A House for Mr Biswas, by Nobel and Booker Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul, is a powerful novel about one man’s struggle for identity and belonging. Born into poverty, then trapped in the shackles of charity and gratitude, Mr Biswas longs for a house he can call his own. He loathes his wife and her wealthy family, upon whom he is dependent. Finding himself a mere accessory on their estate, his constant rebellion is motivated by the one thing that can symbolise his independence. The book ...

Former government minister Ralph Singh is the perpetual outsider: displaced, disillusioned and now living in exile, Ralph reflects on his earlier life and the searing effects of colonialism. Ralph’s constant estrangement sees him ever attempting to fit into various communities, only to find home in more transient spaces. Born on the tropical island of Isabella, he is one of West India’s many ‘Mimic Men’. Booker and Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul’s sixth novel is a brutal and perce...

When Adela and her elderly companion, Mrs. Moore, arrive in the town of Chandrapore, India, they quickly feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced British community.Determined to explore the “real India,” they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr. Aziz, a cultivated Indian Muslim. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves with Aziz, and the well-respected doctor soon finds himself at the center of a scandal that rouses violent passio...

A client claiming she was murdered in a past life is a novel dilemma even for Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator.When a young woman comes forward saying she’s the reincarnation of Riya Kaur, a wife and mother who vanished during the bloody 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Puri is dismissive. He’s busy enough dealing with an irate matrimonial client whose daughter is complaining about her groom’s thunderous snoring. Puri’s indomitable Mummy-ji however is adamant the ...

In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency,” V. S. Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left one hundred years earlier. Out of that journey he produced this concise masterpiece: a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of a society traumatized by centuries of foreign conquest and immured in a mythic vision of its past.Drawing on novels, news reports, political memoirs, and his own encounters with ordinary Indians—from a supercilious prince to an eng...

A frightening dystopian horror novel in which grief is forbidden and purged from the mindSorrow is inefficient. It’s also inescapable.Lieutenant Dev Singh dutifully spends his days recording the memories of people who, struck with incurable depression, will soon have their minds erased in order to be more productive members of society.At night though, hidden in the dark, Dev remembers and writes in his secret journal the special moments shared with ...

Prince Philip's life and legacy. Read the new and definitive biography of the remarkable Duke of Edinburgh.For decades Prince Philip shared the Queen’s burden of office without upstaging her, always privately providing reassurance and advice but never overstepping the boundaries of his supporting role. It was an unforgiving position – a challenge for anyone – but one that he met head on. He remained the Queen’s adviser and closest confidant and was known as such ...

When Bernard Pomeroy, a young undergraduate at Corpus Christi College, finds a letter slipped under his door in the early hours of a rainy day, he flies into a panic. He hurries to the railway station. But he doesn't reach his destination alive. Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are called upon to investigate this tragedy on the railway. It soon becomes apparent that Cambridge's hopes of success in the forthcoming Boat Race rested on Pomeroy's shoulders. With academic disputes, romant...

'Do not miss this book' NAOMI KLEIN, author of This Changes EverythingFrom the bestselling author of the Ibis trilogy and The Great Derangement, The Nutmeg's Curse is an enthralling, panoramic history of the influence of colonialism on the world today, told through the surprising story of the nutmeg.The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation - of both human life and the natural environment - and...

Arising out of Naipaul’s lifelong obsession and passion for a country that is at once his and totally alien, India: A Million Mutinies Now relates the stories of many of the people he met traveling there more than fifty years ago. He explores how they have been steered by the innumerable frictions present in Indian society—the contradictions and compromises of religious faith, the whim and chaos of random political forces. This book represents Naipaul’s last word on his homeland, ...

On a dark, brooding summer's evening, Agnes Lenham seats herself in an empty first-class compartment on the train to Portsmouth. She is joined by a naval officer and a middle-aged man, in high spirits after dining at his club, travelling to his home on the Isle of Wight. His name is Giles Blanchard - and within moments of the train leaving the station, the sailor strangles him . . . At Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are called to Superint...

December 1864. As a cold winter wind scours the Worcestershire countryside, an excursion train comes through a tunnel in the Malvern Hills, only to be confronted by a blockage on the line ahead. The driver manages to slow the train down so that the impact is minimised, but the passengers are alarmed. The first person to alight is Cyril Hubbleday, the man in charge of the excursion. He walks to the front of the locomotive - and, as he is talking to the driver, fireman and guard, he is shot ...