The Name of the Rose

Umberto Eco; William Weaver (translator)

Set in Italy in the Middle Ages, this is not only a narrative of a murder investigation in a monastery in 1327, but also a chronicle of the 14th century religious wars, a history of monastic orders, and a compendium of heretical movements....

The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Few children's classics can match the charm and originality of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, the unforgettable story of sullen, sulky Mary Lennox, "the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen." When a cholera epidemic leaves her as an orphan, Mary is sent to England to live with her rec...

The Most Dammed Country in the World

Dai Qing

The courageous, unflinching speeches and writings collected here detail the devastating human and environmental cost of China's economic rise....

Hotel du Lac

Anita Brookner

Anita Brookner's best-known and bestselling Man Booker Prize-winning novel - now a Penguin Essential The Hotel du Lac was a dignified building, a house of repute, a traditional establishment, used to welcoming the prudent, the well-to-do, the retired, the self-effacing, the respected patrons of an earl...