After meeting Lord Henry Wotton, who remarks that 'youth is the only thing worth having', Dorian Gray becomes obsessed with preserving his looks. He wants to remain as youthful and fresh as he appears in his recently completed portrait by Basil Hallward. When Dorian states that he would give his soul to stay young, he has no idea of the horrors he'...

There was only one reason Manchester-based private eye Kate Brannigan was prepared to let her boyfriend help out with the investigation into a car sales fraud - nothing bad could happen. But by now Kate should know that with Richard you have to expect the unexpected. With the unexpected being Richard behind bars, Kate seems to be the obvious choice...

Kate Brannigan, feisty Manchester-based PI, is back, investigating the bizarre case of the missing conservatories. Before long she's up to her neck in crooked land deals, mortgage scams, financial chicanery - and murder. But when a favour for a friend puts Kate's own life in danger, bizarre is not the first word she thinks of.

Iris Murdoch's first novel is set in a part of London where struggling writers rub shoulders with successful bookies, and film starlets with frantic philosophers. Its hero, Jake Donaghue, is a drifting, clever, likeable young man who makes a living out of translation work and sponging on his friends. A meeting with Anna, an old flame, leads him int...

As a favour to her rock journalist boyfriend, private detective Kate Brannigan agrees to track down a missing song-writer, Moira Pollock; a search that takes her into some of the seediest parts of Leeds and Bradford. But little does she realise that finding Moira is only a prelude to murder. Juggling her other cases, including a search to incover t...

Lucy Honeychurch, accompanied by her vigilant guardian, Charlotte Bartlett, makes her first foray into the world, touring Italy and discovering a country very different to the English countryside she was brought up in. Torn between two lovers, she has to make a decision that will transform her from a girl to a woman. A talented pianist with a good...

Adela Quested travels to India with her chaperone Mrs Moore, on the premise of deciding whether to marry Mrs Moore's son Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate. Finding her India very disappointingly English, Adela jumps at the chance the two women are given to travel to the distant Marabar caves with Aziz, a charismatic young Indian Doctor. When Adela...

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime....

How to be both is a novel all about art's versatility. Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twi...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson, read by Hugh Dennis. If you haven't met a Moomin yet, you're in for the most magical fun! If you found a tiny golden dragon with green paws, would you know what to do with it? Well, Moomintroll thinks he knows what to do. But when he takes his new-found pet home, thi...

Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster which tells a story of social and familial relations in turn-of-the-century England. The main subject matter comprises the difficulties and benefits of relationships between people of divergent outlook, gender, or class; a further concern of the book is the need to accept and link multiple outlooks on the wor...

Tom Ripley detests murder unless it is absolutely necessary. He prefers someone else to do the dirty work. But if he's called on to act there is no one more cool, calculating and clever. In these dramatisations, BBC Radio 4 brings all Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels together in one thrilling series. In The Talented Mr Ripley, Tom makes a bid for...

Five disparate voices inhabit Ali Smith's dreamlike 'Hotel World', set in the luxurious anonymity of the Global Hotel, in an unnamed northern English city. The disembodied yet interconnected characters include Sara, a 19-year-old chambermaid who has recently died at the hotel; her bereaved sister, Clare, who visits the scene of Sara's death; Penny,...

In this highly anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestselling The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, Felicity Montague must use all her womanly wits and wiles to achieve her dreams of becoming a doctor-even if she has to scheme her way across Europe to do it. A must-have for fans of Mackenzi Lee's extraordinary and Stonewall Honor-winning...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson, read by Hugh Dennis. If you haven't met a Moomin yet, you're in for the most magical fun! 'This is snow,' Moomintroll whispered to himself. Moomins always sleep through the winter - or they did until the year Moomintroll woke up and went exploring in the silent, snow-co...

Peter is 44, prosperous, childless, a player in the NY contemporary art dealing scene. He has been married to Rebecca for close on 20 years. Their marriage is sound. But when Mizzy, Rebecca's brother, comes to stay, his world is turned upside down. Returning to their flat, Peter sees Rebecca's outline in the shower. But when he opens the shower doo...

Frances, Bobbi, Nick and Melissa ask each other endless questions. As their relationships unfold, in person and online, they discuss sex and friendship, art and literature, politics and gender, and, of course, one another. Twenty-one-year-old Frances is at the heart of it all, bringing us this tale of a complex m‚nage-…-quatre and her...

Haunting and poignant, the great Oscar Wilde's famous supernatural story of youth and age is narrated brilliantly by Rupert Graves. Wilde's only novel combines sparkling wit, social satire and luxurious description. Full of many of his most famous witticisms, it is essentially a novel about the lust for eternal youth versus the inevitable reality o...

Set in the deep American South between the wars, this is the tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she calls 'father', she has two children taken away from her, is separated from her beloved sister Nettie, and is trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets the glamorous Shug Avery, si...

Graham Norton's debut novel, Holding, was a Sunday Times best seller and loved everywhere. His new novel, A Keeper, is a twisted tale of secrets and ill-fated loves that once again demonstrates Norton's understanding of human nature and all its darkest flaws. The mystery of Elizabeth Keane's father is one that has never been solved by the people of...

When Maxim de Winter brings his shy new bride to his beautiful stately home on the Cornwall coast, it seems like all her dreams have come true. But she soon finds that Manderley is haunted by the shadow of Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, who died the year before. As the hot summer fades, the mystery of Rebecca's death grows, weaving a spell of fear an...