Modern and Contemporary Fiction

At college in 1980s Luton, Robbie Goulding, an Irish-born teenager, meets the elusive Fran Mulvey, an orphaned Vietnamese refugee. Together they form a band. Joined by cellist Sarah-Thérèse Sherlock and her twin brother Seán on dr

'An unremitting powerhouse of a novel that marks the arrival of a major new talent. Trainspotting is a loosely knotted string of jagged, dislocated tales that lay bare the hearts of darkness of the junkies, wide-boys and psychos w

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
'Written with a wisdom and skill that few authors attain in a lifetime' Sunday Times
Still in her teenage years, Nazneen finds herself in an arranged marriage with a disappointed older man. A

Louisa is at a music festival and the sun is blazing down. She is there with her best friends, her charismatic bad-boy boyfriend Dan, and her backstage pass - for a long-weekend of carefree hedonism. Aged 30 and editor on a style

A memoir about home and belonging, from the author of I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS'A brilliant writer, a fierce friend and a truly phenomenal woman' BARACK OBAMAMaya Angelou's five volumes of autobiography, beginning with I KNO

'Sedaris is the premier observer of our world and its weirdnesses' Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt'He's like an American Alan Bennett' Guardian'Unquestionably the king of comic writing . . .
Calypso is both funnier and

The Lake House by Kate Morton is the mysterious and enchanting novel from the number one bestselling author of The House at Riverton and The Secret Keeper. A missing child . .
. June 1933, and the Edevane family's country house,

In Invisible Cities Marco Polo conjures up cities of magical times for his host, the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, but gradually it becomes clear that he is actually describing one city: Venice. As Gore Vidal wrote 'Of all tasks, des

Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet, and Written by James IvoryWINNER BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY ACADEMY AWARDNominated for Four OscarsA New York Times BestsellerA USA

*WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2015*A Book of the Decade, 2010-2020 (Independent)JAMAICA, 1976Seven gunmen storm Bob Marley's house, machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives, but the gunmen are never caught. From the a

Oliver is just back from the Spanish Civil War and world-weary at only nineteen. Calypso is gorgeous, utterly selfish and determined to marry for money. Polly and Walter, brother and sister, play their cards close to their chests.

Esther Freud's best-known novel, which inspired the Kate Winslet film, published as Penguin Essential for the first time. Two little girls are taken by their mother to Morocco on a 1960s pilgrimage of self-discovery. For Mum it is

The stunning new novel about the joys and heartbreaks of a family divided and reunited, from the bestselling author of the Richard & Judy selection Love, Iris'I loved this book' Katie Fforde'A summer delight - strawberries and cre

A BBC Top 100 Novels that Shaped Our WorldEffia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader's wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that foll

Paris in the twenties: Pernod, parties and expatriate Americans, loose-living on money from home. Jake is wildly in love with Brett Ashley, aristocratic and irresistibly beautiful, with an abandoned, sensuous nature that she canno