Felix Holt the Radical, George Eliot

In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion

This novel is a highly autobiographical account of the adolescence of Stephen Dedalus, who reappears in Ulysses, and who comes to realize that before he can become a true artist, he must rid himself of the stultifying effects of the religion, politics and essential bigotry of his background in late 19th century Ireland.

This story features D'Arrast, who can be seen as a positive hero as opposed to Meursault in The Stranger.[4] He actively shapes his life and sacrifices himself in order to help a friend, instead of remaining passive.

As the tension builds and rumours escalate, Kadare draws us into a nightmarish world controlled by rules no one understands, blending dream and reality to produce a mystery and a thriller that seduces and surprises up to the last page.

Ours is the age of contagious anxiety. We feel overwhelmed by the events around us, by injustice, by suffering, by an endless feeling of crisis. So how can we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this age of division?

Then at Hallowe'en, when the Goblet of Fire makes its selection, Harry is amazed to find his name is one of those that the magical cup picks out. He will face death-defying tasks, dragons and Dark wizards, but with the help of his best friends, Ron and Hermione, he might just make it through – alive!

Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding fathers of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he is the inventor of Ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three eccentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness.

A divorcee, Olenska is ostracised by those around her, yet Newland is fiercely drawn to her wit, determination and willingness to flout convention. With the Countess, Newland is freed from the limitations that surround him and truly begins to ‘feel’ for the first time.

In the most renowned onstage law scene of all time, Portia proves herself one of Shakespeare’s most cunning heroines, disguising herself as a lawyer and vanquishing Shylock’s claims; meanwhile, Shylock triumphs on a humanitarian level with his plea for tolerance: ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’

Verne, besides including the latest scientific advances of the time in his novels, anticipated many others, like travelling in space or under water. He studied law but he soon decided to write. His first novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, made him so famous that he went on writing fantastic adventure stories.

But her excitement is quickly hampered by the knowledge that, though they are no longer married, Ryle is still very much a part of her life—and Atlas Corrigan is the one man he will hate being in his ex-wife and daughter’s life.

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.

"I did have hallucinations, but did they harm anyone? Who did they harm, that's what I'd like to know!'

Shakespeare’s contemporaries would have spotted the playwright’s attempts to use the shift from republican to imperial Rome to highlight the political situation of the Elizabethans at the time. Featuring some of the most powerfully resonant and rousing speeches of any of Shakespeare’s plays, Julius Caesar remains one of his most well-loved historical...