The 10 books on this stack
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Use of Weapons
Iain Banks · 1990
A stunning new reissue edition of the third Culture novel from Iain M. Banks - one of the most important and influential writers in modern science fiction. The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks or military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine intelligence could see the horrors in his past. Praise for the Culture series: 'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday 'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday Telegraph The Culture series: Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata The State of the Art Other books by Iain M. Banks: Against a Dark Background Feersum Endjinn The Algebraist Also now available: The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.
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Piranesi
Susanna Clarke · 2020
Dyslexia-Friendly Edition using sans serif font printed with blue ink on cream paper. Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction A SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, 'one of our greatest living authors' NEW YORK MAGAZINE __________________________________ Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone. Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims? Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous. The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite. __________________________________ 'What a world Susanna Clarke conjures into being ... Piranesi is an exquisite puzzle-box' DAVID MITCHELL 'It subverts expectations throughout ... Utterly otherworldly' GUARDIAN 'Piranesi astonished me. It is a miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling' MADELINE MILLER 'Brilliantly singular' SUNDAY TIMES 'A gorgeous, spellbinding mystery ... This book is a treasure, washed up upon a forgotten shore, waiting to be discovered' ERIN MORGENSTERN 'Head-spinning ... Fully imagined and richly evoked' TELEGRAPH
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Trust
Hernán Díaz · 2022
WINNER of the Pulitzer Prize Longlisted for the Booker Prize The Sunday Times Bestseller Trust by Hernan Diaz is a sweeping, unpredicatable novel about power, wealth and truth, told by four unique, interlocking voices and set against the backdrop of turbulent 1920s New York. Perfect for fans of Succession. Can one person change the course of history? A Wall Street tycoon takes a young woman as his wife. Together they rise to the top in an age of excess and speculation. But now a novelist is threatening to reveal the secrets behind their marriage, and this wealthy man's story - of greed, love and betrayal - is about to slip from his grasp. Composed of four competing versions of this deliciously deceptive tale, Trust brings us on a quest for truth while confronting the lies that often live buried in the human heart. 'One of the great puzzle-box novels, it's the cleverest of conceits, wrapped up in a page-turner' - Telegraph 'Genius' - Lauren Groff, author of Matrix
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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Agatha Christie · 1926
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE 'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • One of Agatha Christie’s most famous novels, featuring her beloved detective Hercule Poirot—and her most surprising twist. The story that made Agatha Christie famous ends with one of her most dramatic twists. The villagers of King’s Abbot are shocked when a wealthy local widow commits suicide and the very next day her fiancé, Roger Ackroyd, is stabbed to death. Dr. James Sheppard, the local physician, discovers the body of his friend and narrates the ensuing hunt for the killer. All the guests and staff at Ackroyd's country house seem to have solid alibis—except for his missing stepson. But as the authorities home in on their most obvious suspect, the recently retired detective Hercule Poirot unexpectedly turns up and joins the fray. Dr. Sheppard gamely assists the legendary Poirot as he untangles one of the most fiendish mysteries in Christie’s extensive oeuvre.
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Notes on a Scandal
Zoe Heller · 2003
Discover Zoë Heller's darkly compelling Booker-shortlisted novel which became an Oscar-nominated film starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench. 'Brilliant, nasty, gripping' Zadie Smith From the first day that the beguiling Sheba Hart joins the staff of St George's, history teacher Barbara Covett is convinced she has found a kindred spirit. Barbara's loyalty to her new friend is passionate and unstinting and when Sheba is discovered having an illicit affair with one of her pupils, Barbara quickly elects herself as Sheba's chief defender. But all is not as it first seems in this dark story and, as Sheba will soon discover, a friend can be just as treacherous as any lover. 'Compelling, dark, sexy' Observer 'Superbly gripping. One of the most compelling books I've read in ages' Daily Telegraph 'Deliciously sinister' Daily Mail
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Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov · 1777
The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. “The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind.”—The New Yorker One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love—love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.
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You
Caroline Kepnes · 2014
*** NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES *** 'Thriller of the Year' Daily Mail 'Hypnotic and scary' Stephen King 'Examines the fine line between seduction and stalking . . . Ludicrously readable' Guardian When aspiring writer Guinevere Beck strides into the bookstore where Joe works, he is instantly smitten. But there's more to Joe than Beck realises and much more to Beck than her perfect facade. And the obsessive relationship quickly spirals into a whirlwind of deadly consequences... A chilling account of unrelenting, terrifying deceit, Caroline Kepnes' You is a thriller more perversely clever and dangerously twisted than any YOU have ever read. 'I am RIVETED, AGHAST, AROUSED, you name it. The rare instance when prose and plot are equally delicious' Lena Dunham ' Brilliant thriller with attitude, guts and true insight into the nature of obsession' Sophie Hannah 'A fantastically creepy thriller... The kind of book you put your life on hold for' Glamour 'Clever and chilling' Elle 'A brilliant tale... It's Gone Girl meets a sinister version of Girls ' Marie Claire 'An addictive thriller!' Closer
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The Sense of an Ending
Julian Barnes · 2011
Tony Webster has always made the very reasonable assumption that he could trust his memories, but when he's forced to revisit his past, everything he believes about himself and his life is challenged. The fact is that Tony Webster, a middle-aged man, never gave much thought to his past at all until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance -- one of them from the grave and another maddeningly present. Tony thought he'd left all this uncertainly behind as he built a life for himself. Tony has created a very ordinary life for himself that includes the usual trappings of marriage, family, and career. But his marriage has become an amicable divorce, and his career has turned into a comfortable retirement. Presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he'd understood all along, Tony may have to revise his estimation of his own nature and his place in the world. The Sense of an Ending is so compelling that it begs to be read in
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Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2011
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “mercilessly entertaining” ( Vanity Fair ) instant classic “about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships” (Lev Grossman, Time “One of the Best Books of the Decade”) ONE OF TIME 'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME, ONE OF CNN'S MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE, AND ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY 'S BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST FICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Janet Maslin, The New York Times, People, Entertainment Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Kansas City Star, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge . Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer? ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, HuffPost, Newsday
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The girl on the train
Paula Hawkins · 2014
THE RUNAWAY SUNDAY TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLER AND THRILLER OF THE YEAR, NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING EMILY BLUNT 'Really great suspense novel. Kept me up most of the night. The alcoholic narrator is dead perfect' STEPHEN KING Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. 'Jess and Jason', she calls them. Their life - as she sees it - is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she's only watched from afar. Now they'll see; she's much more than just the girl on the train...