1
of
1
Appointment in Samarra
Series: Cletham Classics
Brief Description
It begins with a drink thrown in a moment of anger—public, irreversible, and instantly understood. From that point on, everything closes in. Business relationships sour, social standing slips, money tightens, and the small evasions that once held life together stop working. What follows unfolds over just...
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3299
Unit price
/
Unavailable
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER
Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 3-4 weeks
Found a better price? Request a price match
Appointment in Samarra
$3299
Unit price
/
Unavailable
Latest News
Vanya Insull (aka VJ Cooks) visits Book Hero
We were lucky to have a visit from popular foodie, home cook and baker Vanya...
Is the newest Jack Reacher one of the best?
Our favourite crime solving, bad guy beating nomad is back and Lizzy and Edd were...
Heartstopper's Alice Oseman visits Book Hero
We were so excited to have Alice come to visit Hero HQ, as huge fans...
Shirl and Lizzy Review The Starving Bride
Catherine Chidgey does it again with another incredible novel that will have people talking for...
New Releases to add to your TBR this week (19th October)
One of my favourite sci-fi authors has a new book that I cannot wait to...
See moreAppointment in Samarra is a novel about pressure and about how little it takes for a life built on appearances to come apart.
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
It begins with a drink thrown in a moment of anger—public, irreversible, and instantly understood. From that point on, everything closes in. Business relationships sour, social standing slips, money tightens, and the small evasions that once held life together stop working.
What follows unfolds over just a few days, with a precision that makes every misstep feel both accidental and inevitable. Appointment in Samarra is a novel about pressure and about how little it takes for a life built on appearances to come apart.
O’Hara writes without flourish and without relief. He offers no grand catastrophe, only a sequence of recognisable choices, each narrowing the field until there is nowhere left to go.
Series: Cletham Classics
View all-
Bel Ami
The rise of a scoundrel. The anatomy of a world. In Bel Ami, Guy de Maupassant delivers a razor-sharp portrait of a man who climbs the social ladder not by virtue, talent, or labour—but by charm, seduction, and sheer opportunism. Georges Duroy begins with nothing: a handsome face, a military past, and the hunger to rise. What follows is a...Paperback$3399Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
North and South
When Margaret Hale is uprooted from the quiet gentility of southern England and thrust into the industrial tumult of Milton, a northern mill town, her world fractures. Confronted with striking workers, choking factories, and a proud, implacable mill owner named John Thornton, Margaret must reckon with her deepest convictions about justice, class, power, and love. First published in 1854, North...Paperback$4199Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Jacob's Room
Virginia Woolf's third novel is an unconventional literary portrait of its title character—an awkward but strangely fascinating young man coming of age in the years leading up to the First World War—that is pervaded throughout by a sense that "nobody sees any one as he is". Jacob's Room marks a radical departure from the conventions of realist fiction by seeking...Paperback$3099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
White Fang
Life is struggle. From the howling wilderness of the Yukon to the brutal arenas of man, White Fang is Jack London's savage and sublime masterpiece of survival, adaptation, and transformation. Half wolf, half dog, White Fang is born into a world of ice, hunger, and violence—a creature of pure instinct shaped by the merciless laws of nature. But when he...Paperback$8000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
Pharos and Pharillon
Pharos and Pharillon is one of E. M. Forster's most unusual works, and also one of his most personal. It takes the form of a series of impressionistic "sketches" of the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Beginning with brief, deftly drawn narratives of Alexandria's ancient origins and its central role in the development of Christianity, it then proceeds to give a...Paperback$2699Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
The Rover
Joseph Conrad's last completed novel is a masterpiece of narrative tension and psychological insight. Set in the late eighteenth century and centred around the morally ambiguous figure of Captain Peyrot—a seafarer returning to France in the wake of the revolutionary Terror—The Rover presents a compelling vision of a life lived outside of law and social convention. Like much of Conrad's...Paperback$3799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Victoria
Victoria is among Knut Hamsun's best-loved works—an incisive study of the coercive power of economic and social forces that is also renowned for its innovative and psychologically probing narrative techniques. Hamsun stages in riveting detail the ill-fated relationship between the novel's hero, Johannes, and the eponymous Victoria. When Victoria is driven to make a financially advantageous marriage to the son...Paperback$2699Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
On the Margin
The essays that appear in On the Margin are a testimony to the polymathic reach of Aldous Huxley's intellect, as well as to the relish with which he entered into some of his more surprising enthusiasms. As perceptive and assured in discussing the art of the advertisement and the limericks of Edward Lear as he is in expounding on the...Paperback$3099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Love and Other Stories
Anton Chekhov's short stories are an extraordinary record of life in nineteenth-century Russia. Encompassing small-town coffin-makers, socially mobile Orthodox bishops, and wealthy Muscovite adulterers, the tales featured in Love and Other Stories are at once bleakly ironic and profoundly humane in their depiction of their subjects. These beautifully translated works demonstrate why Chekhov's short fiction has achieved universal acclaim: when...Paperback$3399Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Appointment in Samarra
It begins with a drink thrown in a moment of anger—public, irreversible, and instantly understood. From that point on, everything closes in. Business relationships sour, social standing slips, money tightens, and the small evasions that once held life together stop working. What follows unfolds over just a few days, with a precision that makes every misstep feel both accidental and...Paperback$3299Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Sanctuary
A young woman disappears into a world where the law does not reach. Abduction, violence, and trial, all unfold with terrible clarity and no relief. Nobody intervenes, no one answers, nothing is repaired. Sanctuary exposes a system that continues to function even as it ceases to protect. Institutions hold their shape but their force is gone. Power acts freely. Consequence...Paperback$8000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
The Maltese Falcon
A priceless object. A handful of people willing to lie, betray, and kill for it. And at the centre, a man who knows exactly what everyone is doing—and how far he is willing to go himself. The Maltese Falcon strips the detective story to its core: not the solving of a crime, but the negotiation of a world where nothing...Paperback$3299Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781971559483
Publisher: Eris
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 29 September 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Eris
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 107.0mm
Height: 177.0mm
Weight: 300g
Pages: 224
About the Author
John O’Hara (1905–1970) wrote with a clarity that bordered on mercilessness. No ornament, no consolation. Only the exact pressures of class, ambition, and self-destruction. With his first novel, he produced one of the most precise accounts of social and personal collapse in American fiction.
More from General Fiction
View all-
Yesteryear
A BOLD AND BITING SATIRE. WILL HAVE YOU GASPING TO THE FINAL PAGE — Nita Prose WICKEDLY FUNNY, BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND FRIGHTENINGLY PERCEPTIVE — Abigail Dean INVENTIVE, ADDICTIVE, A WILD RIDE — Ashley Audrain SHOT THROUGH WITH HUMOUR AND LACED WITH DARKNESS — Clare Mackintosh The Stepford Wives meets The Handmaid's Tale — Hannah Deitch My name was Natalie Heller...Paperback$2500Elsewhere:$3699Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
Theo of Golden
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING PHENOMENON'For anything to be truly good, there must be love in it. Nothing is what it's supposed to be if love is not at the core.' One morning, a stranger arrives in the town of Golden. No one knows who he is or where he came from…His name is Theo and he's arrived there by chance –...Paperback$2500Elsewhere:$3499Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
17% offThe Wedding People
'BEST READ OF THE YEAR SO FAR' THE TIMES 'BOOKS AS FUN AS THIS ONE ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN' GUARDIAN Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel in Rhode Island wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mistaken for one of the wedding people — but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall...Paperback$2000Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
New ReleaseThreshing Day
The next book in the blockbuster Empyrean series, Threshing Day contains thirteen stories starring your favorite characters and their dragons. The deluxe first edition includes sixteen beautiful original full-color illustrations by artist Joe Requeza. Rebecca Yarros is the #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over twenty novels, including Fourth Wing and In the...Hardback$6999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
New ReleaseChain Reaction
Jack Reacher, \"the coolest continuing series character\" (Stephen King), returns in a brand new, pulse-pounding read from Lee and Andrew Child. The world’s bestselling hero is back in a brand new, high-octane adventure! ‘She knew that finding Reacher would not be easy . . .’ Washington DC. General Susan Turner needs help from the only guy she knows will get...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3800Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
A Court of Thorns and Roses Paperback Box Set (5 books)
All five of the Court of Thorns and Roses paperbacks packaged together in a gorgeous box set. "Passionate, violent, sexy and daring." —USA TODAY on A Court of Thorns and Roses Feyre is a huntress. The skin of a wolf would bring enough gold to feed her sisters for a month. But the life of a magical creature comes at...Set$9999Elsewhere:$12495Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
A Court of Mist and Fury
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas continues Feyre Archeron's epic journey in the world of the High Fae. Having survived the brutal trials under the Mountain, Feyre returns to the Spring Court. Though she now possesses the immortal powers of the High Fae, the traumatic experiences have left scars on her human heart. Haunted by the...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$2299Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
New ReleaseThreshing Day
The next book in the blockbuster Empyrean series, Threshing Day, contains thirteen stories starring your favourite characters and their dragons. The deluxe first edition includes sixteen beautiful original full-colour illustrations by artist Joe Requeza and silver-gilded edges. *while stock lasts. Discover the beloved world of the record-breaking, multi-million-copy bestselling series where power always demands a price, secrets darken every hallway,...Hardback$4999Elsewhere:$5500Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
A Court of Thorns and Roses
The first instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON and TikTok sensation, from multi-million selling and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas. Maas has established herself as a fantasy fiction titan – Time Harry Potter magic, Taylor Swift sass, Fifty Shades-level athleticism – The Sunday Times With bits of Buffy, Game of Thrones and Outlander, this is a glorious series...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$2299Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
A Court of Wings and Ruin
The third instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas. In A Court of Wings and Ruin, the gripping third book of the ACOTAR series, Feyre Archeron faces the ultimate battle for her world. Having returned to the Spring Court, she is determined to gather...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$2299Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
A Court of Frost and Starlight
In A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas, readers are invited to revisit the enchanting world of Prythian in a heartwarming and introspective narrative. Set against the backdrop of the Winter Solstice, Feyre Archeron and her mate Rhysand return to centre stage as they strive to restore the Night Court after the devastating conflicts of A Court...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$2299Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow -
Limited EditionA Court of Silver Flames - Night Court Edition
The magic and beauty of the Night Court is captured in these LIMITED EDITIONS of the Court of Thorns and Roses series! This Night Court Edition features the Night Court symbol on a striking black and silver foiled cover and includes black sprayed edges. The latest instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million...Paperback$2500Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips tomorrow
Why buy from us?
Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!
Service & Delivery
Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.
Auckland Bookstore
We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.
Our Gifting Service
Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.
General Fiction lists from the team
Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!
-
![]()
![]()
![]()
Lizzy's listGeneral Fiction
Fiction about Fathers
Here are some incredible stories that explore various angles of fatherhood and father figures in the most poignant and wonderful ways. Featuring...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![]()
Lizzy's listGeneral Fiction
What to read now you've watched The Odyssey
Contemporary fiction, classical non-fiction, feminist retellings, and inspired stories that would make for an interesting read now that you're obsessed with The...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![]()
Kevin's listGeneral Fiction
The Odyssey & Trojan War Classics (and Retellings)
Long before Christopher Nolan turned it into a blockbuster in the summer of 2026, The Odyssey was the original epic. After a...View the list -
![Tsubaki Stationery Store]()
![]()
![]()
Lizzy's listGeneral Fiction
Have You Tried ... Healing Fiction
Healing Fiction is a relatively new genre still finding it's place, and yet people are reaching for it without realizing, desperate for...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![]()
Lizzy's listGeneral Fiction
Lizzy's Favourite Picks for Winter Reading
These are the books that Lizzy loves to read in Winter, or that feel like Winter. A combination of fiction, some non-fiction,...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![]()
Shirl's listGeneral Fiction
Shirl's Favourite Books of 2026
The first half of 2026 has been packed with brilliant books, making it hard to choose favourites but here are a few...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![]()
Lizzy's listGeneral Fiction
Books to Escape a Reading Slump
A reading slump can be a frustrating feeling and hard to break out of, but we've gathered together a list of crowd...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![Star Shipped]()
Lizzy's listGeneral Fiction
Lizzy's Pride Fiction Picks!
June marks Global Pride Month so in case you're looking for your next great fiction read, here's a list of some of...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![]()
Lizzy's listGeneral Fiction
Readers’ Top 100 Novels of All Time - from The Guardian
There was some controversy when The Guardian released their critics and authors list of the top 100 novels of all time, but...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![]()
Lizzy's listGeneral Fiction
Seasonal Reads - 10 Books for Autumn
If you haven't tried seasonal reading, Lizzy thinks you should. It's a way to romanticizing the current season rather than trying to...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![]()
Hannah's listGeneral Fiction
Gothic Reads for Dark Nights
With the advent of movie adaptations like Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein, it looks like pop culture is seeing a revival of the...View the list -
![]()
![]()
![]()
General Fiction
The 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Winners
Celebrate all the winners of the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Explore the powerful fiction of Ingrid Horrocks' 'All Her Lives',...View the list
