75 New Titles
The Smart family's lacklustre holiday in Norwich is interrupted by a beguiling stranger called Amber. The Smarts try to make sense of their bewildering emotions as Amber tramples over family boundaries and forces them to think in an entirely new way. A novel about how seemingly chance encounters irrevocably transform our understanding of ourselves, The Accidental explores the nature of truth, the role of fate and the power of storytelling.
This masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit.
Damon Courtenay died on the morning of April Fool's Day. In this tribute to his son, Bryce Courtenay lays bare the suffering behind this young man's life. Damon's story is one of lifelong struggle, his love for Celeste, the compassion of family, and a fight to the end for integrity.
A testimony to the power of love, April Fool's Day is also about understanding: how when we confront our worst, we can become our best.
Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs. He hunts for them, collects them, sells them, occasionally fakes them – all to give the people what they want – a little piece of Fame. An existential tour around the hollow things of modernity – celebrity, cinema, and the ugly triumph of symbol over experience. Unlike his generation, Alex-Li is on his way to finding enlightenment, otherwise known as some part of himself that cannot be signed, celebrated or sold.
Boy is the story of Roald Dahl's very own boyhood, including tales of sweet-shops and chocolate, mean old ladies and a Great Mouse Plot – the inspiration for some of his most marvellous storybooks in years to come. These tales are full of exciting and strange things – some funny, some frightening; all true.
When Bill Masen awakes blindfolded in hospital and carefully removes his bandages, he realises he is one of the few who can see; almost everyone else has been blinded by a meteor shower. Now, with civilization in chaos, the triffids – huge, venomous, plants able to 'walk', feeding on human flesh – can have their day. This stark vision of a desolate world infested by deadly, monstrous plants has lost none of its power to horrify.
London, 1918. Billy Prior works for Intelligence in the Ministry of Munitions. But his private encounters with women and men, pacifists, objectors and homosexuals conflict with his duties as a soldier, and before long his sense of himself fragments. Forced to consult the man who helped him before – army psychiatrist William Rivers – Prior must confront his inability to be the dutiful soldier his superiors require him to be . . . The second book in the Regeneration series.
Ezekiel Farragut, a college professor and heroin addict, is sent to Falconer Correctional Facility after murdering his brother. Enclosed in a filthy cell, witness to the routine savagery of the guards and his fellow prisoners – murders, conmen and thieves – Farragut believes he is one of the living dead. As he struggles with a troubled marriage and memories of a traumatic childhood, Farragut must learn to survive and remain human amid the relentless brutality of Falconer.
In Kinshasa, Zaire, 1974, Muhammad Ali met George Foreman in the ring. Foreman's famous tactical use of silence, serenity and raw cunning made him the undefeated reigning World Heavyweight Champion. For Ali, the challenger, the contest had to begin in the mind. This legendary fight was to make boxing history with an explosive meeting of indomitable wills, unwavering nerves, and monumental egos.
From London across Europe through India and Asia, this was a trip of discovery made in the mid-seventies, a time before the West had embraced the places, peoples, food, faiths and cultures of the East. To visit the lands of The Great Railway Bazaar is an encounter with all that is truly foreign and exotic.
Marlow, a ferry-boat captain on foreign assignment in the Congo, searches for the legendary and feared Mr. Kurtz, unprepared for what he will find. On his journey he encounters the darkness of the wilderness; the darkness of colonization, and ultimately, the darkness within every man. Heart of Darkness is a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism.
Philip Marlowe's client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband's collection. Easy. Probably too easy. Unfortunately, each time the Doubloon pops up, so does a murder. That's unlucky for a private investigator, because leaving a trail of corpses around LA gets cops' noses out of joint. If Marlowe doesn't wrap this one up fast, he's going to end up in jail – or worse, in a box in the ground.
Regarded as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. He watches and records the activities of the wise Augustus and his villainous wife Livia, the sadistic Tiberius and the insane excesses of Caligula. Written in the form of Claudius' autobiography, this is the first part of Robert Graves's brilliant account of the madness and debauchery of ancient Rome.
This is a powerful story of survival in a tough, joyless world. Billy Casper is a troubled teenager growing up in a Yorkshire mining town. Beaten by his drunken brother, ignored by his mother and failing at school, he seems destined for a hard, miserable life down the pits. But Billy discovers a new passion in life when he finds Kes, a kestrel hawk. Billy identifies with her silent strength and she inspires in him the trust and love that nothing else can.
Enter Borges' timeless worlds, where the ideal and the abstract challenge reality; where philosophical paradoxes and endless possibilities abound, and wisps of dream and magic are layered in eternal reoccurrence. To read Labyrinths is to glide through time, space, mythology and philosophy, as Borges' characters struggle towards devastating discovery. His essays and brief tantalizing parables explore the enigmas of time, identity and imagination. Playful and disturbing, scholarly and seductive, his is a haunting and utterly distinctive voice.
These spiritual reflections of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) show a leader trying to make sense of himself and the universe, and cover diverse topics such as the question of virtue, human rationality and the nature of the gods. In developing his personal beliefs, Aurelius created one of the greatest works of philosophy: a series of wise and practical aphorisms that have been consulted by statesmen, thinkers and everyday philosophers for almost two thousand years.
In the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to appease the needs of the Party. Inwardly, he rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the watchful eye of Big Brother. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with Julia. Awakening to new possibilities, Winston begins to question the party. But what is the price of freedom?
Orlando, deciding not to grow old, pursues his quest for passion, adventure, fulfilment and protracted youth. Chasing a dream through the centuries, he bounds from Elizabethan England and imperial Turkey to the modern world. Will he find happiness with the exotic Russian Princess Sasha? Or is the dashing explorer Shelmerdine the ideal man? And what form will Orlando take on the journey – a nobleman; gypsy; writer? Man or . . . woman?
In 1914 Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya with her husband to run a coffee-farm. Drawn to the exquisite beauty of Africa, she spent her happiest years there until the plantation failed. A poignant farewell to her beloved farm, Out of Africa describes her friendships with the local people, her dedication for the landscape and wildlife, and great love for the adventurer Denys Finch-Hatton.
After a mysterious incident during their visit to the Marabar Caves, the charming Dr Aziz is accused of assaulting Adela Quested, a naïve young Englishwoman. His trial exposes the fragile structure of Anglo-Indian relations and the racism inherent in colonialism is exposed. A Passage to India compellingly depicts the fate of individuals caught between the great political and cultural conflicts of the modern world.
When Kino, an Indian pearl-diver, finds 'the Pearl of the world' he believes that his life will be magically transformed. He will marry Juana in church and their little boy, Coyotito, will attend school. Obsessed by his dreams, Kino is blind to the greed, fear and violence the pearl arouses in him and his neighbours. Written with lyrical simplicity The Pearl explores the secretive nature of man, the depths of evil within, and the consequences of rebellion.
As a diplomat in turbulent fifteenth-century Florence, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) knew how quickly political fortunes could rise and fall. The Prince is his controversial handbook about the dynamics of power, leadership and strategy. Machiavelli's shrewd argument that sometimes it is necessary to abandon ethics to succeed made his name notorious. Consequently, The Prince has been read by strategists, politicians and business people ever since.
In America at the turn of the twentieth century, when society abounds with movers and shakers such as Houdini, J.P Morgan, Henry Ford and Emma Goldman, and the sultry rhythms of ragtime permeate the city, ex-chorus girl Evelyn Nesbitt inspires a mad millionaire to murder architect Stanford White. In this stunning kaleidoscopic chronicle of an age, Doctorow juxtaposes patriotism with fading grandeur, to create a dazzling literary mosaic that depicts an era of dire poverty, fabulous wealth and incredible change.
Sabrina is a firebird blazing through 1950s New York: she is a woman daring to enjoy the sexual licence that men have always known. Weaving a sensual web of deceit as she plays dangerous games of desire, she deliberately avoids commitment, gripped by the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake.
In A Spy in the House of Love, Anais Nin's vision of feminine sexuality is expressed with a ferocious dramatic force.
A Victorian scientist propels himself into the future. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realizes that this beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great culture – now weak and childishly afraid of the dark. They have reason to be afraid: in tunnels beneath their paradise lurks another race – the sinister Morlocks. When the scientist's time machine vanishes he must confront the Morlocks or remain forever trapped in the future.
In the years following the First World War a new generation emerges, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of twenties Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their hedonistic whims and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade. In a quest for treasure, a favourite party occupation, a vivid assortment of characters hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the fulfilment of unconscious desires.