Roman

When Mr. Polly grows tired of his wife's nagging and his job as the owner of a regional gentleman's outfitters, he concludes that the only way to escape his sad existence is by burning his shop to the ground and killing himself.

THERE'S NO PLANET LIKE HOMEAfter an 'incident' one wet Friday night where he was found walking naked through the streets of Cambridge, Professor Andrew Martin is not feeling quite himself. Food sickens him. Clothes confound him.

Even his loving wife and teenage son are repulsive to him. He feels lost amongst an alien species and hates everyone on the planet. Everyone, that is, except Newton, (and he's a dog).

Who is he really? And what could make someone change their mind about the human race?

'A writer at the peak of his powers . . . The book takes us from the first to the seventh circles of hell, from Salinger to de Sade' - Will SelfThe Informers is a collection of short stories with intertwining characters, from the author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis. Their voices enfold us as seamlessly as those of DJs heard over a car radio. The characters go to the same schools. They eat at the same restaurants. They have sex with the same boys and girls. They buy from the same dealers. Fusing voices into an intense, impressionistic narrative that blurs genders, generations and even identities, these stories capture the lives of a group of people, connected in the way only people in L.A. can be - suffering from nothing less than the death of the soul.

'Who could read the programme for the excursion without longing to make one of the party?'So Mark Twain acclaims his voyage from New York City to Europe and the Holy Land in June 1867. His adventures produced The Innocents Abroad, a book so funny and provocative it made him an international star for the rest of his life. He was making his first responses to the Old World - to Paris, Milan, Florence, Venice, Pompeii, Constantinople, Sebastopol, Balaklava, Damascus, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem. For the first time he was seeing the great paintings and sculptures of the 'Old Masters'. He responded with wonder and amazement, but also with exasperation, irritation, disbelief. Above all he displayed the great energy of his humour, more explosive for us now than for his beguiled contemporaries.

 A new novel from the Italian author of }God's Dog{, this follows on from }New Finnish Grammar{ and }The Last Of The Vostyachs{ to form a trilogy of novels on the theme of language and identity. Blends elements of a thriller, a quest and a comic picaresque caper, but also deals with the profound issues of existence. 

'One day there is life ...and then, suddenly, it happens there is death'. So begins Paul Auster's moving and personal meditation on fatherhood. The first section, 'Portrait of an Invisible Man', reveals Auster's memories and feelings after the death of his father. In "The Book of Memory" the perspective shifts to Auster's role as a father. The narrator, 'A', contemplates his separation from his son, his dying grandfather and the solitary nature of writing and story-telling.

The second volume of the remarkable autobiography of Arthur Koestler, author of Darkness at Noon.

Taken together, Arthur Koestler's volumes of autobiography constitute an unrivalled study of a twentieth-century life. The Invisible Writing picks up where the first volume, Arrow in the Blue, ended, with Koestler joining the Communist Party. This second volume goes on to detail some of the most important, gruelling and electrifying experiences in his life.

This book tells of Koestler's travels through Russia and remote parts of Soviet Central Asia and of his life as an exile. It tells of how he survived in Franco's prisons under sentence of death and in concentration camps in Occupied France and ends with his escape in 1940 to England, where he found stability and a new home.

'Wilson's memoir is essential reading for anyone who wants to experience and understand the unique comfort that Austen's works universally provide.' NATALIE JENNER (author of The Jane Austen Society)At 70, Ruth Wilson began to have recurring dreams about losing her voice. As she grappled with feelings of unfathomable sadness, she made the radical decision to retreat from her conventional life with her husband to a small sunshine-yellow cottage in the countryside where she lived alone for the following ten years. From the moment she first encountered Pride and Prejudice in the 1940s she had looked to Jane Austen's heroines as her models for the sort of woman she wanted to become. She resolved to re-read Austen's six novels; to reflect on her life in relation to what she discovered in each of them. And as Ruth read between the lines of both the novels and her own life, she began to reclaim her voice. A life-affirming memoir of love, self-acceptance and the curative power of reading, The Jane Austen Remedy is an inspirational account of the lessons learned from Jane Austen over nine decades, as well as a timely reminder that it's never too late to seize a second chance.

From internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende comes an exquisitely crafted, multigenerational love story. In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis and the world goes to war, young Alma Belasco's parents send her overseas to live with an aunt and uncle in their opulent San Francisco mansion. There she meets Ichimei Fukuda, the son of the family's Japanese gardener, and between them a tender love blossoms, but following Pearl Harbor the two are cruelly pulled apart. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love they are forever forced to hide from the world. Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to reconcile her own troubled past, meets the older woman and her grandson, Seth, at Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, and learn about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.

Someone has seized the fabled Jewel of Seven Stars from the mummy's grip, and the ancient Egyptian queen Tera has risen from her tomb to take it back—at any cost! This thrilling tale of adventure and ritual magic recounts a supernatural struggle in which archeologists, grave robbers, and anyone else who attempts to possess the Jewel meet a mysterious, violent fate. Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, wrote this enthralling novel of possession, reincarnation, and an ancient curse at the peak of the Victorian fascination with Egyptology. His spellbinding blend of Eastern lore and classic horror fiction formed the template for the plots of dozens of mummy movies. This edition features the original ending as it appeared in the 1903 publication, a gripping conclusion that was censored in subsequent printings and long unavailable.