Related to: 'Penelope'

The original Pop Idol

Will Young Memoir Set for October 2012

Little, Brown Book Group is delighted to announce the acquisition of Will Young's autobiography, set for publication by Sphere Books this autumn.

Is there a story that has a permanent place in your heart?

Coming of age classics

Is there a story that you would wish to pass on to the next generation, and would yourself happily read again now?

Virago

The Dud Avocado

Elaine Dundy

THE DUD AVOCADO gained instant cult status on first publication and remains a timeless portrait of a woman hellbent on living. It is, as the GUARDIAN observes, 'one of the best novels about growing up fast'.Sally Jay Gorce is a woman with a mission. It's the 1950s, she's young, and she's in Paris. Having dyed her hair pink, she wears evening dresses in the daytime and vows to go native in a way not even the natives can manage. Embarking on an educational programme that includes an affair with a married man (which fizzles out when she realises he's single and wants to marry her); nights in cabarets and jazz clubs in the company of assorted "citizens of the world"; an entanglement with a charming psychopath; and a bit part in a film financed by a famous matador. But an education like this doesn't come cheap. Will our heroine be forced back to the States to fulfill her destiny as a librarian, or can she keep up her whirlwind Parisian existence?

Virago

Life Itself!

Elaine Dundy
Virago

The Old Man And Me

Elaine Dundy

There's love, and there's revenge. Betsy Lou Saegessor is bent on revenge. Her father is dead, and to top it off, the vast fortune that should have been hers has ended up, through the second marriage of her now deceased stepmother, in the bank account of the legendary and elusive Englishman, C.D. McKee.So Betsy sets out from New York to seduce and betray him. C.D. is fat and ugly - but boy is he sexy. Betsy follows him through the night clubs of London, grooving to jazz, smoking hash - and plotting murder. A wickedly funny novel about falling in love -- with an Old Man and the Old World -- despite the best intentions.

The Virago hardback designer collection

Virago Introduces Virago Modern Classics

Feast your eyes on these beauties! The second VMC designer hardback collection, available in all good bookshops, £12.99 each.

Forever

How to Ravish a Rake

Vicky Dreiling

Elaine Dundy

Elaine Dundy was born in New York. As an actress she worked in Paris and London and then became a writer. She has written plays, biographies and novels including the bestselling THE DUD AVOCADO, her first novel.

Grand Central Publishing

After The Fire

Robin Gaby Fisher

On January 19, 2000, a fire raged through Seton Hall University's freshman dormitory, killing three students and injuring 58 others. Among the victims were Shawn Simons and Alvaro Llanos, roommates from poor neighbourhoods who made their families proud by getting into college. They managed to escape, but both were burned terribly. AFTER THE FIRE is the story of these young men and their courageous fight to recover from the worst damage the burn unit at Saint Barnabas hospital had ever seen. It is the story of the extraordinary doctors and nurses who work with the burned. It is the story of mothers and fathers, of faith and family and the invisible ties that bind us to each other. It is the story of the search for the arsonists--and the elaborate cover-up that nearly obscured the truth. And it is the story of the women who came to love these men, who knew that real beauty is a thing not seen in mirrors.

Grand Central Publishing

Pot Psychology's How To Be

Tracie Egan Morrissey, Rich Juzwiak
Abacus

Cuba: The Land Of Miracles

Stephen Smith

For a growing number of British holidaymakers, Cuba is a Caribbean paradise, but it is also a land of cutbacks and economic instability. Stephen Smith comes to live on the island, and his search for the real Cuba inevitably becomes a search for Fidel Castro too. Before meeting his quarry, Smith travels extensively through the 'land of miracles' in an old American automobile. His highly-personalised account features a bloody initiation into a voodoo-like cult, dining on giant rat, and checking into the Love Hotel. And he goes on manoeuvres in the Everglades with armed, but not especially competent, Cuban exiles dreaming of a second Bay of Pigs. With disarming wit and considerable insight, Stephen Smith investigates a country where communism and voodoo coexist, and where the influence of its leader of forty years continues to throw a long shadow.

Little, Brown

Moonlight Mile

Dennis Lehane
Come and celebrate

Christmas at the Cupcake Cafe: Chapter One

Indulge yourself and your sweet-toothed friends with Jenny Colgan’s new novel, simply bursting with Christmas cupcake recipes and seasonal sugar-fuelled fun.

Piatkus

The Jackal Man

Kate Ellis
by Iain Banks

The Wasp Factory - Introduction

Read Iain Banks' introduction to his first book, The Wasp Factory, the novel that announced a genius.

ATOM

Stunning

Sara Shepard

In Rosewood, Pennsylvania, four stunningly beautiful girls are haunted by a very ugly past. Spencer, Aria, Hanna, and Emily want nothing more than to forget Alison DiLaurentis, their former best friend who tried to ruin their lives. But someone refuses to let her memory die. A is still out there, lurking in the shadows and digging up the pretty little liars' newest secrets. Emily's reconnecting with an old flame, one baby step at a time. But is she headed toward true love or another bundle of heartache? Spencer's learning about the highs and lows of campus life on a trip to Princeton. Aria's seeing a whole new side to Noel's dad - and it could drive a wedge between her and Noel. And, for better or worse, Hanna's getting in touch with her inner A. Secret by secret, lie by lie, the girls get tangled in A's dangerous web. A knows about everything, from their tiniest transgressions to the awful incident in Jamaica. Soon A will have enough ammunition to pull the trigger and end the pretty little liars, once and for all. . . .

An exclusive extract

The Red Book

The Red Book is the name of the annual yearbook produced by Harvard University that helps keep alumni abreast of their former classmates achievements. Deborah Kogan's highly acclaimed new novel is the story of four such Harvard students and friends, who's lives have taken very different paths in the twenty years since graduating in 1989, and who are brought together once more over the course of a turbulent reunion weekend.

A new fascinating, witty and endlessly entertaining memoir.

Vanished Years by Rupert Everett

Read extracts from Ruper Everett's latest memoir, Vanished Years, filled with brand-new stories it includes astonishing encounters, tragedy and comedy, vivid portraits of friends and rivals along with razor-sharp observations of the celebrity circus from LA to London and beyond.

Sphere

Funny Peculiar

Will Young

In 2001 Will Young shot to fame as the first winner of Pop Idol. It was clear from the start that he would never be a typical pop star - and more than ten years later he has become one of our best-loved and most intriguing artists.From his dramatic experiences on Pop Idol; to coming out in the glare of the media spotlight; to his valiant struggles against depression; to the crazy reality of being famous, Will is open about both the highs and lows of his life. He also provides sound and practical advice on dealing with the DVLA helpline - something that has been woefully neglected by all other celebrity memoirs.If you have ever wondered what it's like to attend a fashion show (and find yourself accidentally waving at Anna Wintour); how it feels to sing in front of thousands while fighting a catastrophic bout of low self-esteem; or be subjected to the terror that is a This Morning 'makeover', then Funny Peculiar reveals all. It also reveals what not to say if you ever meet David Beckham.Moving, witty and scrupulously honest, Funny Peculiar is a refreshingly different and fascinating autobiography by a true original.

Little, Brown

Vanished Years

Rupert Everett

Rupert Everett's first memoir - Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins - was an international bestseller and an instant classic on publication in 2006. Reviewers compared him to Evelyn Waugh, David Niven, Noel Coward and Lord Byron. But Rupert Everett is - of course - one of a kind.Mischievous, touching and nothing less than brilliant, this new memoir is filled with brand-new stories, from childhood to the present. Astonishing encounters; tragedy and comedy; vivid portraits of friends and rivals; razor-sharp observations of the celebrity circus from LA to London and beyond... there is something extraordinary on every page. A pilgrimage to Lourdes with his father is both hilarious and moving. A misguided step into reality TV goes horribly wrong. From New York to Moscow to Berlin to Phnom Penh, Vanished Years takes the reader on a wild and wonderful new journey with a charming (and rather disreputable) companion.