10 Greatest Romances from Past & Present
Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, only the second of Shakespeare's ten tragedies has become known throughout history as one of most powerful love stories ever told and has been the subject of countless renewals and adaptations.
This superior hardcover edition will transport you to fair Verona again and again... more
Me Before You
by Jojo Moyes
'What a wonderful, thoughtful and moving book. I was riveted all the way through. Absolutely loved it.' - Sophie Kinsella
Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.
What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane. Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that... more
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Now the subject of a major new film from director Baz Luhrmann, The Great Gatsby is F. Scott Fitzgerald's brilliant fable of the hedonistic excess and tragic reality of 1920s America.
Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby is the bright star of the Jazz Age, but as writer Nick Carraway is drawn into the decadent orbit of his Long Island mansion, where the party never seems to end, he finds himself faced by the mystery of Gatsby's origins and desires. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life, Gatsby is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled... more
The Rosie Project
by Graeme Simsion
The feel-good hit of 2013, The Rosie Project is a classic screwball romance.
Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. Then a chance encounter gives him an idea. He will design a questionnaire - a sixteen-page, scientifically researched document - to find the perfect partner. She will most definitely not be a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker or a late-arriver.
Rosie Jarman is all these things... more
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is the original romantic comedy, brimful of wit and wisdom. When the haughty and aristocratic Darcy refuses to dance with Elizabeth Bennett, she instantly dislikes him, despite his reputation as a wealthy and eligible bachelor. Are her first impressions correct, or is there more to Darcy than meets the eye? Sharply observed and sparklingly funny, this is one of the most delightful love stories ever written... more
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy
First published in the late 19th century, Anna Karenina, by famed Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of all time.
Chronicling the turbulent affair between Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky, Tolstoy weaves a parallel plot of self-discovery and a turn to religion by character Konstantin Levin that is thought to be autobiographical. The result is a tale of jealousy, faith, hypocrisy, passion and progress set amidst the social change occurring in Russia in the 1870s... more
Norwegian Wood
by Haruki Murakami
When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki.
Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past... more
The Notebook
by Nicholas Sparks
The love story to end all love stories.
How far can love endure? Noah Calhoun has just returned from World War Two. Attempting to escape the ghosts of battle, he tries to concentrate on restoring an old plantation home to its former glory. And yet he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met there fourteen years before, a girl who captured his heart like no other.
But when these distant memories begin to slide into reality, the passion that had lain still is ignited once more. Though so much is in their way, the miraculous force of their love refuses to fade... more
Holding the Man
by Timothy Conigrave
'A monumentally loved book... [and] an Australian classic.' - Benjamin Law
The mid-seventies: at an all-boys Catholic school in Melbourne, Timothy Conigrave falls wildly and sweetly in love with the captain of the football team.
So begins a relationship that weathers disapproval, separation and, ultimately, death. With honesty and insight, Holding the Man explores the highs and lows of any partnership, and the strength of heart both men have to find when they test positive to HIV. This is a book as refreshing and uplifting as it is moving; a funny and sad and celebratory account of growing up gay... more
Madame Bovary
by Gustave Flaubert
Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life.
An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and devastating consequences.
Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857... more