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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio lived the darkest and most dangerous life of any of the great painters. The worlds of Milan, Rome, and, Naples through which Caravaggio moved and which Andrew Graham-Dixon describes brilliantly in this book, are thos e of cardinals and whores, prayer and violence. On the streets surrounding the churches and palaces, brawls and swordfights were regular occurrences. In one such fight, Caravaggio killed Ranuccio Tomassoni, a pimp, and fled to Naples and then Malta, home to the Knights of St John, where he escaped from prison following his conviction for another vicious assault. Shortly afterwards he died while returning to Rome to seek a papal pardon for his crimes. He was thirty-eight years old. In the course of this desperate life, Caravaggio created the most dramatic paintings of his age, using ordinary men and women - often prostitutes and the very poor - to model for his depictions of classic religious scenes. Andrew Graham-Dixon's exceptionally illum inating readings of Caravaggio's pictures, which are the heart of the book, show very clearly how he created their drama, immediacy and humanity, and how completely he departed from the conventions of his time.

The script for major new film An Education, the story of the bizarre relationship between 1960s teenager Jenny (played by Carey Mulligan) and older man David (Peter Sarsgaard), after she accepts a lift on her way home from music practice one day. Bas ed on Observer journalist Lynn Barber's real-life experience as recounted in her book An Education, the film won the Audience Award for best film at the Sundance Film Festival and tremendous acclaim at the Berlin Film Festival too. It will be release d in the UK in October 2009 and promises to be the season's Slumdog Millionaire. Hornby's charming script is included in An Education: The Screenplay, along with stills from the film and a long introduction in which he wittily describes the process o f converting someone's very personal memoir into a hit film.

Libra, Don DeLillo's ninth novel, is a fictional account of how the lives of Lee Harvey Oswald and John Fitzgerald Kennedy intersected in Dallas. Like most works of historical fiction, the book plunges attentive readers back into the history and politics of the era through its intermingling of real and fictional characters, events actual and imagined.

Everyone wants to be famous, don't they? Not Jessica Granger. Her father was the movie star who played the world's favourite James Bond and, worse, her mother was voted sexiest-ever Bond Girl for her role as Heavenly Melons. Like it or not, fame is in he

Captain Thomas Forsyth's tour of Afghanistan is cut brutally short when he is badly wounded by a roadside bomb. Returning home, to his mother - a racehorse trainer and the 'First Lady' of racing - Tom discovers the training business is on the edge, and f

Captain Thomas Forsyth's tour of Afghanistan is cut brutally short when he is badly wounded by a roadside bomb. Returning home, to his mother - a racehorse trainer and the 'First Lady' of racing - Tom discovers the training business is on the edge, and f

Some secrets are too great to bear... Army Ranger Lt. Col. John 'Doc' Holliday is teaching at West Point when he receives desperate news. His niece Peggy has been kidnapped while joining an ancient tomb excavation in Egypt. Holliday immediately sets out

How do you cope in a world without your mother? When Barbara realizes time is running out, she writes letters to her four daughters, aware they'll be facing the trials and triumphs of life without her at their side. But how can she leave them when th ey still have so much growing up to do? Take Lisa, in her mid-thirties but incapable of making a commitment; or Jennifer, trapped in a stale marriage and buttoned up so tight she could burst. While twenty something Amanda is the traveler, always dist anced from the rest of the family. And Hannah. A teenage girl on the verge of womanhood, about to be parted from the mother she adores.But by drawing on the wisdom in Barbara's letters, the girls might just find a way to cope with her loss. And in co ming to terms with their bereavement, can they also set themselves free to enjoy life with all the passion and love each deserves? The bestselling Elizabeth Noble returns with a tale of families, friends ...and the glorious, endless possibilities of life.

The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is the complete collection of short fiction from the world-renowned Lydia Davis. It is the winner of the Man Booker international prize 2013. "Big rejoicing: Lydia Davis has won the Man Booker International prize. Never did a book award deliver such a true match-winning punch. Best of all, a new audience will read her now and find her wit, her vigour and rigour, her funniness, her thoughtfulness, and the precision of form, which mark Davis out as unique. Daring, excitingly intelligent and often wildly comic [she] reminds you, in a world that likes to bandy its words about, what words such as economy, precision and originality really mean. This is a writer as mighty as Kafka, as subtle as Flaubert and as epoch-making, in her own way, as Proust. A two-liner from Davis, or a seemingly throwaway paragraph, will haunt. What looks like a game will open to deep seriousness; what looks like philosophy will reveal playfulness, tragicomedy, ordinariness; what looks like ordinariness will ask you to look again at Davis' writing. In its acuteness, it always asks attentiveness, and it repays this by opening up to its reader like possibility, or like a bush covered in flowerheads. She's a joy. There's no writer quite like her". (Ali Smith).

A culturally-influential and celebrated author, Kafka is generally considered to be one of the most accomplished writers of the twentieth century. The term 'Kafkaesque' takes its place in the English vernacular, demonstrating his huge impact on modern thought. In this covetable and must-have boxed set are collected together three of his major works, including the magnificent "Metamorphosis and Other Stories".

The author who most epitomises the decadent jazz age and 'the lost generation' of post-World War One America, Fitzgerald remains a best-selling author worldwide. Collected here in this covetable and must-have boxed set are four of his major works, including `The Great Gatsby`.

A culturally-influential and celebrated author, Kafka is generally considered to be one of the most accomplished writers of the twentieth century. The term 'Kafkaesque' takes its place in the English vernacular, demonstrating his huge impact on modern thought. In this covetable and must-have boxed set are collected together three of his major works, including the magnificent "Metamorphosis and Other Stories".

What if you had a second chance at first love? Susannah and Rob were childhood sweethearts. But as with most early love affairs, they broke up, moved on and now find themselves in very different places. And not entirely happy - who is? A chance meeti ng between them sends shockwaves through their lives. What happens when your first love makes a surprise reappearance? Is fate telling you it's time for a second chance ...or should you simply walk away and let the past become ancient history? But Su sannah and Rob just aren't able to forget the way they were ...and the world is about to discover the consequences of their reunion.

The Bridge, San Francisco, after the quake: Ex-cop Berry Rydell has been hired by Colin Laney - who is hooked deep into the network of things - to go to San Francisco and act in such a way that he comes to the attention of a certain unspecified individual. This, Laney promises Rydell, could prove life-threatening. And now Rydell's been sent a package. Something that belonged to Laney, something that others with guns, blades and very bad attitudes want. And suddenly Rydell's running, trying get to the old Bridge, the shantytown where a man can get lost, be forgotten and wait for the end of the world - which is the other thing that Laney promised . . . William Gibson is a prophet and a satirist, a black comedian and an outstanding architect of cool. Readers of Neal Stephenson, Ray Bradbury and Iain M. Banks will love this book. This is the third novel in the Bridge trilogy - read Virtual Light and Idoru for more.

A critically acclaimed "New York Times" bestseller, this spirited and wickedly insightful narrative maps the progress of fourteen-year- old Jane Rosenal as she navigates the perilous terrain of love, sex, and relationships, capturing-with perfect pitch-what it's like to be a young woman in America today.

An ageing king makes a capricious decision to divide his realm among his three daughters according to the love they express for him. When the youngest daughter refuses to take part in this charade, she is banished, leaving the king dependent on her manipu