Item category 1: Adult Paperback

Christopher Isherwood explores the character of a middle-aged Englishman living in California: a professor alienated from his students by differences in age and nationality and from the rest of society by his homosexuality.

It's spring again in the village, and with the changing of the seasons comes the change in the lives of many villagers.

There's consternation among the villagers of Prior's Ford when a firm is interested in re-opening an old granite quarry. It'll be disruptive, noisy and dusty, despite bringing in some new jobs. Publican Glen organises a protest group.

'The Time of Our Singing' tells the story of a mixed-race American family and of the frictions that arise within it in the years following World War Two that reflect the tragedy of race in America.

Sergeant Amy Callan and Lieutenant Caroline Cooke have a lot in common. Both were army high-flyers. Both were aquainted with Jack Reacher. Both were forced to resign from the service. Now they're both dead. Found in their own homes, naked, in a bath full of paint.

Dealing with themes such as belonging, pride, prejudice and love, this is the story of two extended families who are brought together thanks to the arrival of two tiny adopted Korean babies on the same night.

Lady Jane Gray was born into times of extreme danger. Child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother, for whom she was merely a pawn in a dynastic power game with the highest stakes, she lived a life in thrall to political machinations and lethal religious fervour.

Griet, the young daughter of a tilemaker in 17th century Holland, obtains her first job as a servant in Vermeer's household. She loves being drawn into his artistic life, but the cost to her own survival may be high.

First published in France in 1967, this book consists of three short novellas on the theme of women's vulnerability - the first, to the process of ageing, in the second the loneliness, and, in the third, to the growing indifference of a loved one.

Dai Morgan has the body of a man and the mind of a child. He lived with his mother in the village of Llan, next door to bright, beautiful 19 year-old Anna Harris. But when Anna's battered body is discovered in a churchyard - and her bloodstained earring turns up Dai's pocket - he immediately beco...