A nervous breakdown seems like a great idea: all that lying in bed and watching daytime TV. But who's going to have it? Will it be housewife Clodagh, who spends her days microwaving pasta for her demanding toddlers and waiting for her beautiful husband Dylan to come home? Or Lisa, reeling from the shock of a demotion from her fabulous job in London...

A historical novel on the corruption of innocence, using the famous painting by Vermeer as an inspiration. Griet, the young daughter of a tilemaker in 17th century Holland, obtains her first job as a servant in Vermeer's household. Tracy Chevalier shows us, through Griet's eyes, the complicated family, the society of the small town of Delft, and li...

Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly old skinflint. He hates everyone, especially children. But at Christmas the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future come to visit him, scare him into mending his ways, and he finds, as he celebrates with Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and their family, that geniality brings its own reward.

When the body of Sir Charles Baskerville is found in his garden, there are no signs to explain his death. Did he die of fright? Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson have a mysterious case to solve - is the Baskerville family really haunted by a phantom beast 'with blazing eyes and dripping jaws' which roams the mist-enshrouded moors around the isolated Ba...

Hat Grant is getting married. She is having a proper, big wedding. That is until something goes wrong - six weeks before the wedding, her fiance dumps her. Hat is devastated. This is her special day, she can't cancel everything - what about the flowers, her dress the photographer, the caterers, her ghastly mother? So, she doesn't - she decides to g...

Five disparate voices inhabit Ali Smith's dreamlike 'Hotel World', set in the luxurious anonymity of the Global Hotel, in an unnamed northern English city. The disembodied yet interconnected characters include Sara, a 19-year-old chambermaid who has recently died at the hotel; her bereaved sister, Clare, who visits the scene of Sara's death; Penny,...

Ria Lynch and Marilyn Vine have never met. Ria lives in a big ramshackle house in Tara Road, Dublin, which is filled with family and friends, while Marilyn lives in New England, absorbed in her career. A chance phone call brings them together and they decide to exchange homes. So a magical summer begins, full of discovery, unexpected friendships an...

These stories, all written between 1929 and 1954, all share the themes that feature so strongly in Graham Greene's novels: humour and violence, pity and hatred, betrayal and pursuit. Comic, sad, shocking and tragic, they recount the tales of Mr Maling's loud stomach, destructive gangs of children, indiscretions revealed and secrets uncovered. CONTA...

Obsessed by creating life itself, Doctor Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life using electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker...

This collection of short stories, previously published in anthologies and newspapers, consists of miniature studies of the endless absurdity of human behaviour. It includes 'Our Lives Are Only Lent To Us', discovered amongst the author's papers after her death.

As Romeo and Juliet come from opposing families, their love must be concealed until after their marriage. But having slain Juliet's cousin Tybalt, Romeo is banished and despite the well-meaning intervention of Friar Laurence, fate ensures that the marriage is never truly celebrated. Dramatisation of the New Cambridge version of the text.

A classic tale of wizards, dragons and terrifying shadows. The young wizard Sparrowhawk, tempted by pride to try spells beyond his powers, lets loose an evil shadow-beast in his land. Only he can destroy it, and this quest leads him to the farthest corner of Earthsea.

Captain Gault has decided that his family must leave their home in Lahardane. They are after all Protestants living in the big house in rural Cork in 1921, and Ireland is in turmoil. But 8-year-old Lucy can't bear to leave the seashore, the old house, the woods - so she hatches a plan. It is then that the calamity happens - an accident almost, but...

'The Silver Spoon' continues the tale of Soames' daughter Fleur. Married to Michael Mont, in line for a Barony, the story focuses on Michael's start in Parliament and Fleur's dissatisfaction with her marriage. The American, Frances Wilmont, enters the scene bringing news that Fleur's real love, Jon, forbidden to her as the son of her father's ex-wi...

Michael Mont is succeeding in his public life in Parliament, but holds grave doubts about his private life and his wife, Fleur. Fleur's original love, Jon Forsyte, her cousin and the son of her father's ex-wife, returns to England where a meeting is inevitable. Fleur's undying love for Jon is disclosed.

On a bitterly cold night in the eerie silence of an old church, forensic anthropologist Dr Brennan digs carefully. She is there to exhume the body of a nun who died in 1888 and is now proposed for sainthood. But the body has been moved. Why have the nun's remains been disturbed? And what will Dr Brennan discover when she finally manages to lift the...

A richly comic tale of the tangled fortunes of two theatrical families, the Hazards and the Chances, Angela Carter's witty and bawdy novel is populated with as many sets of twins and mistaken identities as any Shakespeare comedy, and celebrates the magic of over a century of showbusiness.

Solving the mystery of the Primrose Path Home proves to be the first of a collection of great new cases, as Rumpole defies hospital and returns triumphantly to defend the innocent - and the not-so-innocent.The stories contained within are: 'Rumpole and the Primrose Path', 'Rumpole and the New Year's Resolutions', 'Rumpole and the Scales of Justice'...

Every table at Quentins Restaurant has a story to tell: tales of love, betrayal and revenge. The staff who come and go have stories of their own, and the restaurant itself has had times when it looked fair for success and others when it seemed doomed to failure. Ella Brady wants to make a documentary about the renowned Dublin restaurant that has ca...

Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets o...

The first series of the Sony award winning radio show detailing the bizarre exploits of the inhabitants of a very peculiar Northern town. Meet Dr Chinnery, the lethally incompetent vet, Pauline, the monstrous Restart Officer at the Job Centre and Barbara, a taxi driver halfway through his sex change. Murderously funny and acutely observed, this is...