Summer Reads

Set in the seedy yet complex milieu of Pompeii’s brothels, Harper’s masterful first historical novel follows Amara and her fellow ‘she-wolves’ through a city where opportunity is rife for even the lowest born slave. Sold by her mother. Enslaved in...

Sitting at his desk, Bernardo Soares imagined himself free forever of Rua dos Douradores, of his boss Vasques, of Moreira the book-keeper, of all the other employees, the errand boy, the post boy, even the cat. But if he left them all tomorrow and...

Timaeus and Critias is a Socratic dialogue in two parts. A response to an account of an ideal state told by Socrates, it begins with Timaeus’s theoretical exposition of the cosmos and his story describing the creation of the universe, from its very...

Lucretius' poem On the Nature of Things combines a scientific and philosophical treatise with some of the greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour he demonstrates to humanity that in death there is nothing to fear since the soul is...

'So my mind sinks in this immensity:and foundering is sweet in such a sea'Revisited and reorganized over his lifetime, this extraordinary work was described by Leopardi as a 'reliquary' for his ideas, feelings and deepest preoccupations. It encompasses...

City of God is an enduringly significant work in the history of Christian thought, by one of its central figuresWritten as an eloquent defence of the faith at a time when the Roman Empire was on the brink of collapse, this great theological and...

'Give me chastity and continence, but not yet'The son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, Saint Augustine spent his early years torn between conflicting world-views. The Confessions, written when he was in his forties, recounts how, slowly and...

The Bhagavad Gita, "The Song of the Lord," is probably the best known of all the Indian scriptures, and Easwaran's clear, accessible translation is the best-selling edition. The Gita opens dramatically, with prince Arjuna collapsing in anguish on the...

(Available after 3-20 days)Samuel Beckett is the greatest Irish novelist of the later twentieth century, and this trilogy of novels is his masterpiece -which makes it perhaps the outstanding literary work of our time. Because Beckett has a reputation for...

At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still...

"The Ego and His Own," the seminal defence of individualism, coloured the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Emst, Henrik Ibsen and Victor Serge, among many others, some of whom would vigorously deny any such influence in later years. Less reticent was...

Filled with humour and astute observations about the power of language, human nature and the absurdities of academia and adolescence, The Idiotfollows the journey of Harvard fresher Selin, bewildered by the opportunities and ordeals of adulthood.   ...

By the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window-shutters, I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His...

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'The Penguin English Library Edition of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley'Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome, yet appalling hideousness'A twisted, upside-down creation myth,...

A dark and enchanting fantasy adventure perfect for those who prefer their fairytales with a twist... The first in the bestselling School for Good and Evil series. Every four years, two girls are kidnapped from the village of Gavaldon. Legend has it...

It's all happy ever after at the School for Good and Evil... or is it? The second title in the bestselling fantasy adventure series - perfect for those who prefer their fairy tales with a twist. After saving themselves and their fellow students from a...

The riveting third book in the bestselling School for Good and Evil series - a darkly magical fantasy adventure that delivers action, romance and more twists than ever before. Former best friends Sophie and Agatha thought their fairy tale's ending was...

With every end comes a new beginning... Join your favourite students from the School for Good and Evil in the exhilarating fourth book in this bestselling series. Before they can graduate, the students of the School for Good and Evil must complete their...

In this fifth instalment in Soman Chainani's New York Times bestselling fantasy series, The School for Good and Evil, Sophie, Agatha, and their friends must find a way to overthrow the sinister evil that twists lies into the truth and seeks to rewrite...

The masterly fairy tale epic reaches its dramatic conclusion, where scores are settled and the identity of the One True King revealed. Concluding the series with all the magic, wit, excitement and intelligence of the volumes that went before, One True...