The novel deals with love in its two aspects, the self-gratifying and the impersonal; - The Nice And The Good - as they are embodied in a fascinating array of paired characters. The Nice And The Good leads through stress and terror to a joyous and compassionate Midsummer Nights Dream conclusion, in which the couples all sort themselves out neatly and omnia vincit amor.

    With an obsession for the Guinness Book of Records, a keenly inquisitive mind, and a kind of faith, John remains hopeful despite the unfavorable cards life deals him.This is one year in a boy's life. On the cusp of adolescence, from his changing voice and body, through to his parents’ difficult travails and the near collapse of his sanity, John is like a tuning fork sensitive to the vibrations within himself and the trouble that this creates for he and his family.Carry Me Down is a restrained, emotionally taut, and sometimes outrageously funny portrait whose drama drives toward, but narrowly averts, an unthinkable disaster.

    The narrator, an anonymous graduate student, sets off on the trail of a French novelist named Paul Michel, who is currently confined to an asylum. Engineering his hero's release, the narrator finds himself enmeshed in bizarre love triangle, of which the three vertices are himself, the novelist, and the late Michel Foucault. Sex, it seems, can be made safe, but the oddball intimacy of reading cannot.

    Now they meet as old friends at a glittering New Year's Eve party to welcome in the 1980s. It is the dawn of the Thatcher era, and Britain is on the brink of great social and political upheaval. How will these three ambitious and confident middle-aged women survive the personal and professional challenges, and the changing values of the next decade? The Radiant Way brilliantly explores their loves, losses, hopes and fears, and the strength of their friendship.

    Now, in old age, living out in the country, Moran is still fighting - with his family, his friends, even himself - in a poignant struggle to come to terms with the past.

    Two years before, an assignment to follow a strayed husband and his mistress appeared simple enough, but this routine job left George a transformed man.Suspenseful, moving, and hailed by critics as a detective story unlike any other, The Light of Day is a gripping tale of murder and redemption, as well as a bold exploration of love and self-discovery. This powerful novel signals yet another groundbreaking achievement from Graham Swift, the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Last Orders.

    During early revolutionary stirrings in Russia, after an unexpected turn of events, Laura Rowan, the coddled granddaughter of an exiled British nobleman, becomes her grandfather’s sole companion on a fateful train ride. In France, a young revolutionary approaches Laura and her grandfather with information that will turn her world upside down, and their travels become a thrilling journey into the heart of the struggle against Tsarist Russia.In this suspenseful novel, West brings to life a battle between entitled imperials and the passionate, savvy communist revolutionaries who dare to face them.

    Colambre travels incognito to Ireland to see the country that he still considers his home. When he returns to London he assists his father to pay off the debts, on condition that the Clonbrony family return to live in Ireland. Maria Edgeworth (1 January 1768 - 22 May 1849) was a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe. She held advanced views, for a woman of her time, on estate management, politics and education, and corresponded with some of the leading literary and economic writers, including Sir Walter Scott and David Ricardo.

    While their travels are fraught with complications and intrigue, Mercier and Camier at least “did not remove from home, they had that good fortune.”

    As Nick's suburban family loses control over their world, Nick begins to learn his grandfather's buried secrets and comes to understand the power of old wounds to leak into the present. As a study of the power of memory and loss, Another World conveys with extraordinary intensity the ways in which the violent past returns to haunt and distort the present.

    As the straight-man narrator, observer, and regular butt of hundreds of hilarious trials and mishaps, Major Yeates never ceases to be surprised, is usually not amused, and can't stop himself from loving his Irish neighbors.-500 Great Books by Women.

    In the Forest is a newly reissued edition of the terrifying novel from one of the greatest writers in the English-speaking world (The New York Times), Edna O'Brien...

    Upon their return to England, Amy is ungratefully reluctant to maintain their friendship, but the skeins of their existence seem inextricably linked as grief gives way to resilience and again to tragedy. Reversals of fortune and a compelling cast of characters, including Ernie, ex-sailor turned housekeeper, and Amy's wonderfully precocious granddaughters, add spice to a novel that delights even as it unveils the most uncomfortable human emotions.

    By virtue of the novel’s clever structure, the reader’s comprehension of events is limited so as to allow them a powerful experience: Johnson’s humorous yet deeply compassionate depiction of what it means to live life and grow old.

    Returning to Ireland to reclaim a painting that is part of his patrimony, a thirty-eight-year-old man commits a ghastly and motiveless murder, which he confesses in a novel-length narrative.