Books published by Vintage Publishing

A biography of Bruce Chatwin, based on private notebooks, diaries, letters and hundreds of interviews. It illuminates the many sides of Chatwin, from Sotheby's director, archaeologist, "Sunday Times" journalist and traveller to devoted husband and active gay, socialite and loner.

From the Booker Prize winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Commitments: the story of an ordinary woman whose extraordinary character will stay with you long after reading. 'He loved me and he beat me.

As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born: he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only by Sourdust, Lord of the Library.

Elegant, provocative and hugely entertaining, Kingsley Amis's memoirs are filled with anecdotes, experiences and portraits of famous friends, family, acquaintances (and a few eminent foes).

On 3 November 1996 sixteen sailors set out from the Bay of Biscay to embark on the Vendee Globe - a single-handed yacht race through the world's most treacherous and isolated seas. Of the sixteen starters only six completed the course, six others withdrew, three were plucked from sinking boats and one disappeared. This book deals with this race.

Explores the rich heritage of Bowie's productive and inspired decade, and traces the way in which his music reflected and influenced the world around him. This book examines in detail Bowie's audacious creation of an 'alien' rock star, Ziggy Stardust, and his increasingly perilous explorations of the nature of identity and the meaning of fame.

'Few disappointments compare to the loss of eternity...'Alice is going to live forever.

From the moment that Gjorg's brother is killed by a neighbour, his own life is forfeit: for the code of Kanun requires Gjorg to kill his brother's murderer and then in turn be hunted down. After shooting his brother's killer, young Gjorg is entitled to thirty days' grace - not enough to see out the month of April.

When middle-aged Martha and her husband George are joined by the younger Nick and Honey for late-night drinks after a party, the stage is set for a night of drunken recriminations and revelations. Battle-lines are drawn as Martha and George drag their guests into their own private hell of a marriage.

Edmund has escaped from his family into a lonely life. One by one his relatives reveal their secrets to a reluctant Edmund: illicit affairs, hidden passions, shameful scandals. And the heart of all, there is, as always, the family's loyal servant, the Italian girl.

In 1779, driven out of his home, Calum MacDonald sets sail from the Scottish Highlands with his extensive family. After a long, terrible journey he settles his family in 'the land of trees', and eventually they become a separate Nova Scotian clan: red-haired and black-eyed, with its own identity, its own history.

The way to a healthy life based on timeless knowledge that we have either forgotten or learned to ignore. Using the power of lunar cycles to strengthen yourself physically, mentally and emotionally.

Discover the adventures of David Boring in this electrifying new graphic novel from the author of Ghost WorldDavid Boring is a nineteen-year-old security guard with a tortured inner life and an obsessive nature.

The Hekes are a family in turmoil. A tyrannical, alcoholic, violent patriarch, an alcoholic, ever-trying-to-reform mother, and three degenerate children. Can the draw Maori ritual and tradition pull them back from the brink?

The quest for V. sweeps us through sixty years and a panorama of Alexandria, Paris, Malta, Florence, Africa and New York. as become a modern classic. This is the first novel by the author of Gravity's Rainbow, and a profoundly impressive and original work in its own right.

Among the Russians is a marvellous account of a solitary journey by car from St. Petersburg and the Baltic States south to Georgia and Armenia. A gifted writer and intrepid traveller, Thubron grapples with the complexities of Russian identity and relays his extraordinary journey in characteristically lyrical style.

This is a story of depression a condition that reduced William Styron from a person enjoying life and success as an acclaimed writer, to a man engulfed and menaced by mental anguish.

Meet the Wapshots of St Botolphs. and Moses's adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly. Tragic and funny, ribald and splendidly picaresque, and partly based on Cheever's adolescence in New England, The Wapshot Chronicle is a family narrative in the finest traditions of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry James

Long Day's Journey into Night was written in 1940 but not staged until 1956, after O'Neill's death. Unashamedly autobiographical, it is, as he puts it himself in the dedicatory note, 'a play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood', a harrowing attempt to understand himself and his family.

In 1992 the Venerable Palden Gyatso was released after thirty-three years of imprisonment by Chinese forces in Tibet. This powerful text is the story of his life and irrefutable testimony to the appalling suffering of the Tibetan nation at the hands of the Chinese.

Welcome to the charming town of Lost River - and an enchanting and unforgettable Christmas... When Oswald moves to the sleepy little town of Lost River he's not expecting to make friends - but one by one the eccentric inhabitants win his heart.

Viscount Medardo is bisected by a Turkish cannonball on the plains of Bohemia; These three vivid images are the points of departure for Calvino's classic triptych of moral tales, now published in one volume and all displaying the exuberant talent of a master storyteller.

Marcus Aurelius is the one great figure of antiquity who still speaks to us today, nearly 2,000 years after his death.

A modern homage to a proud, cosmopolitan city, where geniuses like Picasso and Miro learned how to break the rules. Robert Hughes takes us down the Ramblas through the "intestinal windings" of the ancient gothic quarter, past the bountiful Boqueria market to the Eixample.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MONICA ALIThe love affair between Maurice Bendrix and Sarah, flourishing in the turbulent times of the London Blitz, ends when she suddenly and without explanation breaks it off.

An award-winning historical novel exposing the scandals of eighteenth-century Denmark, weaving a wide range of historical characters from Voltaire to Catherine the Great to George IIIIt is the 1760s, the height of the Enlightenment.

After the brutal murder of his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, Octavian, a shy and scholarly youth of nineteen, suddenly finds himself heir to the vast power of Rome. He is destined, despite vicious power struggles, bloody wars and family strife, to transform his realm and become the greatest ruler the western world had ever seen.

A man gets up earlier and earlier each day, dresses in the dark, makes his coffee and lights the fire with a box of matches.

It is a fascinating and vivid introduction for readers new to Woolf, and a necessary companion for devotees. Includes 'A Haunted House', 'Kew Gardens', 'A Mark on the Wall' and 42 other pieces. Edited, with introductions and notes by Susan Dick. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HELEN SIMPSON

It is off-season in a remote Highland sea port: twenty-one-year-old Morvern Callar, a low-paid employee in the local supermarket, wakes one morning to find her strange boyfriend has committed suicide and is dead on their kitchen floor. Morvern's laconic reaction is both intriguing and immoral.