These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone. Matilda is a brilliant child with a magical mind. But her parents have decided she's just a nuisance who wastes too much time on reading and stories. And her headmistress Miss Trunchball is a terrible bully, who thinks children are rotten and awful and should be locked…
THE SCORCHING NEW THRILLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN and INTO THE WATER 'What is wrong with you?' Laura has spent most of her life being judged. She's seen as hot-tempered, troubled, a loner. Some even call her dangerous. Miriam knows that just because Laura is witnessed leaving the scene of a horrific murder with blood…
A delightful insight into the formation of an artist who would become one of the world's most respected writers. Born in 1922 in the tiny Portuguese village of Azinhaga, José Saramago was only a baby when his family moved to a series of cramped lodgings in a working-class neighbourhood of Lisbon. Nevertheless, he would return to the village throughout his…
A startling and tender portrait of one family’s struggle to make peace with their son’s death An ingeniously layered narrative, told over the course of one week, Eddie Joyce’s debut novel masterfully depicts an Italian-Irish American family on Staten Island and their complicated emotional history. Ten years after the loss of Bobby—the Amendola family’s youngest son—everyone is still struggling to…
Stunningly-designed new editions of Toni Morrison's best-known novels, published by Vintage Classics in celebration of her life and work. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY BOOKER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR MARLON JAMES Soon after a local eccentric leaps from a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight, Macon 'Milkman' Dead III is born. Brought up by his well-off black family to revere…
Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra's daughter; at night she mothers her own little girl by the light of a phone. One day, Nisha vanishes. No one cares about the disappearance of a foreign domestic worker, except Petra and Nisha's over, Yiannis. As they set out to search for her,…
WINNER OF THE 2020 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY Selected as a Book of the Year 2019 by the SPECTATOR, TELEGRAPH, NEW STATESMAN and FINANCIAL TIMES 'Definitive and delightful' Stephen Fry 'There can be no doubting the brilliance - the sheer explanatory vigour - of Moser's biography... a triumph of the virtues of seriousness and truth-telling that Susan Sontag espoused' New Stateman The definitive portrait of one…
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…
These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone. Matilda is a brilliant child with a magical mind. But her parents have decided she's just a nuisance who wastes too much time on reading and stories. And her headmistress Miss Trunchball is a terrible bully, who thinks children are rotten and awful and should be locked…
Princess Leia, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker meet and join forces to defeat the evil that threatens their entire galaxy in this captivating retelling of Star Wars: A New Hope by bestselling author Alexandra Bracken. This story begins as so many do: a long, long time ago . . . In a place far beyond the glittering stars you see…
An icon of the last fifty years, Stephen Hawking seems to encapsulate genius: not since Albert Einstein has a scientific figure held such a position in popular consciousness. In this enthralling memoir, writer and physicist Leonard Mlodinow tells the story of his friend and their friendship, offering an intimate account of this giant of science. The two met in 2003,…
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.…
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…
Tsukiko is in her late 30s and living alone when one night she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, 'Sensei', in a bar. He is at least thirty years her senior, retired and, she presumes, a widower. After this initial encounter, the pair continue to meet occasionally to share food and drink sake, and as the…
From the author of Charlotte's Web, a charming story of a bold, adventurous little mouse. Stuart Little is no ordinary mouse. Born to a family of humans he lives in New York City with his parents, his older brother George and Snowball the cat. Though he's shy and thoughtful, he's an adventurous and heroic little mouse. His daring escapades include…
Stunningly-designed new editions of Toni Morrison's best-known novels, published by Vintage Classics in celebration of her life and work. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY NAMWALI SERPELL, AUTHOR OF THE OLD DRIFT As young girls in a poor but close-knit community, Nel and Sula are inseparable. But their paths as adults couldn't be more different: while Nel settles in town to…
Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basement of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is…
The bestselling author of The Power of Habit shares the secrets of good conversations and successful communication How is it that we find it easy to talk to some people and struggle to do so with others? Why does the effectiveness of a message rely so strongly on who the messenger is? And what is the secret of having a…
eter Hatcher's little brother, Fudge, is four. And he's as monstrous as ever! When Fudge discovers that his new baby sister can't play with him, he tries to sell her. When that doesn't work, he tries giving her away. And on his first day at school he kicks his teacher and calls her Rat Face. Can his big brother help…
Before Kamala Harris was elected to the vice presidency, she was a little girl who loved superheroes. When she looked around, she was amazed to find them everywhere! In her family, amongst her friends, even down the street - there were superheroes wherever she looked. And those superheroes showed her that all you need to do to be a superhero…
Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste. But everything is…
Now a major film directed by Danny Boyle reuniting the cast of Trainspotting. Years on from Trainspotting, Sick Boy is back in Edinburgh after a long spell in London. Having failed spectacularly as a hustler, pimp, husband, father and businessman, Sick Boy taps into an opportunity which to him represents one last throw of the dice. However, to realise his…
The sequel to Jonas Jonasson’s international bestseller The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared It all begins with a hot air balloon trip and three bottles of champagne. Allan and Julius are ready for some spectacular views, but they’re not expecting to land in the sea and be rescued by a North Korean ship, and they…
Rats! They're everywhere: in the breadbins, dancing across tabletops, stealing pies from under the cooks' noses. So, what does every town need? A good piper to lure them away. That's where Maurice comes in! A streetwise tomcat with the perfect money-making scam. Everyone has heard the stories about rats and pipes, and con-cat Maurice finds a stupid-looking kid with a…
Imagination is an amazing thing. It can take you to the top of the highest mountain, or down to the bottom of the deepest depths of the sea. This where it took Doggins on his Awfully Big Adventure: a quest full of magic and flying machines. (And the world's best joke - trust me, it's hilarious.) It took three young…
Our choices can help alleviate the most pressing issues we face today: the climate crisis, infectious and chronic diseases, human exploitation and, of course, non-human exploitation. Undeniably, these issues can be uncomfortable to learn about but the benefits of doing so cannot be overstated. It is quite literally a matter of life and death. Through exploring the major ways that…
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency-a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.…
Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has for centuries watched over the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries the fates of three women are linked: to this place, to each other. In the early 1700s, Sarah, accused of being a witch, flees for her life. In the aftermath of the…
A personal and powerful essay from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. ‘I would like to ask that we begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of happier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start: we…
I was supposed to be having the time of my life. When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself…
Read the searing first novel from the celebrated author of Beloved, which immerses us in the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in post-Depression 1940s Ohio. Unlovely and unloved, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged white schoolfellows. At once intimate and expansive, unsparing in its truth-telling, The Bluest Eye shows how the past savagely defines…
When a book and a reader are meant for each other, both of them know it . . . After the tragic death of his father, fourteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house and sound variously pleasant, angry or sad. Then his mother develops a hoarding problem, and the voices grow…
In the mid-eighteenth century, as new ideas begin to sweep the continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to…
In this extraordinary graphic novel, author Peter J. Tomasi and illustrator Sara DuVall bring to life the construction of one of the most iconic landmarks in the world and shine a light on the incredible triumphs and tragedies that went into building the Brooklyn Bridge. After the accidental death of John Augustus Roebling in 1869, it was up to Roebling’s…
From the double Booker Prize-winning author of Disgrace, 'a moving story of lost childhood' (Sunday Telegraph). After crossing oceans, a man and a boy - both strangers to each other - arrive in a new land. David, the boy, has lost his mother and Simón vows to look after him. In this strange country they are each assigned a new name,…
Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was born in Odense, the son of a shoemaker. His early life was wretched, but he was adopted by a patron and became a short-story writer, novelist and playwright, though he remains best-known for his magical fairy tales which were published between 1835 and 1872. For 150 years his stories have been delighting both adults and…
Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and his brother Wilhelm (1786-1859) were philologists and folklorists. The brothers rediscovered a host of fairy tales, telling of princes and princesses in their castles, witches in their towers and forests, of giants and dwarfs, of fabulous animals and dark deeds. Together with the well-known tales of 'Rapunzel', 'The Goose Girl', Sleeping Beauty', 'Hansel and Gretel' and…
Jane Austen is without question, one of England's most enduring and skilled novelists. With her wit, social precision, and unerring ability to create some of literature's most charismatic and believable heroines, she mesmerises her readers as much today as when her novels were first published. Whether it is her sharp, ironic gaze at the Gothic genre invoked by the adventures…
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award An American Library Association Notable Book Jonathan Franzen's third novel, The Corrections, is a great work of art and a grandly entertaining overture to our new century: a bold, comic, tragic, deeply moving family drama that stretches from the Midwest at mid-century to Wall…
The Dead Are Arising is a penetrating and riveting work that affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle and the story of the twentieth century. Renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Les Payne paints vivid and dramatic scenes from start to finish, from Malcolm's clandestine meeting with the KKK in 1961 to a minute-by-minute account of…
The luminous new novel from 'one of the best writers of our time', double Booker Prize winner J. M. Coetzee. 'Full of truth, tearfully moving to read... Brilliant' Evening Standard Simón and David - a tall ten-year-old - are in a new land, together with a woman named Inés. The small family have found a home in which David can thrive.…
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…
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…
Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is an inspiring and tragic account of an ordinary life lived in extraordinary circumstances that has enthralled readers for generations. This Penguin Classics edition is edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, translated by Susan Massotty, and includes an introduction by Elie Wiesel, author of Night. 'June, 1942: I hope I…
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…
The Penguin Modern Classics edition of Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Emperor is translated by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand, with an introduction by Neal Ascherton. After the deposition of Haile Selassie in 1974, which ended the ancient rule of the Abyssinian monarchy, Ryszard Kapuscinski travelled to Ethiopia and sought out surviving courtiers to tell their stories. Here, their eloquent and ironic voices…
These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone. Matilda is a brilliant child with a magical mind. But her parents have decided she's just a nuisance who wastes too much time on reading and stories. And her headmistress Miss Trunchball is a terrible bully, who thinks children are rotten and awful and should be locked…
These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone. Matilda is a brilliant child with a magical mind. But her parents have decided she's just a nuisance who wastes too much time on reading and stories. And her headmistress Miss Trunchball is a terrible bully, who thinks children are rotten and awful and should be locked…
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.…
Presented for the first time as a standalone work, the epic tale of The Fall of Gondolin reunites fans of The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Balrogs, Dragons & Orcs and the rich landscape and creatures unique to Tolkien’s Middle-earth. This brand new audio book is read by Timothy West & Samuel West. Gondolin,…
Our hearts were broken in the same places. That's something like love, but maybe not quite the thing itself' Aza's life is filled with complications. Living with anxiety and OCD is enough but when Daisy, her Best and Most Fearless Friend, brings her on a mission to find a fugitive billionaire things are about to get even more complicated. To…
The day Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison opened the Whistle Stop Cafe, the town took a turn for the better. It was the Depression and that cafe was a home from home for many of us. You could get eggs, grits, bacon, ham, coffee and a smile for 25 cents. Ruth was just the sweetest girl you ever met. And…
'We, the black and the white, deeply need each other here if we are really to become a nation' James Baldwin's impassioned plea to 'end the racial nightmare' in America was a bestseller when it appeared in 1963, galvanising a nation and giving voice to the emerging civil rights movement. Told in the form of two intensely personal 'letters', The Fire…
Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love. So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life…
Of all John Fowles' novels The French Lieutenant's Woman received the most universal acclaim and today holds a very special place in the canon of post-war English literature. From the god-like stance of the nineteenth-century novelist that he both assumes and gently mocks, to the last detail of dress, idiom and manners, his book is an immaculate recreation of Victorian…
---- 'One of those gorgeous books that completely lifts your spirits and restores your faith in humanity' - Ruth Jones, co-creator of Gavin and Stacey and bestselling author of Us Three ---- It was a journey they would always remember . . . for a friend they'd never forget. Norman and Jax are a legendary comedic duo in waiting, with a five-year plan to…
'There were two kinds of landscape characteristic of the inner planets of the Sun: the purposeful and the desolate.' The planet Quinta is pocked with ugly mounds and covered by a spiderweb-like network draped from spindly poles. It is a kingdom of phantoms and of a beauty afflicted by madness. The Earth spaceship Hermes arrives on Quinta with the best…
These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone. Matilda is a brilliant child with a magical mind. But her parents have decided she's just a nuisance who wastes too much time on reading and stories. And her headmistress Miss Trunchball is a terrible bully, who thinks children are rotten and awful and should be locked…
A modern masterpiece, The Godfather is a searing portrayal of the 1940s criminal underworld. It is also the intimate story of the Corleone family, at once drawn together and ripped apart by its unique position at the core of the American Mafia. Still shocking forty years after it was first published, this compelling tale of blackmail, murder and family values…
'I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.' Shocking and controversial when it was first published, The Grapes of Wrath is Steinbeck's Pultizer Prize-winning epic of the Joad family, forced to travel west from Dust Bowl era Oklahoma in search of the promised land of California. Their story is one of false hopes, thwarted…
From the worldwide number one bestselling author of The Nightingale comes Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss. Goodreads Historical Novel of the Year. A woman has to be tough as steel up here. You can’t count on anyone to save you and your children. You have to be willing to save yourselves.…
Our choices can help alleviate the most pressing issues we face today: the climate crisis, infectious and chronic diseases, human exploitation and, of course, non-human exploitation. Undeniably, these issues can be uncomfortable to learn about but the benefits of doing so cannot be overstated. It is quite literally a matter of life and death. Through exploring the major ways that…
A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good. Walk further into the deep dark wood, and discover what happens when a quick-witted mouse comes face to face with an owl, a snake . . . and a hungry Gruffalo! Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler's The Gruffalo is an…
A powerful and brave YA novel about what prejudice looks like in the 21st century. Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2018 #1 New York Times bestseller A Teen Vogue Best YA Book of the Year Now a major motion picture, starring Amandla Stenberg "Stunning."—John Green “A masterpiece.”—The Huffington Post “An essential read for everyone.”—Teen Vogue “Outstanding.” —The Guardian…
From the beloved and bestselling author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, this memoir chronicles Maya Angelou’s involvement with the civil rights movement. ‘A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman’ BARACK OBAMA Maya Angelou’s seven volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she…
Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an unexpected journey ‘there and back again’. They have a plot…
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…
Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book distils Japan's long, complex and fascinating history into the stories of twenty remarkable individuals. These vivid and entertaining portraits take the reader from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako. We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering…
What can Alice in Wonderland teach us about childhood? Could reading Conversations with Friends guide us through first love? Does Esther Greenwood’s glittering success and subsequent collapse in The Bell Jar help us understand ambition? And, finally, what can we learn about death from Virginia Woolf? Literature matters. Not only does it provide escapism and entertainment, but it also holds…
The story of Mowgli, the abandoned “man-cub” who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of Central India, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. As he embarks on a series of thrilling escapades, Mowgli encounters such unforgettable creatures as the bear Baloo, the graceful black panther Bagheera and Shere Khan, the tiger with the blazing eyes.…
I was supposed to be having the time of my life. When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself…
After walking through a portal in the Tower of the Swallow, thus narrowly escaping death, the Witcher girl, Ciri, finds herself in a completely different world… a world of the Elves. She is trapped with no way out. Time does not seem to exist and there are no obvious borders or portals to cross back into her home world. But…
‘Astoundingly good. Brave, wickedly funny and profoundly affecting. Wow!’ Miranda Dickinson ‘A big-hearted, funny, hugely emotional and uplifting novel – I loved it!‘ Rachael Lucas ‘A moving story’ Bella What readers have said about The Last Act of Adam Campbell: ‘Beautiful’ 5* ‘Wickedly funny’ 5* ‘Filled with love and fun’ 5* ‘Jones is the master of pulling at your heartstrings’ 5* **** You don’t need…
Telling my story of first, surviving genocide and then, as a captive of ISIS is not easy, but people must know.' The remarkable and courageous story of Nadia Murad, a twenty-three-year-old Yazidi woman who is working with Amal Clooney to challenge the world to fight ISIS on behalf on her people. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 'Those who thought…
How has feminism developed? What have feminists achieved? What can we learn from the global history of feminism? Feminism is the ongoing story of a profound historical transformation. Despite being repeatedly written off as a political movement that has achieved its aim of female liberation, it has been continually redefined as new generations of women campaign against the gender inequity…
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…
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. With his mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett plans to pick up his eight-year-old brother Billy and head to California…
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,…
This is the definitive account of the run-up to 9/11: from the man who lit the spark of radical Islam in 1948, to those who built up a terror network, and to the FBI agent whose warnings of 'something big' coming were ignored until the Twin Towers fell. 'The Looming Tower is a thriller. And it's a tragedy, too' The New York…
These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone. Matilda is a brilliant child with a magical mind. But her parents have decided she's just a nuisance who wastes too much time on reading and stories. And her headmistress Miss Trunchball is a terrible bully, who thinks children are rotten and awful and should be locked…
Read John Fowles's feisty, clever, cunning and compelling novel with an unusual twist. On a remote Greek island, Nicholas Urfe finds himself embroiled in the deceptions of a master trickster. As reality and illusion intertwine, Urfe is caught up in the darkest of psychological games. John Fowles expertly unfolds a tale that is lush with over-powering imagery in a spellbinding…
n the summer of 1885, three Frenchmen arrived in London for a few days' shopping. One was a Prince, one was a Count, and the third was a commoner, who four years earlier had been the subject of one of John Singer Sargent's greatest portraits. The commoner was Samuel Pozzi, society doctor, pioneer gynaecologist and free-thinker - a scientific man…
It has been 14 years since the Martians invaded England. The world has moved on, always watching the skies but content that we know how to defeat the Martian menace. Machinery looted from the abandoned capsules and war-machines has led to technological leaps forward. The Martians are vulnerable to earth germs. The Army is prepared. So when the signs of…
THE ORIGINAL AND BEST TRANSLATION BY MICHAEL GLENNY 50th Anniversary Edition. Afterwards, when it was frankly too late, descriptions were issued of the man: expensive grey suit, grey beret, one green eye and the other black. He arrives in Moscow one hot summer afternoon with various alarming accomplices, including a demonic, fast-talking black cat. When he leaves, the asylums are…
The Second World War. Poland. Our narrator has no intention of being a hero. He plans to survive this war, whatever it takes. Meticulously he recounts his experiences: the slow unravelling of national events as well as uncomfortable personal encounters on the street, in the café, at the office, in his love affairs. He is intimate but reserved; conversational but…
Escape to the ocean this summer with the entrancing, unforgettable winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2020. 'A unique talent' Bernardine Evaristo Near the island of Black Conch, a fisherman sings to himself while waiting for a catch. But David attracts a sea-dweller that he never expected - Aycayia, an innocent young woman cursed by jealous wives to…
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,…
What can Alice in Wonderland teach us about childhood? Could reading Conversations with Friends guide us through first love? Does Esther Greenwood’s glittering success and subsequent collapse in The Bell Jar help us understand ambition? And, finally, what can we learn about death from Virginia Woolf? Literature matters. Not only does it provide escapism and entertainment, but it also holds…
The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate.When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under…
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…
Nathan Hill's brilliant debut takes the reader from the rural Midwest of the 1960s, to New York City during Occupy Wall Street; from Chicago in 1968, to wartime Norway: home of the mysterious Nix. Meet Samuel: stalled writer, bored teacher at a local college, obsessive player of online video games. He hasn't seen his mother, Faye, in decades, not since…
Rebel Voices: Disruptive Stories from Trailblazing Women - a new Puffin Classics collection, celebrating International Women's Day 2023 When twelve-year-old Sade's mother is killed, she and her little brother Femi are forced to flee from their home in Nigeria to Britain. They're not allowed to tell anyone - not even their best friends - as their whole journey is secret,…
Our choices can help alleviate the most pressing issues we face today: the climate crisis, infectious and chronic diseases, human exploitation and, of course, non-human exploitation. Undeniably, these issues can be uncomfortable to learn about but the benefits of doing so cannot be overstated. It is quite literally a matter of life and death. Through exploring the major ways that…
On a perfect August morning, Elle Bishop heads out for a swim in the pond below 'The Paper Palace' - her family's holiday home in Cape Cod. As she dives beneath the water she relives the passionate encounter she had the night before, against the side of the house that knows all her darkest secrets, while her husband and mother…
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up. Now a major motion picture starring Emma Watson and Logan Lerman. Stephen Chbosky's new film Wonder, starring Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts is out now. Charlie is a freshman. And while he's…
What can Alice in Wonderland teach us about childhood? Could reading Conversations with Friends guide us through first love? Does Esther Greenwood’s glittering success and subsequent collapse in The Bell Jar help us understand ambition? And, finally, what can we learn about death from Virginia Woolf? Literature matters. Not only does it provide escapism and entertainment, but it also holds…
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?
Explore the social and cultural history of 100 of the world's most important cities. From the first towns in Mesopotamia to today's global metropolises, cities have marked the progress of civilisation. Written in the form of illustrated "biographies", Great Cities offers a rich historical overview of each featured city, brought to vivid life with paintings, photographs, timelines, maps, and artefacts.…
In over a year of on-the-ground reportage, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled across the US to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today. In an effort to grasp the scale of the response to Michael Brown's death and understand the magnitude of the problem police violence represents, Lowery conducted hundreds of interviews…
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 & SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A tour de force... A spectacular demonstration of how the novel can make us see and think afresh' Booker Judges, 2021 'A masterpiece - a moving, brilliantly told family epic' Elizabeth Day Discover the powerful prizewinning story of a family in crisis. On a farm outside Pretoria, the Swarts are…
In this blinding debut, Robert Jones Jr. blends the lyricism of Toni Morrison with the vivid prose of Zora Neale Hurston to characterise the forceful, enduring bond of love, and what happens when brutality threatens the purest form of serenity. The Halifax plantation is known as Empty by the slaves who work it under the pitiless gaze of its overseers…
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…
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,…
It is late June in Ballylack. Hannah Adger anticipates eight long weeks' reprieve from school, but when her classmate Ross succumbs to a violent and mysterious illness, it marks the beginning of a summer like no other. As others fall ill, questions about what - or who - is responsible pitch the village into conflict and fearful disarray. Hannah, ever…
The Rings of Saturn begins as the record of a journey on foot through coastal East Anglia. From Lowestoft to Bungay, Sebald's own story becomes the conductor of evocations of people and cultures past and present: of Chateaubriand, Thomas Browne, Swinburne and Conrad, of fishing fleets, skulls and silkworms.
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016 Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in the Observer and Daily Telegraph When you travel across the ocean on a boat, all your memories are washed away and you start a completely new life. That is how it is. There is no before. There is no history. The boat docks at…
'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 Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a magical novel for adults and children alike. This new hardback is one of five special Puffin Classics editions created in partnership with the world-famous V&A Museum, with exquisite cover designs from their William Morris collection. ‘I’ve stolen a garden,’ she said very fast. ‘It isn’t mine. It isn’t anybody’s. Nobody wants…
William Blake was an engraver, painter and visionary mystic as well as one of the most revolutionary of the Romantic poets. His writing attracted the astonished admiration of authors as diverse as Wordsworth, Ruskin, W.B.Yeats, and more recently beat poet Allen Ginsberg and the 'flower power' generation. He is one of England's most original artists whose works aim to liberate…
‘If The Book Thief was a novel that allowed Death to steal the show... [its] brilliantly illuminated follow-up is affirmatively full of life’ Guardian A lost typewriter -- A dead dog -- The bones of the snake that killed it Matthew Dunbar, eldest of five brothers, is on a journey to find them all. Only then can he tell the…
‘Many years ago – when our grandfathers were little children – there was a doctor and his name was Dolittle’ Dr Dolittle lives in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh with his friends Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Too-Too the owl, the parrot Polynesia, as well as rabbits in the pantry, white mice in the piano and a crocodile in…
‘A riveting account of the multiple outrages of the criminal justice system of Alabama. A harrowing masterpiece’ Guardian ‘Hinton somehow navigates through his rage and despair to a state of forgiveness and grace’ Independent At age 29, Anthony Ray Hinton was wrongfully charged with robbery and murder, and sentenced to death by electrocution for crimes he didn’t commit. The only…
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…
A brilliant collection of short stories in from Orange-Prize winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the author of Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun. Adichie straddles the cultures of Nigeria and the West. Her characters battle with the responsibilities of modern life, a world in which identity is too often compromised. These are the stories of one of the most…
In 1979, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato—a novel about the Vietnam War—won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again clearly demonstrated. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of…
WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR On his third birthday Oskar decides to stop growing. Haunted by the deaths of his parents and wielding his tin drum Oskar recounts the events of his extraordinary life; from the long nightmare of the Nazi era to his anarchic adventures is post-war Germany.
The world has fallen into war. Ciri, the child of prophecy, has vanished. Hunted by friends and foes alike, she has taken on the guise of a petty bandit and lives free for the first time in her life. But the net around her is closing. Geralt, the Witcher, has assembled a group of allies determined to rescue her. Both…
A newly married woman longs, irrationally, for a silk umbrella; a husband chases away his wife's beloved cat; a betrayed mother impulsively sacks her housekeeper. Underneath the surface of these precisely observed tales of love, marriage and family life in mid-century Copenhagen pulse currents of desire, violence and despair, as women and men dream of escaping their conventional roles and…
Mr Twit hates his wife. Mrs Twit detests her husband. They like nothing more than playing wicked tricks on one another. Sooner or later, things are going to go too far... Even in real life Roald Dahl was very suspicious of men with beards. He thought they must be hiding something sinister. Michael Rosen, who wrote a book called Fantastic Mr…