Travel around the world with a classic

Cervantes’s masterpiece begins in a village in La Mancha, Spain. Don Quixote, the noble knight-errant, and Sancho Panza, his faithful squire, set off on a thrilling adventure across sixteenth-century Spain. Widely regarded as the first modern novel, and tragic in places, Don Quixote is also considered to be one of the funniest books ever written. It’s satirical and witty, and Don Quixote is often bewildered by his surroundings (at one point he ‘unfortunately mistook an inn for a castle’) which makes reading this book an incredibly fun way of immersing yourself in the Spanish landscape. 

Adventure and intrigue are paired with the danger and bloodshed of the French Revolution, as an unnamed English aristocrat rescues other nobles from the guillotine. Their daring escapes take place right under the nose of guards and angry mobs. Across the Channel in Dover, a group of such nobles adjust to life in England and wish to thank their mysterious saviour. The expat socialite Marguerite St Just, a young French actress married to an English gentleman, is blackmailed by a group attempting to unmask France’s “most bitter enemy”: the secretive rescuer known only as the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel.’ Marguerite must decide whether to protect republican France or upper-class England. 

In Elizabeth Von Arnim’s charming novel, four women, hardly even acquaintances, see an advert in The Times for a beautiful medieval castle available to rent on the Italian Riviera. Even if they don't know each other very well, who could resist such promise of sparkling Mediterranean shores, gorgeous sunshine and an escape from dreary England? In this idyllic setting, these women, not without conflict, begin to get to know one another. The reflection inspired by their stunning surroundings means that they not only learn about each other, but they also begin to discover more about themselves. 

And now to Russia, a country so big it's considered part of both Europe and Asia. Nineteenth-century Russian high society is minutely examined in Tolstoy’s vivid novel. Set between the social hubs of Petersburg and Moscow, Anna Karenina’s story plays out in carriages, stately homes and the countryside. As gossip grows around Anna’s infidelity, judgmental eyes follow her around the city, badly affecting her status. Yet Anna’s lover Vronsky enjoys a relatively untainted reputation. Meanwhile Levin, an aristocratic proprietor of farmland, must balance inner-city social calls with the rhythm of his land and the labourers working on it. The social strata of imperial Russia are laid bare, and Tolstoy’s beliefs around land and social reform are explored through his characters.

Chinua Achebe's debut was first published in 1958. Set in the late nineteenth century, in the southeastern portion of what is now known as Nigeria, it's the story of Okonkwo, a great wrestler and warrior who accidentally kills a clansman. Exiled, when he eventually returns he finds his village full of missionaries and colonial governors, and this proud but powerless man is forced to watch the ruin of his people.

Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz's trilogy follows three generations of the same family, headed up by tyrannical patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Throughout the trilogy, the family’s trials mirror Egypt's turbulence during the first half of the twentieth century, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. 

When Irene unexpectedly reconnects with Clare, she learns that her mixed-race friend is now the wife of a racist white man. Clare has been passing for white; as a Black woman, Irene is horrified. As the Harlem Renaissance movement grows in New York City, celebrating Black cultural production, Clare becomes curious about Irene’s life. Irene lives in Harlem with her family, is married to a successful doctor, and wants to shield her young children from the reality of racism in America. As the two women’s lives intertwine, and suggestions of envy come to the fore, Nella Larsen’s novel interrogates racial identity and rampant classism in 1920s New York. 

Anthony Patch splits his time between the theatre, his New York apartment and taking girls to lunch. He meets beautiful flapper Gloria and rapidly falls in love. Egged on by the hedonistic atmosphere of a burgeoning Jazz Age, where underground nightclubs and speakeasies flouted America’s ban on alcohol, Gloria and Anthony party extravagantly in high-class circles. Amidst the nation’s influx of prosperity, the couple drink, argue and spend money to excess as war progressively looms; Anthony awaits a considerable inheritance from his wealthy grandfather. Yet after Anthony is drafted during the First World War, nothing remains of the couple’s previous happiness upon his return. 

Set in 1860s Massachusetts, community is the beating heart of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel. The March sisters and their mother, Marmee, battle fierce cold, poor health and poverty, but none of these things stand in the way of helping their neighbours. Though the sisters grow curious and begin to see the world – Jo visits New York and Amy is given the coveted opportunity to travel around Europe – their family home never loses its warmth and comfort. This novel is a slice of small-town nineteenth-century American life.

Ex-MI6 employee Graham Greene takes us to Cuba during the Cold War, a country suffering under the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman, is approached by a British Secret Service agent. Promised money in return for sending information to London, Wormold accepts, thinking of his daughter’s expensive tastes. But with nothing to report back, he begins to fabricate stories, which are taken seriously. As MI6 send him a secretary and aim to track down his supposed contacts, Wormold races against time to set things right. Against a very real background of Cuban instability and violence, Greene’s darkly funny tale shows up the absurdities of international espionage.

Set in Prince Edward Island, Canada, this is a classic children's book that's equally appealing to adult readers. When red-headed orphan Anne Shirley arrives at Green Gables, she feels sure she's found the home she has always longed for. Her new adoptive parents, the Cuthberts, are less certain – they had asked the orphanage for a boy to help them on their farm. But before long, Anne's irrepressible optimism and loving nature charms them. While her temper is unpredictable and her extravagant imagination makes her dreamily whimsical and prone to comic mishap, they come to love Anne as if she were their own child.

This is the story of one man’s quest for autonomy against the backdrop of post-colonial Trinidad. Mr Biswas has been told since the day of his birth that misfortune will follow him – and so it has. Meaning only to avoid punishment, he causes the death of his father and the dissolution of his family. Wanting simply to flirt with a beautiful woman, he ends up marrying her. But in spite of endless setbacks, Mr Biswas is determined to achieve independence, and so he begins the gruelling struggle to buy a home of his own.

This influential piece of magical realism by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez follows several generations of one family, living in the fictional town of Macondo. Blending politics and reality with fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is original and daring. 

To Brazil now and a gang of orphans and runaways, the captains of the sands, who pull off a series of heists and pranks against their privileged neighbours. When the public demands their capture, their fate creates a poignant, intensely moving drama of love and freedom.

A collection of short stories and essays showcasing one of Argentina's most influential and imaginative writers. Combining magic, murder mystery and philosophy, Borges is a head-spinning, exciting writer unlike anyone else.

Originally published in the sixteenth century, this is regarded as one of the 'four great classical novels of Chinese literature'. After taking his love of mischief too far, Monkey King is pinned beneath a mountain for five hundred years. Finally, he gets a chance to make up for it: protecting a monk on his pilgrimage in search of some precious Buddhist sutras. Accompanied by two other exiled immortals, he faces battles, monsters, and terrifying landscapes, in this gripping adventure and comic satire.

Set in Vietnam in the early 1950s, The Quiet American is narrated by a British journalist, Thomas Fowler, who has been reporting on the French war in Vietnam. It explores America's increasing involvement in the country via its three main characters: Fowler, Alden Pyle, an American CIA agent, and Phuong, a young Vietnamese woman. Sent to 'promote democracy', Pyle's naivety begins to cause serious harm, forcing Fowler to intervene – but not necessarily for selfless reasons.

Bakha is proud, and attractive, and he is also an Untouchable: the lowest rung of India's caste system; an outcast. Mulk Raj Anand's novel is a day in Bakha's life, evoking the trauma of such a system in vital, rich, eloquent detail.

All the short stories in this collection are set in the fictional town of Malgudi, in southern India. Narayan writes beautifully about people's everyday lives: we meet an astrologer, a snake-charmer, a postman, a pie-seller – all ordinary people made exceptional through skillful, vivid prose.

Written in 1901, when the author (real name Stella Miles Franklin) was still a teenager, this Australian classic focuses in sixteen year old Sybylla. Living on her parents' farm in the outback, she both loves her outdoor life and loathes it. Then her life is transformed by a move to her grandmother's house and an encounter with the rich and handsome Harry Beecham.

After a brutal experience in the Malayan jungle during the Second World War, Jean Paget is indebted to Joe Harman, an Australian soldier who helped her. In the chaos of the conflict, Jean is brutally torn away from Joe and assumes he has died. Discovering that this is not in fact the case, Jean travels to the Australian outback to find him. A story of courage and one woman’s strength in an unimaginable situation, A Town Like Alice takes us all over the world on a journey propelled by the search for lost love. 

This is the incredible first hand account of Shackleton's Endurance expedition. Trapped in ice en route to the South Pole, Shackleton's men are forced to abandon ship and try to escape on foot and in tiny open boats. Incredibly, thanks to their own strength, and Shackleton's leadership, they all made it back. 

The ship, Endurance, lay undiscovered beneath the ice for over a hundred years. Mensun Bound's The Ship Beneath the Ice tells the story of the two Arctic expeditions that found it again.