Books

Kafka was an obsessive writer who produced a huge volume of stories, novels, diaries and letters in his brief lifetime.

A man. A woman. The heat of an Iowa summer. And the brief encounter whose passion will last a lifetime.

The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen. Over 1 million copies sold in the UK.

First published to critical acclaim in 1886, this mesmerising thriller is a terrifying study of the duality of man's nature. This volume also includes a collection of Stevenson's short stories

War and Peace is a vast epic centred on Napoleon's war with Russia. While it expresses Tolstoy's view that history is an inexorable process which man cannot influence, he peoples his great novel with a cast of over five hundred characters.

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.

Dostoesky's drama of sin, guilt and redemption transmutes the sordid story of an old woman's murder by a desperate student into the nineteenth century's profoundest and most compelling philosophical novel. Grim in theme and setting, the book nevertheless seduces by its combination of superbly drawn characters, narrative brilliance and manic comedy.

.it wasn't a human being I killed, it was a principle!' A troubled young man commits the perfect crime - the murder of a vile pawnbroker whom no one will miss.

Traces the private lives of a group of people caught up in the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the Terror. The author based his historical detail on Carlyle's "The French Revolution", and his own observations and investigations during his numerous visits to Paris.

Published in 1843, this is one of the earliest of Kierkegaard's major works. The author plays devil's advocate putting forward two opposing points of view challenging the reader to question the different alternatives. This book is written to provoke philosophical debate.

Cervantes' tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant have found its way into films, cartoons and even computer games. Intended as a parody of the most popular escapist fiction, the 'books of chivalry', this precursor of the modern novel broadened and deepened into a sophisticated, comic account of the contradictions of human nature.

Frankenstein is a deeply disturbing story of a monstrous creation, which has terrified and chilled readers since its first publication in 1818.