The Secret Kingdoms

James Joyce

It is only James Joyce's towering genius as a novelist that has led to the comparative neglect of his poetry and sole surviving play. And yet, argues Mays in his stimulating and informative introduction, several of these works not only occupy a pivotal position in Joyce's career; they are also magnificently assured achievements in their own right. Chamber Music is 'an extraordi...

David Sedaris

Kristine Reffstrup / Reffstrup Kirstine & Simpson Hunter

A girl is struck down by polio during the terrifying epidemic of the early 1950s. Paralyzed and unable to breathe on her own, she is committed to the hospital in Copenhagen and placed in an iron lung. Forty years earlier, a child grows up in an orphanage for boys outside of Budapest. The child goes by the name of 'Boy' but is not like the others, as their body seems to transcen...

Jessica Peterson

One chance meeting on a Texas ranch. One wild, too-charming cowboy. One snowed-in night that changes everything. Wheeler Rankin isn't here for romance. She's come to Lucky River Ranch to visit her best friend, wrangle a business deal and prove herself to everyone who's ever doubted her. But when she collides with Duke Rivers - Hartsville's resident heartbreaker, restless cowboy...

Brian A. Catlos

A magisterial, myth-dispelling history of Islamic Spain, from the founding of Islam to the final expulsion of Spain's Muslims in the seventeenth century. ...

Terry Pratchett

‘His spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction' Mail on Sunday The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . .The fairies are back - but this time they don't just want your teeth ... It's Mid...

B. K. Borison

In The Weeds is a sweet and steamy second-chance romance about finding your happiness from TikTok favourite author, B. K. Borison. It features a grumpy farmer, a no-nonsense social media influencer, a small town of busybodies, and four very cute kittens.Evelyn St. James isn't the kind of woman you forget.Beckett Porter certainly hasn't. One incredible weekend in Maine, and he's...

Rebecca Yarros

Alice Evelyn Yang

A dark, magical realist debut family saga that moves through the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Cultural Revolution, and the present day to explore the effects of intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism, and the inescapability of fate. Qianze has not seen her father in eleven years, since he walked out of her life the night of her fourteenth birthday and disa...

Alice Feeney

'I was consumed by this book, it's her best ever, a work of genius' - Lisa Jewell 'Brilliant and chilling, with an inspired setting, characters that jump off the page and twists to give you whiplash. I loved every word' - Claire Douglas The million-copy bestselling author of His and Hers, Alice Feeney, returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage . . ....

Adolfo Bioy Casares

Lucio, a normal man in a normal (nosy) city neighborhood with normal problems with his in-laws (ever-present) and job (he lost it) finds he has a new problem on his hands: his beloved wife, Diana. She's been staying out till all hours of the night and grows more disagreeable by the day. Should Lucio have Diana committed to the Psychiatric Institute, as her friend the dog traine...

Russell Hoban

'Sparkles with classical allusions and a wisecracking humour ... it is pure joy' Daily TelegraphIt all begins the night a leaflet comes through the door of unsuccessful novelist Herman Orff, promising a magical cure for writer's block. The strange treatment plunges him into a hallucinatory London dreamworld populated by figures mythical and real: a severed talking head, Vermeer...

Mario Vargas Llosa

Set in an isolated, run down community in the Peruvian Andes, Vargas Llosa's riveting novel tells the story of a series of mysterious disappearances involving the Shining Path guerrillas and a local couple performing cannibalistic sacrifices with strange similarities to the Dionysian rituals of ancient Greece. Part-detective novel and part-political allegory, it offers a panora...

Plato

Republic is the central work of the Western world's most famous philosopher. Essentially an inquiry into morality, Republic also contains crucial arguments and insights into many other areas of philosophy. It is also a literary masterpiece: the philosophy is presented for the most part for the ordinary reader, who is carried along by the wit and intensity of the dialogue and by...

Katherine Angel

Over the past decade, we have begun to talk more openly about the widespread harm inflicted by men on women. But little has been said about the fact that many of these men are also fathers. In Daddy Issues Katherine Angel draws on thinkers and writers from D. W. Winnicott to Valerie Solanas, from Virginia Woolf to Alison Bechdel, as she examines the place of fathers in contempo...

Gyles Brandreth

In Odd Boy Out Gyles Brandreth provides an extraordinarily revealing account of growing up and coming of age in an apparently well-to-do but always strapped-for-cash middle-class English family. By turns hilarious and moving, and chock full of unforgettable stories, Odd Boy Out is the unexpected and candid autobiography of one of the country's most unlikely personalities. Yet a...

Fernando Aramburu

Miren and Bittori have been best friends all their lives, growing up in the same small town in the north of Spain. With limited interest in politics, the terrorist threat posed by ETA seems to affect them little. When Bittori's husband starts receiving threatening letters from the violent group, however -- demanding money, accusing him of being a police informant -- she turns t...

Cassandra Clare

James and Cordelia must save London - and their marriage - in this thrilling and highly anticipated conclusion to The Last Hours series from the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Cassandra Clare. Chain of Thorns is a Shadowhunters novel.Cordelia Carstairs has lost everything that matters to her.In only a few short weeks, she h[Bokinfo]. ...

Ezra Klein / Derek Thompson

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2025**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR'A must-read for progressives' BARACK OBAMA 'Downing Street's current hot read' ANDREW MARR 'Forceful, quick-moving, important' FINANCIAL TIMESThe threat to liberal democracy isn't just autocrats - it's a lack of effective act...

Ia Genberg

'A delightful and exquisitely executed literary mini-study that brings to mind Joan Didion' - Expressen 'I haven't read anything better this year' - Sydsvenskan 'Her humour and delight in language make the stories crackle with life' - Svenska Dagbladet 'Genberg captures, with intelligence and insight, the afflictions of our time' - Göteborgs-Posten _______ 'You know, love is...

Eduardo Halfon

Winner of the Prix Médicis Étranger in France and the Premio de la Critica in Spain Conversation-starting and prize-winning international fiction: an extraordinary meditation on violence, conspiracy and the many complex afterlives of the Holocaust Eduardo and his brother have been living in the US for three years when their parents send them back to Guatemala for the holidays. ...

Han Kang

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2024 SHORTLISTED FOR FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 AN OBSERVER BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY SO FAR Like a long winter's dream, this haunting and visionary new novel from 2024 Nobel Prize winner Han Kang takes us on a journey from contemporary South Korea into its painful history 'One of the most profound and skilled writers working on the co...

Carys Shannon

In a small estuary village on the Welsh coast, Catrin is mourning the anniversary of her mother's drowning when a teenage girl disappears on the same mudflats. Terrified of history repeating itself and driven by unresolved grief, Catrin becomes obsessed with finding Emily. Her search dredges up secrets from the village's past and present, uncovering far more than the missing gi...

Manuel Varela

On the relationship between "things" and "ideas" — with a special emphasis on medical practice. Dualism has a long track in philosophy. Although often overlooked, it supports much of our worldview, and lies at the center of many frontline scientific issues. This dialectic has specific phrasings in different scientific areas, but it is arguably the expression of the same conflic...

Catherine Cowles

Braedyn Winslow never expected to return to Starlight Grove-the town that took everything from her. Not after her best friend, the one who'd sacrificed so much for her, vanished without a trace. But with a young son to raise and a past that won't stay buried, Brae is back...and determined to uncover the truth. She just didn't count on the brooding, reclusive mountain man livin...

Kelly Mckain

Welcome to Primrose Vale - where everyone knows everyone . . . and everyone has their secrets. Made in Chelsea meets Elsie Silver in this steamy YA romance full of scandal, gossip and rivalries. New girl Carrie has landed her dream job at the Langdon Estate stables. But the hottest stallion is her boss Freddie, who is strictly off limits . . . or is he? The only thing Bex lov...

Jessica Stanley

Discover the joyful, funny love story everyone is falling for - perfect for fans of BRIDGET JONES, ONE DAY, and NORMAL PEOPLE. A NATALIE PORTMAN'S BOOK CLUB PICK 'A MUST-READ . . . LIKE ONE DAY AND NORMAL PEOPLE' THE TIMES 'FUNNY, SMART AND MEMORABLE . . . A DELIGHTFUL NOVEL' NEW YORK TIMES 'AS WARM AS A DAVID NICHOLLS NOVEL' STYLIST 'A BRILLIANT BOOK THAT HITS ALL THE RIGHT N...

Shotaro Ikenami

In the months since their last perilous quest, a fragile calm has settled over Edo. Daijiro dedicates his days to training the first pupil of his quiet riverside dojo, while his father Kohei - a famed swordsman whose name still inspires awe - drifts through an uneasy retirement, his razor-sharp mind too restless for leisure. But such peace never lasts long in the shogunate. On...

Susan Choi

One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town while her father Serk, a Korean emigre, completes an academic secondment from his American university. When Louisa wakes hours later, she has washed up on the beach and her father is missing, probably drowned. The disappearance of Louisa's ...

Heba Al-Wasity

'Leena didn't believe in monsters until she saw Weavingshaw.' The Saint of Silence trades coins for every sordid divulgence uttered to him. The darker the secret, the higher the price. Leena has a secret, one that has haunted her since she was seventeen - she can see the dead. When her brother falls ill, she knows what she must do: seek the Saint. But Leena's secret is more v...

Cameron Sullivan

Inspired by the eighteenth-century legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, The Red Winter is a lusty, dark, queer fantasy - perfect for fans of The Witcher and Susanna Clarke. 'Charming, haunting, ambitious' - T. KINGFISHER, author of Nettle & Bone A devastating love story. A bewitching twist on history. A blood-drenched hunt for purpose, power and redemption. In 1785, Professor Se...

Cameron Sullivan

Inspired by the eighteenth-century legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, The Red Winter is a lusty, dark, queer fantasy - perfect for fans of The Witcher and Susanna Clarke. 'Charming, haunting, ambitious' - T. KINGFISHER, author of Nettle & Bone A devastating love story. A bewitching twist on history. A blood-drenched hunt for purpose, power and redemption. In 1785, Professor Se...

B. K. Borison

Two competing meteorologists are forced to find common ground in this opposites attract, When Harry Met Sally inspired romance, from New York Times bestselling author B.K. Borison. Jackson Clark and Delilah Stewart have had their fair share of run-ins over the years, often ending in disaster. While Jackson thrives on routine and organization from the comfort of his radio booth...

Amber V. Nicole

SAMKIEL AND DIANNA WILL RETURN in the next sizzling, dark romantasy series from Amber V. Nicole. EPIC. SPICY. ADDICTIVE. Embrace the darkness . . . 'If you like romantasy, read this!' RAVEN KENNEDY 'A wicked ride from beginning to heart shattering end. Leaving me literally screaming for more' HANNAH NICOLE MAERHER 'This is perfection. Amber Nicole's Dianna is the FMC of my ...

Michael Pollan

When it comes to consciousness, there is one point scientists, philosophers and artists all agree on- that it feels like something to be ourselves. And yet, the fact that each and every one of us has a subjective experience of the world continues to be one of the greatest mysteries in nature. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts and a sense...

Sarah Wynn-Williams

Shocking and darkly funny, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to the decisions that are shaping our world and the people who make them. Welcome to Facebook.Sarah Wynn-Williams, a young diplomat from New Zealand, pitched for her dream job. She saw Facebook's potential and knew it could change the world for the better. But, when she got there and rose to its top ranks, th...

Rutger Bregman

It's a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Dawkins, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest. Humankind mak...

Fernanda Melchor

Written with an infernal lyricism that is as affecting as it is enthralling, Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor's first novel to appear in English, is a formidable portrait of contemporary Mexico and its demons, brilliantly translated by the award-winning translator Sophie Hughes. ...

Angela Carter

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALI SMITH A richly comic tale of the tangled fortunes of two theatrical families, the Hazards and the Chances, Angela Carter's witty and bawdy novel is populated with as many sets of twins, and mistaken identities as any Shakespeare comedy, and celebrates the magic of over a century of show business. ...

Alana S. Portero

'I urge you to read Bad Habit' PEDRO ALMODÓVAR 'Had me hooked from the first page ... Savour every word' DUA LIPA 'The book that everyone is reading' NEW YORK TIMES 'Sublime' ÉDOUARD LOUIS A SERVICE95 BOOK CLUB PICK Beautifully written and told in an irresistible voice, Bad Habit is a powerfully moving coming-of-age novel following a young trans woman in 1980s Madrid. An unna...

Adrian Tchaikovsky

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age--a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne dis...

Bonnie Garmus

As read on BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Winner of the Goodreads Choice Best Debut Novel Award A Book of the Year for: Guardian, Times, Sunday Times, Good Housekeeping, Woman and Home, Stylist, TLS, Oprah Daily, Newsweek, Mail on Sunday, New York Times Notable, India Knight, Hay Festival and many others 'Sparky, ri...

Marguerite Yourcenar

Framed as a letter from the Roman Emperor Hadrian to his successor, Marcus Aurelius, Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian is translated from the French by Grace Frick with an introduction by Paul Bailey in Penguin Modern Classics. In her magnificent novel, Marguerite Yourcenor recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world. The Emperor Hadrian...

Philippe Besson

THE NO.1 FRENCH BESTSELLER 'Stunning and heart-gripping' André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name 'A beautiful, shattering novel about desire and shame, about passionate youth and the regrets of age' Olivia Laing, bestselling author of Crudo Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe, a famous writer, chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first lo...

Cat Sebastian

An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, queer mid-century romance for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first season--set in the same universe as We Could Be So Good. The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O'Le...

Ellie Marney

The Silence of the Lambs meets Sadie in this riveting psychological thriller about two teenagers teaming up with the FBI to track down juvenile serial killers. In 1982, two teenagers--serial killer survivor Emma Lewis and US Marshal candidate Travis Bell--are recruited by the FBI to interview convicted juvenile killers and provide insight and advice on cold cases. From the star...

Jeremy Black

A wonderfully concise and very readable history of Spain, perfect for travellers This is the extraordinary story of Spain, from early tribalism and Roman rule to the Moorish conquest, Spain's eighteenth-century revival under the Bourbons, the Peninsular War and revolution in Spanish America right up to the catastrophic civil war and Franco's totalitarian regime. A key theme fr...

Giles Tremlett

Bestselling author Giles Tremlett traverses the rich and varied history of Spain, from prehistoric times to today, in a brief, accessible primer for visitors, curious readers and hispanophiles.'Tremlett is a fascinating socio-cultural guide, as happy to discuss Spain's World Cup win as its Moorish rule' Guardian 'Negotiates Spain's chaotic history with admirable clarity and sty...

Giles Tremlett

1474. Castile was the largest, strongest, and most populous kingdom in Hispania-- and Isabella ascended the throne, a female ruler in a male-dominated world. Her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon not only united their kingdoms, but began a royal partnership in which Isabella more than held her own. Tremlett chronicles Isabella's colorful life as she led her country out of the Mid...

Henry Kamen

"In this completely updated edition of Henry Kamen's classic survey of the Spanish Inquisition, the author incorporates the latest research in multiple languages to offer a new-and thought-provoking-view of this fascinating period. Kamen sets the notorious Christian tribunal into the broader context of Islamic and Jewish culture in the Mediterranean, reassesses its consequences...

J. H. Elliott

Cardinal Richelieu is one of the best known and most studied statesmen in European history; his Spanish contemporary and rival, the Count-Duke of Olivares, one of the least known. The contrasting historical fortunes of the two men reflect the outcome of the great struggle in seventeenth-century Europe between France and Spain: the triumph of France assured the fame of Richelieu...

Nigel Townson

A revelatory new history of Spain, from the late nineteenth century to the twenty-first'Spain is different, ' proclaimed the Franco regime in the 1940s, keen to attract foreign tourists. For the most part, the world has agreed. From the end of its 'glorious empire' in 1898 to the dazzling World Cup victory in 2010, the prevailing narrative of modern Spain has emphasized the cou...