A witty historical novel that conjures Dryden, Swift, Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and their ilk, by the cunning means of an imagined memoir, written by William Congreve's servant and com... read more
The indefatigable author of 'Schindler's Ark' picks up here on the story of Dickens's youngest son, who emigrated to Australia to become a sheep farmer.
Every Christmas needs an escapist book and this year we think this fits the bill - a novel about the three daughters of the first Earl of Iveagh. There is of course the old chestnut that Pr... read more
Reading this 'novel' is like going to stay with an old uncle, one with lots of stories to tell but nobody to tell them to. Little Keith - as Hitchens used to call Amis - has been waiting for... read more
Baldwin’s ground-breaking first novel draws on his own upbringing in 1930s Harlem. One day in the life of John Grimes, son of a fierce Pentecostal preacher, wrestling with desire and lonel... read more
SA was the pen name of Marta Felicina Faccio (1976-1960); this is her unforgettable autobiographical novel, published in her native Italy in 1906. Both an education sentimentale and a very e... read more
A neurotic Italian businessman obsessed by his own hypochondria, Zeno Cosini recounts his early years to his psychoanalyst Dr S. With a cigarette clutched permanently between his fingers, he... read more
Beautifully written and sensitive to his subject, this is a moving novel about Lampedusa, his remarkable wife Alexandra von Wolff-Stomersee, and the writing of 'The Leopard'.