Transworld: 509 books

Set during the fall-out of the Cultural Revolution, these bizarre and delicate stories capture the collision of the old China of vanished dynasties, with communism and today's tiger economy. The mad woman on the bridge wears a historical gown which she refuses to take off. In the height of summer...

Tan Feng was my one and only friend in Sichuan. He was the same age as me: about eight or nine. Tan Feng's family lived next door to us, and their other kids were all girls, so you can imagine how they spoiled their only boy. They really adored him, but they didn't know what he got up to. Tan Feng...

'Wonderful' - Stylist 'Thoroughly addictive. I loved it.' - RUTH HOGAN, author of The Keeper of Lost Things 'Superb' - Louise O'Neill When Eva and Adam fall into bed one Friday night, tired and happy after drinks with friends, they have their whole lives ahead of them. But their story ends...

You don't expect some guy making small talk on a train to turn into a real friend, but that was just the kind of friend Papa Qi was. And afterwards, Saturday became Papa Qi's visiting day. Every Saturday. Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.`

Liverpool, 1976: Martha is lost. She’s been lost since she was a baby, abandoned in a suitcase on the train from Paris. Ever since, she’s waited in lost property for someone to claim her. It’s been sixteen years, but she’s still hopeful. Meanwhile, there are lost property mysteries...

Alas poor Yorick, he looks not at all well. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, though sadly finite breath. Though thy gibes be still, yet still thou grins. I seldom saw thy teeth look quite so clean To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, this is the fourth of...

Once they had been called Orrice and Effel, two bedraggled, scruffy waifs who lived rough off the streets of Walworth. Now they were Horrace and Ethel Cooper, grown up - quite respectable really - and living with their adopted parents, Jim and Rebecca Cooper. When Horrace saw the pretty girl...

When fiery Bridget Cummings advertised for a lodger, she did not expect a policeman to apply for the room. She wasn't fond of the coppers, believing them to be traitors to the poor of Whitechapel, but her younger brother and sister moved P.C.Fred Billings in the moment Bridget's back was turned, and...

Terry Pratchett's infamous city of Ankh-Morpork is under threat from a 60-foot fire-breathing dragon, summoned by a secret society of malcontented tradesmen. Defending Ank-Morpork against this threat is the entire, underpaid, undervalued City Night Watch - a drunken and world-weary Captain,...

‘I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.’ The most quotable writer of our time, Terry Pratchett’s unique brand of wit made him both a bestseller and an enduring, endearing source of modern wisdom. This...

Terry Pratchett takes Shakespeare's Macbeth and then turns it up 'till the knob comes off. It's all there - a wicked duke and duchess, the ghost of the murdered king, dim soldiers, strolling players, a land in peril. And who stands between the Kingdom and destruction? Three witches. Granny Weatherwax...

Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job. But when Mort is left in charge for an evening, he allows his heart to rule his head and soon the whole of causality and the future of the Discworld itself, are at risk. Along the way, Mort encounters not only Death's adopted...

Scarcely a year on from the events of Guards! Guards!, the Ankh-Morpork City Night Watch find their services are once more needed to tackle a threat to their city. A threat at least as deadly as a 60-foot dragon, but mechanical and heartless to boot. It kills without compunction. It is the first gun...

When Tom Fellows proclaims that a Venn diagram is a far better way of illustrating modern family ties than a traditional tree, his young daughter Andrea has no idea that he is referring to their own situation.It is only when she loses both parents in a shocking car accident that she takes an interest...