The aztecs, maya and their predecessors, Muriel Porter Weaver

Jay Gatsby’s opulent Long Island mansion throngs with the bright young things of the Roaring Twenties. But Gatsby himself, young, handsome and mysteriously rich, never appears to his guests. He stands apart from the crowd, yearning for something just out of reach – Daisy Buchanan, lost years before to another man. 

An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s Presents a collage of author's own life story, snipped up and stuck down alongside his views on everything from suicidal depression to the future of the planet and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Covering topics including adultery, lust, pornography and impotence, Alain de Botton argues that 21st century sex will always be a balancing act of trust versus risk, and of primal desire versus studied civility.

In the course of the essay, Tolstoy shows different attempts to find answers on the examples of science, philosophy, eastern wisdom, and the opinions of his fellow novelists. . . . finding no workable solution in any of these, Tolstoy recognizes the deep religious convictions of ordinary people as containing the key to true answers. 

He interweaves a compelling, bitter-sweet romantic love story of the rivalry of two brothers for the hand of the heroine Anne Garland, played out against the loves of a lively gallery of other characters.

'Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was a groan of mortal terror ... the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul.'

Desperate for an heir and embarrassed by his inability to satisfy his wife, Clifford suggests that she have an affair. Constance, troubled by her husband’s words, finds herself involved in a passionate relationship with their gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors.

'... slowly uncoiling their tentacles... and making a soft purring sound to each other'

Dicken's early economic privations inspired his best novels, which had great social and critical content. In 1836 his editor offered him the chance of writing a monthly serial, The Papers of the Pickwick Club, which would bring him fame. Around the same time he wrote another novel in weekly episodes, Oliver Twist, in which he crudely described the harsh...

Now Brando looked at people with assurance, and with what can only be called a pitying expression, as though he dwelt in spheres of enlightenment where they, to his regret, did not.

Both the police and ruthless rival crime lords scent blood in the water. If the Corleone family is to survive, it needs a ruthless new don. But the price of success in a violent life may be too high to bear...

Acute and immediate, I Remain in Darkness is an unforgettable exploration of love, memory and the journey to loss.

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. This first edition credited the work's fictional protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents.

Under the Greenwood Tree is Hardy’s most bright, confident and optimistic novel. This delightful portrayal of a picturesque rural society, tinged with gentle humour and quiet irony, established Hardy as a writer.

A selection of Maupassant's brilliant, glittering stories set in the Parisian beau monde and Normandy countryside

Driven by his own ambition and that of his power-hungry wife, he murders King Duncan and seizes the throne for himself. Forced to commit murder again and again to maintain their grip on power, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth become haunted by guilt and paranoia, falling into a spiral of madness and, eventually, death.