When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, 11-year-old Roland Baines' life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.

MACHINES LIKE ME takes place in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first synthetic humans and --- with Miranda's help --- designs Adam's personality. The near-perfect human that emerges is beautiful, strong and clever. It isn't long before a love triangle soon forms, and these three beings confront a profound moral dilemma.

Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous life, he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation, he is the most powerful man in Britain --- and it is his mission to carry out the will of the people. Nothing must get in his way: not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy.

Trudy has been unfaithful to her husband, John. What’s more, she has kicked him out of their marital home, a valuable old London town house, and in his place is his own brother, the profoundly banal Claude. The illicit couple have hatched a scheme to rid themselves of her inconvenient husband forever. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy’s womb. As Trudy’s unborn son listens, bound within her body, to his mother and his uncle’s murderous plans, he gives us a truly new perspective on our world, seen from the confines of his.

Two days after her husband of 30 years tells her he plans to have an affair, Fiona Maye, a High Court judge who regrets her childlessness, must decide whether or not to grant a hospital’s emergency request to give a blood transfusion to a 17-year-old boy dying of leukemia. He and his parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses who have refused the treatment on religious grounds. McEwan’s latest novel is a powerful reminder that one’s actions often have unforeseen repercussions.

Two days after her husband of 30 years tells her he plans to have an affair, Fiona Maye, a High Court judge who regrets her childlessness, must decide whether or not to grant a hospital’s emergency request to give a blood transfusion to a 17-year-old boy dying of leukemia. He and his parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses who have refused the treatment on religious grounds. McEwan’s latest novel is a powerful reminder that one’s actions often have unforeseen repercussions.

Set in 1972 during the Cold War, England's legendary intelligence agency MI5 embarks on an operation code-named "Sweet Tooth" to fund writers whose politics align with those of the government. Cambridge student Serena Frome is hired to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer named Tom Haley. But when she begins to fall in love with him, she wonders how long she can conceal her undercover life.

Ian McEwan's symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose.