Showing results for "Perfect" in World Literature

Life is waiting to happen to Hubert Bird. But first he has to open his front door and let it in. In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship and fulfilment. But Hubert Bird is lying. The truth is...

Brought to you by Penguin. Don't miss the must-read debut of the year - a murder mystery unlike any other... What happened to the dog walker who found the body? Glasgow, 1979. Twelve-year-old Janey won’t take her dog, Sid Vicious, for a walk. Not anymore. It’s Sid’s fault she found the...

When her mother emigrates to China for work, twenty-year-old Chizu moves in with 71-year-old Ginko, an eccentric distant relative, taking a room in her ramshackle Tokyo home, with its two resident cats and the persistent rattle of passing trains. Living their lives in imperfect symmetry, they establish an uneasy alliance, stress tested by Chizu's flashes of youthful spite. As the four seasons pass, Chizu navigates a series of tedious part-time jobs and unsatisfying relationships, before eventually finding her feet and salvaging a fierce independence from her solitude.

Beautifully read by Hanako Footman, actress and narrator of Four Seasons in Japan by Nick Bradley and Butter by Asako Yuzuki. The Menu of Happiness, translated from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood, is the third book in the bestselling, delightful Japanese sleuthing series for fans of Before the...

Brought to you by Penguin. A FIERCE, WITCHY RETELLING OF IRISH MYTHOLOGY, FROM AN UNFORGETTABLE VOICE IN MYTHIC FICTION RULER. MOTHER. GODDESS. WARRIOR. PERFECT FOR FANS OF ELODIE HARPER'S THE WOLF DEN, ROSIE HEWLETT'S MEDEA AND COSTANZA CASATI'S CLYTEMNESTRA They called me The Morrigan. I was...

For fans of What You Are Looking For is in the Library and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop Translated by Philip Gabriel, the translator of IQ84 and The Travelling Cat Chronicles The Night Library is no ordinary library. Within it are found the rarest and most unusual collections – the books of...

Brought to you by Penguin. An immersive, kaleidoscopic debut for fans of Homegoing and Pachinko: one family's search for a better life through four continents, four generations and a century of change At the turn of the twentieth century Pirbhai, a teenage boy, is taken from his village in India...

In this fiendishly funny and charming novel, a young woman revisits her childhood and realizes all was not as it seemed. Tan’s attempt to write her first novel, A Clueless Man Shakes His Thump-Thumping Head, is not going well. She tries to write a memoir instead, but this involves checking her...

Mrs Winterbottom Takes a Gap Year meets The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Where'd You Go Bernadette in this witty novel about coming of (middle) age and discovering that you don't have to be who you've become. How hard can it be to find a pair of Bollywood-dancing septuagenarians? When Eva...

Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

What if everyone in your family was given a DNA test at Christmas: would there be any surprise results? For two women the answers are shocking, and dangerous. Perfect for readers of Liane Moriarty and Sally Hepworth. Families lie. DNA doesn't. Isobel Ashworth breezes through life, blissfully...

China, the 1720s. Giuseppe Castiglione, a promising and ambitious Italian painter, is recruited by the Jesuits to serve the Emperor of China. But his painting style is rejected as inauspicious. Meanwhile, Niuhuru, a grey-eyed, too-tall girl is chosen as a concubine to a minor prince and sent to live in the Garden of Perfect Brightness, where Giuseppe meets her when he is tasked with turning the Garden into a wonderland for the Qianlong Emperor. But as the Garden changes and Niuhuru is swept upwards to ever-greater importance, is something precious being lost?

Brought to you by Penguin. A mischievous and genre-spanning story collection from legendary film director Pedro Almodóvar The Last Dream brings together for the first time twelve unpublished stories from Almodóvar’s personal archive, written between the late sixties and the present day...

'Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions.' – The New York Times Billy Collins’s poetry collection Dog Show celebrates the joy of our canine best friends, honouring the love we feel for the animals who play such vital roles in our lives. In twenty-five poems, Collins...

'The exploration of family and identity is filled with vivid characters and an enthralling plot, making it absorbing and emotional' The People’s Friend? ? 'A lovely, heartwarming read about belonging' heat? ? A feel-good story about family, belonging and finding peace with the past from the...

Penelope Primrose has worked tirelessly to create her picket-fence bliss. After dreaming of a beautiful home and an idyllic small-town lifestyle, the would-be Southern belle perfected impeccable grooming and manners to land her childhood sweetheart. But her visions of a rapid ascent up the social ladder shatter when she finds her ideal husband with another woman. Thrown into a divorce-driven spin and desperate to reinvent herself, the plucky Alabamian is totally confused by the chemistry she feels with the motorcycle-riding, guitar-playing cowboy next door.

It’s that time of year again . . . With his signature wit, Brian Bilston returns with And So This is Christmas, fifty-one poems in celebration of the festive season. From bizarre family traditions to the office Christmas party; from voting day for turkeys to the impossible art of gift-giving...

Two happy couples. One dead body. A whole load of secrets. Married life wasn't meant to start like this. On honeymoon in Bali, you hit it off with another newlywed couple and celebrate your last night at a fancy cliff-side restaurant. No one predicted the evening would end with a dead body. But...

This delightful anthology is a timeless collection of poems chosen by Classic FM listeners. With humorous limericks, romantic sonnets, traditional and modern classics, this book is a true refelction of the greatest and best-loved verse. Discover poems for special occasions, as well as poems to...

The gorgeous, devastating must-read queer love story of the summer. 'It should be placed alongside modern love stories such as Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow'– Crack IT TOOK THREE CAR CRASHES TO KILL JAKE The first crash. New Hampshire. Teenagers Theron and Jake meet...