Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

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Mikhail Bulgakov

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY TERRY GILLIAM 
 
When Maxudov's bid to take his own life fails, he dramatises the novel whose failure provoked the suicide attempt. To the resentment of literary Moscow, his play is accepted by the legendary Independent Theatre and Maxudov plunges into a vortex of inflated egos. With each rehearsal more sparks fly and the chances of the play being ready to perform recede. Black Snow is the ultimate back-stage novel and a brilliant satire by the author of The Master and Margarita on his ten-year love-hate relationship with Stanislavsky, Method-acting and the Moscow Arts Theatre.

Black Snow

Stella Gibbons

Robert Poste's child is back at Cold Comfort Farm. But all is not well. Flora finds the farm transformed into a twee haven filled with Toby jugs and peasant pottery, and rooms labelled 'Quiete Retreate' and 'Greate laundrie'. It is, Flora winces, 'exactly like being locked in the Victoria and Albert Museum after closing time'. 
 
Worse, the farm is hosting a conference of the pretentious International Thinkers Group - a group made up of the 'sadistic owl' Mr Peccavi, loathsome Mr Mybug and the overpowering Mrs Ernestine Thump. 
 
And worst of all, there are no Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. All the he-cousins have gone abroad to make their fortunes and the female cousins are having a pretty thin time of it. Once again the sensible Flora decides to take the situation in hand.

Conference at Cold Comfort Farm

W E Bowman

An outrageously funny spoof about the ascent of a 40,000-and-a-half-foot peak, discover this laugh-out-loud cult favourite. 
 
 Led by the reliably under-insightful Binder, a team of seven British men including Dr Prone (constantly ill); Jungle the route finder (constantly lost), Constant the diplomat (constantly arguing) and 3,000 Yogistani porters, set out to conquer the highest peak in the Himalayas. 
 
 
VINTAGE VOYAGES: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mind

The Ascent Of Rum Doodle

Vintage Voyages

Roberto Bolaño

War-games champion Udo Berger is finally on holiday. 
 
Travelling to the Costa Brava with his long-ignored girlfriend, Ingeborg, there they meet another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hanna, and a band of shady locals. They have fun, see the sights, relax. Then, late one night, Charly disappears without a trace. 
 
Desperate to solve the mystery, Udo refuses to leave, even after Ingeborg returns home. Increasingly frightened, the situation slips beyond his grasp and Udo suddenly realizes that the consequences of this &lsquo;game&rsquo; are much more serious than he ever imagined. 
 
TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMER 
 
&lsquo;Capering, weird, rascally and short... The Third Reich is giddily funny, but it is also prickly and bizarre enough to count among Bolaño&rsquo;s first-rate efforts&rsquo; The Economist 
 
&lsquo;A mesmerizing tale: sleek, linear, easily digested, beautifully translated&hellip; Classic Bolaño&rsquo; Washington Post

The Third Reich

Martin Amis

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION FROM ANDREW O'HAGAN 
 
John Self is a consumer extraordinaire. 
 
Rolling between London and New York he closes movie deals and spends feverishly, all the while grabbing everything he can to sate his massive appetites: alcohol, tobacco, pills, pornography and mountains of junk food. But John's excesses haven't gone un-noted. Menaced by a phone stalker, his high-wire, hoggish lifestyle is about to bring him face-to-face with the secret of his success. 
 
'Turbo-charged with savage humour from first to last page... A voice that mesmerised a generation' Guardian

Money

Bernard Malamud

Arthur Fidelman, Bronx-born and raised, is a self-confessed failure as a painter. When he goes to Italy to prepare a critical study of Giotto, a picaresque tale of comedy and adventure ensues. Pursued through the streets of Rome by the refugee Susskind, falling into the hands of art thieves, hand-carving wooden Madonnas, becoming a pimp, attempting to sculpt the perfect hole, Fidelman is a comic creation of genius.

Pictures Of Fidelman

Brother and sister, Constance and Kenneth Fielding live in calm respectability, just out of reach of London and the Blitz. But when a series of uninvited guests converge upon them – from a Balkan exile to Ken’s old flame and the siblings’ own raffish father – the household struggles to preserve its precious peace. In this full house, in a quiet corner of suburbia, no one expects to find romance.

The Bachelor

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

Franz Kafka

‘No other voice has borne truer witness to the dark of our times’ George Steiner 
 
After an embarrassing sexual misadventure with a servant girl, sixteen-year-old Karl Rossman is banished to America by his parents. Expected to redeem himself in the land of opportunity, Karl’s youthful breeziness propels him into a series of bizarre escapades which threaten to ensnare him permanently. Though dredged with humour and optimism, Kafka’s first novel bears his distinctive hallmarks, as young Karl becomes mired in an ever more unreal and oppressive system. 
 
THE CLASSIC TRANSLATION BY WILLA AND EDWIN MUIR

Amerika

Harold Sonny Ladoo

'A masterpiece of hurt' New York Times 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MONIQUE ROFFEY 
 
In the Caribbean, at the beginning of the last century, a poor rice-growing family struggle to exist. Four siblings pass their days in the ricefield, as does Ma. But Pa is an angry man ready to vent. It is the August rainy season and above their heads the black sky crackles with lightning. 
 
On the day that Pa nearly drowns Ma in a tub of washing water, the children and their mother escape into the cane fields to wait out Pa's rage. But eight-year-old Rama, catches a chill in the rain and falls ill. What follows is a tale of the inheritance of loss. It contains a heart-stopping intensity that places it as one of the greatest Caribbean novels ever written. 
 
'It is a novel unconcerned with anything but truth-telling' Dionne Brand 
 
'To anyone who knows Caribbean literature his novel is infamous, and Ladoo is seen as one of the region's great literary stars' Independent 
 
'Ladoo drags you through this terrific hurricane, and you can never forget it' Amanda Smyth, author of Fortune

No Pain Like This Body

The forgotten classic masterpiece of Trinidadian literature

Iris Murdoch

Bruno, dying, obsessed with spiders and preoccupied with death and reconciliation, lies at the center of an intricate spider's web of relationships and passions: Bruno's estranged and grieving son Miles; Danby, Bruno's widowed son-in-law, consoling himself with the Adelaide the maid, one of Murdoch's finest comic creations; creepy Nigel the nurse and his besotted twin Will, fighter of duels. The flooding Thames brings about the climax, and all are left changed by love and forgiveness before the old man's death.

Bruno's Dream

Alison Lurie

Brian and Erica Tate appear to have every advantage in life: academic careers, two children, nice friends and money. But when Brian begins an affair with one of his students the disintegration of their lives is swift and shocking. Things spiral when a protest against a sexist professor at the university ramps up and Brian, hopelessly compromised by split loyalties, gets caught up in the action. 
 
Can the Tates marriage survive? Lurie skewers both sides in this brilliant campus satire of 1960s feminism, parenthood, infidelity and academic pomposity. 
 
'Her humour is a delight and she writes with an almost unholy relish' Irish Times

The War Between the Tates

Rosemary Tonks

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY STEWART LEE 
 
'Should The Bloater be republished? Oh God, absolutely, it's fantastic' Stewart Lee 
 
Min works at the BBC as an audio engineer, where she is struggling to replicate the sound of a heartbeat. At home, other matters of the heart are making a mockery of life as Min knows it. 
 
Min has found herself the object of her lodger's affection. An internationally renowned opera singer she's nicknamed 'The Bloater', Min is disgusted and attracted to him in equal measure. But with a husband so invisible that she accidentally turns the lights off on him even when he's still in the room, Min can't quite bring herself to silence The Bloater's overtures. 
 
 Vain, materialistic, yet surprisingly tender, The Bloater is a sparklingly ironic comedy of manners for all flirtatious gossips who love to hate and hate to love. 
 
PRAISE FOR THE BLOATER 
 
'A wonderfully unromantic romantic comedy' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Uncommonly good' Guardian 
 
 'It is the perfect aperitif, makes you feel warm and careless and much, much happier' The Times

The Bloater

The brilliantly original rediscovered classic comedy of manners

Just when Stanley Duke thinks it safe to sink into middle age, his son goes insane.  As if that wasn't terrible enough, Stanley finds himself beset on all sides by women - neurotic, cantankerous, half-baked or just plain capricious.  As one by one they gnaw away at his composure, Stanley wonders whether insanity is not something with which all women are intimately acquainted.

Stanley And The Women

John Cheever

Eliot Nailles loves his wife and son to distraction; Paul Hammer is a bastard named after a common household tool. Neighbours in Bullet Park, the two become fatefully linked by the mysterious binding power of their names in Cheever's sharp and funny hymn to the dubious normality of the American suburbs.

Bullet Park

Hubert Anvil is a 10 year old boy blessed with the voice of an angel. The Church hierarchy decrees that Hubert should be turned into a castrato - an alteration that could bring Hubert fame and fortune, but would also cut him off from an adult world he is curious to discover. In a dystopian world where Martin Luther never reformed and where the Holy Office's power is absolute, where will Hubert turn if he decides to defy their wishes?

The Alteration

This is the story of the comic, relentless struggle for survival of Austin Gibson Grey, the accidental man. Austin is one of those people who thrives through the destruction of others. The others, in Austin's case, include his successful elder brother, Matthew, and the women who, one after the other, are convinced that they can 'save' him. In this role we meet Dorina, Austin's estranged wife, Mitzi, his alcoholic landlady, and a selection of other women who involve themselves in Austin's fate, with hilarious and appalling results.

An Accidental Man

An English comic novel about a World War II expedition to a Himalayan peak. 
 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BILL BRYSON 
 
An outrageously funny spoof about the ascent of a 40,000-and-a-half-foot peak, The Ascent of Rum Doodle has been a cult favourite since its publication in 1956. Led by the reliably under-insightful Binder, a team of seven British men -- including Dr Prone (constantly ill), Jungle the route finder (constantly lost), Constant the diplomat (constantly arguing) -- and 3,000 Yogistani porters sets out to conquer the highest peak in the Himalayas.

Nevil Shute

When Johnny Pascoe attempts to rescue a sick girl from the Tasmanian outback his plane crashes leaving him dangerously injured. Ronnie Clarke, who was trained by Pascoe, endeavours to fly a doctor in to help but this proves more difficult than he imagined. As he waits overnight at Pascoe's house in order to try again the next day Clarke revisits the past of this unusual man - and reveals the shocking and tragic secrets that have influenced his life.

The Rainbow and the Rose

Jerry Chambers, a fresh-faced young pilot, mistakenly sinks a British submarine. He is reprimanded and sent to a remote posting to test an experimental new bomb, a dangerous mission far away from the girl he loves. While Jerry risks his life, his sweetheart Mona sets about clearing her lover's name...but will she be too late?

Landfall

David Grossman

Momik, the only child of two survivors, is brought up in Israel by a family seeking to ignore the past. No-one will explain to him what life was like 'Over There' or what the 'Nazi Beast' is. His 9-year-old mind imagines a Nazi Beast hiding in the cellar, waiting to feed on Jews. Momik increasingly shields himself from all feeling and attachment. But through the stories his great-uncle tells him-the same stories he told the commandant of a Nazi concentration camp-Momik, too, becomes "infected with humanity." 
 
See Under: Love is a luminously imaginative and profoundly affecting work.

See Under Love

Mervyn Peake

Equipped with love, Mr Harold Pye lands on the island of Sark, his mission to convert the islanders into a crusading force for the undiluted goodness that he feels within. The extraordinary inhabitants of the island range from the formidable Miss George in her purple busby to the wanton, raven-haired Tintagieu, 'five foot three inches of sex'. Mr Pye, however, is prone to excess and in the increasingly personalised struggle between good and evil, excess is very nearly his downfall.

Mr Pye

'Marvellous entertainment' Sunday Times 
 
Just married and newly arrived in Los Angeles are Paul and Katherine Cattleman. Paul responds immediately to the sunny, sprawling cosmopolitan city but to Katherine the main impression is of dirt and smog. Paul explores his surroundings and discovers Ceci, a girl who could be the incarnation of the city's uninhibited ways, while Katherine meets Iz a psychiatrist who recognises her unhappiness and sets out to help her. Under the bright west coast sun, the city begins to affect the couple in separate, subtle but significant ways, shining new light on their marriage with moving, funny and unexpected consequences.

The Nowhere City

Shani Mootoo

EVERYONE THINKS MALA IS A MURDERER 
 
'A Caribbean classic' Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch 
 
------- 
 
Everyone in Paradise thinks Mala Ramchandin is a murderer. But with no body, no evidence and no witnesses, Mala is sent to an Alms House as a madwoman instead of prison. Here she meets Tyler, the only openly queer person on the island of Lantanacamara with whom she feels an affinity as an outsider. Despite Mala's muteness, she manages to communicate with Tyler about her missing sister, Asha. 
 
This is Mala's story, and an appeal to find Asha, told in Tyler's words. He dives deeply into Mala's family history, uncovering years of trauma passed down through generations and - staggeringly, beautifully - the love that has survived through it all. 
 
With an introduction by Ingrid Persaud. 
 
'Visceral, sensual and heartbreakingly tender' Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, author of When We Were Birds 
'A story of magical power' Alice Munro, author of Dear Life 
'Will remind many readers of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things' Kirkus 
'Clearly ahead of its time' Bookseller 
 
FINALIST FOR THE GILLER PRIZE 
FINALIST FOR THE ETHEL WILSON FICTION PRIZE 
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE

Cereus Blooms at Night

The Booker-Longlisted Queer Classic

John Fowles

Miles Green wakes up in a mysterious hospital with no idea of how he got there or who he is. He definitely doesn't remember his wife, or his children's names. An impossibly shapely specialist doctor tells him his memory nerve-centre is connected to sexual activity, and calls in the even shapelier Nurse Cory to assist with treatment... In the most unorthodox of hospital rooms we eavesdrop on the serious discourse, virulent abuse and hilarious mockery of the erotic guerilla war that is Mantissa.

Mantissa

Patrick White

Eddie Twyborn is bisexual and beautiful, the son of a Judge and a drunken mother. With his androgynous hero - Eudoxia/Eddie/Eadith Twyborn - and through his search for identity, for self-affirmation and love in its many forms, Patrick White takes us into the ambiguous landscapes, sexual, psychological and spiritual, of the human condition.

The Twyborn Affair

Richard Yates

Evan Shepard is a young man with a chequered past when he first meets the Drakes, after his car breaks down outside their house. Behind him, he has a troubled adolescence, a failed marriage and a little daughter, but his meeting with the quiet and beautiful Rachel heralds a new start. However, after their swift marriage, things don't work out quite as planned and the stresses of living with Rachel's family, in their shared house in Cold Spring Harbor, begin to take their toll on the new couple.

Cold Spring Harbor

Gladys and Annie Barnes are impoverished sisters who have seen better times. They live in a modest cottage in the backstreets of Highate with Mr Fisher, a mild but eccentric old man living secretively in the attic above them. Their quiet lives are thrown into confusion when a new landlord takes over, a dreaded and unscrupulous 'rackman'. He installs his wife in part of the cottages in the hope that there she will recover from an unspecified malady. With a mounting sense of fear, Gladys and Annie become convinced she is possessed by an evil spirit...

Starlight

Saved from a delinquent childhood by education, cheated out of Oxford by a tragic love tangle, Hilary Burde cherishes his obsessive guilt and ekes out a living in a dull civil service job. 
 
When the man whom he has harmed and betrayed reappears as head of his department, Hilary hopes for forgiveness, even for redemption and a new life, but finds himself haunted by a ghostly repetition.

A Word Child

This is the story of two people living one life. Arthur and Waldo Brown were born twins and destined never to to grow away from each other. They spent their childhood together. Their youth together. Middle-age together. Retirement together. They even shared the same girl. They shared everything - except their view of things. Waldo, with his intelligence, saw everything and understood little. Arthur was the fool who didn't bother to look. He understood.

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