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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Lisa Jewell

Meet the Londons, a family in need of a friend ... 
 
Gerry and Bernie London are proud parents of Tony, Sean and Ned, three wayward lads whose lives have suddenly reached crisis points: 
 
Newly divorced Tony is fantasizing about someone he really shouldn't; prize-winning novelist Sean's got a hot new girlfriend and a dose of writer's block; and Ned's just back from Australia, without the girl he took with him - or a clue what he's going to do with his life. 
 
If that wasn't enough for one household, the Londons also have a new lodger - a mysterious rockabilly called Gervase. Will he turn out to be a friend - or foe - to the family?

A Friend of the Family

The addictive and emotionally satisfying page-turner that will have you hooked

Gerald Durrell

Escaping the ills of the British climate, the Durrell family - acne-ridden Margo, gun-toting Leslie, bookworm Lawrence and budding naturalist Gerry, along with their long-suffering mother and Roger the dog - take off for the island of Corfu. 
 
But the Durrells find that, reluctantly, they must share their various villas with a menagerie of local fauna - among them scorpions, geckos, toads, bats and butterflies. 
 
Recounted with immense humour and charm My Family and Other Animals is a wonderful account of a rare, magical childhood.

My Family and Other Animals

Marian Keyes

MEET JESSIE, CARA AND NELL. 
 
Married to brothers Johnny, Ed and Liam Casey. 
Three very different women tied to three very different men. 
Every family occasion is a party - until the day the secrets spill out. 
 
PLAYTIME IS OVER. 
BUT WHERE ARE THE GROWN-UPS?

Grown Ups

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly is broke and out of love. His wife has gone to America, taking his daughter with him; his mother has become a celebrity chef on daytime television, with a particular skill for handling phallic ingredients; and his father continues to languish in Mountjoy Jail. 
 
To cap it all, Immaculata, a Nigerian girl whom Sorcha has been sponsoring by direct debit for fifteen years, has turned up on his doorstep. Things couldn't get worse. 
 
But the long road back begins high in the Pyrenees, in the tax haven of Andorra, where Ross must spread the Gospel of rugby to the strange, primitive natives who have only ever heard of soccer, skiing and duty free shopping. There, he meets Conchita, a beautiful, sultry psychoanalyst, who persuades him to look inwards and find out what it is that makes him tick. Sorry, thick.

Mr S and the Secrets of Andorra's Box

Graeme Simsion

'The phone call signalling an escalation in the Hudson Adjustment Problem came at 10:18 a.m. on a Friday . . .' 
 
Meet Don Tillman, the genetics professor with a scientific approach to everything. But he's facing a set of human dilemmas tougher than the trickiest of equations. 
 
Right now he's in professional hot water after a lecture goes viral; his wife of 4,380 days, Rosie, is about to lose the research job she loves; and - the most serious problem of all - their eleven-year-old son, Hudson, is struggling at school. He's a smart kid, but socially awkward-not fitting in. 
 
Fortunately, Don's had a lifetime's experience of not fitting in. And he's going to share his solutions with Hudson. He'll call on help from friends old and new, lock horns with the education system, and face some big questions about himself. As well as open the world's best cocktail bar. 
 
Big-hearted, hilarious and exuberantly life-affirming, The Rosie Result is a story of overcoming life's obstacles with a little love and a lot of overthinking.

The Rosie Result

The life-affirming romantic comedy from the million-copy bestselling series

Gervase Phinn

What's your name? I asked the child. 
'Tequila,' she replied. I'm named after a drink.' 
'Tequila Sunrise,' I murmured. 
'No,' pouted the child. 'Tequila Braithwaite.' 
 
Now in his fourth year as an Inspector for English in the Yorkshire Dales, Gervase Phinn still relishes visiting the schools - whether an inner-city comprehensive fraught with difficulties or a small Dales Primary school where the main danger is one of closure. With endless good humour, he copes with the little surprises that occur round every corner. 
 
Some things never change: Mrs Savage roars, Connie rants, and Gervase's colleague in the office play verbal ping-pong. But all this can be put behind him each day when he returns home to his lovely wife, Christine, who is expecting their first baby. 
 
This charming montage of experiences will keep you amused and will win a place in your heart.

Up and Down in the Dales

Jesse Armstrong

Sam Bain

What's the secret to JP's sexual prowess? How does Howard beat the buffet every time? What does Vod really think about drink, drugs and Salman Rushdie? And will Kingsley's diary spill his true feelings for Josie? (hopefully not as stomach-churning as Oregon's sext messages with Professor Shales ... ) 
 
This is a real guide to the first year of student life - the one the preachy official brochures and prospectuses don't tell you about. From UCAS applications to moving into a student house, from freshers' week to choosing courses and, more importantly, friends, the book records every detail - disgusting, exciting, tragic and triumphant - as the young ones stumble through university life. A scrap book of diary entries, emails, manifestos (including Howard's Rules for Everything) and guidelines it is crammed with saucy text messages, music playlists, facebook profiles, essays, poems, photos, drawings and paintings, as well as the housemates' musings on life, uni and everything. 
 
From Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, the acclaimed writers of Peep Show, this is the ultimate companion to Fresh Meat, the Best New British Comedy of 2011, starring Jack Whitehall, Robert Webb and Joe Thomas.

Fresh Meat

The Essential Guide for New Undergraduates/the Future Unemployed

H. E. Bates

'I should like to go to France,' said Ma. 
 
'God Almighty,' Pop said. 'What for?' 
 
'For a holiday of course,' Ma said. 'I think it would do us all good to get some sun.' 
 
And so at the end of a rainy English August the Larkins - all ten of them, including little Oscar, the family's new addition - bundle into the old Rolls and cross the Channel to escape the hostile elements. 
 
But far from being the balmy, sunny and perfick spot Ma Larkin hoped for, France proves less than welcoming to an eccentric English family. The tea's weak, the furniture breakable and the hotel manager is almost as hostile as the wind and the rain they've brought with them! And when the manager learns that Ma and Pop are unmarried yet sharing a room under his roof, the trouble really begins . . .

A Breath of French Air

Inspiration for the ITV drama The Larkins starring Bradley Walsh

Sorcha had thrown me out of the family home - this time apparently for good. And yet that was the least of my worries ... 
 
My old dear was in prison, accused of murdering her second husband. My sons were showing an unhealthy interest in - someone call social services - soccer! And my daughter wanted everyone to call her Eddie. But don't even go there! 
 
On top of all that, a blond wig discovered in a dusty attic, had given my old man delusions of power. Suddenly, he was running for election, promising to tear up the bailout deal and take Ireland out of Europe. And that's to say nothing of his secret plan for Ireland's second city ... 
 
But shush! Don't mention the wall!

Operation Trumpsformation

Spike Milligan

'My namer is Maria Antonoinetta Fontana, but everyone call me Toni.''I'm Spike,' sometimes known as stop thief or hey you.'Yeser, I know.' 
 
The sixth volume of Spike Milligan's off-the-wall account of his part in World War Two sees our hero doing very little soldiering. Because it's 1946. Rather, he is now part of the Bill Hall Trio - a 'Combined Services Entertainment' inflicted on unsuspecting soldiers across Italy and Austria - and is largely preoccupied with the unbearably beautiful ballerina, Ms Toni Fontana ('Arghhhhhhhhh!). But he must enjoy it while he can before he is demobbed and sent home to Catford - so he does ...

Goodbye Soldier

Forty-one-year-old geneticist Don Tillman had never had a second date before he met Rosie. 
 
Now, living in New York City, they have survived ten months and ten days of marriage, even if Don has had to sacrifice standardized meals and embrace unscheduled sex. 
 
But then Rosie drops the mother of all bombshells. And Don must prepare for the biggest challenge of his previously ordered life - while dodging deportation, prosecution and professional disgrace. 
 
Is Don Tillman ready to become the man he always dreamed of being? Or will he revert to his old ways and risk losing Rosie for ever?

The Rosie Effect

The hilarious and uplifting romantic comedy from the million-copy bestselling series

Doug Naylor

Lister gazed out of the porthole and catalogue the series of disasters that had led him to this point in space and time: the bad decisions, the poor career choices, the unreliable friendships that had led him here - on a prison ship bound for the most inhospitable penal colony in the outer cosmos... and all he'd ever wanted was to be a soft metal guitar icon. This is the beginning of the third and eagerly awaited red dwarf novel where Lister starts out by searching for his Doppelganger and ends up having the future of the human race on his shoulders.

Last Human

A Red Dwarf Novel

A love affair born in rural Ireland! Two mismatched lovers, locked in a relationship that will change both of them . . . forever! 
 
 Ross O'Carroll-Kelly was brought up to believe that Gaelic games were invented for people too stupid to understand the laws of rugby. Little did he know that one day he would become a legend of Kerry football. 
 
 But then, his life has taken a lot of unexpected twists and turns. 
 
 His father is the Taoiseach of the country. His wife is an actual Government Minister. And his suddenly teenage daughter is heading for the Gaeltacht - and her very first rugby boyfriend. 
 And then there's Marianne . . . 
 
 Of course, Ross was too busy becoming a Gaelic football star to realise that his family - like the entire country - was being pushed towards a cliff edge. And he was the only man capable of saving Ireland's democracy. 
 
 Which is just like, 'Fooooooock!'

Normal Sheeple

'Miss, who's that funny man at the back of the classroom? 
 
So begins school-inspector Gervase Phinn's second year among the frankly spoken pupils and teachers of North Yorkshire - the sight of Gervase with his notebook and pen provokes unexpected reactions from the children and adults alike. 
 
But Gervase if far from daunted - he is ready to brave the steely glare of the officious Mrs Savage, and even feels up to helping Dr Gore organize a gathering of the Feofees - just as soon as someone tells him what they are! He is still in pursuit of the lovely headteacher Christine Bentley, but will she feel the same? 
 
This is a delectable second helping of hilarious tales from the man who has been dubbed 'the James Herriot of schools'. It will have you laughing out loud.

Over Hill and Dale

Joe Dunthorne

Meet Oliver Tate, 15. Convinced that his father is depressed ("Depression comes in bouts. Like boxing. Dad is in the blue corner") and his mother is having an affair with her capoeira teacher, "a hippy-looking twonk", he embarks on a hilariously misguided campaign to bring the family back together. Meanwhile, he is also trying to lose his virginity - before he turns sixteeen - to his pyromaniac girlfriend Jordana. Will Oliver succeed in either aim? Submerge yourself in Submarine and find out . . .

Submarine

Geraldine Quigley

School is almost over - and for Paddy, Liz, Christy and Kevin it's time to figure out what's next. But before they start the rest of their lives, these teenagers have the 'Cave' - a place to drink, smoke, flirt and listen to punk music. Somewhere to fend off the spectre of the future. 
 
Because this is Derry in 1981, and the streets outside are a war zone. So when a friend is killed, suddenly the choices of who to be and what side to be on are laid starkly before them. New loves and old loyalties are imperiled even as whole lives hinge on a single decision . . .

Music Love Drugs War

India Holton

Magical-antique experts Amelia Tarrant and Caleb Sterling have been best friends forever, although lately each has begun secretly wishing for more than friendship. But when rumors about their relationship spread, they're forced to fake being enemies to protect their reputations and keep their jobs. 
 
The resulting arguments spark havoc across Oxford University, and when they cause an explosion while fighting over a magical antique, it’s the final straw for their exasperated faculty head. He dispatches them to a job in Cumbria where even they can’t get into trouble.… 
 
Which proves just how wrong one man can be. In a stormbound old manor house, Amelia and Caleb face magical mayhem and rampaging ghosts that make the previous havoc look mild in comparison. Most troublesome of all, though, is the secret of how they feel about each other. When it comes to tackling deadly antiques, hiding the truth in their hearts could destroy them for real.

The Antiquarian’s Object of Desire

'There!' Pop said. 'There's the house. There's Gore Court for you. What about that, eh? How's that strike you? Better than St Paul's, ain't it, better than St Paul's?' 
 
And so Pop Larkin - junk-dealer, family man and Dragon's Blood connoisseur - manages to sell the nearby crumbling, tumbling country home to city dwellers Mr and Mrs Jerebohm for a pretty bundle of notes. Now he can build his daughter Mariette the pool she's long been nagging him for. 
 
But the Larkin's new neighbours aren't quite so accepting of country ways - especially Pop's little eccentricities. In fact, it's not long before a wobbly boat, a misplaced pair of hands and Mrs Jerebohm's behind have Pop up before a magistrate . . .

When the Green Woods Laugh

Fame. Fortune. Screaming girls. The adoration of strangers. I've had it all before, yet nothing could have prepared this Horny Little Devil for his new life in the City of Angels. Sacked as the coach of the Andorra rugby team and on the run from the sister I never knew I had, I decided to head west, vowing to win back my wife and daughter from a risk assessor predicting economic doom for the world. Imagine my shock when I discovered that my old dear, on a nationwide book tour, was already busy charming America out of its collective elasticated pants. 
 
With Trevion, a 1991 Gulf War-veteran-turned-celebrity-Svengali, on my side, not to mention my brand new bromance with a gym instructor called Harvey, I was determined to become more famous than even her. But one nose job and one abdominal resculpt later, I no longer knew where reality ended and reality TV began ...

Rhino What You Did Last Summer

So there I was roysh, life focked, reputation focked, finances focked - 
everything completely focked, roysh, and we're talking big time. 
And it's all Fionn's fault, basically. He's the four-eyed focker who told me that, like, the first time you do it, roysh, you're firing blanks. Like an unloaded Uzi - 
seriously impressive, hard as fock and totally ready for action, but the safety's, like, on, you know. Well that was a pile of stinking turds for storters. And of course it's muggins here who ends up with the kid - life is SO focking unfair. On top of all that, roysh, the goys stort to, like, totally lose it - JP has gone all Jesus on my orse, Oisinn is basically trying to fock over Interpol and Christian is talking about weddings and, I don't know, love and stuff. I mean, I am seriously beginning to feel like I am the only good-looking, loaded, sane goy in the whole of, like, Dublin.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress

Alan Davies

When Alan Davies was growing up he seemed to drive his family mad. 'What are we going to do with you?' they would ask - as if he might know the answer. 
 
Perhaps it was because he came of age in the 1980s. That decade of big hair, greed, camp music, mass unemployment, social unrest and truly shameful trousers was confusing for teenagers. There was a lot to believe in - so much to stand for, or stand against - and Alan decided to join anything with the word 'anti' in it. He was looking for heroes to guide him (relatively) unscathed into adulthood. 
 
From his chronic kleptomania to the moving search for his mother's grave years after she died; from his obsession with joining (going so far as to become a member of Chickens Lib) to his first forays into making people laugh (not always intentionally); Teenage Revolution is a touching and funny return to the formative years that make us all.

Teenage Revolution

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly thought he had it all: 
 
Nice gaff, cool cor, plenty of dosh, a stake in Dublin's trendiest nightclub and a face that made boyfriends jealous. To say nothing of a beautiful wife and kids ... 
 
All that remained was for him to totally fock it up: 
 
And I mean, totally ... 
 
But did he see it coming? Of course not - too busy using his killer lines on the Seoige sisters: 
 
And then it hit me, all at once, on a lonely night in the Ice Bar ...

This Champagne Mojito is the Last Thing I Own

'I had not informed my parents of my return, I wanted it to be a lovely surprise; it was, for me, they were away ...' 
 
The seventh and last volume of Spike Milligan's memoirs sees our hero returning from war and Italy ... but to what? Aside from shooting large, inaccurate guns at Germans, all he has done for five long years is blow a trumpet, tell rude jokes and write and perform sketches for the entertainment of bored and murderous soldiers - who on earth is going to pay a civilian to do more of that? From the giddy heights of Hackney Empire to a Zurich Freak Show and beyond, Spike makes his way through the backwaters of showbiz, first as band musician then as one-man wild-act and eventually in the company of a group of like-minded comedians called Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine and Peter Sellers. They decide to call themselves The Goons...

Peace Work

Jeremy Paxman

Jeremy Paxman is to many the embodiment of Englishness yet even he is sometimes forced to ask: who or what exactly are the English? And in setting about addressing this most vexing of questions, Paxman discovers answers to a few others. Like: 
 
 &bull; Why do the English actually enjoy feeling persecuted? 
 
&bull; What is behind the English obsession with games? 
 
&bull; How did they acquire their odd attitudes to sex and to food? 
 
&bull; Where did they get their extraordinary capacity for hypocrisy? 
 
Covering history, attitudes to foreigners, sport, stereotypyes, language and much, much more, The English brims over with stories and anecdotes that provide a fascinating portrait of a nation and its people.

The English

Paul Theroux

Jerry Delfont is a travel writer with writer's block. When he receives a letter from an American philanthropist with news of a scandal involving an Indian friend of her son's, he is intrigued. Who is the dead boy found on the floor of a cheap hotel room? How did he die? And why? 
 
As Delfont becomes more and more drawn into these mysteries, he simultaneously becomes increasingly entangled with the seductive philanthropist and her tantric massages. But she is also hiding something and it becomes swiftly apparent that all is not what it seems . . .

A Dead Hand

A Crime in Calcutta

Patricia Lockwood

When the expense of a medical procedure forces the 30-year-old Patricia to move back in with her parents, husband in tow, she must learn to live again with her family's simmering madness, and to reckon with the dark side of a childhood spent in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Her father is a gun-toting, all-American, frequently semi-naked priest who underwent a religious conversion after watching The Exorcist 70 times on a Navy submarine; her mother, who emerges as the book's real heart, is a woman preternaturally concerned with the various disasters that could be about to befall her loved ones - and any nearby babies - at all times. Told with a keen comic sensibility that packs a laugh on almost every page, this is at the same time a lyrical and affecting true story of how, having ventured into the underworld, we can emerge with our levity and our sense of justice intact.

Priestdaddy

A Memoir

Jack Whitehall

Michael Whitehall

Jack and Michael open up the rich and plentiful family lore archives on topics such as Jack's nanny's enormous feet, Michael's lifetime touchline ban from Jack's prep-school and the Whitehall collection of downright weird and eccentric relatives. With family photographs and sketches by Jack himself, the result is a hugely entertaining, hilarious journey of self-discovery as a father and a son explore their relationship. 
 
Watch out, fans of Reeves &amp; Mortimer, Walliams &amp; Lucas, Morecambe &amp; Wise, there's a new comedy duo in town.

Him & Me

Known for his anecdotes about others, Gervase Phinn finally reveals his own story in this long-awaited autobiography. 
 
Gervase tells of a life full of happiness, conversation, music and books shared with his three siblings, mother and father. This book is a snapshot of growing up in Yorkshire in the 1950s - reminisce with Gervase, and share in his personal journey - of school days and holidays as well as his tentative steps into the adult world. 
 
Devour numerous uproarious stories including the incident involving a broken greenhouse, crashing his brother's newly restored bike as well as secrets about his first dates, adventures at summer camp, family trips to Blackpool and many other captivating tales. 
 
With a wicked ear for the comical, and a sharp eye for detail, this beautifully written book visits poignant moments, significant events and precious memories from a boy called Gervase.

Road to the Dales

The Story of a Yorkshire Lad

On the day she gives birth to her first child, Claire's husband James tells her he's been having an affair. 
 
Left with a beautiful baby and a broken heart, she decides to go back to basics . . . and runs home to Mum and Dad. 
 
But it's not the sanctuary she'd been hoping for. Juggling her family's drama and the demands of a baby, Claire desperately misses the way things were. So when James gets back in touch, eager to put things right, Claire faces a choice. 
 
Will she forgive and forget? Or can she find the courage to take a chance on herself, and start a life of her own?

Watermelon

Geoffrey Willans

Ronald Searle

All skools make some sort at teaching the pupils things and the headmaster pin up a huge timetable of lessons ect. which make the heart sink when you look at it. 
 
Nigel Molesworth is back, this time taking the tinies in hand and showing that they can survive the first term - as long as you avoid the prefects and show all due respect to Molesworth 1. Back to Skool might be particularly hard on Mater and Pater, but think of those poor new bugs, forced to be their best at Latin, English, foopball and French (Armand in his striped shirt and feeble questions). Just follow his timeless advice, however, and you too could be Topp.

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