By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair, through 1930s nuclear physics, to Flanagan’s father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima, this chain of events culminates in a young man finding himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river, not knowing if he is to live or to die… ‘The strangest and most beautiful memoir I’ve…
All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man at the top. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services and professional propagandists. The…
The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, as their friendship, beautifully and meticulously rendered, becomes a not always perfect shelter from hardship. A memorable portrait…
It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los…
From the author of Empire of Pain – a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. One night in December 1972, Jean McConville, a mother of ten, was abducted from her home in Belfast and never seen alive again. Her disappearance would haunt her orphaned children, the perpetrators of this terrible crime and…
Beyond race or class, our lives are defined by a powerful, unspoken system of divisions. In Caste, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson provides a profound, eye-opening portrait of this hidden phenomenon. This is the story of how our world was shaped by caste, and how its rigid, arbitrary hierarchies still divide us today. Linking the caste systems of America, India,…
From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this is one of the great untold stories of American history: the migration of black citizens who fled the south and went north in search of a better life From 1915 to 1970, an exodus of almost six million people would change the face of America. With stunning historical detail, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist…
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a…
Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war subsumes Sri Lanka, her dream takes her on a different path as she watches those around her, including her four beloved brothers and their best friend, get swept up in violent political ideologies and their consequences. She must ask herself: is it possible…
Yeongju did everything she was supposed to, go to university, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. Burned out, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop. In a quaint neighbourhood in Seoul, surrounded by books, Yeongju and her customers take refuge. From the lonely…
Hurricane Katrina is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. He's a hard drinker, largely absent, and it isn't often he worries about the family. Esch and her three brothers are stockpiling food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she…
Jesmyn Ward's acclaimed memoir shines a light on the community she comes from in the small town of DeLisle, Mississippi, a place of quiet beauty and fierce attachment. Here, in the space of four years, she lost five young black men dear to her, including her beloved brother – to accidents, murder and suicide. Their deaths were seemingly unconnected, yet…
In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup: bringing an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDs epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his…
The one thing that can solve Stephen's problems is dancing. Dancing with his best friend Adeline, two-stepping around the living room, crooning and grooving, so close their heads might touch. Dancing alone, at home, to his father's records, uncovering parts of a man he has never truly known. Stephen has only ever known himself in song. But what becomes of…
Brain: No one's going to buy your book Me: But it's good! My editor says so! Brain: Well she would, wouldn't she... Btw, didn't you leave your hair straighteners on? Me: I can't get into this now, I've got a book description to write Hello! Hayley Morris here. You might have seen me on your feed dressed up as a…
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…
'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.
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…
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,…
Lives separated by time and space have collided, and an exiled Englishman, a writer trapped far from home, and a girl destined to die too young, have each glimpsed a world that is not their own. Travelling through the centuries, between colonies on the moon and an ever-changing Earth, together their lives will solve a mystery that will make you…
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 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…
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.…
From the bestselling author of The Lost City of Z, now a major film starring Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller and Robert Pattison, and the Number One international bestseller The Wager, comes a true-life murder story which became one of the FBI’s first major homicide investigations. In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the…
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,…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet queen, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is…
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,…
A profoundly disturbing novel that ruthlessly dissects American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking. Benny called for a round of Cuba Libres and I gave him some chips to play for me and went to the ladies' room and never came back. Somewhere out beyond Hollywood, hollowed-out actress…
From one of the most important chroniclers of our time, come two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks - writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles Here is one such draft that traces a road trip…
Through a series of exquisitely observed autobiographical sketches, Adrian Tomine explores his life — from an early moment on the playground being bullied, to a more recent experience, lying on a gurney in the hospital, and having the nurse say ‘Hey! You’re that cartoonist!’ Self-deprecating, honest, and above all else, humorous, Tomine mines his conflicted relationship with comics and writing,…
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A SUNDAY TIMES, NEW STATESMAN & IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE CRIME WRITERS ASSOCIATION GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION A perspective-shattering work into the minds of violent criminals that reveals profound consequences for human nature and society at large. *INCLUDES A NEW CHAPTER* ‘Brilliant . . . The book is a powerful myth…
