Jeff Abbott A turbo-charged thriller about a young man who discovers his whole life has been a lie.

Marc Abrahams

Chinua Achebe

Peter Ackroyd In this novel the light and the dark sides of 19th-century London flow into each other, attracting the attention of famous names such as Marx and Gissing, but also of less well-known characters, who play a significant role in a tale that is a mixture of fable, adventure and Gothic comedy.

Douglas Adams Summer 2005 finally sees the release of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie from Touchstone Pictures”. Stars include Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent, Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast, supercool hip-hop artist Mos Def as Ford Prefect and the gorgeous Zooey Deschanel as Trillian. Completely new characters were developed specially for the film by Douglas Adams before his death and will be played by John Malkovich and Anna Chancellor. Pan’s tie-in edition of this cult classic will include substantial extras from Executive Producer, Robbie Stamp: exclusive cast interviews, stories and photographs from the set.

Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything: The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Part Three In consequence of a number of stunning catastrophes, Arthur Dent is surprised to find himself living in a hideously miserable cave on prehistoric Earth. However, just as he thinks that things cannot get possibly worse, they suddenly do. He discovers that the Galaxy is not only mind-boggingly big and bewildering but also that most of the things that happen in it are staggeringly unfair. VOLUME THREE IN THE TRILOGY OF FIVE

Douglas Adams Just when Arthur Dent`s sense of reality is at its most clouded, he suddenly finds the girl of his dreams. He finds her in the last place in the Universe in which he would expect to find anything at all, but which 3,976,000,000 people will find oddly familiar. They go in search of God`s Final Message to His Creation and, in a dramatic break with tradition, actually find it. This is volume four in the Trilogy of five.

Douglas Adams When all questions of space, time, matter and the nature of being have been resolved, only one question remains - "Where shall we have dinner?" "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" provides the ultimate gastronomic experience, and for once there is no morning after to worry about. This is volume two in the Trilogy of five.

Richard Adams A phenomenal worldwide bestseller for over thirty years, Richard Adams's Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.

Aravind Adiga Winning the Man Booker prize is something that most authors dream of, although — ironically — the reputation of the prize itself was under siege a few years ago. Books that won the award were acquiring a reputation of being difficult and inaccessible, but those days appear to be over — and unarguable proof may be found in the 2008 winner, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Apart from its considerable literary merit, the novel is the most compelling of pageturners (in the old-fashioned sense of that phrase) and offers a picture of modern India that is as evocative as it is unflattering. The protagonist, too, is drawn in the most masterly of fashion.

Balram Halwai, the eponymous ‘white tiger’, is a diminutive, overweight ex-teashop worker who now earns his living as a chauffeur. But this is only one side of his protean personality; he deals in confidence scams, over-ambitious business promotions (built on the shakiest of foundations) and enjoys approaching life with a philosophical turn of mind. But is Balram also a murderer? We learn the answer as we devour these 500 odd pages. Born into an impoverished family, Balram is removed from school by his parents in order to earn money in a thankless job: shop employee. He is forced into banal, mind-numbing work. But Balram dreams of escaping — and a chance arises when a well-heeled village landlord takes him on as a chauffeur for his son (although the duties involve transporting the latter's wife and two Pomeranian dogs). From the rich new perspective offered to him in this more interesting job, Balram discovers New Delhi, and a vision of the city changes his life forever. His learning curve is very steep, and he quickly comes to believe that the way to the top is by the most expedient means. And if that involves committing the odd crime of violence, he persuades himself that this is what successful people must do.

The story of the amoral protagonist at the centre of this fascinating narrative is, of course, what keeps the reader comprehensively gripped, but perhaps the real achievement of the book is in its picture of two Indias: the bleak, soul-destroying poverty of village life and the glittering prizes to be found in the big city. The book cleverly avoids fulfilling any of the expectations a potential reader might have — except that of instructing and entertaining. The White Tiger will have many readers anxious to see what Adiga will do next. —Barry Forshaw

Aeschylus, W. B. Stanford In the "Oresteia" - the only trilogy in Greek drama which survives from antiquity - Aeschylus took as his subject the bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos. Moving from darkness to light, from rage to self-governance, from primitive ritual to civilized institution, its spirit of struggle and regeneration is eternal.

Allan Ahlberg

Allan Ahlberg Mr Biff is a boxer but he likes to eat cream cakes and sit by the fire in his slippers. Mr Bop is a boxer too, but he's the fittest, toughest man in town. So Mr Biff needs to train hard before their charity match - but will he be strong enough to swap his cream cakes for carrots?

Burnett Alcott

Louisa May Alcott Time has brought changes to the March household — home of the girls Jo, Amy, Beth and Meg, introduced in Louisa May Alcott's classic novel Little Women.

Having returned safely from war, Mr. March has become a trusted and beloved minister in the local parish. Home, too, is young John Brooke, whose plans for a shared life with Meg, however modest and poor that life may turn out to be, make the eldest March girl think herself the happiest soul in Christendom. The young lovers will live in a charming little house dubbed "The Dovecote," with its front lawn the size of a handkerchief.

Life promises adventures and fulfillment for the other March girls, as well — for not only are their talents developing, but they are growing older and more accomplished in the complicated matter of living their own lives. Tomboyish Jo's curly crop is lengthening into long coils, and she is learning to carry herself with ease — if not quite with grace. Beth has grown slender, pale, and more quiet than ever, with beautiful eyes brimming with kindness. And Amy, the flower of the family, at sixteen already has the air and bearing of a full-gown woman, and exerts an indescribable charm — especially on young men.

Louisa May Alcott (1832-88) was active in the temperance and women's suffrage movements of the 19th century. It is for her popular fiction that she is best remembered, however. Her series of novels beginning with Little Women, and continuing with Good Wives, ranks high among the best children's series of all time.

Louisa May Alcott The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Juvenile Fiction / General; Juvenile Fiction / Action

Jeanne Allen Here are 146 patterns from the textiles, ceramics, lacquerware and enamel work of the Nara (710-792) and Heian (794-1185) periods. The designs from these early eras have an elemental beauty and vitality of their own, but they also show the beginnings of motifs and themes that reappear throughout the history of Japanese art. These ancient designs have a graphic power that makes them a fabulous source of inspiration for commercial artists, graphic designers and anyone who appreciates the magic of Japanese art. The book has 146 illustrations, 16 of them in colour; the author describes each pattern, outlining its traditional use and suggesting a range of potential design applications.

Steve Allin

Mark Almond

Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis First published in 1954, this novel tells the story of Jim Dixon - lower middle-class anti-hero - charting his social gaffes, cultural philistinism, inept relationships and crawling to superiors. The author's other books include "The Old Devils", which won the 1986 Booker Prize.

Martin Amis It was summer 1970 - a long, hot summer. In a castle in Italy, half a dozen young lives are afloat on the sea of change, trapped inside the history of the sexual revolution. The girls are acting like boys, and the boys are going on acting like boys, and Keith Nearing is struggling to twist feminism and the rise of women towards his own ends.

Sharon Amos

Dora Amsden, Tomoyé Press. bkp CU-BANC, John Stewart Happer This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen

Jon Lee Anderson A masterpiece of literary reportage about the experience of ordinary Iraqis living through the endgame of the Hussein regime, its violent fall, and the troubled occupation

Kenneth Anger Hollywood Babylon

A. Mannette Ansay Oprah Book Club® Selection, November 1999, Vinegar Hill is an appropriate address for the characters who populate A. Manette Ansay's novel of the same name. After all, when Ellen Grier and her family return to the rural hamlet of Holly's Field, Wisconsin, it's not exactly a happy homecoming. Her husband, James, has been laid off from his job in Illinois. And for the moment, the family has moved in with Ellen's in-laws, Fritz and Mary-Margaret, an unhappy pair who dislike their daughter-in-law almost as much as they despise each other:

The first time Ellen sat at this table she was 20 years old, bright-cheeked after a spring afternoon spent walking along the lakefront with James, planning their upcoming wedding. It was 1959 and she was eager to make a good impression. She didn't know then that Mary-Margaret disliked her, that she was considered Jimmy's mistake.

Thirteen years later, in 1972, Ellen is back at the table with no escape in sight. Both she and her husband do find work. Yet James seems to settle a tad too easily into his old life, and shows no interest in finding a place of their own. Even worse, his job takes him away from home for weeks at a time, leaving Ellen to cope with her abusive in-laws.

In Vinegar Hill Ansay paints a searing portrait of the Midwest's dark side, of a rural culture infected with despair and ruled over by an unforgiving God. Yet she does hold out a grain of hope, too. Just as Ellen seems permanently entangled in familial desperation, she makes a surprising discovery about James's long-dead grandmother—a woman whose rebellious spirit inspires Ellen to rescue herself and her loved ones from the impinging darkness. This late-breaking redemption doesn't cancel out the preceding unhappiness: Vinegar Hill remains a tough, uncompromising tale, one that requires some fortitude to read. But those with the heart for it will be rewarded with fine, spare prose and a hopeful ending. —Alix Wilber, Amazon.com

Bauhaus Archiv, Magdalena Droste The Bauhaus Archiv Museum of Design in Berlin holds the most important collection on the Bauhaus today. Documents, workshop products from all areas of design, studies sketches in the classroom, and architectural plans and models are all part of its comprehensive inventory. "The Bauhaus Archiv" is dedicated to the study and presentation of the history of the Bauhaus, including the new Bauhaus in Chicago and the Hochschule fur Gestaltung (Institute of Design) in Ulm. This book, drawn from the Archiv's extensive collection, traces this monumental movement in art and architecture via the work of its most important proponents, including Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Vassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee.

Trustees of the Mass Observation Archives In September 1939, housewife and mother Nella Last began a diary whose entries, in their regularity, length and quality, have created a record of the Second World War which is powerful, fascinating and unique. When war broke out, Nella's younger son joined the army while the rest of the family tried to adapt to civilian life.

Edward Ardizzone

Aristophanes The plays in this volume all contain Aristophanes' trademark bawdy comedy and dazzling verbal agility. In "The Birds", two frustrated Athenians join the birds to build the utopian city of 'Much Cuckoo in the Clouds'. "The Knights" is a venomous satire on Cleon, a prominent Athenian demagogue, while "The Assembly Women" deals with the battle of the sexes as the women of Athens infiltrate the all-male Assembly in disguise. The lengthy conflict with Sparta is the subject of "Peace", inspired by the hope of a settlement in 421 BC, and "Wealth" reflects on the economic catastrophe that hit Athens after the war.

Jake Arnott Looks at the underbelly of life in the 90s.

Victor Arwas "This must be the most lavish book on Art Deco ever published. It may even be the last word on the movement."-Artforum

"Victor Arwas's Art Deco is the most serious and comprehensive book on the subject. . . . The book itself is an object of striking elegance."-Newsweek

Victor Arwas's magnificent book offers a broad insight into the elements of this distinctive decorative style. Arwas discusses the work of Art Deco's leading French exponents-Ruhlmann, Puiforcat, Ert, Dunand, Fouquet, Cassandre, Boucheron, and Icart, to name but a few-as he traces the evolution of the style from its first appearance at the famed 1925 Exposition des Arts Dcoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, from which it took its name.

437 illustrations, 340 in full color, 10 x 12"

Russell Ash

Andrea Ashworth Given her start in life, it is all the more remarkable that Andrea Ashworth should have turned out to be an Oxford graduate with such a compelling memoir under her belt. Her father died when she was five, her mother was left, poor and isolated in 70s, depressed Manchester to bring up Andrea and her younger sister singlehandedly. Along comes a physically abusive stepfather who sets about dragging the young family into the pits of despair, petty crime and sordid poverty. But Ashworth writes an enchanting story that blends social history (the 70s are rendered with an acute eye for detail) with poetic intensity. She turns a child's uncomprehending gaze on the domestic horrors of working- class life when it is dominated by a vicious man and drunken, self-pitying mother. We know, as we listen with Andrea, that her mother has decided to leave her man when she puts Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" on the turntable. Unfortunately, we know, too, that she was kidding herself when said man comes home and twirls her round the front room to the sound of Motown disco. We know, because Ashworth makes us re-live her childhood by dint of her astonishing gift for storytelling. —Lilian Pizzichini

Isaac Asimov

Kate Atkinson On a peat and heather island off the west coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother Nora take refuge in the large mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories. But strange things are happening. Why is Effie being followed? Is someone killing the old people? And where is the mysterious yellow dog?

Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, has never felt at home in Cambridge, and has a failed marriage to prove it. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, he attempts to unravel three case histories and begins to realise that everything is connected.

Kate Atkinson Once it had been the great forest of Lythe. And here, lived the Fairfaxes, visited once by the great Gloriana herself. But over the centuries the forest had been destroyed. The Fairfaxes have dwindled too. But Isobel Fairfax knows about the past. She is waiting for the return of her mother whose disappearance is part of the mystery.

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood A decade and a half has passed since Grace was locked up, at the age of 16, for the cold-blooded murders of her employer Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper/lover Nancy Montgomery. Her alleged accomplice, James McDermot, was hanged in 1843. Dr Simon Jordan attempts to uncover the truth.

Jean-Baptiste Bacquart Studying the tribes of 49 areas south of the Sahara, this text looks at social and political structures as well as artistic production. The art is analyzed according to type - masks, statues, utensils, furniture and jewelry. Further information on artistically related tribes is also provided.

Julian Baggini, Peter S. Fosl

Julian Baggini, Jeremy Stangroom Is your brain ready for a thorough philosophical health check? This work presents quizzes that reveal what you really think and what it all adds up to.

Suzanne Bailey

George Bain This unique volume clearly demonstrates simple geometric techniques for making intricate knots, interlacements, spirals, Kellstype initials, human and animal figures in distinctive Celtic style. Features over 500 illustrations.

Beryl Bainbridge Beryl Bainbridge seems drawn to disaster. First she tackled the Unfortunate Scott expedition to the South Pole in The Birthday Boys; later (but emphatically pre-DiCaprio) came the sinking of the Titanic, in Every Man for Himself. Now, in her third historical novel (and her 16th overall), she takes on the Crimean War, and the result is a slim, gripping volume with all of the doomed intensity of the Light Brigade's charge—but, thankfully, without the Tennysonian bombast. "Some pictures," a character confides, "would only cause alarm to ordinary folk." There's a warning concealed here, and one that easily disturbed readers would do well to heed: Master Georgie is intense, disturbing, revelatory—and not always pretty to look at.

Bainbridge's narrative circles around the enigmatic figure of George Hardy, a surgeon, amateur photographer, alcoholic, and repressed homosexual who counters the dissipation of his prosperous Liverpool life by heading for the Crimean Peninsula in 1854. His journey and subsequent tour of duty are told in three very different voices: Myrtle, an orphan whose lifelong loyalty to her "Master Georgie" becomes an overriding obsession; Pompey Jones, street urchin, fire-eater, photographer, and George's sometime lover; and Dr. Potter, George's scholarly brother-in-law, whose retreat from the war's carnage and into books takes on a tinge of madness.

United by a sudden death in a Liverpool brothel in 1846, these characters plumb the curious workings of love, war, class, and fate. In between, Bainbridge frames an unforgettable series of tableaux morts: a dying soldier, one lens of his glasses "fractured into a spider's web"; a decapitated leg, toes "poking through the shreds of a cavalry boot"; two dead men "on their knees, facing one another, propped up by the pat-a-cake thrust of their hands." Glimpsed as if sideways and then passed over in language that is as understated as it is lovely, these are images that sear into the brain. Master Georgie is full of such moments, horrors painted with an exquisite brush. —Mary Park

Beryl Bainbridge A novel about one family's experiences in the Crimean War. When the Battle of Inkerman was over, five survivors were assembled in front of a camera. A sixth figure - Master Georgie - added symmetry to the group. In the distance a young woman circled round and round like a bird above a robbed nest.

Michael Baker

J. G. Ballard J.G. Ballard — author of 'Crash' and 'Empire of the Sun' — explores the dangers of extremism in ecology and feminism in this highly acclaimed modern fable.

Iain Banks

Iain Banks

Iain Banks By the author of 'The Wasp Factory' and 'Walking on Glass', this book is set in Japan and on the Panama Canal. It concerns a world famous Japanese cellist, who refuses to fly, and as a result finds herself involved in the ominous realm of global 'realpolitik'.

Iain Banks Isis Whit is a member of the 'Elect of God', a religious cult based near Stirling. When her cousin Morag renounces her faith, it falls to Isis to venture out into the techno-ridden barreness of nineties Britain to save her. But Morag has embraced the ways of the 'unsaved' with surprising vigour.

Iain Banks The war is ending, perhaps ended. But for the castle and its occupants, the troubles are just beginning - armed gangs roam a lawless land and taking to the roads with the other refugees, anonymous in their raggedness, seems safer than remaining in the ancient keep.

Iain Banks Kate Telman is a senior executive officer in The Business, a powerful and massively discreet transglobal organisation. Financially transparent, internally democratic and disavowing conventional familial inheritance, the character of The Business seems, even to Kate, to be vague to the point of invisibility. It possesses, allegedly, a book of Leonardo cartoons, several sets of Crown Jewels and wants to buy its own State in order to acquire a seat at the United Nations. Kate's job is to keep abreast of current technological developments and her global reach encompasses Silicon Valley, a ranch in Nebraska, the firm's secretive Swiss headquarters, and a remote Himalayan principality. In the course of her journey Kate must peel away layers of emotional insulation and the assumptions of a lifetime. She must learn to keep her world at arm's length. To take control, she has to do The Business.

Iain Banks Iain Banks' daring new novel opens in a loft apartment in the East End, in a former factory due to be knocked down in a few days. Ken Nott is a devoutly contrarian vaguely left-wing radio shock-jock living in London. After a wedding breakfast people start dropping fruits from a balcony on to a deserted carpark ten storeys below, then they start dropping other things; an old TV that doesn't work, a blown loudspeaker, beanbags, other unwanted furniture...Then they get carried away and start dropping things that are still working, while wrecking the rest of the apartment. But mobile phones start ringing and they're told to turn on a TV, because a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Centre. At ease with the volatility of modernity, Iain Banks is also our most accomplished literary writer of narrative-driven adventure stories that never ignore the injustices and moral conundrums of the real world. His new novel, set in contemporary London, displays the trademark dark wit, buoyancy and momentum of his finest work. It will be one of the most important novels of 2002.

Iain Banks COMPLICITY n. 1. the fact of being an accomplice, esp. in a criminal act

Local journalist Cameron Colley writes articles that are idealistic, from the viewpoint of the underdog. A twisted serial killer seems to have the same MO — he commits brutal murders on behalf of the underdog. As the two stories begin to merge, Cameron finds himself inextricably and inexplicably implicated by the killer.

When the arms dealer whom Cameron plans to expose is found literally "disarmed" before Cameron can even put pen to paper and the brewery chief, loathed by Cameron, who sold out at the expense of his workers finds himself permanently unemployable, the police become convinced of Cameron's guilt, as do half his friends and colleagues, forcing Cameron to employ all his investigative skills to find the real killer and his motive.

Iain Banks

Iain M. Banks

Iain M. Banks In The Player of Games, Iain M. Banks presents a distant future that could almost be called the end of history. Humanity has filled the galaxy, and thanks to ultra-high technology everyone has everything they want, no one gets sick, and no one dies. It's a playground society of sports, stellar cruises, parties, and festivals. Jernau Gurgeh, a famed master game player, is looking for something more and finds it when he's invited to a game tournament at a small alien empire. Abruptly Banks veers into different territory. The Empire of Azad is exotic, sensual and vibrant. It has space battle cruisers, a glowing court— all the stuff of good old science fiction—which appears old-fashioned in contrast to Gurgeh's home. At first it's a relief, but further exploration reveals the empire to be depraved and terrifically unjust. Its defects are gross exaggerations of our own, yet they indict us all the same. Clearly Banks is interested in the idea of a future where everyone can be mature and happy. Yet it's interesting to note that in order to give us this compelling adventure story, he has to return to a more traditional setting. Thoughtful science fiction readers will appreciate the cultural comparisons, and fans of big ideas and action will also be rewarded. — Brooks Peck

John Banville Winner of the 2005 Man Booker Prize

Lindsey Bareham You wouldn't expect to find plums, cherries and beef being the star ingredients of a book titled The Big Red Book of Tomatoes, but that's exactly what you will find between these pages. Along with momotara, pomodorino, rochelle and sunburst, they are varieties of the fruit we love to eat as a vegetable and food writer Lindsey Bareham insists they take centre stage.

This book is about the pleasure of eating tomatoes. Take a tomato that has been allowed to ripen on the vine: the plant will have sent its roots deep into the earth in search of food and water while the sun turns the skin of the fruit a deep, dark red. Slice this tomato, sprinkle it with salt, add cracked black pepper and some good olive oil, then eat it. Pure pleasure.

Bareham tells the history of the fruit that originated in South America, where it grew wild. By the time Cortes conquered Mexico in 1523, the tomato was ubiquitous, later spreading up the coast of North America. She also explains how tomatoes should be peeled, how to make purée and even how to carve tomato roses. Then there are 400 recipes, including Green Tomato Tarte Tatin, Roast Tomato and Goat's Cheese Clafoutis, Huevos Rancheros and the ultimate Bloody Mary. There are also inspirational ideas for salsas, chutneys, soufflés relishes and sauces. It's an inspiring book and deserved its shortlisting for the Glenfiddich Food & Drink Award in 1999. —Arabella Buckingham-White

A.L. Barker

A.L. Barker

Pat Barker Nick's grandfather Geordie lies dying. As Nick watches, Geordie starts to relive the horrors surrounding his brother's death and his own terrible experiences during the WWI. Meanwhile, Nick and his wife Fran are trying to unite their fractious young family, despite the discovery of a Victorian drawing revealing the tragic history of their house.

D.St.P. Barnard

Emily Barr

Emily Barr The perfect couple. The perfect French farmhouse. Plan A is the perfect life. But then there's the other...

Geoffrey, Editor Barraclough

Fred Basnett

Angelica Baumer

Glen Baxter

Stephen Baxter In the millennium's last great sf novel, Stephen Baxter takes us a short step byond Y2K. The year is 2010. We have survived ! so far.

Gillian Beal, Jacob Termansen

Sally Beauman From Sally Beauman, the bestselling author of DESTINY, comes the superbly daring and completely captivating companion to one of the best-loved novels in the English language. 'A masterly piece of literary resurrection' Penny Perrick, Sunday Times

Kenneth A. Beckett, David Carr, David Stevens

Samuel Beckett

Mrs. Beeton Mrs Beeton was the Delia Smith of her day. Vastly popular in its time, her great Book of Household Management is scarcely read nowadays in its original form (no offence, Delia). This is a pity, since as a result a distorted picture of the author and her work persists, as an oppressive Victorian materfamilias with a decidedly bossy attitude and a tendency to boil vegetables to a grey pulp. The truth, as Nicola Humble demonstrates in her abridgement of the work for the Oxford press, is quite different. Isabella Beeton was in many ways an unusual person. One of 21 children, she lived for part of her childhood in the grandstand at Epsom racecourse, married Sam Beeton, an ambitious young publisher, worked hard as a journalist and translator, and died of puerperal fever (not, sadly, such an unusual fate in her time) at the age of 28. The Book of Household Management grew out of her own sense, as a new bride, of the lack of such a work of instruction and guidance for young women faced with the daunting business of running a home. It is largely a compilation rather than an original work. Its originality lies in its organisation and purpose; its quality arises from the clarity and decisiveness of Beeton's writing. Behind the period details, there is a wealth of common sense.

Nicola Humble provides a scholarly introduction and notes. Gesturing towards academic fashions, she describes the many facets of the book in terms of modes of discourse—which is perhaps a highfalutin way of pointing out the remarkable range of subject matter and the variety of Beeton's sources. The notes entertainingly combine theoretical commentary with often deadpan remarks on the recipes ("Rock biscuits: so-called for their appearance, not their texture"). The recipes themselves are the principal victims of the abridgement, for Nicola Humble's main aim is to present the book as a kind of exhaustive self-portrait of the expanding and aspirational Victorian middle classes. The representative selection that remains, however, are enough to make this a welcome reissue of a fascinating and important book. —Robin Davidson

Lauren Belfer Louisa Barrett is the headmistress of Macaulay School for Girls in Buffalo, New York, at the turn of the century. A passionate, highly intelligent woman, she remains unmarried but welcomes the general misconception that she is in a relationship with the radical, outspoken Francesca Coatsworthy. The husband of Louisa's late best friend is the head of the hydroelectric power project at Niagra Falls. He is turning water into light and trying to persuade the conservationists that diverting water from the Falls will not ruin its beauty. When one of the chief engineers disappears through a hole in the ice and racist graffiti appears on the town walls, Louisa is unwillingly drawn into the drama around the Falls. But Louisa has a secret and one she must protect at all costs. The layers of intrigue build to a revelatory climax. This is a compelling tale brilliantly told. Louisa Barrett is a heroine in the style of Elizabeth Bennett, headstrong, loveable and convincing as an amateur sleuth. A gripping, literary thriller. —Hannah Griffiths

Peter Benchley

William Rose Benet, Bruce F. Murphy

David Benioff The long-awaited new novel by the critically-acclaimed author of THE 25TH HOUR and one of Hollywood's brightest screenwriting stars.

Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett First published in the London Review of Books in 1996, TheClothes They Stood Up In takes the reader into familiar Bennett territory. Maurice and Rosemary Ransome are a typically dissatisfied, middle-aged, middle-class couple, childless and emotionally withdrawn. "They had no children and but for Mozart would probably have split up years ago. Mr Ransome always took a bath when he came home from work and then he had his supper. After supper he took another bath, this time in Mozart". However, one night, after returning from a performance of Cosi fanTutte, bath, supper, Mozart and everything disappeared. "There is a limit to what burglars can take: they seldom take easy chairs, for example, and even more seldom settees. These burglars did. They took everything".

What unfolds is a brilliant account of the ways in which the lives of the Ransomes are subtly but profoundly changed forever, as Rosemary discovers the joys of shopping at the local Pakistani shop and the limits of counselling, and Maurice fantasises about new CD equipment with which to listen to Mozart. However, just as life begins to return to normal, a letter arrives which throws new light on the Ransome's extraordinary burglary. Beautifully observed and written with a masterly economy of style, Bennett's story packs an enormous amount into just over 100 pages, and has not one but two delicious stings in its tail. —Jerry Brotton

Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett Features none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. The consequence is surprising, mildly shocking and funny.

Benni, Stefano

E. F. Benson

Ophelia Benson, Jeremy Stangroom

John Berendt

Oona van den Berg

John Berger

Louis de Bernieres When war is declared and the outside world intrudes, the twin scourges of religion and nationalism lead to forced marches and massacres, and the peaceful fabric of life is destroyed. Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty, and Ibrahim the Goatherd who has courted her since infancy are but two of the many casualties.

Ambrose Bierce

tony biggs

Tony Biggs

Max Bill

Mark Billingham * He kills because he's afraid not to ... how scared does that make you? * A sensational new thriller from the author of the bestselling SLEEPYHEAD

Mark Billingham The fifth DI Tom Thorne novel from Britain's hottest new talent, set in the heart of London.

Maeve Binchy

Richard Bird

Francis Bissell

Ken Blackburn, Jeff Lammers

Simon Blackburn This is a text about the big questions in life: knowledge, consciousness, fate, God, truth, goodness, justice. It is for anyone who believes there are big questions out there, but does not know how to approach them. 'Think' sets out to explain what they are and why they are important.

Simon Blackburn Tells about truth, and the enemies of truth, and the wars that are fought between them. This guide looks at relativism and absolutism, toleration and belief, objectivity and knowledge, science and pseudo-science, and the moral and political implications, as well as the nuances, of all these.

Quentin Blake A musical interpretation of some of Quentin Blake's favourite stories, including 'All Join In', 'Mr Magnolia', 'Mrs Armitage on Wheels', 'Quentin Blake's Nursery Rhymes', 'ABC' and 'The Dancing Frog'.

Wendon Blake

Marjorie Blamey, Philip Blamey

Marjorie Blamey, Richard Sidney Richmond Fitter

Judy Blume In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard's world changed forever—when Caitlin Somers chose her as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomed Vix into the heart of her sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable privilege, sweeping her away to vacations on Martha's Vineyard, a magical, wind-blown island where two friends became summer sisters. . . .

Now, years later, Vix is working in New York City. Caitlin is getting married on the Vineyard. And the early magic of their long, complicated friendship has faded. But Caitlin has begged Vix to come to her wedding, to be her maid of honor. And Vix knows that she will go—for the friend whose casual betrayals she remembers all too well. Because Vix wants to understand what happened during that last shattering summer. And, after all these years, she needs to know why her best friend—her summer sister—still has the power to break her heart....

Enid BLYTON

Giovanni Boccaccio A new translation of the fourteenth-century tales recounted by young citizens of Florence who have fled the city to escape the plague.

Victor Bockris Artist, filmmaker, magazine publisher, instigator of Pop Art, Andy Warhol (19281987) used his canvasses of dollar bills, soup cans, and celebrities to subvert distinctions between high and popular culture. His spectacular career encompassed the underground scene as well as the equally deviant worlds of politics, show business, and high society. Warhol is the definitive chronicle of Warhol's storied life.

David J Bodycombe

David J. Bodycombe

David Bohm, F.David Peat

Hilary Bonner

Kevin Jan Bonner

book 112 pages with over 80 large-scale full-color prints. Dimensions (in inches): 14.75 x 0.75 x 10.75.

F. Bool, J. L. Locher

Achim Borchardt-Hume

Raymond and MORRISON, Stanley BOTT

Alain de Botton Provides a digest of consolations for many of our psychological ills.

robert boulanger

Jean Bouret

Sam Bourne The new, brilliantly high-concept religious conspiracy-theory thriller from the author of 'The Righteous Men', set against the backdrop of the world's bitterest conflict.

Ron Bowen

Chris Boyce

Rupert Bozeat

Malcolm Bradbury Contains works from thirty-four of Britain's contemporary writers. This book includes stories of love and crime, stories touched with comedy and the supernatural, and stories set in London, Los Angeles, Bucharest and Tokyo.

Malcolm Bradbury Francis Jay, a nineties person, embarks on a quest to find one of the greatest philosophers and thinkers of the modern age, the elusive Dr Bazlo Criminale. From European congress to congress, from woman to woman, from muse to muse he pursues the doctor, while the truth is slowly revealed.

Melvyn Bragg The fascinating story of science unfolds in this account of the lives and extraordinary discoveries of twelve of its greatest figures - Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Faraday, Darwin, Poincare, Freud, Einstein, Marie Curie and Crick and Watson. Exploring their impact and legacy with leading scientists of today including Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, Lewis Wolpert, Susan Greenfield, Roger Penrose and Richard Dawkins, Melvyn Bragg illuminates the core issues of science past and present, and conveys the excitement and importance of the scientific quest.

Russell Brand The controversial, unexpurgated, and hilarious life story of the nation's hottest comedian - in his own words.

Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan

Richard. BRAUTIGAN

Paul Brickhill Originally published in 1951 by Evans Brothers this is the story of the 1943 raid when nearly 350 tons of water crashed into the valleys of the Ruhr, when the Lancasters of 617 squadron breached the giant Moehne and Eder dams with 'blockbuster' bombs. In the PAN GRAND STRATEGY series.

Asa Briggs

Raymond Briggs

Raymond Briggs

Vera Brittain A heartwarming portrait of a young woman's life in pre-1914 England and a heartbreaking record of the holocaust that followed.

Ellinor Lucy Broadbent

Emily Bronte

Maxey Brooke

Christopher Brookmyre Another fast talking, fast action thriller by the author of QUITE UGLY ONE MORNING, winner of the 1996 Critics' First Blood Award.

Christopher Brookmyre The occasion: high school reunion. The place: an oil rig converted into a tourist resort. The outcome: carnage.

Christopher Brookmyre A robbery in Glasgow might not seem an unusual background for a crime novel - until it's put into the hands of Britain's leading satirist ...

Christy Brown

Dan Brown

Jeff Brown

Marc Brown

Rosellen Brown

Judy Budnitz Try not to get too attached to the characters in this collection of short stories. Some are easy to keep at arm's length—monstrous women with chins rolling down their throats, hooded hijackers or scarred children with rank breath. But others are more endearing, stealing up to you with their intimacies, lingering in your memory long after you've moved on. The man in the shabby zip-up dog suit who blinks longingly in the hope of getting some scraps; the son who is persuaded to donate his heart to his mother (it's only "a little bit of flesh" after all); the seven-year-old girl in red overalls, smelling of childhood and sweet milk.

If Judy Budnitz's stories have a hallmark, it is the inevitable nudging towards a "glorious, disastrous, unexpected turn". Set in an America of one-traffic-light towns, these stories follow the downtrodden and explore how they fall off the edge. But you want to know what happened next, what went wrong. Did he leave her? Did she leave him? Did she lie to him, cheat on him... You want her to slip up, don't you? She doesn't seem real to you yet; she's too perfect. You want to see her make a mistake... Often there is something darkly delicious about this—for just as Budnitz knows how to navigate between the sinister and the funny, she knows when to leave you stranded, squirming half-cocked and when to release the tension with sharp one-liners. Flying Leap is Judy Budnitz's first collection of short stories, published to great acclaim in the States (it was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year). It comes to us after the publication of her first novel, If I Told You Once, which was short-listed for the Orange Prize 2000. —Jane Honey

Mikhail Bulgakov A new translation of Bulgakov's novel which also includes a commentary and afterword that provide new insights into the subtext of the novel.

Alan Bullock A fully revised and updated edition of this unique, well-established, classic work of reference and companion to all fields of modern thought. First published in Fontana paperback in 1977; second revised edition published in Fontana paperback in 1988; the third substantially revised edition made its first ever appearance in hardback in 1999. The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought has been continuously in print in earlier editions for more than twenty years. The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought contains some 4000 entries by 326 expert contributors. Nearly 1000 entries are entirely new; and most of those that survive from the previous (1988) edition have been substantially revised or newly written for this edition. Areas which have been expanded include computing, identity politics and environmental studies, and there are new entries on God, communitarianism, perestroika, new world order, afrocentricity, ebonics, third wave feminism, hypertext, virtual reality, culture jamming, cloning, post-colonialism, fuzzy logic, artificial life, paper architecture, infopreneur!

Michael Burleigh Burleigh sets Nazi Germany in a European context showing how the Third Reich's abandonment of liberal democracy, decency and tolerance was widespread. The underlying premise of his book is that there are good and bad individuals, not good and bad nations, as he recreates the complexities of life under a totalitarian dictatorship.

Gordon Burn

William Burroughs

Tim Burton Twenty-three illustrated gothic tales from the dark corridors of the imagination of the creative genius behind Batman, Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish. Burton's lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and tragedy of a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children - hopeful, yet hapless beings.

Alberto Busignani

Italo Calvino This collection of playful, deadly fables is populated with waifs and strays, a gluttonous thief and a mischievous gardener. The grimly comic story "The Argentine Ant" moved Gore Vidal to declare 'if this is not a masterpiece of twentieth-century prose writing, I cannot think of anything better'.

Andrea Camilleri Montalbano returns for another delicious mystery

Jeffery Camp

Alison Campbell, Julia Barton

Kate Whiteman, Jeni Wright, Angela Boggiano Carla Capalbo

Anthony Capella 'A delicious book — funny, foodie and romantic. The definitive Roman romantic comedy' Richard Curtis

Lorenzo Carcaterra

Orson Scott Card, Michael Ridpath, Ansen Dibell, Lewis Turco

Peter Carey

Caleb Carr

John le Carre

John le Carré There were those who feared that the end of the Cold War would deal a fatal blow to the creativity of many first-rate thriller writers who specialised in this territory. In the case of John le Carré, this would have meant the loss of not only Britain's finest thriller writer, but a serious novelist of quite as much literary gravitas as any of his mainstream contemporaries. Certainly, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold remains as utterly compelling today as when it was written, whereas such post-Cold War le Carré themes as financial double dealing seemed to inspire him less than the world of shifting identity he had dealt in so skilfully. But with The Constant Gardener, we have the author once again firing on all cylinders. The characterisation is as elegant and expressive as ever, the prose as limpid and forceful. But, most of all, le Carré has found a theme quite as pregnant as any he has handled in the past: the malign, deceptively ameliorative world of global pharmaceuticals. In the new novel, the customary themes of betrayal and danger are explored in a narrative that exerts a total grip throughout its considerable length. His protagonist, Justin Quayle, is an unreflective British diplomat whose job in the British High Commission in Nairobi suggests one of Graham Greene's dispossessed protagonists trying to survive in the sultry corruption of foreign climates. President Arap Moi's Kenya is a country in the grip of AIDS, while political machinations maintain a deadly status quo. When Quayle's wife (who has taken more interest in what is happening around her than her husband) is killed, his investigation of her murder leads him into a murky web of exploitation involving Kenyan greed and a major pharmaceutical company eager to promote its "wonder cure" for tuberculosis. As Quayle looks deeper into the company which his wife had been investigating, all he has carefully built around him begins to crumble. The steady accumulation of tension and rigorous delineation of character is emblematic of le Carré at his finest, and it is a tremendous pleasure to find the author so resolutely back on form, fired with a real sense of anger at the duplicity of the modern world:"Specious, unadulterated, pompous Foreign Office bullshit, if you want its full name—trade isn't making the poor rich. Profits don't buy reforms. They buy corrupt government officials and Swiss bank accounts". —Barry Forshaw

Lewis Carroll, Peter Hunt The two 'Alice' books are masterpieces of carefree nonsense for children and also embody layers of satire and allusion and mathematical, linguistic, and philosophical jokes. This new edition explores their complex status and the many interpretations of them, taking account of the most recent research and critical opinion.

Rachel Carson

Angela Carter

Nigel Cawthorne, etc.

Camden Arts Centre

Michael Chabon Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction from the author 'Wonder Boys'. 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' is a heart-wrenching story of escape, love and comic-book heroes set in Prague, New York and the Arctic.

Raymond Chandler

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer, Valerie Allen, David Kirkham Six-hundred-year-old tales with modern relevance.

G. K. Chesterton, Kingsley Amis

Tracy Chevalier The Dutch painter Vermeer has remained one of the great enigmas of 17th-century Dutch art. While little is known of his personal life, his extraordinary paintings of natural and domestic life, with their subtle play of light and colour, have come to define the Dutch Golden Age. The mysterious portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has fascinated art historians for centuries, and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title.

Girl with a Pearl Earring centres on Vermeer's prosperous household in Delft in the 1660s. The appointment of the quiet, perceptive heroine of the novel, the servant Griet, gradually throws the household into turmoil as Vermeer and Griet become increasingly intimate, an increasingly tense situation that culminates in her working for Vermeer as his assistant, and ultimately sitting for him as a model. Chevalier deliberately cultivates a limpid, painstakingly observed style in homage to Vermeer, and the complex domestic tensions of the Vermeer household are vividly evoked, from the jealous, vain, young wife to the wise, taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic, but Girl with a Pearl Earring does contain a final delicious twist in its tail. Chevalier acknowledges her debt to Simon Schama's classic study of the Dutch Golden Age, The Embarrassment of Riches, and the novel comes hard on the heels of Deborah Moggach's similar tale of domestic intrigue behind the easel of 17th-century Dutch painting, Tulip Fever.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is a fascinating piece of speculative historical fiction, but how much more can novelists extract from the Dutch Golden Age? —Jerry Brotton

Kate Chopin

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie What's better than Agatha Christie? Thirteen Agatha Christies

A baker's dozen of fiendishly-told tales in which indomitable sleuth Miss Jane Marple plays host to some of the most clever crimes-and criminals.

Agatha Christie A bit of adventure and quick cash is all that good-natured drifter Anthony Cade is looking for when he accepts a messenger job from an old friend. It sounds so simple: deliver the provocative memoirs of a recently deceased European count to a London publisher. But the parcel holds ore than scandalous royal secrets. It contains a stash of letters that suggest blackmail—and lead to the murder of a stranger who's been shadowing Anthony's every move. Discovering the dead man's identity means retracing his steps—to the rambling estate of Chimneys where darker secrets, and deadlier threats, await anyone who dares to enter.

Agatha Christie A selection of mysteries, some light-hearted, some romantic, some very deadly! Twelve tantalizing cases! the curious disappearance of Lord Listerdale; a newlywed's fear of her ex-fiance; a strange encounter on a train; a domestic murder investigation; a wild man's sudden personality change; a retired inspector's hunt for a murderess; a young woman's impersonation of a duchess; a necklace hidden in a basket of cherries; a mystery writer's arrest for murder; an astonishing marriage proposal; a soprano's hatred for a baritone; the case of the rajah's emerald. All have one thing in common: the skilful hand of Agatha Christie.

Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot was invited to the Hollow to tea, but found a murder waiting for him instead.

The victim—an extraordinarily vital, emotionally complex doctor—was the last person anyone expected to see lying dead by the pool. And his meek, befuddled wife was the last person anyone would expect to see standing over him with a gun. Did she really shoot her husband? Or is she merely a second victim in a brilliantly planned plot by a daring, cunning murderer?

To find the answers, Poirot delves deep into the character of the victim and those in his sphere, sorting through colorful personalities and tangled emotions. But in doing so, he finds himself thwarted by a person who he calls "one of the best antagonists that I have ever had."

Agatha Christie The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection.

Suspicion naturally falls on the old man’s young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancÉ of the late millionaire’s granddaughter.

Agatha Christie Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Then, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose.

But the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information. Unfortunately, before he could finish reading the letter, he was stabbed to death.

Agatha Christie An old-fashioned London hotel is not quite as reputable as it makes out to be.…

When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she’s looking for at Bertram’s Hotel: traditional decor, impeccable service, and an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer. Yet, not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric guest makes his way to the airport on the wrong day.…

Agatha Christie The first Miss Marple mystery, one which tests all her powers of observation and deduction.

“Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,” declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, “would be doing the world at large a favor!”

It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later—when the Colonel is found shot dead in the clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.

Agatha Christie From seat No. 9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No. 13, sat a countess with a poorly concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No. 8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No. 2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.

Agatha Christie Luke Fitzwilliam does not believe Miss Pinkerton’s wild allegation that a multiple murderer is at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood and that her local doctor is next in line.

But within hours, Miss Pinkerton has been killed in a hit-and-run car accident. Mere coincidence? Luke is inclined to think so—until he reads in the Times of the unexpected demise of Wychwood’s Dr. Humbleby.…

Agatha Christie Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow thirteen guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is dead—choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison.

Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder.…

Agatha Christie When an elderly priest is murdered, the killer searches the victim so roughly that his already ragged cassock is torn in the process. What was the killer looking for? And what had a dying woman confided to the priest on her deathbed only hours earlier?

Mark Easterbrook and his sidekick Ginger Corrigan are determined to find out. Maybe the three women who run The Pale Horse public house, and who are rumored to practice the “Dark Arts,” can provide some answers?

CineBooks

David Clark

Dr Charles Clark & Maureen Clark, Dr Charles Clark, Maureen Clark Presents a plan to get your body back into shape for the beach safely. This book comprises an easy to follow weight loss plan for safe weight loss. It provides information on topics such as diet plans, low GI recipes, cellulite reducing tips, exercises, and tips for eating out.

Jerome Clark

Kenneth Clark Explains some basic techniques of Da Vinci by analyzing several of his better-known paintings.

Arthur C. Clarke

Carol Clarke, Pauline Swaine, Percy Blandford, Brenda Greysmith, David Carr, Lindsay Vernon, Sue Biro, Violet Stevenson, Tina Hearne, Neil Tennant

Marcus Clarke

Chris Cleave The stunning new novel from the author of INCENDIARY

Harlan Coben Elizabeth was taken from David one night, tortured, killed and abandoned by the serial murderer known as KillRoy; he was left for dead. Eight years later, he gets an e-mail which leads him to a camera feed, and sees her standing on a street corner looking at him. And suddenly he is on the run, accused of her murder and of others, dependent on the whim of a violent pusher whose child's life he saved. Harlan Coben's new thriller Tell No One is a terrifying kinetic novel of abuse of power, false accusation and the things that go wrong with the most careful of schemes. David Beck is a memorable character—a dedicated doctor whose mourning for his wife has gradually become itself a sort of paralysis, but who has a surprising resilience under stress; he has not got much going for him in the terrible situations in which he finds himself, but he makes ingenious use of what he has got. This is an intelligent thriller in which we get to watch suspect, police and some very unpleasant heavies chase each other around in impressively convoluted circles. Coben is one of the best multiple-bluffers in the business. —Roz Kaveney

Harlan Coben

Harlan Coben Like Harlan Coben's other recent novels of suspense, The Innocent starts in the green suburbs of New Jersey and takes us off into the dark heart of the secrets and lies that often lie at the centre of American life. Matt has rebuilt his life after a brawl that left him serving four years hard time for manslaughter. He has clawed back some of the dreams of his young manhood—in particular, Olivia, the girl he met once, dreamed of and then found again. Now someone is sending him phone images of Olivia, in a blonde wig, with another man... Local cop Loren is trying to find out who smothered a teacher at the local convent, and why the dead nun had breast implants; over-the-hill stripper Kimmy is visited by the daughter of a long-dead friend...

This is a plot as well constructed as a good watch, yet as unpredictable as a fairground ride, but what gives Coben's books their unique quality is the fact that his writing always has heart. We care about even the most minor and venal of his characters, because Coben knows that often, what divides heroism from crime is the consequences of one bad day. —-Roz Kaveney

Liza Cody A year ago, Eva Wylie was the biggest, meanest, ugliest female wrestler to disgrace the ring. Her name was on posters. People recognized her on the street. But having been barred from the ring, she's back at the bottom, reduced to guarding rich people's cars and dreaming of yesterday's triumphs.

Jonathan Coe

Paulo Coelho 'The Alchemist' is a global phenomenon, selling over 30 million copies worldwide. This exciting new edition includes exclusive content, such as a new forward to the book by the author, an interview with Paulo Coelho, and much more, providing an in-depth look at this much-loved title.

J M Coetzee Elizabeth Costello is an Australian writer of international renown. Famous principally for an early novel that established her reputation, she has reached the stage where her remaining function is to be venerated and applauded.

John Michael Cohen

jenny colgan

Judith Collins, John Welchman, David Chandler, David A. Anfam

Wilkie Collins, John Sutherland

James Conan It is 1893 and Anna Zemeckis, a young New Yorker, goes missing in America's most dangerous city: Chicago. Emily Strauss, a reporter from the 'New York World', is given a treacherous assignment: to find out what happened to Anna. Alone in a dangerous world, she faces a near-impossible task. And, she soon discovers, a powerful enemy.

michael connelly

Michael Connelly The 'best crime writer in the world' (GQ) delivers his first legal thriller - a blistering tale about a cynical defence attorney whose one remaining spark of integrity may cost him his life.

John Connolly Bestselling author John Connolly turns his unique imagination to the ancient tradition of legend and fairytale in this engrossing novel about the loss of innocence and the enduring power of story in our lives.

Peter Cook Peter Cook may have had problems that prevented him ever fully achieving all that his comic genius was capable of, but that side of the writer and comedian is not the point of Tragically, I Was an Only Twin: The Complete Peter Cook, which is a quite marvellous anthology of the man's writings.

Cook's reputation has continued to flourish since his death, and many consider him (along with Spike Milligan) one of the greatest comic writers this country has produced. Although his public face was always the quaffing, sardonic commentator, he was, in fact, a writer who simply never stopped creating new sketches and articles for both public consumption and his own satisfaction. Many of these pieces have not been published before, and many have only been broadcast once. This collection brings together many high spots of Cook's career: from his early success with Beyond the Fringe (and his initial meetings with Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore) to his time as an éminence grise behind the magazine Private Eye.

Needless to say, all the marvellous EL Whisty monologues are here, as well as classic Pete and Dud routines, and even the more scabrous collaborations between Cook and Moore as the foul-mouthed Derek and Clive. The fact that Cook's Milligan-like drawings complement the text makes this a truly cherishable volume. —Barry Forshaw

Jill Coombes, Christine J. Wilson

Edmund Cooper

Jackie : Mackintosh Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper

Jilly Cooper

Robin Cooper The hilariously surreal correspondence of Robin Cooper, frustrated children's author,fairy-spotter and fancy-spoon collector, in the bestselling tradition of the Henry Root letters - but with an entirely fresh perspective.

Wendy Cope

Trewin Copplestone

Alan Coren

Alan Coren

Patricia Cornwell A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedrooms. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strikes at random - but always early on Saturday mornings. So when Dr Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner, is awakened at 2.33 am, she knows the news is bad: there is a fourth victim. And she fears now for those that will follow unless she can dig up new forensic evidence to aid the police. But not everyone is pleased to see a woman in this powerful job. Someone may even want to ruin her career and reputation...

Patricia Cornwell A cargo ship arriving at Richmond, Virginia's Deep Water Terminal from Belgium is discovered to be transporting a locked, sealed container holding the decomposed remains of a stowaway. Scarpetta's post mortem reveals no cause of death or ID and sets her on a mission that could ruin her career.

Maria Costantino New. Great condition. Never been used.

Jonathan Cott, Mary Gimbal

Phil Cousineau

Noel Coward

Brian Cox This is an engaging and accessible explanation of Einstein's equation that explores the principles of physics through everyday life. Professor Brian Cox and Professor Jeff Forshaw go on a journey to the frontier of 21st century science to consider the real meaning behind the iconic sequence of symbols that make up Einstein's most famous equation. Breaking down the symbols themselves, they pose a series of questions: What is energy? What is mass? What has the speed of light got to do with energy and mass? In answering these questions, they take us to the site of one of the largest scientific experiments ever conducted. Lying beneath the city of Geneva, straddling the Franco-Swiss boarder, is a 27 km particle accelerator, known as the Large Hadron Collider. Using this gigantic machine - which can recreate conditions in the early Universe fractions of a second after the Big Bang - Cox and Forshaw will describe the current theory behind the origin of mass. Alongside questions of energy and mass, they will consider the third, and perhaps, most intriguing element of the equation: 'c' - or the speed of light. Why is it that the speed of light is the exchange rate? Answering this question is at the heart of the investigation as the authors demonstrate how, in order to truly understand why E=mc2, we first must understand why we must move forward in time and not backwards and how objects in our 3-dimensional world actually move in 4-dimensional space-time. In other words, how the very fabric of our world is constructed. A collaboration between two of the youngest professors in the UK, "Why Does E=MC2?" promises to be one of the most exciting and accessible explanations of the theory of relativity in recent years.

John Cox

Josephine Cox On a fateful night in 1860, Thadius Grady realizes too late that he has made a grave mistake. In blind faith, he has put himself and his daughter Emma at the mercy of his sister and her conniving husband, Caleb Crowther—for he has entrusted to them his entire fortune and the daughter he adores. With his dying breath he pleads to see his daughter one last time, but Caleb's heart is made of stone. But Caleb lives in fear of the past, for how did Emma's mother mysteriously die? And what made Thadius and Caleb hate the river people so intensely? History seems likely to repeat itself when Emma falls helplessly in love with Marlow Tanner, a young bargee. For Marlow and Emma, it is an impossible love—a love made in Heaven, but which could carry them both to Hell!

Michael Cox Early Buzz From Amazon.co.uk Top Reviewers
We queried our top 100 reviewers and asked them to read The Meaning of Night and share their thoughts. We've included these early reviews below in the order they were received. For the sake of space, we've only included a brief excerpt of each reviewer's response, but each review is available for reading in its entirety by clicking the "Read the review" link. Enjoy!
John Chippindale: "After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper . . ."
If the opening sentence of this book does not demand the attention of the reader, I don’t know what will. If you never pick up another book, you must read this one." Read John Chippindale’s review

Budge Burgess: "With 600 pages of narrative, Latin chapter headings, literary and scholarly allusions, compendious footnotes, and the conceit that this is, indeed, a Victorian testament bequeathed to posterity by its hero and consequently written in an approximation of mid-19th century style, this is a weighty tome, and one which suffers from its art." Read Budge Burgess’s review

David Bryson: " It takes skill to recreate the atmosphere convincingly in the 21st century, and Michael Cox, biographer and editor of the great ghost-story writer M R James, seems to me never to hit a wrong note." Read David Bryson’s review

Kona: "This is an exciting read, full of period details and charm. Highly recommended for fans of historical fiction." Read Kona’s review

Russell Clarke: "Goes against the flow of the usual revenge motif in culture and art and is all the more poignant and compulsive for it. A highly recommended read." Read Russell Clarke’s review

Andrew Butterfield: "I’m not usually a fan of this genre, and didn’t expect too much of The Meaning of Night, but I must confess I was drawn into the story and helped along by the easy yet literary writing style."Read Andrew Butterfield's review

N. C. Samaniego: "The story itself is ingenious, building hopes of a satisfactory outcome, and the unexpected final twist prepares for a dramatic showdown." Read N. C. Samaniego’s review

Bruce Loveitt: "If you love the 19th century....the times and the literature of the period....you will love this book. It is both exciting and touching, appealing to both the intellect and the heart. A winner." Read Bruce Loveitt’s review

Peter Kenney: "The story is marked by clever twists and the writing is excellent. I recommend this book without reservation to any reader who likes a fascinating tale packed with intrigue, romance and robust characters." Read Peter Kenney’s review

Samantha Banwell: "Although not a fan of this book, I cannot help but admire its descriptive detail of Victorian England." Read Samantha Banwell’s review

M. J Leonard: "Meticulously researched, forbiddingly atmospheric and also remarkably secretive, Cox writes with a sharp eye for period detail. The novel is a strange and heady brew of social convention, the desolation of a lonely, half-mad man and the restrictions of a society who continually refuses to acknowledge him.!" Read M.J. Leonard’s review

Amanda Richards: "This is a big book, a huge book, a massive tome – it is one of those books that would cause grievous bodily harm if dropped upon the unsuspecting foot. But don’t let that deter you – from the first confession to the final gripping chapter you’ll find yourself a tad reluctant to place your bookmark between the pages, even when the midnight hour has ticked away and a new work day is approaching in mere hours." Read Amanda Richard’s review

Anders P. Jensen: "The occationally odd names of people and places may seem a bit too cute at first (Phoebus Rainsford Daunt?!), and I haven't read all of the ‘editor's notes’, but Cox is easily forgiven, because he can write." Read Anders P. Jensen’s review

A. Skudder: "Nearly everything I would like to say about this book would involve giving away something, and a great deal of the enjoyment of the story is in experiencing the sudden changes of direction without warning, right the way up to the very brave ending. If you want to know what that ending is and why it is so brave you will have to read it yourself, but you are unlikely to regret it." Read A. Skudder’s review

Daniel Jolley: "If you harbor the slightest appreciation for the unparalleled power and beauty of the written word, you will want to immerse yourself in the pages of The Meaning of Night." Read Daniel Jolley's review

Themis-Athena: "It reportedly took a tragedy in Michael Cox's life to transform an unfinished manuscript begun thirty years earlier into a novel finally and deservedly now making its way into print. I very much hope it won't take another tragedy (or another thirty years) for his next book to be published." Read Themis-Athena’s review

The Fragrant Wookiee: "An intriguing novel which will completely immerse you in its twisting subtleties and which you will be very glad you decided to give a try. I know I was.." Read the Fragrant Wookiee’s review

Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton Thomas Sanders' world collapses in just 24 hours - he is passed over for promotion, his new woman boss comes on to him during a drink after work, then, the next morning, he learns that she has accused him of sexually harassing her. She demands his transfer, thereby threatening to cut him off from the millions he would have made.

Michael Crick "What famous film star was offered a trial by Sir Matt Busby?"

Lest we forget, when watching today's United sweep artfully down on Europe's finest defences, that they once relied on the turgid, agricultural stylings of one Joe Jordan. Treble-winning superteam they may be now, but it's cheering to remember that the dark days were not so long ago.

But search this book from cover to cover, ferret amongst the thousands of trivia nuggets that journalist Michael Crick has lovingly collated over the past 12 years and it's hard to escape the fact that Manchester United are one of the world's greatest clubs.

Crick covers all the standard stuff and wanders off the beaten track to dig up some real gems that will be fuelling footballing conversation for years to come. Gary Bailey vying with Peter Schmeichel as most successful United keeper? Peter Beardsley, the worst transfer deal in the club's history?

A must for any Reds fan (the temptation to recite record attendances will no doubt be irresistible), but there's plenty to salve the bitter hearts of the rest of us. The complete record of missed penalties makes particularly soothing reading—take a bow Teddy Sherringham, three out of three.

Consistently entertaining. By the way, the answer to the opening question is Sean Connery. —Alex Hankin

Richmal Crompton

Richmal Crompton William has a habit of being where he shouldn't be. But the village girls' school is the last place where he's likely to be making mischief ...isn't it?

Robert Cross

Dan Cruickshank The 20th edition of Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture is the first major work of history to include an overview of the architectural achievements of the 20th Century. Banister Fletcher has been the standard one volume architectural history for over 100 years and continues to give a concise and factual account of world architecture from the earliest times. In this twentieth and centenary edition, edited by Dan Cruickshank with three consultant editors and fourteen new contributors, chapters have been recast and expanded and a third of the text is new.

* There are new chapters on the twentieth-century architecture of the Middle East (including Israel), South-east Asia, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, the Indian subcontinent, Russia and the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Latin America. * The chapter on traditional architecture of India has been rewritten and the section on traditional Chinese architecture has been expanded, both with new specially commissioned drawings * The architecture of the Americas before 1900 has been enlarged to include, for the first time, detailed coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean * The book's scope has been widened to include more architecture from outside Europe * The bibliography has been expanded into a separate section and is a key source of information on every period of world architecture * The coverage of the 20th century architecture of North America has been divided into two chapters to allow fuller coverage of contemporary works * 20th century architecture of Western Europe has been radically recast * For the first time the architecture of the twentieth century is considered as a whole and assessed in an historical perspective * Coverage has been extended to include buildings completed during the last ten years * The coverage of Islamic architecture has been increased and re-organised to form a self contained section This unique reference book places buildings in their social, cultural and historical settings to describe the main patterns of architectural development, from Prehistoric to the International Style. Again in the words of Sir Banister Fletcher, this book shows that 'Architecture ... provides a key to the habits, thoughts and aspirations of the people, and without a knowledge of this art the history of any period lacks that human interest with which it should be invested.'

*Winner of the International Architecture Book Award, The American Institute of Architects Book of the Century.

*THE source book for the historical development of architecture

Hansa Dabhi

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl has such an unusual first name due to fact that his parents spelt his name wrong on the Register of Births. From this non-literary background came one of the masters of children's literature.

The Twits is one of his many successful and highly entertaining books. The Twits are a couple that nobody would like to know. They are hairy, dirty, smelly and generally unpleasant. Roald Dahl's characters are possibly the most horrid people you will ever read about. Mr and Mrs Twit spend their days inventing new ways to be be nasty to each other. Each time Mrs Twit does something bad to Mr Twit, he just invents something worse to do to her. The Twits are not only unpleasant towards each other but they also hate animals. It is because of the Twits' attitude towards animals that we see their really awful side: Mr Twit keeps a family of monkeys that have to spend their days upside down and Mrs Twit likes to make pies with freshly caught birds.

Dahl's story, as is characteristic with all his books, has a happy ending. Only how will the animals beat the Twits? —Jon Smith

Roald Dahl A book of ghost stories.

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl, that master of wicked humour, has created a ghastly menagerie of dirty beasts - all doing the most extraordinary and unmentionable things, in irreverent and absurdly comic verse!

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl This title covers storties including: "The Visor", "The Great Switcheroo", "The Last Act", and "Bitch".

Roald Dahl This work features stories including: "Death of an Old Man", "An African story", "A Piece of Cake", "Madame Rosette", "Katina", "Yesterday was Beautiful", "They Shall not Grow", "Beware of the Dog", "Only This", and "Someone Like You".

Roald Dahl When poor James Henry Trotter loses his parents in a horrible rhinoceros accident, he is forced to live with his two wicked aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. After three years he becomes "the saddest and loneliest boy you could find". Then one day, a wizened old man in a dark-green suit gives James a bag of magic crystals that promise to reverse his misery forever. When James accidentally spills the crystals on his aunts' withered peach tree, he sets the adventure in motion. From the old tree a single peach grows, and grows, and grows some more, until finally James climbs inside the giant fruit and rolls away from his despicable aunts to a whole new life. James befriends an assortment of hilarious characters, including Grasshopper, Earthworm, Miss Spider and Centipede—each with his or her own song to sing. Roald Dahl's rich imagery and amusing characters ensure that parents will not tire of reading this classic aloud, which they will no doubt be called to do over and over again! We'll just come right out and say it ... James and the Giant Peach is one of the finest children's books ever written.

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl's first-ever novel presents the scurrilous memoirs of that delightful old reprobate from "Switch Bitch", Oswald Hendryks Cornelius - connoisseur, bon vivant, collector of spiders, scorpions, odd walking sticks, lover of opera, expert on Chinese porcelain, and without doubt the greatest fornicator of all time. In this delightful picaresque story, it is revealed how Uncle Oswald first achieved great wealth - all thanks to the Sundance blister beetle, which when ground to powder has the most electrifying aphrodisiac qualities. It is 1919 - armed with the powder and aided by the beautiful amoral Yasmin how comely, Oswald begins an audacious commercial enterprise which involves seducing the most famous men in Europe - from crowded heads to Bernard Shaw and Marcel Proust.

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl Reverend Lee doesn't realise that his dyslexia is affecting his sermons. His parishioners are at first amused and then shocked by the garbled messages coming from the pulpit. Finally a cure is found. The Vicar must walk backwards for the rest of his life. By the author of 'The Witches'.

Roald Dahl Someday someone will write a book that begins with a mother forbidding her child to enter the deep dark woods and ends with that child achieving incredible success without ever setting a toe in the forbidden forest. But not this book. Here, Billy's mom issues a few scary warnings about the woods to her son—"Beware! Beware! The Forest of Sin! None come out, but many go in!"—turns her back for a second, and the next thing you know the devil shows up and whispers something to Bobby about wild strawberries. Blammo! Guess where Billy goes—straight to the forbidden forest, of course. At this point, if you are reading the story aloud to your child, you may think there's a parable on the way. But just when you might expect to run into monsters named Lust, Avarice and Three-Toed Sloth (okay, maybe not Lust), a real monster comes careening along and you realize that this story is just a fairy tale after all—and quite a lovely one at that.

The Minpins taps into the powerful, wonderful child's fantasy of discovering a hidden civilization of tiny folk that accepts and honours him or her. The very best part of this fairy tale is the denouement, where Billy receives the gift of nightly escape on the wings of a swan. One of Roald Dahl's only picture books—with fabulously crosshatched pen-and-ink illustrations by Patrick Benson—The Minpins is superb for reading aloud to children. And it culminates in a sentence or two of advice that your children just might remember for the rest of their lives. (Ages 3 to 8)

Roald Dahl For the first time in a decade, Willy Wonka, the reclusive and eccentric chocolate maker, is opening his doors to the public—well, five members of the public, actually. The lucky five who find a Golden Ticket in their Wonka bars will receive a private tour of the factory, given by Mr Wonka himself. For young Charlie Bucket, this a dream come true. So when he finds a dollar bill in the street, he can't help but buy two Wonka's Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delights—even though his impoverished family could certainly use the extra dollar for food. But as Charlie unwraps the second chocolate bar, he sees the glimmer of gold just under the wrapper. The very next day, Charlie, along with his unworthy fellow winners Mike Teavee, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde and Augustus Gloop, steps through the factory gates to discover whether or not the rumours surrounding the Chocolate Factory and its mysterious owner are true. What they find is that the gossip can't compare to the extraordinary truth, and for Charlie, life will never be the same again. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: another unforgettable masterpiece from the legendary Roald Dahl, never fails to delight, thrill and utterly captivate. (Ages 9 to 12) —Susan Harrison

Roald Dahl Esio Trot (Puffin Fiction).

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl turns his pen to anything, twisting everyday life into powerful, and sometimes terrifying fantasies, including: turtles, fingersmiths, 'The Mildenhall, Treasure', and even a man who can see with his eyes closed.

Roald Dahl These eighteen tales of the macabre show Dahl's dark brilliance as a short-story writer. They are wicked (as an old man attracts the attentions of those more interested in his skin than his wellbeing), shocking (as distasteful bets are made - a daughter's hand on the identity of a glass of claret, a finger risked for a Cadillac) and blackly humorous (as a cuckolded husband receives a chance to take his revenge out on his wife's neck). "Someone Like You" is as devilishly ingenious and suspenseful as writing gets.

Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake

J. S. Dakers

Richard Dalby

Salvador Dali

Terence Dalley

George Dangerfield

Glyn Daniel By analysing what Francis Bacon termed 'remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time' Glyn Daniel describes the first civilizations from times of savagery and barbarism to the Sumerians, Egyptians, Chinese and Ancient Americans from 4000 BC to 1500 AD. Did these civilizations develop from one centre and the process of civilization take place once, and once only, in human history, or did it occur independently in different parts of the world? Were these civilizations linked in any way? These and other questions are discussed by Dr Glyn Daniel in this classic account of the civilizations of the ancient world.

Lewis Dartnell Astrobiology, the study of life and its existence in the universe, is now one of the hottest areas of both popular science and serious academic research, fusing biology, chemistry, astrophysics, and geology. In this masterful introduction, Lewis Dartnell explores its latest findings, and delves into some of the most fascinating questions in science. What actually is 'life'? Could it exist on other planets? Could alien cells be based on silicon rather than carbon, or need ammonia instead of water? Introducing some of the most extreme lifeforms on Earth - those thriving in boiling acid or huddled around deep-sea volcanoes - Dartnell takes us on a tour of the universe to reveal how deeply linked we are to our cosmic environment, and shows why the Earth is so uniquely suited for the development of life.

Philippe Daudy

Philippe Daudy

Elizabeth David

Elizabeth David

Andrew Davidson A young man is fighting for his life. Into his room walks a bewitching woman who believes she can save him. Their journey will have you believing in the impossible. A Richard and Judy Best Read 2009 pick.

George W. Davidson

Andrew Davies

Paul Davies, John Gribbin Two highly acclaimed science writers—authors (separately) of God and the New Physics and In Search of Shrodinger's Cat—explain the latest breakthroughs in scientific thought, revolutionizing our concept of the universe and our place within it. Line drawings throughout.

Robertson Davies

Robertson Davies Around a mysterious death is woven a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived trilogy of novels: "Fifth Business", often described as Robertson Davies' finest novel; "The Manticore", and "World of Wonders". Luring the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history and magic, "The Deptford Trilogy" provides an exhilarating antidote to a world from where 'the fear and dread and splendour of wonder have been banished. 'His books will be recognized with the very best works of this century' - "The New York Times" Book Review.

Courtney Davis

Courtney Davis

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins is not a shy man. Edward Larson's research shows that most scientists today are not formally religious, but Dawkins is an in-your-face atheist:

I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence.

The title of this 1986 work, Dawkins's second book, refers to the Rev. William Paley's 1802 work, Natural Theology, which argued that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists.

Not so, says Dawkins: "All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way...it is the blind watchmaker".

Dawkins is a hard-core scientist: he doesn't just tell you what is so, he shows you how to find out for yourself. For this book, he wrote Biomorph, one of the first artificial life programs.

Richard Dawkins Few scientific theories have been as influential or controversial in the past few centuries as Darwin's thoughts on natural selection; even now, laymen and scientists find fault with Darwin's argument. Richard Dawkins, the chair of the communication of science at Oxford University, has delivered a well-researched book supporting and supplementing Darwin's theories. Although not a work of Darwinian proportions, Climbing Mount Improbable is an advancement of those theories for scientists and general readers alike.

Richard Dawkins The Number One SUNDAY TIMES bestseller. A fascinating explanation of how evolution works, from bestselling author Richard Dawkins.

Richard Dawkins A bestselling selection of essays from Britain's leading science writer.

Richard Dawkins "The Ancestor's Tale" is a pilgrimage back through time; a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about 6 million years in the past, gorillas at 7 million years, orang utans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band. The journey provides the setting for a collection of some 40 tales. Each explores an aspect of evolutionary biology through the stories of characters met along the way or glimpsed from afar - the "Elephant Bird's Tale", the "Marsupial Mole's Tale", the "Lungfish's Tale". Together they give a deep understanding of the processes that have shaped life on Earth: convergent evolution, the isolation of populations, continental drift, the great extinctions. The tales are interspersed with prologues detailing the journey, route maps showing joining lineages, and life-like reconstructions of our common ancestors. "The Ancestor's Tale" represents a pilgrimage on an unimaginable scale: our goal is four billion years away, and the number of pilgrims joining us grows vast - ultimately encompassing all living creatures. At the end of the journey lies something remarkable in its simplicity and transformative power: the first, humble, replicating molecules.

Richard Dawkins Presenting different arguments for religion, this book demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. It aims to show how religion fuels war, foments bigotry and abuses children.

John Dawson

Roger Dean

Janice Deaner

Terry Deary Horrible Histories - history with the nasty bits left in! The Awesome Egyptians gives you some awful information about phabulous Pharoahs and poverty-stricken peasants - who lived an awesome 5,000 years ago! Want to know: Which king had the worst blackheads? Why some kings had to wear false beards? Why the peasants were revolting? Read on to find some foul facts about death and decay, revolting recipes for 3,000 year old sweets, how to make a mean mummy, and some awful Egyptian arithmetic. History has never been so horrible!

Terry Deary Horrible Histories - History with the nasty bits left in! The Vile Victorians gives you all the terrible truth about revolting events affecting everyone not so very long ago - from the vile Victorian queen herself, to some vicious Victorian villains. Want to know: When the first public loo was flushed? Who had a gruesome glass eye for every occasion? What vile Victorians called their children? read on to find some nasty facts about cruel careers for kids. Rotten school rules for teachers, school dinners even worse than today's and a gory and gruesome guide to vile Victorian death! History has never been so horrible!

Terry Deary

Terry Deary Horrible Histories - History with the nasty bits left in! The Groovy Greeks is full of fab facts about the hip 'n' happening Greeks - who hung out over 2000 years ago! Find out about horrible heroes, savage Spartan soldiers, phoolish philosophers and suffering slaves. Want to know: Why some groovy Greek girls ran about naked pretending to be bears? Who had the world's first flushing toilet? Why dedicated doctors tested their patient's ear wax? read on for some amazing information on awful ancient food, groovy Greek Olympic games, and the gruesome god who ate his own children. History has never been so horrible!

Daniel C. Dennett Revises the traditional view of consciousness by claiming that tautology and Descartes' dualism of mind and body should be replaced with theories from the realms of neuroscience, psychology and artificial intelligence.

Daniel C. Dennett In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett, whom Chet Raymo of The Boston Globe calls "one of the most provocative thinkers on the planet," focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe. Dennett vividly describes the theory itself and then extends Darwin's vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions, challenging the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day.

DANIEL C. DENNETT

Robert; Neret, Gilles Descharnes

David Deutsch A synthesis of ideas uniting quantum theory, and the theories of computation, knowledge and evolution. It explores the connections between these strands which reveal the fabric of reality in which human actions and ideas play essential roles.

Will Dexter Will Dexter was a member of the Inner Magic Circle.

Michael Dibdin A teacher of English as a foreign language moves to Oxford after several years abroad. His adulterous affair with a friend's wife leads first to the death of the friend, then to the death of the wife, and finally to the death of his boss. By the author of 'Vendetta' and 'Ratking'.

Michael Dibdin In the fifth of the Aurelio Zen crime series, Zen finds himself in Naples, in disgrace - and having the time of his life. Corrupt politicians, shady business men and eminent mafiosi are disappearing off the streets at an alarming rate, but Zen's commitment to his work is at an all-time low.

Michael Dibdin An Aurelio Zen mystery. Zen returns to his native Venice to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy American resident, but soon learns that, amid the hazy light and shifting waters of the lagoon, nothing is what it seems.

Michael Dibdin After his adventures in 'Cosi Fan Tutti', Aurelio Zen finds himself back in Rome, sneezing in a damp wine cellar and being given another unorthodox assignment - to release the jailed scion of an important wine-growing family.

Michael Dibdin Police Commissioner Aurelio Zen has crossed swords with the establishment before - and lost. From the depths of a mundane desk job in Rome he is unexpectedly transferred to Perugia to take over a kidnapping case involving one of Italy's most powerful families. Gold Dagger Award winner.

Michael Dibdin Oscar Burolo was the kind of big-shot who thought he could control everything. Inside his Sardinian mansion, everything was recorded on close-circuit TV - even his own violent death. An impossible case for Inspector Zen, who first appeared in 'Ratking', winner of a CWA Gold Dagger.

Philip K. Dick In this sardonically funny gem of speculative fiction, Philip K. Dick creates a novel that manages to be simultaneously unpredictable and perversely logical.

Poor Pete Garden has just lost Berkeley. He's also lost his wife, but he'll get a new one as soon as he rolls a three. It's all part of the rules of Bluff, the game that's become a blinding obsession for the last inhabitants of the planet Earth. But the rules are about to change—drastically and terminally—because Pete Garden will be playing his next game against an opponent who isn't even human, for stakes that are a lot higher than Berkeley.

Philip K. Dick Imagine the world if the Allies had lost the Second World War. This book trips the switches of our minds with a vision of the world as it might have been: the African continent virtually wiped out, the Mediterranean drained to make farmland, and, the United States divided between the Japanese and the Nazis.

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times!' Set before and during the French Revolution in the cities of Paris and London, A Tale of Two Cities tells the story of Dr Manette's release from imprisonment in the Bastille and his reunion with daughter, Lucie. A French aristocrat Darnay and English lawyer Carton compete in their love for Lucie and the ensuing tale plays out against the menacing backdrop of the French Revolution and the shadow of the guillotine.

Peter Dickinson Ever wished you could join a group of archaeologists in search of the bones of your ancestors? Meet Vinny, on a visit with her father to the African desert. Their goal: to find the missing link between apes and modern man, thus solving the great mystery of hominid evolution. Despite meagre funding from a no-name source, the unbearable heat, and the loud mouth Dr Joe Hamiska, they might just succeed.

While few scientists are willing to entertain the possibility that man evolved in the sea, Vinny has his own ideas. The author lends credence to this theory by alternating "Then" and "Now" chapters. "Then" chapters present in lively detail the notion, propounded by evolutionist Elaine Morgan, that early man swam with the dolphins, lived on shellfish, and struggled to survive against foreign tribes and man-eating sharks. "Now" chapters chart the adventures of Vinny, her dad, and the team of archaeologists who just may have stumbled onto one of the most productive sites in archaeological history.

But will they be able to dig up and identify all the bones before dad loses his cool with Joe the pest? And how much longer will he stand for his daughter's crackpot theories? Full of action, intrigue and imagination, inquisitive teenagers will dig right into this thrilling read.

William Diehl

Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest

Stephen Dobyns

Stephanie Donaldson

Jennifer Donnelly An astounding novel about a girls coming-of-age inter-woven with a real life murder that rocked turn-of-the-century America. Winner of the 2004 Carnegie Medal.

Kindersley Dorling

F.M. Dostoevsky A novel built out of a series of dramatic scenes that illuminate eternal conflicts at the heart of human existence: most especially our desire for self-expression and self-fulfilment, as against the constraints of morality and human laws.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Charles Dowding Presents the philosophy, tips and techniques to run a successful organic garden. Based on his experience of a system of permanent slightly-raised beds, the author takes you through a variety of fruit and vegetables: what to choose, when to plant and harvest, and how best to avoid pests and diseases.

Roddy Doyle Tells the story of ten-year-old Paddy Clarke, who sees everything but understands less and less.

Peter Drijver, Johannes Niemeijer

Hajo Duchting The Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), who later lived in Germany and France, is one of the pioneers of 20th-century art. This book covers the work of the painter who nowadays is regarded as the founder of abstract art.

Christophe Dufosse When a teacher is found dead, having apparently committed suicide, his friend Pierre Hoffman takes over class 4F and finds himself responsible for a group of strangely subdued, well-behaved and yet menacing pupils. Over the weeks that follow, he receives a series of signals that cause him to question the circumstances of his colleague's suicide.

A. M Duggan-Cronin

Mark Duginske

Alexandre Dumas This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Sarah Dunant * The latest novel from the bestselling author of THE BIRTH OF VENUS and IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN, out now in paperback

Jill Dunkerton

Colin Dunne

Stuart Durant

Gerald Durrell

Gerald Malcolm Durrell Sometimes it's pretty hard to tell them apart...my family and the animals, that is. I don't know why my brothers and sisters complain so much. With snakes in the bath and scorpions on the lunch table, our house, on the island of Corfu, is a bit like a circus. So they should feel right at home...

Isabella Dusi A captivating and beautifully written travel memoir which evokes the real Tuscany and its people in all their passion, colour, eccentricity and charm.

David Ebershoff Jordan returns from California to Utah to visit his mother in jail. As a teenager he was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives - Jordan's mother - is accused of the crime.

Umberto Eco

H. S. (Harold Stanley) Ede

Betty Edwards

Betty Edwards

Kim Edwards The night Dr David Henry delivers his wife's twins is a night that will haunt five lives for ever. For though David's son is a healthy boy, his daughter has Down's syndrome. And, in a shocking act of betrayal whose consequences only time will reveal, he tells his wife their daughter died while secretly entrusting her care to a nurse.

Doreen Ehrlich

Thomas Eidson

T. S. Eliot

Alice Thomas Ellis

Ben Elton The war on drugs has been lost, but for want of the courage to face that fact, the whole world is rapidly becoming one vast criminal network. From the Groucho Club toilets to the poppy fields of Afghanistan, we are all partners in crime and this story takes us through the landscape it has created.

Ben Elton Flanders, June 1917, a British officer is shot dead, killed not by German fire, but while recuperating from shell shock well behind the lines. This novel presents a historical drama, and explores some fundamental questions such as: What is murder? What is justice in the face of daily slaughter?

Shusaku Endo

escher

Laura Esquivel Relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks.

Janet Evanovich A work of adventure and comedy.

Richard J. Evans In 1939 Hitler mobilized Germany into all-out war. This book conjures up a whole society plunged into conflict - from generals and front-line soldiers to Hitler Youth activists and middle-class housewives - tracing events from the invasion of Poland and the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler's plans for genocide and his eventual suicide.

Nomi Eve These days the term "multi-generational novel" conjures up something flabby and cliché ridden, which makes it all the more refreshing that Nomi Eve brings so much verve, warmth and imagination to the genre in her debut novel. Eve shows off a range of talents here—she adroitly weaves 150 years of Jewish and Israeli history into the lives of her characters; she is alive to the intersections of legend, magic and everyday reality; she has an intimate knowledge of the business of grafting and growing fruit trees. But her gift for conjuring up the pleasures of the senses is the finest of all. It's difficult to think of a writer since Colette who has so revelled in the language of smells, tastes, textures, and exquisite sexuality.

The novel opens in 1837 when Esther Herschell, the beautiful granddaughter of the chief rabbi of the British Empire, marries the learned eastern European Rabbi Yochanan Schine, and the young couple takes up residence in a "half-grand, half-decrepit" house in Jerusalem. Within paragraphs Esther embarks on a delirious love affair with a handsome young baker and Yochanan finds out about it, which mysteriously only heightens the married couple's pleasure in each other. So commences a narrative driven by sexual undercurrents, unexpected emotional reactions and the spell of Jerusalem with its "twists, turns, bakers and twin arcane whispers of piety and perversity."

Eve moves the family stories along briskly, and in the twinkling of an eye World War I has broken out, and Avra Schine, Esther and Yochanan's light-fingered granddaughter, is stealing bullets from the Turkish Army to supply daring Jewish spies. Avra bears handsome, blue-eyed identical twin sons, Moshe and Zohar, who come of age during the years of struggle and tragedy that preceded Israeli independence. As the generations revolve, Eve filters the terrible saga of mid-20th century Jewish history through the lives of the Schine/Sepher family—their marriages and deaths, dreams and desires, and the orchard that anchors each generation to the town of Petach Tikvah.

Nomi Eve has drunk deep from the wells of South American magic realists like Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel Allende and Yiddish fabulists and folk writers like Shalom Aleichem and IB Singer. But never do her teachers and masters overpower her own voice, a voice at once clear and resonant, earthy and ethereal. The Family Orchard is not a perfect work of art—but then perfection is not really the point here. It is, however, a deeply moving and highly accomplished novel, and an astonishingly impressive debut. —David Laskin, Amazon.com

Bernd Evers, Christoph Thoenes

James Le Fanu

Sheridan Le Fanu

J.G. Farrell 'For a novel to be witty is one thing, to tell a good story is another, to be serious is yet another, but to be all three is surely enough to make it a masterpiece' NEW STATESMAN

William Faulkner, David Minter The text of this Norton Critical Edition is that of the corrected edition scrupulously prepared by Noel Polk, whose textual note precedes the text. David Minter’s annotations are designed to assist the reader with obscure words and allusions."Backgrounds" begins with the appendix Faulkner wrote in 1945 and sometimes referred to as another telling of The Sound and the Fury and includes a selection of Faulkner’s letters, excerpts from two Faulkner interviews, a memoir by Faulknerís friend Ben Wasson, and both versions of Faulkner's 1933 introduction to the novel. "Cultural and Historical Contexts" presents four different perspectives on the place of the American South in history. Taken together, these works—by C. Vann Woodward, Richard H. King, Carolyn Porter, and Robert Penn Warren—provide the reader with valuable contexts for understanding the novel. "Criticism" includes seventeen essays on The Sound and the Fury that collectively trace changes in the way we have viewed this novel over the last four decades. The critics are Jean-Paul Sartre, Irving Howe, Ralph Ellison, Olga W. Vickery, Cleanth Brooks, Michael Millgate, John T. Irwin, Myra Jehlen, Donald M. Kartiganer, David Minter, Warwick Wadlington, John T. Matthews, Thadious M. Davis, Wesley Morris and Barbara Alverson Morris, Minrose C. Gwin, André Bleikasten, and Philip M. Weinstein. A revised Selected Bibliography is also included.

Sebastian Faulks Faulks has collected the best fiction about war in the 20th century. This anthology includes stories by Erich Maria Remarque, Pat Barker, Isaac Babel, Ernest Hemingway, Heinrich Boll, Norman Mailer, J.G. Ballard, Tim O'Brien, Julian Barnes and Louis de Bernieres.

Sebastian Faulks Set before and during the great war, this work captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.

Sebastian Faulks Mike Engleby says things that others dare not even think. In the 1970s, he is a university student, having survived a 'traditional' school. A man devoid of scruple or self-pity, Engleby provides an account of English education. Yet, beneath the disturbing surface of his observations lies an unfolding mystery of gripping power.

Nicholas Fearn Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Wittgenstein, the work of the great philosophers of the past is well known and has been discussed endlessly. This book explains what today's philosophers think about what it is to be human. It consults some of the world's most distinguished thinkers who variously believe that free will and identity are not what they seem.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto From sound advice such as 'Don't let your worries kill you. Let the church help', to tempting advertisements like that for the 'GBH Fitness Club', here is yet more evidence of man's age-old struggle with his language.

Ursula Ferrigno

Ursula Ferrigno

Joshua Ferris

Richard P Feynman Offers an introduction to physics. This book explores topics such as: atoms, the fundamentals of physics and its relation to other sciences, the theory of gravitation and quantum behaviour.

Richard Phillips Feynman Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965, Richard Feynman was one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, but he was also a man who fell, often jumped, into adventure. An artist, safecracker, practical joker and storyteller, Feynman's life was a series of combustoble combinations made possible by his unique mixture of high intelligence, unquenchable curiosity and eternal scepticism. Over a period of years, Feynman's conversations with his friend Ralph Leighton were first taped and then set down as they appear here, little changed from their spoken form, giving a wise, funny, passionate and totally honest self-portrait of one of the greatest men of our age.

James Fielden, Richard Garnier, Paul Davidson, Bruce Luckhurst

Helen Fielding Bridget Jones wants to have it all - and once she's given up smoking and got down to 8st 7 she will. Based on Helen Fielding's diary in the Independent newspaper, this is a novel about a year in the life of a single girl on an optimistic but doomed quest for self-improvement and Inner Poise. First published in 1996.

Henry Fielding, Sheridan Baker The Second Edition of this Norton Critical Edition of Fielding’s great novel reprints the definitive fourth edition text (1749, dated 1750), "Carefully revis’d and corrected/By Henry Fielding, Esq;", the last in his lifetime.The novel is fully annotated for undergraduate readers and is accompanied by a Textual Appendix and a map depicting Tom’s route to London.

As in the previous edition, "Contemporary Reactions" by such noteworthy commentators as Samuel Richardson, Samuel Johnson, and the Hill sisters provide rich historical context.

"Criticism" is a collection of fourteen interpretations of the novel spanning the years 1826–1990 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Forsyth, Kenneth Rexroth, R. S. Crane, John Preston, William Empson, Wayne C. Booth, Martin Battestin, Maaja A. Stewart, Eleanor N. Hutchens, Sean Shesgreen, Frederick W. Hilles, and Sheridan Baker.

A new Chronology and an updated Selected Bibliography are also included.

Charlotte Fiell, Peter Fiell

Anne Fine Not only is he lacking the respect he deserves from the neighbourhood dogs and cats, but suddenly all Antony can do is scratch. And now bits of him are dropping off! Just when Anthony thinks things can't get any worse, he finds himself on the vet's table. What she has in mind is about to destroy the tiny shred of street cred he has left.

charles g finney originally published 1937

Alastair Fitter

F Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald A fascinating study in self-satire that brings to life the Hollywood years of F. Scott Fitzgerald

The setting: Hollywood: the character: Pat Hobby, a down-and-out screenwriter trying to break back into show business, but having better luck getting into bars. Written between 1939 and 1940, when F. Scott Fitzgerald was working for Universal Studios, the seventeen Pat Hobby stories were first published in Esquire magazine and present a bitterly humorous portrait of a once-successful writer who becomes a forgotten hack on a Hollywood lot. "This was not art" Pat Hobby often said, "this was an industry" where whom "you sat with at lunch was more important than what you dictated in your office."

The Pat Hobby sequence, as Arnold Gingrich writes in his introduction, is Fitzgerald's "last word from his last home, for much of what he felt about Hollywood and about himself permeated these stories."

F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a friend's copy of Tender Is the Night, "If you liked The Great Gatsby, for God's sake read this. Gatsby was a tour de force but this is a confession of faith." Set in the South of France in the decade after World War I, Tender Is the Night is the story of a brilliant and magnetic psychiatrist named Dick Diver; the bewitching, wealthy, and dangerously unstable mental patient, Nicole, who becomes his wife; and the beautiful, harrowing ten-year pas de deux they act out along the border between sanity and madness.

In Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald deliberately set out to write the most ambitious and far-reaching novel of his career, experimenting radically with narrative conventions of chronology and point of view and drawing on early breakthroughs in psychiatry to enrich his account of the makeup and breakdown of character and culture.

Tender Is the Night is also the most intensely, even painfully, autobiographical of Fitzgerald's novels; it smolders with a dark, bitter vitality because it is so utterly true. This account of a caring man who disintegrates under the twin strains of his wife's derangement and a lifestyle that gnaws away at his sense of moral values offers an authorial cri de coeur, while Dick Diver's downward spiral into alcoholic dissolution is an eerie portent of Fitzgerald's own fate.

F. Scott Fitzgerald literally put his soul into Tender Is the Night, and the novel's lack of commercial success upon its initial publication in 1934 shattered him. He would die six years later without having published another novel, and without knowing that Tender Is the Night would come to be seen as perhaps its author's most poignant masterpiece. In Mabel Dodge Luhan's words, it raised him to the heights of "a modern Orpheus."

F. Scott Fitzgerald The exemplary novel of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgeralds' third book, The Great Gatsby (1925), stands as the supreme achievement of his career. T. S. Eliot read it three times and saw it as the "first step" American fiction had taken since Henry James; H. L. Mencken praised "the charm and beauty of the writing," as well as Fitzgerald's sharp social sense; and Thomas Wolfe hailed it as Fitzgerald's "best work" thus far. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when, The New York Times remarked, "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s that resonates with the power of myth. A novel of lyrical beauty yet brutal realism, of magic, romance, and mysticism, The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.

This is the definitive, textually accurate edition of The Great Gatsby, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and authorized by the estate of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The first edition of The Great Gatsby contained many errors resulting from Fitzgerald's extensive revisions and a rushed production schedule, and subsequent editions introduced further departures from the author's intentions. This critical edition draws on the manuscript and surviving proofs of the novel, along with Fitzgerald's later revisions and corrections, to restore the text to its original form. It is The Great Gatsby as Fitzgerald intended it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach. Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character.

F. Scott Fitzgerald ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP

Published when he was twenty-three years old, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s debut novel, This Side of Paradise, established him as the golden boy of the dawning Jazz Age. As a chronicle of youth, no other literary work remains as revealing—or as bitingly relevant.

THIS ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:

• A concise introduction that gives the reader important background information

• A chronology of the author’s life and work

• A timeline of significant events that provides the book’s historical context

• An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader’s own interpretations

• Detailed explanatory notes

• Critical analysis and modern perspectives on the work

• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction

• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader’s experience

Simon & Schuster Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world’s finest books to their full potential.

F. Scott Fitzgerald This collection chronicles the fiction and non fiction classics by the greatest writers the world has ever known. The inclusion of both popular as well as overlooked pieces is pivotal to providing a broad and representative collection of classic works.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson A mysterious woman stands and smiles at Monroe Stahr, the last of the great Hollywood princes. Enchanted by one another, they begin a passionate but hopeless love affair.

F.Scott Fitzgerald

Fannie Flagg A novel spanning late 1940s small-town America and the New York media world of the 1970s, by the author of FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLESTOP CAFE. It tells the story of a television interviewer with emotional and drink problems who was abandoned as a teenager by her mother.

Fannie Flagg A novel, both funny and macabre, which ties in with the film of the same name, starring Jessica Tandy and Kathy Bates.

Elie-Charles Flamand

Elie-Charles Flamand, Claude Schaeffner Fully illustrated volume (II of III) on Renaissance art including chronology, dictionary, list of painters, museums, exhibitions.

ELIE-CHARLES (EDITOR CLAUDE SCHAEFFNER) FLAMAND

James Fleming

Leah Fleming

Susan Fletcher With the death of a mother and the abduction of a young girl, Susan Fletcher has written a vividly beautiful novel about the innocence and terror of childhood.

Jonathan Safran Foer The simplest thing would be to describe Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer's accomplished debut, as a novel about the Holocaust. It is, but that really fails to do justice to the sheer ambition of this book. The main story is a grimly familiar one. A young Jewish-American—who just happens to be called Jonathan Safran Foer—travels to the Ukraine in the hope of finding the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He is aided in his search by Alex Perchov, a naïve Ukrainian translator, Alex's grandfather (also called Alex) and a flatulent mongrel bitch, named Sammy Davis JR JR. On their journey through Eastern Europe's obliterated landscape they unearth facts about the Nazi atrocities and the extent of Ukrainian complicity that have implications for Perchov as well as Safran Foer. This narrative is not, however, recounted from (the character) Jonathan Safran Foer's perspective. It is relayed through a series of letters that Alex sends to Foer. These are written in the kind of broken Russo-English normally reserved for Bond villains and Latka from the US television series Taxi. (Sentences such as "It is mammoth honour for me write for a writer, especially when he is American writer, like Ernest Hemingway"; "It is bad and popular habit for people in Ukraine to take things without asking" are the norm.) Interspersed between these letters are fragments of a novel by "Safran Foer"—a wonderfully imagined, almost magical realist, account of life in the Shetl before the Nazis destroyed it. These are in turn commented on by Alex creating an additional metafictional angle to the tale.

If all this sounds a little daunting don't be put off; Safran Foer is an extremely funny as well as intelligent writer. Admittedly he has an annoying habit of capitalising great chunks of text, but minor typographical nuances are easy to ignore in a book that combines some of the best Jewish folk yarns since Isaac Bashevis Singer with a quite heartbreaking meditation on love, friendship and loss. —Travis Elborough

Michael Foley A wry take on how contemporary culture is antithetical to happiness.

E M Forster Lucy Honeychurch, a young woman, is travelling abroad for the first time with her cousin Charlotte. On her return to England, in her relationships with her cousin, the unconventional Emersons and her supercilious fiance Cecil, Lucy is torn between lingering Victorian proprieties and the spontaneous promptings of her heart.

Matthew Fort Italy's tumultuous history can be traced through its food. In an epic scooter trip from the Ionian Sea to the far north, distiguished food writer Matthew Fort explores the local gastronomy and culinary culture of a country where regional differences are vibrantly alive.

Alan Dean Foster In the years after first contact, humans and the intelligent insect like Thranx agree to a tentative sharing of ideas and cultures despite the ingrained repulsion they have yet to overcome. Thus, a slow, lengthy process of limited contact begins.

Yet they never plan for a chance meeting between a misfit artist and a petty thief. Desvendapur is a talented Thranx poet who is bored with his life and needs new inspiration for his work. Venturing beyond the familiar, Desvendapur runs into Cheelo Montoya, a small-time criminal with big dreams of making a fast buck. Together they will embark upon a journey that will forever change their beliefs, their futures, and their worlds . . .

Alan Dean Foster Chosen by Science Fiction Chronicle as One of the Best Books of the Year

Bestselling author Alan Dean Foster has written an exciting Humanx Commonwealth adventure that delves deeper into the fragile early years when humans made first contact in this unforgettable world . . .

In the second half of the twenty-fourth century, diplomatic relations proceed cautiously between thranx and humans. But the insectlike beings are nearly forgotten with the sudden discovery of an ideal planet to colonize–Argus V–and the startling appearance of a new race of space-faring aliens. People are dazzled by the beautiful, glamorous pitar. Then tragedy strikes.

The entire human population on Argus V is brutally slaughtered. Not a single clue remains to identify the unseen executioners. But from a tiny inner moon of Argus V comes a faint signal. On that insignificant chunk of rubble lies the key to the crime–setting in motion a cataclysmic chain of events with deadly consequences for thranx, pitar, and human alike. For their worlds will be changed forever by a colossal battle that is their future and their destiny . . .

Alan Dean Foster

Alan Dean Foster

Michael Foster

Karen Joy Fowler

Dick Francis Valentine, a dying old man, makes his last confession to a friend, Thomas Lyon, mistaking him for a priest. Wild horses wouldn't drag from a priest the secrets of the confessional, but then film director Thomas is no priest. Should he tell what he knows from the confession?

Al Franken

Charles Frazier Charles Frazier's debut novel, Cold Mountain, is the story of a very long walk. In the waning months of the Civil War, a wounded Confederate veteran named Inman gets up from his hospital bed and begins the long journey back to his home in the remote hills of North Carolina. Along the way he meets rogues and outlaws, Good Samaritans and vigilantes, people who help and others who hinder, but through it all Inman's aim is true: his one goal is to return to Cold Mountain and to Ada, the woman he left behind. The object of his affection, meanwhile, has problems of her own. Raised in the rarified air of Charleston society, Ada was brought to the backwoods of Cold Mountain by her father, a preacher who came to the country for his health. Even after her father's death, Ada remains there, partly to wait for Inman, but partly because she senses her destiny lies not in the city but in the North Carolina Blue Ridge.

Cold Mountain is the story of two parallel journeys: Inman's physical trek across the American landscape and Ada's internal odyssey toward an understanding of herself. What makes Frazier's novel so satisfying is the depth of detail surrounding both journeys. Frazier based this story on family history, and in the characters of Inman and Ada he has paid a rich compliment to their historical counterparts. Cold Mountain is, quite simply, a wonderful book.

donald freed Beyond the CIA revelaitons! A riveting drama more shocking and terrifying than any fiction could be!

Nicci French Land of the Living is the latest thriller from the husband-and-wife team of journalist Nicci Gerrard and writer Sean French. They have produced (as Nicci French) several first-rate novels of psychological suspense, such as The Red Room, Beneath the Skinand Killing Me Softly.

Land of the Living is possibly their most assured outing yet, with all the carefully crafted plotting and assiduous characterisation that has distinguished their earlier work. The basic situation is intense and immediate: Abbie Devereux wakes up and finds herself hooded and bound, with no idea of how she ended up in this terrifying state. She is tended to by a man she never sees: a man who makes the promise that he will eventually kill her "like the others". Abbie is forced to re-examine aspects of her identity, her career and the dying relationship she had with her boyfriend. The struggle for survival is physical and mental. If French's compelling novel owes more than a little to John Fowles' masterpiece The Collector, it is none the worse for that. And the delineation of extreme mental states has all the disturbing assurance of Patricia Highsmith. —Barry Forshaw

Nicci French You remember an idyllic childhood. But your memory is deceitful. And possibly deadly...When a skeleton is unearthed in the Martellos' garden, Jane Martello is shocked to learn it's that of her childhood friend, Natalie, who went missing twenty-five years ago. Encouraged by a therapist to recover lost memories, Jane hopes to find out what really took place when she was a child - and what happened to Natalie. But in learning the truth about hers and Natalie's past, is Jane putting her own future at terrible risk?

Nicci French You open your home and your heart to a victim. But your house is anything but safe...Samantha Laschen is a doctor specialising in post-traumatic stress disorder. She's moved to the coast to escape her problems and to be alone with her young daughter. But now the police want her to take in Fiona Mackenzie, a girl whose parents have been savagely murdered. Yet by allowing Fiona in, Sam is exposing herself - and her daughter - to risks she couldn't possibly have imagined...

Kinky Friedman

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry Whether you want to write a Petrarchan sonnet for your lover's birthday, an epithalamion for your sister's wedding or a villanelle excoriating the government's housing policy, this book gives you the tools and the confidence to do so with enjoyable exercises, insights and simple step-by-step advice.

Josephine Fulton

Neil Gaiman, Kim Newman

Patrick Gale Condition Good...A subtle and entertaining tragicomic love story. Julian as a small boy is taken on the perfect Cornish holiday. When glamorous American cousins unexpectedly swell the party, however, emotions run high and events spiral out of control. Though he has been brought up in the forbidding shadow of the prison his father runs, though his parents are neither as normal nor as happy as he supposes, Julian's world view is the sunnily selfish, accepting one of boyhood. It is only when he becomes a man — seemingly at ease with love, with his sexuality, with his ghosts — that the traumatic effects of that distant summer rise up to challenge his defiant assertion that he is happy and always has been.

Damon Galgut

Rick Gallop's Gi Diet gree-light cookbook

Xingjian Gao Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2000. Part travel diary, part philosophy, part love story, 'Soul Mountain' is an elegant, unforgettable novel that journeys deep into the heart of modern-day China. In 1982 Chinese playwright, novelist and artist Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer, the very disease that had killed his father. For six weeks Gao inhabited a transcendental state of imminent death, treating himself to the finest foods he could afford while spending time reading in an old graveyard in the Beijing suburbs. But a secondary examination revealed there was no cancer — he had won a 'reprieve from death' and had been thrown back into the world of the living. Faced with a repressive cultural environment and the threat of a spell in a prison farm, Gao fled Beijing. He travelled first to the ancient forests of central China and from there to the east coast, passing through eight provinces and seven nature reserves, a journey of fifteen thousand kilometres over a period of five months. The result of this epic voyage of discovery is 'Soul Mountain'. Interwoven into this picaresque journey are myriad stories and countless memorable characters — from venerable Daoist masters and Buddhist monks and nuns to mythical Wild Men; deadly Qichun snakes to farting buses. Conventions are challenged, preconceptions are thwarted and the human condition, with all its foibles and triumphs, is laid bare.

Philippe Garner

Philippe Garner "This book is the first serious survey of the challenging and exciting developments in every category of the applied arts during the years since 1940. As such it is an invaluable aid to the student of contemporary taste, the interior designer, the collector of tomorrow's antiques and to anyone who cares about the environment that designers have created for us. It is both a discussion for the shaping forces such as the youth market, the work of modern designers, and an evaluation of the products of the period likely to prove of permanent value and significance in the years to come." ~from inside flap

GERALD GASSIOT-TALABOT

Tim Gautreaux

Tess Gerritsen Top Ten bestselling author Tess Gerritsen expands the scope of her landscape of terror in a thoroughly menacing new thriller. A brilliantly compulsive page-turner from the author of The Surgeon.

Clive Gifford

Clive Gifford Which of the Simpson family has webbed feet? ...occasionally drinks from the dog dish? ...discovered Blinky the three-eyed fish? ...went into space as a NASA astronaut? This quiz book includes 100 questions based on the series of 'The Simpsons', in addition to the original 1000 questions about life with Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie.

Heidi Gildemeister Summer drought and poor soil confront gardeners with difficult garden conditions that impose stress on plants and gardener alike. In practical and inspirational terms, this text shows the reader how to create a healthy, lush garden that conserves water, prevents soil erosion and uses environmentally friendly, chemical-free methods.

B.M. Gill

Terry Gilliam, Lucinda Cowell

Norah Gillow

Dettore & Gioffre

James Gleick James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the twentieth century's third revolution. 8 pages of photos.

Robert Goddard A thriller about a history graduate who goes to Madeira to investigate the mysterious fall from grace of a politician 70 years earlier, and finds that people still want the truth to remain hidden.

Johann Goethe Visiting an idyllic German village, Werther, a sensitive young man, falls in love with sweet-natured Lotte. Though he realizes that Lotte is to marry Albert, he is unable to subdue his passion and his infatuation torments him to the point of despair.

Glen David Gold A dazzling debut, a gripping, panoramic novel of magic and science, love and death set in 1920s America

William Golding Golding's best-known novel is the story of a group of boys who, after a plane crash, set up a fragile community on a previously uninhabited island. As memories of home recede and the blood from frenzied pig-hunts arouses them, the boys' childish fear turns into something deeper and more primitive.

William Goldman Starting out as a boy in the Catskills, Corky develops into a brilliant and famous magician whose long-hidden secret and expert skills attract dark forces intent on destroying him.

E.H. GOMBRICH

Edward Gorey

Goscinny, Uderzo

Ivor Gould

Kenneth Grahame The tales of Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad. When Mole goes boating with the Water Rat instead of spring-cleaning, he discovers a new world. As well as the river and the Wild Wood, there is Toad's craze for fast travel which leads him and his friends on a whirl of trains, barges, gipsy caravans and motor cars and even into battle.

Charles L. Granata

Nick Grant, Mark Moodie, Chris Weedon

Sandy Grant

Gunter Grass

Gunter Grass

Robert Graves The heroes and villains, gods and goddesses of ancient Greece have long inspired artists and, more recently, filmmakers to recreate their images. But how did the Greeks see them? And what stories lay behind the familiar names - from Aphrodite to Zeus - that so pervade our culture? Robert Graves' masterful yet accessible, "Greek Myths" vividly retells the adventures of the important gods and heroes and has become a classic reference book for both the serious scholar and the casual inquirer. This edition features lavish photographs and illustrations of the art of ancient Greece.

Robert Graves The heroes and villains, gods and goddesses of ancient Greece have long inspired artists and, more recently, filmmakers to recreate their images. But how did the Greeks see them? And what stories lay behind the familiar names - from Aphrodite to Zeus - that so pervade our culture? Robert Graves' masterful yet accessible, "Greek Myths" vividly retells the adventures of the important gods and heroes and has become a classic reference book for both the serious scholar and the casual inquirer. This edition features lavish photographs and illustrations of the art of ancient Greece.

Robert Graves A work of historical fiction which recreates the life and times of Emperor Claudius, who lived from 10 BC to AD 41, a time when poisoning, blasphemy, treachery, incest and unnatural vice were commonplace. From the author of CLAUDIUS THE GOD AND HIS WIFE MESSALINA.

Robert Graves

Alasdair Gray

Alasdair Gray

Alasdair Gray

Anthony Gray

Rose Gray, Ruth Rogers Winner of both the Glenfiddich Food Book of the Year and BCA Illustrated Book of the Year awards. Acclaimed for their innovative re-interpretation of Italian farmhouse cooking - Cucina Rustica - at the River Cafe restaurant, the authors have produced a selection of recipes with an emphasis on uncomplicated food which is vibrant with flavour.

Nick Greaves

Jonathon Green There is always a certain contradiction implicit in a dictionary of slang—a clash between the authority and control implicit in a dictionary and the endless self-invention and self-regeneration of slang. Slang is often the language of minorities and underclasses and subcultures; and almost always a way of getting on with your own business in words that the official cannot hear or understand. Green has the right paradoxical combination of the obsessive collector and control-freak and the libertine who likes to luxuriate in language at play. His background in the underground press of the Sixties and his role as oral historian guarantee his sympathies, while his various dictionaries and his excellent history of dictionaries Chasing the Sun, are solid indicators of his scholarship. It is a matter of some daring to take on the subject that Eric Partridge made so totally his own—and Green does magnificently for the second half of our century what Partridge did for the first. This is an essential reference book and also an important part of late 20th-century social history, an age of drugs, popular culture and vivid minority language: Green has taken on a huge project and entirely succeeded in it. —Roz Kaveney

David Greenberg

Brian Greene THE FABRIC OF THE COSMOS BY BRIAN GREENE FANTASTIC BOOK DEALING WITH SPACE AND TIME,REALITY, THE LIMITS OF THE UNIVERSE AND THE POSSIBILITY OF TIME TRAVEL

Brian Greene UNIVERSE THEROY

Gael Greene

Graham Greene A collection of short stories by the author of "Brighton Rock", "The Quiet American", "The Power and the Glory" and "Our Man in Havana".

Graham Greene

Graham Greene

Philippa Gregory A contemporary psychological thriller in the style of Ruth Rendell, from one of today's most versatile and compelling storytellers. It was easy for Elizabeth. She married the man she loved, bore him two children and made a home for him which was the envy of their friends. It was harder for Ruth. She married Elizabeth's son and then found that, somehow, she could never quite measure up! Isolation, deceit and betrayal fill the gaps between the two individual women and between their different worlds. In this complex thriller, Philippa Gregory deploys all her insight into what women want and what women fear, as Ruth confronts the shifting borders of her own sanity. Laying bare the comfortable conventions of rural England, this spine-tingling novel pulses with suspense until the whiplash double-twist of the denouement.

Kate Grenville William Thornhill is a waterman on the River Thames. Life is tough but bearable until William makes a mistake, for which he and his family are made to pay dearly. His sentence: to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. They arrive in this harsh land that they cannot understand and which feels like a death sentence.

Nicholas Griffin

John Grisham Two Supreme Court Justices are dead. Brilliant, beautiful and ambitious, New Orleans legal student Darby Shaw little realises that her speculative brief will penetrate to the highest levels of power in Washington and cause shockwaves there - shockwaves that will see her boyfriend atomised in a bomb blast.

Jan Gullberg This wide-ranging survey looks at the history of mathematics from the invention of numbers and language, through the realms of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus, to mathematical logic, set theory, topology, fractals and probability, and onwards to differential equations.

James E. Gunn A classic of science fiction, this book predicted and inspired the creation of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)—the organization dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. A tale of contact with alien life hailed by leaders of SETI organizations and today's leading science fiction authors as hugely influential, the story appeals to both science fiction readers and the hundreds of thousands of members of various SETI organizations. This replaces 034530036X.

Mark Haddon The title The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (or the curious incident of the dog in the night-time as it appears within the book) is an appropriate one for Mark Haddon's ingenious novel both because of its reference to that most obsessive and fact-obsessed of detectives, Sherlock Holmes, and because its lower-case letters indicate something important about its narrator.

Christopher is an intelligent youth who lives in the functional hinterland of autism—every day is an investigation for him because of all the aspects of human life that he does not quite get. When the dog next door is killed with a garden fork, Christopher becomes quietly persistent in his desire to find out what has happened and tugs away at the world around him until a lot of secrets unravel messily.

Haddon makes an intelligent stab at how it feels to, for example, not know how to read the faces of the people around you, to be perpetually spooked by certain colours and certain levels of noise, to hate being touched to the point of violent reaction. Life is difficult for the difficult and prickly Christopher in ways that he only partly understands; this avoids most of the obvious pitfalls of novels about disability because it demands that we respect—perhaps admire—him rather than pity him. —Roz Kaveney

Mark Haddon At 57, George Hall is settling down to a retirement. Then Katie, his daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her brother Jamie observes that Ray has 'strangler's hands'. This book features a portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. It also talks about the people who fall apart and come together as a family.

Matt Haig A reworking of 'Henry IV Part II, this is the story of the Hunter family: Adam, a teacher, his wife Kate, and their children Hal, seventeen, and Charlotte, thirteen. And Prince, their black Labrador. It's Prince who is the narrator and protagonist of this tale.

Peter Haining When comedy enters the world of fantasy, anything can happen - and it usually does in the inventive hands of such brilliant writers as Terry Pratchett, Tom Sharpe and Spike Milligan, all of whom are featured in this uproarious new collection. Following on from the spectacular success of THE WIZARDS OF ODD and THE FLYING SORCERERS, KNIGHTS OF MADNESS presents fantasy at its most comic in a collection of SF, heroic romance and crime. With Terry Pratchett creating mayhem on the Hollywood freeway and Peter S. Beagle running riot with a New Yorker who just happens to be a werewolf; with manic knights, crazed astronauts and bungling criminals, here are stories that rollick from hilarity to absurdity, from satire to the bizarre, in a glorious melange of wit and imaginative genius.

Mohsin Hamid In the wake of September 11, Changez, a Pakistani man in Manhattan, finds his position in the city he loves suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and perhaps even love.

James Hamilton-Paterson Gerald Samper, an effete Englishman and ghostwriter for celebrities, lives on a hilltop in Tuscany. His idyll is shattered by the arrival of Marta, a vulgar woman from the Soviet Republic. The neighbours' lives disastrously intertwine as the English obsession with Tuscany is satirized.

Hamlyn

Thich Nhat Hanh

Patrick Harding This handy, practical guide offers a quick way for beginners to identify mushrooms and toadstools Collins Gem Mushrooms describes almost 240 species of mushrooms and toadstools to be commonly found in Britain. Portable and clear, it is the ideal guide for those out foraging for fungi! Each mushroom or toadstool entry includes a photograph, illustration, and clear description of its appearance; details of size, habitat, and when it can be found; whether it is edible or poisonous, the names of similar species with which the mushrooms or toadstools could be confused, and details of the differences between them.

Thomas Hardy Jude Fawley's hopes of a university education are lost when he is trapped into marrying the earthy Arabella, who later abandons him. Moving to the town of Christminster where he finds work as a stonemason, Jude meets and falls in love with his cousin Sue Bridehead, a sensitive, freethinking 'New Woman'.

Lawrence (Eleanor) & Harniess (Sue). Part of a series of identification guides that are designed to help you learn to spot and distinguish between different varieties and species of animals and plants. This title features over 100 of the familiar species of European mushroom and fungi with information on identifying features, habitat and distribution, and lookalikes.

Peter Harper, Louise Halestrap

Harry Harris

Helen Harris

Jane Harris An attempt to escape her past makes Bessy Buckley take a job as a maid in a big house outside Edinburgh working for the beautiful Arabella. Bessy is puzzled by her employer's increasingly strange requests and her insistence that Bessy keep a journal of her most intimate thoughts. It seems that Arabella has a few secrets of her own.

Robert Harris

Robert Harris Certain thriller writers burst upon the scene with considerable impact: Forsyth with The Day of the Jackal, Cruz Smith with Gorky Park and Robert Harris with the masterly Fatherland. Interestingly, of these three authors, by far the most consistent has been Harris, and his new novel, Pompeii is in some ways his most audacious offering yet, a brilliantly orchestrated thriller-cum-historical recreation that plays outrageous tricks with the reader's expectations.

As in the equally adroit Enigma, Harris takes a familiar historical event (there, the celebrated code-breakers at Bletchley Park, here the volcanic obliteration of an Italian city in AD79) and seamlessly weaves a characteristically labyrinthine plot in and around the existing facts. But that's not all he does here: few novelists who (unlike Harris) make a speciality of ancient history for their setting pull off the sense of period quite as impressively as the author does here. As the famous catastrophe approaches, we are pleasurably immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of the Ancient World, each detail conjured with jaw-dropping verisimilitude.

Harris's protagonist is the engineer Marcus Attilius, placed in charge of the massive aqueduct that services the teeming masses living in and around the Bay of Naples. Despite the pride he takes in his job, Marcus has pressing concerns: his predecessor in the job has mysteriously vanished, and another task is handed to Marcus by the scholar Pliny: he is to undertake crucial repairs to the aqueduct near Pompeii, the city in the shadow of the restless Mount Vesuvius. And as Marcus faces several problems—all life threatening—an event approaches that will make all his concerns seem petty.

Other writers have placed narratives in the shadow of this most famous of volcanic cataclysms, but Harris triumphantly ensures that his characters' individual dramas are not dwarfed by implacable nature; Marcus is a vividly drawn hero: complex, conflicted and a canny synthesis of modern and ancient mindsets. Some may wish that Harris might return to something closer to our time in his next novel, but few who take this trip into a dangerous past will be able to resist Harris's spellbinding historical saga. —Barry Forshaw

Robert Harris, S. J. Bolton, Susan Hill, Joseph Finder readers digest select editions. 4 books in one.

Thomas Harris

Thomas Harris Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him. Hannibal's uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his