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Discover a realm of travel writing undreamed of in the West - a richly literary tradition extending through a thousand years and more, whose individual works together weave a dense and beautiful broca

'It is hard to know how it could possibly be bettered' - Daily TelegraphThe prose poem has proven one of the most innovative and versatile poetic forms of recent years. In the century-and-a-half since

For the first time, this is an anthology of 100 pieces of 'Oulipo' writing, celebrating the literary group who revelled in maths problems, puzzles, trickery, wordplay and conundrums. Featuring writers

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

This quiet, imaginative novel is a study of faith in an increasingly hostile world. Through intimate journal entries, the author reveals the private life and struggles of a young, withdrawn, devout an

Truman Capote makes whiskey-soaked fruitcake in Alabama; Laurie Lee slides across a frozen pond in Gloucestershire; and Shirley Jackson is outwitted by a wily Santa Claus at the bank. Ghosts haunt the

Ranging from the age of slavery to contemporary injustices, this groundbreaking history of race, gender and class inequality by the radical political activist Angela Davis offers an alternative view of female struggles for liberation. Tracing the intertwined histories of the abolitionist and women's suffrage movements, Davis examines the racism and class prejudice inherent in so much of white feminism, and in doing so brings to light new pioneering heroines, from field slaves to mill workers, who fought back and refused to accept the lives into which they were born. 'The power of her historical insights and the sweetness of her dream cannot be denied' The New York Times

Life in Tove's neighbourhood in Copenhagen is confusing and difficult: her father can't find work, her mother is angry and remote, and Tove herself sometimes thinks she's been exchanged at birth. But

Unable to stay on to high school, Tove starts her first job (which lasts only one day) and soon embarks on a varied and chequered career: as au pair, cleaner, stock-room assistant and office worker. B

Tove is only twenty, but she's already famous, a published poet and wife of a much older literary editor. Her path in life seems set, but she has no idea of the struggles that lie ahead - love affairs

When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunnin

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality, colourful, t

A marvel of psychological insight from one of the most important Italian literary figures of the twentieth centuryWhen vain, obsessive and guilt-ridden Zeno Cosini seeks help for his neuroses, his psy

When a wealthy wine merchant is shot and killed in Paris, Inspector Maigret must investigate a long list of family, colleagues and lovers to uncover just who could have committed the crime. Delving in

'One of the hidden geniuses of the twentieth century' Colm Tóibín'She suddenly leaned toward the mirror and sought the love­liest way to see herself'Lucrécia Neves is vain, unreflective, insolentl

Set in Hardy's fictional realm of Wessex, these four charming novels have been brought together in a stunning clothbound set, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. From the moving and

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

Accra, Ghana, the 1970s. In the streets, marketplaces and crowded houses of this sprawling city, an unforgettable cast of characters live, love and try to get by: an idealistic professor, a beautiful

A darkly funny account of family life from the author of The Haunting of Hill House and The Lottery'Sometimes, in my capacity as a mother, I find myself sitting open-mouthed and terrified before my ow

'It will be read and re-read not as a treatise but as a story: one of the most extraordinary that has ever been written of the origins of Western self-consciousness' Simon SchamaThe marriage of Cadmus

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

Alec Leamas is tired. 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

'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

The Castle is the story of K., the unwanted Land Surveyor who is never to be admitted to the Castle nor accepted in the village, and yet cannot go home. As he encounters dualities of certainty and dou

A superb new translation by Michael Hofmann of some of Kafka's most frightening and visionary short fictionStrange beasts, night terrors, absurd bureaucrats and sinister places abound in this collecti

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

The woman's place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deepThe revolutionary writings of Audre Lorde gave voice to those 'outside the circle of

'I want to be considered a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday'Freewheeling and spontaneous, Mexico City Blues is Jack Kerouac's most significant and emblematic poem.

Here is the story of lives painfully intertwined.An unnamed narrator is haunted by nightmarish memories of her father and desperate for the attentions of her lover. Her only companion is the androgyno

'An exciting writer, sharp and shocking as the knives her characters wield' Sunday TimesLike her namesake Jack Kerouac, J.K. is always on the road, travelling Europe with her typewriter in a pillowcas

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 Carlotte Bronte to the silent fate of Shakespeare's gifted (imaginary) sister and the effects of poverty and sexual constraint on female creativity. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is regarded as a major 20th century author and essayist, a key figure in literary history as a feminist and modernist, and the centre of 'The Bloomsbury Group'. This informal collective of artists and writers which included Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry, exerted a powerful influence over early twentieth-century British culture.Between 1925 and 1931 Virginia Woolf produced what are now regarded as her finest masterpieces, from Mrs Dalloway (1925) to the poetic and highly experimental novel The Waves (1931). She also maintained an astonishing output of literary criticism, short fiction, journalism and biography, including the playfully subversive Orlando (1928

Billy Gray was my best friend and I fell in love with his mother.'Alexander Cleave, an actor who thinks his best days are behind him, remembers his first unlikely affair as a teenage boy in a small to

'I wanted us to wake to a kingdom of ice where our breath would turn to icicles as it left our lips, and we would walk through tunnels of snow to the outhouses and find birds fallen dead from the air

'Come at once if convenient - if inconvenient come all the same . . .'The note from Sherlock Holmes to Dr Watson cannot be ignored and soon the pair find themselves investigating the curious case of a

They met when they were teenagers. Quiet, poor, perhaps even a little dull, Miguel fell for languid Alicia during their long walks back from school. Then Lucas arrived and changed everything, entrancing Alicia with his confident bohemian charm. Miguel could not compete. But he stuck around and, against all the odds, was the one Alicia ended up marrying.Now, eleven years later, their marriage has begun to fray, and Alicia sets out to see Lucas again. Yet gnawing at each member of theménage a troisis the knowledge that, somewhere along the line, something has gone badly awry.In a final heady whirl of sex and obsession, treachery and blame, they all struggle to ascertain: who among them is to blame?

'DO NOT OPEN - DESTROY.'The words on the envelope he has found are written in Kath's hand, but Glyn ignores his wife's instruction and breaks the seal. His life unwinds. For he finds a photograph show

A haunting and deeply personal portrait of family tragedy from the much-loved author of The Catcher in the RyeBuddy Glass is the second-eldest son in the eccentric and enchanting Glass family. He is o

A funny, poignant snapshot of young adulthood from the much-loved author of The Catcher in the RyeFranny Glass and Lane Coutell are the perfect campus couple: beautiful, intelligent, their whole lives

Holden Caulfield is a dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies'

'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