Len Deighton was born in 1929 in London. He did his national service in the RAF, went to the Royal College of Art and designed many book jackets, including the original UK edition of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The enormous success of his first spy novel, The IPCRESS File (1962), was repeated in a remarkable sequence of books over the following decades. These varied from historical fiction (Bomber, perhaps his greatest novel) to dystopian alternative fiction (SS-GB) and a number of brilliant non-fiction books on the Second World War (Fighter, Blitzkrieg and Blood, Tears and Folly). 
 
His spy novels chart the twists and turns of Britain and the Cold War in ways which now give them a unique flavour. They preserve a world in which Europe contains many dictatorships, in which the personal can be ruined by the ideological and where the horrors of the Second World War are buried under only a very thin layer of soil. Deighton's fascination with technology, his sense of humour and his brilliant evocation of time and place make him one of the key British espionage writers, alongside John Buchan, Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming and John Le Carré.

Len Deighton

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Penelope Lively

'Anyone artistic needed Abroad in the 1950s.' 
 
Paul and his girlfriend are artists in need of subject matter. Arresting, evocative subject matter. So they decide to go Abroad, as much as possible, for as long as possible. Because Abroad is full of well furnished scenery. Particularly peasants. Real, earthy, traditional peasants. Except you shouldn't really call them peasants should you? 'Country people'. Abroad is full of country people. 
 
In this funny, deftly written short story, Penelope Lively satirises an arty student of the 50s, a precursor of the gap year traveller, who hasn't learnt as much from her time Abroad as she likes to think . . .

Abroad

Helen Dunmore

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is a chilling tale by Helen Dunmore. 
 
'It was nothing, she tells herself, but her body knows better.' 
 
Florence lives in the country, lapped by miles and miles of darkness. She feels safe there - until a noise wakes her in the middle of the night. 
 
Protection is a short story by bestselling author Helen Dunmore that will cause your skin to prickle and make you ask yourself how far you would go to protect your family.

Protection

Anita Brookner

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is a poignant novella from Anita Brookner. 
 
'I rather hope I shall die at the hairdresser's, for they are bound to know what to do. At least that is what I tell myself.' 
 
Solitude is a familiar burden for Elizabeth Warner. She lives in a basement flat near Victoria and leaves the house only to go shopping and to have her hair done - until a chance encounter at the hairdresser's brings unexpected change. At the Hairdresser's is a deeply moving, unflinchingly observed story about trust and betrayal by one of the greatest writers of contemporary fiction.

At the Hairdresser's

Jonathan Coe

When a family celebrates the prize-giving day at their daughter's secondary school, thoughts turn to their own childhoods. The father remembers his living room piano recital, recorded on a well-worn cassette tape. The mother remembers her own father's war tragedy. As the father searches for the physical reminder of his past and the mother longs to forget her own, they confront the breakdown of their marriage in the present. 
 
In Pentatonic, Jonathan Coe movingly explores the memories that unite us and the experiences that drive us apart. The story is simultaneously available as a digital download with the piece of music which originally inspired the story.

Pentatonic

A Story of Music

'Tonight it is the concert. Two Prodigies of Nature are coming to play in my lady's ball-room. As soon as the concert begins I understand why the whole world comes to stare and listen.' 
 
Scipio is eleven years old and a lady's page. He plays the harpsichord, speaks French and German, and sings in Italian. But what was appealing and remarkable in a small child is no longer so in a 'hobbledehoy'. And after he meets the two child prodigies, Wolfi and Nannerl, at a concert, Scipio's fate will change forever.

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