General

At thirty, Luke Reid seems to have an enviable life. But in his thirty-first year, Luke feels a strange new emotion - shame - when his father is implicated in decades of political sleaze. Unlike his mother, older sister and teenage brother, who try to ignore the whole sordid business, Luke decides to tackle the cancer of corruption head-on.

This title manages to relate three seemingly unrelated facts: a town council which has promised a million pounds to the least exciting park in Morecambe; 18 year-old Teena Rama who is 148.7per cent too beautiful; and Mr Landen who has no brain.

The stories in this text give an insight into Indian lives - all linked by family or friendship or just sheer coincidence - and give the reader a poignant reminder of how even the smallest event can cause the greatest effect.

Narrated by the ghost of a murdered woman, this work is set in the Madrid of the author's previous novel, "Blood on the Saddle". It is a blend of crime, science fiction and satire.

Saz Martin is settled into new motherhood with her partner Molly and their nine-month-old daughter Matilda. Things have not been easy since the birth - but with Molly's return to fulltime work and Saz happily taking on the role of Matilda's prime carer, both women feel they are finally adjusting to parenthood and the demands of their new life.

From Ancient Greece, via contemporary Britain, into the future, from childhood to old age and beyond, this work features stories that capture the idiosyncrasies of modern life.

Alison and Veronica meet amid the nocturnal glamour of 1980s New York: one is a former modeling sensation, stumbling away from the wreck of her career, the other a middle-aged proofreader with a meticulous eye. Over the next 20 years, their friendship will encompass narcissism and tenderness, exploitation and self-sacrifice, love and mortality.

A novel of sexual obsession, the danger of innocence, and one man's attempt at redemption.

A hilarious novel about the ultimate fantasy for anyone who has never been afraid to admit they inhaled!

The story of a successful couple with three children and a large country house whose lives are overtaken ? and nearly ruined ? by a serious political scandal.

In this collection of short stories: a ten-year-old boy uses Edinburgh buses to escape from his dysfunctional mother and her boyfriend; a retarded youth tries to join a female gang; a dead lesbian lover can't let go; and a British soldier loses the plot.

In this extraordinary collection of twenty tales, Richard Ford, a master short-story writer in his own right, has selected his personal favourites, including familiar masterpieces as well as several brilliant lesser-known tales.

The subject of racism between blacks and whites in the United States is the central theme of this novel by the author of "One of the Children is Crying", "Island People" and "Mrs October Was Here". A series of encounters between blacks and whites expose the hypocrisy of racism.

A novel about what happens after a tragedy in a family - not the tragedy itself but its aftermath. A daughter has died, suddenly, shockingly, and the different ways in which her mother and father respond to the tragedy, how this plays out within the family and affects the other siblings, is at the heart of things.

Spanning generations, River of the Brokenhearted explores the life of this formidable woman, a pioneer before the age of feminism, and her legacy as it unfolds tragically in the lives of her son and grandchildren.

A horse in nineteenth-century England recounts his experiences with both good and bad masters.

A Spanish family torn apart by the Civil War. This is the drama of Benjamin Prado's Not Only Fire.

Prado introduces us to four generations of an everyday - and yet extraordinary - Spanish family. Each member of the family is close to the edge - and anything could happen, from forgiveness to murder .

Involuntary self-murder is a symptom of what Matthew Maddox, emeritus professor of the Drayburgh School of Fine Art, considers to be a cultural as well as a social malaise - his millennial summing-up of the century he has lived through.