Forty-year-old university professor Stuart Treece is rather set in his ways, and in the midst of the changing attitudes of the '50s, his encounters with the younger generation are making him feel decidedly alien. When he falls disastrously in love with one of his students all his efforts to acclimatize are hilariously undermined. Timeless and brilliant, Eating People is Wrong is Malcolm Bradbury's first novel, and established him as a master of satire.

Slaka! Land of lake and forest, of beetroot and tractor. Slaka! Land whose borders are sometimes here, often further north, and sometimes not at all! Dr Petworth is on a cultural exchange to the small (and fictional) Eastern European country of Slaka. Pallid and middle-aged, Dr Petworth might appear stuffy, but during his short stay he manages to embroil himself in the thorny thickets of sexual intrigue and love, while still finding time to see the major sites. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1983, Rates of Exchange took Bradbury's satirical gifts to a new level.

To the Hermitage tells two stories. The first is of the narrator, a novelist, on a trip to Stockholm and Russia for an academic seminar called the Diderot Project. The second takes place two hundred years earlier and recreates the journey the French philosopher Denis Diderot made to Russia at the invitation of Catherine the Great, a woman whose influence could change the path of history . . . Malcolm Bradbury's last novel is rich with his satirical wit, but it is also deeply personal and weaves a wonderfully wry self-portrait.

Frustrated novelist James Walker is setting off for the heartland of America to reinvigorate himself after years spent living a drab life in a drab English city. The institution for which he is destined, Benedict Arnold University – 'Take a BA at BA' – is still in the grip of McCarthyism, but Walker soon discovers that certain members of BA's academic staff insist that he throws himself right into the swing of things . . . Characterized by Bradbury's trademark satirical wit, Stepping Westward expertly explores the push-pull relationship of '60s modernism and '50s reservation.