'A modern classic.' Guardian'A near-perfect work of art.' Joyce Carol OatesSylvia Plath is a major cultural icon who continues to inspire new generations of female readers. The Bell Jar is one of the defining novels of the 20th century. I was supposed to be having the time of my life .

. . Working as an intern for a New York fashion magazine in the summer of 1953, Esther Greenwood is on the brink of her future.

Yet she is also on the edge of a darkness that makes her world increasingly unreal...

Features a poem in five books, of circular narrative design, titled with the Greek name for Homer, this book charts two currents of history: the visible history charted in events - the tribal losses of the American Indian, the tragedy of African enslavement - and unwritten epic fashioned from the suffering of the individual in exile.

Reeling from the trauma of a life in upheaval, he wrote almost no music and quickly had to reinvent himself as a fêted virtuoso pianist, building up untold wealth and meeting the stars, from Walt Disney and Charlie Chaplin to his Russian contemporaries and polar opposites, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

First published in 1954, Lord of the Flies is now recognised as a classic, one of the most celebrated and widely read of modern novels. This edition, which includes an introduction and notes by Ian Gregor and Mark Kinkead-Weekes, meets the demand for its use in schools and its prescription by numerous examining boards. In compiling the notes they have borne in mind the needs of younger readers not only in this country but overseas.

The definitive account of the legendary Francis Ford Coppola's decades-long dream to reinvent American film-making, if not the entire world. 'Supremely entertaining.' New York Times'Mouth-watering .

The quirky and profound international bestseller - at once a life-affirming memoir on how to live well in a world governed by chaos, and a darkly astonishing scientific biography

From mega-factory floors, engineering laboratories and seaports to distribution hubs, supermarkets and our own homes, embark on an eye-opening guided tour through the world of manufacturing and its transformational influence on our lives and the world around us.

A powerful examination of how property shaped the modern world - and why it now threatens the freedoms and stability it was meant to sustain.

Why do people commit hate crimes? A world-leading criminologist explores the tipping point between prejudice and hate crime, analysing human behaviour across the globe and throughout history in this vital book.

Paul Auster's enthralling adventure story from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: 'a literary voice for the ages' (Guardian) It was the summer that men first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, but did not believe there would ever be a future. I wanted to live dangerously, to push myself as far as I could go, and then see what happened when I got there.'So begins the mesmerising narrative of Marco Stanley Fogg - orphan, child of the 1960s, a quester by nature.

Moon Palace is his story - a novel that spans three generations, from the early years of this century to the first lunar landings, and moves from the canyons of Manhattan to the cruelly beautiful landscape of the American West. Filled with suspense, unlikely coincidences, wrenching tragedies and marvellous flights of lyricism and erudition, the novel carries the reader effortlessly along with Marco's search - for love, for his unknown father, and for the key to the elusive riddle of his origins and his fate. 'Clever: very...