Story-telling is an ingrained habit; I wouldn't know what else to do. But the mythology that is intriguing today is that of imagined alternatives. Somehow, choice and contingency have landed you where you are, as the person that you are, and the whole process seems so precarious that you look back at those climatic moments when things might have gone differently, when life might have spun off in some other direction, and wonder at this apparently arbitrary outcome In this fascinating new piece of fiction, Penelope Lively takes moments from her own life and asks what if she had made other choices: what if she hadn't escaped from Alexandria at the outbreak of WWII? What would her life have been like if she had become pregnant when she was 18? If she had married someone else? If she taken a different job? If she had lived her life abroad? In this highly original work, Penelope Lively examines alternative destinies, choices and the moments in our lives when we could have chosen a different path...

The citizens of Moonlight Cove are changing. Some are losing touch with their deepest emotions. Others are surrendering to their wildest urges. And the few who remain unchanged are absolutely terrified — if not brutally murdered in the dead of night. Enter the shocking world of Moonlight Cove, where four unlikely survivors confront the darkest realms of human nature...

This is the classic story of Heidi, an unwanted child who finds love and happiness against all the odds.

Jane Austen chronicles the subtleties and nuances of- and the aspirations and machinations at work in — her own social milieu. Through the stories of her spirited heroines and their circles, their interactions and rituals, their movements from ballrooms to drawing rooms, from London and Bath to parklands and gardens, she recreates the life of The English gentry that she observed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Each of her novels is a love story and a story about marriage — marriage for love, for financial security, for social status. But they are not romances; ironic, comic, wise and penetrating, they are brilliant portrayals of the society Jane Austen knew.

Chase Benteen Calder was bound to wrest a fortune from Montana land, where the whisper of riches swept across a sea of buffalo grass. With Lorna at his side, a woman who took the tough ways of the land as her destiny, he would breathe life into his dream. Through the treacherous Texas prairie, the perils of Indian country, and a bustling Dodge City, they forged their way to Montana. With Calder strength, they would harvest their fortune from the rich earth, on the sprawling plains of This Calder Range.

The new bestseller from the original thrill-seeker — Jack Higgins. In Higgins' acclaimed bestseller Dark Justice, intelligence operative Sean Dillon and his colleagues in Britain and the United States beat back a terrible enemy, but at an equally terrible cost. One of them was shot, another run down in the street. Both were expected to survive — but only one of them does. As Detective Superintendent Hannah Bernstein of Special Branch lies recuperating in the hospital, a dark shadow from their past, scarred deep by hatred, steals across the room and finishes the job. Consumed by grief and rage, Dillon, Blake, Ferguson and all who loved Hannah swear vengeance, no matter where it takes them. But they have no idea of the searing journey upon which they are about to embark — nor of the war which will change them all.

Discovering his prodigious gift in boyhood and rising to the rank of international Grandmaster, Luzhin develops a lyrical passion for chess that renders the real world a phantom. As he confronts the fiery, swift-swooping Italian Grandmaster, Turati, he brings into play his carefully devised defence.

When the plane carrying the President of Taiwan explodes during their watch, Brick Maxwell and his squadron of Roadrunners are forced to trust a mysterious defector whose true loyalties are unknown as they set out to hijack the Black Star, a high-tech killing machine.

From cordon bleu cuisine in Paris to rustic country dishes in the heart of Provence, this invaluable guide lists over 3,200 of the best places to eat and stay in France. Covering all 16 regions, and richly illustrated, this is a mouthwatering and fascinating celebration of the best of French food and wine. A must-have for foodies and Francophiles alike.

When wealthy Rowland Mallet first sees a sculpture by Roderick Hudson, he is astounded and pronounces it to be a work of genius, and is equally entranced by the sculptor's beauty, spirit and charisma. Wishing to give the impoverished artist the opportunity to develop his talent, he takes Roderick from America to Rome, where he becomes the talk of the city. But Roderick soon loses his inspiration and Rowland loses control of his protégé, while both fall in love with women they cannot ever have. Can Roderick be saved from the path to self-destruction he seems set on? One of Henry James's first novels, Roderick Hudson (1875) is a compelling depiction of the artistic temperament and of a young man who, like Icarus, flies too close to the sun.

THE MOTIVE, the latest installment in the excellent series of legal thrillers/police procedurals by John Lescroart, is an excellent sequel to the two previous stories in the series. THE FIRST LAW (review 2/9/2003) was a completely atypical story in the series — it involved an incident that would unavoidably alter the relationship of attorney Dismas (Diz) Hardy and Deputy Police Chief Abraham (Abe) Glitsky forever as well as create a significant inflection point in both of their lives and careers. THE SECOND CHAIR (review 4/22/2004) involves Hardy's initial attempts to regain his personal and professional balance in the wake of that incident. In that novel, Hardy agrees to act as second chair to one of his young associates who is tempted to engage in a plea bargain for her young client in view of the apparently overwhelming evidence which the SFPD has assembled.

In this first novel by CNN political correspondent Mitchell, a Washington, D.C. consultant lands herself in the middle of a high-profile scandal when a former flame is accused of selling military secrets to the Chinese.

This is an all new version of the popular PARALLEL TEXT series, containing eight pieces of contemporary fiction in the original Italian and in English translation. Including stories by Calvino, Benni, Sciascia and Levi, this volume gives a fascinating insight into Italian culture and literature as well as providing an invaluable educational tool.

Spurred on by admiration for his novelist half-brother and irritation at the biography written about him by Mr Goodman ('his slapdash and very misleading book'), the narrator, V, sets out to record Sebastian Knight's life as he understands it. But buried amid the extensive quoting, digressions, seeming explanations and digs, Sebastian's erratic and troubled persona remains as elusive as ever. Nabokov's first novel written in English, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a nuanced, enigmatic potrayal of the conflict between the real and the unreal, and the futile quest for human truth.

The master of wit and irony Published here alongside their evocative original illustrations, these fairy tales, as Oscar Wilde himself explained, were written partly for children, and partly for those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy.

No warrior will ever do a darker deed... Having killed a dragon and bathed in its blood, the mighty Siegfried seems undefeatable. But during a bitter family feud, his naive and beautiful wife reveals the truth to their foes: he has one terrible weakness. So Siegfried's enemies hatch a plan. They will pretend that the feud is forgotten. They will ask him to join them on a hunt. And, taking him with them into the dark depths of a forest, they will exploit that weakness and plunge a spear deep into his heart.

A lonely widower. A ruthless assassin. A beautiful woman. A government agent. Drawn together in a deadly hunt, all four are inexorably propelled towards a confrontation with an evil beyond all human imagining.

A beautiful woman scarred by a hateful past. A compassionate cop haunted by a childhood by poverty. Violence brought them together and an unspeakable abomination may tear them apart.

Russian novelist Victor Pelevin is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most brilliant young writers at work today. His comic inventiveness and mind-bending talent prompted Time magazine to proclaim him a psychedelic Nabokov for the cyber-age. In his third novel, Buddha's Little Finger, Pelevin has created an intellectually dazzling tale about identity and Russian history, as well as a spectacular elaboration of Buddhist philosophy. Moving between events of the Russian Civil War of 1919 and the thoughts of a man incarcerated in a contemporary Moscow psychiatric hospital, Buddha's Little Finger is a work of demonic absurdism by a writer who continues to delight and astonish.

Tolstoy startled the world with this powerful story of adultery and its aftermath, of the human need for love and happiness, and of the unyielding demands of society.