Summer Reads

This historical novel set during the eighteenth century recounts the tumultuous final years of famed English lexicographer and poet Samuel Johnson.In 1764, Britain’s greatest man of letters—the writer of the first English dictionary—shut himself in his...

Hailed by The New York Times as “a passionately felt, deeply poetic book,” the moving autobiographical work of Edward Abbey, considered the Thoreau of the American West, and his passion for the southwestern wilderness.Desert Solitaire is a collection of...

'Upward, yet not Northward.' How would a creature limited to two dimensions be able to grasp the possibility of a third? Edwin A. Abbott's droll and delightful 'romance of many dimensions' explores this conundrum in the experiences of his protagonist, A...

This masterpiece of science (and mathematical) fiction is a delightfully unique and highly entertaining satire that has charmed readers for more than 100 years. The work of English clergyman, educator and Shakespearean scholar Edwin A. Abbott...

Heartwarming and profound, this account of one writer's relationship with his beloved German Shepherd is "one of the bonafide dog-lit classics" (New Yorker).The distinguished British man of letters J. R. Ackerley hardly thought of himself as a dog lover...

'Every generalisation that we settled forty years ago, is abandoned'As a journalist, historian and novelist born into a family that included two past presidents of the United States, Henry Adams was constantly focused on the American experiment. An...

The only trilogy in Greek drama that survives from antiquity, Aeschylus' The Oresteia is translated by Robert fagles with an introduction, notes and glossary written in collaboration with W.B. Stanford in Penguin Classics.In the Oresteia Aeschylus...

George, a disillusioned academic, and Martha, his caustic wife, have just come home from a faculty party. When a handsome young professor and his mousy wife stop by for a nightcap, an innocent night of fun and games quickly turns dark and dangerous...

Told in reverse chronology, Waters’ masterful drama examines the effects of the Second World War in shaping the inner and exterior lives of those who lived through it. Wonderfully redolent of the austerity and listlessness of the 1940s and the war’s...

‘[The Gosling Girl] interrogates the context of a child's crime and simplistic notions of evil by society and the media. It fosters understanding & empathy and draws us deep inside the protagonist's psychology’ Bernardine EvaristoMonster?...

One wrong move, one misstep, and the course of a life can be changed for ever.Annie Perry is born beside the coal-muddied canals of the Black Country at the height of the industrial revolution. At nine years old she is sold for six guineas to the famous...

Yesterday, I kissed my husband for the last time ... It's the summer of 1959, and the well-trimmed lawns of Sunnylakes, California, wilt under the sun. At some point during the long, long afternoon, Joyce Haney, wife, mother, vanishes from her home,...

A National Book Award finalist by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo.Walking through the misty Florida woods one morning, twelve-year-old Rob Horton is stunned to encounter a tiger—a real-life, very large tiger—pacing back and forth in a cage. What’s more,...

“Taut, emotionally intense, and wholly believable, this beautiful and uplifting debut” (Kirkus Reviews) about a young black boy’s quest to reunite with his beloved white half-brother after they are separated in foster care is a sparkling novel perfect...

"A compelling novel full of brilliantly villainous characterisation. Orla Owen is a natural storyteller.” Rónán HessionSusan Brown is trapped. She lives in nurses’ accommodation she hates, on the run from a past she detests, desperate for a future she...

“Impossible to resist, impossible to predict, impossible to put down...this is an author at the top of her game.” —Erin Kelly, author of Watch Her FallThe author of the “masterfully plotted, compulsive page-turner” (The Guardian) Our House takes you on a...

(Available after June 30th, 2022)“Impossible to resist, impossible to predict, impossible to put down...this is an author at the top of her game.” —Erin Kelly, author of Watch Her FallThe author of the “masterfully plotted, compulsive page-turner” (The...

Winner of the 2013 Hugo award for Best Graphic Story! When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. From New York Times bestselling...

Introducing The Time Police, the brand-new series by international bestselling author, Jodi Taylor - an irresistible spinoff from the much-loved Chronicles of St Mary's series. Perfect reading for fans of Doctor Who, Terry Pratchett and Jasper Fforde...

Why Galileo's finger? Galileo, one of whose fingers is preserved in a vessel displayed in Florence, provided much of the impetus for modern science, pointing the way out of medieval ignorance. In this brilliant account of the central ideas of...