7 Books Like Your Absence Is Darkness

'Exquisitely written ... Be prepared to be swept away on an incredible journey' Brad Thor, #1 bestselling author of Black Ice

'A story about magical maps that lead to your heart's desire [and] the people who would do anything to find them ... A vastly rich experience' Charles Soule, author of The Oracle Year

'Inventive' THE TIMES

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Termination Shock and Cryptonomicon, the first installment in a monumental new trilogy-an expansive historical epic of intrigue and international espionage, presaging the dawn of the Atomic Age.

Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn Rae Bjornberg is raised in post-Revolution Leningrad by her father, a party-line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora.

She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gun-running and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C. during the depths… show more.

With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The Stranger—Camus's masterpiece—gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. With an Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie; translated by Matthew Ward.

Behind the subterfuge, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life. 

“The Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Ward’s translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camus’s stoical anti-hero and ­devious narrator remains one of the key expressions of… show more.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle).

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if… show more.

Although Polish by birth, Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) is regarded as one of the greatest writers in English, and Heart of Darkness, first published in 1902, is considered by many his "most famous, finest, and most enigmatic story." — Encyclopaedia Britannica. The tale concerns the journey of the narrator (Marlow) up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian trading company. Far upriver, he encounters the mysterious Kurtz, an ivory trader who exercises an almost godlike sway over the inhabitants of the region. Both repelled and fascinated by the man, Marlow is brought face to face with the corruption and despair… show more.

WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2008

Balram Halwai is the White Tiger - the smartest boy in his village. His family is too poor for him to afford for him to finish school and he has to work in a teashop, breaking coals and wiping tables. But Balram gets his break when a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi. The city is a revelation. As he drives his master to shopping malls and call centres, Balram becomes increasingly aware of immense wealth and opportunity all around him, while knowing that he… show more.

The Nobel Prize winner's lyrical and disturbing portrait of love and the dark recesses of the human psyche

A Penguin Classic

A lone hunter accompanied only by his faithful dog, Aesop, Thomas Glahn roams Norway's northernmost wilds. Living out of a rude hut at the edge of a vast forest, Glahn pursues his solitary existence, hunting and fishing, until the strange girl Edvarda comes into his life.
Sverre Lyngstad's superb translation of Hamsun's 1894 novel restores the power and virtuosity of Hamsun's original and includes an illuminating introduction and explanatory notes.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the… show more.