Contemporary fiction titles are those which focus on the present or near past. Stories rooted in the current cultural, social, and political landscape which feature characters we can all recognise.
Contemporary Fiction Books
Penguin Books Ltd The Outsider. Manga Edition
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£17.09
Penguin Books Ltd The Girls Who Grew Big
Book SynopsisFrom the author of the Booker nominated, international bestseller Nightcrawling: a novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a Florida beach town. When Adela Woods tells her parents she's pregnant, they immediately send her a thousand miles away to stay with her grandmother in Padua Beach. The intention is that she will leave her baby in 'the forgotten Panhandle of Florida'. and resume her suburban life nine months later as though nothing happened. But Adela's plans are soon washed away by the tide. First, Adela meets Emory, a new mother determined to defy the expectations of everyone around her, returning to high school with her newborn baby strapped to her chest. Then she meets Simone, ringleader of the Girls,' a group of young mothers who create a village together in the back of her red truckdancing, breastfeeding, raising their children and themselves. The town thinks they've lost their way. Really, they are finding it. But as they look
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd Back in the Day
Book SynopsisTaut, lyrical and utterly gripping - the internationally award-winning and bestselling debutA fizzing headrush of a novel about four boys coming of age on the deprived outskirts of Oslo''A shot in the arm: equally brutal and soulful, the most vivid, vital book I''ve read in ages'' Lisa McInerneyA powerful portrait of youth and young manhood - unexpected and beautiful' Michael Magee''Raw and unfiltered, I was hooked from the very first page'' Service95Last night i got woke up by marco ringing, and he was crying, he said, he died ivor, he died, and i didnt need to hear who to know, i just hung up.Ivor and Marco have been getting high since they were thirteen, started dealing at fourteen, by fifteen they were carrying knives. At sixteen years old, they hurtle from one trip to the next, one fight to the next, always watching their backs. Ivor dreams of getting out - finishing school, becoming a lawyer, marrying the girl he loves from the corner shop - but the path he''s on only leads one way.In flashes of firecracker prose, shot through with rare empathy, irrepressible wit and gut-punch pathos, Oliver Lovrenski gives voice to young men growing up in a brutal and chaotic world.WINNER of the Oslo City Artist Prize and the Norwegian Booksellers PrizeSHORTLISTED for the Brage Award and the Tarjei Vesaas Debut Prize
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Experience of Pain
Book SynopsisThe seething cauldron of life, the infinite stratification of reality, the inextricable tangle of knowledge are what Gadda wants to depict' Italo Calvino Gonzalo is a highly educated man living alone with his ageing, widowed mother in a town scarred by war. He rages against the world. The doctor tells him to get out more. But his frustration starts to erupt in increasingly ferocious and unexpected ways, with disastrous consequences. Set in a fictional South American country, Carlo Emilio Gadda's intensely personal, visceral novel was written at the height of Fascist rule in Italy, tearing apart language itself to explore the violence and chaos of the darkest of times. Translated by Richard DixonHis best work . . . among the most powerful passages in 20th-century Italian fiction' Tim Parks, London Review of Books
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Deviants
Book Synopsis''Compulsive and wrenching ... Bhattacharya has written the epic text for the South Asian queer community that the characters in this book long to find'' Sarvat Hasin, author of The Giant Dark''There is an epic confidence to Bhattacharya's writing'' Samira Ahmed''It's magnificent: funny, melancholic, sharply true. The force of it crept up on me in a brilliantly subtle way'' James Cahill, author of Tiepolo BlueFROM THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF ONE SMALL VOICE: a bold, electrifying story of a family in which three generations of gay men in India fight for love and dignity against the currents of their timesVivaan, a teenager in India's silicon plateau, has discovered love on his smartphone. Intoxicating, boundary-breaking love. His parents know he is gay, and their support is something Vivaan can count on, but they don't know what exactly their son gets up to in the online world.For his uncle, born thirty years earlier, things were very different. Mambro's life changed forever when he fell for a male classmate at a time, and in a country, where the persecution of gay people was rife under a colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality.And before that was Mambro's uncle Sukumar, a young man hopelessly in love with another young man, but forced by social taboos to keep their relationship a secret at all costs. Sukumar would never live the life he yearned for, but his story would ignite and inspire his nephew and grand-nephew after him.Bold and bracing, intimate and heartbreaking, Deviants examines the histories we inherit and the legacies we leave behind.''Bhattacharya''s storytelling talents are limitless'' Nikesh Shukla, praise for One Small VoiceA joy to read, a full universe of feeling ... A born storyteller'' Max Porter, praise for One Small Voice
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd Mothers and Sons
Book SynopsisA mother and son, estranged for many years, reckon at last with the secret that has kept them apart in this highly anticipated novel by one of the most talented American writers of his generationAt forty, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for twenty years returns to haunt him. Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat centre she founded after leaving his father, is wounded by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built. She long ago banished from her mind the decision that divided her from her son. But as Peter's case plunges him further into the fraught memory of his first love and the night of violence that changed his life forever, he and his mother must confront the secret that tore them apart. With unsurpassed emotional depth, Mothers and Sons reveals all that is lost by looking away from the past and the love that might be restored by facing it. In his spellbinding new novel, Adam Haslett demonstrates yet again his mastery of a rich assortment of literary gifts (New York Times). 'Subtle, symphonic and satisfying' Financial Times'An epic family saga that packs an extraordinary emotional punch . . . this book is his best yet' Observer
£17.00
Penguin Books Ltd My Search for Warren Harding
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£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Other Wife
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£14.62
Penguin Books Ltd Favourite Daughter
Book Synopsis'This book is so stunningly fresh and darkly funny that every page surprised me. Dick writes brilliantly about grief and addiction and inheritance and, yes, redemption.' CATHERINE NEWMAN, AUTHOR OF SANDWICH'He left you some money.'Mickey felt her mouth drop open. The first half of that sentence had rung clear and true. The second half had not. Her father was one to take, not give. After he left them for his new family, Mickey resolved never to think of her father again. She's fine without him; yes, she drinks, but only sometimes and, really, she can't not. But with only $181 to her name, she's not above attending some mandated therapy to access her inheritance. She'll kneel at the Kleenex alter and soon be bingeing Bridgerton with a bottle of Russian Standard, five million dollars richer. Arlo has more issues than most of her clients. Being a therapist has not prepared her for grief. She adored her father his laughter, his charm, the smell of his cologne. She thought he adored h
£16.88
Penguin Books Ltd A Sharp Scratch
Book SynopsisFrom the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Things We Do To Our Friends, comes a timely, gripping novel about the dark underbelly of wellness culture'DARWENT HAS A GREAT CAREER AS A THRILLER WRITER AHEAD OF HER' SUNDAY TIMESWe can fix you. It's a promise that Betsy has heard far too many times. From the child psychologist, from her husband, and from the wellness trends that scream at her from her screen. So far, it's been a lie. But this time, she believes it. Because Betsy has been offered a place at Carn - a luxurious, unorthodox retreat, where healing really is possible. At Carn, she discovers that her imperfections make her unique, not weak. She isn't broken, just special. All Betsy has to do is follow the rules . . . ---Praise for Heather Darwent'Satisfyingly dark, cleverly plotted' Emma Flint, Little Deaths'Smart, sophisticated, seductive' S J Watson, Before I Go To Sleep'Startlingly lovely, like a fine, dark silk shivering on your skin' Julia Heaberlin, We Are All the Same in the Dark'A deeply compelling story of friendships turned rotten' Rosemary Hennigan, The Truth Will Out'Dark academia and twisted friendships in gothic Edinburgh - what more could you want?' Cailean Steed, Home
£15.29
Penguin Books Ltd (UK) Odour of Chrysanthemums
Book Synopsis90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin BooksThis small group of stories by D. H. Lawrence show him in a number of moods. The hope is that in such a limited number of pages, the reader will come away with a compressed, rich sense of Lawrence's wonderful prose style, precision of language and expansive vision of the human struggle and how it can be transcended. Is Odour of Chrysanthemums' perhaps the greatest of all English short stories?
£5.99
Penguin Books Ltd (UK) The Price of Freedom
Book Synopsis90 Classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin BooksSaadat Hasan Manto, the most widely read and translated writer in the Urdu language, captured the devastation and absurdity of the partition of India and Pakistan like no other. The Price of Freedom brings together ten of his best stories, focusing on human voices from the religious fracture that forever unhinged two newly independent nations. Powerful, piercing and deeply moving, Manto's works are key to understanding this bloody chapter in South Asian history.
£5.99
Penguin Books Ltd Reflections in a Golden Eye
Book Synopsis90 Classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin BooksOn a military base in 1930s Georgia, Private Ellgee Williams catches sight of his captain's wife in the nude and becomes obsessed with her. But Captain Penderton unhappily married to the unfaithful Leonora in turn erotically fixates on Williams. Spare, muscular and sensual, with the dramatic vision of a Greek myth, Carson McCullers' novella is a timeless work about the alienation of forbidden desire.
£5.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Drivers Seat
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£5.99
Penguin Books Ltd Thousand Cranes
Book SynopsisKikuji has been invited to a tea ceremony by a mistress of his dead father, only to find that the mistress' rival and successor is also present. He falls for her, with devastating consequences. By 1949 Yasunari Kawabata, the first Japanese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, felt that the tradition of the tea ceremony had been degraded. In this delicate novella he uses the ceremony as a powerful vehicle for loneliness, yearning and loss of history.
£7.47
Penguin Books Ltd Closely Watched Trains
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£5.99
Penguin Books Ltd Under the Jaguar Sun
Book Synopsis90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin BooksI went down, I climbed back up into the light of the jaguar sun into the sea of the green sap of the leaves. The world spun, I plunged down, my throat cut by the knife of the king-priest The solar energy coursed along dense networks of blood and chlorophyll; I was living and dying in all the fibers of what is chewed and digested and in all the fibres that absorb the sun
£5.99
Penguin Books Ltd (UK) Wolf Solent
Book Synopsis ''A great literary masterpiece'' A. N. Wilson ''A genius ... a fearless writer, who writes with reckless passion'' Margaret DrabbleJohn Cowper Powys''s epic Wolf Solent centres around the story of a young man returning to his roots in the West Country after ten years in London. Complex, romantic and humorous, it is peopled with memorable characters and filled with vivid, primitive descriptions of landscape. But beyond this powerful evocation of people and place, Wolf Solent is also a meditation on life and death, good and evil, body and soul, combining the earthy and everyday with the spiritual.''Wolf Solent is a stupendous and rather glorious book as beautiful and strange as an electric storm'' V. S. Pritchett
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Ruling Class
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£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd I Am Clarence
Book SynopsisFor Clarence's mother, life revolves around her young son; she takes him to see specialists to find the cause of his blindness and developmental delays, protects him from the cruelty of other children, and loves him tenderly. But she has her own struggles too. Her sanity is precarious and fractured, making caregiving increasingly difficult.When her mental health reaches a breaking point, she checks herself into an institution so that she can get better and, she tells herself, be a better mother to Clarence. As she is forced to decide between his well-being and hers, Elaine Kraf poses the essential question: can a mother's love for her child soothe her own emotional upheaval? How much can she sacrifice for her son?Through this unforgettable journey into one woman's mind and relationships, Kraf paints a harrowing portrait of motherhood which remains timely and inventive over fifty years after its initial publication.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Hard Rain Falling
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£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Blank Canvas
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd I Found Myself...The Last Dreams
Book SynopsisFROM THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HISHAM MATARAfter an assassination attempt and in waning health, Naguib Mahfouz became more cautious in his twilight years. At the same time, in nightly dreams, his imagination began to roam his beloved city, Cairo, with a rare freedom.In this collection of vivid vignettes linked together by the author's precisely rendered nocturnal wanderings through Cairo, figures from Mahfouz's personal life blend with his anxieties about Egypt's political past and future. Each dream is layered with philosophical and spiritual musings, hopes and disappointments. Over the course of the book, they build to a rich and complex picture of Mahfouz's subconscious.A master of both detailed realism and fabulous storytelling' GUARDIAN
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd You and Me on Vacation
£26.25
Penguin Books Ltd Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters Seymour an
Book SynopsisA haunting portrait of family tragedy from the acclaimed author of The Catcher in the Rye''He was a great many things to a great many people while he lived, and virtually all things to his brothers and sisters in our somewhat outsized family. Surely he was all real things to us: our blue-striped unicorn, our double-lensed burning glass, our consultant genius, our portable conscience, our supercargo, and our one full poet...''These two novellas, set seventeen years apart, are both concerned with Seymour Glass - the eldest son of J. D. Salinger''s fictional Glass family - as recalled by his closest brother, Buddy.''The Glasses are one of the liveliest, funniest, most fully-realized families in all fiction'' The New York Times
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd My Secret History
Book Synopsis''Written with a rare intensity of both intelligence and feeling. . . a superbly realistic evocation of the journeys (both dark and comical) of the human heart'' Salman Rushdie, ObserverIn My Secret History, award-winning writer Paul Theroux offers the reader an exciting insight into the double-life of Andre Parent in six compelling snapshots. ''Nothing on the shelf has quite prepared the reader of My Secret History. . . Parent saunters into the book aged fifteen, shouldering a .22 Mossberg rifle as earlier, more innocent American heroes used to tote a fishing pole. In his pocket is a paperback translation of Dante''s Inferno. . . he is a creature of naked and unquenchable ego, greedy for sex, money, experience, another life'' Jonathan Raban, Observer''Theroux''s best creation, a character who is honest enough to know that he wants it both ways: to be the lover and also the solitary observer who betrays his loves by t
£16.19
Penguin Books Ltd The Race
Book SynopsisThe Race is the fourth turn of the century thriller by Clive Cussler.1910, and America''s first ever cross-country flying race has been sabotaged . . . Newspaper magnate Preston Whiteway is offering a big prize for the first aviator to cross America in under fifty days. He wants Josephine Frost - the country''s leading as well as most glamorous pilot - to win. Which is why he''s hired Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Detective Agency. Josephine saw her husband Harry Frost kill a man. Now he wants her dead. And with underworld contacts ready to help in every city en route, he''ll do anything, go after anyone who gets in his way - including Whiteway and Bell. Packed with brilliant twists and turns, The Race sees the intrepid Private Investigator locked in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a killer whose resources are matched only by his willingness to cause mayhem during the race of a lifetime . . .Clive Cussler''s The Race <Trade ReviewFrightening and full of suspense . . . unquestionably entertaining * Daily Express *All-action, narrow escapes and the kind of unrelenting plot tension that has won Cussler hundreds of millions of fans worldwide * Observer *
£11.39
Penguin Books Ltd Age of Iron
Book SynopsisNobel Laureate and two-time Booker prize-winning author of Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K, J. M. Coetzee tells the remarkable story of a nation gripped in brutal apartheid in his Sunday Express Book of the Year award-winner Age of Iron. In Cape Town, South Africa, an elderly classics professor writes a letter to her distant daughter, recounting the strange and disturbing events of her dying days. She has been opposed to the lies and the brutality of apartheid all her life, but now she finds herself coming face to face with its true horrors: the hounding by the police of her servant''s son, the burning of a nearby black township, the murder by security forces of a teenage activist who seeks refuge in her house. Through it all, her only companion, the only person to whom she can confess her mounting anger and despair, is a homeless man who one day appears on her doorstep.In Age of Iron, J. M. Coetzee brings his searing iTrade ReviewIt is, quite simply, a magnificent and unforgettable work * Daily Telegraph *A superbly realised novel whose truth cuts to the bone * The New York Times *A fierce pageant of modern South Africa ... A remarkable work by a brilliant writer * Wall Street Journal *Coetzee is one of the greatest writers of our time ... Age of Iron is taut, ironic, grieving and, finally, astonishing * Los Angeles Times *
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd breakfastattiffanystrumancapote
Book SynopsisA beautifully designed edition of Truman Capote''s dazzling New York novel Breakfast at Tiffany''s, which inspired the classic 1961 film starring Audrey Hepburn ''What I''ve found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany''s. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits...'' Meet Holly Golightly - a free spirited, lop-sided romantic girl about town. With her tousled blond hair and upturned nose, dark glasses and chic black dresses, Holly is a style sensation wherever she goes. Her apartment rocks to Martini-soaked parties and she plays hostess to millionaires and gangsters alike. Yet Holly never loses sight of her ultimate dream - to find a real life place like Tiffany''s that makes her feel at home. Full of sharp wit and exuberant, larger-than-life characters which vividly capture tTrade ReviewThe most romantic story ever written -- Alex James * Guardian *A master writer ... makes the heart sing and the narrative fly * The New York Times *One of the century's greatest storytellers * Independent on Sunday *
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Lady Chatterleys Lover
Book Synopsis''Connie was aware, however, of a growing restlessness...It thrilled inside her body, in her womb, somewhere, till she felt she must jump into water and swim to get away from it; a mad restlessness. It made her heart beat violently for no reason...''Lady Constance Chatterley is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who is impotent. Oppressed by her dreary life, she is drawn to Mellors the gamekeeper. Breaking out against the constraints of society she yields to her instinctive desire for him and discovers the transforming power of physical love which leads them both towards fulfilment.Banned for many years for its frank depiction of sex, Lady Chatterley''s Lover was first published by Penguin in 1960 and was at the centre of a sensational obscenity trial at the Old Bailey. D. H. Lawrence himself called it ''the most improper novel in the world''.Trade ReviewNo one ever wrote better about the power struggles of sex and love -- Doris LessingA masterpiece, for its acute psychological insight, its complex relationships, and its intensity of feeling and expression. Beautiful and tender and frail as the naked self * Guardian *In no modern writer are sexuality and creativity more deeply and intricately connected than in Lawrence -- David Lodge * New York Review of Books *
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Lolita
Book Synopsis''Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.''Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor. In love with his landlady''s twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he''ll do anything to possess her. Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants.Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these?Trade ReviewYou read Lolita sprawling limply in your chair, ravished, overcome, nodding scandalized assent -- Martin Amis * Observer *A masterpiece. One of the great works of art of our age * Independent *His command of words, his joy in them, his comic and ecstatic use of them...makes reading his work such an intense joy * Daily Telegraph *Lolita is more the shocking because it is both intensely lyrical and wildly funny ... a Medusa's head with trick paper snakes * Time *A great novel ... It widens our own humanity * Guardian *There's no funnier monster in modern literature than poor, doomed Humbert Humbert. Going to hell in his company would always be worth the ride * Independent *Redeeming, spendid, headlong, endlessly comic and evocative -- John UpdikeRapturous ... incendiary * Time Out *
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Eva Luna
Book SynopsisIsabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru, in 1942 and moved to Chile as a child. She was a journalist for many years before publishing her first novel, The House of the Spirits in 1982. She is the author of eight novels, including Inés of My Soul, Daughter of Fortune, and Portrait in Sepia. She has also written a collection of stories, four memoirs, and a trilogy of children's novels. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages and have become bestsellers across four continents. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Isabel Allende lives in California.Trade ReviewA heartfelt novel, powerful enough to make a dictator cry * Evening Standard *She can spin a tale out of a pebble and a piece of string ... the atmosphere of encroaching doom, buried treasure and broken hearts is never tragic because there is a continual sense of life's endless opulence * Independent *Packed with action, prodigal in invention, vivid in description and metaphor, this cleverly plotted novel is enhanced by its flowing prose and absolute assurance * The Times *Allende's world is both sweet and sinister, and the flamboyance and power of her vision can seduce the sourest and most literal-minded reader * Daily Telegraph *
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Austerlitz
Book SynopsisA classic novel of post-war Europe, haunting and timelessly beautiful''The greatest writer of our time'' Peter CareyIn 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed with foster parents. This childless couple promptly erase from the boy all knowledge of his identity and he grows up ignorant of his past. Later in life, after a career as an architectural historian, Austerlitz - having avoided all clues that might point to his origin - finds the past returning to haunt him and he is forced to explore what happened fifty years before. Austerlitz is W.G. Sebald''s melancholic masterpiece.''Mesmeric, haunting and heartbreakingly tragic. Simply no other writer is writing or thinking on the same level as Sebald'' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times''Greatness in literature is still possible'' John Banville, Irish Times, Books of the Year''A work of obvious genius'' Literary Review''A fusion of the mystical and the solid ... His art is a form of justice - there can be, I think, no higher aim'' Evening Standard''Spellbindingly accomplished; a work of art'' The Times Literary Supplement ''I have never read a book that provides such a powerful account of the devastation wrought by the dispersal of the Jews from Prague and their treatment by the Nazis'' Observer''A great book by a great writer'' Boyd Tonkin, IndependentW . G. Sebald was born in Wertach im Allgäu, Germany, in 1944 and died in December 2001. He studied German language and literature in Freiburg, Switzerland and Manchester. In 1996 he took up a position as an assistant lecturer at the University of Manchester and settled permanently in England in 1970. He was Professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia and is the author of The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, Vertigo, Austerlitz, After Nature, On the Natural History of Destruction, Campo Santo, Unrecounted, A Place in the Country. His selected poetry is published in a volume called Across the Land and the Water.
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Cornish Trilogy Whats Bred in the Bone The
Book SynopsisThe University of St John and the Holy Ghost (known affectionately as Spook) has a problem - and an opportunity. Strange, eccentric art patron and collector Francis Cornish has died and faculty members have been made executors of his complicated will. But in the realization of their duties, they find themselves drawn into Cornish''s bizarre, secretive and mystical world. In this spellbinding trilogy a host of memorable characters - defrocked, mischief-making monks, half-mad professors, gypsies and musical geniuses - become entangled in a story that involves theft, perjury, scholarship, murder, love, and the squandering of plenty of cash.Trade ReviewDeliciously readable * New York Times *One of the most remarkable achievements of contemporary fiction * Sunday Times *Nourishes the brain while it beguiles the senses * Time *A first-rate storyteller and a real moralist with a crackling sense of humour * Newsweek *Davies combines elements of the fantastic with details of everyday life to show us a world in which the miraculous coexists with the mundane * New York Times *
£17.09
Penguin Books Ltd The Deptford Trilogy
Book SynopsisAt two minutes to six on December 27th 1908 the lives of three people become inextricably bound together by the trajectory of a snowball. There is ten-year old Dunstable Ramsay, intended victim of the snowball, who, fatefully, ducks; his ''lifelong friend and enemy'' Percy Boyd Staunton, angered by their recent quarrel, who hurls the snowball; and Paul Dempster, prematurely born when his pregnant mother is struck by Percy''s icy missile. Tracing the rich and varied lives of these three individuals, The Deptford Trilogy lures the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history and magic in one of the most beguiling, clever and cunning trilogies ever written.Trade ReviewThe kind of writer who makes you want to nag your friends until they read him so that they share the pleasure * Observer *Davies' books will be recognized with the very best works of the twentieth century * New York Times Book Review *One of the great modern novelists -- Malcolm BradburyA mature and wise writer -- Anthony BurgessThick and rich with humour, character and incident * Observer *
£17.09
Penguin Books Ltd The Far Pavilions
Book SynopsisOne of the BBC''s ''100 Novels that Shaped the World'' The Far Pavilions is the story of an English man - Ashton Pelham-Martyn - brought up as a Hindu. It is the story of his passionate, but dangerous love for Juli, an Indian princess. It is the story of divided loyalties, of friendship that endures till death, of high adventure and of the clash between East and West.To the burning plains and snow-capped mountains of this great, humming continent, M.M. Kaye brings her exceptional gifts of storytelling and meticulous historical accuracy, plus her insight into the human heart.''Magnificent'' Evening Standard''A long, romantic adventure story of the highest calibre ... wildly exciting'' Daily TelegraphTrade ReviewRip-roaring, heart-tugging, flag-flying, hair-raising, hoof-beating ... the very presence of India * The Times *A long, romantic adventure story of the highest calibre ... wildly exciting * Daily Telegraph *Magnificent is the only possible description for The Far Pavilions ... not one of its 950 pages is a page too much * Evening Standard *A massive, meticulously researched and fascinating saga about the British in India, encompassing a guarter of a century, from the Mutiny up to war with ferocious Afghan tribemen * Sunday Express *A Gone With the Wind of the North-West frontier -- Jan Morris * The Times *
£14.24
Penguin Books Ltd Kaye M Shadow of the Moon
Book SynopsisM. M. Kaye, author of The Far Pavilions, sweeps her readers back to the vast, glittering, sunbaked continent of India. Shadow of the Moon is the story of Winter de Ballesteros, a beautiful English heiress who has come to India to be married. It is also the tale of Captain Alex Randall, her escort and protector, who knows that Winter''s husband to be has become a debauched wreck of a man. When India bursts into flaming hatreds and bitter bloodshed during the dark days of the Mutiny, Alex and Winter are thrown unwillingly together in the brutal and urgent struggle for survival.Trade ReviewA closely interwoven story of love and war whose descriptive prose is so evocative that you can actually see and - much more - smell India as the country assaults you from the page * Sunday Telegraph *Another splendid tale of India * Wall Street Journal *
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd Spook Country
Book Synopsis''Among our most fascinating novelists ... unmissable'' Daily Telegraph-------THE SECOND NOVEL IN THE BLUE ANT TRILIOGY - READ PATTERN RECOGNITION AND ZERO HISTORY FOR MOREIn New York, a young Cuban called Tito is passing iPods to a mysterious old man. Such activities do not go unnoticed, however, in these early days of the War on Terror, and Tito''s movements are being tracked. Meanwhile, in LA, journalist Hollis Henry is on the trail of Bobby Chombo, who appears to know too much about military systems for his own good. With Bobby missing and the trail cold, Hollis digs deeper and is drawn into the final moves of a chilling game . . .A gripping spy thriller by William Gibson, bestselling author of Neuromancer. Part prophesy, part satire, Spook Country skewers the absurdity of modern life with the lightest and most engaging of touches. Readers of Neal Stephenson, Ray Bradbury and Iain M. Banks won''t be able to put this book down.-------''A cool, sophisticated thriller'' Financial Times''Superb, brilliant. A compulsive and deeply intelligent literary thriller'' New Statesman''A neat, up-to-the-minute spy thriller'' MetroNeuromancer has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide since publication, Guardian, July 2014
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd An Icecream War
Book Synopsis''As ambitious as it is remarkable. Balances on seesaws of innocence and violence, sanity and lunacy, hilarity and horror'' The Times_____________________________''We will all melt like ice-cream in the sun!''British soldier, East Africa, 1914On the Western Front millions are being slaughtered. But in East Africa a ridiculous and utterly ignored campaign is being waged - one that continues after the Armistice because no one bothers to tell the participants to stop.As the conflict sweeps up Africans and colonials, so those left at home and those fighting abroad find themselves unable to escape the tide of history bearing down on them._____________________________''A towering achievement'' John Carey''Compulsively readable'' Blake Morrison, Observer ''Funny, assured, a seriocomic romp. A study of people caught in the side pockets of calamity that dramat
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Mark and the Void
Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE 2016A comic masterpiece about love, art, greed and the banking crisis, from the author of Skippy DiesWhat links the Investment Bank of Torabundo, www.myhotswaitress.com (yes, hots with an s, don''t ask), an art heist, a novel called For the Love of a Clown, a four-year-old boy named after TV detective Remington Steele, a lonely French banker, a tiny Pacific island, and a pest control business run by an ex-KGB man? You guessed it . . . The Mark and the Void is Paul Murray''s madcap new novel of institutional folly, following the success of his wildly original breakout hit, Skippy Dies. While marooned at his banking job in the bewilderingly damp and insular realm known as Ireland, Claude Martingale is approached by a down-on-his-luck author, Paul, looking for his next great subject. Claude finds that his life gets steadily more exciting under Paul''s fictionalizing influence; he even falls in love with a beautiful waitress. But Paul''s plan is not what it seems-and neither is Claude''s employer, the Bank of Torabundo, which inflates through dodgy takeovers and derivatives-trading until-well, you can probably guess how that shakes out.The Mark and the Void is a stirring examination of the deceptions carried out in the names of art, love and commerce - and is also probably the funniest novel ever written about a financial crisis.Trade ReviewThis novel's arrival deserves a trumpeting fanfare... curiously brilliant, intricately entertaining... banker plus struggling novelist equals page turner * Sunday Independent *The Mark and the Void is so sensationally good...it takes the global financial crisis by its throat, and shakes it into giving birth to a wild, intelligent, angry, witty, uproariously funny, devastating novel -- Neel MukherjeePeople always tell me 'If you love Paul Murray so much, why don't you marry him?' Now thanks to recent legislation in his native Ireland, I finally can. And so should you, reader. The Mark and the Void not only monetizes the death of the novel, but makes us believe in its resurrection. Praise the Lord for Paul Murray's big brain and tender heart -- Gary ShteyngartThe Mark and the Void is just as funny [as Skippy Dies] , though perhaps with an even deeper sense of alienation at its heart * Independent *Effervescent prose... [It] takes on the crackle of a thriller [and] wears its anger over the global financial crisis with a beguilingly, deceptively light touch * Metro *Paul Murray has done the impossible: he's written a novel about international finance that is a hilarious page-turner with a beating human heart -- Adam Wilson, author of 'Flatscreen'The Mark and the Void is Murray's best book yet - a wildly ambitious, state-of-the-nation novel, and a scabrously funny yet deeply humane satire on the continuing fall-out of the biggest financial crisis in 75 years. Think Bonfire of the Vanities with a heart * The Bookseller *
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd Moth Smoke
Book SynopsisDiscover this surprising gem - the sharp, funny and irresistible debut novel from the bestselling author of Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist ''Subtly audacious . . . A steamy and often darkly amusing book about sex, drugs, and class warfare in postcolonial Asia'' Village Voice''You know you''re in trouble when you can''t meet a woman''s eye, particularly if the woman happens to be your best friend''s wife...''In Lahore, Daru Shezad is a junior banker with a hashish habit. When his old friend Ozi moves back to Pakistan, Daru wants to be happy for him. Ozi has everything: a beautiful wife and child, an expensive foreign education - and a corrupt father who bankrolls his lavish lifestyle.As jealousy sets in, Daru''s life slowly unravels. He loses his job. Starts lacing his joints with heroin. Becomes involved with a criminally-minded rickshaw driver. And falls in love with Ozi''s lonely wife.Trade ReviewSharply observed, powerful, evocative * Financial Times *A first novel of remarkable wit, poise and profundity. A treat * Esquire *A vivid portrait of contemporary young Pakistani life, where frustration and insecurity feed not only the snobbery, decadence and aspirations of the rich, but also the resentment of the poor * The Times *A rare glimpse into modern-day Pakistan . . . The voices that emerge are sarcastic and sad, a lively lament . . . reminiscent of V. S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie * Chicago Tribune *Not often does one find a first novel that has the power of imagination and skill to orchestrate personal and public themes of these consequences and achieve a chord that reverberates in one's mind. Moth Smoke is one of the best novels I have read this year -- Nadine Gordimer * - *Stunning . . . [Hamid] has created a hip page-turner -- Jonathan Levi * Los Angeles Times *
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Penguin Books Ltd A Home at the End of the World
Book Synopsis''It was the start of my second new life, in a city that had a spin of its own - a wilder orbit inside the earth''s calm blue-green whirl. New York wasn''t open to the hopelessness and lost purpose that drifted around lesser places . . . ''Meet Bobby, Jonathan and Clare. Three friends, three lovers, three ordinary people trying to make a place for themselves in the harsh and uncompromising world of the Seventies and Eighties.And as our threesome form a new kind of relationship, a new approach to family and love, questioning so much about the world around them, so they hope to create a space, a home, in which to live.Trade ReviewA writer of great gifts. Cunningham's voice reaches that lyrical beauty in which even the grimmest events suggest their potential for grace * The New York Times Book Review *Intensely, almost painfully intimate. A superb and major novel -- David LeavittAs well as being fluent and attractive, this intimate saga of our times is immensely wise * Mail on Sunday *Cunningham writes with power and delicacy of his three characters. Yet each one retains the mystery that in people is called soul, and in fiction is called art * The Los Angeles Times *Extremely intelligent, moving and accomplished. Cunningham has mastered the art of evoking the richness of domestic lives * Sunday Times *
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Penguin Books Ltd The Hypnotists Love Story
Book SynopsisFrom the multi-million copy bestselling author of BIG LITTLE LIES and NINE PERFECT STRANGERS, discover this irresistible story of love, lies and obsession . . .________Hypnotherapist Ellen O''Farrell has been single for a while, which is why she''s so taken with her handsome new boyfriend, Patrick.But Patrick has a confession: he has a stalker, an ex-girlfriend who won''t leave him alone.Ellen is a little disturbed - yet also curious. Who is this woman, and what would drive her to this obsessive behaviour? In fact, Ellen almost thinks she''d quite like to meet her.What she doesn''t realise is that she already has . . .________AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLLERThe world can''t get enough of Liane Moriarty...''Moriarty writes vividly, wittily and wickedly'' Sunday Express''Mistress of the razor-sharp observation'' Kate Morton'Trade ReviewA complex, nuanced look at relationships, and the nature of romantic attachment * Telegraph *In this gripping novel, best selling author of Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty, will explore obsession and love. Exceptional * Chat Special *This is a compelling story with lots of twists. Made me laugh and also think -- Jane Correy's June Bookshelf * Midweek Herald *Another excellent, engaging read from Moriarty, who specialises in changing the way you see everything * WI Life *A breezy thriller * Sunday Mirror *Praise for Liane Moriarty * - *Every single one of her books is a great read * E! Online *Moriarty writes vividly, wittily and wickedly * Sunday Express *One of the few writers I'll drop anything for -- Jojo MoyesKeeps you guessing until the very end -- Reese WitherspoonStaggeringly brilliant, literally unputdownable -- Sophie HannahThe writing is beautiful: sometimes funny, sometimes sad but always compelling * Good Housekeeping *So well written that it pulls you in from the first page * Sunday Mirror *A hell of a good book -- Stephen KingA tense, page-turning story * Mail on Sunday *
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Penguin Books Ltd Submarine
Book SynopsisSubmarine is the wickedly funny first novel by Joe DunthorneNOW AN ACCLAIMED FILM BY RICHARD AYOADEMeet Oliver Tate, fifteen years old. Convinced that his father is depressed (''Depression comes in bouts. Like boxing. Dad is in the blue corner'') and his mother is having an affair with her capoeira teacher, (''a hippy-looking twonk''), he embarks on a hilariously misguided campaign to bring the family back together. Meanwhile, he is also trying to lose his virginity - before he turns sixteeen - to his pyromaniac girlfriend Jordana. Will Oliver succeed in either aim? Submerge yourself in Submarine and find out . . . ''Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud enjoyable. The sharpest, funniest, rudest account of a troubled teenager''s coming-of-age since The Catcher in the Rye'' Independent''A richly amusing tale of mock GCSEs, sex, death and challenging vocabulary . . . Excruciatingly funny incidents and cracking gags'' Time Out<Trade ReviewA brilliant first novel by a young man of ferocious comic talent * The Times *Dunthorne captures the mores of Britain today better than novelists twice his age * New Statesman *Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud enjoyable. The sharpest, funniest, rudest account of a troubled teenager's coming-of-age since The Catcher in the Rye * Independent *Transplants The Catcher in the Rye to south Wales . . . Dunthorne can make you laugh like you did during double physics on a wet Wednesday afternoon * Observer *A richly amusing tale of mock GCSEs, sex, death and challenging vocabulary . . . Excruciatingly funny incidents and cracking gags * Time Out *Excellent . . . the wonderful, Day-Glo certainties of adolescence have rarely been so brilliantly laid out * Independent on Sunday *
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Penguin Books Ltd The Penguin Book of Irish Short Stories
Book Synopsis''Do the Irish have, in relation to anybody else, any special capacity for the short story?''In this collection of thirty-eight short stories covering many generations and moods of Irish writing, this question is emphatically answered in the affirmative. These mercurial, intoxicating, witty and sometimes sad stories range from Lady Gregory''s moving retelling of an ancient love story through to the extraordinary and prolific William Trevor.
£16.19
Penguin Books Ltd The Penguin Book of Welsh Short Stories
Book Synopsis''It is my hope that the Wales of the past and present is well represented in this volume, together with the world of work and workmen in some of our more ravaged terrains.''In twenty-four short stories, written by Welsh men and women, for the most part about Welsh people, we are treated to depictions of valley and mountain, country and town, as well as offered powerful and moving insights into the nature of the people.
£999.99
Penguin Books Ltd Stormchild
Book SynopsisThe gripping thriller about one man''s perilous journey through the high seas . . . FROM THE NO. 1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE SHARPE SERIES''A classic Bernard Cornwell tale - fast and furious. Couldn''t put it down but didn''t want it to finish'' 5***** Reader Review''I was hooked from the start . . . One of Cornwell''s best. Explosive'' 5***** Reader Review________Tim Blackburn''s wife died in a ball of flame in the Channel, victim of a mystery bomber. His son had died years earlier in Northern Ireland, killed in a terrorist attack. And his daughter Nicole had vanished in the North Pacific after joining an outlawed organisation called Genesis dedicated to saving the planet, by violence if necessary. The police think Nicole might have been involved in the death of her mother, but Tim won''t believe it. And he means to prove it. With nothing else to live for, Tim goes in search of Nicole in his yacht Stormchild
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Penguin Books Ltd Switch Bitch
Book SynopsisIn Switch Bitch four tales of seduction and suspense are told by the grand master of the short story, Roald Dahl.Topping and tailing this collection are The Visitor and Bitch, stories featuring Dahl''s notorious hedonist Oswald Hendryks Cornelius (or plain old Uncle Oswald) whose exploits are frequently as extraordinary as they are scandalous. In the middle, meanwhile, are The Great Switcheroo and The Last Act, two stories exploring a darker side of desire and pleasure.In the black comedies of Switch Bitch Roald Dahl brilliantly captures the ins and outs, highs and lows of sex.''Dahl is too good a storyteller to become predictable'' Daily TelegraphRoald Dahl, the brilliant and worldwide acclaimed author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and many more classics for children, also wrote scores of short stories for adults. These delightfully disturbing talTrade ReviewOne of the most widely read and influential writers of our generation * The Times *Dahl is too good a storyteller to become predictable * Daily Telegraph *
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