Presenting reflections inspired by the elements of the periodic table, this title ranges from young love to political savagery; from the inert gas argon - and 'inert' relatives like the uncle who stayed in bed for twenty-two years - to life-giving carbon.

Contains stories which range geographically from Corsica and Sicily to Venice and the Alps.

Recasts the storytelling heritage of the ancient and medieval worlds into perennial forms that inspired writers including Chaucer and Shakespeare. This book hovers between the fading glories of an aristocratic past - the Crusades, the Angevins, the courts of France, the legendary East - and the squalor of contemporary life.

A saga of a family and an account of addiction and failure as its helpless hero, notionally undergoing psychiatric help, manages spectacularly to fail to give up smoking, run his business or make sense of his private life.

As the head of the aristocratic family, Don Fabrizio is accustomed to knowing his own place in the world and expects his household to run accordingly. He is aware of the changes which are rapidly making men obsolete but he remains attached to the old ways. But Don Fabrizio will make few accommodations for the modern world.

A hugely significant political novel for the late twentieth-century from one of the outstanding writers of the modern era.