Time period: 20th century

Mary McCarthy, one of the leading American intellectuals of the twentieth century, skewers her strict Catholic upbringing in this witty and compelling memoir, one of her major works.

Stella Fry answers an advertisement from a famous mystery writer, Hubert Newman, who needs a manuscript typed. She takes on the job and is shocked the next day to learn of the writer's sudden, unexplained death. She is even more surprised when, 24 hours later, she receives Newman's manuscript and...

If there's one thing Jayne Ferguson has learnt in her life, it's that every blessing comes with a curse. She married the most handsome man on the isle of St Kilda - but he's a bully. She inherited her mother's gift of second sight - but only ever forsees her fellow islanders' deaths. She has lear...

Princess Grace of Monaco has invited the world-famous Forsyth Variety Company to perform at her annual high society ball. Monaco is in the heat of its preparations for the Grand Prix when the Forsyth family makes their emotional return to the city, stirring up painful memories for father Ed Forsy...

Delhi, 1946. Ma and Bappu are liberal intellectuals and both teach at Delhi University. Their fourteen-year-old daughter, Alma, is soon to be married to a fair-haired boy who is training to be a doctor: Alma is mostly interested in the wedding shoes. Ma and Bappu are uneasy about their clever dau...

On a warm night in December 1977, David Holden, chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times, landed in Cairo to report on crucial peace talks between Egypt and Israel, an epochalmoment in global politics. Shortly after dawn, his body was found dumped on adusty roadside. He had been shot with...

From his abusive childhood, his inevitable journey into crime and his role in the dangerous underworld of south London's gangland through to his eventful spells in many of Britain's most secure jails, Ronnie Field is ready to recount his incredible story for the very first time. It's a new take o...

Derbyshire, 1904. After a family tragedy and a broken engagement dramatically alter her circumstances, Lady Elizabeth Ingham seeks employment by training to be a nanny. Known only as Lizzie, she secures a post at Alstone-in-the-Dale Manor to care for a four-year-old boy, Charlie Spendlove, who ba...

Derbyshire, 1904. After a family tragedy and a broken engagement dramatically alter her circumstances, Lady Elizabeth Ingham seeks employment by training to be a nanny. Known only as Lizzie, she secures a post at Alstone-in-the-Dale Manor to care for a four-year-old boy, Charlie Spendlove, who ba...

In this deeply personal book, Baldwin reflects on the experiences that shaped him as a writer and activist: from his childhood in Harlem to the deaths Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Exploring the visceral reality of life in the American South as well as Baldwin's impressions of London, Paris a...

Loch Down Abbey is full of guests for a Highland Ball. Including several uninvited members of the Inverkillen clan, the Abbey's former residents. Housekeeper Mrs MacBain thinks her biggest challenge will be finding suitable rooms for everyone and keeping the peace at cocktail hour.Until the morni...

The thrilling true story behind the Allies' mission to take back Venice from the Germans - and save its artistic and architectural treasures.

Over 70 years since his premature death, George Orwell (1903-50) has become one of the most significant figures in western literature. His two dystopian masterpieces, 'Animal Farm' (1945) and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' (1949) have together sold over 40 million copies. Even now, he continues to exert ...

Hull, 1904. As the much doted-on daughter of the local doctor Violet Stroud had a comfortable, happy childhood - despite a distinct lack of love from her cold-hearted mother. But when her father unexpectedly dies, Violet's life is turned upside down. As secrets about the family come to light, Vio...

What was life like for families in wartime Britain? Take a walk down a street in Liverpool to find out. Explore family life during World War Two, from rationing to air raids, bomb shelters to evacuees. This beautifully illustrated book gives insight into the daily experiences of adults and childr...

'Palestine as Metaphor' consists of a series of interviews with Mahmoud Darwish, which have never appeared in English before. The interviews are a wealth of information on the poet's personal life, his relationships, his numerous works, and his tragedy. Several writers and journalists conducted t...

Paris, 1936. When Dora Maar, a talented French photographer, painter and poet, is introduced to Pablo Picasso, she is mesmerized by his dark and intense stare. Drawn to his volcanic creativity, it isn't long before she embarks on a passionate relationship with the Spanish artist that sometimes in...

In 1971 Deirdre Bair was a journalist and recently minted PhD who managed to secure access to Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett. He agreed that she could write his biography despite never having written - or even read - a biography herself. The next 7 years of intimate conversations, inte...

London, 1953. Police discover the bodies of three young women hidden in a wall at 10 Rillington Place, a dingy terrace house in Notting Hill. On searching the building, they find another body beneath the floorboards, then an array of human bones in the garden. But they have already investigated a...

This is the second volume in Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography. In it she continues the story of her life from the age of 21, through the uneasy rebellious 30s, the war years and finally to the liberation of Paris in 1944.