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The River
by Tricia WastvedtThe Orange Prize long listed debut novel by the author of The German BoyIn 1958, in a small Devon village, on an idyllic summer afternoon, two children are drowned. Their parents, Isabel and Robert, are overcome with grief but, as time passes, their tragedy becomes part of the everyday fabric of village life. One summer's day, thirty years later, Anna arrives. She comes to the village on a whim, hoping to start afresh - and, without telling anyone she is pregnant, goes to live with Isabel. For a time the women find solace in each other's company, but the baby's arrival causes powerful feelings of loss and heartbreak to surface, and Anna must question whether Isabel's feelings towards her child are entirely benign. . . 'Wastvedt, like Alice Sebold in The Lovely Bones, casts a wide net that goes beyond the immediate family. Captivating and evocative' Toronto Globe and Mail'Accomplished, dramatic, with a finale that Du Maurier herself would have been proud of' Daily Mail'Moving, impressive, strongly atmospheric. A remarkable achievement' Penelope LivelyBorn in 1954, Patricia Wastvedt grew up in Blackheath, south London, and spent her summers in Kent. She has a degree in Creative Arts and an MA in Creative Writing, and her first novel, The River, written in her late forties, was long-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, The German Boy, is available in Penguin. She teaches at Bath Spa University, and is also a manuscript editor. She lives and writes in a cottage in Somerset.
The Violet Hour: A Novel
by Katherine HillKatherine Hill's Violet Hour is blazing debut about a woman who just can't stop herself from destroying what she loves most.For a moment that afternoon, it was only woman and water, the Bay in all its sickening glory squaring itself for a fight.Life hasn't always been perfect, but for Abe and Cassandra Green, an afternoon on the San Francisco Bay might be as good as it gets. He's a doctor piloting his new sailing boat. She's a sculptor finally getting a bit of recognition. Their beautiful daughter Elizabeth is off to Harvard at the end of the summer. But then there is a terrible row. Cassandra has been unfaithful. In a fit of insanity, Abe throws himself off the boat. A love story that begins with the end of a marriage, The Violet Hour follows a 21st century American family through past and present, from a lavish New York wedding to the family funeral home in suburban Washington, from a drunken PTA party to a scene of unexpected public violence. In this deeply resonant novel intimacy is fragile and the search for gratification breeds destruction. Here is a family ripped apart by desire. And here is a family possibly reborn.Katherine Hill was born in Washington, D.C., in 1982. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many publications including n+1, The Believer, Bookforum, Colorado Review and the San Francisco Chronicle. This is her first novel.
The Sea Change
by Joanna RossiterA Richard and Judy Summer 2013 Book Club pick.The Sea Change by Joanna Rossiter is a haunting and moving novel about a mother and a daughter, caught between a tsunami and a war.Yesterday was Alice's wedding day. She is thousands of miles away from the home she is so desperate to leave, on the southernmost tip of India, when she wakes in the morning to see a wave on the horizon, taller than the height of her guest house on Kanyakumari beach. Her husband is nowhere to be seen.On the other side of the world, unhappily estranged from her daughter, is Alice's mother, Violet. Forced to leave the idyllic Wiltshire village, Imber, in which she grew up after it was requisitioned by the army during World War Two, Violet is haunted by the shadow of the man she loved and the wilderness of a home that lies in ruins.Amid the debris of the wave, Alice recollects the events of the hippie trail that led to her hasty marriage as she struggles to piece together the fate of the husband she barely knows. Meanwhile, Violet must return to Imber in order to let go of the life that is no longer hers - and begin the search for her daughter.Joanna Rossiter grew up in Dorset and studied English at Cambridge University before working as a researcher in the House of Commons and as a copy writer. In 2011 she completed an MA in Writing at Warwick University. The Sea Change is her first novel. She lives and writes in London.
The History of Love (Penguin Essentials Ser.)
by Nicole KraussLeo Gursky is a man who fell in love at the age of ten and has been in love ever since. These days he is just about surviving life in America, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbour know he's still alive, drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago in the Polish village where he was born Leo fell in love with a young girl called Alma and wrote a book in honour of his love. These days he assumes that the book, and his dreams, are irretrievably lost, until one day they return to him in the form of a brown envelope. Meanwhile, a young girl, hoping to find a cure for her mother's loneliness, stumbles across a book that changed her mother's life and she goes in search of the author. Soon these and other worlds collide in The History of Love, a captivating story of the power of love, of loneliness and of survival.
English Passengers: A Novel
by Matthew Kneale'A big, ambitious novel with a rich historical sweep and a host of narrative voices. Its subject is a vicar's ludicrous expedition in 1857 to the Garden of Eden in Tasmania, [as] meanwhile, in Tasmania itself, the British settlers are alternately trying to civilise and eliminate the Aboriginal population ... The sort of novel that few contemporary writers have either the imagination or the stamina to sustain' - Daily Telegraph
The Man in the High Castle (Essential. Penguin Ser. #Vol. 3)
by Philip K. Dick Eric BrownNOW A MAJOR TV SERIES 'Truth, she thought. As terrible as death. But harder to find.'America, fifteen years after the end of the Second World War. The winning Axis powers have divided their spoils: the Nazis control New York, while California is ruled by the Japanese. But between these two states - locked in a cold war - lies a neutal buffer zone in which legendary author Hawthorne Abendsen is rumoured to live. Abendsen lives in fear of his life for he has written a book in which World War Two was won by the Allies. . .
A Hologram for the King
by Dave EggersNew from Dave Eggers, National Book Award finalist A Hologram for the KingIn a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter's college tuition, and finally do something great. In A Hologram for the King, Dave Eggers takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the global economy's gale-force winds. This taut, richly layered, and elegiac novel is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment - and a moving story of how we got here.'A master of the surprising metaphor, Eggers's great skill is in tracking the exuberant chaos of thought, with all its sudden poignancies and unexpected joys' Daily Telegraph'Among the most influential writers in the English language' GQ 'Eggers can write like an angel' Tablet
Winter Games
by Rachel JohnsonWinter Games is a dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal: perfect reading for fans of The Bolter by Frances Osborne, and the writing of the Mitfords.Munich, 1936. She doesn't know it, but eighteen-year old Daphne Linden has a seat in the front row of history. Along with her best friend, Betsy Barton-Hill, and a whole bevy of other young English upper-class girls, Daphne is in Bavaria to improve her German, to go to the Opera, to be 'finished'. It may be the Third Reich, but another war is unthinkable, and the girls are having the time of their lives. Aren't they? London, 2006. Seventy years later and Daphne's granddaughter, Francie Fitzsimon has all the boxes ticked: large flat, successful husband, cushy job writing up holistic spas . . . The hardest decision she has to make is where to go for brunch - until, that is, events conspire to send her on a quest to discover what really happened to her grandmother in Germany, all those years ago.'A rip-roaring read' Evening Standard'There's never a dreary moment in this blast of a book . . . Johnson's descriptions are irresistibly exuberant . . . As addictively, fizzily invigorating as the Alpine air itself' Daily Mail'Johnson delivers a genuine sense of time and place . . . there isn't a dull sentence in this sure-footed novel' Jenny Colgan, Telegraph'An excellent romp. Full of 'tally-ho' Mitfordian charm . . . a witty, fast read' Red'Excellent on period detail, the blundering innocent abroad and young heartbreak' Sunday Times'The Jane Austen of W11' ScotsmanRachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.
The Herbalist
by Niamh Boyce'The most entertaining yet substantial historical novel since Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea' Irish TimesWhen a neglected teenager - Emily - becomes infatuated by a mysterious medicine man who turns up in the local market square she finds herself competing for his attention with the other women of her town. But naïve as she seems, Emily is the first to discover the stranger's dark side, and when she does she holds his fate - and the fate of the women of her community - in her hands ...The Herbalist is the electrifying first novel from Hennessy XO New Irish Writing Award winner, Niamh Boyce. It is a deeply moving and viscerally powerful novel about the lives of women in 1930s Ireland - an unforgettable story of love, shame, hypocrisy and courage.'Niamh Boyce's compelling female characters push against the rigid social parameters of 1930s Ireland, yearning for the light of the outside world, which comes in the shape of a stranger trading in herbs, cures, complications and danger' Dermot Bolger'An elegant morality tale about the inescapable strictures of women's lives ... Her publisher describes her as "a dazzling new voice". I cannot disagree' Sunday Times'A vividly imagined tale of love, lust and longing ... a compelling read with a cathartic ending that deserves a wide readership. It remains authentic and moving to the end' Sunday Business Post'Boyce's subject matter may be dark, and she treats it with the seriousness it deserves, but she writes with a lightness of touch not often seen in the genre ... just as the readers of The Herbalist share the women's fear as we read, we share their wonder and excitement as well ... hugely impressive and wonderfully assured'Irish Times'There's a lot going on that is slowly revealed and the writing is beautiful ... a serious new literary talent' TV3'Comparisons to Edna O'Brien and Pat McCabe are more than justified. That said, Boyce has a unique voice and sensibility, one that's entirely her own' Image Magazine'A powerful plot full of betrayal, morality and love ... Not only is this a book that will keep you captivated, it will remain with you long after you've read the last words and closed the cover' Country Living'She has a real lightness of touch and it's a wonderfully told story' Marian Finucane, RTE'A riveting story that electrifies and dazzles' Writing.ie
Gordon: A Novel (Vintage International Series)
by Edith TempletonThe original Fifty Shades of Grey, Edith Templeton's novel Gordon has been banned, pirated and published under various names for almost fifty yearsPost-war London. Louisa, a smartly dressed young woman in the midst of a divorce, meets a charismatic man in a pub, and within an hour has been sexually conquered by him on a garden bench. Thus begins her baffling but magnetic love affair with Richard Gordon.Gordon, a psychiatrist, keeps Louisa in his thrall with his almost omniscient ability to see through her, and she is equally gripped by the unexpected pleasure of complete submission. Subjecting herself to repeated humiliations at his hands, but quite unable and unwilling to free herself from his control, Louisa and Gordon sink further and further into the depths - both psychologically and sexually.An extraordinary novel of psycho-sexual entanglement that was banned for indecency in England in 1966, in Gordon, Edith Templeton captures one of the most unusual and disturbing love stories ever written.'Templeton's characters are not passive or self-doubting. Their pleasure in sexual submission is a mark of their toughness: they can take what their men give them' The New York Times'Sexual perversion, masochistic dependency, obsession and suicide' Telegraph'An unsettling tale of sexual obsession' The New Yorker'It is unlikely that any young woman will write a book as good, as honest, as provocative as Gordon' Telegraph'Superbly written and unsettling' Beryl BainbridgeEdith Templeton was born in Prague in 1916 and spent much of her childhood in a castle in the Bohemian countryside. Her short stories began to appear in The New Yorker in the 1950s and caused a major stir because of their sexual explicitness (these stories are available in one volume entitled The Darts of Cupid as a Penguin ebook). Gordon first appeared in 1966 under the pseudonym Louise Walbrook and was subsequently banned in England and Germany; it was then pirated around the world, appearing under various titles. In 2001, Edith Templeton agreed to publish the novel, with its original title, under her own name. She died in 2006.
The Darts of Cupid: And Other Stories (Vintage International Series)
by Edith TempletonThe highly-acclaimed short story collection by the author of Gordon, the erotic novel banned for indecency in 1966In The Darts of Cupid, Edith Templeton gives a sweeping and intimate exposé of her century and the lives of the women who lived in it. The unforgettable title story was celebrated upon its original publication in The New Yorker for its explicit portrayal of the relationship between a young British woman and her American superior in a provincial war office during World War II - a love affair that lasted only two nights but changed the narrator's life forever, and is still haunting today. Other stories take us from the tumbledown glamour of a Bohemian castle between the wars to an apartment on the coast of Italy in the 1990s, where a rich widow's decision to sell her husband's prized silver becomes a bewitching tale of longing. Whatever the period, Templeton addresses the truth about female passion with a forthright gaze that is rare for any age.'[Templeton's stories] make the flesh tingle' Observer'Templeton's characters are not passive or self-doubting. Their pleasure in sexual submission is a mark of their toughness: they can take what their men give them' The New York Times'Dark, compelling and invigoratingly unsettling' Sunday TimesEdith Templeton was born in Prague in 1916 and spent much of her childhood in a castle in the Bohemian countryside. Her short stories began to appear in The New Yorker in the 1950s and caused a major stir because of their sexual explicitness (these stories are available in one volume entitled The Darts of Cupid as a Penguin ebook). Gordon first appeared in 1966 under the pseudonym Louise Walbrook and was subsequently banned in England and Germany; it was then pirated around the world, appearing under various titles. In 2001, Edith Templeton agreed to publish the novel, with its original title, under her own name. She died in 2006.
All That is Solid Melts into Air
by Darragh McKeonAll That is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon is an exceptionally moving novel of interwoven lives, set amidst one of the most iconic disasters in living memory.'Daring, ambitious, epic, moving' Colm Tóibín'Exhilarating, thrilling, brilliantly imagined, beautifully written' Colum McCannRussia, 1986. In a run-down apartment block in Moscow, a nine-year-old piano prodigy practices silently for fear of disturbing the neighbours. In a factory on the outskirts of the city, his aunt makes car parts, trying to hide her dissident past. In the hospital, a surgeon immerses himself in his work to avoid facing his failed marriage. And in a rural village in Belarus, a teenage boy wakes up to a sky of the deepest crimson. Outside, the ears of his neighbour's cattle are dripping blood. Ten miles away, at the Chernobyl Power Plant, something unimaginable has happened. Now their lives will change forever.All That is Solid Melts into Air is an astonishing novel of terrifying beauty that captures the end of an era.Darragh McKeon was born in 1979 and grew up in the midlands of Ireland. He has worked as a theatre director, and lives in New York. This is his first novel.
The Shape of Bones: A Novel
by Daniel Galera Alison Entrekin'Like a cross of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and American Psycho' Financial TimesFrom one of Brazil's foremost literary voices comes a gripping, visceral new novel about youth, power and the nature of manhoodA man rises at 5 a.m. and leaves his home. He does not wake his wife or child to bid them goodbye. He starts his car - an SUV filled with survival gear - but does not drive to his friend's house as planned. Instead he glides through the sleeping streets of Porto Alegre, haunted by ghosts of himself: the fearless boy riding a battered stunt bike, the silent adolescent fascinated by bodies and violence, the obsessive young surgeon, the distant husband.As the dawn comes on and people slowly fill the streets, the man drives unthinkingly, inexorably, toward the old neighbourhood of his youth. What is pulling him back there? Perhaps the need to make something happen, perhaps just nostalgia. Or perhaps the search for absolution - from a crime he has carried in his heart for fifteen years.
Carnival: A Novel (Anansi Book Club Editions Ser.)
by Rawi HageCarnival is a new novel from IMPAC Literary Award winner Rawi Hage.WINNER OF THE PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN PRIZE FOR FICTIONThere are two types of taxi driver in the Carnival city - the spiders and the flies. The spiders sit and stew in their cars, waiting for the calls to come to them. But the flies are wanderers - they roam the streets, looking for the raised flags of hands.Fly is a wanderer and from the seat of his taxi we see the world in all of its carnivalesque beauty and ugliness. We meet criminals, prostitutes, madmen, magicians, and clowns of many kinds. We meet ordinary people going to extraordinary places, and revolutionaries just trying to find something to eat. With all of the beauty, truth, rage, and peripatetic storytelling that have made his first two novels international publishing sensations, Carnival gives us Rawi Hage at his searing best. By turns outrageous, hilarious, sorrowful, and stirring, Carnival is a tour de force that will make all of life's passengers squirm in their comfortable, complacent backseats.Praise for Rawi Hage:'A large and unsettling talent' Guardian'Searing, affecting, misanthropic. I'm not from Lebanon and I don't live in Canada, but Cockroach managed to take me to where I come from and where I live now more powerfully than anything I've read in a long while' Mohsin Hamid'The best novel I read this year was Rawi Hage's Cockroach. A dark book, narrated with verve and brilliance. It made me jump for joy' Colm Tóibín, GuardianRawi Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived through nine years of the Lebanese civil war during the 1970s and 1980s. He emigrated to Canada in 1992 and now lives in Montreal. His first novel, De Niro's Game, won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for the best English-language book published anywhere in the world in a given year, and has either won or been shortlisted for seven other major awards and prizes. Cockroach was the winner of the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Awards. It was also shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
De Niro's Game (A\list Ser.)
by Rawi HageDe Niro's Game is the stunning winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the very first novel by up-and-coming Lebanese literary star Rawi Hage, also author of Cockroach.Bassam and George are childhood best friends who have grown up on the Christian side of war-torn Beirut. Now on the verge of adulthood, they must choose their futures: to remain in the exhausted, corrupt city of their birth, or to go into exile abroad, cut off from the only existence they have known.Bassam chooses one path - obsessed with leaving Beirut, he embarks on a series of petty crimes to fund his escape to the West. Meanwhile, George amasses power in the underworld of the city, embracing a life of military service, organised crime, killing, and drugs. But their two paths inevitably collide, with explosive consequences. De Niro's Game is Rawi Hage's devastating, timely portrait of two young men and an entire city formed and deformed by war.'A large and unsettling talent' Guardian'A masterpiece . . . writing cannot really get much better' Literary Review'Hollywood noir meets opium dreams in a blasted landscape of war-wasted young lives' Boston Globe'The most subtly nuanced, psychologically compelling book about the corrosive effects of war to be written for a long time . . .The descriptions of the city are so skilful you can taste the dust in the air' Financial TimesRawi Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and lived through nine years of the Lebanese civil war. He is the author of De Niro's Game, which won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; Cockroach, which was the winner of the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize and also listed for various other prizes; and Carnival, to be published by Hamish Hamilton/ Penguin in April 2013. He lives in Montreal.
No Night is Too Long
by Barbara VineNo Night is Too Long is a classic crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine Tim Cornish thought he'd gotten away with murder. For months after he'd killed his lover off the Alaskan coast, there hadn't been a word. But then the letters started to arrive. It seems that someone knows what Tim has done . . . This compelling thriller delivers such a dark picture of romantic love that murder seems its natural mate. Frightening, suspenseful, and deeply unsettling, No Night is Too Long is a modern crime masterpiece and will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin.'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin'She deploys her peerless skills in blending the mundane, commonplace aspects of life with the murky impulses of desire and greed' Sunday TimesBarbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. Ruth has published fourteen novels under the Vine name, two of which, Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Also available in Penguin by Barbara Vine: The Minotaur, The Blood Doctor, Grasshopper, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Brimstone Wedding, No Night is Too Long, Asta's Book, King Solomon's Carpet, Gallowglass, The House of Stairs, A Dark-Adapted Eye.
Sacred Hunger (Norton Paperback Fiction Ser.)
by Barry UnsworthWINNER OF THE 1992 BOOKER PRIZE'Gripping . . . SACRED HUNGER covers a period between 1752 and 1765 . . . it concerns the entangled and conflicted fortunes of two cousins: Erasmus Kemp, the son of a Lancashire merchant, and Matthew Paris, a scholar and surgeon just released from prison for "denying Holy Writ" . . . the Liverpool Merchant is the vessel on which the whole of the novel hinges, and it carries the reader deep into the history of man's iniquitous greed . . . AS REGARDS ITS DRAMATIC BREADTH AND ENERGY, NO RECENT DOMESTIC NOVEL HAS COME WITHIN A MILE OF IT' - Anthony Quinn in the Independent
Dark Diversions: A Traveller's Tale
by John Ralston SaulIntrigue, prestige, debauchery: Dark Diversions by acclaimed author John Ralston Saul is a black comedy of international proportions.From aristocrats and the privileged circles of New York and Paris to military dictators and the political infighting, double-dealing and corruption or their regimes in Morocco and Haiti, welcome to the world where money and power reside.Through a series of encounters with its inhabitants, at once beguiling and grotesque, our investigative narrator uncovers bizarrre and disturbing stories of secret lovers, exiled princesses, religious heresies and murder. But as he becomes further enmeshed in this savage realm, his ambiguous status becomes increasingly unsettling: is he the impartial observer of priviliged foibles and fundamental inequity he appears to be? Or is he, perhaps, an embodiment of the dark diversions he chronicles?Laced with scathing wit, Dark Diversions is a novel that inveigles its reader on a picaresque journey of depravity.'A delightful novel, invigoratingly wicked' Le Monde'Saul has the eye, the aloofness, the killer turn of phrase of a Truman Capote' Le FigaroJohn Ralston Saul is Canada's leading public intellectual. Declared a 'prophet' by Time magazine, Saul has received many awards and prizes, including Chile's Pablo Neruda Medal. He is president of PEN International, and his thirteen works have been translated into twenty-two languages in thirty countries. Dark Diversions is his sixth novel.
Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life
by Nina Stibbe* * * WINNER OF THE 2014 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS POPULAR NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR * * *'I adored this book, and I could quote from it forever. It's real, odd, life-affirming, sharp, loving, and contains more than one reference to Arsenal FC' Nick Hornby,The Believer'Adrian Mole meets Mary Poppins mashed up in literary north London . . . Enormous fun' Bookseller'What a beady eye she has for domestic life, and how deliciously fresh and funny she is' Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold HotelNina Stibbe's Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life is the laugh-out-loud story of the trials and tribulations of a very particular family.In the 1980s Nina Stibbe wrote letters home to her sister in Leicester describing her trials and triumphs as a nanny to a London family. There's a cat nobody likes, a visiting dog called Ted Hughes (Ted for short) and suppertime visits from a local playwright. Not to mention the two boys, their favourite football teams, and rude words, a very broad-minded mother and assorted nice chairs.From the mystery of the unpaid milk bill and the avoidance of nuclear war to mealtime discussions on pie filler, the greats of English literature, swearing in German and sexually transmitted diseases, Love, Nina is a wonderful celebration of bad food, good company and the relative merits of Thomas Hardy and Enid Blyton.'Breezy, sophisticated, hilarious, rude and aching with sweetness: Love, Nina might be the most charming book I've ever read' Maria Semple, author of 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette''Nina Stibbe is the funniest new writer to arrive in years. Love, Nina is her first book - a memoir so warm, so witty and so wise, it's like finding the friend you always deserved' Andrew O'Hagan
A Delicate Truth
by John Le CarréA counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.Suspecting a disastrous conspiracy, Toby attempts to forestall it, but is promptly posted overseas. Three years on, summoned by Sir Christopher Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely watched by Probyn's daughter Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service.If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent?'No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times, from the Second World War to the 'War on Terror'' Guardian'The master of the modern spy novel returns . . . this is writing of such quality that - as Robert Harris put it - it will be read in one hundred years. John le Carré was never a spy-turned-writer, he was a writer who found his canvas in espionage, as Dickens did in other worlds. The two men deserve comparison' Daily Mail 'A brilliant climax, with sinister deaths, casual torture, wrecked lives and shameful compromises' Observer'With A Delicate Truth, le Carré has in a sense come home. And it's a splendid homecoming . . . the novel is the most satisfying, subtle and compelling of his recent oeuvre' The Times
Funny Girl: A Novel
by Nick HornbyFunny Girl - the much-anticipated new novel by Nick Hornby, the million-copy bestselling author of About a BoyMake them laugh, and they're yours forever . . . It's the swinging 60s and the nation is mesmerized by unlikely comedy star Sophie Straw, the former Blackpool beauty queen who just wants to make people laugh, like her heroine Lucille Ball.Behind the scenes, the cast and crew are having the time of their lives. But when the script begins to get a bit too close to home, and life starts imitating art, they all face a choice. The writers, Tony and Bill, comedy obsessives, each harbour a secret. The Oxbridge-educated director, Dennis, loves his job but hates his marriage. The male star Clive, feels he's destined for better things. And Sophie Straw, who's changed her name and abandoned her old life, must decide whether to keep going, or change the channel.Nick Hornby's new novel is about popular culture, youth and old age, fame, class and teamwork. It offers a wonderfully captivating portrait of youthful exuberance and creativity, and of a period when both were suddenly allowed to flourish. Fans of Hornby will love this book, as will readers of David Nicholls, Mark Haddon and William Boyd.
Swing Time: LONGLISTED for the Man Booker Prize 2017
by Zadie SmithLONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017'Smith's finest. Extraordinary, truly marvellous' Observer 'Superb' Financial Times 'Breathtaking' TLS 'Pitch-perfect' Daily Telegraph'A tale of two girls who meet in a West London dance class... A page-turner that's also beautifully written ' Glamour'There is still no better chronicler of the modern British family than Zadie Smith' TelegraphSHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2017 A dazzlingly exuberant new novel moving from north west London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On BeautyTwo brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, black bodies and black music, what it means to belong, what it means to be free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten either.Bursting with energy, rhythm and movement, Swing Time is Zadie Smith's most ambitious novel yet. It is a story about music and identity, race and class, those who follow the dance and those who lead it . . .
Betrayal in Naples
by Neil GriffithsNeil Griffith's Betrayal in Naples is a stylish and erotic literary thriller that will appeal to fans of Graham Greene.'An edgy romance and an excellent study in paranoia' Daily TelegraphJim Wolf is abandoned in a Naples back street by a taxi driver. This is not what he came to the city for. But he's soon found by Louisa - an ex-lover never quite forgotten - now married to a charismatic Neapolitan judge. The three become close friends, and it's not long before Jim is closely involved in a high profile-mafia trial and once again irresistibly tempted by Louisa. Jim is soon out of his depth, seduced by both the beauty and danger of this mysterious city, where betrayal - of a lover, of a friend, of oneself - is part of the way of life, and where, if you break the unspoken codes, a single gesture from a powerful man can condemn you.'Shocking and compelling' Big Issue Shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award for the most promising first novel of the year.Neil Griffith was born in 1965 and lives in London E17.He has also written for radio and film. Betrayal in Naples is his first novel.
The Land Lubbers Lying Down Below (Penguin Specials)
by Helen Dunmore'Tonight it is the concert. Two Prodigies of Nature are coming to play in my lady's ball-room. As soon as the concert begins I understand why the whole world comes to stare and listen.'Scipio is eleven years old and a lady's page. He plays the harpsichord, speaks French and German, and sings in Italian. But what was appealing and remarkable in a small child is no longer so in a 'hobbledehoy'. And after he meets the two child prodigies, Wolfi and Nannerl, at a concert, Scipio's fate will change forever.
Leaving Home (Vintage Contemporaries Ser.)
by Anita BrooknerEmma Roberts leaves home for the first time in her twenties, travelling to Paris to study seventeenth-century garden design. There, she meets vivacious Françoise Desnoyers and is quickly drawn into her passionate and complicated world. But Françoise's demands - deceiving her formidable mother over a love affair - leave Emma feeling exposed and vulnerable, and yearning for the safety and comfort of her London home. Yet when an unexpected family tragedy turns that life upside down, Emma comes to realize the impossibility of returning to a home you have already left behind...