Books That Changed the World tells the fascinating stories behind 50 books that, in ways great and small, have changed the course of human history. Andrew Taylor sets each text in its historical context and explores its wider influence and legacy. Whether he's discussing the incandescent effect of The Qu'ran, the enduring influence of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, of the way in which Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe galavanized the anti-slavery movement, Taylor has written a stirring and informative testament to human ingenuity and endeavour. Ranging from The Iliad to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the Kama Sutra to Lady Chatterley's Lover, this is the ultimate, thought-provoking read for book-lovers everywhere.

Interweaving real and fictional elements, The American Boy is a major new literary historical crime novel in the tradition of An Instance of the Fingerpost and Possession. England 1819: Thomas Shield, a new master at a school just outside London, is tutor to a young American boy and the boy's sensitive best friend, Charles Frant. Drawn to Frant's beautiful, unhappy mother, Thomas becomes caught up in her family's twisted intrigues. Then a brutal crime is committed, with consequences that threaten to destroy Thomas and all that he has come to hold dear. Despite his efforts, Shield is caught up in a deadly tangle of sex, money, murder and lies — a tangle that grips him tighter even as he tries to escape from it. And what of the strange American child, at the heart of these macabre events, yet mysterious — what is the secret of the boy named Edgar Allen Poe?

You can run from a guilty conscience, but you can't hide... James wasn't much more than a child when he had an affair with Lily. And now, twenty-four years later, Lily confesses to James that their affair led to a daughter, Kate. And Kate desperately needs her father's help: she's wanted for murder. But there is no room for murder in James' life. He has a wife, a good job, a nice house in the country... As Kate comes crashing into his world, so she lights the fuse under his ordered life. Because James has also been keeping a secret — a very dark and deadly one...

It is 1993 and Thomas Penmarsh has lived in Finisterre, the house by the sea, all his life, sleeping each night in the room with the barred window. He's only 48 but has been an old man since one evening in 1967 when he lost everything he valued... However now his controlling mother has died and he is master of the house. When Esmond, his cousin and childhood confidante, comes to live with him Thomas is overjoyed — Esmond always looks after him... But is Esmond all that he seems? And why is he so concerned that Alice wants to come home too? Darling Alice, whom neither have seen since that fateful night twenty-six years ago...

Back in 1964, Peter Redburn and his best friend Richard had spent a golden summer holiday playing out their special game — a private world of secret rituals and oaths of loyalty sworn for eternity. It was all very innocent — until James and Kate joined in... And then, one night, their childish game turned to tragedy... Now an adult, Peter has never been able to escape his own feelings of guilt about the events that summer. So when he stumbles across a hoard of childhood memories, he knows he must search out the truth. And with a funeral bringing all participants together again, bitter rivalries and sordid secrets are about to be unearthed.