Literature

'A full-spectrum triumph' GuardianA sensational new novel from the bestselling author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho that tracks a group of privileged Los Angeles high school friends as a serial killer strikes across the city. His first novel in 13 years, The Shards is Bret Easton Ellis at his inimitable best. LA, 1981. Buckley College in heat. 17-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends, even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret's obsession with Mallory is equalled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with The Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence. Can he trust his friends - or his own mind - to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, Bret spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between The Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision. Gripping, sly, suspenseful, deeply haunting and often darkly funny, The Shards is a mesmerizing fusing of fact and fiction that brilliantly explores the emotional fabric of Bret's life at 17 - sex and jealousy, obsession and murderous rage.

Artist's daughter Penelope Keeling can look back on a full and varied life: a Bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one man she truly loved. She has brought up three children - and learned to accept them as they are. Yet she is far too energetic and independent to settle sweetly into pensioned-off old-age. And when she discovers that her most treasured possession, her father's painting, The Shell Seekers, is now worth a small fortune, it is Penelope who must make the decisions that will determine whether her family can continue to survive as a family, or be split apart.

Anton Chekhov's only full-length novel, this Penguin Classics edition of The Shooting Party is translated and edited by Ronald Wilks, with an introduction by John Sutherland. The Shooting Party centres on Olga, the pretty young daughter of a drunken forester on a country estate, and her fateful relationships with the men in her life. Adored by Urbenin, the estate manager, whom she marries to escape the poverty of her home, she is also desired by the dissolute Count Karneyev and by Zinovyev, a magistrate, who knows the secret misery of her marriage. When an attempt is made on Olga's life in the woods, it seems impossible to discover the perpetrator in an impenetrable web of lust, deceit, loathing and double-dealing. One of Chekhov's earliest experiments in fiction combines the classic elements of a gripping mysterywith a short story of corruption, concealed love and fatal jealousy. Ronald Wilks's brilliant new translation of this work is the first in over seventy years. It brilliantly captures the immediacy of the dialogue that Chekhov was later to develop into his great dramas. This edition also includes an introduction by John Sutherland, suggestions for further reading and explanatory notes. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was born in Taganrog, a port on the sea of Azov. In 1879 he travelled to Moscow, where he entered the medical faculty of the university, graduating in 1884. During his university years, he supported his family by contributing humorous stories and sketches to magazines. He published his first volume of stories, Motley Tales, in 1886, and a year later his second volume In the Twilight, for which he received the Pushkin Prize. Today his plays, including 'Uncle Vanya', 'The Seagull', and 'The Cherry Orchard' are recognised as masterpieces the world over. If you enjoyed The Shooting Party, you might like Chekhov's Plays, also available in Penguin Classics.

From Pericles and the Parthenon to the triumphs and catastrophes of the modern nation, Heneage charts the odyssey of the Greeks through more than three tumultuous millennia. As he does so, he shows why the history of Europe's oldest civilisation is still vitally relevant today.

Introduced by Claire-Louise Bennett, experience one new mother's psychological journey in this lost 1930 foremother of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. 'Extraordinary. A fascinating and unexpected delight.' Lucy Ellmann'Haunting and evocative, this is a timeless portrayal of madness.' Catherine Cho'A startling, luminous and magnetic novel about the complexity of motherhood.' Yiyun Li'With its deep musicality, Coleman's unforgettable voice was years ahead of its time.' Sinead GleesonThe only thing to do is to put hammers in the porridge and when there are enough hammers we shall break down the windows and all of us shall dance in the snow. Some days, Marthe Gail believes she is God; others, Jesus Christ. Her baby, she thinks, is dead. The red light is shining. There are bars on the window. And the voices keep talking. Time blurs; snow falls. The doctors say it is a breakdown; that this is Gorestown State Hospital. Her fellow patients become friends and enemies, moving between the Day Room and Dining Hall, East Hall and West Side, avoiding the Strong Room. Her husband visits and shows her a lock of her baby's hair, but she doesn't remember, yet - until she can make it upstairs, ascending towards release ... Shocking and hilarious, tragic and visceral, this experimental portrait of motherhood and mental illness written in 1930 has never felt more visionary.

Yellow fog is swirling through the streets of London, and Sherlock Holmes himself is sitting in a cocaine-induced haze until the arrival of a distressed and beautiful young lady forces the great detective into action. Each year following the strange disappearance of her father, Miss Morstan has received a present of a rare and lustrous pearl. Now, on the day she is summoned to meet her anonymous benefactor, she consults Holmes and Watson.

WITH OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD, read the Sunday Times and No.1 New York Times bestselling, record-breaking thriller that everyone is talking about - soon to be a major film. 'The perfect thriller' AJ FINN'Terrific' - THE TIMES Crime Book of the Month'Smart, sophisticated suspense' - LEE CHILD'Compelling' - OBSERVER'Absolutely brilliant' - STEPHEN FRY'A totally original psychological mystery' - DAVID BALDACCI'One of the best thrillers I've read this year' - CARA HUNTER'The pace and finesse of a master' - BBC CULTUREAlicia Berenson lived a seemingly perfect life until one day six years ago. When she shot her husband in the head five times.

Since then she hasn't spoken a single word. It's time to find out why. THE SILENT PATIENT is the gripping must-read debut thriller of 2020 - perfect for fans of THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW by A.J.

Finn and THE GIRL BEFORE by JP Delaney.

A deep and meaningful masterpiece of science fiction, full of heart and mind-bending ideas. A true classic, Vonnegut will make you laugh and have you contemplating the meaning of lifeWhen Winston Niles Rumfoord flies his spaceship into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum he is converted into pure energy and only materializes when his waveforms intercept Earth or some other planet. As a result, he only gets home to Newport, Rhode Island, once every fifty-nine days and then only for an hour.

But at least, as a consolation, he now knows everything that has ever happened and everything that ever will be. He knows, for instance, that his wife is going to Mars to mate with Malachi Constant, the richest man in the world. He also knows that on Titan - one of Saturn's moons - is an alien from the planet Tralfamadore, who has been waiting 200,000 years for a spare part for his grounded spacecraft .

. . Readers love The Sirens of Titan:'A truly exceptional work by a truly exceptional author expressing some exceptionally powerful ideas' Goodreads reviewer, 'Vonnegut uses the absurd to explore what makes us human .

. . I recommend this book for any fan of Vonnegut or [Douglas] Adams' Goodreads reviewer, 'The Sirens of Titan is primarily a parody of trashy pulp science fiction novels, a boisterous, chucklesome book .

. . In this sense, The Sirens of Titan, twenty years early, precedes and foreshadows (and, I would say, is superior to) Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' Goodreads reviewer, 'There are plenty of space travels in The Sirens of Titan but it isn't a space opera .

. . It is a spaced out satire, a cosmic comedy of manners' Goodreads reviewer, 'I went into this expecting a science fiction/satire but instead I got an emotionally moving story about the meaning of life by none other than one of the greatest writers that ever lived.

Period' Goodreads reviewer, 'Funny until it suddenly becomes creepy, to tell you why would be a spoiler though . . .

Vonnegut is only using sci-fi as a platform to tell an allegorical story about life, together with an anti-war and anti-religion themes' Goodreads reviewer, 'This is not just one of Vonnegut's best books. It's one of the best books I've ever read' Goodreads reviewer,

The dazzling finale of the international bestselling series: The Mirror Visitor"The Mirror Visitor stands on the same shelf as Harry Potter."-Elle Magazine. "Strange and compelling."-The Guardian"World-building on an epic scale."-The Bookseller"Thrilling, unpredictable and disconcerting. This dense finale will leave no reader indifferent."-Master Edition Strasbourg In the closing volume of her thrilling saga, Christelle Dabos transports us back to her wonderful fantasy world. Readers will be gripped by the all too human trials and tribulations of the protagonists. Ophelia and Thorn brave a complex universe fraught with allegories, in their quest to uncover the truth. As the walls of mistrust that stood between them lay in ruins, Ophelia and Thorn fall in love. However, they must keep their love a secret and continue their investigation into God's code and the mysterious figure called the Other, and its devastating powers of destruction. But how will they find it, without even knowing what it looks like? More united than ever Ophelia and Thorn arrive at the Deviations Observatory. Here, behind an apparently benign facade, is a laboratory where terrifying, cruel experiments are conducted. Will the lovers discover the truth they've been searching for, and will they be able to bring balance back to the world of the Arcs?