Showing titles in World Literature

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born - a history whose epicentre is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class and masculinity.

Brought to you by Penguin. The mesmerising new novel from Ian McEwan, the bestselling author of Atonement. The world is forever changing. But for so many of us, old wounds run deep. Lessons is an intimate yet universal story of love, regret and a restless search for answers. While the world is...

The fifth volume of memoirs from the author who inspired the BBC and Channel 5 series All Creatures Great and Small. During his decades spent as a country vet in Yorkshire, James Herriot has seen huge advances in medical science, technological leaps, and a world irrevocably changed by war. Yet...

Caroline will tell the story of how she came to Tasmania, when it was still called Van Diemen's Land, many times. She will cast her inventions into the future. Those who carry them on will call it history, but she will call it her life. Van Diemen's Land, 1839. A young woman of means arrives in Hobart. Leasing an old cottage next to an abandoned vineyard, Caroline Douglas must navigate an insular colony of exiles and opportunists to create a new life on this island of extreme seasons and wild beauty.

A MAJOR BBC TV SERIES STARRING COLIN FARRELL, JACK O'CONNELL AND STEPHEN GRAHAM A ship sets sail with a killer on board . . . 1859. A man joins a whaling ship bound for the Arctic Circle. Having left the British Army with his reputation in tatters, Patrick Sumner has little option but to accept...

Jessica Raine stars in all four BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations of John Galsworthy's Forsyte novels. An irresistible family saga of love, money and betrayal, The Forsytes: The Complete Series encompasses four acclaimed BBC Radio 4 productions of Galsworthy's perennially popular epic, spanning 50 years from 1886 to 1936.

Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.

As well as writing about his first love, cars, James has a go at political correctness, the endless rules and regulations of daily life, the internal combustion engine and traffic wardens. He discusses gastropubs, Jeremy Clarkson, and other trials of modern life. His highly entertaining observations from behind the wheel will have you laughing out loud, whether you share his opinions or not.

Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son, Daniel, one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out La Sombra del Viento by Julian Carax. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find.

Nobody leaves Auschwitz alive. Mala, inmate 19880, understood that the moment she stepped off the cattle train into the depths of hell. Edward, inmate 531, is a camp veteran and a political prisoner. They are locked up for no other sin than simply existing. But when they meet, the dark shadow of Auschwitz is lit by a glimmer of hope. Edward makes Mala believe in the impossible. That despite being surrounded by electric wire, machine guns topping endless watchtowers and searchlights roaming the ground, they will leave this death camp.

The second collection of memoirs from the author who inspired the BBC and Channel 5 series All Creatures Great and Small. Now settled into the sleepy Yorkshire village of Darrowby, and married to Helen the farmer’s daughter, James Herriot thinks he’s finally got himself sorted. But life as a...

When renowned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she’s expected to make a quick recovery, and her nurse, Sona, is excited to learn more about the vivacious artist who shares her half-Indian identity. Sona, yearning for a larger life, finds herself carried away by Mira’s stories of her travels and exploits and is shocked by accounts of the many lovers the painter has left scattered throughout Europe. When Mira dies quite suddenly and mysteriously, Sona falls under suspicion, and her quiet life is upended.

Wisecracking Kerry Salter has spent a lifetime avoiding two things - her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying, and she’s an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Kerry plans to spend 24 hours, tops, over the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of grabbing on to people. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river.

Promises are meant to be kept. Especially a promise like this. Jack Widow is submarine-watching near Kitsap Naval Base, outside Seattle, when he runs into an old friend. In a hurry, his sailor buddy takes him to a prestigious medal ceremony: the Navy Cross. The event is a “big deal” because the medal is going to the first Native American woman recipient. Who is she? Lou Cosay is a highly decorated former sailor-turned-NCIS agent. She’s smart, tough, and deadly.

A favorite of longtime Harry Crews fans, The Knockout Artist (1988) portrays Eugene Talmadge Biggs, a young boxer from rural Georgia whose champion rise is diverted by a vulnerability, or gift, for knocking himself unconscious. As he begins to exploit his talents, the notorious Knockout Artist journeys a hero’s descent into the New Orleans underworld and meets characters who have long since checked their morals at the door. The unforgettable climax shows Crews at his virtuoso best, when Eugene confronts his truth, and sets out to claim his freedom and win his own self-respect.

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage.

A discarded painting in a roadside clean-up, forgotten bones in a research archive and Lexington, the greatest racehorse in US history. From these strands of fact, Geraldine Brooks weaves a sweeping story of spirit, obsession and injustice across American history. A gripping reckoning with the legacy of enslavement and racism in America, Horse is the latest masterpiece from a writer with a prodigious talent for bringing the past to life.

Eros is a stunning collection of short stories, grounded in truth and coloured with dazzling imagination and alluring unpredictable mystery. Revealing how queerness, nature and myth have been intertwined for eternity, these are stories of gods and goddesses: of Zeus, of Eurydice, of Hermaphroditus, of Icarus before he flew into the sun. Stories of queer life, lust, revenge, wrath, passion and sex. Of yearning, love, loss. Some stories span across a life, and others, an evening. Perspectives will shift. Houses will burn. Lovers will learn their fate.

September 3, 1939, the day of the Spanish exiles’ splendid arrival in Chile, the Second World War broke out in Europe. Victor Dalmau is a young doctor when he is caught up in the Spanish Civil War, a tragedy that leaves his life - and the fate of his country - forever changed. Together with his sister-in-law, the pianist Roser Bruguera, he is forced out of his beloved Barcelona and into exile.

Alfie's mum, Emilia, has been lying to him forever. It's only ever been the two of them in Ireland, but when Emilia's appendix explodes, she drops a second bombshell: she has a family back in Australia and she and Alfie are going to meet them. When Penny Bains opens the door of her Tasmanian farmhouse to a boy with an Irish accent claiming to be the son of her missing daughter, Emilia, her life is turned upside down.