EVEN ANGELS HAVE THEIR DEMONS . . .
PARIS, CHRISTMAS 2021. After a heart attack, Mathias Taillefer wakes up in hospital with a stranger at his bedside. The mysterious girl reveals herself to be Louise Collange, a volunteer who has come to play the cello for patients. When she finds out Mathias is a cop, she asks him to take charge of a very special case.
Her mother, a former ballerina at the Paris Opera Ballet, died last year after falling from her balcony, and Louise has a hunch she was pushed. Though hesitant at first, Mathias agrees to help her, sending them both headfirst into a deadly chain of events. And at the centre of it all, a woman named Angélique, whose angelic intentions may not be all they seem . . .
Feverous, surprising and uplifting, Musso's newest novel is a labyrinth of emotions where nothing is certain from one page to the next.
PRAISE FOR THE ICONIC BESTSELLER GUILLAUME MUSSO:
'THE FRENCH SUSPENSE KING' NEW YORK TIMES
'ONE OF THE GREAT THRILLER WRITERS OF OUR AGE' DAILY EXPRESS
'THE KING OF EUROPEAN NOIR' LA REPUBBLICA, ITALY
'IT'S NO WONDER THAT GUILLAUME MUSSO IS ONE OF FRANCE'S MOST LOVED, BESTSELLING AUTHORS' HARLAN COBEN
Moby Dick in half the time
Moby Dick is the tale of one man's fatal obsession and his willingness to sacrifice his life and that of his crew to achieve his goal. The story follows the fortunes of Captain Ahab and the eccentric crew of a whaling ship, The Pequod. The ship is on its last voyage in pursuit of Moby Dick - the great white whale which wounded Ahab in the past is his quarry now. The battle with the elements, the sea, the dangerous confrontations of the whale hunts are embodied in the thrilling narration of the survivor Ishmael.
'A brilliant contemporary novel' Colm Tóibín
'I am fully in awe of Dolan's talent' Douglas Stuart
'I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed it' Marian Keyes
'Dazzling. Not a word is out of place' Katherine Heiny
Meet Celine and Luke. To all intents and purposes, the happy couple.
But Celine's more interested in playing the piano, and Luke's a serial cheater.
And as their big day approaches, the complicated lives of the wedding party begin to unravel. A fed-up bridesmaid, a lovesick best man, guests and family members all find themselves searching for their own happily ever afters.
From the author of Exciting Times, this is a sparkling ensemble novel about love and marriage, fidelity and betrayal.
Orphaned at an early age, Jane Eyre survives an unhappy childhood at the grim Lowood School. Despite Jane's deprived background, her intelligence and courage earn her a position as a governess at the imposing home of Mr Rochester. Overcoming her sense that all at Thornfield Hall is not as it seems, Jane finds herself becoming fond of her new life. But she finds it increasingly hard to maintain her composure. As her cautious friendship with her often moody master deepens, Jane opens herself up to the possibility of happiness at last. But Thornfield Hall conceals secrets that are conspiring against their happiness.
Subtitled “A Study of Provincial Life,” George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch is a chronicle of the titular nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of political and social change. Eliot explores the upheaval and transformation brought about by these changes through their impact on the lives of a richly varied cast of characters that includes the pious young Dorothea Brooke, her suitor the Reverend Edward Casaubon, the ambitious doctor Tertius Lydgate, and the mysterious schemer John Raffles. Middlemarch is one of Barnes & Noble's Collectible Editions classics. Each volume features authoritative texts by the world's greatest authors in an exquisitely designed bonded-leather binding, with distinctive gilt edging and a ribbon bookmark. Decorative, durable, and collectible, these books offer hours of pleasure to readers young and old and are an indispensable cornerstone for every home library.
Compact editions - David Copperfield in half the time.
David Copperfield's happy childhood is abruptly ended by his mother's remarriage to Mr Murdstone. After enduring the misery of Salem House Academy and a life of drudgery in his step father's business, he runs away to his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood, in Dover, and transforms his life a second time - finding friendship with the ever optimistic Mr Micawber and falling in love with the adorable but spoilt Dora. But David has to face tragedy, and outface the scheming Uriah Heep before he finds ultimate happiness.
A #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
'Bernhard Schlink speaks straight to the heart' New York Times
'Brilliant... A tale of love and loss in 20th century Germany' Evening Standard
'A cleverly-constructed tale of cross-class romance' Mail on Sunday
'A poignant portrait of a woman out of step with her time' Observer
Olga is an orphan raised by her grandmother in a Prussian village around the turn of the 20th century. Smart and precocious, she fights against the prejudices of the time to find her place in a world that sees her as second-best.
When she falls in love with Herbert, a local aristocrat obsessed with the era's dreams of power, glory and greatness, her life is irremediably changed.
Theirs is a love against all odds, entwined with the twisting paths of German history, leading us from the late 19th to the early 21st century, from Germany to Africa and the Arctic, from the Baltic Sea to the German south-west.
This is the story of that love, of Olga's devotion to a restless man - told in thought, letters and in a fateful moment of great rebellion.
'Fifteen years on, the remembrance of that day has returned to me. I have seen that boy wandering through the mist of the railway station, and the name of Marina has flared up again like a fresh wound. We all have a secret buried under lock and key in the attic of our soul. This is mine...'
In May 1980, 15-year-old Óscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in the old quarter of Barcelona. For seven days and nights no one knows his whereabouts...
His story begins in the heart of old Barcelona, when he meets Marina and her father German Blau, a portrait painter. Marina takes Óscar to a cemetery to watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the fourth Sunday of each month. At 10 a.m. precisely a coach pulled by black horses appears. From it descends a woman dressed in black, her face shrouded, wearing gloves, holding a single rose. She walks over to a gravestone that bears no name, only the mysterious emblem of a black butterfly with open wings.
When Óscar and Marina decide to follow her they begin a journey that will take them to the heights of a forgotten, post-war Barcelona, a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons; and a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón was born in Barcelona and is the author of seven novels including THE SHADOW OF THE WIND. He is one of the world's most read and best-loved writers. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages and published around the world, garnering numerous international prizes and reaching millions of readers. He divides his time between Barcelona and Los Angeles.
WATERSTONES FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH FOR OCTOBER 2024
THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER
BARACK OBAMA'S BOOK OF THE YEAR PICK
AMAZON.COM NO.1 BOOK OF THE YEAR
'I loved this book' BONNIE GARMUS
'A generous, compassionate book about the power of love and community' LOUISE KENNEDY
'I can't recommend this one highly enough ' HARLAN COBEN
'THIS is his best book' ANN PATCHETT
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where Jewish immigrants and African Americans lived side by side through the 1920s and '30s.
In this novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them, James McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community - heaven and earth - that sustain us.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025: 'A masterfully written biography... inspiring and powerful'
'Gripping, moving and important' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE
'Agent Zo is a triumph. Absolutely essential reading' HALLIE RUBENHOLD
'The astonishing story of an extraordinary woman' JONATHAN FREEDLAND
Agent Zo tells the incredible true story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 resistance fighter known as 'Zo'. The only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, Zo undertook two missions in the capital before secret Special Operations Executive training in the British countryside.
As the only female member of the Polish elite Special Forces - the SOE-affiliated 'Silent Unseen' - Zo became the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi German-occupied Poland. There, whilst being hunted by the Gestapo (who arrested her entire family), she played a key role in the Warsaw Uprising and ultimately in the liberation of Poland. After the war, Zo was demobbed as one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Yet the Soviet-backed post-war Communist regime not only imprisoned her but ensured that her remarkable story remained hidden for over forty years.
Now, through new archival research and exclusive interviews with people who knew and fought alongside Zo, Clare Mulley brings this forgotten hero back to life, transforming the way we see female agency in the Second World War.
'Deeply researched and written with verve... thoughtful as well as action packed' The Times
How to live a better life. One of the most important books on Western philosophy - a powerful and inspirational guide for the complicated world of today
'Refreshing and restorative' GUARDIAN
'An ancient work of spiritual reflection which remains a powerful reminder of how we could live a more dignified life by avoiding deceit, vanity and greed' OK MAGAZINE
Few ancient works have been as influential as the MEDITATIONS of Marcus Aurelius. Filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behaviour, it remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. Marcus's insights and advice - on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others - have made the MEDITATIONS required reading for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations of ordinary readers have responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style.
In Gregory Hays's translation Marcus's thoughts speak with a new immediacy. Never before have Marcus's insights been so directly and powerfully presented.
THE MODERN CLASSIC: OVER 20 MILLION COPIES SOLD
A Sunday Times bestseller and a Richard & Judy book club pick
'The real deal: one gorgeous read' Stephen King
'This book will change your life. An instant classic' Daily Telegraph
'A book lover's dream' The Times
Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'Cemetery of Lost Books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out 'The Shadow of the Wind' by Julian Carax.
But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find.
Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from the book, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them.
What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind...
'Marvellous' Sunday Times
'A hymn of praise to all the joys of reading' Independent
'Gripping and instantly atmospheric' Mail on Sunday
'Irresistibly readable' Guardian
'Diabolically good' Elle
Fully updated throughout and with a new foreword for this edition.
Why do most diets fail? Why does one person eat a certain meal and gain weight, while another eating the same meal loses pounds? Why, despite all the advice about what to eat, are we all still getting fatter?
The answers are much more surprising - and fascinating - than we've been led to believe. The key to health and weight loss lies not in the latest fad diet, nor even in the simple mantra of 'eat less, exercise more', but in the microbes already inside us.
Drawing on the latest science and his own pioneering research, Professor Tim Spector demystifies the common misconceptions about fat, calories, vitamins and nutrients. Only by understanding what makes our own personal microbes tick can we overcome the confusion of modern nutrition, and achieve a healthy gut and a healthy body.
THE FOURTH VOLUME OF MICHAEL PALIN'S BESTSELLING DIARIES
A new millennium, and a new chapter for Michael Palin unfolds. With a Hemingway travel project testing his confidence, doubts creeping in about his abilities as a writer, the death of his great friend George Harrison and the last of his children leaving home, the dawn of the twenty-first century sees Michael at his most reflective yet. ?
Over the next ten years, we watch through Michael's eyes as the world reels from?the successive shocks of September 11, the 7/7 bombings and the global financial crash. With the warmth and gentle empathy that have endeared millions of fans to him over the decades, Michael documents the day-to-day detail of living in a world buffeted by such powerful winds of change.?
And amidst this turbulence, one thing remains constant: Michael's irrepressible curiosity and thirst for adventure. These diaries follow his life as he comes and goes through the filming of four blockbuster travel documentaries - Hemingway Adventure, Sahara, Himalaya and New Europe - and reaches the peak of his fame as a beloved TV traveller. And five years on from the last of his children flying the nest, Michael embarks on his greatest adventure yet: becoming a besotted grandfather.?
There and Back is a new window into the world of Michael Palin, one that sees him navigating the question of just how much of himself to share with the public as he prepares to publish the first volume of what were to become his bestselling diaries. It reveals more than ever the strength and succour he draws from those ever-present supporting structures in his life: his family, his friendships and, of course, the Pythons.
The New York Times bestseller
'Brimming with life-changing insights' Susan Cain, author of Quiet
'Excellent' Financial Times
Everybody knows that hard work, luck and talent each plays a role in our working lives. In his landmark book, Adam Grant illuminates the importance of a fourth, increasingly critical factor - that the best way to get to the top is to focus on bringing others with you.
Give and Take changes our fundamental understanding of why we succeed, offering a new model for our relationships with colleagues, clients and competitors. Using his own cutting-edge research as a professor at Wharton Business School, as well as success stories from Hollywood to history, Grant shows that nice guys need not finish last. He demonstrates how smart givers avoid becoming doormats, and why this kind of success has the power to transform not just individuals and groups, but entire organisations and communities.
'Some wrong was done long ago. It can never be righted, and it has not been forgotten. Someone remembers it.'
London, 1894. Inspector Henry Cutter is in an unconvivial temper.
Then the murders begin. The first to die is Sir Aneurin Considine, a decorated but long-retired civil servant, is found dead amongst his beloved orchid collection, killed by a wound inflicted with surgical precision.
Soon, other victims suffer similar fates. More men in powerful positions; more murders that are gruesome but immaculately orchestrated. The perpetrator comes and goes like a ghost, leaving only carefully considered traces.
Hot on the tails of this invisible adversary are Inspector Cutter, along with his hapless but endlessly enthusiastic sidekick, Sergeant Gideon Bliss.
But as the pressure mounts, victims will start to look like perpetrators, murderers like truth-tellers, long-hidden failings will come resurface, and not even their very selves are safe from suspicion.
'GAVE ME SERIOUS WRITER ENVY' KIRSTY LOGAN
'ONE OF MY FAVOURITE STORYTELLERS' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE
'AN INCREDIBLE AND UNIQUE IMAGINATION' IRISH TIMES
'I WAS DELICIOUSLY HORRIFIED' JENN ASHWORTH
The belly groan of a face unpeeled. A break-up poem recited knee-deep in bog water. An ancient burial mound rising and falling like a chest. The ghost of Stephen Gately reading the ingredients on a ham and cheese sandwich.
Startling, sinister and irresistible, Moïra Fowley's award-winning debut collection about queer, female bodies at the end of the world unravels all of our darkest impulses and deepest fears.
Since the inception of the Secret Service Bureau back in 1909, women have worked at the very heart of British secret intelligence - yet their contributions have been all but written out of history. Now, drawing on private and previously-classified documents, leading historian Claire Hubbard-Hall brings their gripping true stories to life.
From encoding orders and decrypting enemy messages to penning propaganda and infiltrating organisations, the women of British intelligence played a pivotal role in both the First and Second World Wars. Prepare to meet the true custodians of Britain's military secrets, from Kathleen Pettigrew, personal assistant to the Chief of MI6 Stewart Menzies, who late in life declared 'I was Miss Moneypenny, but with more power', to Jane Archer, the very first female MI5 officer who raised suspicions about the Soviet spy Kim Philby long before he was officially unmasked and Winifred Spink, the first female officer ever sent to Russia in 1916. In Her Secret Service, Hubbard-Hall rescues these silenced voices and those of many other fascinating women from obscurity to provide a definitive account of women's contributions to the history of the intelligence services.
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
A BBC 2 'BETWEEN THE COVERS' BOOK CLUB PICK
'Wonderful' RICHARD OSMAN
'Perfect' INDIA KNIGHT
'Beautiful' JESSIE BURTON
'Witty and sharp' DAVID NICHOLLS
1957, the suburbs of south east London. Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, trapped in a life of duty and disappointment from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. As the investigation turns her quiet life inside out, Jean is suddenly given an unexpected chance at friendship, love and - possibly - happiness.
'Gorgeous . . . I could not recommend it more' PANDORA SYKES
'Remarkable . . . Small Pleasures is no small pleasure' THE TIMES
'Irresistible . . . wry, perceptive and quietly devastating' MAIL ON SUNDAY
