Bloomsbury Reader imprint: 830 books

What do older women want? And older than what, anyway? Love, flattery, an end to baby-sitting, a night out without falling asleep? Or the very last chance of gratifying desire, of finding a soul-mate - even if it means paying over the odds...? Confessions of a Sugar Mummy provides the hilarious...

This - as only Norman Collins can tell it - is the story of Stanley Pitts, a Contracts Filing Clerk in the Admiralty, a small man - small in stature, small in ambition and achievement, happy in his work and devoted to his hobby of photography. For Stan himself, his latest failure with the Civil Service...

First published in 1951, this is a story of the unfolding secret of Margaret whose determination to be near and protect the orphan, Sweetie, is part of the crucial years at the Archbishop Bodkin Hospital. For Sweetie has set her heart on Ginger, and Ginger is geared only for trouble, while the new...

Set in Edwardian London, this is the absorbing story of the life-long conflict between the love and ambitions of unrepentant sinner John Marco.

Set in an off-the-map British Colony in Central Africa in the early 1930's, The Governor's Lady portays a host of interesting characters: young Harold Stebbs, bachelor, newly appointed to the Governor's secretariat in Amimbo; the Governor, Sir Gardnor Hackforth, already something of a Pro-consular...

The authentic account of the great Gnome Revolt Little Nelson is the intimate and moving account of the tender relationship between a runaway garden Gnome and a Vicar's spinster sister. The action takes place during the memorable Gnome uprising when the whole country was, for twelve months,...

The essays in Lasting Impressions have never before appeared in book form and together they make up, in the author's own words, a journey through different countries and different generations. The subjects range from Bruce Chatwin and Salmon Rushdie to Simon de Beauvoir and Bernard Shaw, from Lorca...

First published in 1963, A God and his Gifts was the last of Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels to be published in her lifetime and is considered by many to be one of her best. Set in the claustrophobic world of Edwardian upper-class family life, it is the story of the self-willed and arrogant Hereward...

Edwin Muir wrote of Ivy Compton-Burnett in the Observer: 'Her literary abilities have been abundantly acknowledged by the majority of her literary contemporaries. Her intense individuality has removed her from the possibility of rivalry. .. . She takes as her theme the tyrannies and internecine battles...

The exacting Miranda's search for a suitable companion brings her family into contact with a very different kind of household, raising a plenitude of questions about the ability to manage alone, the difficulties of living with strangers and some strange discoveries about intimates.

The Donne family's move to the country is inspired by a wish to be close to their cousins, who are to be their nearest neighbours. It proves too close for comfort, however. For a secret switching of wills causes the most genteel pursuit of self-interest to threaten good relations and even good manners... First...

Eleanor and Fulbert Sullivan live, with their nine children ranging from nursery to university age, in a huge country house belonging to Fulbert's parents, Sir Jesse and Lady Regan. Sir Jesse sends Fulbert, his only son, on a business mission to South America. News comes of Fulbert's death, and his...

'I cannot be parted longer from my sons... I am coming back to my home' Nine years after her divorce from Cassius Clare, Catherine decides to re-enter his life. Her decision causes a dramatic upheaval in the Clare family and its implications are analysed and redefined, not only in the drawing-room,...

With his wife's death, Ninian Middleton turned to his eldest daughter, Lavinia, as a companion. When, some years later, he decides to marry again, a chasm opens in the life of the young girl whose time he has so jealously possessed. Convoluted attempts are made to prevent this marriage – and others...