Bloomsbury Reader imprint: 830 books

Although Nicholas Mosley has written two volumes of family biography and a volume of memoirs, he has, until now, avoided writing about his World War Two experiences. The son of Sir Oswald Mosley who, as the leader of the British Union of Fascists, had been jailed with his second wife, Diana...

Stories about children are not always for children. In The Watercress Girl, H. E. Bates masterfully depicts a childhood which, by proxy, reveals the mystifying world of the adult. Through a series of short, lyrical stories, the complexities of the world are seen with crystalline purity through the...

The Wedding Party, first published in 1965 (Michael Joseph), is a collection of short stories evoking both the dark and light, and the comedy and tragedy in human nature. Bates employs a deceptive delicateness of touch in his descriptions and character sketches, here mastering the true essentials...

The Cruise of the Breadwinner is an adventure at sea, following Snowy as he comes of age through a shower of sea-spray and bullets. The youngest crew member on a coastal patrol boat, he longs for action as his sharp eyes pick out distant plane battles and his ears strain to the sound of faint gun-fire....

Seven Tales and Alexander beautifully captures a spectrum of emotions from innocent childhood and early adolescence, to those of simple-hearted and uninquiring old age. On its original release in 1929 (The Scholartis Press), The New Statesman observed that Bates has 'by seeing with a child's eyes,...

The Nature of Love (Michael Joseph, 1953) was Bates's first published collection of novellas. It contains three stories, different in weight but similar in texture, drawing from rural landscapes and the sensitive, poignant studies of the people that bring them to life. Dulcima, dedicated...

The Day of the Tortoise, a novella published in 1961, is a touching tale of a brief interlude of pleasure in the stale existence of Fred Tomlinson, a man nearing his sixties. A bachelor, Fred shops, cleans, cooks, and otherwise indulges the eccentric demands of his three spinster sisters until...

Published posthumously in 1976, these stories include some familiar characters and scenarios, as well as an uncharacteristic vignette portraying urban hooligans. The title story, 'The Yellow Meads of Asphodel', looks at the apparently stagnant lives of a brother and sister, both in their forties,...

First published in 1968, The Wild Cherry Tree is a late collection of ten tales including comic vignettes, a humorous celebration of the sensual life, and several explorations of love, loneliness, and problematic relationships. 'The Wild Cherry Tree' sees the wife of a pig-farmer who dresses...

In his second collection of novellas, first published in 1957, Bates tackles bitter romantic deceptions and love triangles in what the Times Literary Supplement calls 'Mr Bates at his best.' In 'Night Run to the West' a greedy wife plots the death of her invalid husband, as seen through the...

First published in 1964, The Fabulous Mrs. V. is a late collection of twelve stories celebrating comedy and Bates's ability to paint amusing, idiosyncratic women. 'A Couple of Fools' follows two fashionable young women, ripe for a luxurious Sunday afternoon outing, who find that their flamboyant...

First published in 1960, this collection of four novellas continue Bates's sensitive, often witty, explorations of unhappy love. The title story, 'An Aspidistra in Babylon', is a reminiscence of a girl's loss of innocence. Christine, who describes herself at eighteen as 'dull as one of the...

Autumn 1940. London is being firebombed, unable to strike back as the Luftwaffe drones overhead. Jack Finlay, a young man notorious for his ability to fight fires, is given the task of preventing five buildings vital to Britain's war effort from being engulfed by the flames. But resources are...

A stirring psychological thriller adapted into the movie The Haunted Airman starring Robert Pattinson. Toby Jugg, a fighter pilot shot down in combat, is now confined to his bed with little hope of walking again. He is also the heir to a considerable fortune - a fortune that is being administered...