In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston Smith wrestles with oppression in Oceania, a place where the Party scrutinizes human actions with ever-watchful Big Brother. Defying a ban on individuality, Winston dares to express his thoughts in a diary and pursues a relationship with Julia.

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. In this world, the fates of two people, Tengo and Aomame, are closely intertwined. They are each, in their own way, doing something very dangerous. And in this world, there seems no way to save them both. Something extraordinary is starting.

Four of Ibsen’s most important plays in superb modern translations, part of the new Penguin Ibsen series.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, is a novel about Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, a Russian aristocrat who is condemned by Communists to spend the rest of his life confined in the Metropol, the capital’s most glamorous hotel.

A parent’s deeply moving love letter to a daughter who has always known exactly who she is.

His life was like his recurring nightmare: a train to nowhere. But an ordinary life has a way of taking an extraordinary turn. Add a girl whose ears are so exquisite that, when uncovered, they improve sex a thousand-fold, a runaway friend, a right-wing politico, an ovine-obsessed professor and a manic-depressive in a sheep outfit, implicate them in a hunt for a sheep, that may or may not be running the world, and eth upshot is another singular masterpiece from Japan’s finest novelist.

Murakami’s “After Dark” is about a young woman called Mari Asai who encounters several people in one night in downtown Tokyo. Through her interactions with these other characters, Mari is able to form a closer connection with her sister and also learn more about herself.