Picador Classic – serie

With an introduction by Neel Mukherjee.In Manhattan, just after the century's turn, three thirty-year-old friends, Danielle, Marina and Julius, are seeking their fortunes. But the arrival of Marina's young cousin Bootie - fresh from the provinces and keen, too, to make his mark - forces them to confront their own desires and expectations.The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud is an American classic: a sweeping portrait of one of the most fascinating cities in the world, and a haunting illustration of how the events of a single day can change everything, for ever.

A haunting and heartbreaking novel narrated from heaven as a young girl watches over her family and killer.My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.In heaven, Susie Salmon can have whatever she wishes for – except what she most wants, which is to be back with the people she loved on earth.In the wake of her murder, Susie watches as her happy suburban family is torn apart by grief; as her friends grow up, fall in love, and do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But as Susie will come to realize, even in death, life is not quite out of reach . . .An astonishing novel about life and death, memory and forgetting, and finding light in the darkest places.Alice Sebold's book inspired the Peter Jackson film, starring Susan Sarandon and Saoirse Ronan.'Moving and compelling . . . I sat down in the morning to read the first couple of pages; five hours later, I was still there, book in hand, transfixed' – Maggie O'Farrell (author of The Marriage Portrait), Sunday Telegraph

With an introduction by author Cynan JonesWhen Mark Brian, a young priest, is sent to the Indian village of Kingcome in British Columbia, he finds himself in an astonishing place of salmon runs and ancient totems. Yet amidst the beauty, the old culture is under attack, slowly being replaced by prefab houses and alcoholism. Mark has not long to live, and so he sets about sharing the hunting and fishing, the festivals and funerals, the joys and sorrows of a once proud tribe. Perhaps here he will learn enough of life to be ready to die.With all the qualities of a legend or fable, I Heard the Owl Call My Name is a journey of discovery, and a story about the transforming power of love. Exploring the clash of old and new, it is an outstanding modern classic, both wise and tragic.

With an introduction by Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall.Originally published in 1956, The Long View is Elizabeth Jane Howard's uncannily authentic portrait of one marriage and one woman. Written with exhilarating wit, it is a gut-wrenching account of the birth and death of a relationship.In 1950s London, Antonia Fleming faces the prospect of a life lived alone. Her children are now adults; her husband Conrad, a domineering and emotionally complex man, is now a stranger. As Antonia looks towards her future, the novel steadily moves backwards in time. Tracing Antonia's relationship with Conrad, she comes to its beginning in the 1920s – through years of mistake and motherhood, dreams and war.One of his secret pleasures was the loading of social dice against himself. He did not seem for one moment to consider the efforts made by kind or sensitive people to even things up: or if such notions ever occurred to him, he would have observed them with detached amusement, and reloaded more dice. Observant and heartbreaking, The Long View is as extraordinary as it is timeless.

With an introduction by author Anne Enright.Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award, a story of civil war and a family's unbreakable bond.How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to.As the daughter of white settlers in the civil war in 1970s Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe at independence), Alexandra Fuller remembers her childhood in this extraordinary and devastating memoir. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is the astonishingly clear-eyed story of a family living through a civil war, of a quixotic battle with nature and loss. It is the story of the end of empire, of prejudice and privilege, too much drink and not many rules, violence and shattering grief. Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, Alexandra Fuller's classic memoir of an African childhood is suffused with laughter and warmth even amid disaster. Unsentimental and unflinching, but always enchanting, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is the story of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.

With an introduction by Xiaolu GuoA classic memoir set during the Chinese revolution of the 1940s and inspired by folklore, providing a unique insight into the life of an immigrant in America.When we Chinese girls listened to the adults talking-story, we learned that we failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves. We could be heroines, swordswomen.Throughout her childhood, Maxine Hong Kingston listened to her mother's mesmerizing tales of a China where girls are worthless, tradition is exalted and only a strong, wily woman can scratch her way upwards. Growing up in a changing America, surrounded by Chinese myth and memory, this is her story of two cultures and one trenchant, lyrical journey into womanhood.Complex and beautiful, angry and adoring, Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior is a seminal piece of writing about emigration and identity. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976 and is widely hailed as a feminist classic.

With an introduction by Henry Marsh, author of Do No HarmMy brain, which had just let me down so badly, was perhaps never so active. The paramedics' question was a fundamental one. Who are you? Yes indeed. Who am I?Robert McCrum was forty-two when he suffered a massive stroke which left one side of his body totally paralysed, his speech drastically impaired, and his sense of himself radically altered. What followed was a prolonged period of recovery, full of heart ache and frustration, as he gradually regained sensation, movement and self-esteem and as his family pulled together in the extraordinary effort necessary to make him well again. My Year Off is a moving story of determination, courage and love that sings with wit and honesty. An invaluable insight into the reality of life after stroke, the moments of hope, the anger and despair, this is a touching classic that gives voice to millions.

With an introduction by Andrew O'HaganWhen I think about her now, which is most of the time, it's like rewinding a silent film in my head: I see the crucial scenes in our lives together. But what I can't hear is her voice in my head, and that silence is driving me crazy.After her sister Ruth's death from breast cancer in September 1997, Justine Picardie was desperate to speak to her again, to hear her voice, to find something - anything - that might fill the space she had left behind. Over the course of the next year, Justine's search for Ruth lead her into the underworld of spiritualism, through a series of encounters with mediums and psychics who believe that we can communicate with those we have lost.If the Spirit Moves You is Justine's remarkable story about her search for the afterlife in an age of reason, scepticism and science. Powerfully moving, both heart-breaking and funny, it is an extraordinary classic about the exhausting journey of grief and the enduring power of love.

With an introduction by Jonathan LethemIt is 1913, and Viennese high society is determined to find an appropriate way of celebrating the seventieth jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef. But as the aristocracy tries to salvage something illustrious out of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the ordinary Viennese world is beginning to show signs of more serious rebellion. Caught in the middle of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: youngish, rich, an ex-soldier, seducer and scientist.Unable to deceive himself that the jumble of attributes and values that his world has bestowed on him amounts to anything so innate as a 'character', he is effectively a man 'without qualities', a brilliant, detached observer of the spinning, racing society around him. Part satire, part visionary epic, part intellectual tour de force, The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil is a work of immeasurable importance.

With an introduction by Salman Rushdie and an afterword by the author.It was the night of February 25, 1964. A cloud of cigar smoke drifted through the ring lights. Cassius Clay threw punches into the gray floating haze and waited for the bell.When Cassius Clay burst onto the sports scene in the 1950s, he broke the mould. He changed the world of sports and went on to change the world itself: from his early fights as Cassius Clay, the young, wiry man from Louisville, unwilling to play the noble and grateful warrior in a white world, to becoming Muhammad Ali, the voice of black America and the most recognized face on the planet. King of the World is the story of an incredible rise to power, a book of battles fought inside the ring and out. With grace and power, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Remnick tells of a transcendent athlete and entertainer, a rapper before rap was born. Ali was a mirror of his era, a dynamic figure in the racial and cultural clashes of his time and King of the World is a classic piece of non-fiction and a book worthy of America's most dynamic modern hero.

With an introduction by Helen DunmoreCome for a walk down the river road,For though you're all a long time deadThe waters part to let us passThe way we'd go on summer nightsIn the times we were childrenAnd thought we were lovers.The Drowned Book is a work of memory, commemoration and loss, dominated by elegies for those the author has loved and admired. Sean O'Brien's exquisite collection is powerfully affecting, sad and often deeply funny; but it is also a dramatically compelling book - disquieting, even - and full of warnings. As the book unfolds, O'Brien's verse occupies an increasingly dark, subterranean territory - where the waters are rising, threatening to overwhelm and ruin the world above. Winner of both the T. S. Eliot and Forward prizes, The Drowned Book is an extraordinary collection, a classic from one of the leading poets of our time.

With an introduction by Alan MooreIt was always the same nightmare. Cross saw them lined up in rows, in stretches of city wasteland - those derelict spaces once described to him by a child as the blank bits where things had been before they'd got blown up.It is 1985 and a killer moves through Belfast's blighted streets. In a time and place ruled and divided by political and religious differences, this series of crimes cuts across all those boundaries. Detective Inspector Cross, together with Westerby, a young policewoman, enters a maze of conspiracy and paranoia, and, as the investigation draws closer to the truth, they find themselves in a nightmare world, with little hope of escape.The Psalm Killer is Chris Petit's epic thriller set during the Irish Troubles. Masterfully written, disturbing and exciting, it is a book of immense intelligence and a real classic of its genre.

With an introduction by Kate MosseTranslated by Ros SchwartzAll grown-ups were children once (but most of them have forgotten).A pilot who has crash landed in the desert awakes to see an extraordinary little boy. 'Please,' asks the stranger, 'will you draw me a little lamb!' Baffled by the little prince's incessant questioning, the pilot pulls out his pencil, and starts to draw. As the little prince's curiosity takes them further on their journey together, the pilot is able to piece together an understanding of the tiny planet from which the prince has come and of his incredible travels across the universe. First published in 1943, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has been translated into more than 250 languages, becoming a global phenomenon. Heart-breaking, funny and thought-provoking, it is an enchanting and endlessly wise fable about the human condition and the power of imagination. A book about both childhood and adulthood, it can be read as a parable, a war story, a classic children's fairy-tale, and many more things besides: The Little Prince is a book for everyone; after all, all grown-ups were children once. 'The Little Prince moves from asteroid to desert, from fable and comedy to enigmatic tragedy, in order to make one recurrent point: You can't love roses. You can only love a rose' Adam Gopnik, New Yorker

With an introduction by Simon CallowJudgements about the quality of works of art begin in opinion. But for the last two hundred years only the wilfully perverse (and Tolstoy) have denied the validity of the opinion that Shakespeare was a genius.Who was Shakespeare? Why has his writing endured? And what makes it so endlessly adaptable to different times and cultures? Exploring Shakespeare's life, including questions of authorship and autobiography, and charting how his legacy has grown over the centuries, this extraordinary book asks how Shakespeare has come to be such a powerful symbol of genius.Written with lively passion and wit, The Genius of Shakespeare is a fascinating biography of the life - and afterlife - of our greatest poet. Jonathan Bate, one of the world's leading Shakespearean scholars, has shown how the legend of Shakespeare's genius was created and sustained, and how the man himself became a truly global phenomenon.'The best modern book on Shakespeare' Sir Peter Hall

With an introduction by the writer and critic Viv Groskop.In this imaginative extravaganza the devil, disguised as a magician, descends upon Moscow, along with a talking cat and an expert assassin. This riotous band succeed in fooling an entire population of people who persistently deny the devil’s existence, even as they are confronted with the diabolic results of a magic act gone wrong. The devil’s project soon becomes involved with The Master, a man who has turned his back on his former life and sought sanctuary in a lunatic asylum, and his former lover, Margarita.A literary sensation from its first publication, The Master and Margarita has been translated into more than twentylanguages. Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel is now considered one of the seminal works of twentieth-century Russian literature. By turns acidly satiric, fantastic and ironically philosophical, this story constantly surprises and entertains.

Jonathan Raban's Soft City is a compelling exploration of urban life: a classic in the literature of the city. First published in the 1970s, it is now more relevant to today’s overcrowded planet than ever.With an introduction by Iain Sinclair.In the city we can live deliberately: inventing and renewing ourselves, carving out journeys, creating private spaces. But in the city we are also afraid of being alone, clinging to the structures of daily life to ward off the chaos around us.How is it that the noisy, jostling, overwhelming metropolis leaves us at once so energized and so fragile? In Soft City, Jonathan Raban, one of our most acclaimed novelists and travel writers seeks to find out.'A psychological handbook for urban survival' – Sunday Telegraph

With an introduction by Evie WyldThe Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville is a funny and touching romance between two people who've given up on love. Set in the eccentric little backwater of Karakarook, New South Wales, pop. 1374, it tells the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, and Harley Savage, a woman altogether too big and too abrupt for comfort.Harley is in Karakarook to foster 'Heritage', and Douglas is there to pull down the quaint old Bent Bridge. From day one, they're on a collision course. But out of this unpromising conjunction of opposites, something unexpected happens: sometimes even better than perfection.

With an introduction by Jonathan Coe1930s King's Cross, London.When aspiring film actress Estella Lamare is found dead on the cutting-room floor of a London film studio, Cameron McCabe finds himself at the centre of a police investigation. There are multiple suspects, multiple confessors and, as more people around him die, McCabe begins to perform his own amateur sleuth-work, followed doggedly by the mysterious Inspector Smith.But then, abruptly, McCabe's account ends . . .Who is Cameron McCabe? Is he victim? Murderer? Novelist? Joker?And if not McCabe, who is the author of The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor?

Ambition, corruption, and murder in 1960s Mexico: the shocking novel behind Netflix’s hit series.‘A startlingly good book by an author of genuine, exciting originality’ - Salman RushdieWith an introduction by Colm TóibínThe Baladro sisters have built a thriving empire of pleasure as brothel owners in a provincial town. But when fortunes change, life in the brothel turns ugly, and slowly, girls start disappearing . . .Based on the true story of the infamous González sisters - serial killers whose crimes shocked the world in 1964 - The Dead Girls is a deliciously dark blend of thriller, true crime, and biting satire. Written with the cold detachment of a police report, it reveals the potent blend of sex and mayhem that allowed the sisters to flourish.Wickedly funny and profoundly unsettling, The Dead Girls by Jorge Ibargüengoitia is an unflinching portrait of ambition, power, and depravity – now a major Netflix series.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2004, a remarkable novel about Henry James, the American-born novelist and a connoisseur of exile.

With an introduction by comedian and novelist David BaddielA novel in seven volumes, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is considered a major literary work of the twentieth century. And even more crucially, one that you should have read by now. However, as one of its most distinguishing features is its staggering length, many of us feel intimidated and perhaps, even, fatigued at the thought of diving in. Alain de Botton’s hilarious and unexpected Proustian manual, is then, the perfect antidote to this problem.In How Proust Can Change Your Life, de Botton masterfully distils what Proust says about friendship, reading, being alive and taking your time, and mixes it with his own, no less nourishing commentary. As de Botton rereads Proust for our collective benefit, we see the continued relevance of his work and the rich and varied insights he can offer us, from how to reinvigorate your relationship to being a good host. This is Proust as you’ve never seen him before. He may even change your life.

With an introduction by the Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James.Oreo has been raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note. Oreo’s quest is to find her father, and discover the secret of her birth.What ensues in Fran Ross's opus is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb.Oreo, our young hero, navigates the labyrinth of sound studios and brothels and subway tunnels in Manhattan, seeking to claim her birthright while unwittingly experiencing and triggering a mythic journey of self-discovery like no other.'Oreo's satire on racial identity reads like a story for our times . . . Could Oreo be this year's Stoner? – Observer‘A rollicking little masterpiece . . . one of the most delightful, hilarious, intelligent novels I’ve stumbled across in recent years’ – Paul Auster, author of The New York Trilogy.

With an introduction by publisher and acclaimed author Robert McCrum.Winner of the Booker Prize 1971 and nominated for the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018. A young Indian servant in Washington. An Asian West Indian in London. Both are far from home and both are desperately trying to build a new life in a deeply unfamiliar world. In between them lies the landscape of an unnamed country, a brutal place reminiscent of Idi Amin’s Uganda. This central story is about those who once thought of Africa as liberating, but now find themselves in an increasingly harsher reality.Winner of the Booker Prize in 1971, In a Free State is one of Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul’s many towering literary achievements. It is a story of the desperation and heartbreak we find in those who are displaced and who try, often in vain, to make a home in their new surroundings. Frightening, disquieting and merciless, this is one of Naipaul’s greatest novels: fraught but full of pity.

A Boy's Own Story traces an unnamed narrator's coming-of-age during the 1950s. With an introduction by Alan Hollinghurst, author of The Line of Beauty.It was his power that stupefied me and made me regard my knowledge as nothing more than hired cleverness he might choose to show off at a dinner party.Beset by aloof parents, a cruel sister, and relentless mocking from his peers, the unamed boy struggles with his sexuality, seeking consolation in art and literature, and in his own fantastic imagination as he fills his head with romantic expectations. The result is a book of exquisite poignancy and humour that moves towards a conclusion which will allow the boy to leave behind his childhood forever.Originally published in 1982 as the first of Edmund White's trilogy of autobiographical novels, A Boy's Own Story became an instant classic for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. Lyrical and powerfully evocative, this is an American literary treasure.'Edmund White has crossed The Catcher in the Rye with De Profundis, J. D. Salinger with Oscar Wilde, to create an extraordinary novel' – New York Times

Beautiful and brutal, two young cowboys come of age in The Border Trilogy – Cormac McCarthy's award-winning requiem for the American frontier.'A landmark in American literature' – GuardianWith an introduction from Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars Room.During the middle of the twentieth century, two teenage boys leave their childhoods behind across the US-Mexico border.John Grady Cole will search for his future to the south, a friend by his side, finding adventure and barbarism in the vanishing world of the Old West.Billy Parnham, after deciding not to kill her, will be drawn to the mountains of Mexico accompanied by a lone, pregnant wolf.When the two boys come together as men, in the trilogy's final volume, a dangerous chain of events will bring this story to its savage, inevitable conclusion.A stunning saga of loyalty and love, filled equally with sorrow and humour, The Border Trilogy is a powerful story of two friends growing up in a world where blood and violence are conditions of life.'In these three fierce, desolate, beautiful novels, McCarthy has created a masterpiece' – Sunday TimesThis edition collects all three novels in the Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain.Praise for Cormac McCarthy‘McCarthy worked close to some religious impulse, his books were terrifying and absolute’ – Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and The Wren, The Wren'His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power' – Stephen King, author of The Shining and the Dark Tower series'[I]n presenting the darker human impulses in his rich prose, [McCarthy] showed readers the necessity of facing up to existence' – Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain