Allegra (Maureen Lipman) is full of joy. So much of it that she cannot stop herself from bursting into song. At home, in the street, even in shops and restaurants. Sometimes the music is only a fantasy in her head. But at other times, it results in a loud and disruptive performance that causes chaos in the village where she lives. Allegra's brother, Ronen, and her carer, Anna, must somehow control her eccentricities and avoid angry visits by the local policeman. But is this possible without destroying the great happiness that fills Allegra's heart?

I'll wait for you. Come back. Come back to me. On an English country estate during the blazing summer of 1935, 13 year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a passionate scene between her elder sister Cecilia and the son of their housekeeper, Robbie. In a disastrous desire for drama but only a dim understanding of its impact, Briony makes an accusation which will fatally alter Cecilia and Robbie's lives and many others too - for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone. Stretching from the 1930s through the Second World War to the present day, Ian McEwan's dazzling masterpiece was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and voted by Time Magazine and the Guardian as one of the 100 greatest novels of the past century.

Slaughterhouse-Five follows Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier who becomes "unstuck in time" after surviving the horrific 1945 firebombing of Dresden.Instead of living chronologically, Billy randomly flashes back and forward through the key moments of his existence.He experiences his capture in World War II, his mundane postwar life as a wealthy optometrist, and his abduction by a unique alien race.These four-dimensional aliens, the Tralfamadorians, exhibit him in an extraterrestrial zoo and teach him that all moments in time exist simultaneously.Ultimately, this non-linear journey serves as a powerful, satirical exploration of war trauma and human helplessness.