Darkly funny and full of stubborn optimism, Quartet in Autumn is a classic. Showing Barbara Pym at her very best, it portrays the strange and wonderful quirks of everyday life.

In 1970s London, Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia work in the same office and suffer the same problem – loneliness.

Lovingly and with delightful humour, Barbara Pym conducts us through their day-to-day existence: their preoccupations, their irritations, their judgements, and – perhaps most keenly felt – their worries about having somehow missed out on life as post-war Britain shifted around them.

‘Spectacular’ – The Sunday Times
‘Quartet in Autumn is immeasurably her finest work of fiction’ – Evening Standard
‘Barbara Pym has a sharp eye for the exact nuances of social behaviour’ – The Times

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

Told from the perspective of five-year-old Jack, Emma Donoghue’s Room, is a devastating portrait of a boundless maternal love.

A major film starring Brie Larson.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Shortlisted for the Orange Prize.

Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real – only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until the day Ma admits that there’s a world outside . . .

Told in Jack’s voice, Room is the story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature.