Showing titles in Epistolary

Brought to you by Penguin. *SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2026* In her letters to family and friends we come to know the life of Sybil Van Antwerp: stubborn, cantankerous, opinionated, always steadfast in her belief in the power of the written word. But as the clock begins to...

Balram Halwai is the White Tiger - the smartest boy in his village. Too poor to finish school, he has to work in a teashop until the day a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi. The city is a revelation. Balram becomes aware of immense wealth all around him, and realizes the only way he can become part of it is by murdering his master. The White Tiger presents a raw and unromanticized India, both thrilling and shocking.

Winner of the National Book Award when it was first published in 1964, Herzog traces five days in the life of a failed academic whose wife has recently left him for his best friend. Through the device of letter writing, Herzog movingly portrays both the internal life of its eponymous hero and the complexity of modern consciousness.

The multi-million copy number one bestseller One of The Sunday Times's top 100 bestselling books of the past 50 years Welcome to Bridget's first diary: mercilessly funny, endlessly touching and utterly addictive. A dazzlingly urban satire on modern relationships? An ironic, tragic insight into...

Ted Wallace is an old, sour, womanising, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet and drama critic, but he has his faults too. Fired from his newspaper, months behind on his alimony payments and disgusted with a world that undervalues him, Ted seeks a few months repose and free drink at Swafford Hall, the country mansion of his old friend Lord Logan. But strange things have been going on at Swafford....

Up the Down Staircase is the funny and touching story of a committed, idealistic teacher whose clash with school bureaucracy is a timeless lesson for students, teachers, parents – anyone concerned about public education. Bel Kaufman lets her characters speak for themselves through memos, letters, directives from the principal, comments by students, notes between teachers, and papers from desk drawers and wastebaskets, evoking a vivid picture of teachers fighting the good fight against all that stands in the way of good teaching.

When Rajaa Alsanea boldly chose to open up the hidden world of Saudi women—their private lives and their conflicts with the traditions of their culture—she caused a sensation across the Arab world. Now in English, Alsanea’s tale of the personal struggles of four young upper-class women...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by acclaimed actress Adjoa Andoh, known for her extensive film, television and stage roles, including lead roles with the RSC, The National Theatre and The Almeida. She is also an Audie Award-winning audiobook narrator. This definitive...

Brought to you by Penguin. Florence, New Year’s Day 1557. As dawn breaks, a painter is discovered lying on the floor of a church, stabbed through the heart. Above him, the paintings he laboured over for more than a decade. At his home, a hidden painting scandalously depicting Maria de Medici...

Expecting to be inducted into the army during World War II, Joseph has given up his job and carefully prepared for his departure to the battlefront. When a series of mix-ups delays his induction, he finds himself facing a year of idleness. Written in diary format, Bellow’s first novel documents Joseph’s psychological reaction to his inactivity while war rages around him and his uneasy insights into the nature of freedom and choice.

Upon its first publication in 1846, Poor Folk was an immediate critical triumph. Composed entirely of an exchange of letters between a middle-aged copy clerk and a young seamstress who live on opposite sides of a Petersburg tenement courtyard, the novel explores the emotional and psychological effects of a threatening urban environment on the psyches of poor people struggling to survive.

The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here. Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

From the bestselling author of Auschwitz Lullaby and The Teacher of Warsaw, Mario Escobar's "powerful portrait of a woman fighting to preserve knowledge in a crumbling world" (Publishers Weekly) is based on a true story of an inspiring librarian who risked everything to save her community and...

Joshua Park never expected to be a widower at the age of thirty. Given his solitary job, small circle of friends and family, and the social awkwardness he's always suffered from, he has no idea how to negotiate this unwanted new phase of life. But Lauren, his wife, had a plan to keep him moving forward. A plan hidden in the letters she leaves him, giving him a task for every month in the year after her death. 

A hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin...

Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death. A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s - a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

Finally given the heave-ho by Pandora, Adrian Mole finds himself in the situation of living with the love-of-his-life as she goes about shacking up with other men. Worse, as he slides down the employment ladder, from deskbound civil servant in Oxford to part-time washer-upper in Soho, he finds that critical reception for his epic novel, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, is not quite as he might have hoped.

Brought to you by Penguin. Richly expansive and deeply moving, an intimate novel of secret lives and painful histories from one of the finest storytellers we have 'This brilliant novel examines lives lived, losses accumulated, and the slipperiness of perception. Yiyun Li writes deeply, drolly...

The sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs finds Judy Abbott's best friend, Sallie McBride, taking total control over the John Grier Home, the orphanage where Judy grew up. Chronicling her hilarious yet heartfelt day-to-day interactions with the permanent residents of the John Grier Home, Sallie spills her heart out in letter after letter to multiple recipients, including the doctor of the JGH - one Robin MacRae, whom she has deemed her enemy and refers to him as such in her letters.

Everyone knows about the Alperton Angels: the cult who brainwashed a teenage girl into believing that her baby was the anti-Christ. When the girl came to her senses and called the police, the Angels committed suicide and mother and baby disappeared into the care system. Now, author Amanda Bailey is writing a book on the case. The Alperton baby has turned eighteen; finding them will be the true-crime scoop of the year. But rival author Oliver Menzies is just as smart, better connected, and also on the baby's trail.