In the autumn of 1965, flush with the unexpected success of his first published books, the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal bought a weekend cottage in Kersko, about an hour's drive east of Prague. From th
For avid readers and the uninitiated alike, this is a chance to reengage with classic literature and to stay inspired and entertained. The concept of the magazine is simple: the first half is a lon
In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North he was a serious student of Ze
THE LAST MAIGRET'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann CleevesHe needed to get out of his office, soak up the atmosphere and discover different worlds with each new investigation.
For avid readers and the uninitiated alike, this is a chance to reengage with classic literature and to stay inspired and entertained.The concept of the magazine is simple: the first half is a long-fo
Aldo Cassidy is the naive and sentimental lover. A successful, judicious man, he is wrenched away from the ordered certainties of his life by a sudden encounter with Shamus, a wild, carousing artist a
West Germany in the 1960s is a simmering cauldron of radical protests. Amid the turmoil Leo Harting, a Second Secretary in the British Embassy, has gone missing - along with more than forty Confidenti
'A wonderful rediscovery. . . human, suspenseful, shot through with hard-earned wisdom' - Lee ChildOne of the first bestsellers in Germany after the Second World War, Berlin Finale is a breathtaking n
When the Department - faded since the war and busy only with bureaucratic battles - hears rumour of a missile base near the West German border, it seems like the perfect opportunity to regain some pol
A story of forbidden sexual passion and thwarted dreams set against the backdrop of a lush summer in rural MassachusettsSeventeen-year-old Charity Royall is desperate to escape life with her hard-drin
When a long lost friend pays a visit to Maigret's office, he is shocked to learn that the man's roommate has been murdered. With the help of his old friend, Maigret delves into the life of the victim
Jude Fawley, the stonemason excluded not by his wits but by poverty from the world of Christminster privilege, finds fulfilment in his relationship with Sue Bridehead. Both have left earlier marriages
'She understands Karma, she says: "What I do, I reap"'Her name means sadness, yet Tristessa, a prostitute and morphine addict, lives without cares in her shabby room with a menagerie of pets and an al
I have been womanfor a long timebeware my smileI am treacherous with old magicFilled with rage and tenderness, Audre Lorde's most acclaimed poetry collection speaks of mothers and children, female str
A collection of nine exceptional stories from the much-loved author of The Catcher in the RyeAn American soldier has a strange encounter with an orphaned English teenager the night before he leaves fo
Includes two of the author's critically acclaimed stories. This title contains a story that recounts the author's meeting with a young girl before being sent into combat. It also contains a story that
'Woolf is modern ... With Joyce and Eliot she has shaped a literary century' Jeanette WintersonVirginia Woolf tested the boundaries of fiction in these short stories, developing a new language of sens
'Life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the b
Ford Madox Ford's great masterpiece exploring love and identity during the First World War, in a Penguin Classics edition with an introduction by Julian Barnes. A masterly novel of destruction and reg
For the first time in his career Inspector Maigret receives written summons to the Prefect's office where he learns that he has been accused of assaulting a young woman. With his career and reputation
A special edition of John le Carré's thrilling novel of espionage and betrayal in the Middle East, to tie in with the forthcoming BBC series starring Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Shannon and Florence
The final novel in the Great Plains trilogy, this is a celebration of the American midwest with Cather's strongest heroine at its heart Jim and Antonia meets as children in the wide open plains of Neb
'Splendid ... le Carré shows how endowed he is with the gift of storytelling' The Times Aldo Cassidy is a cautious man. He has a pleasant family, drives a safe, expensive car and wears luxurious cloth
'One of the most sophisticated fictional responses to the war on terror yet published' Guardian An illegal Muslim immigrant arrives in Hamburg with a traumatic past and the key to a fortune held in a
The fifth book in Bassani's Romanzo di Ferrara sequence, and his final novel, The Heron is a taut, poignant portrait of a middle-aged man's reckoning with his life. 'It struggled to keep itself aloft
There were two kinds of landscape characteristic of the inner planets of the Sun: the purposeful and the desolate.' The planet Quinta is pocked with ugly mounds and covered by a spiderweb-like network
Reinvents the particulars of slavery in America with a comic rage ... The book explodes. Reed's special grace is anger ... a muscular, luminous prose' The New York Times 'It always was, and will alway
Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott's most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and aut
Bold, moving, entertaining and controversial, this is the great novel of 1960s Lagos life - with one of the most unforgettable heroines in literature. Jagua Nana, no longer young but still irresistib
The alphabet ofthe trees is fading in thesong of the leaves' Filled with bright, unforgettable images, the deceptively simple work of William Carlos Williams revolutionized American verse, and made hi
My heartbrims with billowsand minnowsof shadows and silver Beautiful, brutal, strange and lovely: this is Lorca reborn, in a selection of previously unpublished pieces and masterful new translations.
'She felt a cozy solidarity with the big company of the voluntary dead.' Wise-cracking and heartbreaking, these tales of women on the edge by the legendary wit Dorothy Parker show the darkness beneath
The titlular character of Hadrian the Seventh is inextricably intertwined with his creator, Frederick Rolfe, the self-titled Baron Corvo. Both were Catholic converts and unsuccessful candidates for pr
Inspector Maigret finds himself caught in the middle of a husband and wife duo’s case of “he said/she said”—with murderous consequences An unusually quiet day for Inspector Maigret at the Quai des Orf
On the shrouded corpse hung a tablet of green topaz with the inscription: 'I am Shaddad the Great. I conquered a thousand cities; a thousand white elephants were collected for me; I lived for a thousa
A chilling new collection of Henry James's short stories exploring the uncanny In "The Turn of the Screw," one of the most famous ghost stories of all time, a governess becomes obsessed with the bel
This is a new to Penguin Classics, the great underwater adventure story in a stunning clothbound edition with original images. In this thrilling adventure tale by the 'Father of Science Fiction', thre
Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflecti
Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflecti
Proust's masterpiece is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century, recording its narrator's experiences as he grows up, falls in love and lives through the First World War. A profound reflecti
