In the iron-hulled trawlers which plough the ocean off New England, James Pfeiffer gains insights into the truths behind stories he heard as a child - rumours of killer whales and sharks, and ghost ships in the fog. He also learns the truth about his father's terrible fear of the sea.

The second of the mysteries featuring the foul-mouthed Kinky Friedman, ace private eye. It is Thanksgiving at the legendary Lone Star Cafe, a raucus little corner of Texas right in the middle of Manhattan. Larry Barkins is found dead in his dressing room, his head bashed in with his own guitar.

Introduces us to a group of memorable characters, variously eccentric, farcical and endearing. This book involves the reader in the labyrinthine creation of a purported autobiography. It anticipates modernism and postmodernism.

In Jane Austen's first published novel, her portrait of two heroines' parallel experiences of love, loss, and hope offers a powerful analysis of how women were shaped by the claustrophobic society they had to survive. This new edition includes a new introduction, and revised notes and bibliography.

With the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood, the lives of Mr and Mrs Bennet and their five daughters are turned inside out. Pride encounters prejudice, upward-mobility confronts social disdain, and quick-wittedness challenges sagacity, as misconceptions and hasty judgements lead to heartache and scandal.

Eight killer reads from eight bestselling authors - specially written for Quick Reads.

Part of Alma Classics new series: 101 Pages, Three Years is, in the author's own words, " a novel of Moscow life" and an examination of its merchant classes. A powerful story of redemption and the nuances of human relationships, the novella helped cement Chekhov's reputation as a major figure in Russian literature.

Part of Alma Classics new series: 101 Pages, The Duel is an autobiographical novel which describes Casanova's extraordinary battle to the death with a Polish Count

Part of Alma Classics new series: 101 Pages, The Frozen Deep is an action-packed tale of vengeance and sacrifice based on an actual doomed mission to the Arctic captained by Sir John Franklin.

Part of Balzac's La Comedie humaine cycle, Colonel Chabert is a poignant tale about the pursuit of justice, as well as a portrait of France's transition from the Napoleonic Empire to the Restoration.

Published posthumously and intended mainly as a satire of its age, this imaginative and entertaining tale - here presented in a lively translation by Andrew Brown - is now considered one of the pioneering works of science fiction."

Combining psychological detail with a strong sense of place and time, The Story of a Nobody bears all the hallmarks of Chekhov's genius, and perfectly captures the political and social tensions of its day.

Here presented with other five short stories focussing on the lives of prostitutes, Boule de Suif is a story about food, sex and politics.

Right from the start Pacific Hale is in love with her best friend Dorothy Shu. Pacific is about to discover that love is a battlefield, and to survive she will have to become something new, something terrible and born of fire.

The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices is a charming evocation of the adventures Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins experienced on a walking tour of the north-west of England.

Famed for having killed his cousin Alessandro, the Duke of Florence, in 1537, Lorenzino de' Medici remains one of the most enigmatic figures of Italian literature. In his masterpiece, Apology for a Murder, he reveals the inner motives behind his act.

Written in Machiavelli's characteristically lucid and terse style, Life of Castruccio Castracani is a revealing account of the political ferment and fractious factionalism of fourteenth-century Italy.

This unique edition, translated by critically-acclaimed translator Andrew Brown, is one of the earliest examples of the classic murder mystery and it has been an inspiration for a host of thriller and crime writers.

This 1882 novella, a key work in Huysmans' literary development - prefiguring in its protagonist the figure of Jean des Esseintes, the hero of A rebours, written two years later - is accompanied here by another masterly study of human despair, 'M. Bougran's Retirement'.

One of Henry James's most enduringly popular works, Daisy Miller, here published in its original 1879 version, is a masterly, psychologically nuanced dissection of social mores and a merciless critique of convention and staid respectability.

In this tragicomic study of deception and disappointment, Italo Svevo - who himself was an undiscovered writer until his old age - parodies elements of his own life and offers an insightful psychological portrait of a person who has lost touch with reality.

A unique collection of short stories by the master of Italian modernism.

The first of Edith Wharton's works depicting life in "old New York", The Touchstone is an acutely observed novella , and an exploration of the tension between self-serving opportunism and the desire to live a moral life."