A novel of ideas, action, mystery, of human aspiration and self-destruction, set in Avignon. The moments of happiness experienced by the diplomat Piers de Nogaret, his sister Sylvie, and Bruce, the earnest English doctor, are fleeting in the face of darker problems.

The protagonist of this novel is a 15-year-old North London schoolboy called Gabriel. He is forced to come to terms with a new life, and use his gift for painting in order to make sense of his world, once the equilibrium of the family has been shattered by his father's departure.

After centuries of ranging unchecked across the northern world, the fortunes of the Vikings have begun to turn. In this time of violent change, a young man, struck by lightning, is believed to be marked by the gods as a keeper of the Norse religion's greatest secret.

When the corpse of the shady industrialist, who owns the local football team, is found both shot and stabbed with a Parmesan knife, Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen is called to Bologna to oversee the investigation. Recovering slowly from surgery, Zen is only too happy to take on what at first appears to be an undemanding assignment.

At just another drinks party that he very nearly chose not to go to, Jeremy catches sight of Maria and is instantly drawn by a frisson of sexual excitement. His rash and immediate reaction sets off an unstoppable chain of events that will divert the course of his life and those of many others.

When Henry's girl dumps him, his life seems pointless. There's obviously only one place to go, Hollywood. Armed with only a few ideas, and the desire to be a screenwriter, he joins the myriad hopefuls. As Henry acquires an agent and does the round of the studios, the book provides an insider's glimpse of how Hollywood really works.

Written in verse, this was Vikram Seth's first novel. Set in the 1980s, in the affluence and sunshine of California's silicon valley, it is the story of twenty-somethings looking for love, pleasure and the meaning of life.

A collection of stories which encompass the brittle dreams of a teenage boxer, Christmas in a psychiatric ward, a manic-depressive adolescent's passion for the heroine of "Tom Jones", an unemployed man's experiments with mice, and a Vietnam veteran's night-time swim across the English Channel.

A novel in which a young man travels from his Midlands home to Oxford University, and finds himself out of his depth in its rarefied atmosphere.

A work of fiction which represents the author's personal meditation on fatherhood. The first section reveals his memories and feelings after the death of his father, and in the second the perspective shifts to Auster's own role as a father.

Harold Pinter's first and only novel, written in the early 1950s before he began writing plays. The novel is set in post-war London's East End, a landscape of bomb-sites, and describes the lives of four young Londoners whose energy and humour lift them above the routine austerity of the time.

Inspector Aurelio Zen is back and facing the biggest mystery of his professional career. Drawn into the plots of the Vatican city, he becomes certain of one thing - that in life the only certainty is death. Previous Zen books include "Ratking."

Castagnetti (informally known as 'Casta') is a private detective who doesn't do things by the book. When a pompous notary commissions him to verify that a missing person is 'presumed dead' in order to dispose of a dead woman's estate to the other heirs, Casta smells a rat.

Luke's mum is dead. He finds himself in a small, scruffy northern hill town, with a near silent father, who he fears might be trying to drink himself to death. Then he meets Jon. Jon is massively strange. The kids at school call him 'Slackjaw'. When Luke discovers his secret, Jon changes his life in more ways than he can imagine.

Aurelio Zen's final case brings him to remote town of Calabria, at the toe of Italy's boot, on what is supposed to be a routine assignment: the death of a scout for an American film company. But the case is complicated by a group of dangerous strangers who have arrived to uncover another local mystery - buried treasure...

Tells the tale of Adam's odyssey into a nightmare of corruption and violence, where it is his forlorn hope that he is helping his autistic son Justin.

"The Dice Man" told the story of a man who decides to make his decisions on the throw of a dice. Now, 21 years later, this sequel features Luke's son Larry, who is a preppy futures dealer on Wall Street. Rejecting all that his father stood for, he must now try and trace him.

This is the story of three women from three parallel universes. Joanna's world is quite like our own, whereas Jeannine's world is a poorer, grungier version of Earth. And then there's Janet, who comes from a world where men have died off, a world without the "poisonous binary" of gender.

After a two-year absence a husband returns to find his wife wearing the scarlet 'A' for Adulteress on her breast. Determined to find her lover, he embarks on a destructive path of revenge. This edition uses the most authoritative text, with a wide-ranging critical introduction.