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Swashbuckling historical fiction from the author of I, Claudius. “A cleverly balanced mixture of spice, fact, humor and adventure on and off the high seas” (Kirkus Reviews). Set in the Age of Exploration, The Islands of Unwisdom tells the story of the ill-fated Don Álvaro de Mendaña y Neyra, a Spanish explorer set on finding the Solomon Islands, the mythical source of King Solomon’s vast wealth. Driven by greed, ambition, and lust, Don Álvaro and his wife, the beautiful and dangerous Ysabel, lead a crew of adventurers beyond the horizon in search of the wealth of their wildest dreams.

"A novel of raw human longing... His stripped-down prose focuses on the deeply personal with precision and insight... Selvadurai's work reminds me that the contemporary novel doesn't necessarily have to resort to thrills or high jinks in order to find its usefulness.

Like Francis Prescott in The Rector of Justin, Guy Prime enjoyed the distinction of having become a legend in his lifetime. But in Guy's case, the legend is one of betrayal and infamy. For the scandal of his embezzlement brought down the delicately balanced structure of the Stock Exchange. The long-honored system of self-government by mutual trust among gentlemen came to an end with the default of one of its brightest stars. The story of Guy's fall is told by the three persons most intimately concerned: Guy himself, Rex Geer, his closest friend, and Angelica, his wife.

This classic novel is the story of what happens when an idealistic, fiercely honest young man tries to reconcile Roman Catholic dogma with the realities of America of the 1940s. In this brilliantly comic and pungent tale, Lardner dissects the thought control of the McCarthy era, business ethics, racial intolerance, repressive sexual attitudes, the Manhattan nightclub set, "enlightened" penology, vigilantism, and other social phenomena.

One of the great German writers of the 20th century draws from his own life to present a "brave, fearless, and honest" tale of one man's dark descent into depression and alcoholism (The Sunday Times, London). This astonishing, autobiographical tour de force was written by Hans Fallada in an encrypted notebook while he was incarcerated in a Nazi insane asylum. Discovered after his death, it tells the tale-often fierce, often poignant, often extremely funny-of a small businessman losing control as he fights valiantly to blot out an increasingly oppressive society.

A cat may look at a king, says an old proverb. The king is the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, whose fabled court at Versailles was the wonder of Europe; the cat is the watchful chronicler, Louis de Rouvroy, second duc de Saint-Simon, author of the famous Memoirs which are the definitive record of Louis' reign. Auchincloss has conceived his novel as an extension of the Memoirs, in which Saint-Simon reveals his own story-as well as a great deal about the private lives of the great and near-great that did not find its way into the published record.

Lucan has been orphaned and Zosine has been deserted, and London is a hostile place for two young girls without a home. Bound together by poverty, grief and their shared years at school, they set out to make a future for themselves in new surroundings. They are adopted by the austere, puritanical Reverend Pennhallow and his wife, and in their large, gloomy house they become immersed in study. But, after a chain of disturbing events, it does not take long before they realize that the cleric and his wife are not all they seem to be ...

An exhilarating search to recover the greatest work of art plundered during World War II. The gripping sequel to Florian's Gate.

Winner of the Shorts Award for Americana Fiction A debut collection of genre-bending short histories and novellas spanning 16th- through early 20th-century. Through a historian's lens and folkloric storytelling, the pieces in Shoot the Horses First revel in the nuances, brutality, mythology, and tiny victories of our historical past. A launderer takes us inside the linens of the richest families in early Baltimore. A child on the Orphan Train has his teeth inspected like a horse. Civil War soldiers experience PTSD.

"Suspenseful, touching, and beautifully written." - Margaret George, New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth I. "A gorgeous, emotional book. An important, and timely, American story." - Karin Tanabe, author of The Diplomat's Daughter. France, October 1944. A Japanese American war hero has a secret. A secret so awful he'd rather die than tell anyone - one so entwined with the brave act that made him a hero that he's determined never to speak of the war. Ever.