In the second novel in the Pop Larkin series, the Larkin family descends upon Brittany in France. Like fish out of water, they find that things don't quite turn out their way: the weather is less than ideal, the food is awful and the hotel is in a bad state of repair. But things slowly improve as Pop manages to ...

Throughout their childhood in the dusty cane fields of Saint Michael, Isabel and her older brother Isaias have been inseparable. Life is simple, and for Isabel, happiness is playing by the empty fountain in the village square, or listening to Isaias playing the fiddle. But when Isaias runs away to become a musician...

Known and loved for his TV appearances in "Brass" and as the embodiment of Edward VII, Thomas Beecham and Winston Churchill, Timothy West has led a charmed life as an actor: never quite making it to star status, but also rarely out of work, moving effortlessly between television and stage and recordings.

Magnus Pym, counsellor at the British Embassy in Vienna, has suddenly vanished, believed defected. The chase is on for a missing husband, a devoted father, and a life-time secret agent.

Pym’s life, it is revealed, is entirely made up of secrets. The race is on to find the perfect spy.

A Genius Performance by Michael Jayston!

The friends of the title are Ted Mundy, British soldier's son born 1947 in a shining new independent Pakistan, and Sasha, refugee son of an East German Lutheran pastor and his wife who have sought sanctuary in the West. 

The enthralling, honest, often funny memoirs, of the north country girl who came to London acted at the Royal Court Theatre and married England’s greatest actor, Laurence Olivier.

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who (when we can discern his personality at all) seems so ordinary, so opaque—and occasionally so intemperate? John Eliot Gardiner grew up passing one of the...

Long before the European Enlightenment and the Darwinian revolution, which we often take to mark the birth of the modern revolt against religious explanations of the world, brave people doubted the power of the gods. Religion provoked skepticism in ancient Greece, and heretics argued that history...

Navy helicopter pilot Lt. Alison Malone has been assigned to a search and rescue team based at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, near the rugged peaks of the Sierra Nevada, and far from her former elite H-60 squadron. A rule follower by nature, Alison is exasperated and outraged every time she flies with her...

For Judith Dunbar, her first glimpse of Nancherrow, her friend Loveday's beautiful family estate on the Cornish coast, is love at first sight - after the rigours of boarding school it spells luxury. She falls in love, too, with all Loveday's family. They treat Judith as one of them.

From the spectacle of gladiatorial combat to the intrigue of the Senate, from the foreign wars that created an empire to the betrayals that almost tore it apart, the Emperor novels tell the remarkable story of the man who would become the greatest Roman of them all: Julius Caesar. The Gates of Rome introduces...

A Genius Performance by Derek Jacobi!

Southern Anatolia, 260 AD. The town of Edessa, a Roman outpost, is on its last legs, besieged by the Persian troops of Shapur I. 

Renowned gamester and the first to admit that he is entirely void of a romantic disposition, Max Ravenscar regards all eligible females with indifference and unconcern. But when he meets the woman his young cousin Adrian is bent on marrying - the beautiful Deborah Grantham, mistress of her aunt's gaming...

A game of cards leads Flashman from the jungle death-house of Dahomey to the slave state of Mississippi as he dabbles in the slave trade in Volume III of the Flashman Papers When Flashman was inveigled into a game of pontoon with Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, he was making an unconscious choice...

Through thick mist and a cold east wind, Lavinia returns to Scotland. Up at the big house Mrs Farquhar is dying. Seeing Lachlan again,. Lavinia remembers her childhood holidays there: swimming in the loch, the picnics, bottle-feeding the lambs down at the farm and the evenings when they danced reels.

Just listen,' Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel. I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen. 'Stay,' he says. Everybody has to make choices. Some might break you. For seventeen-year-old Mia, surrounded by a wonderful family, friends and a gorgeous boyfriend decisions seem...

From I, Coriander to Invisible in a Bright Light, Sally Gardner's first middle grade novel in 14 years soars with the imagination of a master story teller. A pitch perfect, haunting story about a crystal chandelier shaped like a galleon that splinters into a thousand pieces, a girl abandoned as a baby on the steps of an...

After being bombed and shipwrecked repeatedly while serving for several wild and war-torn years as a mascot of the World War II Royal Navy Yangtze river gunboats the Gnat and the Grasshopper, Judy ended up in Japanese prisoner of war camps in North Sumatra. Along with locals as slave labor, the American...

Buzz Aldrin, one of the three men who took part in the first moon landing in 1969, is a true American hero. "Magnificent Desolation" begins with the story of his voyage into space, which came within seconds of failure, and reveals a fascinating insider's view of the American space programme. But that thrilling...

Not for the faint-hearted.' Scotsman What do you do when the life you’ve carefully built for yourself comes apart? Lydia Smith lives a quiet life, spent in the company of her colleagues and customers at the bookstore where she works. But when Joey Molina, a young and mysterious regular, hangs himself in the...

Millions of people today are beset by chronic anxiety conditions yet pharmaceutical solutions often provide only temporary relief at a high cost. With Neurosculpting for Anxiety, Lisa Wimberger presents a proven method for addressing anxiety at its neurological roots. We experience persistent fear and...

In the third sequel to The Darling Buds of May, Charley and Mariette decide to get baby Blenheim christened, leading to a wholesale christening of all seven of the Larkin children. Chaos abounds as the vicar Mr Candy is run ragged by the naughty twins Zinnia and Petunia, and finds himself the object of desire for...

A Genius Performance by Anton Lesser! Paradise Lost is the greatest epic poem in the English language. In words remarkable for their richness of rhythm and imagery, Milton tells the story of Man's creation, fall and redemption - to "justify the ways of God to men". Naxos

Having escaped an Irish famine only to become enmeshed in an American war, Eliza Duane Mooney sets out across the country on a mysterious quest. Stunning poetess Lucia-Cruz McLelland denies a host of suitors to cast her fate with James Con O'Keeffe, convict, revolutionary, and Acting Governor of the...

The Bridesmaid: A beautiful stone statue and her living double lead Philip into a nightmare of obsession and murder. Going Wrong: Besotted with his childhood sweetheart, Leonora, psychopathic Guy Curran will do anything to make her his. King Solomon’s Carpet: London’s Underground links a group of...

Short Stories: The Timeless Collection features 20 well-loved and unabridged tales from the best-loved authors in the history of English literature, including the deliciously sardonic Saki and a brilliant semi-autobiographical tale by Charles Dickens, inspired by the railway. An array of well-known readers including...

Sir Bobby Charlton is widely acknowledged as the greatest player ever to wear an England shirt. He won a record number of caps and scored a record number of goals. Here, in the second volume of his bestselling autobiography, Sir Bobby talks in detail about his phenomenal career with England.

Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming.

Alex Jennings and Sylvestra Le Touzel read a selection of the personal letters of Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine. From the first days of their courtship Winston and Clementine Churchill wrote to each other almost daily. family matters, friends and politics were discussed between the couple in a...

The first book in a new, action-packed thrill ride of a series, from the number-one New York Times best-selling author of the Mistborn Trilogy and The Way of Kings. Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling...

An atmospheric and deeply absorbing literary historical crime classic - featured in The Times ‘Top Ten Crime Novels of the Decade’. England 1819: Thomas Shield, a new master at a school just outside London, is tutor to a young American boy and the child’s sensitive best friend, Charles Frant. Helplessly drawn...

Internationally bestselling author Anna Todd returns with a gripping novel about a young woman's journey towards love, and the obstacles life throws up at every turn. Karina knows the harsh realities of military life. And like anyone who has grown up around an army base, she knows the background noise that...

This collection includes a selection of H. P. Lovecraft's finest chilling tales. Lovecraft's most famous monster is Cthulu, a gargantuan beast which has been lying dormant for millions of years but rises up and forces mankind to recognise its fundamental ignorance, powerlessness and insignificance. Lovecraft is...

This collection combines three volumes of the Best of Women's Short Stories. Acclaimed for an unusual mix spanning the sexes, amongst these twenty-six stories are A Young Girl's Confession by Marcel Proust, The Legacy by Virginia Woolf, The Parvenue by Mary Shelley, and The Watsons, an early novella by Jane Austen.

A portrait opens a window into a person's life: who they were and wanted to be, who the artist saw - and how everyone else looked on. From the divine paintings of Elizabeth I to the iconic photograph of 'bulldog' Churchill; from Victorian portraits of dead children to Hockney's of his elderly parents; from...

This is a BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of M.M. Kaye's epic novel of love and war. M.M. Kaye's masterwork is a vast, rich and vibrant tapestry of love and war that spans over twenty years, moving from the foothills of the Himalayas, to the burning plains, to the besieged British Mission in Kabul.

A stunning and utterly captivating debut about war, love and betrayal in 1940s Hong Kong Summer 1940. For Stevie Steiber, a young American journalist in Hong Kong, the war in Europe is a world away. While longing to be taken seriously as a writer, she keeps her readers informed about society gossip from...

‘An uncommon and uncommonly good coming-of-age novel. Heck, maybe it’s time to put Holden Caulfield to rest anyway. I, for one, barely remember him. It is Miles who has captured my imagination. And my heart.’ Chicago Times A lyrical and enchanting debut novel. One unforgettable night, thirteen-year-old...

Blackmail, corruption, treachery, murder--the glory that was Rome In this Edgar Award-nominated mystery, John Maddox Roberts takes listeners back to a Rome filled with violence and evil. Vicious gangs ruled the streets of Crassus and Pompey, routinely preying on plebeian and patrician alike. So the garroting...

It is 1842 and Maria Merryweather, a 13-year-old orphan is on her journey to the mysterious Moonacre Manor. There she finds herself in a crumbling house of secrets and mystery in a world caught up in time. Maria discovers that she is the last Moon Princess and she has only until the next full moon to undo the...

The climactic volume of the trilogy, wherein the little hobbit and his trusty companions make a terrible journey to the heart of the land of the Shadow in a final reckoning with the power of Sauron. The climactic volume of the trilogy, wherein the little hobbit and his trusty companions make a terrible journey to...

This powerful and breathtaking novel is the story of four cadets who have become bloodbrothers. Together they will encounter the hell of hazing and the rabid, raunchy and dangerously secretive atmosphere of an arrogant and proud military institute. They will experience the violence.

Christmas comes but once a year. Luckily.

Traditionally, families gather together for Christmas. In Ralph's case, this means ten or more relatives coming to stay, including nutty Great-Aunt Ida (the Home tell them to be careful not to let her out...

Living busily on Planet Earth, we rarely remember that we inhabit only a miniscule part of the universe. In The Planets and The Solar System, Jen Green paints the wider picture, and takes us on a journey across billions of kilometres in our galaxy, from our Sun to near and distant planets. Some, like Mercury, have a...

This story is set in London, 1807. William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is a waterman on the River Thames. Life is tough but bearable until William makes a mistake, a bad mistake for which he and his family are made to pay dearly. His sentence: to be transported to New South...

Conceived as a potential radio vehicle for Alfred Hitchcock to direct, Suspense was a radio series of epic proportion. It aired on CBS from 1942 to 1962 and is considered by many to be the best mystery/drama series of the golden age. Known as Radio's Outstanding Theater of Thrills, it focused on suspenseful...

A dying wish. A devastating secret. Should the truth really stay buried? The four Bliss siblings have a loving but complicated bond, but when their mother, Dorothy, dies seemingly without a will, this relationship is put to the test. As the mourning siblings try to make sense of the situation, one of them is caught...

Fatima, Portugal, 1917: The Virgin Mary appears to three peasant children, sharing with them three secrets, two of which are soon revealed to the world. The third secret is sealed away in the Vatican, read only by popes, and not disclosed until the year 2000. When revealed, its quizzical tone and anticlimactic...

Sumptuous historical novel set in the court of Elizabeth I. By Philippa Gregory, the bestselling author of THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL and THE QUEEN’S FOOL. Elizabeth I has acceded to the throne of England, a position she has waited and schemed for all her life. She is surrounded by advisers, all convinced that a...

For sheer storytelling delight and pure adventure, Treasure Island has never been surpassed. From the moment young Jim Hawkins first encounters the sinister Blind Pew at the Admiral Benbow Inn until the climactic battle for treasure on a tropic isle, the nevel creates scenes and characters that have fired...