The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

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...

Ten-year-old Jas has a unique way of experiencing her universe: the feeling of udder ointment on her skin as protection against harsh winters; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads; the sound of 'blush words' that aren't in the Bible.

Siddhartha is perhaps the most important and compelling moral allegory our troubled century has produced. Integrating Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with psychoanalysis and philosophy, this strangely simple tale, written with a deep and moving empathy for humanity, has touched the lives of millions since its original publication in 1922. 

But Giuliano is a man entwined in a bloody web of violence and vendettas. In Sicily, Giuliano is a modern day Robin Hood who has defied corruption--and defied the Cosa Nostra. Now, in the land of mist-shrouded mountains and ancient ruins, Michael Corleone's fate is entwined with the dangerous legend of Salvatore Giuliano: warrior, lover, and the ultimate...

Their journey, at times rollickingly funny but always deadly serious in its potential consequences, takes them ever deeper into the slave-holding South, and our appreciation of their shared humanity grows as we watch them travel physically farther from yet morally closer to the freedom they both passionately seek.

Orwell graphically and emphatically describes the hardships of ordinary people living in cramped slum housing, working in dangerous mines and growing hungry through malnutrition and social injustice. It is an honest, gripping and humane study that also looks at socialism as a solution to the problems facing working-class northerners – something many...

Master of post-modern satire, Kurt Vonnegut patterns trajectories of sex, spite, crime and power in this kaleidoscopic novel

With remarkable care and empathy, Alexievich gives voice to those whose stories are lost in the official narratives, uncovering a powerful, hidden history of one of the most important events of the twentieth century.Published to great acclaim in the USSR in 1985 and now available in English for the first time, this masterpiece offers a kaleidoscopic...

Agamemnon's Daughter, written in Albania in the 1980s and smuggled into France a few pages at a time, reveals a world where fear is an instrument of power, but the individual survives despite the odds.From the winner of the first Man Booker International Prize comes a searing story of love denied, then shattered under the chilling wheels of the state.

Plagued by guilt, anxiety, and bewilderment about her new maternal role, the acclaimed novelist stopped writing for the first time in her life. As she plummeted into post-partum depression, Shafak looked to the experiences of other prominent female writers—including Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and Alice Walker—for help navigating the...

But as paranoia consumed a country at war, Mata Hari's lifestyle brought her under suspicion. In 1917 she was arrested in her hotel room on the Champs Elysees and accused of espionage.

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?

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.

Harry is convinced that Malfoy bears the Dark Mark: there is a Death Eater amongst them. Harry will need powerful magic and true friends as he explores Voldemort's darkest secrets, and Dumbledore prepares him to face his destiny.

Five students go to detention. Only four leave alive.Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule.

Soldier, hero, rogue - Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.