MACARTHUR, Ellen Race Against Time On February 8th 2004, Ellen MacArthur became the fastest person ever to sail solo round the world. Drawing on logs, emails, sound and video diaries, this book captures the drama, excitement, danger, joy and tears of an extraordinary achievement - in Ellen's own words.
MACKRELL, Judith Bloomsbury Ballerina Born in 1891 in St Petersburg, Lydia Lopokova's vivacious personality and charm propelled her to the top of Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. Through luck, determination and talent, Lydia became a star in Paris, a vaudeville favourite in America and the toast of Britain, and married the economist John Maynard Keynes. This is her story.
MACLEOD, Alison Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction A collection of short stories filled with sex and desire, tragic loss and unexpected renewal, with settings that range from a Paris cafe to London's Hayward Gallery, and from the Brighton seafront to the Nova Scotia coast.
McBRIDE, Eimear A Girl is a Half Formed Thing Eimear McBride's novel tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother after a tumour leaves him severely brain-damaged. Not so much a stream of consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and sensual urges of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist.
McCALL SMITH, Alexander The Kalahari Typing School for Men Precious Ramotswe, the founder of Botswana's only detective agency, is running her business from the garage of her fiance. When her first class assistant opens a much-needed typing school for men, it's not long before Ramotswe is investigating.
McCARTHY, C No Country for Old Men Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, has made a grim discovery - a load of heroin, $2 million in cash and a lot of dead bodies. But when two more men are found murdered, Moss himself becomes a target - transforming his life and destiny.
McCAULAY, Diana Dog-Heart 'Dog-Heart' is a novel about the well-meaning attempt of a middle-class single mother to transform the life of a boy from the ghetto whom she meets on the street. Set in present-day urban Jamaica, it tells the story from two alternating points of view, those of the woman and of the boy.
McCAULAY, Diana Huracan Following her parent's divorce, 15 year-old Leigh McCaulay left Jamaica for New York. After her mother's death, 15 years later, she returns to the island to find her estranged father and the family secrets he holds. A white Jamaican in a black Jamaica, she struggles to come to terms with her family's part in the slave trade.
McCLEEN, Grace The Land of Decoration 10-year-old Judith McPherson's world is regimented by her father's faith. Her mother was fun and liked making things, but she has gone, so Judith consoles herself with 'The Land of Decoration' - an intricate model of The Promised Land which she has built in her bedroom. Through the model, Judith realises she can perform miracles.
McCULLOUGH, Coleen The Independence of Miss Mary Bennett Lizzy Bennet married Mr Darcy, Jane Bennet married Mr Bingley - but what became of the middle daughter, Mary? Discover what came next in the lives and loves of Jane Austen's much loved Bennet family in this spin-off.
MACDONALD, Sarah Holy Cow This title combines Sarah Macdonald's quest for spiritual enlightenment among India's many religions with her own engrossing - and very funny - story.
McCEWAN, Ian On Chesil Beach It is July 1962. In a hotel on the Dorset coast, overlooking Chesil Beach, Edward and Florence, who got married that morning, are sitting down to dinner in their room. Neither is entirely able to suppress their anxieties about the wedding night to come.
McGREGOR, Jon Even the Dogs On a still and frozen day between Christmas and New Year, a man's body is found lying in his ruined flat. 'Even the Dogs' is an intimate exploration of life at the edges of society, describing a world littered with love, loss, despair and a glimpse of redemption.
McGREGOR, Jon If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things On a street in an unnamed town in the north of England, perfectly ordinary people are doing totally ordinary things - but then a terrible event shatters the quiet of the early summer evening and no one who witnesses it will be quite the same again.
McLAIN, Paula The Paris Wife Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet 28-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness, until she meets Ernest Hemingway. After a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they soon fall in with a circle of lively and volatile expatriates, including F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound.
McMAHON, Katherine The Crimson Rooms London, 1924. As Britain comes to terms with the aftermath of war, Evelyn Gifford is still haunted by the death of her younger brother James in the trenches. So when the doorbell rings late one night and a woman appears, claiming to have been James's lover, her world is overturned.
McVEIGH, Jennifer The Fever Tree Frances Irvine, destitute in the wake of her father's sudden death, is forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Cape. In this remote and inhospitable land she becomes entangled with two very different men. One driven by ambition, the other by his ideals.
MACMILLAN, Angela(ed) A Little Aloud This unique book offers a selection of prose and poetry especially suitable for reading aloud - to your husband or wife, a sick parent or child, or an elderly relative.
MACONIE, Stuart Pies and Prejudice Maconie's book is an attempt to debunk the lazy clichés and stereotypes that persist about the regions. Yet it is impossible not to notice the deep cultural divisions that occur between north and south and, even more problematically, within the north itself. Only someone native to the northeast perceives the significant distinctions between Mackem, Sand-dancer, Monkey-Hanger and Smoggie. The rest of the country gets it hopelessly wrong by calling them all Geordies.
MADDEN, Deidre Molly Fox’s Birthday While absent in New York, the celebrated actor Molly Fox has loaned her house to a playwright friend, who is struggling to write a new work. Over the course of this, the longest day of the year, the playwright reflects upon her own life, Molly's, and that of their mutual friend Andrew.
MAGEE, Audrey The Undertaking A soldier on the Russian Front marries a photograph of a woman he has never met. Hundreds of miles away in Berlin, the woman marries a photograph of the soldier. It is a contract of business rather than love, however, when Peter and Katharina finally meet passion blossoms and they begin to imagine a life together under the bright promise of Nazi Germany.
MAGORIAN, Michelle Goodnight Mister Tom Young Willie Beech is evacuated to the country as Britain stands on the brink of WW2. A sad, deprived child, he slowly begins to flourish under the care of old Tom Oakley - but his new-found happiness is shattered by a summons from his mum back in London.
MAGUIRE, Gregory Wicked When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in Wizard of Oz, we heard only Dorothy's side of the story. Maguire tells the other side - where the witch came from, why she was wicked and what is the true nature of evil
MAHER, Kevin The Fields Dublin, 1984. Jim Finnegan is the youngest in a family of five sisters. After a drunken yet delicate rendition of 'The Fields of Athenry' at the Donohues' raucous annual party, Jim captures both the attention of the beautiful Saidhbh Donohue and the unwanted desires of the devious and dangerous Father Luke O'Culigeen. Bounced between his growing love for Saidhbh and the abuse he receives at the hands of O'Culigeen, Jim's life starts to unravel.
MAKKAI, Rebecca The Borrower Lucy Hull, a young children's librarian in Hannibal, Missouri, finds herself both kidnapper and kidnapped when her favourite patron, 10-year-old Ian Drake, runs away from home. Ian is addicted to reading, but needs Lucy's help to smuggle books past his overbearing Evangelical mother, who has enrolled Ian in weekly anti-gay classes.
MANTEL, Hilary Beyond Black Alison is a medium. But what she hears is sometimes just too dark to pass on. She mostly tells her clients what they want to hear. Colette, her manager and side-kick, makes the bookings and gets Alison on stage. And then there's Morris, Alison's foul-mouthed and obscene Spirit Guide.
MANTEL, Hilary Bring Up The Bodies The sequel to 'Wolf Hall', 'Bring up the Bodies' explores one of the most mystifying and frightening episodes in English history: the destruction of Anne Boleyn.
MANTEL, Hilary Giving up the Ghost 'Giving Up the Ghost' is novelist Hilary Mantel's autobiography in fiction and non-fiction. It deals with childhood, ghosts (real and metaphorical), illness and family.
MANTEL, Hilary Wolf Hall England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey’s clerk and later his successor.
MARK, David Dark Winter An elderly man - the only survivor of a fishing trawler tragedy - is found murdered at sea. A young girl - the last surviving member of a family slaughtered in Sierra Leone - is hacked to death with a machete. Someone is killing sole survivors in the manner they had escaped death. Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy of Humberside CID investigates.
MARQUEZ, Gabriel Garcia Love in the Time of Cholera An old man and his childhood sweetheart are united for the first time resulting in the consummation of an amor interruptus that spans half a century. This uplifting love story is set on the Colombian coast in the early 20th century
MARTEL, Yann Life of Pi Pi lives in Pondicherry, India, where his father owns the city's zoo. The family decides to immigrate to Canada, but tragedy strikes at sea. In the lifeboat are five survivors: Pi, a hyena, a zebra, a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.
MARTEL, Yann Beatrice and Virgil Fate takes many forms. When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled further into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey named Beatrice and Virgil.
MASON, Richard Drowning People To understand why James Farrell murdered his wife of more than 45 years, especially after such a long and stable marriage, the reader is taken back four decades to an earlier affair when he fell in love with his wife's cousin Ella.
MATTHEWS, Adrian The Apothecary’s House When an old woman storms into the Rijksmuseum demanding the return of her painting, archivist Ruth Braams cannot quell her curiosity. Together with Myles, her gay confidant, Ruth delves into the history of the piece of looted Nazi art and discovers an enigmatic picture with a disturbing wartime provenance.
MAWER, SIMON The Glass Room High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House has been built for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. But, when the storm clouds of WW2 gather, the family must flee, accompanied by Viktor's lover and her child. But the house's story is far from over, as it passes from hand to hand, from Czech to Russian.
MAWER, Simon The Girl Who Fell From the Sky Marian Sutro is an outsider: the daughter of a diplomat, brought up on the shores of Lake Geneva and in England. But when she is recruited from her desk job by SOE to go undercover in wartime France, it seems her hybrid status will be of service to a greater, more dangerous cause.
MERCIER, Pascal Night Train to Lisbon Raimund Gregorious is a predictable character. A bookish Latin professor, well-respected, perhaps a little boring. One stormy morning, he encounters a beautiful, distraught Portuguese woman in a red leather coat. Later that day Raimund will realise that moment changed everything. All of a sudden nothing in his life feels right.
MEYER, Philip The Son Spring, 1849. The first male child born on the newly established Republic of Texas, Eli McCullough is 13 years old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him captive. Brave and clever, Eli quickly adapts to Comanche life, learning their ways and language, answering to a new name, carving a place as the chef's adopted son, and waging war against their enemies, including white men - complicating his sense of loyalty and understanding of who he is.
MEYER, Stephanie The Host The earth has been invaded by a species that takes over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. Wanderer, an invader, has been given Melanie's body but the former tenant is refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
MEYER, Stephanie Twilight When 17-year old Bella moves to live with her father, she expects her life will be as dull as the town. She quickly finds friends but not with the Cullen family who prefer their own company, especially Edward who hates her. Bella soon discovers the reason for his coldness as the family is vampires.
MILLER, Andrew Pure Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young engineer charged by the king with demolishing it. But before long, he begins to suspect that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own.
MILLER, Andrew Snowdrops ‘Snowdrops' is a chilling story of love and moral freefall - of the corruption, by a corrupt society, of a corruptible young man. It is taut, intense and has a momentum as irresistible to the reader as the moral danger that first enchants, then threatens to overwhelm, its narrator.
MILLER, Madeline The Song of Achilles This is a breathtakingly original rendering of the Trojan War - a devastating love story and a tale of gods and kings, immortal fame and the human heart.
MILLER, Louise A Fine Brother The only woman to serve as a soldier in the First World War, the Englishwoman Flora Sandes became a hero and media sensation when she fought for the Serbian Army and pursued a distinguished career in its ranks as officer. This account charts her incredible story.
MILLIGAN, Spike Puckoon Puckoon, Spike Milligan's first novel bursts at the seams with superb comic characters involved in unbelievably likely troubles on the Irish border. It's 1924 and the Boundary Commission is deciding on the new line between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. With much pushing and shoving, the border finds its way down the middle of Puckoon, dividing house from outhouse, man from wife, and pub chairs from bars.
MITCHELL, David Cloud Atlas A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850, and a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilization - these and the other narrators of 'Cloud Atlas' hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.
MITCHELL, David Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet Imagine a nation banishing the outside world for two centuries, crushing all vestiges of Christianity, forbidding its subjects to leave its shores on pain of death, and harbouring a deep mistrust of European ideas.
MITFORD, Nancy Love in a Cold Climate Groomed from a young age for marriage by her mother, the fearsome Lady Montdore, Polly causes a scandal when she declares her love for her uncle, the lecherous lecturer, and runs off to France.
MOHAMED, Nadifa Black Mamba Boy Aden, 1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. When his mother dies unexpectedly, ten year-old Jama finds himself alone in the world and is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life, is alive.
MOORE, Wendy Wedlock 'Wedlock' tells the story of the Countess of Strathmore and her marriage to Andrew Robinson Stoney, the origin behind the phrase 'ston(e)y broke'. Stoney married the Countess for her wealth and, once they were married, he subjected her to years of ill treatment.
MORGAN, Jude Passion They were the Romantic generation, famous and infamous, and in their short, extraordinary lives, they left a legacy of glamorous and often shocking legend. In this novel, the lives and vivid personalities of Byron, Shelley and Keats are explored through the eyes of the women who knew and loved them.
MORGAN, Jude The Taste of Sorrow The author of the acclaimed 'Passion' tells the story of the Bronte sisters. In this panoramic novel we see with new insight the members of a close-knit family whose tight bonds are the instruments of both triumph and tragedy.
MORGENSTEIN, Erin The Night Circus In 1886 a mysterious travelling circus becomes an international sensation. Open only at night, constructed entirely in black & white, Le Cirque des Reves delights all who wander its circular paths. But behind the scenes a dangerous game is being played out by two young magicians, who are forced to test the limits of the imagination & love.
MORRISON, Toni Bluest Eye Chronicles the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in 1940s Ohio: Pauline, Cholly, Sam and Pecola. Pecola, unlovely and unloved, prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged blond white schoolfellows. She becomes the focus of the mingled love and hatred engendered by her family's frailty and the world's cruelty.
MORTON, Kate The House at Riverton Summer 1924. On the eve of a party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999, Grace Bradley, 98, one time maid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a director making a film about the poet's suicide.
MORTON, Kate Forgotten Garden On the eve of the First World War, a little girl is found alone after a gruelling ocean voyage from England to Australia. All she can remember is that a woman she calls the Authoress had promised to look after her. But the Authoress has vanished. So starts the haunting second novel from the author of 'The House at Riverton'.
MOSS, Sarah Night Waking The discovery of a baby's skeleton on a remote Scottish island unearths long-buried secrets in this darkly comic, atmospheric novel from the author of the acclaimed 'Cold Earth'.
MOSTERT, Natasha Season of the Witch Gabriel Blackstone has an unusual talent: he is able to enter the thoughts of others. But this is something he only does with the greatest reluctance - until he is contacted by an ex-lover who begs him to find her missing stepson. Gabriel's search brings him into contact with the beautiful and mysterious Monk sisters.
MOTION, Andrew (selected by) Here to Eternity The poems in Here to Eternity are arranged in a series of ten concentric rings: self, home, town, work, land, love, travel, war, belief & space. They provide a perfect introduction to new readers & revelations to those who are already well-versed.
MOYES, Jojo The Girl you left behind France, 1916. Sophie Lefevre must keep her family safe whilst her adored husband Edouard fights at the front. When she is ordered to serve the German officers who descend on her hotel each evening, her home becomes riven by fierce tensions.
MOYES, Jojo The Ship of Brides The year is 1946, and all over the world young women are crossing the seas in their thousands en route to the men they married in wartime, and an unknown future. In Sydney, Australia, four women join 650 other brides on an extraordinary voyage to England - aboard HMS Victoria.
MUKHERJEE, Neel A Life Apart Ritwik Ghosh, 22 and recently orphaned, has the chance to start a new life in Oxford, when he arrives there from Calcutta. But he soon discovers Oxford holds little of the salvation he is looking for. Instead Ritwik moves to London, where he slips into a shadowy hinterland of illegal immigrants.
MUNRO, Alice Too Much Happiness These are dazzling, provocative stories about Svengali men and radical women who outmanoeuvre then, about destructive marriages and curdled friendships, about mothers and sons, about moments which change or haunt a life.
MURAKAMI, Haruki Kafka on the Shore At the age of 15, Kafka Tamura runs away from home, either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-lost mother and sister. Instead, he finds himself setting out on an odyssey where he shall encounter some very strange characters indeed.
MURDOCH, Iris The Sea the Sea When Charles Arrowby, a 60+ demi-god of the theatre, retires from his glittering London world in order to become a hermit, it is to the sea that he turns. He hopes at least to escape from the women. He unexpectedly meets one whom he loved long ago.
MURRAY, Jenni Memoirs of a not so Dutiful Daughter After she began her memoir, Jenni Murray's life took a downward turn. Her mother and father died within six months of each other, and she found that she had breast cancer. This is a diary of that terrible year and an honest and confessional memoir of a universally complex relationship: that of a child and her mother and her father.
MYERS, Benjamin Beastings A teenage girl abducts a baby placed in her care. She is pursued through the vivid Cumbrian mountains of the recent past by a priest and a poacher. As she fights to stay alive, the priest's true motives become apparent in this dark rural tale about morality and the beauty and violence of landscape.
MYERSON, Julie The Story of you This is the story of a woman trying to get by as a mother and a wife, while falling in love with a man from a memory. Julie Myerson maps the vagaries of the human heart with extraordinary empathy, while at the same time keeping the reader in breathless suspense and on the edge of tears.
NABOKOV, Vladimir Lolita Poet and pervert, Humbert becomes obsessed by 12 year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically. This is Nabokov's best known novel which brought him worldwide fame and was later made into a film.
NAFISI, Azar Things I’ve been Silent About In her bestselling memoir 'Reading Lolita in Tehran', Azar Nafisi opened her world to us, offering a vibrant portrait of women's lives in Iran. In this text, Nafisi returns to Iran and her childhood to deliver a moving portrait of a family's life, a life lived in thrall to Nafisi's powerful mother.
NAFISI, Azar Reading Lolita in Tehran When a radical Islamist in Nafisi's English class at Tehran University questions her decision to teach 'The Great Gatsby', she decides to let him put Gatsby on trial. When she is fired for refusing to wear a veil, she resumes her classes at home with a small group of female students.
NICHOLSON, Christopher The Elephant Keeper An account of an extraordinary relationship between a female elephant and her keeper, a young stable boy. Set in late 18th- century England, it follows them from the Bristol docks to one landed estate in the countryside, then to another - then, finally, to London.
NICHOLSON, Virginia Millions like us Virginia Nicholson tells the story of the women's war through a host of individual women's experiences. She tells how they loved, suffered, laughed, grieved and dared; how they re-made their world in peacetime - and how they would never be the same again.
NICOLSON, Adam Sea Room Adam Nicolson's father had answered a newspaper advertisement in the 1930s: Uninhabited islands for sale. Outer Hebrides. 600 acres. Adam Nicolson inherited the islands when he was 21, and in this book he tells the story of his own experiences there.
NICHOLSON, Norman Collected Poems
NOLAN, Alan Ancient Feet Meet the Old Spice Boys - Dosh, Whinger, Shorty, Scaredy and Windy - five men who are, perhaps, approaching their 'sell-by' date, determined to prove that age is all in the mind. Together, they set off to walk from one coast of England to the other.
NOLAN, Alan Like Father, Love Son The modern world takes its toll on family life. Alan Nolan has spent the last 20 years apart from his son Ian, who is based in Italy. Deciding that the best way to revive their father / son bond is to undertake an energy-sapping walk through the Italian, Swiss and French Alps on a tough Mont Blanc trek, Alan and Ian set off on their high adrenaline adventure.
NORWICH, John, Julius The Popes John Julius Norwich traces the papal line down the centuries from St Peter himself, traditionally (though by no means historically) the first pope, to the present Benedict XVI. Of the 280-odd holders of the supreme office, some have unquestionably been saints, others have wallowed in unspeakable iniquity.
O,BREHT, Tea The Tiger’s Wife Remembering stories her grandfather told her, Natalia becomes convinced he spent his last days searching for 'the deathless man', a vagabond who claimed to be immortal. As she struggles to understand why her grandfather would go on such a farfetched journey, she stumbles across a clue that leads her to the story of the tiger's wife.
O’CARROLL, Brendan The Mammy Brendan O'Carroll's hilarious first novel, and the basis for TV's Mrs Browne's Boys. Read about the joys and sorrows of Agnes, mother of the famous Mrs. Browne's Boys from the daily radio soap. A book of hilarious incidents, glorious characters, and a passion for life. With a new introduction by the author.
O’CONNOR, Joseph Redemption Falls Eliza Duane Mooney sets out from Baton Range, Louisiana, across a devastated country, in search of a youngster she has not seen in years. It's a walk that has consequences for many seemingly unconnected survivors: a love-struck cartographer, a beautiful Latina poetess, a rebel guerrilla, a runaway slave and others.
O’CONNOR, Joseph Ghost Light Dublin 1907, a city of whispered rumours. A young actress begins an affair with a damaged older man. Rebellious and flirtatious, Molly Allgood is a girl of the inner city tenements, dreaming of stardom in America. She has dozens of admirers but in the backstage of her life there is a secret.
O’FARRELL, John The Man Who Forgot His Wife When forty-something Vaughan suffers total memory loss, he is told that his breakdown has probably been triggered by his marital problems. But then he comes face to face with the stranger he's supposed to be divorcing - and promptly falls head over heels in love with her.
O’FARRELL, Maggie The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox Set between the 1930s and the present, Maggie O'Farrell's novel is the story of Esme, a woman edited out of her family's history, and of the secrets that come to light when, 60 years later, she is released from care, and a young woman, Iris, discovers the great aunt she never knew she had.
O’FARRELL, Maggie Instructions for a Heatwave London, July 1976. It hasn't rained for months, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children - two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce - back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share.
O’FLYNN, Catherine The News where you are This is the touching story of Frank, a local TV news presenter. Beneath his awkwardly corny screen persona, Frank is haunted by disappearances - the mysterious hit and run that killed his predecessor, the demolition of his father's architecture and the unmarked passing of those who die alone in the city.
O’LOUGHLIN, Ed Not untrue and not Unkind 'Not Untrue and Not Unkind' is a gripping story of friendship, rivalry and betrayal amongst a group of journalists and photographers covering Africa's wars. A remarkably assured and mature debut, it is a tale utterly for our times.
ORWELL, George Down and out in Paris and London Written when Orwell was a struggling writer in his twenties, this book documents his 'first contact with poverty': sleeping in bug-infested hostels, working as a dishwasher in Paris, surviving on scraps and cigarette butts, living alongside tramps.
ORWELL, George 1984 Newspeak, Doublethink, Big Brother, the Thought Police - the vocabulary of George Orwell's classic political satire, 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', has passed into the English language, symbolising the horrors of totalitarianism
OSBOURNE, Frances The Bolter Idina Sackville first met scandal when she left her very rich husband and two small children for a penniless army officer in 1918. She went on to marry and divorce a total of five times and be the founder and 'high priestess' of White Mischief's scandalous Happy Valley of Kenyan settlers. Here, her great- granddaughter tells her story.
OSBORNE, Frances Park Lane London, February 1914, and 18 year-old Grace Campbell arrives in London from Carlisle, her family's hopes pinned on her becoming a secretary. The only job she can find is as a housemaid and soon she is entangling herself in an ever-thickening web of lies.
OZICK, Cynthia Foreign Bodies The collapse of her brief marriage has stalled Bea Nightingale's life. Leaving her impoverished borough in 1950s New York, Bea escapes from the stigma of her divorce when she answers a plea from her estranged brother. Now she has left for Paris, to retrieve a nephew she barely knew.
PALING, Chris Nimrod’s Shadow Reilly is an impoverished painter who lives alone with only his unsold canvases and his faithful dog Nimrod for company. But soon after an influential art critic notices his talent, the critic is found drowned in the canal and Reilly is suspected of his murder.
PARK, David Swallowing the Sun Martin has travelled a long way from his brutal childhood in the Loyalist heartlands of Belfast and built a life he never imagined he would have. Returning home one night to find police cars waiting, he feels his sins must have finally caught up with him. But, instead, they bring news of a senseless tragedy.
PARRIS, S.J Sacrilege Summer, 1584. The Protestant Prince William of Orange has been assassinated by a fanatical Catholic, and there are whispers that Queen Elizabeth will be next. Fear haunts the streets of London, and plague is driving citizens away. Giordano Bruno, philosopher and spy, chooses to remain, and finds that someone is following him.
PASTERNAK, Boris Doctor Zhivago The story of Yuri Zhivago, physician and poet, is both a panoramic, epic portrait of a country in the throes of the most radical revolution in history, and an intense love story.
PATCHETT, Ann Run Full of warmth and humanity, 'Run' is a story about our fragile hopes and fears for our children and the lengths we will go to protect our families
PAVER, Michelle Dark Matter January 1937. 28-year-old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. After they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave.
PAXMAN, Jeremy Great Britain’s Great War What was life actually like for the British during the First World War? The images we have all reinforce the idea that it was, in the end, an utterly pointless waste of life, and little more. So why did we fight so willingly and how did we endure it for so long? Jeremy Paxman brings vividly to life the day to day experience of the British over the entire course of the war.
PEAKE, Mervyn Titus Groan Titus Groan, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born. His world will be predetermined by complex rituals, the origins of which are lost in time; it will be peopled by the dark characters who inhabit the half-lit corridors.
PEARS, Iain Stone’s Fall Iain Pears tells the story of John Stone, financier and armaments manufacturer, a man so wealthy that in the years before World War I he was able to manipulate markets, industries and indeed whole countries and continents.
PEEK, Bookey All the Way Home; Stories from an African Wildlife Sanctuary 'All The Way Home' is a testament to one family's passion for Africa's wildlife, as well as their conviction that nothing can change the essential nature of the land and its people.
PELECANOS, George P. The Way Home Deep beneath the floorboards of a house he's renovating, Chris Flynn discovers a hidden bag full of cash. Chris has learned life's lessons the hard way so, resisting the temptation of easy money, he puts the fortune back. But Chris has a troubled past and this find could bring his new life tumbling down.
PENNEY, Stef The Tenderness of Wolves As winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year old boy disappears. This book weaves adventure, suspense, revelation and humour into a historical romance, a thriller, and a murder mystery.
PERIAM, Wendy Broken Places Whether braving speed-dating, running Wandsworth Prison Book Club, attending an American Church that champions the Gospel of Prosperity, or rescuing his daughter from near-rape, Eric finally comes to epitomize the truth of Hemingway's words: 'The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places'.
PERRY, Barbara Rose Kennedy In her compelling and intimate portrait, presidential historian Barbara A. Perry captures Rose Kennedy's essential contributions to the incomparable Kennedy dynasty. This biography - the first to draw on an invaluable cache of Rose's newly released diaries and letters - unearths the complexities behind the impeccable persona she showed the world.
PICOULT, Jodi My Sister’s Keeper The only reason Anna was born was to donate her cord blood cells to her older sister. By the age of 13, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions and injections so that her sister Kate can fight the leukaemia that has plagued her since she was a child. Now Anna wants control over her own body.
PICOULT, Jodi Second Glance Ross, a suicidal drifter and ghost hunter, is called upon to investigate whether an Indian burial ground is real by property developers who are desperate not to offend the local native Americans. Ross's work is complicated by the arrival of a skittish, mysterious woman called Lia.
PIRSIG, Robert Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance This narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son becomes a text which speaks directly to the confusions and agonies of existence, detailing a personal, philosophical odyssey.
PLOWDEN, Alison The Young Victoria Born in 1819, Victoria was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent. Fatherless from the age of eight months, she was brought up by her German mother in an atmosphere of family feuds and jealousy. Succeeding to the throne at 18, she began a triumphant reign.
POLLEY, Jacob The Brink It is not often you come across a book of poetry you want to put in the pocket of whatever coat you are wearing and carry around with you, but The Brink has to be one of those books. Its contents seem familiar and strange, inventively modern and unassumingly traditional, powerfully alloyed. The subject matters of the home, the family, and nature, are re-evaluated...
POLLEY, Jacob Talk of the Town Life has an almost soothing routine to it - but everyone has to grow up sometime, and as Christopher discovers when his closest friend disappears, we don't always get to choose when.
PRATCHETT, Terry The Truth January 1937. 28-year-old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. After they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave.
PRESTON, MARCIA West of the Wall Trudy Hulst has no idea if her husband survived his attempted escape past the Berlin Wall, but she bears the consequences of his actions. Now branded the wife of a defector, she faces a life in prison. With no real choice, she is forced to follow, praying she can find a way to claim their child once she's in West Berlin.
PRICE, Anthony Other Paths to Glory Paul Mitchell spends his days researching World War One. His quiet life in the library could hardly be more different to the carnage he studies, until Dr Audley of the Ministry of Defence comes to Paul to find out about a battle at the Somme.
PROBERT-WRIGHT, Barbie Little Girl Lost In 1945, seven-year-old Barbie and her sister Eva were trapped in war torn Germany. With their father missing, and hundreds of miles from their mother, news of the approaching army left them confronted with an impossible choice: to face invasion, or to flee on foot. This is the extraordinary true story of surviving the unimaginable.
PROULX, Annie Fine just the way it is 'Fine Just The Way It Is' marks Annie Proulx's return to the Wyoming of Brokeback Mountain and the familiar cast of hardy, unsentimental prairie folk. The stories are cast over centuries, and capture the voices and lives of the settlers this sagebrushed and weatherworn country has known.
PULLMAN, Philip Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ In this ingenious, spellbinding and fiercely subversive retelling of the life of Jesus, Philip Pullman reimagines the most influential story ever told. He offers a radical new take on the myths and the mysteries of the Gospel truth and the resulting church that has so shaped the course of the last two millennia.