Penguin The Land Where Lemons Grow Attlee Helena

When Dubliner Derek Scally goes to Christmas Eve Mass on a visit home from Berlin, he finds more memories than congregants in the church where he was once an altar boy. Not for the first time, the collapse of the Catholic Church in Ireland brings to mind the fall of another powerful ideology - East German communism. While Germans are engaging earnestly with their past, Scally sees nothing comparable going on in his native land. So he embarks on a quest to unravel the tight hold the Church had on the Irish • He travels the length and breadth of Ireland and across Europe, going to Masses, novenas, shrines and seminaries, talking to those who have abandoned the Church and those who have held on, to survivors and campaigners, to writers, historians, psychologists and many more

This is the story of an old English manor house by the sea, with crumbling chimneys, draping ivy and a library full of dusty hardbacks. It's the story of the three children who grow up there, and the adventures they create for themselves while the grown-ups entertain endless party guests • This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, fiercely determined to do things differently • But as the children grow to adulthood, another story has been unfolding in the wings. And when the war finally takes centre stage, they find themselves cast, unrehearsed, into roles they never expected to play

Connie McCabe longs for the summer where she spends the days leading tours across the continent • But it's on the glamorous shores of Lake Como where she is truly swept away, when Jared, a much younger man, falls for her • Despite resisting his advances, Connie finds that he's got under her skin • And so begins a long, hot, intoxicating summer where Connie succumbs to temptation - breaking her marriage vows • At the end of the season, Connie returns home to her husband, ready to put this affair behind her • But Jared has other ideas

And the Land Lay Still is the sweeping Scottish epic by James Robertson • And the Land Lay Still is nothing less than the story of a nation. James Robertson's breathtaking novel is a portrait of modern Scotland as seen through the eyes of natives and immigrants, journalists and politicians, drop-outs and spooks, all trying to make their way through a country in the throes of great and rapid change. It is a moving, sweeping story of family, friendship, struggle and hope - epic in every sense • The winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award 2010, And the Land Lay Still is a masterful insight into Scotland's history in the twentieth century and a moving, beautifully written novel of intertwined stories

"... slowly uncoiling their tentacles... and making a soft purring sound to each other." This is a disgusting account of a school of giant squid attacking a seaside resort, and two other examples of Wells' extraordinary imagination at work - The Magic Shop and The Land Ironclads. This is one of 46 new books in the best-selling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants

What if the one you tried to forget is the one you can't live without? • Stella once thought that if she never saw Jack again, it would be too soon • But life has other plans for her and her stubborn, handsome ex-husband • Looking after their daughter in a time of need, Stella finds herself unwillingly reunited with the man she shared the best years of her life with - followed by the worst • Where tragedy once tore them apart, now Stella and Jack are being drawn back together. But each of them has a new partner and a new life • Should they fight temptation? • Should the past remain the past? • Or are some loves simply meant to be?

A superb new translation by Michael Hofmann of some of Kafka's most frightening and visionary short fiction • Strange beasts, night terrors, absurd bureaucrats and sinister places abound in this collection of stories by Franz Kafka. Some are less than a page long, others more substantial; all were unpublished in his lifetime. These matchless short works range from the gleeful miniature horror 'Little Fable' to the off-kilter humour of 'Investigations of a Dog', and from the elaborate waking nightmare of 'Building the Great Wall of China' to the creeping unease of 'The Burrow', where a nameless creature's labyrinthine hiding place turns into a trap of fear and paranoia

Some love stories change us for ever • For the last seven years, Mary O'Connor has waited for her first love. Every evening she arrives at Ealing Broadway station and stands with a sign which simply says: 'Come Home Jim' • Commuters might pass her by without a second thought, but Mary isn't going anywhere. Until an unexpected call turns her world on its head • It will take the help of a young journalist called Alice, and a journey across the country for Mary to face what happened all those years ago, and to finally answer the question: where on earth is Jim?

Abducted, beaten, hidden in an attic, a young woman stages an audacious escape. But is her story everything she claims it to be? • Fifteen-year-old Betty Kane can recall every detail of the room where she says she was held at the country house known as The Franchise - even the crack in its round window. But her alleged kidnappers, a quiet-living mother and daughter, claim they have never seen her before. Somebody has to be lying. But who? As the case sparks a media frenzy, it is up to unassuming village solicitor Robert Blair to find out

Told for the very first time, this is the shocking and extraordinary story of the most-conniving and manipulative Tudor family you've never heard of • Was the House of Dudley out to steal the throne? • This was the question on the mind of Elizabeth I's courtiers when a forbidden book accused generations of the Dudley family of poisonings, plottings, murders, treason, incitement and other 'evil stratagems.' • For decades, the Dudleys had been close to the throne, rising from nobodies to the land's highest offices • Under Henrys VII and VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and, finally, Elizabeth, they risked execution and imprisonment as they audaciously stole, murdered and swindled in the name of the monarch • But were they loyally protecting the crown, or did they secretly covet it for themselves?

When the Department - faded since the war and busy only with bureaucratic battles - hears rumour of a missile base near the West German border, it seems like the perfect opportunity to regain some political standing in the Intelligence market place. The Cold War is at its height and the Department is dying for a piece of the action • Swiftly becoming carried away by fear and pride, the Department and her officers send deactivated agent Fred Leiser back into East Germany, armed only with some schoolboy training and his memories of the war. In the land of eloquent silence that is Communist East Germany, Leiser's fate becomes inseparable from the Department's

When the Department - faded since the war and busy only with bureaucratic battles - hears rumours of a missile base near the West German border, it seems the perfect opportunity to regain some standing in the Intelligence world. Desperate for glory and determined to outdo their rivals at the Circus, including George Smiley, they send deactivated agent Fred Leiser back into East Germany, armed only with some schoolboy training and his memories of the war. In the land of eloquent silence that is Communist East Germany, Leiser's fate is no longer his own • Showing men carried away by fear and pride, The Looking Glass War is a powerful, moving story of human frailty