For over sixty years, readers of all ages have been enchanted by the magical realms, the epic battles between good and evil, and the unforgettable creatures of Narnia. This box set includes all seven titles in The Chronicles of Narnia—The Magician's Nephew; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; and The Last Battle.

Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia Complete Audio Collection

Following on from The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, this is a classic fantasy adventure from The Chronicles of Narnia. Desperate to escape a harsh and narrow regime, two runaways unwittingly flee headlong into the centre of a terrible battle. This first sequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe includes all the hallmarks of its famous predecessor, though this time the fate of Narnia is wound up in the lives of its own children – and a talking horse!

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Horse and His Boy

"Thus Spoke Zarathustra was conceived and written by Friedrich Nietzsche during the years 1881–1885; the first three parts were published in 1883 and 1884. The book formed part of his ‘campaign against morality’, in which Nietzsche explored the ethical consequences of the ‘death of God’. Heavily critical not only of Christian values but also of their modern replacements, Thus Spoke Zarathustra argues for a new value-system based around the prophecy of the Übermensch or Superman. Its appropriation by the National Socialist movement in Germany early in the twentieth century has tainted its reputation unjustly; but there are signs that the rehabilitation of Nietzsche, and of this his most incendiary work, is almost complete. Read by Alex Jennings, there are helpful introductions to every chapter."

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Continuing where Thus Spoke Zarathustra left off, Nietzsche’s controversial work Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most influential philosophical texts of the nineteenth century and one of the most controversial works of ideology ever written. Attacking the notion of morality as nothing more than institutionalised weakness, Nietzsche criticises past philosophers for their unquestioning acceptance of moral precepts. Nietzsche tried to formulate what he called ‘the philosophy of the future’. Alex Jennings reads this new translation by Ian Johnston.

Ideas for Life

Beyond Good and Evil

The ultimate Rome story‘Iggulden is in a class of his own when it comes to epic, historical fiction’ Daily Mirror 'I wish I’d written it' Bernard Cornwell 'If you liked Gladiator, you'll love Emperor' The Times From the spectacle of gladiatorial combat to the intrigue of the Senate, from the foreign wars that secure the power of the empire to the betrayals that threaten to tear it apart, this is the remarkable story of the man who would become the greatest Roman of them all: Julius Caesar. In the city of Rome, a titanic power struggle is about to shake the Republic to its core. Citizen will fight citizen in a bloody conflict – and Julius Caesar, cutting his teeth in battle, will be in the thick of the action. The first instalment in the bestselling Emperor series. Real readers love The Gates of Rome: 'Very well written' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'A great start to what is a tremendous quartet' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'If you want an entertaining read, BUY THIS' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'From the start I was hooked. Great character development, great story, and events that actually could have happened' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This is such a good read, it's almost impossible to put it down. Characters are so well drawn and each has their own story that weaves in and out until eventually everything comes so cleverly together' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Emperor Series

The Gates of Rome

Captivating and suspenseful, Best Kept Secret is the third novel in international bestseller Jeffrey Archer’s outstanding Clifton Chronicles. It sees our hero Harry Clifton and Giles Barrington, brother of Harry’s beloved wife Emma, become entwined in the fate of the Barrington family fortune. It is 1945 and the House of Lords’ vote on who should inherit the Barrington estate ends in a tie, casting a long shadow on the lives of those involved. Author Harry begins to promote his novel, whilst Emma, after her father’s mysterious death, searches for the girl found abandoned in his office on the night he died. Politician Giles defends his seat in the House of Commons and finds not only his future but his family’s fortune at stake. Ultimately his fate is dictated by Harry’s son Sebastian, even as Sebastian himself becomes embroiled in an international art fraud. As they move out of the shadows of war, a new generation of Cliftons and Barringtons comes to the fore, and a thrilling new episode of Jeffrey Archer’s captivating family saga begins. Continue the bestselling series with Be Careful What You Wish For and Mightier than the Sword.

The Clifton Chronicles

Best Kept Secret

THE REMARKABLE NEW WORK OF FICTION FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS, WATERLAND, HERE WE ARE and MOTHERING SUNDAY In the aftermath of the Second World War Private Joseph Caan, a young Jewish soldier stationed in Germany, seeks the truth about lost family members; in the 1960s a father focuses on his daughter’s wedding even as the Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world to the brink of disaster; in 2001, while planes fly into the Twin Towers, a maid working for US Embassy staff in London wonders if her birth on the day of the Kennedy assassination shaped her life; and at the height of a pandemic lockdown, Dr. Cole, a retired specialist in respiratory disease, returns to work and recalls a formative childhood encounter with illness and much more. These are just a few of the challenged characters we meet in Graham Swift’s Twelve Post-war Tales. Tender, humane, funny and moving, Swift’s latest work of fiction displays his quietly commanding ability to set the personal and the ordinary against the harsh sweep of history. It is an outstanding achievement, confirming his status as one of the great, most subtle voices of our age. Praise for Swift's most recent novel, Here We Are 'A magical piece of writing: the work of a novelist on scintillating form.' Guardian ‘Here We Are smuggles within the pages of a seemingly commonplace tale depths of emotion and narrative complexity that take the breath away.’ Observer ‘The book’s power comes precisely from the fact that it performs its magic in front of your eyes, leaving nowhere to hide . . . you wonder how he does it.’ Financial Times ‘With a wizardry of his own, Swift conjures up an about-to-disappear little world and turns it into something of wider resonance.’ Sunday Times 'Swift has no equal in evoking the atmosphere of an era while probing human psychology with irony and tenderness.' L’Express, France ‘Swift doesn’t write, he whispers’, Corriere della Sera, Italy “In a dozen pages Swift can embrace a whole life”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany

Twelve Post-War Tales

New York, 1939. Tom Bradshaw is arrested for first degree murder. He stands accused of killing his brother. When Sefton Jelks, a top Manhattan lawyer, offers his services for nothing, penniless Tom has little choice but to accept his assurance of a lighter sentence. After Tom is tried, found guilty and sentenced, Jelks disappears, and the only way for him to prove his innocence would be to reveal his true identity - something that he has sworn never to do in order to protect the woman he loves. Meanwhile, the young woman in question travels to New York, leaving their son behind in England, having decided she'll do whatever it takes to find the man she was to marry - unwilling to believe that he died at sea. The only proof she has is a letter. A letter that has remained unopened on a mantelpiece in Bristol for over a year. Jeffrey Archer continues the saga of The Clifton Chronicles with this epic novel, The Sins of the Father. Family loyalties are stretched to their limits as secrets unravel, and the story moves from the backstreets of Bristol to the boardrooms of Manhattan.

The Sins of the Father

Fast-paced and intriguing, Mightier than the Sword is the fifth novel in Jeffrey Archer’s bestselling Clifton Chronicles. Moving towards the end of the 1960s, the Cliftons and the Barringtons come up against sworn enemies and new foes . . . Following the explosion of an IRA bomb on board the Barrington’s flagship MV Buckingham, Emma Clifton must deal with the repercussions on her family’s shipping business. Meanwhile her old adversary, Lady Virginia Fenwick, plots her downfall. Bestselling novelist Harry is on a mission to free a fellow author imprisoned in Siberia, even if it costs him everything. Giles, his brother-in-law, a minister of the Crown, faces his own problems when a diplomatic disaster risks his bid for higher office. With its devastating twists and turns, Archer’s spellbinding the Clifton Chronicles continues to enthral readers. Continue the bestselling series with Cometh the Hour and This Was a Man.

Mightier than the Sword

Thrilling and absorbing, Cometh the Hour is the sixth novel in international bestseller Jeffrey Archer’s the Clifton Chronicles and sees the Clifton and Barrington families navigate the 1970s in an epic tale of tragedy and hope. There are devastating consequences for Harry and Emma Clifton, her brother Giles Barrington and their arch enemy Lady Virginia when a suicide note is read out in court. Having fallen in love, Giles must decide if he should withdraw from politics to try and rescue the woman he loves from behind the Iron Curtain. Lady Virginia faces bankruptcy, and can see no way out of her financial problems, until she is introduced to a rich, hapless American. Harry and Emma’s son Sebastian Clifton, now the Chief Executive of Farthings Bank, falls in love with the wrong girl even as his rivals plot to overthrow him. Meanwhile, his father remains determined to free a fellow author from a gulag in Siberia, following the international success of the book they wrote together, the acclaimed Uncle Joe. But then something astonishing happens that none of them could have anticipated . . . The penultimate book in the Clifton Chronicles once again showcases Jeffrey Archer’s extraordinary storytelling abilities and confirms his reputation for breathtaking twists. Continue the bestselling series with This Was a Man.

Cometh the Hour

Winner of the Man Booker Prize, The Line of Beauty is a classic novel about class, politics and sexuality in Margaret Thatcher's 1980s Britain. There was the soft glare of the flash – twice – three times – a gleaming sense of occasion, the gleam floating in the eye as a blot of shadow, his heart running fast with no particular need of courage as he grinned and said, 'Prime Minister, would you like to dance?' In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the wealthy Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious Tory MP, his wife Rachel and their children Toby and Catherine. Innocent of politics and money, Nick is swept up into the Feddens' world and an era of endless possibility, all the while pursuing his own private obsession with beauty. The Line of Beauty is Alan Hollinghurst's Man Booker Prize-winning masterpiece. It is a novel that defines a decade, exploring with peerless style a young man's collision with his own desires, and with a world he can never truly belong to.

Picador Collection

The Line of Beauty

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY. One summer morning in 1943, lock-keeper Henry Crick finds the drowned body of a sixteen-year-old boy. Nearly forty years later, his son Tom, a history teacher, is driven by a bizarre marital crisis and the provocation of one of his students to forsake the formal teaching of history—and tell stories . . . Waterland is a classic of modern fiction: a vision of England seen through its mysterious, amphibious Fen country; a sinuous meditation on the workings of time; a tale of two families, startling in its twists and turns and universal in its reach. Compulsively readable, it is a novel of resonant depth and encyclopaedic richness, mixing human and natural history and exploring the tragic forces that take us both forwards and back. It is also a book about beer, eels, the French Revolution, the end of the world, windmills, will-o’-the-wisps, murder, love, education, curiosity and—supremely—the malign and merciful element of water. ‘A quite brilliant novel’ Daily Telegraph ‘Inspired’ New York Times

Waterland

Be Careful What You Wish For, the fourth instalment in Jeffrey Archer's The Clifton Chronicles, opens with Harry Clifton and his wife Emma rushing to hospital to learn the fate of their son Sebastian, who has been involved in a fatal car accident. But who died, Sebastian or his best friend Bruno? When Ross Buchanan is forced to resign as chairman of the Barrington Shipping Company, Emma Clifton wants to replace him. But Don Pedro Martinez intends to install his puppet, the egregious Major Alex Fisher, in order to destroy the Barrington family firm just as the company plans to build its new luxury liner, the MV Buckingham. Back in London, Harry and Emma's adopted daughter wins a scholarship to the Slade Academy of Art where she falls in love with a fellow student who asks her to marry him. Both families are delighted until the future mother-in-law, has a visit from an old friend who drops her particular brand of poison into the wedding chalice. Then, without warning, Cedric Hardcastle, a bluff Yorkshireman who no one has come across before, takes his place on the board of Barringtons. This causes an upheaval that none of them could have anticipated, and will change the lives of every member of the Clifton and Barrington families. Hardcastle's first decision is who to support to become the next chairman of the board, and with that decision, the story takes yet another twist that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Continue the bestselling series with Mightier than the Sword and Cometh the Hour.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Engrossing and memorable, The Sins of the Father is the second novel in international bestseller Jeffrey Archer’s celebrated The Clifton Chronicles. It takes us to New York in 1939 where our hero Harry Clifton is in desperate need of help. This audio edition is captivatingly read by Alex Jennings and Emilia Fox. Only days before Britain declares war on Germany, Harry joins the Merchant Navy, unable to face long-held family secrets and the fact he will never be able to marry his true love Emma Barrington. But when his ship is sunk mid-Atlantic, Harry takes the opportunity to assume the identity of one his deceased rescuers and begin a new life. Landing in America, he quickly discovers he has made a mistake and without any way to prove his true identity, Harry is now chained to a past that could be far worse than the one he had hoped to escape . . . Brimming with intrigue, the Clifton Chronicles continues its powerful journey with family loyalties stretched to their limits and fates decided. Continue the bestselling series with Best Kept Secret and Be Careful What You Wish For.

"A History of the World in 10½ Chapters tells a series of apparently unconnected stories ranging from a woodworm’s-eye-view of the journey on Noah’s Ark to an astronaut’s quest for its final resting place. There is pastiche and learned disquisition; there is heart-stopping documentary and heart-lifting revelation. But these stories are not separate. They are all linked by a complex weave of inquiry into history itself, into love, myth and fabulation. It’s about everything that matters, told with brilliant imagination, intelligence and humour."

A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

Suspenseful and mesmerizing, This Was a Man is the seventh and final novel in international bestseller Jeffrey Archer’s the Clifton Chronicles – an epic and poignant conclusion. Harry Clifton is set to write his magnum opus, and as he reflects on his days, the lives of his family continue to unfold, unravel and intertwine in ways no one could have imagined. Harry’s wife Emma completes her ten years as Chairman of the Bristol Royal Infirmary when she receives a surprise call from Margaret Thatcher. In Whitehall, Giles Barrington discovers the truth about his wife, but is she a pawn in a larger game? Sebastian Clifton finds himself in a new role after an unexpected resignation and his talented daughter, Jessica, goes to art school but gets into trouble. Can her aunt help? Lady Virginia is about to flee the country to avoid her creditors when the death of a duchess gives her another opportunity to clear her debts and finally trump the two families. The epic saga that has charted the lives, loves and adventures of the Clifton and Barrington families reaches its stunning conclusion in this, the final heart-stopping volume from the master storyteller, Jeffrey Archer.

This Was a Man

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Telegraph, Washington Post, The New Yorker. LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE. “Like A.S. Byatt’s Possession, Enlightenment is a baroque, genre-bending novel of ideas, ghosts and hidden histories. A richly layered epic....a heartfelt paean to the consolations of the sublime, where religion and science meet."" -- Telegraph ""Read it, then read it again. This is a book full of unexpected wonders."" -- Literary Review From the author of The Essex Serpent, a dazzling novel of love and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends. Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits—torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London. Over the course of twenty years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a devastating tale of love and scientific pursuit. Thomas and Grace will ask themselves what it means to love and be loved, what is fixed and what is mutable, how much of our fate is predestined and written in the stars, and whether they can find their way back to each other. A thrillingly ambitious novel of friendship, faith, and unrequited love, rich in symmetry and symbolism, Enlightenment is a shimmering wonder of a book and Sarah Perry’s finest work to date.

Enlightenment

The ultimate Rome story The young Caesar must overcome enemies on land and at sea to become a battle-hardened leader – in the spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of The Gates of Rome. Forced to flee Rome, Julius Caesar is serving on board a war galley in the dangerous waters of the Mediterranean and is rapidly gaining a fearsome reputation. But no sooner has he had a memorable victory than his ship is captured by pirates and he is held to ransom. Abandoned on the north African coast after hard months of captivity, he begins to gather a group of recruits that he will eventually forge into a unit powerful enough to gain vengeance on his captors and to suppress a new uprising in Greece. Returning to Rome as a hero – and as an increasingly dangerous problem for his enemies – Caesar is reunited with his boyhood companion Brutus. But soon the friends are called upon to fight as they have never fought before, when a new crisis threatens to overwhelm the city – in the form of a rebellious gladiator named Spartacus…

The Death of Kings

***LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE*** From the Booker-winning author of Last Orders and Waterland comes a long-awaited new novel. ‘Mothering Sunday is bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly… Swift’s small fiction feels like a masterpiece’ The Guardian It is March 30th 1924. It is Mothering Sunday. How will Jane Fairchild, orphan and housemaid, occupy her time when she has no mother to visit? How, shaped by the events of this never to be forgotten day, will her future unfold? Beginning with an intimate assignation and opening to embrace decades, Mothering Sunday has at its heart both the story of a life and the life that stories can magically contain. Constantly surprising, joyously sensual and deeply moving, it is Graham Swift at his thrilling best. Praise for Mothering Sunday: ‘Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives – the parallel stories – we can never know … It may just be Swift’s best novel yet’ The Observer 'Dazzling . . . a vanished world is resurrected with superb immediacy . . . wonderfully accomplished' Sunday Times 'Stunning . . . It is about the most perfect novel you could wish to read' The Guardian 'From start to finish Swift's is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve . . . Swift is a writer at the very top of his game' Evening Standard 'Exquisite . . . Mothering Sunday shows love, lust and ordinary decency straining against the bars of an unjust English caste system' Kazuo Ishiguro ‘Mastery and resonance . . . It’s one of the novel’s great strengths to be able to shift with such agility between focus scene and lifetime recollection . . . the languid, blissful minutes of March 30, 1924 seem to contain all the succeeding decades’ Times Literary Supplement 'A dazzling read: sexy, stylish, subversive' Herald Scotland 'A jewel of a book, a subtle, erotically charged novella suspended between past and future' Hermione Lee 'A work of gold from the subtle pen of the great Graham Swift' Le Monde 'With this novel he captures what it means to be alive' Der Spiegel ‘An exquisite novella of love and loss . . . a short yet powerful and intricately layered work . . . every sentence counting and not a word out of place’ The Australian

Mothering Sunday

The ultimate Rome story THE FIELD OF SWORDS tell the powerful, dramatic story of the friendship and enmity between the two men who ruled the Roman world. Following the defeat of the Spartacus rebellion, Julius Caesar and Marcus Brutus, who have been sent to run the Roman colonies in Spain, return to challenge powerful senators to become one of the Consuls of Rome. Political opposition, family quarrels, armed rebellions and corruption make this a highly contemporary scene, fuelled by the intrigue of the major characters, who are now developing as full adults. As he takes the legions north into mighty battles with the Gallic tribes, the imperious stand of Caesar and the leadership of his men, his new friendships with fellow leaders and his overwhelming ambition, begin to separate him from Brutus, the great swordsman and warrior. Their long friendship reveals ominous cracks under the strain. Although the Gallic conquests lead to Caesar's triumphal entry into Britain, the victories on the battlefield cause political rivalries at home, and ultimately the famous choice is presented to Caesar and Marcus Brutus. They must choose whether to cross the Rubicon – together or singly – and to take the fight to Rome itself. Conn Iggulden is a brilliant storyteller. Characters jostle for space in the crowded streets, on the battlefields and in the corridors of the Senate. The friendship and rivalry between Caesar and Brutus provides compelling reading. Each book in the EMPEROR series causes readers to return to the previous novel, and ensures they also look forward hugely to the next.

The Field of Swords

THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER AND AWARD-WINNING RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK Available for the first time as a downloadable audio file. England 1819: Thomas Shield, a new master at a school just outside London, is tutor to a young American boy and the boy’s sensitive best friend, Charles Frant. Drawn to Frant’s beautiful, unhappy mother, Thomas becomes caught up in her family’s twisted intrigues. Then a brutal crime is committed, with consequences that threaten to destroy Thomas and all that he has come to hold dear. Despite his efforts, Shield is caught up in a deadly tangle of sex, money, murder and lies – a tangle that grips him tighter even as he tries to escape from it. And what of the strange American child, at the heart of these macabre events, yet mysterious – what is the secret of the boy named Edgar Allen Poe?

The American Boy

Read by actor Alex Jennings, Patrick Melrose Volume 1 contains the first three novels in Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series, filmed for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. Moving from Provence to New York to Gloucestershire, from the savageries of a childhood with a cruel father and an alcoholic mother to an adulthood fraught with addiction, Patrick Melrose is on a mission to escape himself. But the drugs don’t make him forget his past, and the glittering parties offer him no redemption . . . Searingly funny and deeply humane, Patrick Melrose Volume 1 contains the first three novels in the Patrick Melrose series, Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope. Patrick Melrose Volume 2 is also available, containing the final two novels in the series, Mother’s Milk and At Last.

Patrick Melrose Volume 1

The fascinating royal and social history that inspired the second and third seasons of The Crown, from the show's historical consultant. In this incredible companion to the second and third seasons of Netflix's acclaimed series The Crown, renowned biographer and the show's historical consultant Robert Lacey takes us through the real history that inspired the drama. Covering two tumultuous decades in the reign of Elizabeth II, Lacey looks at the key social, political and personal moments and the effect they had not only on the royal family, but also on the world around them. From the Suez Canal Crisis and the US/Russia space race to the Duke of Windsor's collaboration with Hitler and the rumoured issues with the royal marriage, the book will provide a fascinating insight into the two decades that the show covers, revealing the truth behind the fiction on-screen. Extensively researched, this is a unique look behind the history that inspired the show and the years that would prove to be the making of The Queen. The Crown is now available to watch on Netflix. The Crown is produced by Left Bank Pictures in association with Sony Pictures Television for Netflix.

The Crown

The ultimate Rome story Fresh from triumph in Britain and Gaul, Caesar is marching on Rome with his legions of hardened veterans. To unseat Pompey, now dictator of the empire, he must make the terrible decision to wage war on his own people. The glory that Julius, Brutus, Mark Antony and Octavian enjoy is short lived. There are lands to conquer and choices to make that may yet tear them apart. What cost will Caesar suffer for the path he has walked? Who will make him pay? The final instalment in the bestselling Emperor series.

The Gods of War

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, and reissued for the first time in Scribner, comes a novel called ‘Profound and powerful . . . an unputdownable read’ by Scotland on Sunday. On an autumn day in 2006, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton – former Devon farmer, now proprietor of a seaside caravan park – receives the news that his brother Tom, not seen for years, has been killed in Iraq. For Jack and his wife Ellie this will have a potentially catastrophic impact and compel Jack to make a crucial journey: to receive his brother’s remains, but also to return to the land of his past and confront his most secret, troubling memories. Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly… Swift’s small fiction feels like a masterpiece’ Guardian ‘Alive with sensuousness and sensuality … wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement’ Sunday Times ‘From start to finish Swift’s is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game’ Evening Standard ‘Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives – the parallel stories – we can never know … It may just be Swift’s best novel yet’ Observer

Wish You Were Here

A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOKER PRIZE GEM FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MOTHERING SUNDAY AND LAST ORDERS, and reissued for the first time on the Scribner list, The Light of Day is both a gripping crime story and a remarkable love story. On a cold but dazzling November morning George Webb, a former policeman turned private detective, prepares to visit Sarah, a prisoner and the woman he loves. As he goes about the business of the day he relives the catastrophic events of two years ago that have both bound them together and kept them apart. Making atmospheric use of its suburban setting and shot through with a plain man’s unwitting poetry and rueful humour, The Light of Day is a powerful and moving tale of murder, redemption and of the discovery, for better or worse, of the hidden forces inside us. Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly… Swift’s small fiction feels like a masterpiece’ Guardian ‘Alive with sensuousness and sensuality … wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement’ Sunday Times ‘From start to finish Swift’s is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game’ Evening Standard ‘Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives – the parallel stories – we can never know … It may just be Swift’s best novel yet’ Observer ‘A real in-depth study of humanity’ Alex Jones, Between the Covers ‘I loved this so much. The form is so interesting. The voice is just so clear and there’s this dryness to him too’ Omari Douglas, Between the Covers

The Light of Day

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, reissued for the first time in Scribner For forty years, Willy Chapman has struck a strange but steadfast bargain between the two poles of his life: his beautiful but emotionally damaged wife and the sweet shop he runs on a south London high street. Devoted to each, he has maintained a delicate, precarious balance. Now, on a hot summer’s day, he attempts to settle his final accounts and reach an understanding with a third, disruptive element in his reckoning: his angry, unforgiving daughter. Spanning five decades and intricately exploring a doomed family triangle, Graham Swift’s first novel already shows the historical scope combined with intense intimacy that will characterise his work. ‘A marvellous first novel’ New Statesman ‘Brilliantly chronicled’ The Spectator

The Sweet Shop Owner

"Theft of the Master" aims to appeal to the reader seeking more from a novel than a good read. This is an intricate web of stories speckled with an assortment of finely described characters spanning different historical periods and continents. The story moves along at a terrific rate and entices the reader to discover how the circle will be completed. This is the story of an ancient religious icon pilfered at the end of WWII and its consequences for a family and a nation. "Theft of the Master" has all the ingredients of a top class thriller! Veit Stoss, one of Europe’s greatest sculptors was commissioned by Henry Schenk to sculpt a wood carving of Christ, seated preaching the Sermon on the Mount. The carving was completed in 1493 and presented as a national icon at Estonia’s Tallinn Church of the Holy Ghost. The story is based on historical events involving Hitler’s transporting valuable cultural artifacts to Germany during World War II. "Theft of the Master" is a fictional account of Estonia’s wood carving of "The Christ." In a complex transaction involving a purchase an inventory of artifacts by the Templars, a secret society, this work of art was stolen and becomes the central plot of the story. The book is filled with unexpected surprises and plot twists involving smuggling, murder, and intrigue. Private Investigator, Al Hersey, is hired by Peter Gilchrist to find the murderer of his daughter, Meg, who was found, drowned in the waters off Half Moon Bay, near San Francisco. The assignment takes Al on a dangerous quest for answers from San Francisco, to Estonia, Paraguay, Sweden, and New York. "From the first paragraph of the first chapter the reader is drawn into this fast-paced drama, 'Theft of the Master'." "Edwin Alexander has created an intricate story with a complex plot." "Alexander is an incredibly gifted author. He puts into his characters, a depth of feeling, a glimpse into their obsessions, and those identifiable physical characteristics which make them genuine and believable. His detailed descriptions include, 'a rumbling voice, a voice that rattled the walls,' and 'Tiny’s tall, thin face was overdue a retread but the eyes were sharp and inquisitorial, sharpened by half a lifetime of scrutinizing doubtful people, potentially libelous stories and overenthusiastic expense claims'." "I became so intrigued by Alexander’s vivid descriptions that I found myself visiting the picturesque websites of Half Moon Bay’s shoreline, the Holiday Inn’s lobby in San Francisco’s China town, the dinning room of Neptune’s Palace at the Wharf, the archaic St. Olaf’s Church in Tallinn, Estonia, and the Mennonite Colony in Chaco, Paraguay. Much of the plot is carried by the dialog making 'Theft of the Master' a natural for movie and television adaptation. Edwin Alexander has masterfully crafted a tale of international intrigue, murder, suspense, drama, and deduction."

Theft of the Master

The first volume of David Timson’s series retelling of the stories from Shakespeare’s plays was widely praised by newspapers and educators alike. Here is volume II, with more key plays. Including Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry IV, all texts which regularly appear on the exam syllabus. As before, the stories are illustrated by numerous examples from the plays themselves. They are read by two leading Shakespearean actors: Juliet Stevenson and Alex Jennings.

Stories from Shakespeare 2

Read by actor Alex Jennings, At Last is the fifth and final novel in Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series, The Patrick Melrose Novels, filmed for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. As friends, relatives and foes trickle in to pay their final respects to his mother Eleanor, Patrick Melrose finds himself questioning whether a life without parents will be the liberation he has so long imagined. Yet as the memorial service ends and the family gathers one last time, amidst the social niceties and the social horrors, the calms and the rapids, Patrick begins to sense a new current: the chance of some form of safety – at last.

At Last

"The 150 Psalms contain some of the most inspiring lines in the Old Testament: Psalm 23 ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’ and Psalm 121 ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills’. Yet few know them as a set, and this recording, in Alex Jennings’s clear performance, allows us to consider them as a whole. They are not all uplifting and comfortable. Many involve darker sentiments of revenge or punishment; many appear to be by David or about David; others are To the chief Musician upon Gittith. Their variety is part of their strength and their power, especially in the magisterial language of the King James Bible used here. They are presented with English choral music from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Not otherwise available unabridged on CD."

The Psalms

The incredible true story of the greatest illusionist of modern times and the man who altered the course of the second world war. Soon to be a major film starring Benedict Cumberbatch 'A richly entertaining read' SUNDAY TIMES Jasper Maskelyne was a world famous magician and illusionist in the 1930s. When war broke out, he volunteered his services to the British Army and was sent to Egypt when the desert war began. Here, he used his unique skills to save the vital port of Alexandria from German bombers and to 'hide' the Suez Canal from them. He invented all sorts of camouflage methods to make trucks look like tanks and vice versa. On Malta he developed 'the world's first portable holes': fake bomb craters used to fool the Germans into thinking they had hit their targets. His war culminated in the brilliant deception plan that helped win the Battle of El Alamein: the creation of an entire dummy army in the middle of the desert.

The War Magician

Everyone knows something of Shakespeare’s sonnets, even if only in memorable fragments like ‘the darling buds of may’ or ‘remembrance of things past’ ‘the marriage of minds’. For centuries these wonderfully-crafted, intense lyrics have stood for something valued about youth, love and the emotional complexities belonging to that time of life. This new recording presents all 154 of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, using the New Cambridge Shakespeare texts.

The Sonnets

Winner of the Betty Trask Award, Never Mind is the first in Edward St Aubyn's highly acclaimed Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch. This audiobook is read aloud by stage and screen actor Alex Jennings. At his mother’s family house in the south of France, Patrick Melrose has the run of a magical garden. Bravely imaginative and self-sufficient, five-year-old Patrick encounters the volatile lives of adults with care. His father, David, rules with considered cruelty, and Eleanor, his mother, has retreated into drink. They are expecting guests for dinner. But this afternoon is unlike the chain of summer days before, and the shocking events that precede the guests’ arrival tear Patrick's world in two.

Never Mind

Each of the judges of the Elysian Prize for literature has a reason for accepting the job. For the chairman, MP Malcolm Craig, it is backbench boredom, media personality Jo Cross is on the hunt for a 'relevant' novel, and Oxbridge academic Vanessa Shaw is determined to discover good writing. But for Penny Feathers of the Foreign Office, it's all just getting in the way of writing her own thriller. Over the next few weeks they must read hundreds of submissions to find the best book of the year, and so the judges spar, cajole and bargain in order that their chosen title gets the recognition it deserves. Meanwhile, a host of authors are desperate for Elysian glory, including brilliant writer and serial heart-breaker Katherine Burns, lovelorn debut novelist Sam Black, and Sonny, convinced that his magnum opus, The Mulberry Elephant, will take the literary world by storm. Lost for Words is razor-sharp and fabulously entertaining. It cuts to the quick of some of the deepest questions about the place of art in our celebrity-obsessed culture, and asks how we can ever hope to recognize real talent when everyone has an agenda.

Lost For Words

Bad News is the second novel in Edward St Aubuyn's semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. This audiobook edition is read by stage and screen actor Alex Jennings. Twenty-two years old and in the grip of a massive addiction, Patrick Melrose is forced to fly to New York to collect his father’s ashes. Over the course of a weekend, Patrick’s remorseless search for drugs on the avenues of Manhattan, haunted by old acquaintances and insistent inner voices, sends him into a nightmarish spiral. Alone in his room at the Pierre Hotel, he pushes body and mind to the very edge – desperate always to stay one step ahead of his rapidly encroaching past.

Bad News

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mother's Milk is the fourth of Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. This audiobook edition is read by stage and screen actor Alex Jennings. The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril. Caught up in the wreckage of broken promises, child-rearing, adultery and assisted suicide, Patrick finds his wife Mary consumed by motherhood, his mother in thrall to a New Age foundation, and his young son Robert understanding far more than he should. But even as the family struggles against the pull of its ever-present past, a new generation brings a new tenderness, and the possibility of change.

Mother's Milk

Read by actor Alex Jennings, Patrick Melrose Volume 2 contains the final two novels in Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series, filmed for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril, and Patrick Melrose, now a husband and father, is trying to gather together the pieces of his life. Caught up in the turmoil of broken promises, assisted suicide, adultery and – most tender and terrifying of all – fatherhood, Patrick is still a long way from salvation, but even as the family struggles against the pull of its dark past, a new generation promises new light, new hope and – perhaps – the promise of a brighter future. Deeply moving, hilarious and heartbreaking, Patrick Melrose Volume 2 contains the final two novels in the Patrick Melrose series: Mother’s Milk and At Last. Patrick Melrose Volume 1 is also available, containing the first three novels in the series, Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope.

Patrick Melrose Volume 2

Read by actor Alex Jennings, Some Hope is the third of Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series, The Patrick Melrose Novels, filmed for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. Patrick Melrose, cleaned-up and world-weary, is a reluctant guest at a glittering party deep in the English countryside. Amid a crowd of flitting social dragonflies, he finds his search for redemption and capacity for forgiveness challenged by his observation of the cruelties around him. Armed with his biting wit and a newly fashioned openness, can Patrick, who has been to the furthest limits of experience and back again, find release from the savageries of his childhood?

Some Hope

A collection of new stories from the Booker-prize winning author of Last Orders, and of the Sunday Times bestseller Mothering Sunday. Meet Dr Shah, who has never been to India, and Mrs Kaminski, on her way to Poland via A&E. Meet Holly and Polly, who have come to their own Anglo-Irish understanding; Charlie and Don, who have seen the docks turn into Docklands; Daisy Baker, terrified of Yorkshire; and Johnny Dewhurst, stranded on Exmoor. Binding these stories together is Graham Swift's affectionate but unflinching instinct for the story of us all: an evocation of that mysterious body that is a nation, deepened by the palpable sense of our individual bodies finding or losing their way in the nationless territory of birth, ageing, sex and death. Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly… Swift’s small fiction feels like a masterpiece’ Guardian ‘Alive with sensuousness and sensuality … wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement’ Sunday Times ‘From start to finish Swift’s is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game’ Evening Standard ‘Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives – the parallel stories – we can never know … It may just be Swift’s best novel yet’ Observer

England and Other Stories

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, reissued for the first time in Scribner Graham Swift’s first collection of short stories confirms his power to bring an edge of the extraordinary, the dangerous or the subversive into otherwise familiar, safe, even comforting settings. On a holiday beach, a mismatched couple wage a sexually charged war for the devotion of their literally floundering son. A family doctor, oppressed by his own domestic insecurities, intimidates an apparent time-wasting patient. A zookeeper becomes the keeper of a bizarre fixation . . . While vividly evoking a recognisable English geography, these startling stories have an eye for the foreign, for the experience of refugees or for less definable zones of bewilderment and strangeness. More than one has a touch of the ghostly. Highly located yet haunted and haunting, they penetrate a hidden world of human dislocation. ‘Graham Swift should be read by everyone with an interest in the art of the short story’ Paul Bailey, Evening Standard ‘A masterful collection of stories’ USA Today

Learning to Swim

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, reissued for the first time in Scribner Prentis, employed in the police archives, is becoming confused. His obsession with the plight of his father, a wartime hero now the mute inmate of a mental hospital, is alienating him from his wife and children, while at work he feels under scrutiny from his intimidating boss, Quinn. Gradually, Prentis suspects that his father’s breakdown and Quinn’s menacing behaviour are related and that the connection is to be found in his father’s memoir: ‘Shuttlecock’. Shuttlecock is an intense psychological thriller and much more. With poignant force and sometimes dark comedy, it links the secrecies and quirks of domestic life with the enigmas and violence of crime and war. ‘A small masterpiece’ The Guardian ‘Excellent, profound’ Alan Hollinghurst

Shuttlecock

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, reissued for the first time in Scribner Bill Unwin, an academic of dubious status, has never recovered from the death of his famous actress wife and is now convalescing from a recent brush with his own mortality. He has two tales to tell. One, spanning post-war Paris, 1950s Soho and contemporary sexual and scholarly entanglements, surveys the muddle of his own life. The other, drawn from the notebooks of a Victorian ancestor, is the very different story of Matthew Pearce, a serious-minded man whose happiness is destroyed by his compulsive search for truth. Bill’s recollections of his beautiful wife, his wayward mother and his philandering stepfather, his wry reflections on his present plight and his unexpected bond with the forgotten Matthew combine to form a potent and moving mental quest. Embracing two centuries and a host of subjects—from ballet dancers and prehistoric beasts to the bewildering persistence of love—it asks nothing less than the eternal question: ‘Why should things matter?’ ‘A perfect piece of literary art’ The Spectator ‘Masterfully done’ Washington Post

Ever After

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, and reissued for the first time in Scribner, a brilliant collection of essays, as well as brand new material, that will delight and intrigue readers. In Making an Elephant, Graham Swift brings together a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry, and reflections on his life in writing. Full of insights into his passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family, and other writers who have mattered to him over the years, this is a revealing and intimate collection. Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to choose a guitar, Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard, and Ted Hughes shares the secrets of a Devon river. There are private moments, too, with long-dead writers, as well as musings on history and memory that readers of Swift’s novels will recognize and love. Praise for Mothering Sunday: 'Bathed in light; and even when tragedy strikes, it blazes irresistibly… Swift’s small fiction feels like a masterpiece’ Guardian ‘Alive with sensuousness and sensuality … wonderfully accomplished, it is an achievement’ Sunday Times ‘From start to finish Swift’s is a novel of stylish brilliance and quiet narrative verve. The archly modulated, precise prose (a hybrid of Henry Green and Kazuo Ishiguro) is a glory to read. Now 66, Swift is a writer at the very top of his game’ Evening Standard ‘Mothering Sunday is a powerful, philosophical and exquisitely observed novel about the lives we lead, and the parallel lives – the parallel stories – we can never know … It may just be Swift’s best novel yet’ Observer

Making An Elephant

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, reissued for the first time in Scribner In 1972, Robert Beech, First World War veteran and prominent figure in the arms industry, is killed by a car bomb. The event cuts short the career of his son Harry, a news photographer, and comes close to destroying his granddaughter Sophie. Ten years later, Harry, now working in aerial photography, and Sophie, visiting an analyst in New York, remain scarred and divided by the event. Around their broken relationship and Harry’s memories of his truncated career and his father, the novel builds a story that is acutely private yet sweepingly public, at the heart of which lies Harry’s lifelong dedication of the camera. Out of This World spans many of the twentieth century’s scenes of conflict, but also contains some of Graham Swift’s most achingly intimate scenes of personal confrontation—scenes that, powerful and haunting as photographs can be, no photographs can capture. ‘Deserves to be ranked in the forefront of contemporary literature’ New York Times ‘Superb, profound’ Sunday Times

Out Of This World

The Camel Club by bestselling sensation David Baldacci is the exciting first instalment of a breathtaking series. The man known as Oliver Stone has no official past. He spends most days camped opposite the White House, hoping to expose corruption wherever he finds it. But the stakes are raised when he and his friends, a group of conspiracy theorist misfits known as The Camel Club, accidentally witness the murder of an intelligence analyst, which the authorities seem happy to discuss as a suicide. For Secret Service agent Alex Ford, the suicide verdict doesn't ring true. His abilities will be tested to the limit during a visit to the president's hometown, where a terrorist cell has spent months plotting an event that will shake the world. Meanwhile American's powerful intelligence chief, Carter Gray, is unnerved when he glimpses the face of an old acquaintance in Arlington Cemetery - but it is the face of a man supposedly long dead . . . And as The Camel Club is poised to expose a conspiracy reaching into the heart of Washington's highly secretive corridors of power, Alex Ford finds out that his worst nightmare is about to happen. The Camel Club is followed by The Collectors, Stone Cold, Divine Justice and Hell's Corner.

The Camel Club

Charles Dickens' classic novel of mystery, read by Alex Jennings and featuring an immersive musical soundtrack to enhance your audiobook listening experience! A body is found in the River Thames and is identified as John Harmon. He was due to inherit a great fortune on the condition that he marry a young woman called Bella Wilfer. And so the story begins and unravels and we are introduced to the mysterious John Rokesmith, Our Mutual Friend. Booktrack is an immersive format that pairs traditional audiobook narration and complementary music. The tempo and rhythm of the score are in perfect harmony with the action and characters throughout the audiobook. Gently playing in the background, the music never overpowers or distracts from the narration so that listeners can enjoy every minute. When you purchase this Booktrack edition, you receive the exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout. (P)1998 Hodder Headline Audiobooks and (P)2018 Booktrack Holding Ltd (background soundtrack only)

Our Mutual Friend

Charles Dickens' classic novel of mystery, read by Alex Jennings. A body is found in the River Thames and is identified as John Harmon. He was due to inherit a great fortune on the condition that he marry a young woman called Bella Wilfer. And so the story begins and unravels and we are introduced to the mysterious John Rokesmith, Our Mutual Friend. (P)1998 Hodder Headline Audiobooks

In Simple Genius, David Baldacci reintroduces the main characters from bestsellers Split Second and Hour Game. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are both haunted by their last case. Realizing that Michelle is teetering on the brink of self-destruction from long-buried demons, Sean arranges therapy for his reluctant partner. But instead of focusing on her recovery, Michelle unearths disturbing secrets in the hospital . . . Sean accepts a much-needed job. A physicist, Monk Turing, has died in mysterious circumstances near Babbage Town – a secretive establishment populated by an eccentric group of scientists and cryptographers, funded by an anonymous but powerful group. Meanwhile the dead man's young daughter, piano-playing prodigy Viggie, has secrets of her own. But what is the significance of the phrase 'codes and blood'? Directly across the York River from Babbage Town lies the sinister CIA training ground, Camp Peary, where Monk Turing's body was found. With both the FBI and CIA breathing down Sean's neck, can he discover the truth? And will he be in time to save Michelle from herself? Simple Genius is followed by First Family, The Sixth Man and King and Maxwell.

King and Maxwell

Simple Genius

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