Hemingway's passion for Spain and the bullfight is renowned. This book contains some of the finest short stories Hemingway ever wrote, inspired by the intense life as well as the inevitable death of those hot, violent afternoons.

Cheri, first published in 1920, is considered Colette's finest novel. Exquisitely handsome, spoilt and sardonic, Cheri is the only son of a wealthy courtesan, a contemporary of Lea, the magnificent and talented woman who for six years has devoted herself to his amorous education. When a rich marriage is arranged for Cheri, Le... read more

Growing up amongst the fields and woods and characters of the place, this memoir is about the authors childhood in a remote Cotswold village, a village before electricity or cars, a timeless place on the verge of change. It also depicts a world that is both immediate and real and belongs to a now-distant past.

In the summer of 1985 William Styron was overtaken by persistent insomnia and a troubling sense of malaise - the first signs of a deep depression that would engulf his life and leave him on the brink of suicide. Darkness Visible takes us on an unprecedented journey into the realm of madness. It is an intimate portrait of th... read more

A comedy of errors, this title portrays the mischief wrought by Julius, a cynical intellectual who decides to demonstrate through a Machiavellian experiment how easily loving couples, caring friends, and devoted siblings can betray their loyalties.

Annette runs away from finishing school to enter the school of life. As a result she meets a diverse group of characters, all of whom are trying to break free from their own particular obsessions.

Calvino's masterpiece opens with a scene that's reassuringly commonplace: apparently. Indeed, it's taking place now. A reader goes into a bookshop to buy a book: not any book, but the latest Calvino, the book you are holding in your hands. Or is it? Are you the reader? Is this the book? Beware. All assumptions are dangerous o... read more

Edmund has escaped from his family into a lonely life. Returning for his mother's funeral he finds himself involved in the same awful problems, together with some new ones. He also rediscovers the eternal family servant, the ever-changing "Italian girl".

A novel originally published in 1968, revolving around a happily married couple and telling of a violent death, blackmail, suspected espionage, Black Arts, stress and terror, over which love conquers all.

Gertrude has lost her husband and Anne, an ex-nun, her God. They plan to live together and do good works. Tim is a different sort of soldier. He plans to live off rich friends. Who will judge whom in this story?

As his tale begins, Orlando is a passionate young nobleman whose days are spent in rowdy revelry, filled with the colourful delights of Queen Elizabeth's court. By the close, he will have transformed into a modern, thirty-six-year-old woman and three centuries will have passed. Orlando will witness the making of history from ... read more

During a vicious persecution of the clergy in Mexico, a worldly priest, the 'whisky priest', is on the run. With the police closing in, his routes of escape are being shut off, his chances getting fewer. But compassion and humanity force him along the road to his destiny, reluctant to abandon those who need him, and those he cares for.

The scene is Ireland. The time, 1916, is the eve of the famous, tragic Easter Rebellion in Dublin, which startled Europe even in the midst of the First World War. A single Anglo Irish family provides the extremely diverse characters. Pat Dumay is a Catholic and an Irish patriot. His relentlessly pious mother pursues her own p... read more

A work of anthropology and sociology, of biology and psychoanalysis, which stands - almost five decades after its first appearance - as the first landmark in the modern feminist upsurge that has transformed perceptions of the social relationship of man and womankind in our time.

STRICTLY PRIVATE. KEEP OUT ON PAIN OF DEATH. I'm Tracy Beaker - have you heard of me? I'm stuck in The Dumping Ground just at the moment, but I'm sure my Mum will come and get me soon. A certain Justine-Hateful-Littlewood has stolen my best friend Louise but I don't let it get me down. I never cry. Ever. I've done a bit of sc... read more

Carel Fisher is a priest who is experiencing doubt and beginning to feel hate for God. The novel explores the forces of good and evil, and studies a religious man transferring his faith from one force to the other.

When Marion Taylor takes a post as governess at Gaze Castle, a remote house upon a coast, she finds herself confronted with weird mysteries. Some crime or catastrophe in the past still keeps the house under a spell, whose magic also touches the neighbouring house of Riders, inhabited by a recluse.

This is the story of nine people, each of whom is looking for love, and the resulting complex relationships between them. Impelled by affection, lust, lost scruple, illusion and disillusion, wanting to be free yet needing to be involved, these characters perform the linked figures of their destiny.

Hilary Burde, saved by education from a delinquent childhood, cheated out of Oxford by a tragic love tangle, cherishes his obsessive guilt and disappointment in a dull, orderly civil service job. When the man whom he has harmed and betrayed reappears as head of his department, Hilary hopes for forgiveness, even for redemption... read more