It is 1948. Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of World War Two, her people putting defeat behind them and looking to the future. The celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, fills his days attending to his garden, his house repairs, his two grown daughters and his grandson; his evenings drinking with old associates in quiet lantern-lit bars. His should be a tranquil retirement. But as his memories continually return to the past - to a life and career deeply touched by the rise of Japanese militarism - a dark shadow begins to grow over his serenity. If you enjoyed An Artist of the Floating World, you might also like Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, now available in Faber Modern Classics.

The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff. Where had he come from? Nobody knows. How was he made? Nobody knows. Mankind must put a stop to the dreadful destruction by the Iron Man and set a trap for him, but he cannot be kept down. Then, when a terrible monster from outer space threatens to lay waste to the planet, it is the Iron Man who finds a way to save the world.

When private detective and former cop Henry Kimball is hired to investigate a cheating husband, he senses all is not quite what it seems, and before he knows it he's gotten far too close to the other woman. As the case rapidly gets ever more dangerous, he's forced to turn to the only person he can trust, the sociopathic Lily Kintner, the woman who once stabbed him, but with whom he shares a peculiar bond.