Sebastian is the heir of Chevron, a vast and beautiful English country estate. As such he is a fixed part of an eternal round of lavish parties, intrigues, traditions and fashions at the cold, decaden
In this vivid portrait of one day in a woman's life, Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of a party she is to give that evening. As she readies her house she is flooded with
Have you ever tried to learn another language? When Zhuang first comes to London from China she feels like she is among an alien species. The city is disorientating, the people unfriendly, the languag
How to be a good father? Children's birthday parties, unsuccessful family holidays, humiliating antenatal music classics: the trials of parenthood are all found in Knausgaard's compelling and honest a
Salman Rushdie, a self-described 'emigrant from one place and a newcomer in two', explores the true meaning of Home. Writing with insight, passion and humour, he looks at what it means to belong, whet
What's the worst another drink could do? In this dispiritedly sobering book, John Cheever pours out our most sociable of vices, and hands it to us in a highball. From the calculating teenager who raid
In this inspiring, witty and eminently sensible book, Nigella Lawson sets out a manifesto for how to cook (and eat) good food every day with a minimum of fuss. From basic roast chicken and pea risotto
Babies: our biggest mystery and our most natural consequence, our hardest test and our enduring love. Anne Enright describes the intensity, bewilderment and extravagant happiness of her experience of
How do we find calm in our frantic modern world? Tim Parks - lifelong cynic and spirituality-sceptic - finds himself on a Buddhist meditation retreat trying to answer this very question. With brutal h
Is who we are really only skin deep? In this searing, remonstrative book, Toni Morrison unravels race through the stories of those debased and dehumanised because of it. A young black girl longing for
Your sister might be the kindred soul who knows you best, or the most alien being in your household; she might enrage you or inspire you; she might be your fiercest competitor or closest co-conspirato
Is there anything quite so exhilarating as swimming in wild water? This is Roger Deakin's swimming tour of Britain, a frog's-eye view of the country's best bathing holes - the rivers, rock pools, lake
Welcome to motherhood - a land of aching fatigue, constant self-sacrifice and thankless servitude, a land of bottomless devotion, small hands and feet like warm pink roses, and velvet kisses. Here is
Could drugs offer a new way of seeing the world? In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When
How does a writer compose a suicide note? This was not a question that the prize-winning novelist William Styron had ever contemplated before. In this true account of his depression, Styron describes
Bob Slocum is anxious, bored and fearful of his job. So why is it he wants nothing more than the chance to speak at the next company convention? In this darkly satirical book, Joseph Heller takes us f
The Swallows, Amazons and Captain Flint don't pay much heed to the harbourmaster's friendly warning as they set off for China. They are on a round-the-world voyage aboard the Wild Cat and it's been pl
When the Walker family's holiday plans are ruined by Daddy having to work, the whole summer seems lost at sea. But a dull holiday for the children is too miserable to bear so their parents hatch a pla
When Dick and Dorothea arrive in the Norfolk Broads all set for a blissful summer on the river, they find their friends the Death and Glories in a very bad situation. Accused of setting boats adrift,
Dick and Dorothea - also known as The Ds - arrive in Norfolk all ready to learn how to sail. They couldn't hope for a better teacher than Tom Dudgeon. But Tom is in a spot of trouble. After seeing the
