The delightful, gossipy diaries of James Lees-Milne describe his encounters with the owners of country houses - from eccentric lords and oil millionaires to raffish socialists - as he travelled over E
The letters of the eminent naturalist Gilbert White are full of precise, unaffected and delightful observations of the wildlife of his beloved village of Selborne, describing the habits, colours and s
A gangster is murdered during a blistering Manhattan heat wave. City cop Andy Rusch is under pressure to solve the crime and captivated by the victim's beautiful girlfriend. But it is difficult to cat
'Big Daddy' Pollitt, the richest cotton planter in the Mississippi Delta, is about to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday. His two sons have returned home for the occasion: Gooper, his wife and childre
Quentin is a successful lawyer in New York, but inside his head he is struggling with his own sense of guilt and the shadows of his past relationships. One of these an ill-fated marriage to the charmi
In Vichy France, 1942, a group of men sit outside an office, waiting to be interviewed. The reason they have been pulled off the street and taken there is obvious enough. They are, for the most part,
A reticent personnel manager living with his mother, Mr Newman shares the prejudices of his times and of his neighbours - and neither a Hispanic woman abused outside his window nor the persecution of
Features letters that cover the activities of Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac in the years that gave birth to the "Beat Generation". Written mostly to Ginsberg or Kerouac, this title inclu
Portrays the development of Burroughs' mature writing style by presenting a selection of pieces from the mid-1950s. This book tells how his outrageous tone of voice represents the exorcism of four dec
Depicts a male homosexual relationship, in which a rich older man buys the love of a young man who is stunningly handsome but who lacks the ability to love.
Rand's passion is climbing - mountains, the huge vertical faces. There, where storms, snow, or rockfall can kill, he finds his happiness, sometimes climbing with others, sometimes alone. Not intending
John Healy's The Grass Arena describes with unflinching honesty his experiences of addiction, his escape through learning to play chess in prison, and his ongoing search for peace of mind. This Pengui
During the Second World War Roald Dahl served in the RAF and suffered horrific injuries in an air crash in the Libyan desert. Drawing on his own experience as a fighter pilot, Dahl crafted these ten s
A play written during Brecht's exile to the United States and set in pre-Communist China. It is a parable of a young woman torn between obligation and reality, between love and practicality, and betwe
Sal Paradise, a young innocent, joins his hero Dean Moriarty, a traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat, on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. Their search
Joseph Marti arrives at the villa of Karl Tobler, an ill-starred inventor, to begin employment as his clerk. Tobler is determined to finance his family's lavish lifestyle with the proceeds from his la
In Journey Through a Small Planet (1972), the writer Emanuel Litvinoff recalls his working-class Jewish childhood in the East End of London: a small cluster of streets right next to the city, but worl
Tristao Raposo, a nineteen-year old black child of the Rio slums, spies Isabel Leme, an eighteen-year-old upper-class white girl, across the hot sands of Copacabana Neach, and presents her with a ring
Nothing in his previous life could have prepared Colonel Hakim Felix Ellellou for his new role as the President of Kush. Neither the French army nor his American university provided a grounding in the
Ben Turnbull is a 66 year-old retired investment consultant living north of Boston in the year 2020. A recent war between the United States and China has thinned the population and brought social chao
When a history professor - Alfred Clayton - is asked to record his impressions of the Ford Administration, he recalls a turbulent piece of personal history as well: his unfinished book on 19th-century
When his induction into the army is delayed, Joseph finds himself facing a year of idleness. This journal presents an account of his restless wanderings through Chicago's streets, his musings on the p
Mr Artur Sammler, intellectual and occasional lecturer at Columbia University in 1960s New York City, is a registrar of madness, a refined and civilized being caught among people crazy with the promis
At the Diamond County Home for the Aged, the inmates prepare for the annual ritual of the Poorhouse Fair. The elderly residents take pride in the self-respect they gain from this one day. But when the
Growing up in Kenya in the early twentieth century, the brothers Matu and Muthegi are raised according to customs that, they are told, have existed since the beginning of the world. But when the 'red'
Henry Bech, the celebrated author of "Travel Light", has been scrutinized, canonized and vilified by critics and readers across the world. This work explores the writing life and what happens when a w
The sixth century was not a peaceful time for the Roman empire. Invaders threatened on all fronties, but they grew to respect and fear the name of Belisarius, the Emperor Justinian's greatest general.
When "history" presents itself in the form of two disgruntled CIA operatives who decide that an unsuccessful attempt on the life of JFK will galvanize the nation against Communism, the scales are irre
Universally acclaimed when it was first published in 1955, the novel captured the mood of a generation. It was a sensational best-seller that was made into an award-winning film with Gregory Peck, it
Handsome, worldly and intelligent, Solal holds a position of enviable power in 1930s Geneva. But as Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations, he has become bitterly disillusioned by internatio
L.P. Hartley's moving exploration of a young boy's loss of innocence The Go-Between is edited with an introduction and notes by Douglas Brooks-Davies in Penguin Modern Classics. 'The past is a foreign
Kicked out of college and harassed by his lawyer, Miles Faber abandons New York and embarks on a defiant pilgrimage across the Caribbean to find the shrine of Sib Legeru, an obscure poet and painter.
The story of the title deals with a little boy named Larry and his feelings towards his father. When his father returns home from World War II, Larry is resentful and jealous of losing his mother's un
"The dreams were wholly beyond the pale of sanity . . . "Plagued by insane nightmare visions, Walter Gilman seeks help in Miskatonic University's infamous library of forbidden books, where, in the pag
Victor, a ghostwriter, is just about to have an affair with Marta, a married woman, when - in the bedroom, half-undressed - she drops dead in his arms. He panics and slips away. But Marta's family are
The pretty young tutor Clare Bayes attracts many eyes at an Oxford college dinner, not least those of a visiting Spanish lecturer. As they begin an affair, meeting in hotel bedrooms away from the eyes
The Penguin English Library Edition of The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope "What a villain you are ... a villain and a poor weak silly fool. She was too good for you." Engaged t
The Penguin English Library Edition of Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell "The rich know nothing of the trials of the poor; I say, if they don't know, they ought to know. We're their slaves as long
The Penguin English Library Edition of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding '"Sir, I am concerned at the Trouble I give you; nay indeed my Nakedness may well make me ashamed to look you in the Face ...&qu
