Books about to read

In this title, readers can enter the dazzling world of 19th century magicians fighting Napoleon's advancing army - and fighting between themselves

As Melquiades excites Buendia's father with new inventions and tales of adventure, neither can know the significance of the indecipherable manuscript that the gypsy passes into their hands. The tribulations of the Buendia household push memories of the manuscript aside. Few remember its existence and one will discover the message that it holds.

The remarkable debut novel from Khaled Hosseini, now out in paperback in a stunning new package

This text is a revised edition of Dostoyevsky's classic tale. Rasholnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. As he embarks on a dangerous cat and mouse game, he is pursued by his conscience.

A story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Point, Michigan.

Anna Karenina is one of the loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density. This book addresses the very nature of society at various levels - of destiny, death, human relationships and the irreconcilable contradictions of existence.

This title chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. Unless you read Spanish, you've never read this title.

This text is an updated edition of George Eliot's classic tale. The novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community.

Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ending with Germany turning its attention to Russia, this book falls into two parts. It depicts a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion; and follows the inhabitants of a rural community under occupation who find themselves thrown together in unexpected ways.

Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, this work explores with humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties.

Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice.

Features a satirical indicement of military madness and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it. This work tells a tale of the dangerously sane Captain Yossarian, who spends his time in Italy plotting to survive.

Asking questions about human motivation and living and reaching some conclusions, this book aims to be at the heart of things we see and do and the subjects that bedevil us: from parenting to crime, sport to politics, fat to cheating, fear to traffic jams.

When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, the lives of his sons are changed irrevocably: Mitya is placed under suspicion, Ivan's mental tortures drive him to breakdown, Alyosha tries to heal the family's rifts, and there is always the shadow of their bastard half-brother, Smerdyakov.

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction from the author 'Wonder Boys'. 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' is a heart-wrenching story of escape, love and comic-book heroes set in Prague, New York and the Arctic.

Into the neatly programmed world of test-tube babies and drug-controlled happiness, misfit Bernard Marx bring the innocent Savage. Aldous Huxley's famous version of the future is also a chilling and witty comment on the present.