22 Feb
1937 Jilly Cooper was born Hornchurch, London in 1937. One of the original 'Bonk-buster' authors her novel, including Riders published in 1985 and went on to be international best-seller as part of her Rutshire Chronicles. Read Jilly Cooper novels
Read the opening extract of the brand new Tony Lynch book before its publication on 21/03/2012
1 million free books - 25 titles. Back for a 2nd year below are details of the 25 books which will be given away April 23 2012.
Featured Books
The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Voted the Book of the Decade by Lovereading readers.
Shortlisted for the RNA Romantic Film of the Year Award 2010.
A huge book in every way. The protagonists meet each other at different times throughout... Format: Paperback - Released: 06/01/2005
The Book Thief Markus Zusak
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Voted 3rd in the Books of the Decade by Lovereading readers.
Shortlisted for the Newcomer of the Year Award at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2008.
This is the story of a street of ordinary German people... Format: Paperback - Released: 01/01/2008
The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic Sophie Kinsella
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Meet Rebecca Bloomwood, financial journalist, financial disaster. She is also one of the most hilarious characters you’ll meet for a long time and one you can truly empathise with. It is the same book as... Format: Paperback - Released: 14/09/2000
Touching the Void Joe Simpson
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
A true testament to the human will and spirit. Joe Simpson and his climbing partner Simon Yates both showed great courage and strength after Simpson fell and broke his leg descending Siula Grande but it... Format: Paperback - Released: 01/01/1998
Let The Right One In John Ajvide Lindqvist
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Set in Stockholm in the early 1980s Let the Right One In focuses on what happens to an ordinary suburb when a vampire moves into the area. Writing in a gritty, realistic style Let the... Format: Paperback - Released: 22/01/2009
Small Island Andrea Levy
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
A novel about racism, prejudice and injustice in the post war years in London as Jamaicans, escaping economic hardship, move to the Mother Country. Told from four characters’ points of view, it deserves all the... Format: Paperback - Released: 13/09/2004
Rebecca Daphne du Maurier
A 2012 World Book Night selection.“
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…” is probably one of the most famous first lines from a novel and captures the readers interest immediately. What is Manderley? Why is our narrator dreaming... Format: Paperback - Released: 30/01/2003
The Alchemist Paulo Coelho
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
If you have only recently discovered Coelho, or if you have yet to discover this utterly brilliant and breathtaking author, who until quite recently was one of the world’s most unsung authors then jump into... Format: Paperback (b Format) - Released: 06/09/1999
How I Live Now Meg Rosoff
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
One of the best crossover children/adult books I have read since The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It has the sort of old worldly feel of I Capture a Castle which suddenly... Format: Paperback (b Format) - Released: 30/06/2005
I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith, Valerie Grove
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fadingly glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her... Format: Paperback - Released: 31/01/2004
Good Omens Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter--the world's only totally reliable guide to the future--the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea... Format: Paperback - Released: 23/05/1991
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox Maggie O'Farrell
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Esme was a woman edited out of her family's history, and when, sixty years later, she is released from care, a young woman, Iris, discovers the great aunt she never knew she had. The mystery... Format: Paperback - Released: 13/01/2007
Misery Stephen King
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Misery Chastain was dead. Paul Sheldon had just killed her - with relief, with joy. Misery had made him rich; she was the heroine of a string of bestsellers. And now he wanted to get... Format: Paperback - Released: 07/07/2011
The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
This title is winner of the Booker Prize. In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into... Format: Paperback - Released: 01/04/2010
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens, Richard Maxwell
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille the aging Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat,... Format: Paperback - Released: 30/01/2003
Someone Like You Roald Dahl
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
In Someone Like You, Roald Dahl's first collection of his world famous dark and sinister adult stories, a wife serves a dish that baffles the police; a harmless bet suddenly becomes anything but; a... Format: Paperback - Released: 01/09/2011
Harlequin Bernard Cornwell
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
In the fourteenth century the English were just beginning to discover their national identity, and one of the strongest elements of this was the overwhelming success in battle of the English bowmen. England's archers crossed... Format: Paperback - Released: 28/05/2009
The Take Martina Cole
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Tough ladies dominate Martina’s gangland thrillers, ladies strong enough to stand up to violent men in a shady world …. most of the time. This is Martina’s twelfth East End, hard-hitting novel of grit, blood... Format: Paperback - Released: 16/04/2009
Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move back to the States for a few years, to let his kids experience life in another country, to give his wife the... Format: Paperback - Released: 01/08/1996
The Player of Games Iain M. Banks
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and... Format: Paperback - Released: 10/08/1989
Sleepyhead Mark Billingham
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
It's rare for a young woman to die from a stroke and when three such deaths occur in short order it starts to look like an epidemic. Then a sharp pathologist notices traces of benzodiazepine... Format: Paperback - Released: 30/09/2010
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Elizabeth Bennett is young, clever and attractive, but her mother is a nightmare and she and her four sisters are in dire need of financial security and escape in the shape of husbands. The arrival... Format: Paperback - Released: 30/08/2007
The Road Cormac Mccarthy
January 2012 Guest Editor Simon Lelic selects The Road...
Technically and philosophically, this is probably not McCarthy’s best book. His masterpiece, probably, is Blood Meridian – although I also love Child of God. And Outer Dark. And... Format: Paperback - Released: 01/06/2007
The Damned Utd David Peace
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
A fictionalised account of the brief period Brian Clough spent at Leeds United as manager. Even if football is not for you there is plenty to keep you turning the pages with a story of... Format: Paperback - Released: 05/04/2007
Room Emma Donoghue
One of our Great Reads you may have missed in 2011.
A 2012 World Book Night selection.
Winner of the Galaxy Paperback of the Year Award 2011.
This was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize but I believed at the time it would... Format: Paperback - Released: 07/01/2011
After the inaugural World Book Night on Saturday 5 March 2011 it's back for a second year, this time on 23 April 2012.
That evening one million books will be given away by libraries and by an army of 20,000 passionate book lovers (among them will be our very own Sarah Broadhurst) to members of the public across the UK and Ireland.
To find out more about what's happening or to register to become a 'Giver' at World Book Night 2012, simply visit the World Book Night website.
Categories
Jane Austen 
