24 May 2019
The Lost Man by Jane Harper Extract
Read an extract from the gripping new novel from the author of the Sunday Times top ten bestsellers, The Dry and Force of Nature.
10 April 2019
Rosie: Scenes from a Vanished Life by Rose Tremain, Reader's Guide
Here is a reading group guide for Rose Tremain’s Memoir, Rosie: Scenes from a Vanished Life. About the book Rose Tremain (or Rosie as she was then) grew up in post-war London – a city still partly in ruins, where both...
18 October 2018
Roar by Cecelia Ahern - sample chapter
Have you ever imagined a different life? Have you ever stood at a crossroads, undecided? Have you ever had a moment when you wanted to roar? The women in these startlingly original stories are all of us: the women who befriend us, the...
03 July 2018
The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson - Extract
In 1627 Barbary pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted some 400 of its people, including 250 from a tiny island off the mainland. Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were the island pastor, his wife and...
03 July 2018
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell - Extract
Newly married, newly widowed Elsie is sent to see out her pregnancy at her late husband’s crumbling country estate, The Bridge. With her new servants resentful and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie only has her husband’s awkward cousin for company. Or...
09 March 2018
The Hoarder by Jess Kidd - exclusive extract
Maud Drennan – underpaid carer and unintentional psychic – is the latest in a long line of dogsbodies for the ancient, belligerent Cathal Flood. Yet despite her best efforts, Maud is drawn into the mysteries concealed in his filthy, once-grand...
30 January 2018
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig - read a sample
Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has...
30 January 2018
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - read a sample
Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing...
12 January 2018
Artemis by Andy Weir - read the first chapter
Life in the lunar city of Artemis is tough if you’re not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you’ve got debts to pay and your...
12 December 2017
Seven Days of Us - read the first chapter
It’s Christmas, and the Birch family are coming together at their second home in Norfolk. Emma and Andrew’s daughter, Olivia, is back for the first time in years, and while Emma is elated, her younger, more frivolous daughter Phoebe is braced...
22 July 2017
You Don’t Know Me by Imran Mahmood - read a sample
An unnamed defendant is accused of murder. Before the Closing Speeches, the young man sacks his lawyer, and gives his own defence. His barrister told him to leave some things out. Sometimes, the truth can be too difficult to explain, or...
19 May 2017
Sound by Bella Bathurst - an extract
Bella Bathurst is a writer and photojournalist. Her books include The Lighthouse Stevensons which won the 1999 Somerset Maugham Award, The Wreckers, which became a BBC Timewatch documentary, and The Bicycle Book, which was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports...
12 May 2017
Into The Water by Paula Hawkins - an extract
Paula Hawkins is the author of the global bestseller The Girl on the Train, which received worldwide critical acclaim and has sold over 18 million copies worldwide since first publication in January 2015 [to December 2016]. Now a major hit...
12 May 2017
Eurovision! by Chris West - an extract
Chris West is an author, ghostwriter and marketer. His books include Journey to the Middle Kingdom, The Beermat Entrepreneur and First Class: a History of Britain in 36 Postage Stamps. He lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and daughter. The Radio...
12 May 2017
He Said/She Said by Erin Kelly - an extract
Erin Kelly is the author of The Poison Tree, The Sick Rose, The Burning Air, The Ties That Bind and Broadchurch: The Novel, inspired by the mega-hit TV series. The Poison Tree was a Richard & Judy summer read in...
28 April 2017
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - an extract
Angie Thomas was born, raised, and still lives in Jackson, Mississippi. A former teen rapper, she recently won a Walter Dean Myers Grant, awarded by the We Need Diverse Books campaign. The Hate U Give is her first novel. The Radio...
31 March 2017
The Kingdom of Women by Choo Waihong - an extract
Choo Waihong was a corporate lawyer with top law firms in Singapore and California before she took early retirement in 2006 to travel and write. She lived for six years with the Mosuo tribe and now spends half the year...
24 March 2017
Greenpeace Captain by Peter Willcox - an extract
Peter Willcox has been a Captain with Greenpeace for over 30 years, making him the most experienced captain in the organization. An activist for nearly his entire life, beginning by marching in Selma behind Martin Luther King Jr. with his...
24 March 2017
The Dry by Jane Harper - an extract
Jane Harper has worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK. She lives in Melbourne and currently writes for the Herald Sun. Jane is originally from the UK and moved to Australia in 2008....
23 March 2017
Gilded Cage by Dr. Vic James - a prologue
A thrilling Orwellian vision of Britain, with a rebellious Hunger Games heart. Gilded Cage is the astonishing debut novel from Vic James, and the first title in her electrifying The Dark Gifts Trilogy. Britain’s magically-skilled aristocracy compels all commoners to serve them...
23 March 2017
The Novel of the Century by David Bellos - an introduction
The Novel of the Century brings to life the extraordinary story of how Victor Hugo managed to write his novel of the downtrodden despite a revolution, a coup d’état and political exile; how he pulled off the deal of the...
10 March 2017
Fathers and Sons by Howard Cunnell - an extract
As a boy growing up on the south coast of England, Howard Cunnell’s sense of self was dominated by his father’s absence. Now, years later, he is a father, and his daughter is becoming his son. Starting with his own...
10 March 2017
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai - an extract
You know the future that people in the ‘50s imagined? Flying cars, teleportation, jetpacks and moon bases? Well, it happened. And it was just as great as we hoped it would be. It’s 2016 and in Tom’s world, technology has solved...
09 March 2017
S.C.R.E.A.M: The Mummy's Revenge book extract
Read the opening chapter of S.C.R.E.A.M: The Mummy’s Revenge, the latest book from Andrew Beasley
09 March 2017
Uncle Shawn and Bill video extract
A.L. Kennedy reads the opening from her novel Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Almost Entirely Unplanned Adventure, illustrated by Gemma Correll, in which a brave and handsome young badger called Bill meets two extremely dreadful sisters and begins an...
09 March 2017
The Dark Days Club video trailer
Discover the world of The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman… Combining Jane Austen’s high society and Cassandra Clare’s supernatural underworld, Alison Goodman’s Lady Helen trilogy will delight fans of historical fiction and fantasy.
17 February 2017
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles - an extract
War and Peace meets Grand Budapest Hotel In 1922 Count Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal. He is sentenced to house arrest in The Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable...
31 January 2017
We Chose to Speak of War and Strife by John Simpson - an extract
In corners of the globe where fault-lines see the into bloodshed and civil war, foreign correspondents have, for hundreds of years, been engaged in uncovering the latest news and – despite obstacles bureaucratic, political, violent – reporting it by whatever...
31 January 2017
Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germay by Norman Ohler - an extract
The Nazis presented themselves as warriors against moral degeneracy. Yet, as Norman Ohler’s gripping bestseller reveals, the entire Third Reich was permeated with drugs: cocaine, heroin, morphine and, most of all, methamphetamines, or crystal meth, used by everyone from factory...
31 January 2017
Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova - discussion questions
When Kapka Kassabova was a child, the border zone between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece was rumoured to be an easier crossing point into the West than the Berlin Wall so it swarmed with soldiers, spies and fugitives. Today, this densely...
