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
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 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 The Monk by Matthew Lewis 'He now saw himself stained with the most loathed and monstrous sins, the object of universal execration ... doomed to perish in tortur
The Penguin English Library Edition of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad 'A murmur of dismay and horror ran through the crowd at the sight of that familiar token. The old nakhoda stared at it, and suddenly le
Walter Bridge, husband to India and father to three, is a successful lawyer in a Kansas suburb. The daily dramas of his life only serve to illuminate his prejudice, self-doubts and dreary existence -
A semi-autobiographical tale of Kerouac's own trip to France, to trace his ancestors and explore his own understanding of the Buddhism that came to define his beliefs.
Presents an autobiographical account of the author's growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts, told through his fictional alter ego Jack Duluoz, he mingles real people and events with fantastical figures t
During his life Claude Levi-Strauss travelled from wartime France to the Amazon basin and the dense upland jungles of Brazil, where he found 'human society reduced to its most basic expression'. This
Yasha the magician - sword swallower, fire eater, acrobat and master of escape - is famed for his extraordinary Houdini-like skills. Half Jewish, half Gentile, a free thinker who slips easily between
Herman Broder, a refugee and Holocaust survivor, has three women in his life: Yadwiga, the loyal Polish peasant who hid him in a hayloft from the Nazis; Masha, his beautiful and neurotic true love; an
Aaron Greidinger is an aspiring young writer and the son of a rabbi, who struggles to be true to his art when he is faced with the chance of riches and a passport to America. But as the Nazis threaten
Recollects the author's comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his rich, liberal-minded father, his beautiful mother, an army of relations and family hangers-on and of grand old houses in St Peters
Andrés Caicedo's novel Liveforever is a wild celebration of youth, hedonism and the transforming power of music. María del Carmen Huerta lives a respectable middle-class life in Colombia. One day she
A preacher called Deke O'Malley's been selling false hope: the promise of a glorious new life in Africa for just $1,000 a family. But when thieves with machine guns steal the proceeds - and send one m
'They no longer hold themselves up with all their might, but sink a little and at that moment appear totally human' Of the very first rank of prose stylists, Robert Musil captures a scene's every tell
Bobby - young, black and happily in love with Hispanic girlfriend Maria - lives in a cramped Bronx apartment with his mother, his younger siblings and walls full of rats. But when Bobby and Maria are
It's the 1960s, he's been out in the cold for years, spying in Berlin for his British masters, and has seen too many good agents murdered for their troubles. Now Control wants to bring him in at last
As the First World War reaches its final year, an illicit love affair is beginning between a sixteen-year-old boy and a young woman married to a soldier at the front. They meet secretly in her flat on
Julian Green was born to American parents in Paris in 1900, and spent most of his life in the French capital. Paris is an extraordinary, lyrical love letter to the city, taking the reader on an imagin
Contains stories, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe.
Reveals that the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of the patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. By demystifyin
A collection of seven tales, whose settings range from Tuscany and Elsinore, to a dhow on its way from Lamu to Zanzibar. It is shot through with themes of love and desire - from the maiden lady who no
Albinus - rich, married middle-aged and respectable - is an art critic and aspiring filmmaker who lusts after the coquettish young cinema usherette Margot. Gradually he seduces her and convinces himse
Stevie Smith was one of the few 'modern' poets to reach a wide general audience. Bizarre, witty, sad, sometimes caustic, her poems impart a zest for life, and reveal her eye for the marvels of the ord
Written in Paris in the early 1950s, this book created controversy in its analysis of 'modern' society that had allowed itself to be hypnotized by socio-political doctrines, and to accept totalitarian
Spurred on by admiration for his novelist half-brother and irritation at the biography written about him by Mr Goodman ('his slapdash and very misleading book'), the narrator, V, sets out to record Se
While fulfilling his dead father's dream of creating a prosperous farm in California, Joseph Wayne comes to believe that a magnificent tree on the farm embodies his father's spirit. His brothers and t
The Mahabharata is some 3,500 years old and is the longest poem in existence. It is one of the founding epics of Indian culture, yet it is also a highly dramatic and enthralling story. It centres arou
An annotated edition of "Lolita". It attempts to elaborate on the verbal textures and show how they contribute to the novel's overall meaning. It also provides observations on the novel's artifice, ga
In 1935 Italy declared war on Abyssinia and Evelyn Waugh was sent to Addis Ababa to cover the conflict. His acerbic account of the intrigue and political machinations leading up to the crisis is coupl
Jody Tiflin is given a red pony, and later he is promised the colt of a bay mare. Yet both of these gifts bring him tragedy as well as joy, and Jody is taught not only the harsh lessons of life and de
This major new collection brings together the best of George Orwell's powerful political essays and journalism with his timeless satire on totalitarianism, Animal Farm. They show the vast range of his
A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics, ranging in its themes from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte to the silent fate of Shak
Presents chronologically works such as "Paterson", selections from "White Shroud", "Cosmopolitan Greetings", and including the poems "Howl" and "Kaddish" as well as songs, and notes by Ginsberg. This
Time hardly mattered in the village of Mucker, the birthplace of poet and writer Patrick Kavanagh. Full of wry humour, Kavanagh’s unsentimental and evocative account of his Irish rural upbringing desc
These three great plays by one of the founding fathers of the theatre of the absurd, are alive and kicking with tragedy and humour, bleakness and farce. In Rhinoceros we are shown the innate brutality
