Blaise Pascal famously said that 'all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone".
In 1790 a young French aristocrat living in Turin is confined to a ... read more
First published in 1908, the brilliance of this superb novel is undiminished. A love story, or rather two, that starts in the Pension Bertolini in Florence. Catering for English tourists, it... read more
A sparkling, intelligent novel, first published in 1964 and just re-issued by Faber & Faber. It is set over the course of a decadent fancy dress party on a snowy New Year's Eve, with all the... 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
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
There are extraordinarily few books set on the island of Majorca. This is the first English translation of a novel published in Spanish in 1960, four years after Lorenç Villalonga’s The D... read more