On a quiet mountain road near Barcelona, a woman steps out in front of a car. When the driver, a well-known artist, stops to some to her aid, he finds she is alive, but without any memory of who she i
The life of the painter Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) was chaotic and tragically brief. Consisting of a series of vignettes, mostly set in the painter's studio and peopled by his lover Jeanne Hébutern
What does eating out tell us about who we are? The deliciously cosmopolitan story of the restaurant from eighteenth-century Paris to El Bulli, now in paperback.The restaurant is where we go to celebra
A short yet fascinating account of Russia's most celebrated writer.In Robert Chandler's exquisite biography, literary giant Alexander Pushkin, lauded as the Russian Shakespeare, is examined as writer,
'Love does not need any comforting. It does not even need requiting. All it needs is itself.'Florence, 1502. Marshal Louis de La Trémouille's small army has stopped off en route to Naples, to buy obje
THE OLD WORLD IS CRUMBLINGOutside the gates of the magnificent Versailles palace, the city of Paris sits mired in squalor and crime. One night a body is found with ghastly mutilations that shock even
In the seventeenth century, a giant strides the border of the Cape Colony frontier. Coenraad de Buys is a legend, a polygamist, a swindler and a big talker; a rebel who fights with Xhosa chieftains ag
"It's long been assumed of the region where my grandmother was born... that at some point each year the dead will come home," Inara Verzemnieks writes in this exquisite story of war, exile and homecom
We'll create a machine. A peace machine that will put an end to all wars. As the twentieth century dawns the world stands on the brink of yet another bloody war. But what if conflict were not inevitab
'Sometimes, when you go astray and touch bottom, you finally come out on the other side' Lucie was brought up by bourgeois parents as a passionate young fascist. At the age of eighteen, the headstrong
One mistake can have a thousand consequences Nofar is just an average teenage girl - so average that she's almost invisible. Serving customers in an ice cream parlour all summer long, she is desperate
Raised near the beaches of Arcachon, Chantal inherits from her mother a deep love of swimming in the sea. Through her young eyes, Thomas vividly evokes the sensory pleasures of the beach: the smell of
Amid the conflict and desolation of post-Communist Albania, teenage boys Agim and Bujar share restless dreams of escape. After Bujar's father dies and Agim's family discover him dressed in his mother'
We all know families that are poor but 'respectable'. Mine, in contrast, was extremely rich but not 'respectable' at all... Banine's family were peasants who became millionaires overnight when oil gus
In this little-known classic of Italian literature, young Arturo grows up in near-isolation on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples. His mother died in childbirth and his wayward father, who lef
In 1902, the young German writer Rainer Maria Rilke traveled to Paris to write a monograph on the sculptor Auguste Rodin. He returned many times over the course of his life, by turns inspired and appa
Coming from the West African village of Lai, a Virginia plantation and Jamaica, three characters meet at the settlement of Monrovia, and it is through their disparate yet connected stories that Wayétu
Tommy McBride and his brother Billy return to their isolated family home to discover that their parents have been brutally murdered. Haunted and alone, their desperate search for the killers leads the
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 'Astonishing... remarkable, mythic' -- Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple 'Impressive and beautifully imagined' Economist In a small town in western Nigeria,
Only a couple of days before a state visit, Filiberto García - ex revolutionary and impeccably groomed gun for hire - is recruited by the Mexican police to look into rumours of a Chinese plot to assas
