Contemporary Fiction Books

Book SynopsisAnne Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works. She has written two collections of stories, published together as Yesterday's Weather, one book of non-fiction, Making Babies, and seven novels, including The Gathering, which won the 2007 Man Booker Prize, The Forgotten Waltz, which was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and The Green Road, which was the Bord Gáis Energy Novel of the Year and won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. In 2015 she was appointed as the first Laureate for Irish Fiction, and in 2018 she received the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature. She is also the recipient of the 2022 Irish Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2024 Writers' Prize for Fiction.Trade ReviewWitty and acerbic...unusual and elegant. She is a writer to watch * Today *Introduces a new voice in Irish fiction...a quirky, subversive, original wit and an imaginative linguistic fluency which must be interpreted as the consolidation of a new literary maturity -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *In sentence after sentence as cool and clear-headed as the moment a migraine lifts, these pained, precise, disquieting stories restore to us the strangeness of the lives we follow beneath the surface of the lives we lead. The Portable Virgin is a remarkable debut -- Aidan MatthewsA great new Irish talent which we're bound to enjoy again. I can't wait * Irish Indepedent *

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Book SynopsisOn the high seas of the Caribbean, a family of English children is set loose - sent by their parents from their home in Jamaica to receive the civilising effects of England. When their ship is captured by pirates, the thrilling cruise continues as the children transfer their affections from one batch of sailors to another. Innocence is their protection, but as life in the care of pirates reveals its dangers, the events which unfold begin to take on a savagely detached quality.Writers'' reviews for A High Wind in Jamaica:''One of my all time favourite books'' Ann Patchett''I wouldn''t let a 14-year-old near it'' Meg Rosoff''I read the whole thing in one gulp. It was remarkable. Tiny. Crazy. I felt just like I did as a kid.'' Andrew Sean Greer''When I really like a book I''ll sometimes read a passage or two aloud to whoever''s nearby; this one I''d happily recite cover-to-cover'' Imogen Hermes GowarTrade ReviewI read Richard Hughes’ A High Wind in Jamaica this year and felt breathless with shock and awe… Appallingly dark story…dreadfully funny. * Independent *A High Wind in Jamaica is like those books you used to read under the covers with a flashlight - only infinitely more delicious ... and macabre -- Andrew Sean Greer * NPR *Wow. Just....wow. This is a nasty, wicked little book. It's wonderful -- Lydia Kiesling * The Millions *

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Book SynopsisA reclusive young man works in a San Francisco library for unpublishable books. Life''s losers, an astonishing number of whom seem to be writers, can bring their manuscripts to the library, where they will be welcomed, registered and shelved. They will not be read, but they will be cherished. In comes Vida, with her manuscript. Her book is about her gorgeous body in which she feels uncomfortable. The librarian makes her feel comfortable, and together they live in the back of the library until a trip to Tijuana changes them in ways neither of them had ever expected.

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of cult favourite Atomised''Reading Houellebecq is like being caught up in a tropical storm: you are blown away by the ferocity of his imagination'' ObserverMichel is a civil-servant at the Ministry of Culture. When his father is murdered, Michel takes a leave of absence to go on a package tour to Thailand. Infuriated by the shallow hypocrisy and mediocrity of his fellow travellers, only the awkward Valerie attracts his attention. Too bashful to pursue her, Michel prefers the uncomplicated pleasures of Thai massage parlours and sex with local women. Back in Paris, he calls Valerie and they plunge into a passionate affair, which strays into S&M, partner-swapping and sex in public. Michel quits his job, and tries to help Valerie and her boss, Jean-Yves, in their ailing travel business, by offering travel packages based on sex tourism in the third world. When their project comes to fruition and the three return Trade ReviewWith Atomised, you could see that Houellebecq was headed for greatness. With Platform he has attained it. The book is a stunning achievement * Evening Standard *Reading Houellebecq is never deflating; it is, rather, a source of constant inspiration and delight. Would that we could produce his like in England * Observer *A brilliant novel -- Anita BrooknerMichel Houellebecq has put contemporary French literature back on the map in a way not seen since Camus -- David Sexton * Evening Standard *There is something new and rare here, a genuinely unsettling wit with a terrible tang of truth * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisTibor Fischer''s hilarious first novel follows the adventures of two young Hungarian basketball players through the turbulent years between the end of World War II and the revolution of 1956. In this spirited indictment of totalitarianism, the two improbable heroes, Pataki and Gyuri, travel the length and breadth of Hungary in an epic quest for food, lodging, and female companionship.Trade ReviewI began Under the Frog on a crowded double decker in a London traffic jam...and soon found myself laughing like an idiot... It is a triumph...painfully moving, it is also uproariously funny * Guardian *A remarkable first novel * Daily Telegraph *Original and impressive... Sharp, funny and moving * Independent *A quite wonderful book... He takes a serious subject....and is seriously funny about it...the result is plausible, insolent, sophisticated and hungry... Glorious! -- Michael HoffmanA funny, slangy, tragic, impeccably researched romp... A richly convincing line-up of skivers, copulators, opportunists and, above all, survivors in the face of oppression * Independent on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisVirginia Woolf was born in London in 1882, the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, first editor of The Dictionary of National Biography. After his death in 1904 Virginia and her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell, moved to Bloomsbury and became the centre of The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture. In 1912 Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a writer and social reformer. Three years later, her first novel The Voyage Out was published, followed by Night and Day (1919) and Jacob's Room (1922). These first novels show the development of Virginia Woolf's distinctive and innovative narrative style. It was during this time that she and Leonard Woolf founded The Hogarth Press with the publication of the co-authored Two Stories in 1917, hand-printed in the dining room of their house in Surrey. Between 1925 and 1931 VirginiaTrade ReviewHere is the precursor of the experiments which are to fill her future novels, where the writer will evaporate and condense solid objects over her literary Bunsen burner in solutions of time or light -- Helen Simpson, from her introductionWith Joyce and Eliot, Woolf has shaped a literary century -- Jeanette Winterson * The Times *They seem as perfect, and as functional for all their beauty, as spider webs. Indeed they were made for like purpose: to trap and dissect living morsels in the form of palpitating moments of time, instantaneous perceptions, brief visions of others -- Eudora Welty * New York Times Book Review) *Virginia Woolf stands as the chief figure of modernism in England and must be included with Joyce and Proust in the realisation of experimental achievements that have completely broken with tradition * New York Times *Virginia Woolf was one of the great innovators of that decade of literary Modernism, the 1920s. Novels such as Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse showed how experimental writing could reshape our sense of ordinary life. Taking unremarkable materials - preparations for a genteel party, a day on a bourgeois family holiday - they trace the flow of associations and ideas that we call "consciousness" * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThe Angry Young Men movement, featuring such stars as Kingsley Amis, is perfectly illustrated through the iconic figure of Joe Lampton. The ruthlessly ambitious Joe Lampton rises swiftly from the petty bureaucracy of local government into the unfamiliar world of inherited wealth, fast cars and glamorous women. But the price of success is high, and betrayal and tragedy strike as Joe pursues his goals.Trade ReviewA harsh, accurate, powerful piece of story-telling * Tribune *Remarkable. . . Room at the Top communicates so successfully the mingled bitterness and bravery of youth * Sunday Times *He has real talent -- C.P. SnowThis novel is brilliant...The observation is shrewd and the emotion and the comedy are so true it hurts. * Daily Express *

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Book SynopsisAnthony Powell''s brilliant twelve-novel sequence chronicles the lives of over three hundred characters, and is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England. It is unrivalled for its scope, its humour and the enormous pleasure it has given to generations.Volume 3 contains the seventh, eighth and ninth novel in the series: The Valley of Bones; The Soldier''s Art; The Military PhilosophersTrade ReviewIncalculaby brilliant. * Time Magazine *

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Book SynopsisIs she ready to take a chance on love? A wonderfully romantic novel from the Sunday Times No 1 bestselling author of A Springtime Affair and A Wedding in the Country.''Thank goodness for Katie Fforde, the perfect author to bring comfort in difficult times. She really is the queen of uplifting, feel good romance.'' AJ PEARCE_________________A stall at a farmers'' market, a sprig of mistletoe, and a spontaneous kiss from a tall, attractive stranger...Nel is the owner of a houseful of animals and the organiser of the farmers'' market in the picturesque Paradise Fields.She is always super-busy, and the last thing she needs is another complication in her life.But when her old friend and owner of Paradise Fields dies, she knows she must fight to save the meadow and market she loves so dearly.But who can she trust to help her save Paradise Fields? Her sensible boyfriend Simon? Her friends, SacTrade Review"A witty and generous romance - Katie Fforde is on sparkling form - Jilly Cooper for the grown-ups" Independent "A romantic rural romp" Daily Mirror "A winning tale of romance with a sense of humour" The Good Book Guide "Old-fashioned romance of the best sort ... funny, comforting" Elle "The romance fizzes along with good humour and is a good, fat, summery read" Sunday Mirror

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Book SynopsisLove makes the world go round. A wonderfully romantic novel from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of A Wedding in the Country and A Springtime Affair.''Thank goodness for Katie Fforde, the perfect author to bring comfort in difficult times. She really is the queen of uplifting, feel good romance.'' AJ PEARCE_________________Ellie Summers'' life is unravelling. Finding herself pregnant - and her sexy but idle boyfriend Rick less than enthusiastic about parenthood - she needs a plan. Fast.Grace Soudley''s life is also coming apart at the seams - her only security is the beautiful yet crumbling old house she was left by her godmother. But unless she can find a fortune, Luckenham House will disintegrate around her.When Ellie and Grace meet, the two very different women find they can help each other out. Ellie needs a place to stay; Grace needs a lodger. Both of them need a friend. But then theTrade ReviewA heart-warming tale of female friendship, fizzing with Fforde's distinctive brand of humour * Sunday Express *

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Book SynopsisIt must be love ... A wonderfully romantic novel from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Recipe for Love, A Wedding in the Country and One Enchanted Evening.Thank goodness for Katie Fforde ...She really is the queen of uplifting, feel good romance.' AJ Pearce''Delicious - gorgeous humour and the lightest of touches Sunday Times''Top-drawer romantic escapism'' Daily Mail''Warm, brilliant and full of love'' Heat_____________Can love be about to bloom? A wonderfully romantic novel from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Recipe for Love, A French Affair and The Perfect Match.Althea lives in a too large a house with worrisome mortgage payments, has a bossy younger sister and an irksome ex-husband. She always manages to muddle through no matter what, but everything changes when she loses her job.Trade ReviewJoanna Trollope crossed with Tom Sharpe * Mail on Sunday *The romance fizzes along with good humour and is a good, fat, summery read * Sunday Mirror *Old-fashioned romance of the best sort … funny, comforting * Sunday Times *Delicious * Elle *Can be scoffed at one sitting … tasty! * Cosmopolitan *

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Book SynopsisIn the years since the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the Republic has continued to crumble and, more and more, the Jedi are needed to help the galactic government maintain order. As Star Wars: Episode II opens, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker have just returned from a mission on a world called Ansion. Written by beloved Star Wars veteran Alan Dean Foster, and starring a new character from the Episode II, The Approaching Storm tells the story of that daring mission. The Republic is decaying, even under the leadership of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who was elected to save the galaxy from collapsing under the forces of discontent. On the tiny but strategic planet of Ansion, a powerful faction is on the verge of joining the growing secessionist movement. The urban dwellers wish to expand into the prairies outside their cities - the ancestral territory of the fierce, independent Ansion nomads. If their demands are not met, they will secede - an act that could jump-star

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Book SynopsisIt is the summer of 1936, the early months of the agonising civil war that engulfs Spain and shakes the rest of the world. In a prison in the pilgrim city of Santiago de Compostela, an artist sketches the famous porch of the cathedral, the Portico da Gloria. He uses a carpenter''s pencil. But instead of reproducing the sculptured faces of the prophets and elders, he draws the faces of his fellow Republican prisoners. Many years later in post-Franco Spain, a survivor of that period, Doctor Daniel da Barca, returns from exile to his native Galicia, and the threads of past memories begin to be woven together. This poetic and moving novel conveys the horror and savagery of the tragedy that divided Spain, and the experiences of the men and women who lived through it. Yet in the process, it also relates one of the most beautiful love stories imaginable.Trade ReviewA startling novel. I have rarely read a piece of writing so poetic * Daily Telegraph *He is an important storyteller because he is sensitive and he has an incredible ear, which, in his fiction, is allied to great ingenuity -- John BergerI learnt more about the Spanish Civil War from The Carpenter's Pencil...than from any history book I've read -- Gunter Grass

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Book SynopsisTales of upheaval and confusion, longing and love in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake.For the characters in after the quake, the Kobe earthquake is an echo from a past they buried long ago.Trade ReviewIn a dance with the delights of Murakami's imagination we experience the limitless possibilities of fiction. With these stories Murakami expands our hearts and minds yet again * The Times *Ushers the reader into a hallucinatory world where the real and surreal merge and overlap, where dreams and real-life nightmares are impossible to tell apart...this slender volume, deftly translated by Jay Rubin, may serve as a succinct introduction to his imaginative world...Lewis Carroll meets Kafka with a touch of Philip K. Dick * New York Times *Dazzlingly elegant...In a world where even the ground beneath our feet can't be relied on, imagination becomes less of a luxury and more of a duty. It's an obligation that Murakami is busily making his raison d'etre, to our very great advantage * Guardian *In the world of literary fiction, Haruki Murakami is unquestionably a superstar...Many critics have touted Murakami for the Nobel Prize. If he can stay on this kind of form, he could be in with a chance * Scotland on Sunday *Murakami is a unique writer, at once restrained and raw, plainspoken and poetic * Washington Post *

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Book SynopsisArturo Perez-Reverte was born in Cartagena in 1951. Since the publication of The Fencing Master, his first novel, Perez-Reverte has become one of Europe's bestselling authors. The Flanders Panel was awarded the Grand Prix Annuel de Litterature Policiere in France. His novel, The Dumas Club, has been made into the film The Ninth Gate by Roman Polanski and starring Johnny Depp.Trade ReviewYou will want to reach the book's nearly perfect ending in a single sitting * Time Out *The author is in the best sense a romantic and to read him is to rediscover the delights of Dumas and Conan Doyle -- Amanda Craig * The Times *As assured and elegant as Don Jaime's sword thrusts -- Stephanie Merritt * Observer *A delight... the thriller as it out to be -- Allan Massie * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisA collection that features such stories as: When a man's favourite elephant vanishes, the balance of his whole life is subtly upset; a couple's midnight hunger pangs drive them to hold up a McDonald's; a woman finds she is irresistible to a small green monster that burrows through her front garden; and, more.Trade ReviewHow does Murakami manage to make poetry while writing of contemporary life and emotions? I am weak-kneed with admiration * Independent on Sunday *Enchanting...intriguing... All of these tales have a wonderfully surreal quality and a hip, witty tone * Wall Street Journal *All the stories take place in parallel worlds not so much remote from ordinary life as hidden within its surfaces: secret alleys that afford unexpected - and unsettling - views * New York Times *Like the best thriller fiction, it nags you with the sensation that Something Nasty is about to happen * Sunday Times *Most collections of short stories work by the interplay of different voices. This one offers the more satisfying rewards of a novel: unity of tone and a richness of recurring detail that creates its own texture: spaghetti, lawns, hamburgers, beer-drinking, kid sisters, Sunday afternoons, a man's name * Independent *

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Book SynopsisHigh-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami's idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance. 'If Raymond Chandler had lived long enough to see Blade Runner, he might have written something like Dance Dance Dance' Observer 'Mr Murakami writes metaphysical Far Easterns with a Western beat' New York Times 'An entertaining adventure that takes us to the frozen north of Japan to the dark, damp corners of the imagination... Reading Dance Dance Dance is a bit like being taken blindfold on a joy-ride' Independent 'Murakami reveals throughout, along with turn-on-a-sixpence plotting and joyous satirical Trade ReviewIf Raymond Chandler had lived long enough to see Blade Runner, he might have written something like Dance Dance Dance * Observer *An entertaining mix of modern sci-fi, nail-biting suspense and ancient myth...a sometimes funny, sometimes sinister mystery spoof, but like all good postmodern fiction, it also aims at contemporary human concerns, philosophical as well as literary * Chicago Tribune *An entertaining adventure that takes us to the frozen north of Japan, to Hawaii and to the dark, damp corners of the imagination... Reading Dance Dance Dance is a bit like being taken blindfold on a joy-ride * Independent *Mr Murakami writes metaphysical Far Easterns with a Western beat...there are echoes of Raymond Chandler, John Irving and Raymond Carver, but Mr. Murakami's mysterious plots and original characters are very much his own creation * New York Times *Brilliantly combines elements of the surreal, film noir and existentialist enquiry * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisFeatures a girl whose ears are so exquisite that, when uncovered, they improve sex a thousand-fold, a runaway friend, a right-wing politico, an ovine-obsessed professor, and a manic-depressive in a sheep outfit.Trade ReviewWonderfully easy to read and just as wonderfully difficult to make sense of...like the narrator, who slowly accepts the presence in his life of mystery, we slowly recognize the possibility of a new kind of world. Like him, we lean forward and topple headlong into magic * Washington Post *It begins as a detective novel, dips into a screwball comedy, and at its close becomes a tale of possession...A highly accomplished piece of craftsmanship * New Yorker *Mr. Murakami's style and imagination are closer to that of Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver and John Irving * New York Times *A Wild Sheep Chase has the conventional hull of a thriller - a quest, a mystery, an extraordinary woman, and plenty of elegant duress - but its fantastic superstructure transforms it into something quite different...a science fiction fantasy, a romance, a metaphysical tease, or a dramatisation of philosophical ideas * Independent *If you consider yourself an intelligent, sensitive common reader but wish to accommodate something a little removed from your experience, and probably your imagination, I dare you to turn your eyes towards Murakami and head off on a wild sheep chase. * Glasgow Herald *

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Book Synopsis''A book of excruciating sobriety and warmth and a magical concreteness of observation... I know of no book which conveys more about that complex fate, being a European at the end of European civilization'' Susan Sontag At first The Emigrants appears simply to document the lives of four Jewish émigrés in the twentieth century. But gradually, as Sebald''s precise, almost dreamlike prose begins to draw their stories, the four narrations merge into one overwhelming evocation of exile and loss.''An unconsoling masterpiece... Exquisitely written and exquisitely translated...a true work of art'' SpectatorTrade ReviewStrange, beautiful and terribly moving * A.S. Byatt *This deeply moving book shames most writers with its nerve and tact and wonder * Michael Ondaatje *An unconsoling masterpiece...It is exquisitely written and exquisitely translated...a true work of art * Spectator *A spellbinding account of four Jewish exiles. Its restrained and meditative tone has stayed with me all year * Nicholas Shakespeare *A sober delicate account of displacement, and a classic of its kind. Modest and remote, it resurrects older standards of behaviour, making most contemporary writing seem brash and immature. No book has pleased me more this year * Anita Brookner, Spectator *

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Book SynopsisThe time is 1946-2000. The Place is Elmwood Springs, Missouri. World War II has ended. Neighbour Dorothy broadcasts daily from her front room - to an audience across the state - the antics of her wayward son Bobby and adolescent Anna Lee. It''s hard to keep secrets in a community like theirs, but life isn''t perfect, and even Neighbour Dorothy has a tragedy as well hidden as it can be. Into their midst comes the Oatman Family, white Southern Gospel singers who arrive for a pharmaceutical convention, and blow the place away. And then there''s Hamm Sparks, a super-salesman everyone likes and trusts; and Charlie Fowler, the poultry king who can see the future in a bucket-to-go; and a wealth of other unforgettable residents. Not to mention the brand new Three Little Pigs Cafeteria, with its pink neon pig casting a glow over the high street and pointing the way to the future...Trade ReviewFlagg says as much about the human condition through observant comedy as others do through polemic * Scotland on Sunday *Poignant and funny, this novel cuts to the heart of small-town America * Mail on Sunday *Unarguably a wonderful story-teller * The Times *[A] big, juicy middle-American apple pie of a book, sometimes tart but mostly sweet * Los Angeles Times *Good news for fans of Fried Green Tomatoes... The action does not let up for a minute * New York Times Book Review *

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Book SynopsisThere are ninety-nine names for God in the Koran, is it possible that there is a secret one-hundredth name? There are ninety-nine names for God in the Koran, and merely to know this most secret hundredth name will, Balthasar believes, ensure his salvation.Trade ReviewHis is a voice which Europe cannot afford to ignore. * Guardian *His observation of human nature in all its facets is wonderfully accurate. * Sunday Telegraph *One of Maalouf's most subtle books, and without doubt one of his most accomplished. * Le Point *Sparkling and erudite, this is a wonderful novel. * Independent *A splendid book that should be read in the way one looks at a highly coloured fresco, allowing oneself to be transported by the breeze that wafts Balthasar on the most unexpected journeys. -- Josette Alia * Nouvel Observateur *

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Book SynopsisDiary takes the form of a ''coma diary'' kept by one Misty Tracy Wilmot as her husband lies senseless in hospital after a suicide attempt. Once she was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom; now, after marrying Peter at art school and being brought back to once quaint, now tourist-overrun Waytansea Island, she''s been reduced to the condition of a resort hotel maid. Peter, it turns out, has been hiding rooms in houses he''s refurbished and scrawling vile messages all over the walls. Angry homeowners are suing, and Misty''s dreams of artistic greatness are in ashes. But then, as if possessed by the spirit of Maura Kinkaid, a fabled Waytansea artist of the nineteenth century, Misty begins painting again, compulsively. The canvases are taken away by her mother-in-law and her doctor, who seem to have a plan for Misty - and for all those annoying tourists...Trade ReviewHis most scarily nihilistic and resonant book since Fight Club * Independent on Sunday *Like a noxious Douglas Coupland, Palahniuk charts new-felt and totally contemporary categories of despair -- Ali Smith * Guardian *A nihilistic masterpiece * NME *Part Rosemary's Baby, part The Wicker Man... The shocks are shocking and the twists nice and taut * Time Out *A truly terrifying horror story with some interestingly radical underpinnings * I-D *

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Book SynopsisWhen the Americans make an offer to buy land in Iceland to build a NATO airbase after the Second World War, a storm of protest is provoked throughout the country. Narrated by a country girl from the north, the novel follows her experiences after she takes up employment as a maid in the house of her Member of Parliament. Her observations and experiences expose the bourgeois society of the south as rootless and shallow and in stark contrast to the age-old culture of the solid and less fanciful north.''The Atom Station is the work of someone who has seen every cherished dream sold down the river, but who loves humanity too much to despair. His heroine refuses to be bullied or bought, a feminist before her time, full of curiosity and spirit'' GuardianTrade ReviewThe Atom Station is the work of someone who has seen every cherished dream sold down the river, but who loves humanity too much to despair. His heroine refuses to be bullied or bought, a feminist before her time, full of curiosity and spirit * Guardian *Laxness is a poet who writes to the edges of the pages, a visionary who allows us a plot. * Daily Telegraph *An extraordinary book, brimming with little wisdoms, funny episodes, sharp phrases...and a determined optimism of spirit * The Times *Laxness was a genius * New York Review of Books *Magnus Magnusson's translation reads smoothly and skilfully renders Laxness's dry and quirky wit * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisAndrey Kurkov was born in St Petersburg in 1961. Having graduated from the Kiev Foreign Languages Institute, he worked for some time as a journalist, did his military service as a prison warder in Odessa, then became a film cameraman, writer of screenplays and author of critically acclaimed and popular novels, including the cult bestseller Death and the Penguin.Trade ReviewAn ebullient black comedy... Reminiscent of the best Soviet dissident literature * Daily Telegraph *Full of touches of grim insight and tactful surrealism, with just enough of the absurd to suggest a cross between John le Carre's Smiley and Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita -- John Burnside * Scotland on Sunday *Kurkov is a fine satirist and a real, blackly comic find * Observer *Kurkov flips from mock-tragedy to comedy and back again, planting the ominous and the absurd neatly among deadpan descriptions of a daily life in denial * The Times *Kurkov received universal praise for his debut novel Death and the Penguin... Kurkov's latest is better * Time Out *

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Book SynopsisToni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. She was the author of many novels, including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved, Paradise and Love. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize for her fiction and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honour, in 2012 by Barack Obama. Toni Morrison died on 5 August 2019 at the age of eighty-eight.Trade ReviewToni Morrison makes me believe in God. She makes me believe in a divine being, because luck and genetics don’t seem to come close to explaining her * Guardian *Love is a brilliant book... Into a short narrative she packs mystery, suspense and a multi-stranded tale told with extraordinary deftness * Financial Times *This is a novel that demands to be read at least twice, for it is so rich and satisfying that it sweeps you into a subtle world that you need time to take in... Quite breathtaking * Daily Mail *Love's power lies in the luminosity and energy of its poetic images * Observer *Love is her best work yet, a slender but mesmerising tale * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisWhat do men run away from? Not war, not physical hardship, but the day-to-day emotional demands of impossible domestic situations. That's women's work. This is a story of female courage, where black comedy turns to disturbing pathos revolving around the rights of an indomitable womanTrade ReviewA moving story, a condemnation of the way we treat our old friends and loves, a rage against the dying of the light -- Philip Howard * The Times *A novel painfully full of feeling, and totally credible-the passion shines through -- Isabel Quigly * Financial Times *A memorably touching story about the pressures on a family trying to do their best... A wonderfully accurate, powerful and even funny portrait -- Graham Lord * Sunday Express *It is close to life in a way we hardly expect a novel to be, and finally very moving -- Hilary Mantel * Daily Telegraph *An extremely skilful and angry novel...beautifully written -- Anita Brookner * Spectator *

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Book SynopsisTHE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATUREThe characters who populate an Alice Munro story live and breathe. Passions hopelessly conceived, affections betrayed, marriages made and broken: the joys, fears, loves and awakenings of women echo throughout these twelve unforgettable stories, laying bare the unexceptional and yet inescapable pain of human contact.Trade ReviewShe has a touch of genius * Mail on Sunday *Only a few writers continue to create those full-bodied miniature universes of the old school. Some of her short stories are so ample and fulfilling that they feel like novels. They present whole landscapes and cultures, who families of characters -- Anne TylerThe writer's questioning memory gives us sharp flashes of reality that are so vividly recalled they permit us to live another life for a moment. * Publishers Weekly *Witty, subtle, passionate, The Moons of Jupiter is exceptionally knowledgeable about the content and movement - the entanglements and entailments - of individual human feeling. And the knowledge it offers can't be looked up elsewhere * New York Times *Munro is in a class of her own.... No other writer working today is able to invest the humble story with more power, grace or breadth.... Munro has been compared to Chekhov... She has the haunting lyricism and the indulgent wisdom to qualify. * Los Angeles Times Book Review *

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Book SynopsisEvery week, a writer of political propaganda and a professional blood donor meet for dinner. They are unlikely friends - one of them tortured by his ''art'', the other fat and wealthy from the earthy business of providing spare blood for the citizens of China. Over the course of one especially gastronomic evening, the writer starts to complain about his latest Party commission: the story of an ordinary soldier who sacrifices his life to the revolutionary cause. This is not the novel he wants to write, he tells his friend. Inside his head lives an unwritten book about the people he knows or sees everyday on the streets - people who lives are far more representative of the world in which he lives...Trade ReviewCompelling, inventive and bleakly funny * Big Issue *Deep black humour...owes a debt to Italo Calvino * Daily Telegraph *Ma's writing shines a light that is both humane and angry into some of the dustiest corners of a closed and often forgotten society * Observer *Playful and wonderfully dark...a Chinese Kundera -- Philip Marsden

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Book SynopsisCarlo Lucarelli was born in 1960 in Modena, Italy. He has written eleven noir novels and his work has been translated into many languages. He hosts a popular late-night television show in Italy that examines unsettling and unsolved crimes. He also teaches creative writing in Turin and edits an on-line magazine. He has written one other novel called Day After Day. Trade ReviewA stunning tour de force * Sunday Telegraph *With a brilliantly psychotic villain shadowing Simone and Grazia, and a roller coaster plot that never slows...this is a compact and powerful masterpiece... More, please * Guardian *It's a thrill being in that darkened room with Simone as he eavesdrops on the killer... Eerie * New York Times *Vivid and impressionistic... A virtuoso performance * Literary Review *Eerily atmospheric, breathlessly paced and genuinely gripping * Maxim *

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Book SynopsisAlice Munro was born in 1931 and was the author of thirteen collections of stories and the novel, Lives of Girls and Women. She received many awards and prizes, including three of Canada's Governor General's Literary Awards and two Giller Prizes, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Literary Award, the WHSmith Book Award in the UK, the National Book Critics Circle Award in the US, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Who Do You Think You Are? (previously published as The Beggar Maid), and was awarded the Man Booker International Prize 2009 for her overall contribution to fiction on the world stage, and in 2013 she won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Paris Review and other publications, and her collections have been translated into thirteen languages. Alice Munro died in 2024.Trade ReviewBrilliant at evoking life's diversity and unpredictability, [Alice Munro is] an unrivalled chronicler of human nature * Sunday Times *A superb collection... Marriage, gambles, disappearances, motiveless vandalism - it is the stuff of unremarkable lives, conveyed in a remarkable fashion * Independent *Alice Munro excites the writer in me - there is something new to learn from her in every sentence * A. S. Byatt *Alice Munro's stories are miraculous -- Lucy Hughes-Hallet * Sunday Times *Open Secrets by the wonderful Alice Munro, is a collection of short stories, written with exquisite style -- Joanna Trollope

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Book SynopsisBook four in the epic Masters of Rome series.Rome. 68 BC. Julius Caesar has proved himself a brilliant general. But when he returns to Rome he lays down arms only to take up another battle: this time for political power. This is a war waged with words, plots, schemes, metaphotical assassinations - but also with seduction and guile.Love is just another weapon in Caesar''s political arsenal, for the key to political glory lies with Rome''s noblewomen: powerful, vindictive Servilia, whose son Brutus deeply resents his mother''s passionate, destructive relationhshiop with Caesar; Rome''s revered Vestal Virgins; and even Caesar''s own daughter, sacrificed on the altar of his ambition.Trade ReviewIt is a powerful story, and McCullough tells it with the verve of a novelist and the commitment of a historian * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisThirty years old, successful and stunning, Darcy Rhone used to think that ''being down and out'' meant not finding a size four at the Barney''s Warehouse Sale. Now she is pregnant, unmarried and recovering from a broken engagement to Dex and the betrayal of her ex-best friend Rachel, who stole Dex''s affections. For the first time in her life, she is completely alone. Frantically casting around for help, she calls upon Ethan, an old high school friend, and convinces him to let her stay with him in London for a few weeks to get her act together. Little does she know what she''s in for when she boards the plane to cross the Atlantic, but as weeks turn into months, Darcy makes a surprising discovery. Preparing for motherhood and settling into a new career, she builds herself a new life from scratch, finally finding romance - in the most unexpected place ...Trade ReviewI absolutely loved it - I could not put it down ... a compelling, engrossing and uplifting book * Marian Keyes *Sex and the City fans will love this sassy debut novel about two best friends whose rather unlikely lifelong friendship is about to be sorely tested * Woman's Own *Here's a heroine you'll root for and a book you won't want to put down. I loved it * Lauren Weisberger, author of The Devil Wears Prada *Gripping from start to finish * Best *

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Book Synopsis''Kurkov is hugely talented. Truly very funny'' Time OutMarital troubles? Sick of life? Suicide the answer? Why not get yourself a contract killer? Nothing easier, provided you communicate only by phone and box number. You give him your photograph, specify when and where to find you, then sit back and prepare to die. Murdered, you will be of greater interest than ever you were in life. More to him than met the eye will be the judgement. A mysterious killing lives long in the popular memory. Our hero meticulously plans his own demise, except for one detail: what if he suddenly decides he wants to live?Trade ReviewKurkov's eye for the absurdities of Ukrainian life is as sharp as ever * Sunday Telegraph *A perfectly balanced read * Scotland on Sunday *A brilliant black comedy * Evening Standard *Excellent... Blackly comic. Remarkable * New York Times *Kurkov conjures up both Gogol and Dostoevsky... Genuinely original * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisWatching a rented video, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is shocked to notice that one of the actors is identical to him in every physical detail. Saramago's novel explores the nature of individuality and examines the fear and insecurity that arise when our singularity comes under threat, when even a wife cannot tell the original from the imposter...Trade ReviewQuite unlike anything else * London Review of Books *A Borgesian fable with a marvellous flavour all its own -- Phillip Hensher, Books of the Year * Spectator *A comic and profound exploration of the self... A uniquely seductive writer * Daily Telegraph *The Double is Saramago at his most practised and polished. It is philosophy and thriller rolled into one * Independent *Indebted to Borges and with a nod to Auster, he manages to surpass both with the audacity and sheer erudition of his prose -- Catherine Taylor * The Guardian *

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Book Synopsis''Rich, authentic and entertaining'' New StatesmanDiscover the darkly funny follow-up to cult classic Death and the PenguinViktor - last seen in Death and the Penguin fleeing Mafia vengeance on an Antarctica-bound flight booked for Penguin Misha - seizes a heaven-sent opportunity to return to Kiev with a new identity. Clear now as to the enormity of abandoning Misha, then convalescent from a heart-transplant, Viktor determines to make amends. Viktor falls in with a Mafia boss who engages him to help in his election campaign, then introduces him to men who might further his search for Misha, said to be in a private zoo in Chechnya. What ensues is for Viktor both a quest and an odyssey of atonement, and, for the reader, an experience as rich, topical and illuminating as Death and the Penguin.Trade ReviewDelicious – when Viktor finally finds Misha it is as if Woody Allen had gone to meet Kurtz * Spectator *There is more magic in his realism than in a library of witches and wizards * Scotland on Sunday *Rich, authentic and entertaining * New Statesman *This grotesque post-Soviet world is tinged with Dostoevskian absurdity * Independent *Death and the Penguin was praised for its brutal humour, tender humanity and all-out guts. Penguin Lost is a sequel equally superlative and twice as readable * Ink *

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Book Synopsis''A terrifying, painfully funny Swiftian exercise in moral disgust'' ObserverSmooth-talking, sensual and self-deluded, Gregory Riding leads an existence of formidable foppishness, his days and nights a series of effortless, titillating conquests and tireless sex - sister, employers, acquaintances are but co-stars among a cast of thousands to have passed through his busy bed. Meanwhile, Gregory''s foster brother, Terry, has to make do with the leavings as he trawls through life in a miasma of grief, burdened by an unmentionable past and the unlikelihood of ever having a good time in bed. But when Success swivels her capricious gaze roles are reversed with and the Riding brothers find their lives dramatically changed. An instantly recognizable voice, penetratingTrade ReviewBeautifully constructed to make a coherent, powerful and still fairly unusual statement about changing English society * Evening Standard *An instantly recognizable voice, penetrating, loquacious, slightly hysterical, upsetting, rising above the basso pseudo-profundo babble of his competitors like filed fingernails scraping down glass - Martin Amis is a dazzling phrasemaker * Sunday Times *Amis pulls off his literary feat with panache * Spectator *

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Book SynopsisJohn Self is a consumer extraordinaire. Rolling between London and New York he closes movie deals and spends feverishly, all the while grabbing everything he can to sate his massive appetites: alcohol, tobacco, pills, pornography and mountains of junk food. But John's excesses haven't gone unnoted. Menaced by a phone stalker, his high-wire, hoggish lifestyle is about to bring him face-to-face with the secret of his success. ''Terribly, terminally funny: laughter in the dark, if ever I heard it'' GuardianTrade ReviewAmis is still the finest English fiction writer of his generation * Sunday Independent *An electrifying writer who likes to shock his fans and share his sharply contemporary concerns... Amis is a maddening master you need to read - the best of his generation * Mail on Sunday *Amis is immaculate as a comic stylist...irresistible * Daily Telegraph *His eloquently rendered inner life shows a richness and tenderness * The Week *A comic opera of excess and humiliation, driven by the punch and panache of Amis's extraordinary prose, Money remains as satirically spot-on as when it was first published * The List *

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Book SynopsisJ.M. Coetzee's work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.Trade ReviewOne of Coetzee's best...simply burns with creative passion -- D. J. Taylor * Independent *An important book... Extraordinary * Independent on Sunday *Probably the best book on the [Booker] longlist, the one that will last... Every word counts. Every sentence lives * Evening Standard *The best novel I've read this year, a book so bold and so clever that one wants to call it something other than a novel, to take it out of that commonplace genre -- Frank Kermode * Times Literary Supplement *A readable and engaging book. Demanding, playful, provocative...hugely enlightening and rewarding * Sunday Times *

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Book Synopsis''An astute and accomplished work'' Daily MailJoyce Stevenson is thirteen when her widowed mother takes them to live with Aunt Vera, a formidable teacher neglected by her unfaithful husband. Joyce watches the two sisters - her aunt''s unbending dedication to the life of the mind, her mother worn down by housework - and thinks that each of them is powerless in her own way. For Joyce, art school provides an escape route, and there she falls in love with one of her teachers. When she marries and has children, she is determined to manage her relationship with a new freedom, but will she be able to save herself from the mistakes of the previous generation? Or will her daughter, Zoe, only see Joyce as similarly trapped? A poignant tale of navigating mothering and womanhood in twentieth century Britain, Everything Will Be All Right is yet another work of the finest beauty from Tessa Hadley. Trade ReviewFew writers give me such consistent pleasure -- Zadie SmithShe has such great psychological insights into human beings, which is rare. She is one of the best fiction writers writing today -- Chimamanda Ngozie AdichieBewitchingly compelling... Gloriously addictive, delectably enjoyable... the reader is snared and kept captive to the last... Exquisite * Guardian *Hadley's fiction resembles that of Anne Tyler in aiming to illuminate ordinary life * Sunday Times *Genuinely exciting * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisBrings together some of the best selling Crime writers in the World to create a collection of short stories of murder, betrayal and intrigue. Each story in this book is interlinked by a charm bracelet which makes its way into each tale bringing bad luck wherever it is found. The authors' tales are set in their usual city and era of choice.Trade ReviewThere are currently no reviews for this title/product

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Book SynopsisIt is also home to Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a handsome young aristocrat corrupted by powerty, a shameless pleasure seeker.Two men of extraordinary vision, men of ruthless ambition, both blessed and cursed by the special favour of Fortune.Trade ReviewThe author's narrative flows as easily as Father tiber . . . A grandly meaty historical novel . . . rich with gracefully integrated research and thundering to the beat of marching roman legions * Kirkus Reviews *

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Book Synopsis________________________________The first book in Diana Gabaldon''s LORD JOHN GREY series, set in the same world as her OUTLANDER novelsIt''s 1758 and Europe is in turmoil - the Seven Years War is taking hold and London is ripe with deceit. The enigmatic Lord John Grey, a nobleman and high-ranking officer in His Majesty''s Army, pursues a clandestine love affair and a deadly family secret. Grey''s father, the Duke of Pardloe, shot himself just days before he was to be accused of being a Jacobite traitor. Now, seventeen years on, the family name has been redeemed; but an impending marriage revives the scandal. Lord John knows that as Whitehall whispers, rumours all too often lead their victims to the wails of Newgate prison - and to the gallows. From barracks and parade-grounds to the bloody battlefields of Prussia, Grey faces danger and forbidden passions in his search for the truth. But it is in the stony fells of the Lake District that he finds the man who may hold the key to his quest: the enigmatic Jacobite prisoner Jamie Fraser. Eighteenth-century Europe is brought startlingly to life in this compelling adventure mystery.Trade ReviewGabaldon provides a rich, abundantly researched, entirely readable portrait of life among the English upper classes in the 1750s. From London's literary salons and political intrigue to fearsome battle scenes in the Seven Years' War, her writing is always vivid and often lyrical * The Washington Post *

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Book SynopsisBrought to you by Penguin.''The bloody victory of the Corleone Family was not complete,'' begins the final chapter of Mario Puzo''s The Godfather, ''until a year of delicate manoeuvring established Michael Corleone as the most powerful Family chief in the United States.''The Godfather: The Lost Years takes place in the years 1955-65, but it is built upon the story of that ''year of delicate political manoeuvring'' - and how, in winning the battle of that year, Michael Corleone set the stage to lose the war: the war to make the Family legitimate, the war to keep the Corleones supremely in power, the war to stay true to his father''s wishes, the war to give not just his Family but his family a safe and happy life.The Godfather: The Lost Years is not just a sequel. A magnificent novel in its own right, by an acclaimed young American novelist, it traces the nexus of ambitious, audacious decisions that Michael Corleone implements, tTrade ReviewHe (Winegardner) has done an excellent job and, though he is standing on the shoulders of a giant, The Lost Years is in some respects an improvement on its model * The Telegraph *The Godfather Returns is not only a real book by a real writer. It's also a real pleasure, a fine, swirling epic - bitter, touching, funny and true ... Winegardner has not squandered his inheritance * New York Times Book Review *The measure of his success is quickly apparent ... he brilliantly recreates the vivid, pungent prose style of Puzo's original * Daily Express *

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