Modern Fiction (post 1945)

'Pure pleasure' THE TIMES 'Compelling' GUARDIAN 'Incredibly well written . . . I really enjoyed it' MARIAN KEYES 'One of the most sophisticated works of science fiction I've read recently'...

Some of what they say about witches is true. A witch story unlike any other, from one of the UK's most outstanding LGBT writers. She dug her mother's grave in...

A dark love story set in the Swinging Sixties SUMMER, 1962. Twenty-year-old Vivien Epstein, a Jewish hairdresser from Manchester, arrives in London following the death of her father. She has...

'Richly imagined and elegantly told, with plenty of satisfying secrets, heartaches, and twists' SADEQA JOHNSON 'A spellbinding romp. The Montrose women will have you clutching your pearls on this rollercoaster...

A tragedy about the power of the imagination and the strange, claustrophobic world of childhood At home, Paul shares a private world with his sister Elisabeth, a world from which...

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New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter returns with a new book in the tantalizing Rise of the Warlords series, featuring a brutal Hell king and the irresistible beauty who...

A LIBRARYREADS PICK AND BEST BOOK CLUB PICK OF 2023 "A writer of astonishing grace, delicacy, and feeling."-Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay...

The debut novel from the award-winning screenwriter of 'Bhaji on the Beach'. The story of nine-year-old Meena, growing up in the only Punjabi family in the Black Country mining village...

'A lean, careening thrill ... one of my favourite books of the year' Megan Nolan 'Riveting reading' The Times 'Irresistible ... A page-turning story of sex, power, and money' Vogue,...

THE WORD-OF-MOUTH HIT THAT BECAME A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'SHATTERING' SIGRID NUNEZ 'BEAUTIFUL' USA TODAY 'UNFORGETTABLE' TAYARI JONES In 1850s Ohio, a free territory before the Civil War, Tawawa...

'A lean, careening thrill ... one of my favourite books of the year' Megan Nolan 'Riveting reading' The Times 'Irresistible ... A page-turning story of sex, power, and money' Vogue,...

'I devoured this in a day, falling head over heels for Daisy and the band' REESE WITHERSPOON SOON TO BE AN AMAZON PRIME TV SERIES STARRING SAM CLAFLIN, RILEY KEOUGH...

The highly anticipated new historical adventure by the bestselling author of The Spy's Wife. Orphan Fleur Appleby is adopted by a loving undertaker and his wife and she quickly develops...

No one burned hotter than Eve Babitz. Possessing skin that radiated "its own kind of moral laws," spectacular teeth, and a figure that was the stuff of legend, she seduced...

From the author of The Heart's Invisible Furies and in the wake of a hugely successful hardback publication, The Echo Chamber is 'uproariously funny. The world has never needed satire...

Two brothers venture across 1950s America in the absorbing New York Times bestselling novel by the author of A Gentleman in Moscow THE INSTANT NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER...

The third Lou Clark novel, following the Number One international bestsellers Me Before You and After You Lou Clark knows too many things . . . She knows how many...

'So it happens, therefore, that every element says something to someone' Inspired by the rhythms of the Periodic Table, Primo Levi assesses his life in terms of the chemical elements...

A revelatory and richly varied collection of Korea's greatest short stories This eclectic, moving and wonderfully enjoyable collection is the essential introduction to Korean literature. Journeying through Korea's dramatic twentieth...

One of the great novels of Paris, from the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature 'I am nothing. Nothing but a pale shape, silhouetted that evening against the...

Irresistibly funny, wise and thought-provoking - a tragicomic tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is in meltdown... The Barnes...

The year is 1977, and Adrian is nine. He lives with his gran and his uncle Rory; his best friend is Clinton Tull. He loves to draw and he wants...

Set among the surf and sandhills of the Australian beach - and the tidal changes of three generations of the Lang family - The Bodysurfers is an Australian classic. A...

The notorious dark, modern-day fable of New York from this cult master, new to Penguin Modern Classics Harry Goldfarb, heroin addict and son of lonely widow Sara, cares only about...

Selby Jr's controversial cult classic, new to Penguin Modern Classics Few novels have caused as much controversy as Hubert Selby Jr.'s notorious masterpiece. Described by various reviewers as hellish and...

When one long, hot summer, young Leo is staying with a school-friend at Brandham Hall, he beings to act as a messenger between Ted, the farmer, and Marian, the beautiful...

The first part in a trilogy of novels, Cities of the Red Night satirizes modern society in a shocking story of sex, drugs, disease and adventure An opium addict is...

Burroughs' first novel, Junky remains the most unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written Burroughs' first novel, a largely autobiographical account of the constant cycle of drug dependency, cures and...

Amory Blaine, intent on rebelling against his staid, Midwestern upbringing, longs to acquire the patina of Eastern sophistication. In his quest for sexual and intellectual enlightenment, he progresses through a...

Another addition to Penguin Modern Classics' key Kerouac holdings, alongside ON THE ROAD, THE TOWN AND THE CITY & THE SUBTERRANEANS As he roams the US, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and...

Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write....

F. Scott Fitzgerald's last completed novel, Tender is the Night is edited by Arnold Goldman with an introduction and notes by Richard Godden in Penguin Modern Classics. Between the First...

The air of Eastwick breeds witches - women whose powerful longings can stir up thunderstorms and fracture domestic peace. Jane, Alexandra and Sukie, divorced and dangerous, have formed a coven....

Set in the volatile Paris summer of 1938, The Age of Reason follows two days in the life of Mathieu Delarue, a philosophy teacher, and his circle in the cafes...

Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected is a delightfully dark collection of sixteen stories, each with a startling end. Among the unforgettable characters lurk the homicidal wife and her deadly...

John Mortimer's Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders sees our eponymous hero tackle his first ever case. It is just after the war and two RAF heroes are found shot...

Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate is a wickedly funny satire, brilliantly lampooning upper-class society. When Polly, a beautiful aristocrat, declares her love for her married, lecherous uncle -...

Nick Hornby's High Fidelity is the brilliant story of one man's journey of self-discovery. When Rob - a thirty-five-year old record shop owner and music obsessive - is dumped by...

A complete collection of surprising and sinister tales from one of Britain's most celebrated writers Roald Dahl is one of the most popular writers of the modern age, effortlessly writing...

A masterpiece of Russian prose, Lermontov's only novel was influential for many later nineteenth-century authors, including Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. A brilliant new translation of a perennial favorite of Russian...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake comes a stunningly beautiful tale about love, family and seeking a new life in the aftermath of tragedy Ebby Freeman's...

A beautifully told and thought-provoking novel about a mix-up that leaves two children wondering who they really are and where they belong . . . What would you do if...

Dazzling new story collection from the prize-nominated Sunday Times bestselling author of Romantic Comedy, American Wife and You Think It, I'll Say It, YOUR NEXT READ FROM THE INSTANT SUNDAY...

'I was at a time in my life where I got to thinking more about people's choices - how everything would be different if just the slightest decision changed...' It...

From #1 Sunday Times bestseller Irvine Welsh, the brand new novel in the CRIME series featuring former detective Ray Lennox OLD TRUTHS HAVE NEW CONSEQUENCES Ray Lennox is determined to...

A story of friendship and family secrets in 1970s Japan, from the prizewinning author of The Memory Police. On sleepless nights, I open the matchbox and reread the story of...

Jackson Brodie returns! From the Number One bestselling author, a brilliantly clever take on the classic country house murder mystery; a homage to writers such as Agatha Christie THE #1...