Showing results for "WILLIAM" in Literature & Fiction

Set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this classic gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp who craves wealth and a position in society. Calculating and determined to succeed, she charms, deceives and manipulates everyone she meets. A novel of early 19th-century English society, it takes its title from the place designated as the centre of human corruption in John Bunyan's 17th-century allegory.

Eighteen of the very best American short stories, each a classic in its own right. Stories include "The Little Frenchman and his Water Lots", by George Pope Morris; "The Angel of the Odd", by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Schoolmasters’s Progress", by Caroline M.S. Kirkland; "The Watkinson Evening", by Eliza Leslie; "Titbottom’s Spectacles", by George William Curtis; "My Double and "How He Undid Me", by Edward Everett Hale; "A Visit to the Asylum for Aged and Decayed Punsters", by Oliver Wendell; and more.

Brought to you by Penguin. No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George...

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER “A funny, heartfelt story about found family and seeing the silver lining in life. Fans of A Man Called Ove and Remarkably Bright Creatures will especially enjoy this new novel.”—Library Journal A zany case of mistaken identity allows a lonely old man one last...

Meet Tommy Martini, the monk with an anger management problem. His meditations are interrupted by a legacy from his uncle, a crooked priest. Arriving in a New Age Arizona town to claim his inheritance, Brother Tommy meets a charismatic, smoking-hot cult leader who claims that women are being impregnated by alien beings while they sleep. Tommy’s own sleep is disturbed - by cartel hitmen, Mafia bill collectors, and women intrigued by his vow of chastity.

It's 1942, and war is raging in Europe and in the Pacific. The Japanese army is on Australia's doorstep, and the small coastal Queensland town of Maryborough is on full war footing. What they are not prepared for is the arrival in the town of a troupe of incompetent actors whose unjustifiably self-confident leader, William Power, is determined to bring his daring production of Titus Andronicus to the barbarians of rural Australia. Unfortunately for the Power Players, the only gift William Power has is a capacity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A stunning collection of Just William stories, narrated by Martin Jarvis. These BBC radio readings of the adventures of William have come to be some of the most loved adaptations.

What's next for Allan Karlsson? Turns out this centenarian has a few more adventures in store . . . It all begins with a hot air balloon trip and three bottles of champagne. Allan and Julius are ready for some spectacular views, but they’re not expecting to land in the sea and be rescued by a...

In this BBC full-cast production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena run to the woods and stumble into a life separate from time itself. Fairy magic wreaks havoc and midsummer madness takes over as lovers tread the delicate line between fantasy and reality...

In San Francisco, the souls of the dead are mysteriously disappearing—and you know that can’t be good—in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore’s delightfully funny sequel to A Dirty Job. Read by Fisher Stevens. Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay...

The absurdly outrageous, sarcastically satiric, and always entertaining New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore returns in finest madcap form with this zany noir set on the mean streets of post-World War II San Francisco, and featuring a diverse cast of characters, including a...

2026 Audie Winner – Fantasy | Winner of the AudioFile Magazine Earphones Award Christopher Moore's novel comes to life in this incredible audio edition! Narrator Mary Jane Wells displays an impressive range of character voices, accents, and tonal shifts that perfectly compliment the story's...

“Deliciously vicious and unsettlingly hilarious, Cruelty Free is a nasty, thrilling Hollywood take-down for the ages.” —JENNIFER THORNE, author of Diavola A disgraced movie star returns to Hollywood 10 years after the kidnapping of her young daughter intent on seeking revenge, for fans of...

This "thoroughly engaging" novel by the author of Beetlecreek ("[a] quiet masterpiece" —Kirkus Reviews) follows a Black journalist in the 1970s whose bourgeois life is turned upside down by the subject of his writing assignment. “One of the great novelists of the last 100 years.”...

Genteel, passive Ann works for the BBC in London and is engaged to a successful academic, fulfilling her snobbish mother's ambitions – more or less – while the Swinging Sixties happen elsewhere, to other people. Then she meets William: snub-nosed and generous, cunning and protean. She is first seduced, then transfixed, as William's past, present and future swirl around her kaleidoscopically, overwhelmingly, and Ann is herself irrevocably, and irreparably, changed.

TV’s first ecclesiastical comedy, All Gas and Gaiters was enjoyed by more than 10 million viewers on BBC One between 1966 and 1971. Written by husband-and-wife-team Pauline Devaney and Edwin Apps, it was so popular that a selection of scripts were revised and re-recorded for radio with the same star cast as the television series. Robertson Hare starred as the archdeacon of the fictional St Ogg’s Cathedral. 

Cakes and Ale is the novel that William Somerset Maugham said he wished to be remembered for. Published in 1930 and written in the first person singular, Maugham's narrator (and alter-ego) Ashenden exposes the disapproving, moral judgement made by conservative society on the character of Rosie Driffield and opines that it is unjustified.

A satirical view of the suffragette movement and an unblinking yet compassionate story that chronicles the impact of the First World War on an ordinary young couple, William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton won the first Prix Femina-Vie Heureuse prize in 1919. Written in a hospital tent to...

Hot on the heels of the New York Times best seller William Shakespeare’s Star Wars comes the final installment of the original trilogy: William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return. Prithee, attend the tale so far: Han Solo entombed in carbonite, the princess taken captive, the Rebel Alliance...

"Royal Spin is a hugely entertaining and engaging read that grabbed me and didn’t let go. This workplace drama inside Buckingham Palace, with intrigue, gossip, and a soupçon of romance makes for a fun, page-turner of a book!” —Jasmine Guillory The much-anticipated novel from preeminent...