'How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?'Elizabeth Gaskell's compassionate, richly dramatic novel features one of the most original and fully-rounded female characters in Victorian fiction, Margaret Hale. It shows how, forced to move from the country to an industrial northern town, she develops a passionate sense of social justice, and a turbulent relationship with mill-owner John Thornton. North and South depicts a young wo...

A twisted, upside-down creation myth, Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale lays bare the dark side of science, and the horror within us all. It tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, who plunders graveyards to create a new being from the bodies of the dead - but whose botched creature causes nothing but murder and destruction. Written after a nightmare when its author was only eighteen, Frankenstein gave birth to the modern science fiction novel.

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World''The best-loved book by our best-loved novelist' IndependentWith its 'light and bright and sparkling' dialogue, its romantic denouement and its lively heroine, Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's most perennially popular novel. The love story of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, who misjudge, then challenge and change each other, is also a novel about the search for happiness and self- knowledge in a world of strict social rules, where...

Fifty years ago, people in leafy North London and people in working-class Northern towns could vote for a Labour party that broadly encompassed all of their interests. Today their priorities are poles apart. In this groundbreaking and timely book, Goodhart shows us how people have come to be divided into two camps: the 'Anywheres', who have 'achieved' identities, derived from their careers and education, and 'Somewheres', who get their identity from a sense of place and from the people around...

Nidali, the rebellious daughter of an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, narrates her story from her childhood in Kuwait, her early teenage years in Egypt, to her family's last flight to Texas.

When it comes to the climate, we don't need more marketing or anxiety. We need established facts and a plan for collective action. The climate is the fundamental issue of our time, yet it seems we can barely agree on what is really going on, let alone what needs to be done.

An extraordinary story of love and hope from the bestselling, Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Reluctant FundamentalistThis is Nadia. She is fiercely independent with an excellent sense of humour and a love of smoking alone on her balcony late at night.This is Saeed. He is sweet and shy and kind to strangers. He also has a balcony but he uses his for star-gazing.This is their story: a love story, but also a story about how we live now and how we might live tomorrow. Saeed and Nadia are fa...

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.Drought and economic depression are driving thousands from Oklahoma. As their land becomes just another strip in the dust bowl, the Joads, a family of sharecroppers, decide they have no choice but to follow. They head west, towards California, where they hope to find work and a future for their family. But while the journey to this promised land will take its inevita...

Whatever you do, don't ask Greg about his summer vacation because he definitely doesn't want to talk about it ...It's a brand-new year and a brand-new journal and Greg is keen to put the humiliating (and secret!) events of last summer firmly behind him. But someone knows everything - someone whose job it is to most definitely not keep anything embarrassing of Greg's private - his big brother, Rodrick. How can Greg make it through this new school year with his not-quite-cool reputation intact?