Novel

The conclusion to Ken Liu’s chronicle of the Dandelion Dynasty quartet – one of the Greatest Fantasy Series of all Time (TIME MAGAZINE)Ukyu-Gondé: Stalked by foes and dogged by betrayal, Princess Théra is pursued across a continent vaster than she could ever have imagined, to the hidden valleys of the World's Edge Mountains, into the barrows and subterranean halls of the City of Ghosts, across the ice floes of the far north. She breached the Wall of Storms intent on taking war to the Lyucu homelands, but how do you conquer the unconquerable?Dara: Empress Jia, Prince Phyro and Pékyu Tanvanaki find themselves bound to paths they never would have chosen. Amid atrocity and subterfuge, they will discover that the Courage of Brutes is no substitute for the Grace of Kings, and that little separates the Grace of Kings from the Madness of Tyrants. On both sides of the Wall of Storms, defeat's bitter tears mix with the fruits of knowledge new and ancient as two empires bound by blood and bone, by writ and iron, by time and custom, face a whirlwind that threatens to utterly consume them. The teeth, as they say, are on the board. Reviews for The Dandelion Dynasty: 'Epic fantasy fans will enjoy this large-scale story of political strategy and skullduggery.' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'Impossibly exciting' EVENING STANDARD'An instant classic... poetry on every page' HUGH HOWEY

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died. Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she cannot remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don't always mean what they say. But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world? And why does her neighbour seem to be obsessed with her? Sally's trust issues are about to be severely challenged . .

Etgar Keret is an ingenious and original master of the short story. Radical, witty and always unusual, declared a 'genius' by the New York Times, Keret brings all of his prodigious talent to bear in this bestselling collection.

A man barges into a writer's house and, holding a gun to his head, demands that he tell him a story, something to take him away from the real world. A pathological liar discovers one day that all the lies he tells come true. A young woman finds a zip in her boyfriend's mouth, and when she opens it he unfolds to reveal a completely different man inside. Suddenly, a Knock on the Door is at once Keret's most mature and most playful work yet, and establishes him as one of the great international writers of our time.

'Extravagantly beautiful... Enormously, achingly alive... A howl of love and rage, playful and funny as well as hard and bitter’ New York Times As young girls, Nel and Sula shared each other's secrets and dreams in the poor black mid-West of their childhood. Then Sula ran away to live her dreams and Nel got married. Ten years later Sula returns and no one, least of all Nel, trusts her. Sula is a story of fear – the fear that traps us, justifying itself through perpetual myth and legend. Cast as a witch by the people who resent her strength, Sula is a woman of uncompromising power, a wayward force who challenges the smallness of a world that tries to hold her down. ‘What a force her thoughts have been and how grateful we must be that they were offered to us in this extremely challenging age’ Alice Walker, Guardian BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF BELOVED Winner of the PEN/Saul Bellow award for achievement in American fiction

Could these crystal clear waters hide the secrets of her past?Present dayFor years Shelly Summer has buried herself in her work, trying to forget her past. The only time she feels truly herself is when she's diving in the Mediterranean - the calm and stillness of the clear waters help her forget. Back home, Shelly stumbles across the belongings of her great-grandmother, Gertie Smith including a recording of Gertie's memoirs. As Shelly listens to it, she starts to uncover the secrets of Gertie's past, which might just hold the key to letting go of her own. 1916When trainee nurse Gertie Smith signs up for the war effort, she is thrilled to learn that her destination will be Greece. With a head full of blue skies and handsome men, she boards the Titanic's sister ship, the ill-fated hospital ship Britannic. Unprepared for the horrors of war, she heads for the Greek island of Lemnos on a mission to rescue three thousand wounded British soldiers. But tragically, the Britannic never reaches its destination. When rescued, Gertie is taken to the Greek island of Kea, where she meets and falls in love with a Greek fisherman, Manno - but she finds herself torn between him and her duty to an English soldier. Gertie cannot shake the guilt she feels from that tragic night the ship sank and is afraid her past will eventually catch up with her. Escape to paradise this Christmas with an irresistible tale of love and loss.

In this essential trilogy of novellas by the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, French author Patrick Modiano reaches back in time, opening the corridors of memory and exploring the mysteries to be encountered there. Each novella in the volume--"Afterimage," "Suspended Sentences," and "Flowers of Ruin"--represents a sterling example of the author's originality and appeal, while Mark Polizzotti's superb English-language translations capture not only Modiano's distinctive narrative voice but also the matchless grace and spare beauty of his prose. Although originally published separately, Modiano's three novellas form a single, compelling whole, haunted by the same gauzy sense of place and characters. Modiano draws on his own experiences, blended with the real or invented stories of others, to present a dreamlike autobiography that is also the biography of a place. Orphaned children, mysterious parents, forgotten friends, enigmatic strangers--each appears in this three-part love song to a Paris that no longer exists. Shadowed by the dark period of the Nazi Occupation, these novellas reveal Modiano's fascination with the lost, obscure, or mysterious: a young person's confusion over adult behavior; the repercussions of a chance encounter; the search for a missing father; the aftershock of a fatal affair. To read Modiano's trilogy is to enter his world of uncertainties and the almost accidental way in which people find their fates.

It's early morning on New Year's Eve, and 9-year-old Massimo wakes up to a long, doleful cry and the disconcerting image of his dad being supported by two strangers. Inexplicably, his mother has disappeared, leaving only a vague trail of perfume in his room and her dressing gown bundled up at the foot of his bed. Where has she gone? Will she ever come back? And will Massimo be able to say sorry, after quarrelling with her the night before?

Sybil, or The Two Nations is one of the finest novels to depict the social problems of class-ridden Victorian England. The book's publication in 1845 created a sensation, for its immediacy and readability brought the plight of the working classes sharply to the attention of the reading public. The 'two nations' of the alternative title are the rich and poor, so disparate in their opportunities and living conditions, and so hostile to each other. that they seem almost to belong to different countries. The gulf between them is given a poignant focus by the central romantic plot concerning the love of Charles Egremont, a member of the landlord class, for Sybil, the poor daughter of a militant Chartist leader.

'I tender these tales of the Jazz Age into the hands of those who read as they run and run as they read.' Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) was Fitzgerald's second collection of short stories, and it contains some of the best examples of his talent as a writer of short fiction. Often overshadowed by his major novels, Fitzgerald's short stories demonstrate the same originality and inventive range, as he chronicles with wry and astute observation the temper of the hedonistic 1920s. In 'May Day' and 'The Diamond as Big as the Ritz', two of his greatest stories, he conjures up the spirit of theage; in other stories he adopts a variety of forms - parody, a one-act play, fantasy - with unrivalled versatility. 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', a tale of a man living his life backwards, features among the 'Fantasies' in Fitzgerald's self-deprecatory Table of Contents, alongside the groupings 'MyLast Flappers' and 'Unclassified Masterpieces'. In these eleven stories, Fitzgerald establishes the style that was to make him one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth-century. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

From the author of the Costa Award-winning Asha & the Spirit Bird comes a breathtaking, magical adventure ... 'I absolutely adored it ... an achingly beautiful story' SITA BRAHMACHARI'Atmospheric, dreamy, charged with wonder and menace, loss, sorrow and delight' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT'A lush, gorgeous setting in a novel as vivid and original as her Costa-winning debut.' THE GUARDIAN 'Beautifully written, richly atmospheric and touchingly spiritual, this brief novel sparkles like a polished gem' DAILY MAILTamarind never knew her Indian mum, Chinty, who died soon after she was born. So when she arrives at her ancestral home, a huge mansion in the Himalayas surrounded by luxuriant gardens, she's full of questions for her extended family. But instead of answers, she finds an ominous silence - and a trickle of intriguing clues: an abandoned hut, a friendly monkey, a glowing star ring, and a strange girl in the garden who calls herself Ishta. Slowly, Tamarind unravels a mystery at the heart of who she is ...