'It's about time British readers discovered the wit and originality of David Foenkinos' Jonathan Coe, author of Bournville A magical imagining of the fate of a fictional boy whose life is shaped forever when he loses out on the role of Harry Potter.It's 1999. Martin Hill is ten years old, crazy about Arsenal and has a minor crush on a girl named Betty. Then he makes it to the final two in the casting for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In the end, the other boy is picked for the role of a lifetime. A devastated Martin tries to move on with his life. But how can he escape his failure, especially when it's the most famous film series in the world? Foenkinos's smash-hit Second Best is a playful, poignant story about fate, loss and how the lives we wish we'd led might not be all they're cracked up to be . . .

The first book in the Walter Presents library: a fast-paced comic mystery enriched by a deep love of booksReaders always find themselves in a book, one way or anotherIn the small town of Crozon in Brittany, a library houses manuscripts that were rejected for publication: the faded dreams of aspiring writers. Visiting while on holiday, young editor Delphine Despero is thrilled to discover a novel so powerful that she feels compelled to bring it back to Paris to publish it.The book is a sensation, prompting fevered interest in the identity of its author – apparently one Henri Pick, a now-deceased pizza chef from Crozon. Sceptics cry that the whole thing is a hoax: how could this man have written such a masterpiece? An obstinate journalist, Jean-Michel Rouche, heads to Brittany to investigate.By turns funny and moving, The Mystery of Henri Pick is a fast-paced comic mystery enriched by a deep love of books - and of the authors...

A disillusioned Parisian writer finds inspiration in the ordinary lives of his neighbours, the Martins. 'A wonderful surprise' L'Express Is it true that every life is the stuff of novels? Or are some people just too ordinary?This is the question a struggling Parisian writer asks when he challenges himself to write about the first person he sees when he steps outside his apartment. Secretly hoping to meet the beautiful woman who occasionally smokes on his street, he instead sets eyes on octogenarian Madeleine. She's happy to become the subject of his project, but first she needs to put her shopping away...Wondering if his project is doomed to be hopelessly banal, he soon finds himself tangled in the lives of Madeleine's family. Though calm on the surface, the Martins have secrets, troubles and woes, and the writer discovers that the most compelling story is that of an ordinary...

He was passing by, she kissed him without thinking. Now she wonders whether she did the right thing. But Natalie isn't certain of anything anymore. One minute she was a happily married young woman, successful in her career, and convinced the future was full of promise. But when her husband was run over by a car, her whole world was turned upside down. Years later, still bruised with grief but desperate to move on with her life, she impulsively kisses her colleague Marcus.For Natalie, the kiss is just a gratuitous act. For the awkward, unassuming Marcus, it is the moment at which he falls hopelessly, helplessly in love. But how will he ever convince such a beautiful, intelligent but confused young woman that he is the man who can bring her back to life?

Internationally literary phenomenon, multiple award-winner, and massive bestseller with over 500,000 copies in print in France and rights sold in 20 countries, Charlotte tells the story of artist Charlotte Salomon—born in pre-World War II Berlin to a Jewish family traumatized by suicide.Obsessed with art, and with living, Charlotte attended school in Germany until it was too dangerous to remain, fled to France, and was interned in a bleak work camp from which she narrowly escaped. Newly free, she spent two years in almost total solitude, creating a series of autobiographical art—images, words, even musical scores—that together tell her life story. A pregnant Charlotte was killed in Auschwitz at the age of 26, but not before she entrusted her life's work to a friend, who kept it safe until peacetime. The result, an extraordinary novel avant la lettre, was eventually published as Life? or Theatre? (and now reissued by Overlook), a unique, relentlessly...

Having collected, among other things, cocktail sticks, electoral campaign badges, paintings of moored ships, rabbits' feet, noises at five in the morning, Croatian maxims, staircase ornaments, the first pages of novels, the labels on melons, birds' eggs, moments with you, hangmen's nooses, Hector falls in love. It's the way she washes windows that does it for him. And so begins his new infatuation, a collection (and recollection) of beautifully observed moments spent observing his wife's every move. 'The story of a kleptomaniac whose desire to rid himself of his mania drives him to extraordinary lengths. Funny, poignant and, in places, unexpectedly romantic. An absolute must-read.' Independent 'Absurd, funny, eccentric... this little world has seduced critics, filmmakers and an ever-larger public.' Le Monde 'A book worthy of Woody Allen.' Glamour 'David Foenkinos is in a league of his own. If we had to find his counterparts on the world stage, they would be Philip Roth and Thomas...