When Charles Arrowby retires from his glittering career in the London theatre, he buys a remote house on the rocks by the sea. He hopes to escape from his tumultuous love affairs but unexpectedly bumps into his childhood sweetheart and sets his heart on destroying her marriage.

God takes a look at the Earth around the time of the Renaissance and everything looks pretty good - so he takes a holiday. When God returns, he finds all hell has broken loose: world wars, holocausts, famine, capitalism and 'fucking Christians everywhere'.

Comedy of sexual manners that follows the interlocking affairs of four men: Robin Woodfield, Justin, Danny and Alex. As each falls under the spell of romance or drugs, country living or rough trade, a richly ironic picture emerges of the clashing imperatives of gay life, the hunger for contact, the fear of commitment, and the need for permanence.

Dido Twite, heroine of Black Hearts in Battersea and Nightbirds on Nantucket, is on her wildest adventure yet. Dido faces fire, flood, wild beasts and, ultimately, threat of execution in order to get the lake back.

Honda, a brilliant lawyer and man of reason, is called to Bangkok on legal business, where he is granted an audience with a young Thai princess - an encounter that radically alters the course of his life.

Because of the boyhood trauma of seeing his mother make love to another man in the presence of his dying father, Mizoguchi becomes a hopeless stutterer. Taunted by his schoolmates, he feels utterly alone untill he becomes an acolyte at a famous temple in Kyoto, where he develops an all-consuming obsession with the temple's beauty.

Emma Kennedy's hilarious memoir of wet and windy family trips, NOW ADAPTED FOR THE MAJOR BBC ONE SERIES THE KENNEDYS.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR In a prison in Occupied France during the Second World War, the order is given that every tenth inmate is to be executed. Destitute but free, Chavel later returns to the house that he sold for his life, where he must face the consequences of his cowardice and seek redemption.