LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014 SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION The first novel from Joseph O’Neill since NETHERLAND. ‘O’Neill, in this book, has come of age as a novelist … a comic masterpiece … as mordantly funny as the best of stand-up comedy … Superb’ John Banville, New York Review of Books In 2007, a New York attorney bumps into an old college buddy – and accepts his friend’s offer of a job in Dubai, as the overseer of an enormous family fortune. Haunted by the collapse of his relationship and hoping for a fresh start, our strange hero begins to suspect that he has exchanged one inferno for another. A funny and wholly original work of international literature, ‘The Dog’ is led by a brilliantly entertaining anti-hero. Imprisoned by his endless powers of reasoning, hemmed in by the ethical demands of globalized life, he is fatefully drawn towards the only logical response to our confounding epoch.

The extraordinary new novel from David Flusfeder. ‘John the Pupil’ is a medieval road movie, Umberto Eco seen through the eyes of Quentin Tarrantino, recounting the journey taken from Oxford to Viterbo in 1267 by John and his two companions, at the behest of the friar and magus Roger Bacon, carrying a secret burden to His Holiness Clement IV. As well as having to fight off ambushes from thieves hungry for the thing of power they are carrying, the holy trio are tried and tempted by all sorts of sins: ambition, pride, lust – and by the sheer hell and heaven of medieval life. Erudite and earthy, horrifying, comic, humane, David Flusfeder’s extraordinary novel reveals to the reader a world very different and all too like the one we live in now.

A sinister Gothic tale in the tradition of The Woman in Black and The Fall of the House of Usher New England, The 1890s When a young doctor begins work at an isolated mental asylum, he is expected to fall in with the shocking regime for treating the patients. He is soon intrigued by one patient, a strange amnesiac girl who is fascinated by books but cannot read. He embarks upon a desperate experiment to save her but when his own dark past begins to catch up with him, he realises it is she who is his only hope of escape. In this chilling literary thriller from a master storyteller, everyone has something to hide and no one is what they seem.

From the Orange Prize winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin this is a novel about what it takes to make it in music. How charisma is worth its weight in gold. And how jealously can grow until it has eaten away at a musician’s heart. He has that thing that they’d all pay for but can’t buy: on stage and off, the 19-year-old rock drummer Checker Secretti is electric. When he plays with his band The Derailleurs, the natives of Astoria, Queens clamour for a piece of him. But charisma comes at a price. A Salieri to Checker’s Mozart, the fiercely envious fellow drummer Eaton Striker is eager to sow discord among the Derailleurs, that he might replace the exasperatingly popular goody-goody in the close-knit neighbourhood’s affections. An examination of the passion, the jealousy and the friendship of young musicians trying to break out, Checker and The Derailleurs is also about cycling, rock lyrics, glass blowing, the marriage of convenience, and―most of all―the mystery of joy.

CONSTANT PRINCESS Splendid and sumptuous historical novel from this internationally bestselling author, telling of the early life of Katherine of Aragon. We think of her as the barren wife of a notorious king; but behind this legacy lies a fascinating story. Katherine of Aragon is born Catalina, the Spanish Infanta, to parents who are both rulers and warriors. Aged four, she is betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and is raised to be Queen of England. She is never in doubt that it is her destiny to rule that far-off, wet, cold land. Her faith is tested when her prospective fahter-in-law greets her arrival in her new country with a great insult; Arthur seems little better than a boy; the food is strange and the customs coarse. Slowly she adapts to the first Tudor court, and life as Arthur's wife grows ever more bearable. But when the studious young man dies, she is left to make her own future: how can she now be queen, and found a dynasty? Only by marrying Arthur's young brother, the sunny but spoilt Henry. His father and grandmother are against it; her powerful parents prove little use. Yet Katherine is her mother's daughter and her fighting spirit is strong. She will do anything to achieve her aim; even if it means telling the greatest lie, and holding to it. Philippa Gregory proves yet again that behind the apparently familiar face of history lies an astonishing story: of women warriors influencing the future of Europe, of revered heroes making deep mistakes, and of an untold love story which changes the fate of a nation. THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL. Fabulous historical novel set in the court of King Henry VIII. Mary Boleyn attracts the attention of the young king and becomes his mistress; when he tires of her, she sets out to school her sister, Anne, as a replacement. Politics and passion are inextricably bound together in this compelling drama. The Boleyn family is keen to rise through the ranks of society, and what better way to attract the attention of the most powerful in the land than to place their most beautiful young woman at court? But Mary becomes the king's mistress at a time of change. He needs his personal pleasures, but he also needs an heir. The unthinkable happens and the course of English history is irrevocably changed. For the women at the heart of the storm, they have only one weapon; and when it's no longer enough to be the mistress, Mary must groom her younger sister in the ways of the king. What happens next is common knowledge - but here it is told in a way we've never heard it before, with all of Philippa Gregory's characteristic perceptiveness, backed by meticulous research and superb storytelling skills. BOLEYN INHERITANCE. From the bestselling author of `The Other Boleyn Girl' comes a wonderfully atmospheric evocation of the court of Henry VIII, and the one woman who destroyed two of his queens. The year is 1539 and the court of Henry VIII is increasingly fearful at the moods of the ageing sick king. With only a baby in the cradle for an heir, Henry has to take another wife and the dangerous prize of the crown of England is won by Anne of Cleves. She has her own good reasons for agreeing to marry a man old enough to be her father, in a country where to her both language and habits are foreign. Although fascinated by the glamour of her new surroundings, she senses a trap closing around her. Katherine is confident that she can follow in the steps of her cousin Anne Boleyn to dazzle her way to the throne but her kinswoman Jane Boleyn, haunted by the past, knows that Anne's path led to Tower Green and to an adulterer's death. The story of these three young women, trying to make their own way through the most volatile court in Europe at a time of religious upheaval and political uncertainty, is Philippa Gregory's most compelling novel yet.

With the lyricism of Ishiguro’s NEVER LET ME GO, and the world building brilliance of Atwood, Emmi It?ranta’s effortless and poignant debut novel is a coming of age story full of emotional drama and wonderment. Some secrets demand betrayal. 'You’re seventeen, and of age now, and therefore old enough to understand what I’m going to tell you,’ my father said. ‘This place doesn’t exist.’ ‘I’ll remember,’ I told him, but didn’t realise until later what kind of promise I had made. When Noria Kaitio reaches her seventeenth birthday, she is entrusted with the secret of a freshwater spring hidden deep within the caves near her small rural village. Its preservation has been the responsibility of her family for generations. Apprenticed to her father, one of the last true tea masters, when Noria takes possession of the knowledge, she become much more than the guardian of ancestral treasure; soon, she will hold the fate of everyone she loves in her hands.

Where there is light, there must always be shadow… The fifth volume in Janny Wurts’s spectacular epic fantasy, now re-released with a striking new cover design along with the rest of the series. The wars began when two half-brothers, gifted of light and shadow, stood shoulder to shoulder to defeat the Mistwraith. Their foe cast a lifelong curse of enmity between them that has so far woven three bitter conflicts and uncounted deadly intrigues. It is a time of political upheavel, fanaticism and rampaging armies. Distrust of sorcery has set off a purge of the talented mageborn – none reviled more than Arithon, Master of Shadow. Through clever manipulation of events at the hands of his half-brother Lysaer, Lord of Light, Arithon’s very name has become anathema. Now the volatile hatreds that spearheaded the campaign against Shadow have overtaken all reason. Those that still stand in Arithon’s desperate defence are downtrodden, in retreat and close to annihilation. The stage is set for the ultimate betrayal.

An exceptionally mature and tautly written first novel reminiscent of Josephine Hart's ‘Damage’. Haunted by childhood loss, 23-year-old Louise takes on her late mother’s name and sets out to find Nicholas, the man she has always held responsible for her mother’s death. Now a middle-aged lecturer, husband and father, Nicholas has nevertheless been unable to shake off the events of his past, when he and Louise’s mother, Lydia, had a clandestine, destructive and ultimately tragic affair. As Louise infiltrates his life and the lives of his family, she forms close and intimate relationships with both his son and his wife, but her true identity remains unknown to Nicholas himself. Tensions grow and outward appearances begin to crack, as Louise and Nicholas both discover painful truths about their own lives, each other and the woman they both loved.

The classic humorous novel about an alcohol-loving clergyman who thinks he is the reincarnation of a dog. Complete with the award-winning film screenplay that expands upon the tale. Dean Spanley is affable, conventional and prudent – the very archetype of a bland churchman. Only his keen interest in the transmigration of souls and his obsession with dogs betray any shadow of eccentricity. But then, richly primed with a few glasses of Imperial Tokay, he begins to speak vividly of the joys of rabbiting, of rolling in fresh dung and of baying at the moon. Are these canine memories a drunken fancy? Or can it be that Dean Spanley must once have been a dog? This special edition includes Lord Dunsany’s witty and inventive novel, My Talks With Dean Spanley, together with Alan Sharp’s award-winning screenplay for the film starring Peter O’Toole and Sam Neill, which faithfully adapts and expands upon the events in the story.

Named as one of the Granta Best Of Young British Novelists 2013. Longlisted for the Orange Prize and winner of the Betty Trask Award. For fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, a stunning novel set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world. Aden, Yemen, 1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world. Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of East Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere. And so begins an epic journey which will take Jama north through Djibouti, war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt. And from there, aboard a ship transporting Jewish refugees just released from German concentration camps, across the seas to Britain and freedom. This story of one boy's long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people; a story of displacement and family.

Painstakingly restored from Tolkien’s manu*s and presented for the first time as a fully continuous and standalone story, this illustrated paperback of the epic tale of The Children of Húrin will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves, dragons, Dwarves and Orcs, and the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien. It is a legendary time long before The Lord of the Rings, and Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwells in the vast fortress of Angband in the North; and within the shadow of the fear of Angband, and the war waged by Morgoth against the Elves, the fates of Túrin and his sister Ni?nor will be tragically entwined. Their brief and passionate lives are dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bears them as the children of Húrin, the man who dared to defy him to his face. Against them Morgoth sends his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire, in an attempt to fulfil the curse of Morgoth, and destroy the children of Húrin. Begun by J.R.R. Tolkien at the end of the First World War, The Children of Húrin became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth. But he could not bring it to a final and finished form. In this book Christopher Tolkien has constructed, after long study of the manu*s, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention.

Charismatic hero Jack Steel returns, in a new and perilous adventure. England 1708 and Jack Steel returns to Flanders from England a married man. But his wife Lady Henrietta Vaughan is proving expensive and Jack must look for a promotion. At the battle of Oudenarde Steel is sent in to stem off the French attack and wins a glorious victory for Marlborough.The allies eyes’ turn from Paris to Lille, where the Dutch have recommenced a siege. Unbeknownst to them, Marlborough sends Steel, his trusted envoy to Paris to broker a deal with a man who has the ear of the French King. Disguised, in danger of exposure and in fear of his life, Steel accomplishes his mission and makes it back to the bloody, mud-logged siege of Lille – a victory for the British in the end, but at huge cost of human life. As Steel desperately tries to open supply lines to his troops, he discovers that his wife has been unfaithful to him, though he has risked all to rescue her from the besiged town of Leffinghe. Jack returns to England covered in glory from Lille, and with the promotion that he desired. Although he has lost his reason for desiring money and honour he is now even more determined to win further military accolades in order outshine his wife’s new lover.

The definitive cult, post-modern novel – a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism. When Ballard, our narrator, smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, his sense of sexual possibilities in the world around him becomes detached. As he begins an affair with the dead man's wife, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes. Then he encounters Robert Vaughan, a former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, who has gathered around him a collection of alienated crash victims and experiments with a series of auto-erotic atrocities, each more sinister than the last. But Vaughan craves the ultimate crash – a head-on collision of blood, semen, engine coolant and iconic celebrity. First published in 1973 Crash remains one of the most shocking novels of the second half of the twentieth century and was made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenberg. Ballard’s autobiography Miracles of Life was published in 2008 and Extreme Metaphors, a collection of interviews with the author, is due out in 2012.

From the author of The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart and set in the boom years of the West Virginia coalmining industry, this is an epic story of personal ambition, exile and return, and a grand heist. Keystone, West Virginia, 1910 In the hot August rain the townspeople gather to witness the first public hanging in over a decade. At the gallows are none other than poker player, Abe Baach, and his lover, the madam of the town’s brothel, one Goldie Toothman. Abe split town seven years prior and has been playing cards up and down the coast ever since. But when he returns to Keystone to reunite with Goldie and to set the past right, he finds a brother dead and his father's saloon in shambles – and suspects the same men might be responsible for both. Only then, in facing his family's past, does the real swindle begin.

Worldbreakers do not think, do not feel and cannot be stopped. Captain Gabriel Reinhardt’s latest mining mission has been brought to a halt by the arrival of a Worldbreaker, one of the vast alien machines that destroyed Earth and its solar system long ago. As he and his crew flee they are kidnapped by a pirate to be mind-wiped and sold into slavery, a fate worse than death in this shattered universe. But Captain Reinhardt is hiding a secret. The real Gabriel Reinhardt died six years ago, and in his place is Jonas, one of the millions of clones produced for menial labour by the last descendants of Earth. Forced to aid the pirate Keldra’s obsessive campaign against the Worldbreakers in exchange for his life, Jonas discovers that humanity’s last hope might just be found in the very machines that have destroyed it.

There’s a meteor headed for Earth, and there is only one way to survive. It’s the final days of earth, and sixteen-year-old Char is right where she belongs: in prison. With her criminal record, she doesn’t qualify for a place on an Ark, one of the five massive bioships designed to protect earth’s survivors during the meteor strike that looks set to destroy the planet. Only a select few will be saved – like her mom, dad, and brother – all of whom have long since turned their backs on Char. If she ever wants to redeem herself, Char must use all the tricks of the trade to swindle her way into outer space, where she hopes to reunite with her family, regardless of whether they actually ever want to see her again, or not . . .

New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates returns with an incendiary novel that illuminates the tragic impact of sexual violence, racism, brutality, and power on innocent lives and probes the persistence of stereotypes, the nature of revenge, the complexities of truth, and our insatiable hunger for sensationalism. When a fourteen-year-old girl is the alleged victim of a terrible act of racial violence, the incident shocks and galvanizes her community, exacerbating the racial tension that has been simmering in this New Jersey town for decades. In this magisterial work of fiction, Joyce Carol Oates explores the uneasy fault lines in a racially troubled society. In such a tense, charged atmosphere, Oates reveals that there must always be a sacrifice—of innocence, truth, trust, and, ultimately, of lives. Unfolding in a succession of multiracial voices, in a community transfixed by this alleged crime and the spectacle unfolding around it, this profound novel exposes what—and who—the “sacrifice” actually is, and what consequences these kind of events hold for us all. Working at the height of her powers, Oates offers a sympathetic portrait of the young girl and her mother, and challenges our expectations and beliefs about our society, our biases, and ourselves. As the chorus of its voices—from the police to the media to the victim and her family—reaches a crescendo, The Sacrifice offers a shocking new understanding of power and oppression, innocence and guilt, truth and sensationalism, justice and retribution. A chilling exploration of complex social, political, and moral themes—the enduring trauma of the past, modern racial and class tensions, the power of secrets, and the primal decisions we all make to protect those we love—The Sacrifice is a major work of fiction from one of our most revered literary masters.

The thrilling debut from comedy writer and stand up star, Will Smith – a novel about loneliness, about not belonging and about the corroding effects of keeping secrets. ‘John le Carré meets 'Middlemarch’ Independent `We're on an island. Know what that means? Surrounded by water. No way off it. So he's not really missing. He's just not where he's supposed to be.' Jersey 1987. An island wrapped in secrets. A community simmering with rivalries. A marriage on the rocks. An outsider, resented by locals. A missing boy, seen on the edge of a cliff. And a Great Storm brewing.

A brand new novella set in the engrossing world of The Demon Cycle from bestselling fantasy author Peter V. Brett. Humanity has been brought to the brink of extinction. Each night, the world is overrun by demons. Bloodthirsty creatures of nightmare that have been hunting the surface for over 300 years. A scant few hamlets and half-starved city-states are all that remain of a once proud civilization, and it is only by hiding behind wards, ancient symbols with the power to repel the demons, that they survive. A handful of Messengers brave the night to keep the lines of communication open between the increasingly isolated populace. Briar Damaj is a boy of six in the small village of Bogton. Half-Krasian, the village children call him Mudboy for his dark skin. When tragedy strikes, Briar decides the town is better off without him, fleeing into the bog with nothing but his wits and a bit of herb lore to protect him. After twenty years, Ragen Messenger has agreed to retire and pass on his route to his protégé, Arlen Bales. But for all that he's earned the rest, he has no idea what to do with the rest of his life. When he learns Briar, the son of an old friend, is missing, Ragen is willing to risk any danger to bring him safely home.

The first unpublished novel from the historical fiction legend, George Macdonald Fraser, featuring the unscrupulous and brilliantly entertaining pirate, Calico Jack Rackham. New Providence, 1720s. When infamous pirate Captain ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham returns from the high seas to ask Governor Woodes Rogers for a royal pardon, the Governor sees his chance to put his own devious plans into action. Their agreement sets off an adventure of betrayals, counter-betrayals, plots and escapes that see Rackham join forces with the scheming but seductively beautiful pirate, Anne Bonney. Captain in Calico is a wonderfully spirited and entertaining novel, which will delight fans of George MacDonald Fraser. The unscrupulous Captain Rackham is pure pleasure, and shows the author’s early penchant - and flair - for writing scoundrels of the highest order.

The sequel to the epic HERO BORN Brann has come a long way since his days as a galley slave. At Lord Einarr’s side, he journeys to the capital of the Empire to warn the Emperor about Loku and his depraved cult. But Loku already has the Emperor in his thrall, and his scheming ensures that Brann is enslaved once more. He is put to work in the fighting pits deep below the city, where a man might escape with his life, but not his soul. Brann emerges bent on revenge, determined to stop Loku. But first he must fight to recover the man that he once was, to become the hero he is meant to be.