Moby Dick in half the time
Moby Dick is the tale of one man's fatal obsession and his willingness to sacrifice his life and that of his crew to achieve his goal. The story follows the fortunes of Captain Ahab and the eccentric crew of a whaling ship, The Pequod. The ship is on its last voyage in pursuit of Moby Dick - the great white whale which wounded Ahab in the past is his quarry now. The battle with the elements, the sea, the dangerous confrontations of the whale hunts are embodied in the thrilling narration of the survivor Ishmael.
Orphaned at an early age, Jane Eyre survives an unhappy childhood at the grim Lowood School. Despite Jane's deprived background, her intelligence and courage earn her a position as a governess at the imposing home of Mr Rochester. Overcoming her sense that all at Thornfield Hall is not as it seems, Jane finds herself becoming fond of her new life. But she finds it increasingly hard to maintain her composure. As her cautious friendship with her often moody master deepens, Jane opens herself up to the possibility of happiness at last. But Thornfield Hall conceals secrets that are conspiring against their happiness.
Subtitled “A Study of Provincial Life,” George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch is a chronicle of the titular nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of political and social change. Eliot explores the upheaval and transformation brought about by these changes through their impact on the lives of a richly varied cast of characters that includes the pious young Dorothea Brooke, her suitor the Reverend Edward Casaubon, the ambitious doctor Tertius Lydgate, and the mysterious schemer John Raffles. Middlemarch is one of Barnes & Noble's Collectible Editions classics. Each volume features authoritative texts by the world's greatest authors in an exquisitely designed bonded-leather binding, with distinctive gilt edging and a ribbon bookmark. Decorative, durable, and collectible, these books offer hours of pleasure to readers young and old and are an indispensable cornerstone for every home library.
Compact editions - David Copperfield in half the time.
David Copperfield's happy childhood is abruptly ended by his mother's remarriage to Mr Murdstone. After enduring the misery of Salem House Academy and a life of drudgery in his step father's business, he runs away to his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood, in Dover, and transforms his life a second time - finding friendship with the ever optimistic Mr Micawber and falling in love with the adorable but spoilt Dora. But David has to face tragedy, and outface the scheming Uriah Heep before he finds ultimate happiness.
A #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
'Bernhard Schlink speaks straight to the heart' New York Times
'Brilliant... A tale of love and loss in 20th century Germany' Evening Standard
'A cleverly-constructed tale of cross-class romance' Mail on Sunday
'A poignant portrait of a woman out of step with her time' Observer
Olga is an orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees her as second-best.
When she falls in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with the era's dreams of power, glory and greatness, her life is irremediably changed.
Theirs is a love against all odds, entwined with the twisting paths of German history, leading us from the late 19th to the early 21st century, from Germany to Africa and the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west.
This is the story of that love, of Olga's devotion to a restless man - told in thought, letters and in a fateful moment of great rebellion.
'Another world must be unfurled, Another language known'
Best known - and beloved - for her highly popular novels including Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen was also an accomplished, and often witty, poet:
'I am going to have my dinner, after which I shan't be thinner'
This collection, which also includes poems by the poets she herself admired, sheds light not only on Jane Austen the writer, but on the themes that are woven through her bestselling novels. Satirical, humorous and ironical, they will resonate both with readers who love her novels, and newcomers alike.
'When stretched out on one's bed with a fierce throbbing head ... how little one cares for the grandest affairs'
'I am in a dilemma, for want of an Emma
'Fifteen years on, the remembrance of that day has returned to me. I have seen that boy wandering through the mist of the railway station, and the name of Marina has flared up again like a fresh wound. We all have a secret buried under lock and key in the attic of our soul. This is mine...'
In May 1980, 15-year-old Óscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in the old quarter of Barcelona. For seven days and nights no one knows his whereabouts...
His story begins in the heart of old Barcelona, when he meets Marina and her father German Blau, a portrait painter. Marina takes Óscar to a cemetery to watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the fourth Sunday of each month. At 10 a.m. precisely a coach pulled by black horses appears. From it descends a woman dressed in black, her face shrouded, wearing gloves, holding a single rose. She walks over to a gravestone that bears no name, only the mysterious emblem of a black butterfly with open wings.
When Óscar and Marina decide to follow her they begin a journey that will take them to the heights of a forgotten, post-war Barcelona, a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons; and a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón was born in Barcelona and is the author of seven novels including THE SHADOW OF THE WIND. He is one of the world's most read and best-loved writers. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages and published around the world, garnering numerous international prizes and reaching millions of readers. He divides his time between Barcelona and Los Angeles.
'A brilliant contemporary novel' Colm Tóibín
'I am fully in awe of Dolan's talent' Douglas Stuart
'I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed it' Marian Keyes
'Dazzling. Not a word is out of place' Katherine Heiny
Meet Celine and Luke. To all intents and purposes, the happy couple.
But Celine's more interested in playing the piano, and Luke's a serial cheater.
And as their big day approaches, the complicated lives of the wedding party begin to unravel. A fed-up bridesmaid, a lovesick best man, guests and family members all find themselves searching for their own happily ever afters.
From the author of Exciting Times, this is a sparkling ensemble novel about love and marriage, fidelity and betrayal.
'One of the most marvellous books I've read in years'
Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances
'A bacchanal of familial entanglements, as beautiful as it is brutal'
Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
Daniel Cunha has a lot on his mind. He got dumped by his pregnant girlfriend, his grandfather just dropped dead, and on the anniversary of the raid that doomed his drug-dealing aunt and uncle, his mother makes her unwanted return to Brazil.
Misfortune, however, is a Cunha family affair, and no generation is spared. As New Year's Eve nears, old secrets are brought to light and the Cunha family hurtles toward an irrevocable breaking point: a fire, a knife, and a death on the sands of Copacabana Beach.
Bleak House in half the time
Esther Summerson finds herself caught up in the frustrations of a seemingly unending law-case involving her generous guardian Mr Jarndyce and her wards Ada and Richard.Brought into contact with poverty and disease, Esther suffers a serious illness.
Meanwhile the unscrupulous lawyer Tulkinghorn seeks to expose the past of the wife of a rich aristocrat, and the secret of Esther's birth is revealed. But in the midst of tumultuous events, will she ever find love?
Six women - mothers, daughters, sisters - gone missing.
Inspired by the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six, this is the story of two sisters, both of whom could be the next victims.
Arcade and Daffodil are twin sisters born one minute apart. With their fiery red hair and thirst for an escape, they form an unbreakable bond nurtured by their grandmother's stories. Together they disappear into their imagination and forge a world where a patch of grass reveals an archaeologist's dig, the smoke emerging from the local paper mill becomes the dust rising from wild horses galloping deep beneath the earth, and an abandoned 1950s convertible transforms into a time machine that can take them anywhere.
But no matter how hard they try, Arc and Daffy can't escape the generational ghosts that haunt their family. And so, left to fend for themselves in the shadow of their rural Ohio town, the two sisters cling tight to one another.
Years later, as the sisters wrestle with the memories of their early life, a local woman is discovered dead in the river. Soon, more bodies are left floating in the water, and as the killer circles ever closer, Arc's promise to keep herself and her sister safe becomes increasingly desperate - and the powerful riptide of the savage side more difficult to survive.
Drawing from the true story of women killed in Chillicothe, Ohio, acclaimed novelist and poet Tiffany McDaniel has written a moving literary testament and fearless elegy for missing women everywhere.
PRAISE FOR TIFFANY McDANIEL'S BETTY
'A coming-of-age story filled with magic in language and plot' Observer
'Breahtaking' Vogue
'I felt consumed by this book. I loved it, you will love it' Daisy Johnson
'A page-turning Appalachian coming-of-age story told in undulating prose that settles right into you' Naoise Dolan
'Vivid and lucid, Betty has stayed with me' Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Once-in-a-generation memoir of a rock legend - the No. 1 SUNDAY TIMES bestseller.
'Electrifying' New York Times
'A masterpiece' The Word
'Funny, poignant, brutally honest' Sunday Telegraph
With the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the riffs, the lyrics and the songs that roused the world, and over four decades he lived the original rock and roll life: taking the chances he wanted, speaking his mind, and making it all work in a way that no one before him had ever done.
Now, at last, the man himself tells us the story of life in the crossfire hurricane. And what a life. Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records as a child in post-war Kent. Learning guitar and forming a band with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones' first fame and success as a bad-boy band. The notorious Redlands drug bust and subsequent series of confrontations with a nervous establishment that led to his enduring image as outlaw and folk hero.
Creating immortal riffs such as the ones in 'Jumping Jack Flash' and 'Street Fighting Man' and 'Honky Tonk Women'. Falling in love with Anita Pallenberg and the death of Brian Jones. Tax exile in France, wildfire tours of the US, 'Exile on Main Street' and 'Some Girls'. Ever increasing fame, isolation and addiction. Falling in love with Patti Hansen. Estrangement from Mick Jagger and subsequent reconciliation. Solo albums and performances with his band the Xpensive Winos. Marriage, family and the road that goes on for ever.
In a voice that is uniquely and intimately his own, with the disarming honesty that has always been his trademark, Keith Richards brings us the essential life story of our times.
WATERSTONES FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH FOR OCTOBER 2024
THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER
BARACK OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK
AMAZON.COM NO.1 BOOK OF THE YEAR
'I loved this book' BONNIE GARMUS
'A generous, compassionate book about the power of love and community' LOUISE KENNEDY
'I can't recommend this one highly enough ' HARLAN COBEN
'THIS is his best book' ANN PATCHETT
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where Jewish immigrants and African Americans lived side by side through the 1920s and '30s.
In this novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them, James McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community - heaven and earth - that sustain us.
THE ADDICTIVE No.1 BESTSELLER AND INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON
OVER 20 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
THE BOOK THAT DEFINES PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
Who are you?
What have we done to each other?
These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?
'Flynn is a brilliantly accomplished psychological crime writer and this latest book is so dark, so twisted and so utterly compelling that it actually messes with your mind' DAILY MAIL
'A near-masterpiece. Flynn is an extraordinary writer who, with every sentence, makes words do things that other writers merely dream of' SOPHIE HANNAH, Sunday Express
'You think you're reading a good, conventional thriller and then it grows into a fascinating portrait of one averagely mismatched relationship...Nothing's as it seems - Flynn is a fabulous plotter, and a very sharp observer of modern life in the aftermath of the credit crunch' THE TIMES
'One of the most popular thrillers of the year is also one of the smartest... Flynn's book cleverly outpaces its neo-noir trappings and consistently surprises the reader.' FINANCIAL TIMES
THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017
WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE and THE JQ-WINGATE LITERARY PRIZE
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER
'A monumental achievement: profoundly personal, told with love, anger and great precision' John le Carré
'One of the most gripping and powerful books imaginable' SUNDAY TIMES
When he receives an invitation to deliver a lecture in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, international lawyer Philippe Sands begins a journey on the trail of his family's secret history. In doing so, he uncovers an astonishing series of coincidences that lead him halfway across the world, to the origins of international law at the Nuremberg trial. Interweaving the stories of the two Nuremberg prosecutors (Hersch Lauterpacht and Rafael Lemkin) who invented the crimes or genocide and crimes against humanity, the Nazi governor responsible for the murder of thousands in and around Lviv (Hans Frank), and incredible acts of wartime bravery, EAST WEST STREET is an unforgettable blend of memoir and historical detective story, and a powerful meditation on the way memory, crime and guilt leave scars across generations.
WINNER OF THE HAY FESTIVAL MEDAL FOR PROSE 2017
'I FINISHED THIS WONDERFUL BOOK IN FLOODS OF TEARS' JESSIE BURTON
'SUCH A PLEASURE' CLARE CHAMBERS
'WITTY AND INSIGHTFUL' BONNIE GARMUS
At fifty-seven, Julia Ames finds herself with an improbably lovely life. She has a husband she loves, two happy children and a contented existence in the suburbs.
She's unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, a soon-to-be empty nest, and a seductive resurgence of the past - all of which threaten to derail Julia's hard-earned peace.
Wise, witty and deeply moving, this brilliantly observed domestic drama asks what it takes to make - and not to break - a family.
'A FAMILY SAGA TO SAVE AS A TREAT AND DEVOUR WHEN YOU SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING ELSE' INDEPENDENT
'LOMBARDO IS THE NEW ANNE TYLER, WITH TEETH' ERICKA WALLER
'A BIG AMERICAN NOVEL TO GET TOTALLY LOST IN' CLAIRE POWELL
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
THE BOOK EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
'Just read it. It's unforgettable'
India Knight, The Sunday Times
'It is impossible to read this novel and not be moved. It is also impossible not to laugh out loud... Extraordinary'
Guardian
'Full of snappy one-liners but, at the same time, remarkably poignant'
Craig Brown
'Probably the best book you'll read this year'
Mail on Sunday
'Completely brilliant. I think every girl and woman should read it'
Gillian Anderson
'Exactly the book to read right now, when you need a laugh, but want to cry'
Observer
'The most wonderful, heartbreakingly gorgeous novel of the year'
Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie
'A raucously funny, beautifully written, emotion-bashing book'
The Times
'I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realised that I wanted to send it to everyone I know'
Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House
'One of those "read it in one sitting and tell all your friends" kind of books'
Evening Standard
'Patrick Melrose meets Fleabag. Brilliant'
Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures
Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband Patrick. A gift, her mother once said, not everybody gets.
So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave?
Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her. Something that broke when a little bomb went off in her brain, at 17, and left her changed in a way that no doctor or therapist has ever been able to explain.
Forced to return to her childhood home to live with her dysfunctional, bohemian parents (but without the help of her devoted, foul-mouthed sister Ingrid), Martha has one last chance to find out whether a life is ever too broken to fix - or whether, maybe, by starting over, she will get to write a better ending for herself.
THE BOOK OF THE YEAR
An instant Sunday Times bestseller and a book of the year for the Times and Sunday Times, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard, Spectator, Daily Express, Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Irish Daily Mail, Metro, Critic, Sydney Morning Herald, Los Angeles Times, Stylist, Red and Good Housekeeping
THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
A gripping, sinister folktale set in contemporary Cumbria for fans of Sophie Mackintosh, Angela Carter, Daisy Johnson, Margaret Atwood and Julia Armfield
'A new generation of literary horror begins with Lucy Rose'
GENEVIEVE JAGGER
'Deliciously dark and shockingly bold. One of my favourite debuts in a long time'
KIRSTY LOGAN
'Superbly creepy . . . at heart it's about dysfunctional family dynamics, female rage and empowerment'
FINANCIAL TIMES
'An unforgettable, nightmarish tale. I ate it all up'
ANNA BOGUTSKAYA
A FOLK TALE. A HORROR STORY. A LOVE STORY. AN ENCHANTMENT.
Margot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn't at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.
But Mama's want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom.
With this tender coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts - and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.
'Stunning, shocking and surprising at each turn'
BENJAMIN MYERS
'A modern Grimm fairytale'
SUSAN BARKER
'Dark, poetic, gothic, folky and full of courage and beauty'
TIM DOWNIE
'Dear reader, I predict you will be as obsessed as me'?
MOLLY AITKEN
'Lucy Rose can certainly write . . . The Lamb grips all the way to an unexpected denouement'
GUARDIAN
Anna Karenina in half the time
Anna Karenina is the heart-wrenching tale of a woman who recklessly throws away everything she has for a passionate affair with a young soldier. Beautiful, popular, wife to a wealthy man and mother to an adored son, Anna seems to be in an enviable position.
However, it takes only one encounter with Count Vronsky to fill her with the sense that her life has hitherto been empty. As the rest of the world fades into insignificance next to her great love, Anna faces an impossible choice¿
Pre-order Ray Nayler's brand-new speculative historical thriller Palaces of the Crow, coming soon!
'I loved this novel's brain and heart'
DAVID MITCHELL, AUTHOR OF CLOUD ATLAS
'A first-rate speculative thriller, by turns fascinating, brutal, powerful, and redemptive'
JEFF VANDERMEER, AUTHOR OF ANNIHILATION
There are creatures in the water of Con Dao.
To the locals, they're monsters.
To the corporate owners of the island, an opportunity.
To the team of three sent to study them, a revelation.
Their minds are unlike ours.
Their bodies are malleable, transformable, shifting.
They can communicate.
And they want us to leave.
When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn't pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA - a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence - has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research.
But the stakes are high: the octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence and there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of their advancements. And no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.
Locus Award 2023 - Winner of First Novel award
Nebula Award 2023 Finalist.
Ray Bradbury Prize 2023 Finalist.
Shortlisted for the 2024 Arthur C. Clarke Award
Hera is in her mid-twenties, which seems young to everyone except people in their mid-twenties.
Since leaving school, she has been trying to kick and scream into existence a life she cares about, but with little success so far.
Until she meets Arthur.
He works with her, he is older than her, he is also married. But in her soulless office - the large cold room she feels destined to spend her life in - he is a source of much-needed sustenance.
And though Hera has previously dated women, she soon falls headlong into a workplace romance that will quickly consume her life.
Laugh-out-loud funny, deeply moving and whip smart, Green Dot is a story about the terrible allure of wanting something that promises nothing and the winding, torturous, often hilarious journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.
A stunning new translation of the classic tale of the fall of Troy from one of the world's finest translators. If you enjoyed THE SONG OF ACHILLES, discover the original and the best...
Man seduces another's wife then kidnaps her. The husband and his brother get a gang together to steal her back and take revenge. The woman regrets being seduced and wants to escape, whilst the man's entourage resent the position they have been placed in. Yet the battle lines have been drawn and there is no going back...
Not the plot of the latest Hollywood thriller, but the basis of the ILIAD - the Greek classic that details the war between the Greeks and the Trojans after the kidnapping of Helen of Sparta. Based on the recent, superb, M.L. West edition of the Greek, this ILIAD is more readable and moving than any previous version. Thanks to the scholarship and poetic power of the highly acclaimed Stephen Mitchell, this new translation recreates the energy and simplicity, the speed, grace, and continual thrust and pull of the original, while the ILIAD's ancient story bursts vividly into life. This edition also includes book 10 as an appendix, making it indispensible for students and lay readers alike.
A GUARDIAN AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
'The most exquisite kind of literature... I've put it on a special shelf in my library that I reserve for books that demand to be revisited every now and then. '
OLGA TOKARCZUK, author of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
'Could not be more timely... It's funny and absurd, but it's also frightening, because even as Gospodinov plays with the idea as fiction, the reader begins to recognise something rather closer to home... A writer of great warmth as well as skill'
GUARDIAN
'In equal measure playful and profound, Time Shelter renders the philosophical mesmerizing, and the everyday extraordinary. I loved it'
CLAIRE MESSUD, author of The Woman Upstairs
'A genrebusting novel of ideas... Gospodinov's vision of tomorrow is the nightmare from which Europe knows it must awake. And accident, in combination with the book's own merits, may just have created a classic'
THE TIMES
'Gospodinov is one of Europe's most fascinating and irreplaceable novelists, and this his most expansive, soulful and mind-bending book'
DAVE EGGERS, author of The Circle
'Touching and intelligent'
NEW YORK TIMES
'A powerful and brilliant novel: clear-sighted, foreboding, enigmatic'
SANDRO VERONESI, author of The Hummingbird
'An immensely enjoyable book which achieves depth with an affable narrative voice'
IRISH TIMES
In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a 'clinic for the past' that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.
As Gaustine's assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a 'time shelter', hoping to escape from the horrors of our present - a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.
Intricately crafted, and eloquently translated by Angela Rodel, Time Shelter cements Georgi Gospodinov's reputation as one of the indispensable writers of our times, a major voice in international literature.
Georgi Gospodinov is one of Europe's most acclaimed writers. Originally from Bulgaria, his novels have won his country's most prestigious literary prize twice and have been shortlisted for more than a dozen international prizes - including the 2015 PEN Literary Award for Translation, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori, the Premio Strega Europeo, the Bruecke Berlin Preis, and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Literaturpreis. He has won the 2016 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, the 2019 Angelus Literature Central Europe Prize and the 2021 Premio Strega Europeo, among others.
