Felix Holt the Radical, George Eliot

The Essential Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway

The Essential Hemmingway is the perfect introduction to his astonishing, wide-ranging body of work. This impressive collection includes the full text of Fiesta, Hemingway's first major novel; long extracts from his three greatest works of fiction, A Farewell to Arms, To Have and Have Not and For Whom the Bell Tolls; twenty-five complete stories; and the...

Publisher: Collins Classics

Henry IV, Part I & Part II, William Shakespeare

King Henry IV’s son, Prince Harry is quick-witted yet idle and irresponsible and lives a roguish existence keeping dubious company.

Publisher: Collins Classics

The Prisoner of Zenda, Anthony Hope

 Rudolf must foil the plans of the king’s brother, Prince Michael, and when the king is kidnapped and taken to a castle in Zenda, Rudolf must overcome the plots of the prince’s mistress and his henchman in order to rescue him.

Publisher: Collins Classics

Moby Dick, Herman Melville

The story tells the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael and his voyage on the whaling ship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby-Dick, a white whale of tremendous size and ferocity. Comparatively few whaling ships know of Moby-Dick, and fewer yet have encountered hi

The call of the wild, Jack London

Based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.

On drinking, Charles Bukowski

 Through drink, Bukowski is able to be alone, to be with people, to be a poet, a lover, and a friend—though often at great cost. As Bukowski writes in a poem simply titled “Drinking,”: “for me/it was or/is/a manner of/dying/with boots on/and gun/smoking and a/symphony music background.”

Publisher: Collins Classics

The Tempest, William Shakespeare

Banished from Italy, Prospero lives on a remote island with his daughter. Using his magic, he vows to seek revenge on the injustice dealt to him by his brother, but in doing so, Shakespeare questions the difficulty of distinguishing ‘men’ from ‘monsters’, and the realities of justice.

Publisher: Wordsworth Classics

Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain

Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi River, was host to riverboat travelers from around the world, providing a vigorous and variable atmosphere for the young Samuel Clemens to absorb. Clemens became a riverboat pilot and even chose his pen name—Mark Twain—from a term boatmen would call out signifying water depth at two fathoms, meaning safe...

Publisher: Penguin Classics

White nights, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

'My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?' A poignant tale of love and loneliness from Russia's foremost writer.

Publisher: Collins Classics

The art of war, Sun Tzu

Focussing on the principle that one can outsmart your foe mentally by thinking very carefully about strategy before resorting to physical battle, this philosophy continues to be applied to the corporate and business world.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling

There are many who deny the Dark Lord's return, but Harry is not alone: a secret order gathers at Grimmauld Place to fight against the Dark forces. Harry must allow Professor Snape to teach him how to protect himself from Voldemort's savage assaults on his mind. But they are growing stronger by the day and Harry is running out of time.

Publisher: Collins Classics

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

With a bitter feud between their respective families, Romeo and Juliet’s love is troubled from the start, and through their relationship, Shakespeare shows the fine line between love, hatred, comedy and tragedy

Publisher: Collins Classics

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

A celebration of Christmas, a tale of redemption and a critique on Victorian society, Dickens' atmospheric novella follows the miserly, penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge who views Christmas as 'humbug'.

Publisher: Collins Classics

A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf

‘Three Guineas’, Woolf’s most impassioned polemic, came almost a decade later and broke new ground by challenging the very notions of war and masculinity.

The Concert, Ismail Kadare

The Chinese intend to punish their interfering little ally discreetly. But is the Sino-Albanian axis about to come adrift? This is Kadare’s surreal black comedy about the inner sanctums of political power and the mysterious causal chains that transform ordinary lives.

Publisher: Penguin Books

The Garden of Forking Paths, Jorge Luis Borges

'Summer was drawing to a close, and I realized that the book was monstrous.'