At Waterloo Station, hopeful new arrivals from the West Indies step off the boat train, ready to start afresh in 1950s London. There, homesick Moses Aloetta, who has already lived in the city for years, meets Henry 'Sir Galahad' Oliver and shows him the ropes.

The Penguin English Library Edition of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 'The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, rage - who can tell? - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder - the man knows, and can look on without a wink' Marlow, a seaman, tells of a journey up the Congo. His goal is the troubled European and ivory trader Kurt...

From a leading expert, a groundbreaking book on the science of play, and its essential role in fueling our happiness and intelligence throughout our lives

We've all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless, all-consuming, and fun. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral...

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Winner of the Goodreads Choice Best Debut Novel Award

Hay Festival Book of the Year

A Book of the Year in: Guardian, Times, Sunday Times, Good Housekeeping, Woman and Home, Stylist, TLS, Oprah Daily, Newsweek, Mail on Sunday, New York Times Notable, and many others

'Sparky, rip-roaring, funny, with big-hearted fully formed, loveable characters' SUNDAY TIMES

'The most charming, life-enhancing novel I've read in ages. Strongly recomme...

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.

In this nightmare vision of youth in revolt, fifteen-year-old Alex and his friends set out on a diabolical orgy of robbery, rape, torture and murder. Alex is jailed for his teenage delinquency and the State tries to reform him - but at what cost? Social prophecy? Black comedy? Study of freewill? A Clockwork Orange is all of these. It is also a dazzling experiment in language, as Burgess creates a new language - 'nadsat', the teenage slang of a not-too-distant future.

From the author of Wreck this Journal, Keri Smith's How to be an Explorer of the World is an invitation to rediscover the world around you. Artists and scientists analyze the world around them in surprisingly similar ways, by observing, collecting, documenting, analyzing, and comparing. In this captivating guided journal, readers are encouraged to explore their world as both artists and scientists.

The mission Smith proposes? "To document and observe the world around you. As if you've never s...

The classic translation of the cornerstone work of western philosophy Plato's Republic is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, it is an inquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation other questions are raised: what is goodness; what is reality; what is knowledge; what is the purpose of education? ...

One of the great landmarks of modern history publishing, Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution is the most authoritative social, cultural and narrative history of the French Revolution ever produced.