Penguin Books

'A major work by one of our greatest living historians. . . an immense achievement' - Jane Graham, Big Issue'Astonishing. . . Like the great Russian novels, these testimonials ring with emotional truth' - Caroline Moorehead, GuardianExtraordinary stories about what it was like to be a Soviet child during the upheaval and horror of the Second World...

The New York Times bestselling book which examines how humans experience music and unravels the mystery of our perennial love affair with itUsing musical examples from Bach to the Beatles, Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer...

The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The first mention of espionage in world literature is in the Book of Exodus.'God sent out spies into the land of Canaan'. From there, Christopher Andrew traces the shift in the ancient world...

A story of forbidden sexual passion and thwarted dreams set against the backdrop of a lush summer in rural MassachusettsSeventeen-year-old Charity Royall is desperate to escape life with her hard-drinking adoptive father. Their isolated village stifles her, and his behaviour increasingly disturbs her. When a young city architect visits for the...

'The best Norwegian novel ever' Karl Ove KnausgaardMattis doesn't understand much about the world. He doesn't understand why others call him simple. Or why his sister Hege, who has cared for him in their peaceful lakeside cottage since they were young, gets so frustrated. But he knows that the woodcock which starts to fly over their house every day...

'It will be read and re-read not as a treatise but as a story: one of the most extraordinary that has ever been written of the origins of Western self-consciousness' Simon SchamaThe marriage of Cadmus and Harmony was the last time the gods of Olympus feasted alongside mortals. What happened in the distant ages preceding it, and in the generations...