Black Swan

First published in 1985, The Cider House Rules is John Irving's sixth novel. Set in rural Maine in the first half of this century, it tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch--saint and obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Cloud's, ether addict and abortionist. It is also the story of Dr. Larch's favorite orphan, Homer...

It's 1979 and Linda Tyler is an assistant cook, engaged to a bank clerk in a sleepy town called Withingdean, when she answers an ad in a music paper. Suddenly, she gets the job that everyone else in England wants. Within weeks, her life changes beyond recognition. She finds herself in London, working as a journalist on NWW, a punk and New Wave...

Seven o'clock on a Monday morning, five hundred years after the End of the World, and goblins had been at the cellar again. Maddy Smith has always been an outsider. In a world ruled by the harsh and puritanical Order, she is shunned for the strange birthmark on her left hand. For this is no ordinary birthmark - it is a runemark, a sign of the old...

In the Fall 2004 Fashion supplement to Time magazine, writer Joel Stein confessed he has "no idea why so many women are into" shopping. After he proclaims to hate the activity, he goes off for a shopping spree with two expert shoppers, hoping to garner some inside understanding of "why" women do it. By day`s end he says, "I am starting to...

Former tiffinboy Ram Mohammad Thomas has just got twelve questions correct on a TV quiz-show to win a cool one billion rupees. But he is brutally slung in prison on suspicion of cheating. Because how can a kid from the slums know who Shakespeare was, unless he is pulling a fast one. In the order of the questions on the show, Ram tells us which...

This week the first pet passports came into effect. Around the country dogs have been hopping into photo booths and trying to look as relaxed as possible, which is not easy when you know you're not allowed on the chair.Gathered here are the best of John O'Farrell's newspaper columns for the Guardian and the Independent which saw him win the coveted...