Tells the story of the author's experiences as a young officer in the First World War. This title describes life in the trenches and how the dehumanizing horrors he witnessed left him shell-shocked.
Sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste has been expensively educated to do everything but earn a living. When she is orphaned at twenty, she decides her only option is to descend on relatives - the doome
Everybody who is anybody is seen at the glittering parties held in millionaire Jay Gatsby's mansion in West Egg, east of New York. The riotous throng congregates in his garden, coolly debating Gatsby'
Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Lucy finds herself torn
'What we all need,' said Larry, 'is sunshine... a country where we can grow.' 'Yes, dear, that would be nice,' agreed Mother, not really listening. 'I had a letter from George this morning - he says C
When a freak cosmic event renders most of the Earth's population blind, Bill Masen - one of the lucky few to keep his sight - finds himself trapped in a London jammed with sightless mobs who prey on t
An Ice-Cream War is William Boyd's sparkling debut novel on the grimly comic side of conflict, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. 'What do you think would happen if I shot an elephan
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)Evelyn Waugh’s 1934 novel is a bitingly funny vision of aristocratic decadence in England between the wars. It tells the story of Tony Last, who, to the irritation of his
Defeated and embittered by a country which treats him as a non-being, the 'invisible man' retreats into an underground cell, where the author smokes, drinks, listens to jazz and recounts his search fo
Ex-detective Nick Charles attracts trouble like a magnet. He thinks his sleuthing days are over, but when Julia Wolf, a former acquaintance, is found dead, her body riddled with bullets, Nick - along
America, fifteen years after the end of the Second World War. The winning Axis powers have divided their spoils: the Nazis control New York, while California is ruled by the Japanese. But between thes
A collection of stories that range from a child grappling with the death of a fallen priest, to a young woman's dilemma over whether to elope to Argentina with her lover, to the dance party at which a
Mr Pooter is a man of modest ambition, content with his clerkly lot. So why is he always in trouble with disagreeable tradesmen, young clerks and wayward friends? And what is he to do about his son Lu
Jix Dixon has a terrible job at a second-rate university. His life is full of things he could happily do without. If he can just deliver a lecture on Merrie England, a moderately successful career sur
Hard-boiled detective fiction at its best: Raymond Chandler's best loved novel, The Big Sleep, published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. 'I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't c
'Some people are coming here today, now you will have a companion.' But young Edmund Hooper doesn't want anyone else in Warings, the large and rambling Victorian house he shares with his widowed fathe
Regeneration by Pat Barker is a classic exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young - published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. 'I just don't think our war aims -
A phalanx of motorcycles came roaring over the hill from the west... the noise was like a landslide, or a wing of bombers passing over. Even knowing the Angels I couldn't quite handle what I was seein
Ignatius J Reilly is fat, flatulent, eloquent and almost unemployable. By the standards of ordinary folk he is pretty much unhinged, too. But is he bothered by this? No. For this misanthropic crusader
If Antoinette Cosway, a spirited Creole heiress, could have foreseen the terrible future that awaited her, she would not have married the young Englishman. Initially drawn to her beauty and sensuality
