The midnight hour approaches. You lie in bed and try to sleep, but there is the howling ofthe wind outside, the creak of a floorboard, the scream of a cat, the ticking clock...Your heart beats, your s
Eight years ago Anne Elliot bowed to pressure from her family and made the decision notto marry the man she loved, C aptain Wentworth. Now circumstances have conspired tobring him back into her social
Welcome to motherhood - a land of aching fatigue, constant self-sacrifice and thankless servitude, a land of bottomless devotion, small hands and feet like warm pink roses, and velvet kisses. Here is
Your sister might be the kindred soul who knows you best, or the most alien being in your household; she might enrage you or inspire you; she might be your fiercest competitor or closest co-conspirato
Is there anything quite so exhilarating as swimming in wild water? This is Roger Deakin's swimming tour of Britain, a frog's-eye view of the country's best bathing holes - the rivers, rock pools, lake
Is who we are really only skin deep? In this searing, remonstrative book, Toni Morrison unravels race through the stories of those debased and dehumanised because of it. A young black girl longing for
How do you remember the summers of your childhood? For Laurie Lee they were flower-crested, heady, endless days. Here is an evocation of summer like no other - a remote valley filled with the scent of
In this inspiring, witty and eminently sensible book, Nigella Lawson sets out a manifesto for how to cook (and eat) good food every day with a minimum of fuss. From basic roast chicken and pea risotto
How to be a good father? Children's birthday parties, unsuccessful family holidays, humiliating antenatal music classics: the trials of parenthood are all found in Knausgaard's compelling and honest a
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. Also in the Vintage Minis series: Desire by Haruki Murakami Babies by Anne Enright Depression by William Styron Race by Toni Morrison
Could drugs offer a new way of seeing the world? In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When
Freedom and enfranchisement. Something anarchical which pushes at boundaries. The sweetness of leisure time. Each of these rich avenues of meaning are bound up in the word 'liberty' and are explored h
Babies: our biggest mystery and our most natural consequence, our hardest test and our enduring love. Anne Enright describes the intensity, bewilderment and extravagant happiness of her experience of
How do we find calm in our frantic modern world? Tim Parks - lifelong cynic and spirituality-sceptic - finds himself on a Buddhist meditation retreat trying to answer this very question. With brutal h
How does a writer compose a suicide note? This was not a question that the prize-winning novelist William Styron had ever contemplated before. In this true account of his depression, Styron describes
Bob Slocum is anxious, bored and fearful of his job. So why is it he wants nothing more than the chance to speak at the next company convention? In this darkly satirical book, Joseph Heller takes us f
Salman Rushdie, a self-described 'emigrant from one place and a newcomer in two', explores the true meaning of Home. Writing with insight, passion and humour, he looks at what it means to belong, whet
You've just passed someone on the street who could be the love of your life, the person you're destined for - what do you do? In Murakami's world, you tell them a story. The five weird and wonderful t
The Waves is an astonishingly beautiful and poetic novel. It begins with six children playing in a garden by the sea and follows their lives as they grow up and experience friendship, love and grief a
When a twist of fate delivers an ambitious young medical student to the court of King Charles II, he is suddenly thrust into a vibrant world of luxury and opulence. Blessed with a quick wit and sparkl
