Random House - Readers' Group

With Vintage's fabulous collection of fiction in translation your reading group will be spoilt for choice. Here are some of our favourites…

With his unique brand of surrealism and use of magical realism, Haruki Murakami's fiction is perfect for reading groups. Enter a world populated by people who can communicate with cats, vanishing elephants and a manic-depressive in a sheep costume.

The Oedipus motif and labyrinthine plot of Murakami's latest novel Kafka on the Shore will make for a lively discussion.

'How does Murakami manage to make poetry while writing of contemporary life and emotions? I am weak-kneed with admiration'
Independent on Sunday

For a sassy, street-wise dose of existentialism, why not try French author Michel Houellebecq. Atomised tells the tale of two brothers, one a sexually frustrated libertine and the other an idealistic molecular biologist, who are abandoned by their mother and raised by their grandmother. This social commentary, focusing on society's assumptions and blatant political incorrectness is by turns funny, acidic and touching.

Russian author Andrey Kurkov is a 'unique voice in post-soviet satire' (Amazon.co.uk reader review). Death and the Penguin and Penguin Lost are the Kafkaesque adventures of Viktor and Misha, the depressed penguin that Viktor adopts from Kiev zoo. Check out Kurkov's latest novel, A Matter of Death and Life, the tale of a man who plans his own demise at the hands of a hitman. Out in paperback in March 2006!

'Death and the Penguin was praised for its brutal humour, tender humanity and all-out guts. Penguin Lost is a sequel equally superlative and twice as readable'
Ink

'There is more magic in his realism than in a library of witches and wizards' Scotland on Sunday

'A psychological study of passion, degradation and guilt' (Financial Times), Margaret Mazzantini's Don't Move is the tense and moving confession of a father, taking place as his daughter lies comatose in a hospital bed. Seemingly a successful and happy man, Timoteo is hiding a story of squalor and deceit beneath the veneer of his charmed life.

'The opening chapters were gripping, and although I sat crying, I had to keep turning each page. I found myself drawn to the character Italia, and Mazzantini describes her so perfectly that it is impossible not to feel her pain. This is the kind of book that stays in your memory long after you have finished it, and leaves you feeling quite heavy with emotion.' Amazon.co.uk reader review

The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot by Carl-Johan Vallgren

Released in paperback in April 2006 is Carl-Johan Vallgren's dark, macabre and carnivalesque The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot. As the titles suggests, this is the story of a mind-reading monster called Hercules. But it is more than that - it is also the uplifting story of the love that develops between Hercules and his childhood friend Henriette. The novel's nineteenth century European setting and focus on themes of social oppression and religious persecution should make Horrific Sufferings the perfect treat for your reading group. Reading guide coming soon!

Set in the city of Danzig in 1945, Death in Danzig tells the tale of the lives of old and new inhabitants of this besieged city, moving in transition between old and new, life and death. Shortly to be made into a film, Death in Danzig is published in March 2006.

'A richly expressive novel of enforced cultural change in postwar Danzig...A beautiful book, and nothing about it is more sumptuously and expressively beautiful than Philip Boehm's translation' Guardian