Books published by Vintage Publishing

The great maritime state of Orsenna has long been lulled by settled peace and prosperity. It is three hundred years since it was actively at war with its traditional enemy two days' sail across the water, the savage land of Farghestan - a slumbering but by no means extinct volcano.

The Northmen's Fury describes how and why a region at the edge of Europe came to dominate and to terrorise much of the rest of the continent for nearly three centuries and how, in the end, the coming of Christianity and the growing power of kings tempered the Viking ferocity and stemmed the tide of raids.

The original self-help book: bestselling The Prophet takes the reader on an unparalleled spiritual and philosophical journeyThe time has come for the revered Prophet to leave Orphalese.

Eight months later, they board a plane to begin a new life in San Francisco, where Jack has found his dream job working on the Golden Gate Bridge. But this is not your average boy-meets-girl love story, for Jack's new job comes with an extraordinary obligation.

'The best thing you can be in Mexico is an ugly girl.'On the mountainside in rural Mexico where Ladydi lives, being a girl is dangerous. Because the stolen girls don't come back. Ladydi is determined to get out, to find a life that offers more than just the struggle to survive.

From the author of the Man Booker shortlisted The Quickening MazeIn the Wolf's Mouth follows the lives of four very different men, all of them navigating the chaos and horror brought about by the Second World War.

*As featured in a BBC documentary*Anna Del Conte is the doyenne of Italian cookery, beloved by food writers including Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith. Effortlessly stylish yet unfussy, they are the essence of any self-respecting Italian kitchen and provide the fundamentals of Italian cooking.

None longer than three pages, they rove, with hurtling changes of perspective, over myth, sex, science fiction, the Middle East, boredom, beauty, grossness, global history, childhood, music and death; yet a strange unity of purpose binds them into a coherent universe where lives are brief but great mysteries are glimpsed.

For Robert Jacklin - packed off without warning to boarding school in Zimbabwe - everything is terrifyingly new. As Robert is drawn slowly into Ivan's destructive web, he begins to question things he'd always held true and, as Ivan's grip tightens, he finds himself caught up in something far more dangerous than he could have imagined.

Since the 1990 publication of her first collection, Four Bare Legs in a Bed, Helen Simpson has been hailed as one of the best short story writers at work in the world today.

Dora and Luka are inseparable: ever since he fainted at the sight of her - walking into the classroom with her new schoolbag - and she woke him with a chaste kiss, it has been love at first sight.

My mother decided it was better to know I was in danger far from her; but on the way to a different future, than to know I was in danger near her; This is the heartbreaking, unforgettable story of his journey from Afghanistan to Italy in an attempt to find a safe place to live.

An enlightening anthology of George Orwell's journalism and non-fiction writing, showing his genius across a wide variety of genres. He brings together in one volume many of his articles and essays for journals and newspapers, his broadcasts for the BBC, and his book, theatre and film reviews.

Features a catwalk model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, and a loyal best friend. But when a sudden motor 'accident' leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful centre of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists.

This is a story about a snow-covered island you won't find on any map. It's the story of a girl, Minou. It's a story of how even the most isolated places have their own secrets. It's a story you will never forget.

Spiralling into an alcohol-fuelled depression after killing a man in the line of duty, Inspector Kurt Wallander has made up his mind to quit the police force for good.

Moving from Greek villages to Turkish towns, the author of Shadow of the Silk Road and Night of Fire provides a profound look into the people of Cyprus - from Orthodox monks to wedding parties to peasant families - against the landscape of a beautiful Mediterranean island on the eve of chaos and tragedy.

In Hooking Up Tom Wolfe ranges from coast to coast, observing the 'lurid carnival actually taking place in the mightiest country on earth in the year 2000' - everything from teenage sexual manners to how genetics and neuroscience are changing the way we regard ourselves.

London during Blitz was a time of hardship, heroism and hope. For the author - a budding ballerina - it was also a time of great change as she was evacuated from war-torn London to a crumbling mansion, where dance classes took place in faded ballroom. This book shows what life was really during hard years of Blitz and brings to life a lost world.

In the wasted ruins of London, a woman pieces together fragments of her memory. As her past emerges, her own apocalypse begins. Then is a novel of singular invention and bravery. With it, Julie Myerson has created an echo chamber of the heartbreaking and the terrifying, and an enduring dystopian vision.

The victim is found wearing a woman's t-shirt, while a bottle of Rohypnol lies on the table nearby. Detective Elinborg, already struggling to juggle family life and the relentless demands of her job, is assigned the case.

These can be tough lives of tough love and tough luck but they are full of poignancy and intensity, and Charles McLeod writes about them thrillingly.

Meet Jim Haskin. He runs his own San Francisco ad firm, American Weather. However, behind the scenes, Jim supports the old captains of American industry: bleach, beer, guns. One day Jim is asked to come up with something extra-special.

An autobiography of author who was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818. He describes his life as a slave - the cruelty he suffered at the hands of plantation owners; his struggles to educate himself in a world where slaves are deliberately kept ignorant; and ultimately, his fight for his right to freedom.

Beecher Stowe's vivid descriptions uncover the harrowing situations faced by slaves in Civil War America. When a Kentucky farmer faces financial ruin, he reluctantly sells his slaves, and Uncle Tom finds himself the property of a cruel plantation owner, fighting for his freedom and ultimately, for his right to live.

The Twite household, where Simon is lodging, seems particularly shifty. Before he even gets a chance to open his glistening new paints Simon stumbles right into the centre of a plot to kill the King. Will they save the king in time?BACKSTORY: Test your knowledge of Black Hearts in Battersea and play the name game.

You are crossing the Atlantic on a liner with your boyfriend who may or may not be planning to propose. You are fleeing the past - your ex-lover Arthur, the man who helped you dupe the vulnerable into believing loved ones were trying to make contact from beyond the grave.

The Grey Among The Green is John Fuller's eleventh collection, and his first since Selected Poems 1954-1982. Generally acknowledged to be the most accomplished and influential poet of his generation, John Fuller is always brilliantly in command of a dazzling diversity of themes and moods.

Born into an East Anglian royalist family in 1623, young Margaret Lucas went into Court service, accompanying the Queen, Henrietta Maria, to Oxford during the Civil War and sharing her hair-raising escape to France in 1644. This title tells us the story of Margaret Cavendish.

Nelson: A Dream of Glory is the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched account ever written of Horatio Nelson's rise to international fame. Giving us the private as well as the public man, it combines ground-breaking scholarship with a brilliantly vivid and compelling style.