Wild child Huck has to get away. His violent drunk of a father is back in town again, raising Cain. He won't rest until he has Huck's money. So the enterprising boy fakes his own death and sets out in search of adventure and freedom. Teaming up with Jim, an escaped slave with a price on his head, the two fugitives go on the r... read more

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Out of his smoke-filled rooms in Baker Street stalks a figure to cause the criminal classes to quake in their boots and rush from their dens of iniquity . . . The twelve mysteries gathered in this first collection of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson's adventures reveal the brilliant consulting detective at the height of his pow... read more

On the banks of the Mississippi, Tom Sawyer and his friends seek out adventure at every turn. Then one fateful night they witness a murder. The boys swear never to reveal the secret and run away to be pirates and search for hidden treasure. But when Tom gets trapped in a cave with the murderer, can he escape unharmed?

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Offering ancient wisdom on how to use skill, cunning, tactics and discipline to outwit your opponent, this bestselling 2000-year-old military manual is still worshipped by soldiers on the battlefield and managers in the boardroom as the ultimate guide to winning.

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Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep is the definitive hardboiled detective story and Philip Marlowe the perfect expression of the cynical, world-weary gumshoe. Hired by the crippled General Sternwood to shake off a blackmailer, Marlowe also has to deal with the general's two rebellious daughters, the gamblers and pornographers t... read more

Having seen Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep during the Film Festival, I was keen to read the book (which is available as a Popular Penguin). I thoroughly enjoyed it. The novel and the movie diverged towards the end, which only added to the fun, because the ending I was expecting didn't eventuate. Wonderful sense ... read more

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Set among the surf and sandhills of the Australian beach - and the tidal changes of three generations of the Lang family - The Bodysurfers is an Australian classic. A short-story collection which has become a bestseller and been adapted for film, television, radio and the theatre, The Bodysurfers on its first publication mark... read more

Leonard Cohen made his name as a poet before he came to worldwide attention as a singer and songwriter. Book of Longing was twenty years in the making and written in Montreal, Mumbai and during his retreat in Mt Baldy. These poems show the full range of one of the most influential and enigmatic writers of his generation.

Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's is a brilliant glimmer of the excitement of 1940's New York. Holly Golightly - brashly beautiful with a slim black dress, a mysterious past and dark glasses over varicoloured eyes - entrances all the men she meets, including the young writer living above her, though her recklessness may ... read more

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In his final years, Freud devoted most of his energies to a series of highly ambitious works on the broadest issues of religion and society. Here, he argues that civilised values - and the impossible ideals of Christianity - inevitably distort our natural aggression and impose a terrible burden of guilt.

Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange is the shocking seminal novel that spawned one of the most notorious films ever made. Fifteen-year-old Alex and his thrill-seeking gang regularly indulge in ultra-violence, rape and drugs, but when he is caught and brainwashed by a government psychologist Alex finds his new law-abiding lif... read more

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Meet Ignatius J. Reilly: flatulent, eloquent and pretty much unemployable . . . The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged as well. Ignatius ignores them as he heaves his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in... read more

Alain de Botton's The Consolations of Philosophy takes the discipline of logic and the mind back to its roots. Drawing inspiration from six of the finest minds in history - Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche - he addresses lack of money, the pain of love, inadequacy, anxiety and conformity. De B... read more