WINNER OF WATERSTONES NOVEL OF THE YEAR: A gripping, heart-shattering love story between two soldiers in the First World War It's 1914, and talk of war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in an idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. At seventeen, they're too young to enlist, and anyway,…
Can one person change the course of history? A Wall Street tycoon takes a young woman as his wife. Together, they rise to the top in an age of excess and speculation. Now a novelist is threatening to reveal the secrets behind their marriage. Who will have the final word in their story of greed, love and betrayal? Composed of…
This gripping book is the story of Ukraine’s Nazi occupation, told by one ordinary, brave child. 'Rightly hailed a masterpiece' Daily Mail 'So here is my invitation: enter into my fate, imagine that you are twelve, that the world is at war and that nobody knows what is going to happen next...' When the German army rolled into Kyiv in…
Demon Copperhead is a once-in-a-generation novel that breaks and mends your heart in the way only the best fiction can. Demon’s story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking ‘like a little blue prizefighter.’ For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm,…
BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK, OBAMA 2021 BOOK PICK and INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Hunger was a constant, reliable friend in Mei Guo. She came second only to loneliness.' In China she was the daughter of professors. In Brooklyn her family is 'illegal.' Qian is just seven when she moves to America, the 'Beautiful Country', where she…
Between 2005 and 2009, in a remote religious Mennonite colony, over a hundred girls and women were knocked unconscious and raped, often repeatedly, by what many thought were ghosts or demons, as a punishment for their sins. As the women tentatively began to share the details of the attacks-waking up sore and bleeding and not understanding why-their stories were chalked…
** Shortlisted for the NME Best Music Book Award 2018 **THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERA TIMES BOOK OF THE YEARA GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEARA HERALD BOOK OF THE YEARAN IRISH INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR'The definitive book on Bowie' The Times Drawn from a series of conversations between David Bowie and Dylan Jones across three decades, together with over 180…
'All Sorts of Lives is a beautiful, fastidiously researched and fascinating exploration of Mansfield's life and work' A.L. KENNEDY Restless outsider, masher-up of form and convention, Katherine Mansfield’s career was short but dazzling. She was the only writer Virginia Woolf admitted being jealous of, yet by the 1950s was so undervalued that Elizabeth Bowen was moved to ask, 'Where is…
Joan Didion’s savage masterpiece, which, since first publication in 1968, has been acknowledged as an unparalleled report on the state of America during the upheaval of the Sixties Revolution. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who…
Joan Didion’s hugely influential collection of essays which defines, for many, the America which rose from the ashes of the Sixties. We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. In this now legendary journey into the hinterland of the American psyche,…
Cam is living in Los Angeles and fallling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai's ghost won't leave Cam alone, his spectral visits wild, tender and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ's family bakery.
Jamaica, 1976. Seven gunmen storm Bob Marley’s house, machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives. The gunmen are never caught. Marlon James’ dazzling novel reimagines an event that has become a modern myth. Spanning three decades, A Brief History of Seven Killings chronicles the lives of a host of unforgettable characters: slum kids, one-night stands, drug lords, girlfriends, gunmen, journalists…
Bestselling travel writer Richard Grant “sensitively probes the complex and troubled history of the oldest city on the Mississippi River through the eyes of a cast of eccentric and unexpected characters” (Newsweek). Natchez, Mississippi, once had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in America, and its wealth was built on slavery and cotton. Today it has the greatest concentration…
2016 Goodreads Choice Award-winning poet Amanda Lovelace returns in the witch doesn't burn in this one - the bold second book in her "women are some kind of magic" series. The witch: supernaturally powerful, inscrutably independent, and now-indestructible. These moving, relatable poems encourage resilience and embolden women to take control of their own stories. Enemies try to judge, oppress, and…
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites…
Savage violence and cruel morality reign in the backwater deserts of Cormac McCarthy's ninth novel No Country for Old Men, a tale of one man's dark opportunity – and the darker consequences that spiral forth. Adapted for the screen by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, True Grit), winner of four Academy Awards (including Best Picture). 'A fast, powerful read, steeped with…
A personal trip into the uncanny Mirror World of our polarised culture, from the international bestselling author of The Shock Doctrine What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired a double? Someone almost like you, and yet not you at all? When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different,…
A firecracker somehow captured between two covers' LUCY WORSLEY An instant bestseller and one of the most celebrated history books of the year, Femina reveals the power and influence of medieval women who have been written out of our history. From royalty and religion to fame and fury, see the medieval world - and the women erased from it -…
'Everyone who cares about freedom and justice for women should read The Second Sex' Guardian Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote, 'One is not born, but rather becomes, woman'. In this groundbreaking work of feminism she examines the limits of female freedom and explodes our deeply ingrained beliefs about femininity. Liberation, she argues, entails challenging traditional perceptions of the social relationship…
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Now on BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week' Winner of the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the 2021 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2021 Shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction The gripping and shocking story of three generations…
All over the world women are discovering they have the power. With a flick of the fingers they can inflict terrible pain - even death. Suddenly, every man on the planet finds they've lost control. The Day of the Girls has arrived - but where will it end?
On 24 February 2022, the lives of Ukrainians were devastatingly altered. Since that day, many of Ukraine's writers have attempted to fathom what is happening to them and to their country. This anthology brings together writing from inside Ukraine, by Ukrainians, available in English for the first time. Here they document everyday life, ponder the role of culture amid conflict,…
Tokyo, 1995. Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses. They have little in common except a deep disaffection with their lives, but together they represent the social struggles and griefs of post-War Japan: a poorly socialized genius stuck working as a welder; a demoted detective with a chip on his shoulder; a Zainichi Korean banker…
From the Booker longlisted author, and an Irish Times No.1 bestseller - a searing, jubilant novel about four generations of women and the stories that bind them. 'Beautiful, compassionate ... Donal Ryan at his inimitable best.' MAGGIE O'FARRELL 'One of the finest novelists writing today... a haunting, exquisite masterpiece.' RACHEL JOYCE ___________ This is a story about family, about all…
Hey, I'm Jamie, a 29-year-old trans guy from the UK. I've been transitioning for 12 years now after realising I was trans (by accident!) at sixteen years old. I knew I was a boy since the age of four, but realised whilst growing up that I was different. It was only in my teens that I found the words to…
Natasha Trethewey was born in Mississippi in the 60s to a black mother and a white father. When she was six, Natasha's parents divorced, and she and her mother moved to Atlanta. There, her mother met the man who would become her second husband, and Natasha's stepfather. While she was still a child, Natasha decided that she would not tell…
From the detective who helped catch the Golden State Killer, a memoir about investigating America's toughest cold cases, and the rewards - and toll - of a life spent solving crime. For a decade, from 1973, The Golden State Killer stalked and murdered Californians in the dead of night, leaving entire communities afraid to turn off the lights. Then he…
Alice Kinsella was in her mid-twenties when she became pregnant with her first child, newly engaged and about to embark on a life in an unfamiliar town on the west coast of Ireland. Into this warm cocoon, this big, empty house, would arrive a little baby. And soon Alice's world began to expand and contract in ways she could never…
It is 1953 in rural North Dakota. Thomas Wazhushk is the night watchman at the first factory to open near the Turtle Mountain Reservation. He is also a prominent Chippewa Council member and deeply troubled by the US Government's proposed new 'Emancipation Bill'. Far from offering the Chippewa more freedom, it is a betrayal - threatening the rights of Native…
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a story of coming-of-age at the end of a life. Utterly heart-breaking yet darkly funny, Maddie Mortimer’s debut is a symphonic journey through one woman’s body: a celebration of desire, forgiveness, and the darkness within us all. ‘Original, memorable, shimmering’ - Sarah Moss, author of Ghost Wall Lia has only one child, Iris; her…
The story of motherhood is an endlessly rich one: it's one of love - and all the highs and lows that come with that world-turning emotion - and, in the purest sense, of life itself. Within these pages, some of the finest writers in the world explore motherhood in wildly varying modes, from single parenthood to sisters coparenting, from the…
The night Cameron Post's parents died, her first emotion was relief. Relief they would never know that hours earlier, she'd been kissing a girl. Now living with her conservative Aunt in small-town Montana, hiding her sexuality and blending in becomes second nature to Cameron until she begins an intense friendship with the beautiful Coley Taylor. Desperate to 'correct' her niece,…
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself. When her sister Olga dies in a tragic accident, Julia is left to pick up the pieces of her family. She is also expected to fill the shoes of her sister. But Julia…
Straight Jacket is a revolutionary clarion call for gay men, the wider LGBT community, their friends and family. Part memoir, part ground-breaking polemic, it looks beneath the shiny facade of contemporary gay culture and asks if gay people are as happy as they could be - and if not, why not? Meticulously researched, courageous and life-affirming, Straight Jacket offers invaluable…
Savage, funny, frequently on the verge of teetering into lunacy...' Vogue Discover this deliciously dark satire on modern privilege from the Booker-shortlisted author of Eileen It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? Our narrator has many of the advantages of life: Young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, she…
From being told she couldn't have dance lessons as a kid in Great Yarmouth to having to conform to the stereotypes of the gay scene in London's East End, people have always been trying to put Bimini Bon Boulash in a box. It was only through discovering the art of drag that she began to fight back against those preconceptions,…
Can someone in prison be more free than someone outside? Would we ever be good if we never felt shame? What makes a person worthy of forgiveness? Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. Every day he has conversations with people inside about their lives, discusses their ideas and feelings, and listens as they explore new ways to think about their…
Blue in Chicago brings together the bittersweet short stories of the remarkable American writer Bette Howland. Hailed as a major talent before all but disappearing from public view, this tenderly compiled collection restores her vital voice to our shelves. Bette Howland was an outsider: an intellectual from a working-class neighborhood in Chicago; a divorcee and single mother, to the disapproval…
When a mother allows her thirty-something daughter to move into her apartment, she wants for her what many mothers might say they want for their child: a steady income, and, even better, a good husband with a good job with whom to start a family. But when Green turns up with her girlfriend Lane in tow, her mother is unprepared…
Meet the Hanrahan family. Ray, the father. Acclaimed artist and notorious narcissist, who is obsessed with his own reputation. Lucia, his long-suffering wife. A lauded sculptor yet terrified of what recognition could bring. And she has a secret of her own which could tear the family apart. Leah, the eldest daughter, devoted to her father and convinced of his genius.…
Medusa is the sole mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her Gorgon sisters, she begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt. When Poseidon commits an unforgiveable act against Medusa in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can: on his victim.…
Maria, a trans woman in her thirties, is going nowhere. She spends her aimless days working in a New York bookstore, trying to remain true to a punk ethos while drinking herself into a stupor and having a variety of listless and confusing sexual encounters. After her girlfriend cheats on her, Maria steals her car and heads for the Pacific,…
Like swallows, like salmon, we were the helpless captives of our migratory patterns. We pretended that what we had lost was the house, not our mother, not our father. We pretended that what we had lost had been taken from us by the person who still lived inside. In the economic boom following the Second World War, Cyril Conroy's real…
Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize The Top Ten Bestseller A The Times Book of the Year Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month ‘If you want to read a book that moves you both at the level of sentence and the quality of language and with the emotional depth of its subject matter, then A Fortunate Woman is definitely the…
All they wanted was the chance to shine. Be careful what you wish for… ‘The first thing we asked was, “Does this stuff hurt you?” And they said, “No.” The company said that it wasn’t dangerous, that we didn’t need to be afraid.’ As the First World War spread across the world, young American women flocked to work in factories,…
‘Morland predicts the future of humanity in 10 illuminating statistics (could the Japanese and Italians now go the way of the dodo?) and looks back to how ebbs and flows of population have shaped history, such as the Soviet Union’s plummeting birth rate in the 1960s, which hastened the end of the Cold War.’ - The Daily Telegraph ‘The Best…
'Raw. Vulnerable. Open. Truthful . . . This is a book that will open up the floor for even more honest conversations about the side of yoga we don't often see.' - Angie Tiwari @tiwariyoga How did an ancient spiritual practice become the preserve of the privileged? Nadia Gilani has been practising yoga for twenty-five years. She has also worked…
‘Prepare your hearts, for Douglas Stuart is back. After the extraordinary success of Shuggie Bain, his second novel, Young Mungo, is another beautiful and moving book, a gay Romeo and Juliet set in the brutal world of Glasgow’s housing estates.’ – The Observer The extraordinary, powerful second novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo is both…
With an introduction by author of The Tidal Zone, Sarah Moss Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Born a poor black tobacco farmer, her cancer cells – taken without her knowledge – became a multimillion-dollar industry and one of the most important tools in medicine. Yet Henrietta’s family did not learn of her ‘immortality’ until…
'Will make you laugh, cry, and call the people you love. Exceptional' EMILY HENRY'Nostalgic, wise, funny, and filled with love' GABRIELLE ZEVIN'Her most emotionally resonant work yet' VOGUE'Has the makings of a dreamy, witty, contemporary classic' EVENING STANDARD'I just finished and I'm crying at its message and its honestly and its utter beauty' JODI PICOULT'A tender, witty David Nicholls-esque tale…
Daiyu was named after a ghost . . . Little Daiyu is twelve when her parents disappear. So she runs, disguising herself as a boy, to sweep the steps of Master Wang's calligraphy school in Zhifu. But this is just the beginning of a journey that sends her across an ocean to San Francisco and the lawless American west. Kidnapped.…
Born in East Africa, Yusuf has few qualms about the journey he is to make. It never occurs to him to ask why he is accompanying Uncle Aziz or why the trip has been organised so suddenly, and he does not think to ask when he will be returning. But the truth is that his 'uncle' is a rich and…
BY THE WINNER OF THE 2021 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 'Riveting and heartbreaking ... A compelling novel, one that gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure' Maaza Mengiste, Guardian 'A brilliant and important book for our times,…
Treat yourself to this joyful, big-hearted read from Booker Prize-winning novelist Bernardine Evaristo, part of our Penguin Essentials series which spotlights the very best of our modern classics 'Bernardine Evaristo can take any story from any time and turn it into something vibrating with life' Ali Smith Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred…
Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But…
This new hardback edition of The Wind in the Willows, the classic story loved by children and adults alike, has been created in partnership with the world-famous V&A Museum, with exquisite cover designs from their William Morris collection. Spring is in the air and Mole has found a wonderful new world. There’s boating with Ratty, a feast with Badger and…
"Magnificent! The best how-to manual ever published." - Kevin Kelly, Cool Tools Scott McCloud tore down the wall between high and low culture in 1993 with Understanding Comics, a massive comic book about comics, linking the medium to such diverse fields as media theory, movie criticism, and web design. In Reinventing Comics, McCloud took this to the next level, charting…
The definitive history of the modern climate change era, from an award-winning writer who has been at the centre of the fight for more than thirty years In 1979, President Jimmy Carter was presented with the findings of scientists who had been investigating whether human activities might change the climate in harmful ways. "A wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until…
Meet Ava: rule-abiding lawyer who has ticked all of life’s boxes. She’s married to a successful surgeon and has just taken an indefinite career break to raise her adorable toddler. A picture-perfect life. Meet Winnie: Ava’s old college roommate. Once awkward, quiet and apparently academically challenged, she left Stanford in a shroud of scandal. But now, she is charismatic, wealthy…
People Person is a triumph. Caleb Azumah Nelson | Wonderful. Marian Keyes | I loved it. Sara Collins THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE BRITISH BOOK AWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF QUEENIE If you could choose your family, you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons Dimple, Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie and Prynce are half-siblings who don’t have much in common except abandonment issues. But…
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn't know what happened to her-only that her books have been banned-and he resents that she cared more about her…
An irresistible collection of essays and memoir from the internationally bestselling, Women's Prize-winning author of The Dutch House 'Any story that starts will also end.' As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth as she explores family, friendship, marriage, failure,…