A Vintage ShortLoring is a widow and chess master who makes her living giving chess lessons; her newest student, who might be a prodigy, bears a striking resemblance to her dead spouse. Has her chess champion husband found a final move beyond the grave?A chess fable from the wildly inventive, immensely talented author of A Cure for Suicide and Silence Once Begun, “The Lesson” is a surprising, poignant, macabre tale of games, children, and the unknowability...

One morning in the park James Sim discovers a man, crumpled on the ground, stabbed in the chest. In the man's last breath, he whispers his confession: Samedi."Graham Greene's feel for plot twist - stuck in a superglued handshake with Gogol's dark wit." -Helen Oyeyemi, New York magazineWhat follows is a spellbinding game of cat and mouse as James is abducted, brought to an asylum, and seduced by a woman in yellow. Who is lying? What is Samedi? And what will...

This debut book of poetry from the Plimpton Award–winning author of Census "displays an otherworldly virtuosity . . . coolly seductive and skillfully wrought" (DeSales Harrison, Boston Review).Called "A young genius" by the Chicago Tribune, Jesse Ball has won acclaim for his novels and poetry combining skillful attention to form with a deeply resonant humanity. That same mastery of craft and vision are on display in his first published vo...

'CENSUS is a vital testament to selfless love; a psalm to commonplace miracles; and a mysterious evolving metaphor. So kind, it aches.' David Mitchell, author of Cloud AtlasA father and son who are census takers journey across a nameless country from the town of A to the town of Z in the wake of the father's fatal diagnosis. Knowing that his time is menacingly short, the father takes his son, who requires close and constant adult guidance,...

A pair of girls, Lethe and Lois, navigates the perimeters of a segregated city, armed with canisters of killing gas. Another child, Lessen, is at the centre of a bizarre cultural ritual that could be the subject of a Goya painting.Centring on the garish festivals of an allegorical nation, The Divers' Game moves through worlds in which kindness is no longer meaningful. A scathing indictment of the inequalities of Western society, it makes visible the violence that has threa...

In the past year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child. Now, in a New York of increasingly frequent superstorms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water.In prose that Jonatha...

From a National Book Award finalist, this hilarious and profound first novel captures the experience of the young American abroad while exploring the possibilities of art and authenticity in our time.Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. Instead of following the dictates of his fellowship, Adam’s “research” becomes a meditati...

'One of the most brilliantly inventive writers of this, or any, country' Independent'Deliciously creepy'SUNDAY TIMES'Irresistible'MAIL ON SUNDAY'Manically ingenious'GUARDIANThe chilling seventh novel from the critically acclaimed author of Cloud AtlasTurn down Slade Alley - narrow, dank and easy to...

'I am with you always, even unto the end of the world . . .'Peter Leigh is a missionary called to go on the journey of a lifetime. Leaving behind his beloved wife, Bea, he boards a flight for a remote and unfamiliar land, a place where the locals are hungry for the teachings of the Bible - his 'book of strange new things'. It is a quest that will challenge Peter's beliefs, his understanding of the limits of the human body and, most of all, his love for Bea.The ...

THE RUNAWAY GLOBAL BESTSELLER'Gripping, enthralling - a top-notch thriller and a compulsive read.' SJ Watson, bestselling author of BEFORE I GO TO SLEEPRachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. 'Jess and Jason', she calls them. Their life - as...

A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas is a timeless and enchanting holiday classic that captures the wonder, innocence, and imagination of childhood Christmas memories in a small Welsh town. Written in Thomas’s famously lyrical and musical prose, this beloved work blends nostalgia, humor, fantasy, and poetic storytelling into a warm celebration of family, winter, and the magic of the holiday season. Through vivid recollections and richly detailed imagery, Thomas recreates snowy stre...

Carol Ann Duffy is the most humane and accessible poet of our time, and Rapture is essential reading for the broken-hearted of all ages' - Rose TremainThe effortless virtuosity, directness, drama and humanity of Carol Ann Duffy's verse have made her our most admired and best-loved contemporary poet. Rapture, her seventh collection, is a book-length love-poem, and a moving act of personal testimony; but what sets these poems apart from other treatments of the subje...