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"I write this sitting at the kitchen sink" is the first line of a novel about love, sibling rivalry, and a bohemian existence in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Cassandra Mortmin's journal records her fadingly glamorous stepmother, her beautiful, wistful older sister, and the man to whom they owe both their isolation and poverty: Father. The author of one experimental novel, and a minor cause celebre, he has since suffered from writer's block and is determined to drag his family down with him.

When Nigel Baxter, a middle-aged married banker with an unremarkable past, is found dead in the bath of a plush hotel suite, his wrists slit, it looks as if he's taken his own life. At first. But when Detective Inspector Daniel Riley is assigned to the case, he soon realises all isn't as it first appears to be. When a postmortem shows Baxter was poisoned, Riley suspects foul play. And then there's the odd addition of a teddy bear left at the crime scene....

Molly Gibson, the only daughter of a widowed doctor in the small provincial town of Hollingford, lost her mother when she was a child. Her father remarries wanting to give Molly the woman's presence he feels she lacks. To Molly, any stepmother would have been a shock, but the new Mrs. Gibson is a self-absorbed, petty widow, and Molly's unhappiness is compounded by the realisation that her father has come to regret his second marriage.

Mary Lennox starts her life as an unhappy victim of circumstance. After the loss of her parents, she moves to rural Yorkshire to live with a distant uncle where she resents the wildness of the countryside. At first, she struggles to find a place in this new existence. Although unsure about her surroundings and its occupants, through the gentle guidance of the maid she gradually becomes interested in the story of Mrs Craven, who apparently used to spend her time in a garden at the house, the key to which has vanished.

Ever since he made his first appearance in A Study In Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes has enthralled and delighted millions of fans throughout the world. Now Audible is proud to present Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, read by Stephen Fry. A lifelong fan of Doyle's detective fiction, Fry has narrated the complete works of Sherlock Holmes - four novels and five collections of short stories.

Philosophy begins with questions about the nature of reality and how we should live. These were the concerns of Socrates, who spent his days in the ancient Athenian marketplace asking awkward questions, disconcerting the people he met by showing them how little they genuinely understood. This engaging book introduces the great thinkers in Western philosophy and explores their most compelling ideas about the world and how best to live in it.

Emma can be enjoyed as a charming love story, a detective story, and a comic and lively picture of English life 200 years ago. Austen's beautiful, clever, wilful but fallible heroine Emma Woodhouse believes she knows best. Perfectly content with her life she sees no need for either love or marriage, yet nothing pleases her more than meddling in the romantic lives of others.

The Batts family has arrived at a hotel in Los Angeles and everything is all set for Aunt Laura’s wedding weekend. Stella and Penny are going to be getting a new uncle, and a new cousin! Plus, they get to be flower girls, and wear fancy dresses, and walk down the aisle throwing rose petals. It’s going to be perfect - just the way Aunt Laura has imagined it. Just the way Stella has imagined it, too. But sometimes a wedding doesn’t happen the way anyone thinks it will - including the bride. Things are starting to go wrong, and Stella is worried that it’s all her fault!

Considered the first full-length detective novel in the English language, T.S. Eliot described The Moonstone as 'the first and greatest English detective novel'. The stone of the title is an enormous yellow diamond plundered from an Indian shrine after the Siege of Seringapatam. Given to Miss Verinder on her 18th birthday, it mysteriously disappears that very night. Suspicion falls on three Indian jugglers who have been seen in the neighbourhood. Sergeant Cuff is assigned to the case....

George Eliot's most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; and the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career.

Late one moonlit night, Walter Hartright encounters a solitary and terrified woman dressed all in white. He saves her from capture by her pursuers and determines to solve the mystery of her distress and terror. Inspired by an actual criminal case, this gripping tale of murder, intrigue, madness and mistaken identity has never been out of print since its publication and brought Collins great fame and success.

It began in a women's club in London on a February afternoon. A discreet advertisement in The Times, addressed to "Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine..." lures four very different women away from the dismal British weather to San Salvatore, a castle high above a bay on the sunny Italian Riviera. There, the Mediterranean spirit stirs the souls of Mrs Arbuthnot, Mrs Wilkins, Lady Caroline Dester, and Mrs Fisher, and remarkable changes occur.

Zoe didn't meet her daughter the way most mothers do. She finds five-year-old Maddie alone and dirty on a countryside road. Frightened for Maddie's safety, she picks her up and takes her back to her father, not knowing what she's about to step into. Because Maddie wasn't just lost; she was there to lure her serial killer dad's new victim. After escaping from the clutches of Maddie's dangerous father, she bonds with the little girl. Only Maddie knows what it was like to be at that house. And when no family members come forward to claim Maddie, Zoe decides to adopt her. 

Jon Ronson is fascinated by madness, extraordinary behaviour and the human mind. He has spent his life investigating crazy events, following fascinating people and unearthing unusual stories. Collected here from various sources (including The Guardian and GQ America) are the best of his adventures.

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an 1100-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe and built her back up again. At 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. After her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than an idea: vague, outlandish, and full of promise.

The complete magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. This shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world - soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children. Reflecting Max Hastings' 35 years of research on World War II, All Hell Let Loose describes the course of events but focuses chiefly upon human experience.

On a warm spring evening, guests gather in a perfectly manicured garden to celebrate Maggie and Len’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Maggie leans against the apple tree, watching her fun-loving husband and darling children as her heart swells with pride. As the joyful party atmosphere disappears into the night, close by, the lifeless body of a young woman is pulled from a river. Slipping upstairs to find the special gift for her adoring husband, Maggie stumbles across something else hidden amongst the dusty boxes of family keepsakes.

For wrestling fans, Jim Ross’ voice is the soundtrack of an era. This book is your ringside ticket to wrestling’s most unforgettable moments—from the announcer who made them iconic. In the last 50 years, professional wrestling has risen up from a collection of regional territories to become a global phenomenon—and Jim Ross has been there for it all. From the grit and glory days of the 1970s with NWA, to the rise of WCW and the heyday of WWF and WWE, to signing on as on-air talent and senior advisor for wrestling’s newest chapter at AEW, Jim Ross has long had the best seat in the house.

Hardly anyone ever leaves Des Moines, Iowa. But Bill Bryson did, and after 10 years in England he decided to go home, to a foreign country. In an ageing Chevrolet Chevette, he drove nearly 14,000 miles through 38 states to compile this hilarious and perceptive state-of-the-nation report on small-town America.

In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.