A young woman in Tokyo takes a few tentative steps outward after years of isolation. Kawakami's unsettling lyricism and candour about ordinary modern lives have made her one of Japan's most ... read more
A plane inexplicably duplicates when caught in a storm. One plane lands in March; the other in June. As for the duplicated passengers... From this speculative premise comes an engrossing dra... read more
The great Russian poet became a master of the English language in his long American exile: these essays evoke his youth in post-WW2 Leningrad with memorable portraits of his parents, in whom... read more
Written in 2015 by the chess grandmaster and human rights activist, this passionate indictment of Russian kleptocracy is also a warning against the complacency of Western democracies in the ... read more
Happy reminiscences, told in rhyme, by a grandfather to his children. Excellent illustrations, treasure maps, whales waving their tails, adventure, swash-and-buckle... Ages 3-6.
JLS's approach to sheep and shepherding is both practical and lyrical - he, the shepherd, sometimes lies down to sleep with his sheep. Interesting too are his ideas about what constitutes go... read more
Had Mrs Gaskell lived in Japan and a century later, she might have written this intimate portrait of four sisters of good family living in Osaka in somewhat straitened circumstances. Their e... read more
A child moves from the country to the city; her imagination in this unfamiliar world is fired by a comet, and through her imagination comes reconciliation. Aspects evoke Howl's Moving Castle... read more
Ludwig Pollak was the art dealer-scholar who found the missing arm of Laocoön, in the famous classical sculpture. In this mysterious, cerebral novella set in Rome in 1943, Pollak is exhorte... read more
The ambitions of the youngest member of a musical family are thwarted by having to play the triangle... But help appears in the form of a cat-ghost, Maestro Gus, who is a magical teacher. A ... read more
This mysterious and elegant establishment moves every day to a new location; two sisters are thrilled to find work in it and are happily swept away in all the excitement - but as time passes... read more
An old-fashioned story about a lonely miller who sets off to find friendship, overlooking that which is closest to home. Charming illustrations. For ages 4-7.
A splendid return to Ibbotson's adored Amazonian world, this time with Rosa, a Kinderstransport child. Many characters from Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea make an appearance too. Carrol... read more
A Yorkshire childhood, remembered in lockdown, collides with immense global forces. Hunters in the Snow, Hildyard's previous novel - her first - was excellent.
Like Louis Jourdain's character in 'Gigi', Badger finds everything - no matter what - is a BORE... until Badger and his friends embark on a piratical adventure. Amiable picture book about ch... read more
Born in 1914 in Czernovitz in what is now Ukraine, the author was successively a citizen of Austro-Hungary, Romania and the Soviet Union as the bloody tides of the C20th swept to and fro bef... read more
Contemporary short fiction from Afghanistan, all written before the Taliban retook power in August 2021. An extraordinary collection brought into being through the efforts of UNTOLD's Write ... read more
Against the backdrop of WW2 and its aftermath, a young Italian woman marries and moves to her husband's village in the south. Ginzburg's characteristically limpid prose harbours may details ... read more
Had Mrs Gaskell lived in Japan and a century later, she might have written this intimate portrait of four sisters of good family living in Osaka in somewhat straitened circumstances. Their e... read more
Quiet utterances like snatches of conversation, from the magnificent JB. These brief reflections and observations are not quite poetry, not quite prose - an absolute joy to read and to pause... read more
This marvellous memoir of her youth in Tottenham ends when her theatrical career takes off: forthright, transparent, dry, funny - there is nothing remotely precious about Dame Eileen's accou... read more
A small boy in a big hat steers himself and three friends on the good ship Neversink in search of a land where children grow up immediately, cutting out any further need for school... By th... read more