Alan Hollinghurst
The Line Of Beauty

It is the summer of 1983, and young Nick Guest has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious new Tory MP, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their children Toby and Catherine. Nick had idolized Toby at Oxford, but in his London life it will be the troubled Catherine, the critic and rebel of the family, who becomes both his friend and his uneasy responsibility.

'A winning novel that is exciting, brilliantly written and gets deep under the skin of the Thatcherite 80s. The search for love, sex and beauty is rarely so exquisitely done' - Chris Smith, Chair Of The 2004 Man Booker Prize Judges

H.R.F. Keating
A Detective At Death's Door

Whilst relaxing with her husband at the Majestic pool one hot August bank holiday, Harriet Martens does not expect the refreshing glass of Campari soda at her side to conceal a deadly drug. When she awakes from a doze she is no longer by the water, but in a hospital bed recovering from a near fatal dose of Aconitine. As Harriet makes a slow recovery, she tries to come to terms with the fact that someone wanted to kill her. But no sooner has she mustered enough strength to begin initial investigations, than the poisoner strikes again. And this time he is successful.

'Keating is one of the uncontested doyens of British mystery fiction. Elegant, urbane and clever; Agatha Christie would have approved'- The Guardian

Ken Kesey's novel has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them all imprisoned.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was first published to great critical and commercial success in 1962. The novel was partially inspired by Kesey's part-time job as an orderly in a Palo Alto veterans' hospital.