A lesbian couple - one of whom is an egotistical, bullying narcissist - decide to have children. The novel turns on what happens when the decent one finally determines to leave, taking at le... read more
Roads not taken, not thought about for twenty years, until bad news turns the protagonist's head for her Irish home. The humane and introspective sequel to Brooklyn.
A quiet and thoughtful novel about a girl growing up on an island off the Welsh coast before WW2, whose horizons are altered by the arrival of two ethnographers.
A spin on Huckleberry Finn, this harrowing (and characteristically witty) account of his adventures is narrated by James, a runaway slave. It's a scary reflection on racism today.
An investigation of Jesus' messianic contemporaries and the reasons for Christianity's success. From the author of the highly regarded The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Cla... read more
A society's way of dealing with death can be very revealing. Here, the distinguished historian of Victorian Britain and the domestic sphere shows how their behaviour around death offers deep... read more
1990s' Chicago: two students fall in love. Twenty years on, theirs is a suburban life of detoxes and home improvements. A warm and sardonic novel by the author of The Nix.
The Nuremberg Trials had their counterpart in Japan. This is a thorough investigation of that process, and its significance to what happened afterwards in Asia.
This staggering account of corruption in the art world began when RD was approached in 2003 by Hockney, who had recently had two Warhol pictures denounced as fakes.
Her life in disarray, La Stibbe returns to London for a sabbatical and lodges with Deborah Moggach. As ever she's funny, but there is pathos and pain here too.
The erstwhile Laureate's latest Christmas miniature: a horse walks into a bar where an owl is pulling a pint. Duffy conjures a peaceable kingdom. For all ages from about 6.
A Pulitzer Prize-winner's essays on musical greats who flourished again later in life: Leonard Cohen, Aretha Franklin, Patti Smith and many more. These are judicious and vivid portraits, som... read more
A new collection of short stories by the acclaimed writer who moved to Rome in 2012 and now only writes in Italian. Her many awards include a Pulitzer prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Na... read more
Mozart was taken to Italy three times by his father in his early and mid-teens; already astonishingly accomplished as a thirteen-year-old, he drank in Italian opera like a thirsty man findin... read more
A wry memoir of his recovery from a stroke in 2011, during which time his thoughts turned to his father too. Completed shortly before his death earlier this year.