"The novel sustains throughout its length something approaching poetry, and it is rich in understanding and insight. The translation, by Edwin McClellan, is extremely good." —Anthony West, The New YorkerKokoro, which means "the heart of things," explores emotions familiar to everyone—love and hate, hope and despair, companionship and loneliness.Sensei, a man seen against the rich background of old Japan entering the modern era, is outwardl...

"Natsume Soseki is the representative modern Japanese novelist, a figure of truly national stature." —Haruki MurakamiA chance encounter irrevocably links a university student to an older man he simply calls Sensei ("Teacher"). Intrigued by Sensei's aloofness, the student visits him with increasing frequency, and Sensei and his beautiful wife eventually open their home and lives to him. The student graduates and is called home to care for his dying father, ...

The language of Poetry is an art that most of us attempt at some point in our lives. Although its commonplace exposure has been somewhat marginalised in today’s often fast-paced lives we all recognise good verse that can empathise with our thoughts or open us up to experience new things in new ways, to better understand and to enjoy the many strands of our lives.But finding a starting point can be overwhelming, even off-putting, so in this series we offer up our Top 10 classic poet...

"A nonchalant string of anecdotes and wisecracks, told by a fellow who doesn't have a name, and has never caught a mouse, and isn't much good for anything except watching human beings in action…" —The New YorkerWritten over the course of 1904-1906, Soseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the foolishness of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventur...

Recounting the hilarious misadventures of a reckless young man who rebels against 'the system' in a country school, this irresistible coming of age tale is one of Japan's most popular novelsBotchan is a modern young man from the Tokyo metropolis, sent to the ultra-traditional Matsuyama district as a Maths teacher after his the death of his parents. Cynical, rebellious and immature, Botchan finds himself facing several tests, from the pupils - prone to playing trick...

'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John GrayMaigret plunges into the murky Parisian underworld in book twenty-nine of the new Penguin Maigret series.'That shoeless foot looked incongruous lying on the pavement next to another foot encased in a shoe made of black kid leather. It was naked, private . . . It was Maigret who retrieved the other shoe which lay by the kerb six or seven metres away'A series of strange phone calls leads Inspector...

'A masterpiece' Stefan Zweig'Compelling ... intense ... blending military narratives, paranormal experiences and erotic obsessions' TLSBaron Bagge, a cavalry officer during the First World War, receives orders from his unhinged commander to ride into Russian machine guns. But instead of meeting certain death, he and his brigade pass, unscathed, into a peaceful, otherworldly country where festivities are in full swing. There he finds himself entangle...

**‘A book that everyone should read’ The TimesA harrowing, heart-rending first-hand account of the bombing of Nagasaki – and the acts of human kindness left in its wake.**On 9th August 1945, the Japanese city of Nagasaki is hit by an atomic bomb. Forty thousand people are killed instantly. Doctor Takashi Nagai is not one of them.Pulling himself, broken and bloodied, from the wreckage that was once the city’s university hospital, Takashi bundles together a t...

Dawn is breaking over the Guilleries, a rugged mountain range in Catalonia frequented by wolf hunters, brigands, deserters, race-car drivers, ghosts, and demons. In a remote farmhouse called Mas Clavell, an impossibly old woman lies on her deathbed. Family and caretakers drift in and out. Meanwhile, all the women who have lived and died in that house are waiting for her to join them. They are preparing to throw her a party.As day turns to night, four hundred years’ worth of stories...

*Winner of the CrimeFest Specsavers Debut Award**Winner of the Crime Fiction Lover Best Translation - Editor's Choice**A Telegraph Thriller of the Year****Shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in Translation*'The epitome of the female-led revenge thriller.' CRIME FICTION LOVER**'Enraging, funny and exciting.' THE TIMES'A fantastically brutal gore fest,...

Early one morning, a body is found lying next to the railway tracks just outside of Kuki Station in Saitama Prefecture, shot dead. It is identified as belonging to the owner of a local mill which is embroiled in a labour dispute. Suspicion initially falls on the workers' union, then on a new religious sect that has been gaining followers recently.Chief Inspector Onitsura and his assistant Tanna are called in to investigate, and soon set off in a journey across Japan, from Tokyo to ...

From America's top writer of hardboiled crime, the novel that became Tarantino's hit film JACKIE BROWNJackie, a flight attendant with a serious side hustle, is about to get grounded...She’s just got busted smuggling large amounts of hot money on the Caribbean-Florida run, and now the Feds are pressuring her to turn informant – but Ordell Robbie, the highly dysfunctional arms-dealer she works for, is not getting any more functional. With the help of disillus...