Showing titles in Literary Fiction

Plantaganet Palliser, Prime Minister of England - a man of power and prestige, with all the breeding and inherited wealth that goes with it - is appalled at the inexorable rise of Ferdinand Lopez. An exotic impostor, seemingly from nowhere, Lopez has society at his feet, while well-connected ladies vie with each other to exert influence on his behalf - even Palliser’s own wife, Lady Glencora.

London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime whenever necessary. Everyone likes Julia.

Brought to you by Penguin. Magnus Pym - ranking diplomat, consummate Englishman, loving husband, secret agent - has vanished. Has he defected? Gone to ground? As the hunt for Pym intensifies, the secrets of his life are revealed: the people he has loved and betrayed, the unreliable con-man...

Ted Wallace is an old, sour, womanising, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet and drama critic, but he has his faults too. Fired from his newspaper, months behind on his alimony payments and disgusted with a world that undervalues him, Ted seeks a few months repose and free drink at Swafford Hall, the country mansion of his old friend Lord Logan. But strange things have been going on at Swafford....

A tour-de-force of historical imagination, this is the story of three young men at the dawn of the French Revolution. Georges-Jacques Danton: zealous, energetic, debt-ridden. Maximilien Robespierre: small, diligent, and terrified of violence. And Camille Desmoulins: a genius of rhetoric, charming, handsome, but erratic and untrustworthy. As these key figures of the French Revolution taste the addictive delights of power, they must also come to face the horror that follows.

As instructed, stenographer Sheila Webb let herself into the house at 19 Wilbraham Crescent. It was then that she made a grisly discovery: the body of a dead man sprawled across the living-room floor. What intrigued Poirot about the case was the time factor. Although in a state of shock, Sheila clearly remembered having heard a cuckoo clock strike 3.00. Yet, the four other clocks in the living room all showed the time as 4.13. Even more strange: only one of these clocks belonged to the owner of the house.

As read on BBC Radio 4 A Sunday Times Best Book of the Year An Observer Best Debut of the Year 'Compassionate, lyrical and full of devilment' - Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses 'A joy . . . vivid, loving and genuinely funny' - The Sunday Times 'I didn't want it to ever end' - Jennie Godfrey...

'A literary rite of passage.' The Times 'Plath changed our world.' Guardian Esther is supposed to be having the time of her life. Her internship at a fashion magazine is a whirl of cocktail parties and dinner dates in the shimmering city. But why doesn't she feel anything? Back home in the...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE The beloved first novel featuring Olive Kitteridge, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Lucy Barton and the Oprah’s Book Club pick Olive, Again “Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive Kitteridge. . . . You’ll never forget her...

Who owns the Eustace Diamonds? Lizzie Eustace claims that Sir Florian Eustace, her late husband, gave them to her. But Mr Camperdown, the family solicitor, insists that they are an heirloom, to be passed down from generation to generation. Lizzie is both beautiful and clever, yet Mr Camperdown believes her to be a scheming liar. And Mr Camperdown is right! The battle for the diamonds rages until a robbery intervenes and they disappear. Or do they...?

Dick Francis has written 36 best selling novels, one autobiography, and one biography. With Field of 13, he turns his hand to the short story. The settings range from the national Hunt at Cheltenham, where a middle-aged owner falls in love with her jockey, to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, where demon drink and wilting willpower take their toll.

In the latest book in the widely beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Precious Ramotswe takes on a case for a childhood acquaintance, but her inquiries will require an even more delicate touch than usual. Mma Ramotswe reconnects with an old friend who has been having problems with her daughter. Though Precious feels compelled to lend a hand, she discovers that getting involved in family affairs is always a delicate proposition.

Brought to you by Penguin. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. As their...

A sweeping, multigenerational saga for fans of Downton Abbey, set around the stately home of Cavendon Hall as the roaring '20s change the family's fortunes forever. It's 1926. One stately home's future lies with four very different young women.... On a summer weekend in 1926, the Ingham family gathers at Cavendon Hall, the great house in Yorkshire that has been their family home for centuries, summoned by the earl.

This is the story of a quiet man, destined to be a farmer but who becomes an academic. It is book in which nothing and everything happens and is possibly the greatest novel you've never read. William Stoner enters the University of Missouri at nineteen to study agriculture. A seminar on English...

Jockey Kelly Hughes and trainer Dexter Cranfield had been barred from racing – a devastating event for them both. The charge at the secret enquiry? Throwing a race for personal profit. It was a vicious frame-up and, worse, they had nowhere to turn to clear their names. Still Hughes refused to take the phony verdict lying down – even though his quest to clear his name might have him lying down permanently.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal...

BTB at her superb best. A sweeping saga set around the aristocratic Ingham family of Cavendon Hall and the Swanns who serve them, set on the eve of World War 1. Two entwined families: the aristocratic Inghams and the Swanns who serve them One stately home: Cavendon Hall, a grand imposing house...

Brought to you by Penguin. THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ***Now a Bafta and Oscar winning major motion picture starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini*** What happens behind the closed doors of the Roman Catholic Conclave? The mysterious rituals surrounding the congregation...

Kolymsky Heights: a frozen Siberian hell lost in endless night and the perfect location for an underground Russian research station. It's a place so secret, it doesn't officially exist.... Once there, the scientists are forbidden to leave. But one scientist is desperate to get a message to the outside world. So desperate he sends a plea across the wilderness to the west in order to summon the one man alive who can achieve the impossible....