Mothers are the ultimate scapegoat for our personal and political failings, for everything that is wrong with the world, which becomes their task (unrealizable, of course) to repair.To the familiar claim that too much is asked of mothers - a long-standing feminist plaint - Rose adds a further dimension.

Lose yourself in the thrilling political intrigue and tangled love affairs of wartime Egypt: Durrell's epic modern classic, introduced by William Boyd (bestselling author of Any Human Heart and Restless). 'A master at creating and handling tension ...

Written during her time as the inaugural fellow in the Beckett archive last year, Eimear McBride's three short, characteristically brilliant plays - collected in one work, Mouthpieces. Each play depicts a fragment of female experience, all of them told in in Eimear's vivid, original and sharp-witted style.

My love for him felt so total and so annihilating that it was often impossible for me to see him clearly at all. Years ago, Sukie moved in with Nathan because her mother was dead and her father was difficult, and she had nowhere else to go.

As heard on BBC Radio 4's 'A Good Read: the amphibious cult classic: a magical tale of a suburban housewife's affair with a frogman ... 'Disturbing but seductive ... Muscular, vegetarian, sexually magnetic, Larry the frogman is a revelation - and their passionate affair takes them on a journey beyond their wildest dreams ...

Walking ahead of him on the heath, his wife turns to look at him over her shoulder, 'Topaz eyes glinting. Scorched face. Vixen.' In language harvested from nature, Sarah Hall tells a story of metamorphosis, of wildness and fecundity, and of a man reaching for reason, who cannot let go of the creature he loves.

The first in a sparkling new 1950s seaside mystery series, featuring sharp-eyed former nun Nora Breen.