Giovanni's Room

Tove Ditlevsen

The unforgettable final novel from the great Danish writer and author of The Copenhagen Trilogy 'Recently escaped a long, unhappy marriage - aged 51, but youthful in spirit - wonderful son, aged 15 - household literary name - summerhouse - large flat in the city centre - temporarily incapacitated by a nervous breakdown - prefers a motorist.' Vilhelm is gone; the room where he...

William Shakespeare

With a foreword by Lev Rosen, author of the Evander Mills series and You've Goth My Heart. 'All that glisters is not gold.' Rediscover Shakespeare's tale of bitterness and retribution. Bitterness begets blood. Bassiano is in love with the gorgeous heiress Portia! Alas, he's too poor to pass the suitors' test set by her father. Fortunately, Bassiano's best friend, Antonio, s...

Virgil

Crafted during the reign of Augustus Caesar at the outset of the Roman Empire, Virgil's Aeneid is a tale of thrilling adventure, extreme adversity, doomed romance, fateful battles, and profound loss. Through its stirring account of human struggle, meddling gods, and conflicting destinies, the poem brings to life the triumphs and trials that led to one of the most powerful socie...

Mary Shelley / Siv Jansson / Keith C / Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Frankenstein is the classic gothic horror novel which has thrilled and engrossed readers for two centuries. Written by Mary Shelley, it is a story which she intended would 'curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart.' The tale is a superb blend of science fiction, mystery and thriller. Victor Frankenstein driven by the mad dream of creating his own creature, experim...

Caroline Blackwood

Caroline Blackwood's masterpiece, shortlisted for the 1977 Booker Prize - a gothic family drama in miniature In her gloomy mausoleum of a home, the terrifying matriarch Great Granny Webster spends her days sitting bolt upright in a Victorian chair, entirely alone except for her one-eyed maid - and her orphaned great-granddaughter, sent to stay for the sea air. She presides ove...

A. A. Milne

Winnie the Pooh is a classic children's book by A.A. Milne that follows the adventures of a honey-loving bear named Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends, including Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, and Christopher Robin, in the fictional Hundred Acre Wood. The stories often center around Pooh's playful attempts to find honey, his simple nature, and the heart-warming friendships between t...

James Baldwin

'It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate' Told in the form of two intensely personal 'letters', The Fire Next Time is an excoriating condemnation of the terrible legacy of racial injustice, drawn from Baldwin's early life in Harlem and his exper...

James Baldwin

Baldwin's fourth novel recounts a lifetime of grappling with love, loss and identity 'Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it' At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, we see the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerab...

James Baldwin

When David meets the sensual Giovanni in a bohemian bar, he is swept into a passionate love affair. But his girlfriend's return to Paris destroys everything. Unable to admit to the truth, David pretends the liaison never happened - while Giovanni's life descends into tragedy. United by the theme of love, the writings in the Great Loves series span over two thousand years and va...

James Baldwin

"Nothing but the darkness, and all around them destruction, and before them nothing but the fire--a bastard people, far from God, singing and crying in the wilderness!" First published in 1953, Baldwin's first novel is a short but intense, semi-autobiographical exploration of the troubled life of the Grimes family in Harlem during the Depression. ...

James Baldwin

An award-winning play from one of America's most brilliant writers about a murder in a small Southern town, loosely based on the 1955 killing of Emmett Till. • "A play with fires of fury in its belly, tears of anguish in its eyes, a roar of protest in its throat." —The New York TimesJames Baldwin turns a murder and its aftermath into an inquest in which even the most well-inten...

James Baldwin

James Baldwin first wrote about homosexuality in his famous early novel, Giovanni?s Room. Here he brings homosexuality and race together in the story of the great gospel singer Arthur Montana. Arthur was found dead in the basement of a London pub at the age of thirty-nine, yet he lies on in this memoir. Written by Hall, his brother and manager, it is in part a subtle and moving...