The Butterfly Lion

A moving story of enduring friendship, this is the award-winning favorite from a master storyteller. More

The Hours

Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award; made into an Oscar-winning film. More

Peace with God

First book from Billy Graham, said to be the most influential Christian voice of this century. More

Letter from C. S. Lewis

In this letter to Collins publisher Billy Collins, dated November 1954, C. S. Lewis—author of The Chronicles of Narnia series, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape Letters, among others—outlines what he sees as his three types of “literary output”: “A. Religious and General. B. Fiction. C. Academic.” More

Bernard Cornwell

Born in London in 1944, Bernard Cornwell grew up in Essex and, after a stint as a teacher, moved on to the BBC, where he took a job as a producer in Northern Ireland. More

Wolf Hall

Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. More

A Bear Called Paddington

In 1958, an editor at Collins named Barbara Ker Wilson received a manuscript submission about a talking bear, which she opened with “initial suspicion” —as the publisher had received many other proposals featuring humanized animals that “are invariably either whimsy-whamsy, written down, or filled with adult innuendoes.” More

The Woman in White

One of the earliest works of detective fiction, this story caused a sensation with readers at the time. More

Education and Publishing

Beginning in 1830, the Harper brothers believed that the increasingly literate populace might clamor for turnkey collections. More

The Alchemist

An inspirational phenomenon; one of the bestselling books in history. More

The Hobbit

In October 1936, Stanley Unwin, chairman of British publishers George Allen & Unwin (later acquired by HarperCollins), received a children’s book submission. More

Bel Canto

Patchett’s critically acclaimed novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. More

Sharon Kendrick

I read to remind myself of the power of words and what they’re capable of when the subtle alchemy of a good storyteller kick-starts the imagination and flies you into a different world. More

Gorky Park

First book in the Arkady Renko series, which became an instant bestseller and changed the crime fiction genre. More