Modern Fiction

When a freak accident hospitalizes Marty Golden's sister and condemns him to babysitter duty, he thinks it's just another case of hardwired bad luck in Silicon Valley. Until a suspicious murder suggests the mishap was no mere coincidence. Something must be done. Too bad this quirky, fashion-backward uncle isn't exactly hero material. Convinced his sister is in mortal danger, he follows clues to an oddball array of suspects. Armed with nothing but an eye for detail and powers of self-delusion, Marty tangles with gangsters, a cantankerous school secretary, and a perplexing woman.

Alex Fletcher, Iraq War veteran, has read the signs for years. With his family and home prepared to endure an extended period of seclusion, Alex thinks he's ready for the pandemic. He's not even close. The unstoppable H16N1 virus rapidly spreads across the United States, stretching the fragile bonds of society to the breaking point. Schools close, grocery stores empty, fuel deliveries stop, hospitals start turning away the sick...riots engulf the cities.

Maps for the Modern World is a collection of poems and original illustrations about cultivating community, awareness, and harmony with our surroundings as we move fearlessly toward our dreams.

In this new novel, beloved best-selling author Elizabeth Berg weaves a beautifully written and richly resonant story of a mother and daughter in emotional transit. Helen Ames - recently widowed, coping with loss and grief, unable to do the work that has always sustained her - is beginning to depend far too much on her 27-year-old daughter, Tessa, and is meddling in her life, offering unsolicited and unwelcome advice. Helen’s problems are compounded by her shocking discovery that her mild-mannered and loyal husband was apparently leading a double life.

Slide "Further Under the Duvet", get yourself comfortable, and let Marian take you places you've never been before. Places like the Irish air-guitar championships, a shopping trip to Bloomingdales with a difference, and Cannes with a chronic case of Villa-itis. Along the way you'll encounter knicker-politics, fake tans, sticky-out ears and passionate love affairs both with make-up and Toblerones.

Just Rewards is the dramatic conclusion of the extraordinary tale of Emma Harte's great granddaughters. In this sweeping novel, the Harte women find themselves in the midst of weddings and intrigue. Linnet O'Neill, great-granddaughter of Emma Harte, finds herself following in the footsteps of the original woman-of-substance as she battles to modernize the family business. Returning from her honeymoon full of fresh ideas for bringing the Harte empire into the new century, Linnet locks horns with her mother, Paula, in a battle about the future.

On August 10, 1632, five men in flowing black robes convened in a somber Roman palazzo to pass judgment on a deceptively simple proposition: that a continuous line is composed of distinct and infinitely tiny parts. With the stroke of a pen the Jesuit fathers banned the doctrine of infinitesimals, announcing that it could never be taught or even mentioned. The concept was deemed dangerous and subversive, a threat to the belief that the world was an orderly place, governed by a strict and unchanging set of rules.

In New Orleans in 1937, a man and woman embark on a headlong flight into the wilderness of illicit passion. In Mississippi ten years earlier, a convict risks his one chance at freedom to rescue a pregnant woman. From these separate stories Faulkner composes a symphony of deliverance and damnation.

Gerade aus der Haft entlassen, möchte sich Franz Biberkopf eine neue Existenz aufbauen. Doch den Lockungen der Großstadt kann er nicht widerstehen und wird schon bald wieder in kriminelle Machenschaften verwickelt, die ihn fast an den Galgen bringen. Das bewegende Schicksal des Arbeiters Franz Biberkopf, der sich in einer Welt des Verbrechens verirrt, steht exemplarisch für den Kampf des kleinen Mannes in einer unsicher gewordenen Welt. Döblin schuf damit einen Jahrhundertroman, der häufig mit "Ulysses" verglichen wird. Hannes Messemer liest diese atemlose, polyphone Symphonie der Großstadt bravourös ein.

It’s all very well deciding to build the means to save British magick. Top marks for ambitious goals! ...But there are one or two obstacles in the way. For one, said means does not yet exist, and it’ll take a genius to sort that one out. Luckily, we’ve got one of those. We call him Orlando. For another, nothing at all can be built without materials, and no common-or-garden commodities will do. It’s got to be silver. The impossibly rare, virtually extinct kind. This one’s on me, Val and Jay.

Somebody thought it would be a great idea to send us to the Troll Court. Because somebody imagined I might be the perfect person to help with a certain wild and crazy plan of Their Majesties' concoction. They want to restore the lost city of Farringale. I can only say that I heartily approve. There is the tiny problem of how, of course; but who better to dig up the truth than the Society’s most colourful agents? Off questing we go, armed with a long list of questions, two winning smiles (well, three, if you count the Baron’s — and who wouldn’t?) and a certain Dappledok pup.

Fresh from an involuntary crash course in the Stranger Arts, I've a new mystery on my plate: the inexplicable reappearance of a particularly fantastic magickal species. Which is great, don't get me wrong. Rescuing magickal beasts is what we do around here. But the Dappledok Pup hasn't been seen since the seventeen hundreds; so how did we find one, alive and kicking, over two hundred years later? And this beast has a talent for sniffing out treasure, no less. Happenstance? Maybe not.

As an agent of the Society for Magickal Heritage, I, Cordelia Vesper, have an important job: rescue endangered creatures, artefacts, books and spells wherever they are to be found. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to keep British magick alive. So we rescued a valuable book from a long-lost library, only it proved to be unusually... chatty. And it's got a foul mouth, too. What manner of weird magick is this? Somebody else thinks it's pretty interesting, too. Ancestria Magicka, they call themselves. Brand new. Big trouble.

Four years ago, somebody pinched perhaps the most valuable book in existence. Merlin’s personal grimoire. And the price they’re offering for its return is the kind we can’t refuse, so it’s Ves and Jay on the case. Except that there aren’t any clues. Seriously, not even a little one. Nothing’s going to solve this case but a Vesper-patented Crazy Plan, and it had better be a good one, for complications are sprouting like daisies. At least it’s a straightforward mission. There’s no earthly way this one’s going to turn my entire life upside down... right?

I haven't heard from my mother in six years—which is why I was surprised to receive a summons from her. The peremptory kind. With nothing but a set of map coordinates to guide me, what exactly was I to expect? The short answer? Trouble, for Mother Dearest is in rather a lot of it. And like daughter, like mother, for there’s a shiny artefact in the offing, and only a few gigantic lindworms in the way. Who isn’t up for a minor little challenge like that?

Stranded far from home, and unable to return, I am in bigger trouble than ever. I know I say that a lot, but this time it's really true. Not that there aren’t advantages to my particular predicament. If one must put up with a dangerous degree of magickal potency, one is duty-bound to… put it to use, no? Certainly nothing insane, irresponsible and potentially life-threatening. As if. But we'll need every possible advantage in the Hyndorin Mountains. For there, hidden behind layers of secrets, could be the answers we are looking for.

Dispatched overseas — far, far overseas — we're in hot water. Again. Following in the footsteps of a long-lost king, we're on the road to the mysterious Vales of Wonder. The upside? It's a hot-bed of magickal marvels, the likes of which we've literally never seen before. The downside? Danger. Because who ever said adventure would be easy? Fortunately, we have help. One reviled but aggravatingly handy beast specialist: check. One world-famous, awe-inspiring, purple-clad troll scholar: check. One perambulatory, half-mad house with a crush on Jay: check.

Rumour’s got a lot to say for itself, and the message is clear: the regulator’s ready. You know. The magickal regulator. The bright and shiny thing with which we, Team Improbable, propose to restore magick to a fading Britain. Somebody’s got to test it, and that somebody is us. Which means wading into the depths of a long-dead realm that nobody’s entered in centuries. And I may have had some practice at that, but this time it’s different. This time, somebody’s still home. And they really aren’t happy about trespassers. Looks like disaster’s on the agenda. Again.

Over the past fifty years, fiction in English has never looked more various. Books bulkier than Victorian three-deckers appear alongside works of minimalist brevity, and experiments with form have produced everything from verse novels to Twitter-thread narratives. This is truly a golden age. But what unites this kaleidoscopic array of genres and styles? Celebrated writer and critic Peter Kemp shows how modern writers are obsessed with the past.

On the wind-battered isle of Altnaharra, off the wildest coast of Scotland, a clan prepares to bring about the end of the world and its imminent rebirth. The Adder is coming and one of their number will inherit its powers. They all want the honor, but young Eve is willing to do anything for the distinction. A reckoning beyond Eve’s imagination begins when Chief Inspector Black arrives to investigate a brutal murder and their sacred ceremony goes terribly wrong. And soon all the secrets of Altnaharra will be uncovered.