Malcolm Polstead's Oxford life has been one of routine, ordinary even. He is happiest playing with his daemon, Asta, in their canoe, La Belle Sauvage. But now as the rain builds, the world around Malcolm and Asta is, it seems, set to become increasingly far from ordinary. Finding himself linked to a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua, Malcolm is for...

Eva and Jim are nineteen and students at Cambridge when their paths first cross in 1958. And then there is David, Eva's then-lover, an ambitious actor who loves Eva deeply. The Versions of Us follows the three different courses their lives could take following this first meeting. Lives filled with love, betrayal, ambition but through it all is a de...

For thirty years, best friends Stephanie and Philippa have been practically inseparable. There's nothing they would not do for one another. Until a few simple words change everything. 'I need you to say that I was with you.' Both women have always believed that friendship is built on mutual selflessness, compromise and trust. Are those beliefs now...

England, 1932: Grace Hamblin, the beekeeper's daughter, knows her place and her future, until her father dies. She's alone, except for one man who she just can't shake from her thoughts. Massachusetts, 1973: Grace's daughter Trixie Valentine is in love. But when he has to go home to England, he promises to come back, if she will wait for him. Both...

For philosophically-minded Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, getting through life with a clear conscience requires careful thought. And whilst juggling the arrival of baby Charlie, a passionate relationship with his father Jamie, a truce with her furious niece Cat, and struggles for authority over her son with her formidable...

Men had built cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar; for millennia its protective dome shut out the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it ruled the stars. But then, as legend had it, the Invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. It takes one man, a Unique, to smash the legend and discover the true nature of...

Bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith captures the strange wonderful goings on of the residents and visitors at Corduroy Mansions, Pimlico, from nasty Liberal Democrat MP Oedipus Snark to the newest resident, Pimlico Terrier Freddie de la Hay.

One night, George Duncan is woken by a noise in his garden. Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow. Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the moment he watches it fly off, his life is transformed. The next day, a kind but enigmatic woman walks into George's shop. Suddenly a new world op...

There are four words Ceri D'Altroy never wants to hear: 'I took your advice'. She's all for following your heart and living your dreams, but not because she's told you to do so. Unfortunately, having moved away from London to become a psychology lecturer, all she seems to do is inspire people to change their lives. There's Ed, who's decided to ask...

MI5 Intelligence Officer Liz Carlyle is summoned to a meeting with her boss Charles Wetherby, head of the Service's Counter-Espionage Branch. His counterpart over at MI6 has received alarming intelligence from a high-placed Syrian source. The future of the whole of the Middle East is at stake and the deadline for action is drawing ever closer...

The body of a woman has been discovered inside the gates of MIT, draped in an unusual cloth. An examination reveals that the body is covered in a fine dust that under ultra-violet light fluoresces blood-red, emerald-green and sapphire-blue. As Kay Scarpetta pieces together the evidence, she draws herself and her team deeper into the dark world of d...

A novel about love and following one's heart, and the unexpected places to which this can lead us. At the age of four Clover chooses her own name. Aged six, she falls in love with her best friend, James. But in the adult world, things are not so simple: Clover's mother finds she's fallen out of love with her husband, and realises that James's fathe...

In the 22nd century visionary scientist Vannevar Morgan conceives the most grandiose engineering project of all time, and one which will revolutionise the future of humankind in space: a Space Elevator, 36,000 kilometres high, anchored to an equatorial island in the Indian Ocean.

France, 1916. Sophie Lefevre is ordered to serve the German officers who socialise in her hotel. When the new Kommandant sets eyes on Sophie's portrait-painted by her husband Edouard-a dangerous obsession is born. Almost a century later, Sophie's portrait hangs in the home of Liv Halston. A chance encounter reveals the painting's true worth-and its...

This is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel's uniquely unusual five-part autobiography. Opening with 'A Second Home', in which Mantel describes the death of her stepfather, Giving Up the Ghosts is a wry, shocking and beautifully-written memoir of childhood, ghosts (real and metaphorical), illness and family. Finally, at the memoir's conclusion, Ma...

A husband. A wife. A mistress. And the ultimate plan for revenge... James never intended to lead a double life; with a wife in London and a mistress in the country, it's exhausting. But that's all about to change...Stephanie, his wife, isn't really snooping when she finds a text message from a strange woman on her husband's mobile. But now she's fo...

Random House Audiobooks presents the audiobook of HELP. Read by Simon Amstell and packed full of live recordings taken from his stand up tours. COMEDY, TRAGEDY, THERAPY. Simon Amstell did his first stand-up gig at the age of thirteen. His parents had just divorced and puberty was confusing. Trying to be funny solved everything. Read by Simon Amstel...

Set on a Cornish cliff, Atlantic House has been the jewel in the Carew family crown for centuries. Prudence, hard-nosed businesswoman and Constance, homemaker and loving wife are as different as vinegar and honey and when an old face reappears on the scene, years of simmering resentments reach boiling point. But little do the women know that a long...

She has just two weeks. Two weeks to teach him how to fall in love-with his own life. One night, when Christine is crossing the Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin a man is there, threatening to jump. Adam is desperate-but Christine makes a crazy deal with him: to show him life is worth living in the two weeks before his 35th birthday. The two of them embark...

Kate O'Brien is thirty and has very little to think about except trying to keep her balance as she totters up London's media-land ladder. Fiona O'Brien is Kate's responsible older sister-with a husband, twin boys, a dog and now-a life-changing problem. It's a problem that means Kate going back to Dublin. Pronto. There she finds herself stepping int...

When journalist Ellie looks through her newspaper's archives for a story, she discovers a letter from 1960, written by a man asking his lover to leave her husband... In 1960, Jennifer wakes up in hospital after a car accident with no memory. And then, when she returns home, she uncovers a hidden letter, and begins to remember the lover she was will...