| Author: | Khaled Hosseini |
So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one... Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and step-mother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle ... read more
| Author: | Patrick Ness |
One night, George Duncan - decent man, a good man - is woken by a noise in his garden. Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow. Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the moment he watches it fly off, his life is transformed. The next day, a kind but enigmatic woman... read more
| Author: | Colum McCann |
1919. Emily Ehrlich watches as two young airmen, Alcock and Brown, emerge from the carnage of the First World War to pilot the very first non-stop transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to the west of Ireland. Among the letters being carried on the aircraft is one which will not be opened for almost a hundred years. 1998. Sen... read more
| Author: | Elizabeth Strout |
Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, and Bob, a legal aid attorn... read more
| Author: | Edward Rutherfurd |
City of love. City of splendour. City of terror. City of dreams.
Inspired by the haunting, passionate story of the city of lights, this epic novel weaves a gripping tale of four families across the centuries: From the lies that spawn the noble line of de Cygne to the revolutionary Le Sourds who seek their destruction; f... read more
| Author: | Melvyn Bragg |
John visits his ageing mother Mary in her nursing home by the sea, and mourns the slow fading of her mind. Hoping to shore up her memory, he prompts her with songs, photographs and questions about the 1940s, when she was a young woman and he a child in a small Cumbrian town. But he finds that most of all it is her own mother ... read more
| Author: | Amos Oz |
'On the kibbutz it's hard to know. We're all supposed to be friends but very few really are.' Amos Oz's compelling new fiction offers revelatory glimpses into the secrets and frustrations of the human heart, played out by a community of misfits united by political disagreement, intense dissatisfaction and lifetimes of words l... read more
| Author: | Barbara Kingsolver |
Discontented with her life of poverty on a failing farm in the Eastern United States, Dellarobia, a young mother, impulsively seeks out an affair. Instead, on the Appalachian mountains above her home, she discovers something much more profoundly life-changing - a beautiful and terrible marvel of nature.
As the worl... read more
| Author: | Jane Gardam |
| Series: | Old Filth #3 |
Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat told with bristling tenderness and black humour the stories of that Titan of the Hong Kong law courts, Old Filth QC, and his clever, misunderstood wife Betty. Last Friends, the final volume of this trilogy, picks up with Terence Veneering, Filth's great rival in work and - though it was... read more
| Author: | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| Series: | Popular Penguins |
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby brilliantly captures the disillusion of a society obsessed with wealth and status. Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby appears to have it all, yet he yearns for the one thing that will always be out of his reach, the absence of which renders his life of glittering parties and... read more
| Author: | E. L. James |
"Fifty Shades of Grey". When literature student Anastasia Steele interviews successful entrepreneur Christian Grey, she finds him very attractive and deeply intimidating. Unworldly and innocent, Ana is shocked to find she wants this man, and excited when she realises that Christian wants her too. As they embark on a passionat... read more
| Author: | Ayana Mathis |
For fans of Toni Morrison, an unforgettably powerful novel about a mother's courage, sacrifice and love, set against the volatile history of twentieth century America.
When Hattie clambered from a train, her skirt still hemmed with Georgia mud and the dream of Philadelphia sitting round as a marble in her mouth, she cou... read more
| Author: | Dan Rhodes |
This title is essential reading for anyone who is, has ever been, or might one day be married.
| Author: | Claire Messud |
I'm halfway through my life, or maybe more, and I'm finally awake to the fact that it's in my hands alone. I've believed in other people, had faith, been patient, waiting for my moment -- enough, already. Who have I been kidding? Nora Eldridge has always been a good girl: a good daughter, colleague, friend, employee.
Sh... read more
| Author: | Hilary Mantel |
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2012 and the 2012 Costa Book of the Year. With this historic win for 'Bring Up the Bodies', Hilary Mantel becomes the first British author and the first woman to be awarded two Man Booker Prizes (her first was for 'Wolf Hall' in 2009). By 1535 Thomas Cromwell is Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his... read more
| Author: | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
This title deals with a new introduction by Geoff Dyer. The world and his mistress are at Jay Gatsby's party. But Gatsby stands apart from the crowd, isolated by a secret longing. In between sips of champagne his guests speculate about their mysterious host. Some say he's a bootlegger. Others swear he was a German spy during ... read more
| Author: | John le Carre |
A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that... read more
| Author: | Taiye Selasi |
This is the story of a family -- of the simple, devastating ways in which families tear themselves apart, and of the incredible lengths to which a family will go to put itself back together. It is the story of one family, the Sais, whose good life crumbles in an evening; a Ghanaian father, Kwaku Sai, who becomes a highly res... read more
| Author: | Kate Worsley |
Sarah Waters meets Carol Birch in a breathtaking story of love, adventure and identity.
It is 1740 and Louise Fletcher, a young dairymaid on an Essex farm, has been warned of the lure of the sea for as long as she can remember - after all, it stole away her father and brother. But when she is offered work in the bustlin... read more
| Author: | Khaled Hosseini |
So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one... Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and step-mother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle ... read more
| Author: | Edward Rutherfurd |
City of love. City of splendour. City of terror. City of dreams.
Inspired by the haunting, passionate story of the city of lights, this epic novel weaves a gripping tale of four families across the centuries: From the lies that spawn the noble line of de Cygne to the revolutionary Le Sourds who seek their destruction; f... read more
| Author: | Claire Messud |
I'm halfway through my life, or maybe more, and I'm finally awake to the fact that it's in my hands alone. I've believed in other people, had faith, been patient, waiting for my moment -- enough, already. Who have I been kidding? Nora Eldridge has always been a good girl: a good daughter, colleague, friend, employee.
Sh... read more