Item category 1: General Fiction

Pigs might not fly but they are strangely altered. So, for that matter, are wolves and racoons. A man, once named Jimmy, lives in a tree, wrapped in old bedsheets, now calls himself Snowman. The voice of Oryx, the woman he loved, teasingly haunts him. And the green-eyed Children of Crake are, for...

The award-winning author of The Handmaid's Tale presents a collection of short stories that features such protagonists as a widowed writer who is guided by her late husband's voice and a woman whose genetic abnormality causes her to be mistaken for a vampire.

A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafes and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All t...

After being dumped and then winning the lottery, a woman in her thirties, along with her best friend's four-year-old deaf-mute son, takes a transformative road trip through Iceland, encountering eccentrics and finding herself.

Classic fiction. Beautiful, rich, self-assured and witty, Emma Woodhouse delights in match-making those around her, with no apparent care for her own romantic life. Taking young Harriet Smith under her wing, Emma sets her sights on finding a suitable match for her friend. Chided for her mistakes ...

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing wi...

One of the finest examples of literature, written by an author at the height her powers, Pride and Prejudice is sharply observed, witty and acute. It is studied and enjoyed in still increasing numbers throughout the world today. Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters are unmarried, much to their p...

Written in the last months of Austen's life, "Sanditon" features a glorious cast of hypochondriacs and speculators in a newly-established seaside resort, and shows the author contemplating a changing society with scepticism and amusement. It tells the story of Charlotte Heywood, who is transporte...

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen's first published novel (1811), introduced its readers to many of the themes which would dominate Austen's future work. On one level it is a simple story of two sisters finding fulfilment within a society bounded by regulations and restrictions. But on another i...

When a bridge in the small outback town of Mululuk mysteriously collapses, the town is cut off from the world, and its citizens from each other. As the locals try to work out why the bridge fell and what it will take to replace it, old rivalries, forgotten romances and primitive drives come to th...

Secrets, lies and crying babies, everyone has a breaking point. It's 1969 and mankind has leapt up to the moon, but a young mother in small-town Australia can't get past the kitchen door. Louise Ashland ­is exhausted - her husband, Steven, is away on the road and her mother, Gladys, won't leave ...

Enid is many things: lesbian, serial dater, deaf in one ear, space obsessive, true crime fanatic. When she's not listening to grizzly murder podcasts, she's managing her crippling phobia of bald people and trying hard not to think about her mortifying teenage years - which is hard, when she's los...

Meet Gilda. She cannot stop thinking about death. Desperate for relief from her anxious mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local church and finds herself abruptly hired to replace the deceased receptionist, Grace. It's not the most obvious...

When a rare genetic disorder steals away her memories and then her health, teenaged Sammie records notes in a journal to her future self, documenting moments great and small.

Lizzie doesn't like the way she looks. Though she dates guys online, she's afraid to send pictures: no-one wants a fat girl. So Lizzie starts to lose weight. With punishing drive, she counts almonds consumed and pounds dropped, navigating double-edged validation from her mother, her friends, her ...

Follows Lizzie, a young woman growing up in Mississauga, as she fights her way from fat to thin, but who still, even as a married adult woman, sees herself as a fat girl.

In Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, Sonam's world is dark and silent. Then one day, she follows a magical melodious sound to a walled garden, and her world is silent no more. The sound is music, and it lifts her up amongst the stars and takes her deeper than the tree roots in the earth. How can she hol...

In the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders... until he meets Do...

Grandpa and Noah are sitting on a bench in a square that gets smaller every day. The square is both strange and familiar, full of their lives' odds and ends. Here they share jokes, discuss their love of mathematics and Grandpa recalls falling in love with his wife and how he dreads the day when h...

"From the New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry, and Britt-Marie Was Here, comes a poignant, charming novel about a forgotten town fractured by scandal, and the amateur hockey team that might just change everything. Winning a junio...

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY FICTION (POST C 1945). The New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She s Sorry returns with this heartwarming story about a woman rediscovering herself after a personal crisis fans of Backman will find another winner in t...

Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there's something about this place that prevents it. The residents continue to grapple with life's big questions: What is a family? What is a community? And what, if anything, are we willin...

Benny Burns spends every weekend helping his dad by working at their burger van, parked outside the local football ground. And when Benny finds his grandfather's old recipe book and begins following its instructions, he starts cooking incredible food - so good, in fact, that he attracts the unwan...

One very hot day, when the Tinklers had tried everything to cool down, they decided to go the swimming pool ... but they'd been banned from the local pool ... and had to find another solution.

When Mila and Marcus Tinkler get a letter saying they have to go to school, it sounds impossible. Who would feed the pigeons? Who would look after their little sister? Who would wake Mila up in time? Marcus needs a plan, and fast!

Marcus and Mila Tinkler are very good at climbing. But can they go from their house to the town clock tower without once touching the ground? It won't be easy. It will probably be dangerous. And almost certainly dirty. It's a very good idea.

There are 4 things you should know about Ben: 1. He's 12 years old 2. He's the new kid at school 3. His special number is 4 4. He has a bully in his brain. Sometimes Ben's brain makes him count to 4 to prevent bad things happening. Sometimes it makes him tap or blink in 4s. Mostly it makes the sm...

Adventure. 'Beryl Bainbridge gets better and better...she has succeeded with a daring leap of emphatic imagination in penetrating the minds of Captain Scott and the four men he led to their deaths in Antarctica in 1912' Patrick Skene Catling, Evening Standard THE BIRTHDAY BOYS is classic Bainbrid...

Minni lives in the poorest part of Mumbai, where access to water is limited to a few hours a day and the communal taps have long lines. Lately, though, even that access is threatened by severe water shortages and thieves who are stealing this precious commodity -- an act that Minni accidentally w...