness, his decision leads to an obsession which carries severe implications. Inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is at once a satiric caricature of Edwardian conventions and a vivid portrayal of the mentality of a genius.

The Moon And Sixpence

Graham Greene

A celebrated collection of stories from one of the most important British writers of the twentieth century. Features Greene's most famous short story, 'The Destructors'. 
 
Written between 1929 and 1954, each of these stories bears the hallmark themes that characterise Greene's great novels: betrayal and vengeance, love and hate, pity and violence. 
 
Opening with the iconic story 'The Destructors', in which a gang of schoolboys destroys a house that has survived the Blitz, Greene offers us deliciously satisfying glimpses into twenty-one worlds, with each piece written as masterfully as his novels. From the chilling climax of a children's birthday party, to a man whose youthful indiscretions come back to haunt him, these are the unmistakable work of one of the twentieth century's greatest and most adored storytellers.

Twenty-One Stories

Arnold Bennett

‘There are few more moving accounts of the effects of time, the passage of history and the slow encroachment of age than this remarkable, epic novel’ Guardian 
 
 Discover this powerful novel about the ordinary lives of the Baines sisters. The perfect next step for fans of Little Women. 
 
 In The Old Wives' Tale, Arnold Bennett tells the story of two such old wives, sisters Constance and Sophia, from youth, through marriage, heartbreak, triumphs and disasters, to old age. In doing so, he reveals with careful compassion the intense inner lives that throb beneath every seemingly insignificant exterior. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SATHNAM SANGHERA

The Old Wives' Tale

Elizabeth Von Arnim

Lucy Entwhistle and Everard Wemyss are both reeling from recent unhappiness when they meet and swiftly fall in love. Lucy is Wemyss’s ‘sweet girl’, and to Lucy, Everard is the whole world. The only blot on Lucy’s happiness is the shadowy figure of Wemyss’s first wife, Vera, who died in mysterious circumstances. But it is not until the happy couple return home and begin their life of wedded bliss that Lucy really begins to wonder: what did happen to Vera?

Vera

Alfred Assollant

Introducing the Marvellous Captain Corcoran – he is charming to ladies, courteous to true gentlemen, death to pirates and merciless to the English. He speaks several languages, can bend an iron bar with his bare hands, and has adventured his way across the seven seas with his faithful friend Louison by his side. Loyal only to her master, Louison can be a little boisterous, and there’s devil to pay when she misses a meal (she is a tiger, after all). 
 
Corcoran is on the hunt for a lost sacred Hindu text. Once in India, he is soon distracted from his quest by the claims of Prince Holkar, his lotus-eyed daughter, and their daring stand against the English occupying forces. 
 
Beloved by many French schoolchildren (including the young Jean-Paul Sartre) at the turn of the century, the marvellous Corcoran has been too long forgotten. Sam Miller (author of Strange Kind of Paradise: India through Foreign Eyes) has loving translated these wild, funny, unabashedly romantic adventures from the French for the first time so that the Captain and his charming Louison can be embraced by a new generation of readers, young and old.

The Marvellous (But Authentic) Adventures of Captain Corcoran

Yukio Mishima

Mishima&rsquo;s literary powers are on full display in his penultimate novel, a meditation on reincarnation and Buddhist philosophy. 
 
Honda, a brilliant lawyer and man of reason, is called to Bangkok on legal business. He is granted an audience with a young Thai princess known as 'Moonlight', an encounter that radically alters the course of his life. Convinced she is a reincarnated spirit, he undertakes a long, arduous pilgrimage to the holy places of India. There he encounters her again. But the princess has become one more embodiment of all that Honda cannot possess. 
 
'An elegy to the loss of pureness in the Japanese national spirit' Japan Times

The Temple of Dawn

Betsy Canning is dissatisfied with life. She has always taken pains to be healthy, popular and well-treated, but despite her wealth, her comfortable homes and beautiful children, happiness eludes her. The problem must lie, she thinks, in her marriage to Alec, and a neat, civilised divorce seems the perfect solution. 
 
But talk of divorce sparks interference from family and friends, and soon public opinion tears into the fragile fabric of family life and private desire. Alec and Betsy's marriage will not be the only casualty, and in this newly complicated world, happiness is more elusive than ever.

Together and Apart

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE 
 
Cakes and Ale is both a wickedly satirical novel about contemporary literary poseurs and a skilfully crafted study of freedom. As he traces the fortunes of Edward Driffield and his extraordinary wife Rosie, one of the most delightful heroines of twentieth-century literature, Maugham's sardonic wit and lyrical warmth expertly combine in this accomplished and unforgettable novel.

Cakes And Ale

Iris Murdoch

After his wife's death, Hugh contemplates returning to his former mistress. His son, Randall, longs to abandon his shapeless marriage for a perfect partner. Randall's young daughter, Miranda, is adored by her Australian cousin Penn, but has attachments elsewhere. Her mother Ann has her own private dream, while taking upon herself the strains and pains of all the others. Impelled by affection, lust and illusion, these characters search for love within a tightly woven web.

An Unofficial Rose

Compton Mackenzie

Chester Royde, an American millionaire, travels to Scotland with his new bride Carrie and sister Myrtle, to find out more about Carrie's Scottish ancestry. Their new 'relatives' turn out to be a little more authentically Scottish than they bargained for. Ben Nevis, Laird of Glenbogle Castle, is fiercely protective of his lands and the Macdonald clan spirit, but being cash-strapped he's not above attempts to marry heiress Myrtle to one of his many brawny sons. But then a group of hikers stumble onto his moor and spoil a day's hunting, sparking all-out war between gentry and commoners.

The Monarch of the Glen

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Anthony Patch and Gloria Gibson are the golden children of the Jazz Age. They marry and embark on a life of glittering parties, lavish expenditure and scandalous revelry. When the money dries up their marriage founders. In this wistful novel Fitzgerald portrays the decline of youthful promise with devastating clarity.

The Beautiful and Damned

A young English woman leaves her ageing parents to visit friends living in the Australian outback. She falls in love, both with the country and with Carl, a doctor and Czech refugee. Brought together through dramatic encounters and strange twists of fate, their relationship hangs in the balance when Jennifer is called back to England.

The Far Country

Everyone is thinking about Julius King. 
 
For comfortable, long-married Hilda and Rupert, he is a mystery. For Morgan, Hilda's tormented sister, he is an obsession. For Morgan's abandoned husband, Tallis, he is the source of ruin. For Simon and Axel, deeply in love, he stirs up jealousy and unease. What is Julius thinking about? He's thinking about Hilda, Rupert, Morgan, Tallis, Simon and Axel, and they will not all survive his malevolent attention. 
 
'The most important novelist writing in my time' A. S. Byatt 
 
‘Murdoch’s art was expansive, non-autobiographical and insistently inventive’ 
Daily Telegraph 
 
‘Above all, she was a consummate story-teller, prodigiously inventive and generous’ 
Independent 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GARTH GREENWELL

A Fairly Honourable Defeat

Carel is widowed rector presiding over a London church destroyed during the war. The rectory is home to an array of residents: his daughter, Muriel; his beautiful invalid ward, Elizabeth; their West Indian servant, Pattie; Eugene, a Russian emigre, and his delinquent son, Leo. Carel's brother, Marcus, is co-guardian of Elizabeth, but his attempts to get closer to the rector are constantly rebuffed. 
 
These seven characters maintain a constant dance of attraction and repulsion, misunderstanding and revelation, the centre of which is the enigmatic Carel himself - a priest who believes that, God being dead, His angels have been released.

The Time Of The Angels

Agatha is aware of an intensity, a powerful storm of emotion briefly awakened by a shortlived love affair with her cousin Gerald, that is entirely lacking from the successful marriage on which she is about to embark. Beautiful, young and carefully brought up, Agatha knows she is securing a perfect and luxurious future in marrying handsome John Clewer and becoming Mistress of Lyndon, and she soon becomes the perfect country house hostess. But when Gerald reappears and war in Europe disturbs the sheltered comfort of Lyndon forever, Agatha is once again haunted by the idea of a different life.

Ladies of Lyndon

Bernard Malamud

William Dublin is middle-aged, a distinguished biographer seeking increased accomplishment and the key to his inner feelings. His marriage is stable if unexciting, and he lives comfortably with his wife in Vermont. Then his imagination is caught by Fanny, a young girl of twenty-three, and he is thrown into an intense, erotic love affair that threatens to destroy his measured, disciplined world and the lives of those around him.

Dubin's Lives

Kingsley Amis

Malcolm, Peter and Charlie and their Soave-sodden wives have one main ambition left in life: to drink Wales dry. But their routine is both shaken and stirred when they are joined by professional Welshman Alun Weaver (CBE) and his wife, Rhiannon.

The Old Devils

William Maxwell

It is 1948 and a young American couple arrive in France for a holiday, full of anticipation and enthusiasm. But the countryside and people are war-battered, and their reception at the Chateau Beaumesnil is not all the open-hearted Americans could wish for.

The Chateau

The stories in this collection move from Malaya to America and England, and include some of Maugham's most famous tales; 'Flotsam and Jetsam', the story of an old woman trapped for years in a loveless marriage in the remote rubber plantations; 'The Man with the Scar', and notably the opening story 'The Vessel of Wrath', a tale of the unexpected love that grows between a devout missionary nurse and a drunken reprobate. In this second volume of his collected stories, Maugham illustrates his characteristic wry perception of human foibles and his genius for evoking compelling drama from an acute sense of time and place.

Collected Short Stories Volume 2

Julia Lambert is in her prime, the greatest actress in England. Off stage, however, she is bored with her handsome husband, coquettish and undisciplined. She is at first flattered and amused by the attentions of a shy and eager young fan, but before long Julia is amazed to find herself falling wildly, dangerously, in love.

Theatre

James Hilton

The gripping adventure that invented the mystery of Shangri-La. 
 
 Flying out of India, a light aircraft is hi-jacked and flown into the high Tibetan Himalayas. The few passengers on board anxiously await their fate, among them Conway, a talented British consul. But on landing they are unexpectedly conducted to a remote valley, a legendary paradise of peace and beauty, known as Shangri-La. Have they been kidnapped? Can they escape? And do they even want to? 
 
From the author of Goodbye Mr Chips, this is the epic adventure story of literature's most entrancing utopia and one of our most enduring literary mysteries.

Lost Horizon

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Here, from Anita Desai to Salman Rushdie, are five books about families, India, marriage and the rest, to keep you going as the series moves on.

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