Genteel life at 'the 'Big House' continues while the Irish War of Independence rages beyond the gates, but for how long? Read Elizabeth Bowen's accessible feminist take on the Irish aristocracy With an introduction by Victoria Glendinning The Irish troubles rage, but up at the 'Big House', tennis parties, dances and flirtations with the English officers continue, undisturbed by the ambushes, arrests and burning country beyond the gates. Faint vibrations of discord reach the young girl Lois, who is straining for her own freedom, and she will witness the troubles surge closer and reach their irrevocable, inevitable climax.

The fourth novel by Elizabeth Bowen, described by the Guardian as 'One of the last century's greatest woman writers' Cecilia, capricious and unable to love, inches reluctantly towards a second marriage to the kind, passionless Julian Tower. Meanwhile, her sister-in-law, Emmeline, is surprised to find the calm tenor of her life disturbed by her attraction to the predatory Mark Linkwater. Markie's appearance disrupts the lives of both women, but in the pain of misunderstanding, it is Emmeline who reveals her vulnerability in a violent and tragic act.

Widely known for her extraordinary novels, including The Last September, The Death of the Heart and The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) surpassed even herself as a writer of short fiction. 'The supreme genius of her time, writes John Banville in his introduction; 'There is not a story in this substantial volume ... that is not brought off beautifully.' There are seventy-nine stories in all, amongst them of course such well-loved classics as 'Mysterious Kor', 'The Demon Lover', 'Summer Night', 'Ivy Gripped the Steps' and 'The Happy Autumn Fields'. Written over four decades, they range in setting from the County Cork of the author's Anglo-Irish childhood to bomb-ravaged London where she coolly sat out World War II, every scene evoked with vivid and impeccable artistry. Children, frustrated lovers and even ghosts inhabit her tales with an urgency and emotional complexity, which make it clear that the drama of human consciousness is her central subject. Rich in social comedy, penetrating in their psychological insight, perfect in their craft, these stories firmly stake Bowen's claim to be considered one of the greatest English writers of the twentieth century.

The first novel from one of the twentieth century's most admired and stylish writers It's the balmy days of the 1920s and where could be more pleasant for a holiday than a hotel on the Italian Riviera? Filled with prosperous English visitors, the Hotel offers a closed world of wealth and comfort. It also provides the stage for the display of social niceties, for passionate but unspoken love affairs and for the comedy of the shared bathroom. With great wit and insight Elizabeth Bowen's first novel lays bare the intricacies and eccentricities of polite society.

Celebrated for her much-admired novels, including The Heat of the Day and The Death of the Heart, Bowen established herself in the front rank of the century's writers equally through her short fiction. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. N. WILSON Throughout these seventy-nine stories - love stories, ghost stories, stories of childhood, of English middle-class life in the twenties and thirties, of London during the Blitz - Elizabeth Bowen combines social comedy and reportage, perception and vision in an oeuvre which reveals, as Angus Wilson affirms in his introduction, that 'the instinctive artist is there at the very heart of her work'.

When sixteen-year-old Portia is orphaned she is plunged into the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home. There she encounters the attractive cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and he fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal - and sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.

A tense thriller of suspicion, betrayal and espionage set in wartime London It is wartime London, and the carelessness of people with no future flows through the evening air. Stella discovers that her lover Robert is suspected of selling information to the enemy. Harrison, the British intelligence agent on his trail, wants to bargain, the price for his silence being Stella herself. Caught between two men and unsure who she can trust, the flimsy structures of Stella's life begin to crumble.

A timeless masterpiece of nuance and atmosphere that represents the very best of Bowen's work. When eleven-year-old Henrietta arrives at the Fishers' residence in Paris, little does she know what fascinating secrets the house itself contains. Henrietta finds that her visit coincides with that of Leopold, an intense child who has come to Paris to be introduced to the mother he has never known. In the course of a single day, the mystery surrounding Leopold, his parents, Henrietta's agitated hostess and the dying matriarch in bed upstairs, come to light slowly and tantalisingly.

Frank Sinatra: September Of My Years [LP]. 1 LP. A1 The September Of My Years 3:12, A2 How Old Am I? 3:30, A3 Don't Wait Too Long 3:04, A4 It Gets Lonely Early 2:57, A5 This Is All I Ask 3:03, A6 Last Night When We Were Young 3:33, A7 The Man In The Looking Glass 3:25, B1 It Was A Very Good Year 4:25, B2 When The Wind Was Green 3:22, B3 Hello, Young Lovers 3:41, B4 I See It Now 2:50, B5 Once Upon A Time 3:30, B6 September Song 3:30

Martin Amis first wrote about September 11 a week later in a piece for The Guardian beginning, 'It was the advent of the second plane, sharking in low over the Statue of Liberty: that was the defining moment.' He has kept returning to September 11, in essays and reviews, and in two remarkable short stories, 'In the Palace of the End' and 'The Last Days of Muhammad Atta'. All are collected here, together with an expanded account of his travels with Tony Blair in 2007 - to Belfast, to Washington, and to Baghdad and Basra. 'We are arriving at an axiom in long-term thinking about international terrorism,' he writes: 'the real danger lies, not in what it inflicts, but in what it provokes. Thus by far the gravest consequence of September 11, to date, is Iraq... Meanwhile, September 11 continues, it goes on, with all its mystery, its instability, and its terrible dynamism.'

When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet. Soon the two were inseparable and their diverse, comic and occasionally dangerous adventures would transform both their lives, slowly healing the scars of each other's troubled pasts.........................................................................

When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet. Soon the two were inseparable and their diverse, comic and occasionally dangerous adventures would transform both their lives, slowly healing the scars of each other's troubled pasts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet. Soon the two were inseparable and their diverse, comic and occasionally dangerous adventures would transform both their lives, slowly healing the scars of each other's troubled pasts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Stories of Motherhood gathers together more than a century of short fiction from a wide variety of authors in a literary celebration of the most elemental of human relationships. Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Sherwood Anderson, Elizabeth Bowen, Anita Desai, Colm Toibin, Lorrie Moore and many others write memorably about mothers – having, leaving, loving and losing them – in stories lyrical and satirical, realistic and fantastic, hilarious and heartbreaking.

'I think few of the stories in Loss will leave readers cold...' Victoria Hislop, bestselling author and champion of the short story, has chosen her favourite short stories by women writers. Here are prizewinners, famous wits, well-known feminists, national treasures and rising stars. All the stories in this volume are about loss: lost lives, lost loves, lost innocence, even a lost leopard. The many ways in which loss touches our lives are shown in these varied stories. Contributors: Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Bowen, Dorothy Parker, Shirley Jackson, Flannery O'Connor, Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Rhys, Anna Kavan, Muriel Spark, Ellen Gilchrist, Penelope Fitzgerald, Lorrie Moore, Hilary Mantel, Susan Hill, Colette Paul, Yiyun Li, Helen Simpson, Edna O'Brien, Edith Pearlman, Emma Donoghue, Carrie Tiffany and Lucy Wood.

R. K. Narayan is one of India's most valued and adored twentieth-century novelists. He takes his place alongside Graham Greene, Elizabeth Bowen and Chekhov in the pantheon of twentieth-century greats. Krishna, an English teacher in the town of Malgudi, nagged by the feeling he's doing the wrong work, is nonetheless delighted by his domestic life, where his wife and young daughter wait for him outside the house every afternoon. Devastated by the death of his wife, Krishna comes to realise what he really wants to do, and makes a decision that will change his life forever.