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Thought-provoking and life-affirming, this is at once an examination and a celebration of friendship in all its glorious complexity. Selected from the books Restoration and The Gustav Sonata by Rose TremainVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS.

'Wealth and beggary, virtue and vice, repletion and the direst hunger, all treading on each other and crowding together'Could any writer portray London better than Charles Dickens?

Is there anything quite so exhilarating as swimming in wild water? This swimming tour of Britain offers a frog's-eye view of the country's best bathing holes - the rivers, rock pools, lakes, ponds, lochs and sea that define a watery island.

LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us humanAlso in the Vintage Minis series:Home by Salman RushdieBabies by Anne EnrightEating by Nigella LawsonDrinking by John Cheever

In this gripping and disturbing book, Richard Wright weaves his own childhood recollections with those of Bigger Thomas - a young black man trapped in a life of poverty in the slums of Chicago, and unwittingly involved in a wealthy woman's death - to paint a portrait of insurmountable oppression.

Have you ever tried to learn another language? When Zhuang first arrives in London from China she feels like she is among an alien species. But with increasing fluency in English surviving turns to living. And they say that the best way to learn a language is to fall in love with a native speaker...

What's the worst another drink could do? From the calculating teenager who raids her parents' liquor cabinet, only to drown her sorrows in it, to the suburban swimmer withering away with every plunge he takes, this title includes stories suffused with beauty, sadness, and the gathering storm of a bender well-done.

LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series: Murder by Arthur Conan Doyle Power by William Shakespeare Jealousy by Marcel Proust Ghosts by M.

From glittering occasions complete with an orchestra and dancing girls to a fist-fight at the end of a toddler's birthday, this is a dazzling collection of party pieces from the master of celebration. Selected from The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night and Flappers and Philosophers VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS.

'Because "God" is infinite, nobody can have the last word'What is this thing, religion, supposedly the cause of bloodshed and warring for centuries? Selected from A Case for God, Fields of Blood and The Lost Art of Scripture VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS.

The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life. How do we carry on when someone close to us dies?

In these beautifully told cases we find compulsive liars, deceived spouses, violent children and delusional adults but we also find ourselves and in doing so, understand a little more about what it is to be human. Selected from The Examined Life. VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS.

A Vintage Christmas captures the very essence of what Christmas means to us and what real magic can be found, written by some of the world's finest authors, including Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Anthony Trollope, Laurie Lee, E.

In this rousing book, he charts the absurdities that underpin calls for austerity, as well as his own battles with a bureaucracy bent on ignoring the human cost of its every action. Passionately outspoken and tuned to the voices of the oppressed, Varoufakis presents a guide to modern economics, and its threat to democracy, like no other.

In these three tales of quarrelling clans and fraught reunions, Mark Haddon shows family in its frank, unsparing yet frequently absurd light, and, in doing so charts a stormy course into the crucible of the self. Selected from The Pier Falls, The Red House and A Spot of Bother. VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS.

Bob Slocum is anxious, bored and fearful of his job. So why is it he wants nothing more than the chance to speak at the next company convention? In this darkly satirical book, the author takes us for a turn on the maddening hamster wheel of work.

Is who we are really only skin deep? In this book, the author unravels race through the stories of those debased and dehumanised because of it. It also includes the story of a young black girl longing for the blue eyes of white baby dolls that spirals into inferiority and confusion.

How do we love? With romance. With work. Through heartbreak. Throughout a lifetime. As a means, but not an end. This book focuses on love in all its forms. It includes selections from Jeanette Winterson's books about that impossible, essential force, stories and truths that search for the mythical creature we call Love.

Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy are four of the most famous sisters in literature. This book features stories of the joys and heartaches they share, which is also a celebration of the special ties of sisterhood.

Can we truly know the one we love? The author looks straight into the green eye of every lover's jealous struggle. He broods on why we are driven to try possess one another, how jealousy can outlive death, and whether we can ever reclaim those careless days of first love.

How to be a good father? From children's birthday parties, unsuccessful family holidays, to humiliating antenatal music classes, this account of family life presents the trials of parenthood.

How does a writer compose a suicide note? This was not a question that the prize-winning novelist had ever contemplated before. In this true account of his depression, he describes an illness that reduced him from a successful writer to a man arranging his own destruction.

'Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days'Sherlock Holmes: the quintessential British hero and the world's most popular detective.

LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series:Independence by Charlotte BronteInjustice by Richard WrightMoney by Yuval Noah HarariLove by Jeanette Winterson

In this book of breathtaking imaginary leaps that conjure dystopias and magical islands, Margaret Atwood holds a mirror up to our own world. And in that, there is hope. Selected from The Handmaid's Tale and Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood. VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS.

Jane Austen was fascinated by this question, subjecting it to her forensic eye and wonderfully ironic wit again and again. Selected from the novels Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen. VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS.

A self-described 'emigrant from one place and a newcomer in two', the author explores the true meaning of home. He looks at what it means to belong, whether roots are real and homelands imaginary, what it is like to reconfigure your past from fragments of memory and what happens when East meets West.

Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. His award-winning books, translated into fifteen languages, include Citizens, Landscape and Memory, Rembrandt's Eyes, A History of Britain, The Power of Art, Rough Crossings, The American Future, The Face of Britain and The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words (1000 BCE - 1492). His art columns for the New Yorker won the National Magazine Award for criticism and his journalism has appeared regularly in the Guardian and the Financial Times where he is Contributing Editor. He has written and presented more than fifty films for the BBC on subjects as diverse as Tolstoy, American politics, and The Story of the Jews and is co-presenter of a new landmark series on the history of world art, Civilisations.

LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us humanAlso in the Vintage Minis series:Home by Salman RushdieDreams by Sigmund FreudEating by Nigella LawsonWork by Joseph Heller