To all appearances, John Wilder has all the trappings of success, circa 1960: a promising career in advertising, a loving family, a beautiful apartment, even a country home. John’s evenings are spent with associates at quiet Manhattan lounges and his weekends with friends at glittering cocktail parties. But something deep within this seemingly perfect life has long since gone wrong.

Yates movingly portrays a man and a woman from their courtship in the 1950s to their divorce in the 70s, chronicling their heartbreaking attempts to reach their highest ambitions. Michael Davenport dreams of being a poet after returning home from World War II, and at first, he and his new wife, Lucy, enjoy their life together. But as the decades pass and the success of others creates a fear of failure in both Michael and Lucy, their once bright future gives way to a life of adultery and isolation.

Robert Prentice has spent all his life attempting to escape his mother's stifling presence. His mother, Alice, for her part, struggles with her own demons as she attempts to realize her dreams of prosperity and success as a sculptor.

It is 1953, a heat wave is sweeping across America and the Grossmans - Ben, Addie and their two children - are moving their lives from the political heart of Washington, DC to suburban Long Island. Benny was a successful lawyer in the Department of Justice, but all that has come tumbling down. With the McCarthy era of paranoia, persecution, and propaganda at its height, his past has come back to haunt him, forcing him to pack up his family and leave the capital behind.

From the moment of its publication in 1961, Revolutionary Road was hailed as a masterpiece of realistic fiction and as the most evocative portrayal of the opulent desolation of the American suburbs. It's the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple who have lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner.

In 1937, Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight", For Whom the Bell Tolls.

A woman writer visits a Europe in flux, where questions of personal and political identity are rising to the surface. Within the rituals of literary culture, Faye finds the human story in disarray amid differing attitudes toward the public enactment of the creative persona. She begins to identify among the people she meets a tension between truth and representation that causes her to consider questions of acclaim, justice and the ultimate value of suffering. 

Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other, for no one but Saunders could conceive it. February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery.

It’s 23rd December 1971 and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless - unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father.

A worldwide best seller since its publication, Irving's classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and times of T. S. Garp, struggling writer and illegitimate son of Jenny Fields - an unlikely feminist heroine ahead of her time. Beautifully written, The World According to Garp is a powerfully compelling and compassionate coming-of-age novel that established John Irving as one of the most imaginative writers of his generation. 

When Irene Rutledge, a brilliant and beautiful young graduate student, meets the mysterious and fascinating Frank Mattison, the two soon fall in love and marry, despite the warnings of Irene's family and friends. But after their marriage, dark secrets from Frank's past begin to emerge to threaten their happiness, secrets that will lead to murder - and a shocking and horrific conclusion...

Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.

This multi-generational novel presents three women whose paths cross at the Lindell Retirement Home. Constance Maynard, fierce, independent, and proud, reflects on her long life promoting women's rights through her career as a professor of history. Eunice Fitch, the perfect caregiver, is often unlucky in love, yet even in middle age refuses to give up searching for the perfect man. Sam Clark is a young aide with a passion for poetry and small beautiful things, but at war with her own large, ungainly physique.

In the wake of her family's collapse, a writer and her two young sons move to London. The upheaval is the catalyst for a number of transitions - personal, moral, artistic and practical - as she endeavours to construct a new reality for herself and her children. In the city, she is made to confront aspects of living that she has, until now, avoided and to consider questions of vulnerability and power, death and renewal, in what becomes her struggle to reattach herself to and believe in life.

How do you know where you belong? In June 1988, Elizabeth Kelly's parents think she belongs at home in Ireland. Her boyfriend is certain of it. Unwilling to settle down just yet, she decides to spend the summer in Boston with her college friends. But the next four months change all of them, especially Elizabeth. Quiet and dutiful at home, she surprises herself and everyone else by falling for Danny Esposito, a restless charmer with a troublesome family.