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A young Jewish student in Romania tries to make sense of a world that has decided he doesn't belong. This is the chronicle of resilience and despair, broken layers of memory and the terrible forces of history.

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Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese war, this work recounts the exuberant misadventures of the hapless hero Fang Hung-chien, who after aimlessly studying in Europe at his family's expense returns to Shanghai armed with a bogus degree from a fake university. On the liner back, Fang's life becomes deeply entangled with those of two Chinese beauties.

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This collection of pithy, brilliantly acerbic pieces is a companion to Sixty Stories, Barthelme's earlier retrospective volume. Barthelme spotlights the idiosyncratic, haughty, sometimes downright ludicrous behavior of human beings, but it is style rather than content which takes precedence.

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A selection of writings including a description of a meeting between two legends, Fidel Castro and Muhammad Ali; a dissection of the offices of Vogue magazine; an account of travelling to Ireland with hellraiser Peter O'Toole; and, a profile of fading baseball star Joe DiMaggio, which turns into a immaculately-crafted meditation on celebrity.

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Prew won't conform. He could have been the best boxer and the best bugler in his division, but he chooses the life of a straight soldier in Hawaii under the fierce tutelage of Sergeant Milt Warden. When he refuses to box for his company for mysterious reasons, he is given 'The Treatment', a relentless campaign of physical and mental abuse.

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Provides an insight into the development and publication of some of the most important novels in the English language. This title features letters which sheds light on a love that would haunt him for his whole life, as well as revealing the inspiration for some of his most famous characters.

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Douglas Yandell, a youngish music critic, is enlisted by Kitty Vandervane to keep an eye on her roving husband - the eminent conductor and would-be radical Sir Roy - as he embarks on yet another affair. Roy, meanwhile, wants Douglas as an alibi for his growing involvement with Sylvia, an unsuitably young woman who loves nothing more than to shock.

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Linking various minor events, this work switches back-and-forth producing an illusion of impetus.

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Describes the world of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. This novel chronicles the private lives the Beats lived before they became public figures. It also describes an individualistic post-World II New York where crime is celebrated, writing is revered, and parties, booze, discussions, drugs and sex punctuate life.

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In 1929 the author went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This book is an account of his life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life.

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Slick, upbeat and funny, these stories inspired the popular musical and film Guys and Dolls.

'Of all the high players this country ever sees, there is no doubt but that the guy they call the Sky is the highest.. He will bet all he has, and nobody can bet any more than this'.

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Manzhen is a young worker in a Shanghai factory, where she meets Shijun, the son of wealthy merchants. Despite family complications, they fall in love and begin to dream of a shared life together - until circumstances force them apart. When they are reunited after a separation of many years, can they start their relationship again

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Pauline is spending the summer at World's End, a cottage somewhere in the middle of England. This year the adjoining cottage is occupied by her daughter Teresa and baby grandson Luke; and, of course, Maurice, the man Teresa married. As the hot months unfold, Maurice grows ever more involved in the book he is writing.

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A story of a middle-aged American millionaire who, seeking a new, more rewarding life, descends upon an African tribe. Henderson's awesome feats of strength and his unbridled passion for life earns him the admiration of the tribe - but it is his gift for making rain that turns him from mere hero into messiah.

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Italo Calvino once said that he preferred to give false details about his biography since he felt that even the genuine data of a writer's life shed no light on the creative work. This volume of posthumously collected personal writings is the closest we may ever come to the autobiography of this most private of writers.

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Sharp-eyed Marianne lives in a white tower made of steel and concrete with her father and other Professors. Outside, where land is thickly wooded and wild beasts roam, live Barbarians, who raid and pillage in order to survive. Marianne is strictly forbidden to leave her civilized world but, fascinated by these savage outsiders, decides to escape.

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Describes a Maharajah's eccentric habits and riddling conversations, and the odd shambling day-to-day life of his court.

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Tells the story of a middle-class UNESCO engineer called Walter Faber, who believes in rational, calculated world. Strange events undermine his security - an emergency landing in a Mexican desert against all odds, his friend Joachim hangs himself in the Mexican jungle, and he falls in love with a woman who dies of a concussion.

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The Sun is about to go Nova. Earth and Moon have ceased their axial rotation and present one face continuously to the sun. The bright side of Earth is covered with carnivorous forest. This is the Age of vegetables. Gren and his lady - not to mention the tummybelly men - journey to the even more terrifying Dark side.

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Presenting an account of the author's childhood in Czechoslovakia, this title features the tales of the his father's battle to provide for his family both in wealthy freedom and in terrifying persecution.

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Steeple Sinderby Wanderers, in their new all-buttercup-yellow stripe, start it by ravaging the Fenland League and end it with a phenomenal nail-biter against Glasgow Rangers.

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A collection of plays including "Lucifer and the Lord", "Huis Clos", and "The Respectable Prostitute".