Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is about Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who wakes up one day to find that he has transformed into a giant insect. His family is disgusted with him, especially when he is no longer able to earn income. Gregor eventually dies after deciding that he is a burden to his family.

✨ A SMALL LITERARY MASTERPIECE ✨ Enter the fascinating world of Stefan Zweig's Chess Story, where obsession, isolation, and inner struggle are visualized on the most intellectual of battlefields: the chessboard. ✏ This edition with notes and foreword includes: ▶️ A new translation. ▶️ Notes to help you better understand the text. ▶️ A brief prologue that will give you the main keys. ✍️ Immerse yourself in a sharp and captivating narrative. Zweig masterfully handles the suspense and psychological construction of the characters, offering a story that, beyond a game, reflects human tensions and the resilience of the spirit.

For the stage. Between 1938 and 1939, a movement that became known as Kindertransport evacuated nearly 10,000 Jewish children from Germany to Britain. Most of the children were between ages 4 and 17; some were babies carried by children; none were accompanied by parents. In its particulars, the play Kindertransport is about a fictional child who was evacuated from Germany. It is about separation, about the choices we make in our attempts to keep our children safe, and about the reverberations of traumatic events through generations of a family. THEATRE - DRAMA 6 Characters: 5 Females Ð 1 Male 1 set: Interior of a House

The enthralling debut from bestselling novelist Michael Chabon is a penetrating narrative of complex friendships, father-son conflicts, and the awakening of a young man's sexual identity. Chabon masterfully renders the funny, tender, and captivating first-person narrative of Art Bechstein, whose confusion and heartache echo the tones of literary forebears like The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield and The Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh incontrovertibly established Chabon as a powerful force in contemporary fiction, even before his PulitzerPrize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay set the literary world spinning. An unforgettable story of coming of age in America, it is also an essential milestone in the movement of American fiction, from a novelist who has become one of the most important and enduring voices of this generation.

Pre-order the brand new Anthony Horowitz novel The Twist of a Knife , coming August 2022! 'EASILY THE GREATEST OF OUR CRIME WRITERS' Sunday Times 'A homage to the Golden Age of mystery - it is pure delight.' NEW YORK TIMES 'This is crime fiction as dazzling entertainment' SUNDAY TIMES 'Witty, wry, clever, a fabulous detective story and perfect summer reading' KATE MOSSE 'Funny, intriguing, thrilling and thought-provoking: a marvellous mystery' ADAM HAMDY 'A golden-age whodunnit on steroids' KIRKUS REVIEWS 'My favourite literary hero at the moment is Anthony Horowitz' SHARI LAPENA __________________ Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and the writer Anthony Horowitz have been invited to a literary festival on the island of Alderney to talk about their new book. Very soon they discover that dark forces are at work. Alderney is in turmoil over a planned power line that will cut through it, desecrating a war cemetery and turning neighbour against neighbour. And the visiting authors seem to be harbouring any number of unpleasant secrets. When the festival's wealthy sponsor is found brutally murdered, Alderney goes into lockdown and Hawthorne knows he doesn't have to look too far for suspects. There's no escape. The killer is still on the island. And there's about to be a second death... __________________ READERS LOVE A LINE TO KILL... 'I loved this smartly written whodunit.' 'If you like your mysteries clever and not run-of-the-mill, this one has your name stamped on it.' 'Highly entertaining.' 'This is an entertaining, easy, and relaxing read for anyone who enjoys an old-fashioned mystery.' 'I absolutely adore this series and cannot wait for more!' ***BY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MOONFLOWER MURDERS***

"Your future as a writer is in your hands. Whether you are a newcomer or an accomplished professional, a novelist, story writer, or a writer of nonfiction, you will find in this book a wealth of immediately useful guidance not available anywhere else. As Sol Stein, renowned editor, author, and instructor, explains, "This is not a book of theory. It is a book of useable solutions - how to fix writing that is flawed, how to improve writing that is good, how to create interesting writing in the first place."" "You will find one of the great unspoken secrets of craftsmanship in Chapter 5, called "Markers: The Key to Swift Characterization." In Chapter 7, Stein reveals for the first time in print the wonderful system for creating instant conflict developed in the Playwrights Group of the Actors Studio, of which he was a founder. In "Secrets of Good Dialogue," the premier teacher of dialogue gives you the instantly useable techniques that not only make verbal exchanges exciting but that move the story forward immediately. You won't have to struggle with flashbacks or background material after you've read Chapter 14, which shows you how to bring background into the foreground." "Writers of both fiction and nonfiction will relish the amphetamines for speeding up pace, and the many ways to liposuction flab, as well as how to tap originality and recognize what successful titles have in common. You'll discover literary values that enhance writing, providing depth and resonance. You'll bless the day you read Chapters 32 and 33 and discover why revising by starting at page one can be a serious mistake, and how to revise without growing cold on your manuscript." "In the pages of this book, nonfiction writers will find a passport to the new revolution in journalism and a guide to using the techniques of fiction to enhance nonfiction. Fresh, useful, informative, and fun to read and reread, Stein on Writing is a book you will mark up, dog-ear, and cherish." --Book Jacket.

The last Isaac Asimov science fiction collection which contains all of his previously uncollected stories.

Written with a trenchant, sardonic edge, The Group is a dazzlingly outspoken novel and a captivating look at the social history of America between two world wars. "Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant."--CosmopolitanAward-winning Mary McCarthy's most celebrated novel follows the lives of eight Vassar graduates, known simply to their classmates as “the group.” An eclectic mix of personalities and upbringings, they meet a week after graduation to watch Kay Strong get married. After the ceremony, the women begin their adult lives -- traveling to Europe, tackling the worlds of nursing and publishing, and finding love and heartbreak in the streets of New York City. Through the years, some of the friends grow apart and some become entangled in each other's affairs, but all vow not to become like their mothers and fathers. It is only when one of them passes away that they all come back together again to mourn the loss of a friend, a confidante, and most importantly, a member of the group.

“One of our most exquisite storytellers” (Esquire) gives us his first collection in over a decade: ten potent new stories that, along with twenty-one classics, display his mastery over a quarter century. Tobias Wolff’s first two books, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs and Back in the World, were a powerful demonstration of how the short story can “provoke our amazed appreciation,” as The New York Times Book Review wrote then. In the years since, he’s written a third collection, The Night in Question, as well as a pair of genre-defining memoirs (This Boy’s Life and In Pharaoh’s Army), the novella The Barracks Thief, and, most recently, a novel, Old School. Now he returns with fresh revelations—about biding one’s time, or experiencing first love, or burying one’s mother—that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary: a retired Marine enrolled in college while her son trains for Iraq, a lawyer taking a difficult deposition, an American in Rome indulging the Gypsy who’s picked his pocket. In these stories, as with his earlier, much-anthologized work, he once again proves himself, according to the Los Angeles Times, “a writer of the highest order: part storyteller, part philosopher, someone deeply engaged in asking hard questions that take a lifetime to resolve.”

Set in 18th century Naples, based on the lives of Sir William Hamilton, his celebrated wife Emma, and Lord Nelson, and peopled with many of the great figures of the day, this unconventional, bestselling historical romance from the National Book Award-winning author of In America touches on themes of sex and revolution, the fate of nature, art and the collector's obsessions, and, above all, love.

Short-listed for the Booker Prize Long-listed for the National Book Award "The first major American novel to be published this year." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal "Gorgeous . . . Almost impossibly heartbreaking." --Sam Worley, New York Magazine A Must-Read: The New York Times , New York Magazine, Time , The Washington Post , Los Angeles Times , The Boston Globe , Entertainment Weekly , USA Today , The Chicago Review of Books , Forbes , Literary Hub , and Town & Country "A major world writer . . . Choi is in thrilling command." ―Dwight Garner, The New York Times "Devastating." --Ron Charles, The Washington Post "Ranks among her best work." --Hamilton Cain, Los Angeles Times A Dakota Johnson x TeaTime Book Club Pick A novel tracing a father's disappearance across time, nations, and memory, from the author of Trust Exercise . One summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old. Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, is Korean, but was born and raised in Japan; he lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her Midwestern family after a reckless adventure in her youth. And then there is Tobias, Anne's illegitimate son, whose reappearance in their lives will have astonishing consequences. But now it is just Anne and Louisa, Louisa and Anne, adrift and facing the challenges of ordinary life in the wake of great loss. United, separated, and also repelled by their mutual grief, they attempt to move on. But they cannot escape the echoes of that night. What really happened to Louisa's father? Shifting perspectives across time and character and turning back again and again to that night by the sea, Flashlight chases the shock waves of one family's catastrophe, even as they are swept up in the invisible currents of history. A monumental new novel from the National Book Award winner Susan Choi, Flashlight spans decades and continents in a spellbinding, heart-gripping investigation of family, loss, memory, and the ways in which we are shaped by what we cannot see.

The new Hercule Poirot novel - another brilliant murder mystery that can only be solved by the eponymous Belgian detective and his 'little grey cells'.

The sheltered son of a Jewish mobster, Art Bechstein leaps into his first summer as a college graduate as cluelessly as he capered through his school years. But new friends and lovers are eager to guide him through these sultry days of last-ditch youthful alienation and sexual confusion—in a blue-collar city where the mundane can sometimes appear almost magical.

In Search of Lost Time , also translated as Remembrance of Things Past—is a novel in seven volumes, written by Marcel Proust (1871–1922). It is considered to be his most prominent work, known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine" which occurs early in the first volume. In Search of Lost Time follows the narrator's recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood during late 19th century to early 20th century aristocratic France, while reflecting on the loss of time and lack of meaning to the world.

WINNER OF THE 2025 NOBEL PRIZE Now in paperback, the capstone to Krasznahorkai’s four-part masterwork, and winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature Set in contemporary times, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming tells the story of a Prince Myshkin–like figure, Baron Béla Wenckheim, who returns at the end of his life to his provincial Hungarian hometown. Having escaped from his many casino debts in Buenos Aires, where he was living in exile, he longs to be reunited with his high-school sweetheart Marika. Confusions abound, and what follows is an endless storm of gossip, con men, and local politicians, vividly evoking the small town’s alternately drab and absurd existence. All along, the Professor―a world-famous natural scientist who studies mosses and inhabits a bizarre Zen-like shack in a desolate area outside of town?offers long rants and disquisitions on his attempts to immunize himself from thought. Spectacular actions are staged as death and the abyss loom over the unsuspecting townfolk.

A #1 New York Times bestseller from the author of Exodus and Trinity, Topaz is the classic Cold War thriller of high intrigue and international suspense set during the Cuban Missile Crisis. On the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Paris, 1962, Devereaux and Nordstrom uncover Soviet plans to ship nuclear arms. But when nobody acts after sharing his findings, Devereaux becomes the target of an assassination attempt and soon realizes the plot extends far beyond Cuba--and himself. A thrilling and well-paced novel filled with Cold War intrigue, Topaz features two agents on a journey around the world to save NATO and themselves.

A New York Times Bestseller From #1 New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn comes the story of Gregory Bridgerton, in the final installment of her beloved Regency-set novels featuring the charming, powerful Bridgerton family, now a series created by Shondaland for Netflix. GREGORY'S STORY Unlike most men of his acquaintance, Gregory Bridgerton believes in true love. And he is convinced that when he finds the woman of his dreams, he will know in an instant that she is the one. And that is exactly what happened. Except ... She wasn't the one. In fact, the ravishing Miss Hermione Watson is in love with another. But her best friend, the ever-practical Lady Lucinda Abernathy, wants to save Hermione from a disastrous alliance, so she offers to help Gregory win her over. But in the process, Lucy falls in love. With Gregory! Except ... Lucy is engaged. And her uncle is not inclined to let her back out of the betrothal, even once Gregory comes to his senses and realizes that it is Lucy, with her sharp wit and sunny smile, who makes his heart sing. And now, on the way to the wedding, Gregory must risk everything to ensure that when it comes time to kiss the bride, he is the only man standing at the altar ...

Join the Bridgertons, and the rest of the ton, as they pore over (and gossip about) Lady Whistledown's latest musings. The elusive Regency-era gossip columnist -- popularized in # 1 New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn's Bridgerton novels, now a series created by Shondaland for Netflix - reveals society's most recent secrets in this second glittering anthology, following the New York Times bestseller, The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown. Who Stole Lady Neeley's Bracelet Was it the fortune hunter, the gambler, the servant, or the rogue All of London is abuzz with speculation, but it is clear that one of four couples is connected to the crime. --Lady Whistledown's Society Papers, May 1816 Julia Quinn enchants: A dashing fortune hunter is captivated by the Season's most desired debutante . . . and must prove he is out to steal the lady's heart, not her dowry. Suzanne Enoch tantalizes: An innocent miss who has spent her life scrupulously avoiding scandal is suddenly--and secretly--courted by London's most notorious rogue. Karen Hawkins seduces: A roving viscount comes home to rekindle the passionate fires of his marriage . . . only to discover that his beautiful, headstrong bride will not be so easily won. Mia Ryan delights: A lovely, free-spirited servant is dazzled by the romantic attentions of a charming earl . . . sparking a scandalous affair that could ruin them both. You'll hear it first from Lady Whistledown!

Meet Our Hero . . . Gareth St. Clair is in a bind. His father, who detests him, is determined to beggar the St. Clair estates and ruin his inheritance. Gareth's sole bequest is an old family diary, which may or may not contain the secrets of his past . . . and the key to his future. The problem is--it's written in Italian, of which Gareth speaks not a word. Meet Our Heroine . . . All the ton agreed: there was no one quite like Hyacinth Bridgerton. She's fiendishly smart, devilishly outspoken, and according to Gareth, probably best in small doses. But there's something about her--something charming and vexing--that grabs him and won't quite let go . . . Meet Poor Mr. Mozart . . . Or don't. But rest assured, he's spinning in his grave when Gareth and Hyacinth cross paths at the annual--and annually discordant--Smythe-Smith musicale. To Hyacinth, Gareth's every word seems a dare, and she offers to translate his diary, even though her Italian is slightly less than perfect. But as they delve into the mysterious text, they discover that the answers they seek lie not in the diary, but in each other . . . and that there is nothing as simple--or as complicated--as a single, perfect kiss.