Choose a genre
Bestsellers
Hardback
  1. The Miracle at Speedy Motors Alexander McCall Smith
  2. Eclipse Stephenie Meyer
  3. Matter Iain M Banks
  4. Personal Demon Kelley Armstrong
  5. The Perk Mark Gimenez
Paperback
  1. Book of the Dead Patricia Cornwell
  2. The World According to Bertie Alexander McCall Smith
  3. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive Alexander McCall Smith
  4. Ferney James Long
  5. The Shakespeare Secret J L Carrell
Audio
  1. Book of the Dead Patricia Cornwell Read by Mary Stuart Masterson
  2. Long Way Down Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman Read by Mark Bonnar and Rupert Degas
  3. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Alexander McCall Smith Read by Adjoa Andoh
  4. Rubicon Tom Holland Read by Andrew Sachs
  5. The Careful Use of Compliments Alexander McCall Smith Read by Hilary Neville

Little, Brown

Little, Brown is the literary hardback imprint that feeds into Abacus paperback. We publish across a wide range of areas, including fiction, history, memoir, science and travel, but within this diverse list the vast majority of books have in common a strong narrative and a distinctive voice.

Soon after the company’s establishment we were enormously privileged to publish a book that exemplifies these qualities – Iain Banks’ THE CROW ROAD, and we are proud that all of Iain’s fiction is now published by Little, Brown / Abacus (with his SF in Orbit). Scotland has in fact proved to be fertile territory for the list as it has also produced both Christopher Brookmyre (described by one critic as ‘Tartan noir’) and Alexander McCall Smith (who could perhaps be called ‘Tartan blanc’).

In 2004 Alexander McCall Smith won a hat-trick of prizes – the Booksellers Association Award, Waterstone’s Author of the Year Award and Publishing News Author of the Year Award. We have now sold six million copies of his books.

Little, Brown/Abacus also have a distinguished list of American writers, including great names such as Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal and E. L. Doctorow, and brilliant satirists like David Sedaris and Candace Bushnell. And we are immensely proud to have published the bestselling Anita Shreve throughout her career.

Our non-fiction is extremely strong. Young historians Tom Holland, Dominic Sandbrook and Juliet Barker complement Abacus’s publishing of Eric Hobsbawm, Thomas Pakenham, Roy Hattersley and Lawrence James’s backlists. When you add in talents as diverse as Tim Harford, Professor Steve Jones, Geoff Dyer and Steven Poole, we believe we have something wonderful for everybody.