Bloomsbury Reader imprint: 830 books

The Queen goes AWOL. No one can find her: where is she going and why ? In Emma Tennant's hilarious 'autobiography' of Queen Elizabeth, the monarch moves to the Caribbean island of St Lucia, where, after more than half a century on the throne, she can recall the years of her reign in peace and...

Pretty Doll Houses is a study of childhood and adolescence. Set in the 1920s and 1930s, the narrative, although fictional, is based on Fieding's early years growing up in Tulllagee, in Sussex; of the family's life in the Yarm-on-the-Trees where his father was vicar; and of the adolescent years in...

Patrick McGinley is able to do what few novelists can: write stories and characters that are drenched in place (specifically, rural Ireland), and yet totally devoid of cheap sentimentality. His landscapes have the edgy, ludicrous beauty of a dream - unstable and prone to capsize into nightmare.

Through Streets Broad and Narrow re-introduces John Blaydon, emotionally troubled protagonist of Fielding's acclaimed coming-of-age novel, In the Time of Greenbloom. John Blaydon, now eighteen and with exciting opportunities ahead of him, travels to Dublin to undertake a medical degree. Through...

When the celibate Major Gander, C.B., T.D. sold out the family toffee business to American Candy Inc., he was able to retire in comfort. And when he dies from heart failure (it was after a strenuous shoot at the Brackens' Rife Meeting) his gathered relatives found that the thought of his will moderated...

The earlier adventures of Juan Mosely – a lineal descendant of Byron's Don Juan – continue on an amorous adventure to China where he becomes involved in politics and welfare and deals with them in his own practical and fantastic way. "Witty and amusing...Brilliant at times -- erratic -- original -- and for a somewhat sophisticated taste." -Kirkus Review

"When the giants fell, old bones revived" - there is the rubric for Eric Linklater's new story, first published in 1949. There may be no historical foundation for his tale of a fantastic war, in the First century A.D., between the giant Furbister and the abominable Od McGammon, his neighbour...

The Next Great War begins, and soon all Europe is involved. The war lasts a year - and then the women, robbed of husbands and sweethearts and sons, grow doubtful of the benefits of military policy, and begin to think that victory will come too late to do them any good. But what can they do?...

First published in 1966, Eric Linklater's brilliant novel tells the story of a double existence. Evan Gaffikin, sixtyish, grumpy and bored with his dull commercial success, discovers and develops his power to dream: to dream in such depth and in such glowing reality that he is able to escape...

Are the people of Britain capable of serving the new world, of writing with honour a new chapter of history? The answer, conclusively, is Yes.… But Socrates, in the third of the pieces, has still to be satisfied that the Allies are truly conscious of their purpose. A four-fold rule of law is not...

Loretta Lawson, a feminist professor visiting Paris to deliver a paper on the oppressive nature of masculine grammatical forms, stumbles across the murder of an Oxford don. But when the body disappears, she returns to England without alerting the French police, but is resolved to solve the...

First published in 1982, this is the story of 'Alanbrooke,' of whom General MacArthur wrote, 'is undoubtedly the greatest soldier that England has produced since Wellington.' He fought with the artillery in the First World War, had a brilliant career as a peacetime soldier, and conducted his Corps...

It is a quiet, uneventful Saturday in Doncaster. Nick Aten, and his best friend Steve Price – troubled seventeen year olds – spend it as usual hanging around the sleepy town, eating fast food and planning their revenge on Tug Slatter, a local bully and their arch-enemy. But by Sunday, Tug...

Chris and Ruth Stainforth are living their fantasy, turning the old Sea-fort at Manshead – purchased at a steal after the previous owners abandoned building work – into a hotel, and living on the coast with their son, David. But as work begins, and they see past the rubble to luxury rooms and...