Showing titles in Literature & Fiction

The last thing Alice expects to see at her husband’s graveside on his birthday is a giant, talking frog. On closer inspection, it’s a grown man dressed as Kermit. Turns out Alice’s husband is buried next to Ben’s older brother Harry, who—as a parting practical joke in his will—insisted that Ben visit his grave each year, on this specific day, dressed in an as-yet-undisclosed pageant of embarrassing fancy dress.

When lovelorn Annie McDee stumbles across a dirty painting in a junk shop while looking for a present for an unsuitable man, she has no idea what she has discovered. Soon she finds herself drawn unwillingly into the tumultuous London art world, populated by exiled Russian oligarchs, avaricious Sheikas, desperate auctioneers and unscrupulous dealers, all scheming to get their hands on her painting - a lost eighteenth-century masterpiece called ‘The Improbability of Love’. Delving into the painting’s past, Annie will uncover some of the darkest secrets of European history.

Read by Martin Freeman, in Life, the Universe and Everything, the third title in Douglas Adams' blockbusting sci-fi comedy series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent finds himself enlisted to prevent a galactic war. In consequence of a number of stunning catastrophes, Arthur Dent...

Elderflower Tea Shop is next door to Cardinal Woolsey's, the yarn shop Lucy runs and home to the late-night Vampire Knitting Club. The tea shop owners are a pair of octogenarian spinsters and old family friends, so Lucy wants to help clear up the mystery that's keeping their shop closed. But murder isn't the only issue troubling the Miss Watts. A man has come between them. Miss Florence Watt is being romanced by an old flame, one Mary Watt distrusts.

A satiric novel by Evelyn Waugh, published in 1930. Set in England between the wars, the novel examines the frenetic but empty lives of the Bright Young Things, young people who indulge in constant party-going, heavy drinking, and promiscuous sex. At the novel's end, the realities of the world intrude, with Adam Fenwick-Symes, the protagonist, serving on a battlefield at the onset of another world war.

The Cleverley family live a gilded life, little realising how precarious their privilege is, just one tweet away from disaster. George, the patriarch, is a stalwart of television interviewing, a 'national treasure' (his words); his wife, Beverley, a celebrated novelist; and their children, Nelson, Elizabeth, Achilles, various degrees of catastrophe waiting to happen. Together they will go on a journey of discovery through the Hogarthian jungle of the modern living where past presumptions count for nothing and carefully curated reputations can be destroyed in an instant.

Thea’s having a bad month. Not only has she been made redundant, she’s also discovered her husband of nearly 20 years is sleeping with one of her friends. And he’s not sorry - he’s leaving. Bewildered and lost, Thea doesn’t know what to do. But, when she learns the great-uncle she barely knew has died and left her his huge collection of secondhand books and a house in the Scottish Lowlands, she seems to have been offered a second chance. Running away to a little town where no one knows her seems like exactly what Thea needs.

Molly Gray has risen through the ranks to become Head Maid at the esteemed Regency Grand Hotel. She owes her penchant for polishing to her beloved Gran – a maid who passed on every cleaning tip she knew. But there’s more to Gran’s story than Molly once thought. In the pages of a diary, kept under lock and key, Molly discovers a past blotted with secrets. Why does it feel like something’s hidden in the family history? What happened to make Gran cut ties? Why didn’t Molly have a clue?

Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam play a married couple who met in the Summer of Love and have stayed together ever since. Children of the '60s, they are still free spirits, drawn together by their love for music and one another. We follow their conversations from the café to the kitchen table, taking in everyday chores, dealing with problems with long-held friendships and tackling their frustrations with each other.

Introducing Sissy Hankshaw—an almost flawlessly beautiful small-town girl with big-time dreams—who hitchhikes her way into your heart, your hopes, and your sleeping bag. Along her travels, meet such unforgettable characters as Bonanza Jellybean and the smooth-riding cowgirls of Rubber Rose Ranch; the unfortunately named Chink, a lascivious guru of yams and yang; Julian, an asthmatic esthete and husband by disposition; and Dr. Robbins, a preventive psychiatrist and reality instructor.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: 23 of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you'll ever encounter, sometimes all at once. They are told by people who have answered an ad headlined "Writers' Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months", and who are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions of "real life" that are keeping them from creating the masterpiece that is in them.

In 1970s Baltimore, 14-year-old Mary Jane loves cooking with her mother, singing in her church choir, and enjoying her family’s subscription to the Broadway Showtunes of the Month record club. Shy, quiet, and bookish, she’s glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. A respectable job, Mary Jane’s mother says. In a respectable house.

Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government, a pacifist who carries a gun, a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy, a cyberwhiz who hates computers, a robust bon vivant who can be as squeamish as any fop, a man who, though obsessed with the preservation of innocence, is aching to deflower his high-school-age stepsister (only to become equally enamored of a nun ten years his senior). Yet there is nothing remotely wishy-washy about Switters. He doesn't merely pack a pistol. He is a pistol.

The troubled teenager continues to struggle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life. In between the ups and downs of his relationship with the divine Pandora and worrying that his genius is going unrecognized, Adrian Mole chronicles the pains and pleasures of a misspent adolescence.

Lauren, who changes the man in her bed even more often than she changes course, is dating Victor but sleeping with Sean. Sean - cool, ambivalent and deeply cynical - might be in love with Lauren, but he’s not going to let that stop him from bedding Paul. Paul, as shrewd as he is passionate, is Lauren’s ex-lover and the final point in this curious triangle. From the author of American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis' The Rules of Attraction is a breathtaking tale of sex, expectation, desire and frustration.

Guten Appetot! Dank Achtsamkeit hat Björn Diemel seine Mitte gefunden. Seine Problemzonen sind nun allerdings die Ränder seines Körpers, die sich immer weiter von dieser Mitte entfernen. Björn erkennt, dass In sich ruhen und Mangel an Bewegung zwei grundverschiedene Dinge sind.

New standalone from the USA Today best-selling Knitting in the City romantic comedy series.

When Amy Ashton's world fell apart 11 years ago, she started a collection. Just a few keepsakes of happier times: some honeysuckle to remind herself of the boy she loved, a chipped china bird, an old terracotta pot.... Things that others might throw away, but to Amy, represent a life that could have been. Now her house is overflowing with the objects she loves - soon there'll be no room for Amy at all. But when a family move in next door, a chance discovery unearths a mystery, and Amy's carefully curated life begins to unravel.

Still bruised and heartbroken from their last calamitous quest, Gorm Ingerson and his band of washed-up heroes try to make amends for the orcs they accidentally betrayed. But justice is put on hold when an old foe marches to the city gates. Gorm is horrified to discover a liche pitching the frightened city-dwellers on the merits of the undead lifestyle...at the head of a corpse army. To save the city from high-pressure sales tactics and an inevitable siege, the dwarf warrior and his misfit band hatch a harebrained scheme that lands them at the top of the king’s kill list.

At home full-time with her two-year old son while his father travels for work, a woman finds herself struggling with solitude, monotony and exhaustion. If she has to manage one more bedtime alone, she fears she will lose her mind. So far, so familiar, you might say? But one night, a strange metamorphosis occurs.