Item category 2: Classic Fiction

Originally published in Arabic in 1956-7, this is the first part of 'The Cairo Trilogy' by the 1988 Nobel Prize winner. It tells the story of an Egyptian family in pre-war Cairo and offers an insight into the mores of Muslim culture.

'The Way by Swann's' is one of the great novels of childhood, depicting the impressions of a sensitive boy of his family and neighbours, brought back to life by the famous taste of a madeleine.

This is the third part of 'The Cairo Trilogy', by the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. It is an Egyptian family saga featuring the bullying, pompous patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmed and his long-suffering family. This book takes the family into the middle of the 20th century.

June 1940 was the summer of defeat for France's soldiers, deserted by their officers, utterly demoralized, awaiting the Armistice. Day by day, hour by hour, this novel unfolds what men thought, felt and did as France fell.

Naipaul follows the fortunes of Mr Biswas, the outsider who refuses to conform to the customs of his grander in-laws whose house he lives in. Finally finding a house of his own, he triumphs over the smaller minds who would repress him.

Johanna Oakley's lover, Mark, has gone missing in suspicious circumstances and the man who was meant to deliver Mark's last gift to her, a string of pearls, has gone missing too - last seen entering the barber-shop of Sweeney Todd!

In this novel, characters old and new share their varied experience of 'coupledom' ranging from the bleak despair of the Maclinticks' union, to the steady and supportive relationship of Nicholas and Isobel.

Following the lives of over 300 characters, this celebration of life in twentieth-century England highlights the strain, absurdities and preoccupations of a country at war.

Sweeping from the stiff feathers and frocks of London in the 1880s, to the end of the roaring 20s, this series is an addictive story of the triumphs and sorrows of the Forsytes, a family both fiercely loyal and heartbreakingly divided.

Sweeping from the stiff feathers and frocks of London in the 1880s, to the end of the roaring 20s, this series is an addictive story of the triumphs and sorrows of the Forsytes, a family both fiercely loyal and heartbreakingly divided.