Recommendations based on "Golden Hill 'Best book of the century' Richard Osman"

“Enlightening, compassionate, superb” —John Le CarréWinner of the 2018 Cundill History PrizeA New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017One of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2017A visionary exploration of the life and times of Joseph Conrad, his turbulent age of globalization and our own, from one of the most exciting young historians writing todayMigration, terrorism, the tensions between global capitalism and nationalism, and a communications revolution: these forces shaped Joseph Conrad’s destiny at the dawn of the twentieth century. In this brilliant new interpretation of one of the great voices in modern literature, Maya Jasanoff reveals Conrad as a prophet of globalization. As an immigrant from Poland to England, and in travels from Malaya to Congo to the Caribbean, Conrad navigated an interconnected world, and captured it in a literary oeuvre of extraordinary depth. His life story delivers a history of globalization from the inside out, and reflects powerfully on the aspirations and challenges of the modern world.Joseph Conrad was born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857, to Polish parents in the Russian Empire. At sixteen he left the landlocked heart of Europe to become a sailor, and for the next twenty years travelled the world’s oceans before settling permanently in England as an author. He saw the surging, competitive "new imperialism" that planted a flag in almost every populated part of the globe. He got a close look, too, at the places “beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat lines,” and the hypocrisy of the west’s most cherished ideals.In a compelling blend of history, biography, and travelogue, Maya Jasanoff follows Conrad’s routes and the stories of his four greatest works—The Secret Agent, Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, and Nostromo. Genre-bending, intellectually thrilling, and deeply humane, The Dawn Watch embarks on a spell-binding expedition into the dark heart of Conrad’s world—and through it to our own.

The Final Instalment In The Breathtaking Orphans Of The Tide Trilogy, Which The Times Calls 'unputdownable'. The Seas Have Parted To Reveal The Remains Of Humanity's Lost Empire And Opened A Path From Shipwreck Island To The Enemy's City. Now Only Ellie Lancaster And Her Orphan Friends Can Prevent A Terrible War. As Kate Marches North At The Head Of Her Army, Panic Infests The City As The Enemy's Strength Grows. For The Parting Of The Seas Has Also Uncovered The Eternity Engine, A Dreadful Machine From Before The Drowning, With The Power To Remake The World - Or Destroy It Forever . . . The Critically-acclaimed Orphans Of The Tide Trilogy Reaches Its Spine-tingling Climax And Dramatic Conclusion. Perfect Reading For Fans Of His Dark Materials Or Vashti Hardy. Praise For Orphans Of The Tide: 'unputdownable' - The Times 'enthralling' - The Daily Express 'sumptuously Atmospheric . . . Tirelessly Inventive' - The Daily Telegraph 'gripping' - The Guardian 'energetic And Inventive' - Sunday Times 'gripping And Original' - The Observer 'singularly Brilliant' - Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Author Of The Girl Of Ink And Stars And The Mercies 'compellingly Inventive And Unpredictable' - Piers Torday, Author Of The Last Wild 'a Terrific Debut Of Strange Myths And Dark Secrets' - The Bookseller (editor's Choice)

** FROM THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF RESTLESS AND ANY HUMAN HEART ** 'William Boyd once again brings to the spy novel his particular storytelling genius. The result is brilliant fun' MICK HERRON ------ An accidental spy. A web of betrayals. A mystery that will take you around the world . . . Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a tragedy: every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing changing landscapes in the grip of the Cold War. When he's offered the chance to interview a political figure, his ambition leads him unwittingly into the shadows of espionage. As Gabriel's reluctant initiation takes hold, he is drawn deeper into duplicity. Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthless MI6 handler, he becomes 'her spy', unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia and passion consuming Gabriel's new covert life, it will be the revelations closer to home that change the rest of his story . . . ------ In his most exhilarating novel yet, William Boyd transports you from the vibrant streets of sixties London to the sun-soaked cobbles of Cadiz and the frosty squares of Warsaw in this thrilling adventure. 'Engaging, intelligent and deeply satisfying. I rate him one of our greatest living novelists' PETER JAMES 'Wonderfully ambiguous with notions of twisted reality and uncertain memory' ANN CLEEVES 'A wonderfully intricate novel of espionage and elegant skulduggery' JOHN BANVILLE 'I enjoyed it hugely. Boyd is one of my favourite authors - he never disappoints' KATE ATKINSON 'Beautifully crafted and pleasingly unpredictable, the work of a man who knows what he is doing and makes it look effortless' JAMES RUNCIE 'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' SEBASTIAN FAULKS 'There are few reading pleasures as great as giving in to a William Boyd novel' SUNDAY TIMES 'For page-turning glamour, you can bank on a William Boyd novel to hit the spot' GUARDIAN 'One of our best contemporary storytellers' SPECTATOR 'A gripping, must-read spy thriller. Boyd pulls out all the stops here for a gripping and galloping tale of murky espionage' i William Boyd, The Bookseller bestseller, April 2023

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER   Scotland, 1766. Sentenced to a life of misery in the brutal coal mines, twenty-one-year-old Mack McAsh hungers for escape. His only ally: the beautiful, highborn Lizzie Hallim, who is trapped in her own kind of hell. Though separated by politics and position, these two restless young people are bound by their passionate search for a place called freedom.   From the teeming streets of London to the infernal hold of a slave ship to a sprawling Virginia plantation, Ken Follett’s turbulent, unforgettable novel of liberty and revolution brings together a vivid cast of heroes and villains, lovers and rebels, hypocrites and hell-raisers—all propelled by destiny toward an epic struggle that will change their lives forever.

The intrigues of Justine and Balthazar multiply and deepen in the third volume of the Alexandria Quartet, giving us a novel of labyrinthine intricacy and mesmerizing beauty.In the first two novels of this profoundly innovative masterpiece, Lawrence Durrell explored two sides of a romantic quadrangle involving several inhabitants of prewar Alexandria. Now that geometry is seen from a startling new angle—through the clinical eye of a British diplomat, for whom love is only another form of statecraft. Like its predecessors, Mountolive is a novel of vertiginous disclosures, in which the betrayer and the betrayed share secret alliances and an adulterous marriage turns out to be a vehicle for the explosive passions of the modern Middle East.“Durrell is almost without peer in conveying atmosphere and mood. Even if his Alexandria never existed on this earth, it is now as real as Hawthorne’s Rome, Proust’s Paris, Loti’s Constantinople. . . . Mountolive is dazzlingly cohesive, beautifully controlled from beginning to end.”—Saturday Review“A work of splendid craft and troubling veracity.”—The New York Times“Mountolive has vivid imagery and scenes of ghastly hilarity. . . . Readers will be sharply aware that they are encountering an acute intelligence pursuing a grand design.”—TIME

Charles Mason (1728-1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779) were the British surveyors best remembered for running the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that we know today as the Mason-Dixon Line. Here is their story as re-imagined by Thomas Pynchon, featuring Native Americans and frontier folk, ripped bodices, naval warfare, conspiracies erotic and political, and major caffeine abuse. We follow the mismatched pair--one rollicking, the other depressive; one Gothic, the other pre-Romantic--from their first journey together to the Cape of Good Hope, to pre-Revolutionary America and back, through the strange yet redemptive turns of fortune in their later lives, on a grand tour of the Enlightenment's dark hemisphere, as they observe and participate in the many opportunities for insanity presented them by the Age of Reason.

And the Land Lay Still is the sweeping Scottish epic by James RobertsonAnd the Land Lay Still is nothing less than the story of a nation. James Robertson's breathtaking novel is a portrait of modern Scotland as seen through the eyes of natives and immigrants, journalists and politicians, drop-outs and spooks, all trying to make their way through a country in the throes of great and rapid change. It is a moving, sweeping story of family, friendship, struggle and hope - epic in every sense.The winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award 2010, And the Land Lay Still is a masterful insight into Scotland's history in the twentieth century and a moving, beautifully written novel of intertwined stories.'Toweringly ambitious, virtually flawlessly realized, a masterpiece and, without a doubt, my book of the year' Daily Mail'A jam-packed, dizzying piece of fiction' Scotland on Sunday'Gripping, vivid, beautifully realized' The Times'Engrossing' Daily Telegraph'Powerful and moving. A brilliant and multifaceted saga of Scottish life in the second half of the twentieth century' Sunday Times'Brilliant and thoughtful. Eminently readable, subtle and profound' Independent on Sunday'Bold, discursive and deep, Robertson's sweeping history of life and politics in 20th-century Scotland should not be ignored' Ian Rankin, Observer Books of the YearJames Robertson is the author of three previous novels: The Fanatic, Joseph Knight and The Testament of Gideon Mack, which is available in Penguin. Joseph Knight was awarded the two major Scottish literary awards in 2003/4 - the Saltire Book of the Year and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year - and The Testament of Gideon Mack was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, picked by Richard and Judy's Book Club, and shortlisted for the Saltire Book of the Year award.

The electrifying behind-the-scenes account of a year that brought Ireland to the brink and back.In 2020 Ireland was launched into a state of turmoil, with the Government scrambling to handle the arrival of a virus that would see the already strained healthcare system buckle under the weight of the responsibility foisted upon it. The National Public Health Emergency Team was sent into overdrive, while thousands became unemployed as businesses around the country closed their doors.Woven from a wealth of original research and dozens of interviews with ministers, politicians, public health experts, essential workers, and ordinary people on whom the crisis exacted a personal toll, this is the incendiary untold story of Ireland’s response to the most significant public health emergency of the past century.Ranging from the halls of Government Buildings, where a new Cabinet riven by personal acrimony found itself beset by a series of unprecedented crises, to the frontlines of the containment effort itself, where medical practitioners and the communities they serve were pushed to breaking point, A State of Emergency is a landmark work of investigative journalism and the defining account of an extraordinary time in Irish history.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024 'One of the most original and brilliant debuts in years' Irish Times 'Bold and totally unexpected ... I was hooked from the first page' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain 'Brilliant ... Hilarious, moving, and profound' R. F. Kuang, author of Yellowface *** Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO: lovesick, jobless, in need of a distraction. Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads. They're fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost: they can still recite lines from Greek tragedy when tempted by Lampo and Gelon with goatskins of wine and scraps of food. And so an idea is born. Because, after all, you can hate the invaders but still love their poetry. It's audacious. It might even be dangerous. But like all the best things in life - love, friendship, art itself - it will reveal the very worst, and the very best, of what humans are capable of. What could possibly go wrong? *** 'Fierce, funny, fast-paced ... Brings the ancient world roaring to life' Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre 'Love, war, poetry, reckless ambition, terrible failure, and glorious triumph ... A delicious treat of a read. I loved it' Jon McGregor, author of Lean Fall Stand

Now a major TV series Winner of the Man Booker Prize The second book in Hilary Mantel's award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, with a stunning new cover design to celebrate the publication of the much anticipated The Mirror and the Light An astounding literary accomplishment, Bring Up the Bodies is the story of this most terrifying moment of history, by one of our greatest living novelists. 'Our most brilliant English writer' Guardian Bring Up the Bodies unlocks the darkly glittering court of Henry VIII, where Thomas Cromwell is now chief minister. With Henry captivated by plain Jane Seymour and rumours of Anne Boleyn's faithlessness whispered by all, Cromwell knows what he must do to secure his position. But the bloody theatre of the queen's final days will leave no one unscathed. 'A great novel of dark and dirty passions, public and private. A truly great story' Financial Times 'In another league. This ongoing story of Henry VIII's right-hand man is the finest piece of historical fiction I have ever read' Sunday Telegraph