The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

How does a dog see the world? How do any of us? In this playful and enigmatic story of a canine philosopher, Kafka explores the limits of knowledge.

Earnest and naive solicitor Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to organise the estate of the infamous Count Dracula at his crumbling castle in the ominous Carpathian Mountains. Through notes and diary entries, Harker keeps track of the horrors and terrors that beset him at the castle, telling his fiancé Mina of the Count’s supernatural powers and his...

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.

Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.

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.

Enter the Borgias. Headed by Rodrigo Borgia, better known as Pope Alexander VI, this tight-knit family is fighting to keep its iron grip on Italy – but theirs is a lethal game, and the cost of failure is surely death.

Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami's characters confront loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distance between those who ought to be closest of all.

Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like “guilt, and guilt, and guilt”: these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom.

Hans falls in love and becomes intoxicated with the ideas he hears at the clinic - ideas which will strain and crack apart in a world on the verge of the First World War.

 Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.

Low-life writer and unrepentant alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. After decades of slacking off at low-paying dead-end jobs, blowing his cash on booze and women, and scrimping by in flea-bitten apartments, Chinaski sees his poetic star rising at last

In 1930s America Macon learns about the tyranny of white society from his friend Guitar, though he is more concerned with escaping the familial tyranny of his own father. So while Guitar joins a terrorist group Macon goes home to the South, lured by tales of buried family treasure. 

From iconic tortured artist/everyman Charles Bukowski, Hollywood is the fictionalization of his experience adapting his novel Barfly into a movie by the same name.

The Sultan secretly commissions a great book: a celebration of his life and the Ottoman Empire, to be illuminated by the best artists of the day – in the European manner. In Istanbul at a time of violent fundamentalism, however, this is a dangerous proposition. Even the illustrious circle of artists are not allowed to know for whom they are working. 

The animals at Manor Farm have had enough of Farmer Jones – he’s drunk, reckless and cares little for their welfare. When the boar, Old Major, shares his revolutionary plans, the animals are convinced they can thrive on their own once the despot Jones is overthrown.

A guide to life and the human condition, this lyrical work of prose poetry has entranced readers for nearly 100 years. Described by many as the first self-help book, The Prophet was an instant bestseller when it was published in 1923, and is one of the most translated works in history.