Author surnames U-Z

In the eclectic Brooklyn neighbourhood of Cobble Hill, the lives of four married couples and their children are about to flip from (read more)

In the eclectic Brooklyn neighbourhood of Cobble Hill, the lives of four married couples and their children are about to flip from complicated to combustible... Mandy is so underwhelmed by motherhood that she's faking a debilitating disease to get the attention of her ex-boyband celebrity husband Stuart.

There's the unconventional new school nurse, Peaches, who Stuart secretly has a crush on, and her disappointing husband Greg, who wears noise-cancelling headphones - everywhere. A few streets away, Roy, a well-known British novelist, has lost his way with his next novel - and his marriage to Wendy, who knows exactly where she's going. Around the corner, Tupper struggles to salvage his career and to pin down his elusive artist wife Elizabeth. (hide)

In this magnificent collection of Stefan Zweig's short stories the very best and worst of human nature are captured with sharp observation, (read more)

In this magnificent collection of Stefan Zweig's short stories the very best and worst of human nature are captured with sharp observation, understanding and vivid empathy. A knock on a door that forces a whole community to take flight, an aging womaniser who meets his match, a love soured into awful cruelty-these stories present a master at work, at the top of his form. Translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell (hide)

A blistering and thrilling debut - a biting exploration of American politics, set in a small South Carolina town, about a political (read more)

A blistering and thrilling debut - a biting exploration of American politics, set in a small South Carolina town, about a political operative running a dark money campaign for his corporate clients

Dre Ross has one more shot. Despite being a successful political consultant, his aggressive tactics have put him on thin ice with his boss, Mrs. Fitz, who plucked him from juvenile incarceration and mentored his career. She exiles him to the backwoods of South Carolina with $250,000 of dark money to introduce a ballot initiative on behalf of a mining company. (hide)

Magnus McFall was a comic on the brink of his big break when the world came to an end. Now, he is a man on the run and there is nothing (read more)

Magnus McFall was a comic on the brink of his big break when the world came to an end. Now, he is a man on the run and there is nothing to laugh about. Thrown into unwilling partnership with an escaped convict, Magnus flees the desolation of London to make the long journey north, clinging to his hope that the sickness has not reached his family on their remote Scottish island.

He finds himself in a landscape fraught with danger, fighting for his place in a world ruled by men, like his fellow traveller Jeb - practical men who do not let pain or emotions interfere with getting the job done. This is a world with its own justice, and new rules. Where people, guns and food are currency.
(hide)

A stunning new thriller from the critically acclaimed author of The Devil's Detective. When a violent outbreak of fires plunges his (read more)

A stunning new thriller from the critically acclaimed author of The Devil's Detective. When a violent outbreak of fires plunges his city into chaos, Thomas Fool, commander of Hell's Information Men, finds himself outsmarted by a shadowy new department called the Evidence. Sent away to Heaven on a diplomatic mission he discovers murder has come to paradise, yet no one is willing to admit it.

As tensions mount on both sides of the afterlife, can Fool solve the ultimate paradox? (hide)

In 1901, the word 'bondmaid' was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. (read more)

In 1901, the word 'bondmaid' was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary.

Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word 'bondmaid' flutter to the floor unclaimed. Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women's experiences often go unrecorded. (hide)

Pascal Rougon has served as a doctor in the rural French town of Plassans for thirty years. He lives a quiet life with his faithful (read more)

Pascal Rougon has served as a doctor in the rural French town of Plassans for thirty years. He lives a quiet life with his faithful servant Martine and young niece Clotilde. Pascal is a man of science, striving to find the ultimate cure for all diseases.

This puts him at odds with his niece, who is horrified by his denial of religious faith. Clotilde also distrusts Pascal's lifelong ambition to create a family tree on scientific principles, based upon his theories of heredity. Tensions in thehousehold are fuelled by Pascal's scheming mother, Felicite, as the final episode in the great Rougon-Macquart saga plays out. (hide)

It's everyone's dream: to leave behind the rat-race of the working world and start life all over again amidst the cool breezes, sun-drenched (read more)

It's everyone's dream: to leave behind the rat-race of the working world and start life all over again amidst the cool breezes, sun-drenched colours, and rum-laced drinks of a tropical paradise. This is the story of Norman Paperman, a New York City press agent who, facing the onset of middle age, runs away to a Caribbean island to reinvent himself as a hotel keeper. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk, who himself lived on an island in the sun for seven years, draws on his own experiences to tell a story at once brilliantly comic and deeply moving about a man's search for happiness, and for himself. (hide)

Two generations of an American family come of age - one before 9/11, one after - in this moving and original novel from the "intellectually (read more)

Two generations of an American family come of age - one before 9/11, one after - in this moving and original novel from the "intellectually restless, uniquely funny" (New York Times Book Review) mind of Nell Zink Pam, Daniel, and Joe might be the worst punk band on the Lower East Side. Struggling to scrape together enough cash and musical talent to make it, they are waylaid by surprising arrivals - a daughter for Pam and Daniel, a solo hit single for Joe. As the '90s wane, the three friends share in one another's successes, working together to elevate Joe's superstardom and raise baby Flora. (hide)

Tom Keely has lost his bearings. His reputation in ruins, he finds himself holed up in a flat at the top of a grim high-rise, looking (read more)

Tom Keely has lost his bearings. His reputation in ruins, he finds himself holed up in a flat at the top of a grim high-rise, looking down on the world he's fallen out of love with. He has cut himself off, and intends to keep it that way, until one day he runs into some neighbours: a woman from his past and her introverted young boy.

The encounter shakes him up in a way he doesn't understand and, despite himself, Keely lets them in. But the pair come trailing a dangerous past of their own, and Keely is soon immersed in a world that threatens to destroy everything he has learnt to love. Eyrie is a heart-stopping novel written with breath-taking tenderness.

Funny, confronting, exhilarating and haunting, it asks how, in an impossibly compromised world, we can ever hope to do the right thing. (hide)