Showing titles in Coming of Age

Mei loses her Japanese mother at age six. Growing up in suburban Surrey, she yearns to fit in, suppressing both her heritage and her growing love for her best friend Fran. Yuki leaves the Japanese countryside to pursue her dream of becoming a concert violinist in London. Lonely and far from home, she finds herself caught up in the charms of her older teacher. Haruka attempts to navigate Tokyo's nightlife and all of its many vices, working as a hostess in seedy bars. She grieves a mother who hid so many secrets from her, until finally one of those secrets comes to light.

From a youthful infatuation with a cabinet maker in a small Italian fishing village, to a passionate yet sporadic affair with a woman in New York, to an obsession with a man he meets at a tennis court, Enigma Variations charts one man's path through the great loves of his life. André Aciman casts a shimmering light over each facet of desire, to probe how we ache, want, and waver, and ultimately how we sometimes falter and let go of the very ones we want the most.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr Byrne, her best friend James helps her devise a plan to seduce him. But what begins as a harmless crush soon pushes their friendship to its limits. Over the course of a year they will find their lives ever more entwined with the Byrnes' and be faced with impossible choices and a lie that can't be taken back...

When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it’s with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father. Sensitive, insecure and like a stranger to his family, Paul feels isolated and alone. When he meets the worldly Julian in his freshman ethics class, Paul is immediately drawn to his classmate’s effortless charm. Paul will stop at nothing to prove himself worthy of their friendship. But Julian is as volatile and cruel as he is charismatic, and Paul begins to suspect that he can never live up to what Julian expects of him.

Brought to you by Penguin. From internationally bestselling author John Boyne, an inescapably gritty story about one young man whose direction in life takes a vastly different turn than what he expected. It’s the tabloid sensation of the year: two well-known footballers standing in the dock...

Brought to you by Penguin. THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF BBC'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2024 'Hilarious, touching and hotly sublime' JULIA ARMFIELD 'Warm, witty and utterly idiosyncratic' ALICE SLATER 'Generous and tender' NEW YORK TIMES Siblings Greta and Valdin have, perhaps, too much...

Winner of the Whitbread Prize for best first fiction. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a coming-out novel from Winterson, the acclaimed author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. The narrator, Jeanette, cuts her teeth on the knowledge that she is one of God’s elect, but as this budding evangelical comes of age and comes to terms with her preference for her own sex, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household crumbles.

'MADELEINE GRAY IS A DAZZLING WRITER - A HUGE TALENT' GILLIAN ANDERSON 'BEAUTIFUL, DEVASTATING, HILARIOUS AND FULL OF LIFE' JESSICA STANLEY 'ALL KINDS OF GORGEOUSNESS' JENNIE GODFREY 'GRAY WRITES SO ACUTELY ABOUT THE MESS OF DESIRE AND THE HUMAN CONDITION' NIGELLA LAWSON Books about friendship...

Brought up in a devout household in Ireland, Jay is now living in London with her girlfriend, determined to live day to day and not think too much about either the future or the past. But when she learns that her beloved older brother, who died in a terrible accident, may be made into a Catholic saint, she realises she must at last confront her family, her childhood and herself . . .

The Bestselling Richard & Judy Summer Book Club Pick 2021 The Bestselling Radio 2 Book Club Selection ‘Tight, clever and riddled with wit. Like discovering Adrian Mole or Bridget Jones for the first time.’ Joanna Nadin, author of The Queen of Bloody Everything ‘A sweet, fizzy sherbet...

*LONGLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE BOOK AWARDS* 'A moving exploration of family, migration, class, queerness and belonging… beautifully rendered' JESSICA ANDREWS 'A deeply observant, perceptive writer' JOANNA CANNON 'Masterful' JJ BOLA 'Evocative, layered and emotionally resonant… deserves to be on...

Love is forbidden. Truth is dangerous. Survival is everything. 'An absolute masterpiece' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Ganymede’s is no ordinary boarding school. Behind its spiral towers and manicured lawns, boys are forged into the men society demands – strong, obedient, perfect. Graduate, and the world...

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 PEN/FAULKNER AWARD "Full of verve... Revelatory." —Los Angeles Times A dazzling and darkly comic novel of love, violence, and friendship in the California suburbs Bunny Lampert is the princess of North Shore⁠—beautiful, tall, blond, with a rich real-estate-developer...

Brought to you by Penguin. Sophisticated, mature and richly atmospheric, a debut novel about three young people navigating the risks and possibilities of intimacy For fans of André Aciman, Deborah Levy and the Penguin European Writers series Thora, August and Hugo come from different worlds -...

Vicky has been obsessed with death for as long as she can remember. From living above a Chinatown funeral parlour to working at a celebrity start-up for bespoke urns, she has surrounded herself with it - right down to the collection of zhizha paper creations meant to be burned for the dead, that fill her apartment. Yet, though living in Manhattan and working her dream job is all she ever wanted, she still struggles to form genuine connections and find meaning in her life outside of her best (and only) friend, Jen.

On the Sunday of his 18th birthday, in 1975, Colin takes a walk on Box Hill, a biker hang-out. There he accidentally trips over Ray, a biker napping under a tree - and that’s where it all starts. This transgressive, darkly affecting love story between men, winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize, is a stunning novel of desire and domination by one of Britain’s most accomplished writers.

'Extraordinary. I loved it' - Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist 'Engrossing and moving . . . gives voice to so much that's unspoken about Ireland' - Emma Donoghue, author of Room 'Wonderfully compelling . . . haunting' - Joseph O'Connor, author of Star of the Sea Delving into the lives of...

Brought to you by Penguin. A searing, sunlit debut about the powerful bonds that make and break an Iranian-American family Three young brothers leave Los Angeles in the dead of night for Iran, taken by their father from their mother to a country and an ancestral home they barely recognize. They...

Finalist for the 2026 LAMBDA Literary Award Finalist for the 2025 CALIBA Golden Poppy Award Longlisted for the 2026 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award "Jam-packed with queer angst and queer joy . . . and a truly incredible amount of heart. I devoured this novel." —Kristen Arnett, New York Times...

'Original, tender, thoughtful and true. Can't wait for people to read!' Reese Witherspoon 'Part tender coming of age story, part electrifying tale of political awakening, part heartfelt love letter to Deaf culture, True Biz is a wholly a wonder' Celeste Ng A transporting novel that follows a...