In Going Solo, the world's favourite storyteller, Roald Dahl, tells of life as a fighter pilot in Africa.'They did not think for one moment that they would find anything but a burnt-out fuselage and a charred skeleton, and they were astounded when they came upon my still-breathing body lying in the sand nearby.' In 1938 Roald Dahl was fresh out of school and bound for his first job in Africa, hoping to find adventure far from home. However, he got far more excitement than he bargained for when the outbreak of the Second World War led him to join the RAF. His account of his experiences in Africa, crashing a plane in the Western Desert, rescue and recovery from his horrific injuries in Alexandria, flying a Hurricane as Greece fell to the Germans, and many other daring deeds, recreates a world as bizarre and unnerving as any he wrote about in his fiction. 'Very nearly as grotesque as his fiction. The same compulsive blend of wide-eyed innocence and fascination with danger and horror' Evening Standard 'A non-stop demonstration of expert raconteurship' The New York Times Book Review. Roald Dahl, the brilliant and worldwide acclaimed author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and many more classics for children, also wrote scores of short stories for adults. These delightfully disturbing tales have often been filmed and were most recently the inspiration for the West End play, Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales by Jeremy Dyson. Roald Dahl's stories continue to make readers shiver today.

With an Introduction, Notes and Bibliography by Michael Irwin, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Kent, Canterbury.

The young Thomas Hardy, working as an architect, but fired with literary ambition, tried for years to get into print. He finally succeeded with Desperate Remedies, a 'sensation novel' in the mode of Wilkie Collins. Here was a racy specimen of the genre, replete with sudden death, dark mysteries, intriguing clues, fire and storm, flight and pursuit.

Anyone who enjoys The Woman in White is likely to enjoy Desperate Remedies. But that is only half the story. Hardy contrived also, in this unlikely context, to give a first airing to various of the ideas and technical experiments which were to characterise his later fiction. The result is an exhilaratingly uneven work: at any point in the narrative some brilliant passage of description or metaphor may burst out like a firework. Desperate Remedies can be relished both for what it is and for what it promises.

One of the most moving accounts of being a boy ever written, My Childhood is a both wonderful and harrowing memoir - and one of the great works of Russian literature. A new series of twenty distinctive, unforgettable Penguin Classics in a beautiful new design and pocket-sized format, with coloured jackets echoing Penguin's original covers.

On a sunny day in June, Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is getting ready for a party and exulting in the vibrant swell of London. As Clarissa's preparations take her from the golden morning to the glittering evening, she muses on the choices she made as a young woman, the romances that have enriched her life, and the passage of time. In another part of London, war hero Septimus Smith is suffering from shell shock - what we would now term PTSD - and is haunted by the death of his friend. He finds himself teetering on the brink of madness, unable to leave his wounds behind. Over the course of a single day, the lives of Clarissa and Septimus will interweave and finally converge as the party reaches its climax.

Explosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage.

Set in the closing months of World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. His real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. If Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions then he is caught in Catch-22: if he flies he is crazy, and doesn't have to; but if he doesn't want to he must be sane and has to. That's some catch...

Powerful and political, with unforgettable characters and timeless themes, The World According to Garp is John Irving's breakout novel. The precursor of Irving's later protest novels, it is the story of Jenny, an unmarried nurse who becomes a single mom and a feminist leader, beloved but polarizing--and of her son, Garp, less beloved, but no less polarizing.

From the tragicomic tone of its first sentence to its mordantly funny last line -- "we are all terminal cases" -- The World According to Garp maintains a breakneck pace. The subject of sexual hatred and violence -- of intolerance of sexual minorities, and sexual differences -- runs through the book, as relevant now as ever. Available in more than forty countries -- with more than ten million copies in print -- Garp is a comedy with forebodings of doom.

Dodgers is a dark, unforgettable coming-of-age journey that recalls the very best of Richard Price, Denis Johnson, and J.D. Salinger.

It is the story of a young LA gang member named East, who is sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys—including East's hothead younger brother—to kill a key witness hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he's never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, ultimately forcing him to grapple with his place in the world and decide what kind of man he wants to become.
 
Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.

Richard Brautigan was a literary idol of the 1960s and 1970s whose comic genius and iconoclastic vision of American life caught the imagination of young people everywhere. He came of age during the Haight-Ashbury period and has been called “the last of the Beats.” His early books became required reading for the hip generation, and on its publication Trout Fishing in America became an international bestseller. An indescribable romp, the novel is best summed up in one word: mayonnaise.

This new edition includes an introduction by the poet Billy Collins, who first encountered Brautigan's work as a student in California.

Covering the decisive moment of the Bolshevik revolution, "Ten Days" revealed the author to be among the first Americans to grasp the true significance of the Revolution and to make the U.S. public aware of it. The book remains acclaimed today. It is published in many countries and in a multitude of languages. This edition, a facsimile of the original 1919 printing was prepared by John Howard Lawson, the late noted film writer who himself made history as, member of the famed "Hollywood Ten." His introduction corrects distortions of Reed and his time presented in other edited versions. Included also are biographical sketches of the main participant, contemporary photographs, a map of Petrograd showing where events took place, prefaces by Lenin and his wife Krupskaya, editorial notes and an index.

In the Britain of the second century, Corinium (modern Cinrencester) is a bustling town, frequented by vagrants and pickpockets. So pavement-maker Libertus is not entirely surprised to witness a stabbing on the street. Luckily the victim, the wealthy decurion Quintas Ulpius, has a personal physician on hand, and tragedy is averted, but not for long. Commanded by his patron, Marcus Spetimus to investigate the attack, Libertus arrives at Quintus's sumptious mansion only moments before the decurion is knifed again, fatally this time.

It happened one night, without warning: 90% of the human race disappeared without a trace. There were no bodies and no clue as to where they went or whether they would ever return. After years of violence spawned by fear and rage, an uneasy peace is restored. But fanatics still rove the land, trying to discover what caused the Vanishing.

Henry Biggs, ex-baseball star, is still a celebrity in rural Vermont, where he has ambiguous political ambitions which are encouraged by Ed Cobb, Speaker of the House. And just in case a bit more than encouragement is needed, Ed has a nice little line in blackmail up his sleeve.

With My Education: A Book of Dreams William S. Burroughs pushes on into new territory, once again committing the unspeakable crime of questioning the reality structure. Dreams have always been a rich source of imagery in Burroughs' work. In this book they are a direct and powerful force. Hundreds of dreams - intense, vivid, visionary - form the spiraling core of a unique and haunting journey into perception. Exploring and embodying Burroughs' provocative ideas on writing, painting, consciousness and creativity, My Education is profoundly personal, and may be as close to a memoir as we will see.

Our age is obsessed by the idea of conspiracy. We see it everywhere - from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, from the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the death of Princess Diana. In this age of terrorism, the idea of conspiracy can fuel radical or fringe elements to violence. The author, a journalist, sees a pattern among these inflammatory theories. They use similarly murky methods to insinuate their claims: they link themselves to the supposed conspiracies of the past; they carefully manipulate their evidence, to hide its holes; they rely on the authority of dubious academic sources. Most important, they elevate their believers to an elite, a group of people able to see beyond lies to a higher reality. In this book, the author carefully probes and explodes a dozen of the major conspiracy theories. He examines why people believe them, and makes an argument for a true skepticism: one based on a thorough knowledge of history and a strong dose of common sense--From publisher description.

Frances Cairncross is the media editor for The Economist magazine. With this book she offers an analysis of the changes taking place in the telecommunications industry and the effects these will have on business and society.

Holidays on Ice is a collection of three previously published stories matched with three newer ones, all, of course, on a Christmas theme. David Sedaris's darkly playful humor is another common thread through the book, worming its way through "Seasons Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!" a chipper suburban Christmas letter that spirals dizzily out of control, and "Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol," a vicious theatrical review of children's Christmas pageants. As always, Sedaris's best work is his sharply observed nonfiction, notably in "Dinah, the Christmas Whore," the tale of a memorable Christmas during which the young Sedaris learns to see his family in a new light. Worth the price of the book alone is the hilarious "SantaLand Diaries," Sedaris's chronicle of his time working as an elf at Macy's, covering everything from the preliminary group lectures ("You are not a dancer. If you were a real dancer you wouldn't be here. You're an elf and you're going to wear panties like an elf.") to the perils of inter-elf flirtation. Along the way, he paints a funny and sad portrait of the way the countless parents who pass through SantaLand are too busy creating an Experience to really pay attention to their children. In a sly way, it carries a holiday message all its own. Read it aloud to the adults after the kids have gone to bed. --Ali Davis

Journalist Michael Joseph Gross takes us deep into the world of celebrities and the people who love them.

Why are we so obsessed with fame? Even if we don't read People, we all crane our necks to see the stars. As a teenager, Michael Joseph Gross amassed a collection of about four thousand autographs by writing letters to celebrities and world leaders. The collecting fever broke when he grew up, but his fascination with fandom remained.

In Starstruck, Gross travels from Hollywood to Dollywood, from Neverland to Middle Earth. He crashes a Kid Rock concert with a sixty-six-year-old fan, sprints after Mick Jagger with a professional autograph collector, gets the inside scoop from Mary Hart on covering Hollywood for Entertainment Tonight, visits the world's largest comic book convention with the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, and discovers what fans look like from the perspective of celebrities-who, paradoxically, often seem to be among the most starstruck of us all. Sympathetic, funny, and endlessly curious about stars and fans alike, Gross gives us a winning portrait of how our dreams of fame shape our everyday lives.

This is Siegfried Sassoon's fictionalized autobiography of the period between the early spring of 1916 and the summer of 1917. The narrative moves from the trenches to the Fourth Army School, to Morlancourt and a raid, then to and through the Somme.

One of the most terrible ideas of the 20th Century was that of total war - war by the obliteration of whole civilian populations.