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The Beach House
by Jane GreenNumber one bestseller Jane Green - author of Straight Talking and Mr Maybe - tells a heart-warming story of life, family and relationships in her captivating novel The Beach House.Nan, a widow whose family has flown the nest, is an independent, free-spirited woman who couldn't care less what people think about her living alone in her beloved beach house. But when she discovers that money is running out and she might lose her home, she knows it's time for a drastic change. Nan decides to rent out rooms for the summer and people start moving into the house, filling it with noise, laughter and tears. Among them is Daniel, a recently divorced father, who's struggling to find out who he really is, and Daff, the single mother of a truculent teenager who blames her mother unreservedly for her parents' divorce. As the house comes to life again, Nan finds her family growing. Her son comes home for the summer and an unexpected visitor turns up, turning all their lives upside down . . .Compelling, absorbing and poignant, The Beach House is a story of friendship, love and those moments that can change your life.
The Fellowship: The Story of a Revolution
by John GribbinFrom the bestselling author of Science: A History comes the enthralling story of a revolution that shook the world. Seventeenth-century England was racked by civil war, plague and fire; a world ruled by superstition and ignorance. A series of meetings of 'natural philosophers' in Oxford and London saw the beginning of a new method of thinking based on proof and experiment. John Gribbin's gripping, colourful account of this unparalleled time of discovery explores the impact of the Royal Society, culminating with Isaac Newton's revolutionary description of the universe and Edmund Halley's prediction of the return of a comet in 1759. This compelling book shows the triumph not as the work of one isolated genius, but of a Fellowship.
Berlin: The Downfall: 1945 (Isis Series)
by Antony BeevorTHE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER'RECOUNTS, IN HARROWING DETAIL AND WITH FORMIDABLE SKILL, THE BRUTAL DEATH-THROES OF HITLER'S REICH AT THE HANDS OF THE RAMPAGING RED ARMY' Boyd Tonkin, Independent'Makes us feel the chaos and the fear as if every drop of blood was our own . . . compellingly readable, deeply researched, and beautifully written' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Spectator'An irresistibly compelling narrative, of events so terrible that they still have the power to provoke wonder and awe' Adam Sisman, Observer'A masterpiece' Michael Burleigh, Guardian'Brilliant. Combines a soldier's understanding of war's realities with a novelist's eye for detail' Orlando Figes, Sunday Times'Startling, chilling, compelling. Beevor's writing burns like a torch at night in a landscape of ruins' LiteraryReview'Powerful, diligently researched and beautifully written . . . even better than Stalingrad' Andrew Roberts, Mail on SundayThe Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Reich in January 1945. Political instructors rammed home the message of Wehrmacht and SS brutality. The result was the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known, with tanks crushing refugee columns under their tracks, mass rape, pillage and destruction. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or were massacred because Nazi Party chiefs, refusing to face defeat, had forbidden the evacuation of civilians. Over seven million fled westwards from the terror of the Red Army.Antony Beevor reconstructs the experiences of those millions caught up in the nightmare of the Third Reich's final collapse, telling a terrible story of pride, stupidity, fanatacism, revenge and savagery, but also one of astonishing endurance, self-sacrifice and survival against all odds.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead: First Complete Translation (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
by Thupten Jinpa Gyurme Dorje Graham ColemanThe most graceful English translation of this masterpiece of world literature - prepared with the participation of the Dalai Lama and eminent contemporary masters of this traditin appointed by the Dalai LamaOne of the greatest works created by any culture and one of the most influential of all Tibetan Buddhist texts in the West, The Tibetan Book of the Dead has had a number of distinguished translations, but strangely all of these have been partial abridgements. Now the entire text has not only been made available in English but in a translation of quite remarkable clarity and beauty. A comprehensive guide to living and dying, The Tibetan Book of the Dead contains exquisitely written guidance and practices related to transforming our experience in daily life, on the processes of dying and the after-death state, and on how to help those who are dying. As originally intended this is as much a work for the living, as it is for those who wish to think beyond a mere conventional lifetime to a vastly greater and grander cycle.'Extraordinary ... this work will be a source of inspiration and support to many' His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Arctic Drift: Dirk Pitt #20 (The Dirk Pitt Adventures #20)
by Clive Cussler Dirk CusslerArctic Drift sees Clive Cussler's greatest hero, Dirk Pitt, fighting his enemies in the cruel Arctic.A foundered Victorian ship looking for the fabled Northwest Passage holds a secret in its icy grave . . . When Dirk Pitt of NUMA is almost blown to pieces in a lab explosion, he suspects sabotage. The lab in question belongs to a scientist hoping to use a rare mineral to combat greenhouse gases - but who would want to destroy our one chance to save the planet?But there are those who will do anything to control such a valuable prize. Pitt's investigations take him to the Arctic in search of a clue to the origins of this precious mineral. There he and NUMA colleague Al Giordino must battle for survival against the hostile elements and an evil megalomaniac who is about to plunge the North American continent into war . . .Arctic Drift is a white-knuckle ride of a novel that once picked up you won't want to put down. It is the twentieth of Clive Cussler's bestselling Dirk Pitt novels - the series that also includes Raise the Titanic!and his first novel, Mayday - and is co-authored with his son Dirk Cussler. Praise for Clive Cussler: 'Clive Cussler is hard to beat' Daily Mail
Exterminator! (Penguin Modern Classics)
by William S. BurroughsA man, dispirited by ageing, endeavours to steal a younger man’s face; a doctor yearns for a virus that might eliminate his discomfort by turning everyone else into doubles of himself; a Colonel lays out the precepts of the life of DE (Do Easy); conspirators posthumously succeed in blowing up a train full of nerve gas; a mandrill known as the Purple Better One runs for the presidency with brutal results; and the world drifts towards apocalypses of violence, climate and plague. The hallucinatory landscape of William Burroughs’ compellingly bizarre, fragmented novel is constantly shifting, something sinister always just beneath the surface.
A Confession and Other Religious Writings
by Leo Tolstoy Jane KentishDescribing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession (1879) is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty. By the time he was fifty, Tolstoy had already written the novels that would assure him of literary immortality; he had a wife, a large estate and numerous children; he was 'a happy man' and in good health - yet life had lost its meaning. In this poignant confessional fragment, he records a period of his life when he began to turn away from fiction and aesthetics, and to search instead for 'a practical religion not promising future bliss, but giving bliss on earth'.
Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Arthur MillerIn the spring of 1948 Arthur Miller retreated to a log cabin in Connecticut with the first two lines of a new play already fixed in his mind. He emerged six weeks later with the final script of Death of a Salesman - a painful examination of American life and consumerism. Opening on Broadway the following year, Miller's extraordinary masterpiece changed the course of modern theatre. In creating Willy Loman, his destructively insecure anti-hero, Miller himself defined his aim as being 'to set forth what happens when a man does not have a grip on the forces of life.'
Giovanni's Room: Early Novels And Stories - Go Tell It On The Mountain; Giovanni's Room; Another Country; Going To Meet The Man (Penguin Modern Classics #Vol. 17)
by James Baldwin Caryl Phillips'Exquisite, a feat of fire-breathing, imaginative daring' GuardianDavid, a young American in 1950s Paris, is waiting for his fiancée to return from vacation in Spain. But when he meets Giovanni, a handsome Italian barman, the two men are drawn into an intense affair. After three months David's fiancée returns and, denying his true nature, he rejects Giovanni for a 'safe' future as a married man. His decision eventually brings tragedy. Filled with passion, regret and longing, this story of a fated love triangle has become a landmark of gay writing. James Baldwin caused outrage as a black author writing about white homosexuals, yet for him the issues of race, sexuality and personal freedom were eternally intertwined.'If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one' Michael Ondaatje'Baldwin writes of these matters with unusual candour and yet with such dignity and intensity' The New York Times'Violent, excruciating beauty' San Francisco Chronicle
Molesworth: A Guide To Sukcess For Tiny Pupils, Including All There Is To Kno About Space (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Philip Hensher Geoffrey Willans Ronald SearleSchool is 'wet and weedy', according to Nigel Molesworth, the 'goriller of 3B', 'curse of St Custard's' and superb chronicler of fifties English life. Nothing escapes his disaffected eye and he has little time for such things as botany walks and cissy poetry with an assortment of swots, snekes and oiks. Instead he is very good at missing lessons, charming masters and putting down little brothers, in fact he is exceptional at most things except spelling. Wildly funny and full of sharp observations on life, the ‘Molesworth tetralogy’ is magnificently complemented by the illustrations of Ronald Searle
Twilight of Idols and Anti-Christ: Or How To Philosophize With A Hammer (Cambridge Texts In The History Of Philosophy Ser.)
by Friedrich Nietzsche R. J. Hollingdale Michael Tanner'Twilight of the Idols', an attack on all the prevalent ideas of his time, offers a lightning tour of his whole philosophy. It also prepares the way for 'The Anti-Christ', a final assault on institutional Christianity. Both works show Nietzsche lashing out at self-deception, astounded at how often morality is based on vengefulness and resentment. Both reveal a profound understanding of human mean-spiritedness which still cannot destroy the underlying optimism of Nietzsche, the supreme affirmer among the great philosophers.
A Bit on the Side (Bride Series)
by William TrevorA Bit on the Side - Twelve remarkable stories by the master storyteller William Trevor'Compassionate, poignant, even heart-rending. Almost perfect works of art by perhaps the greatest short story writer now working in English' Sunday IndependentWilliam Trevor is truly a Chekhov for our age. In these twelve stories, a waiter divulges a shocking life of crime to his ex-wife; a woman repeats the story of her parents' unstable marriage after a horrible tragedy; a schoolgirl regrets gossiping about the cuckolded man who tutors her; and, in the volume's title story, a middle-aged accountant offers his reasons for ending a love affair. At the heart of this stunning collection is Trevor's characteristic tenderness and unflinching eye for both the humanizing and dehumanizing aspects of modern urban and rural life.If you enjoyed The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer, you will love this book. It will also be adored by readers of Colm Toibin, George Saunders and James Joyce. 'A treat ... each meditate[s] on the subject of love - adulterous, unspoken, clandestine, sometimes cruel. Whether set in rural Ireland or London, their pages whisper of relished secrets and dreams foolishly clung to' Mail on SundayWilliam Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.
The Marsh Arabs
by Wilfred Thesiger Jon Lee AndersonDuring the years he spent among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq Wilfred Thesiger came to understand, admire and share a way of life that had endured for many centuries. Travelling from village to village by canoe, he won acceptance by dispensing medicines and treating the sick. In this account of his time there he pays tribute to the hospitality, loyalty, courage and endurance of the people, describes their impressive reed houses, the waterways and lakes teeming with wildlife, the herding of buffalo and hunting of wild boar, moments of tragedy and moments of pure comedy, all in vivid, engaging detail.Untouched by the modern world until recently, these independent people, their way of life and their surroundings have suffered widespread destruction under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Wilfred Thesiger's magnificent account of his time spent among them is a moving testament to their now threatened culture and the landscape they inhabit.
Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Tales
by Bram StokerAlthough Bram Stoker is best known for his world-famous novel Dracula, he also wrote many shorter works on the strange and the macabre. This collection, comprising Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories, a volume of spine-chilling short stories collected and published by Stoker's widow after his death, and The Lair of the White Worm, an intensely intriguing novel of myths, legends and unspeakable evil, demonstrate the full range of his horror writing. From the petrifying open tomb in 'Dracula's Guest' to the mental breakdown depicted in 'The Judge's House' and 'Crooken Sands', these terrifying tales of the uncanny explore the boundaries between life and death, known and unknown, animal and human, dream and reality.
Handbags And Gladrags
by Maggie AldersonEmily Pointer would rather jog naked through Harvey Nichols' beauty hall than be seen with last season's handbag. A fashion stylist with Chic magazine, Emily is a natural blonde, a effortless size 10, travels the world for work and gets 30% discount at Prada. As far as she's concerned, life is perfect.So surely a night of wild sex with a hunky Australian photographer during the fashion show season in Milan will be just another fabulous experience to add to the package? Instead, Emily starts to discover that life can be messy- and the designer clothes in your closet can be squeezed out by the skeletons lurking in there too. From the bestselling author of Pants on Fire and a former magazine editor herself, comes the delicious tale of a woman who was kidding herself that another Birkin bag was all she needed to achieve fulfilment.
Maharanis: The Lives and Times of Three Generations of Indian Princesses
by Lucy MooreIn Maharnis Lucy Moore brilliantly recreates the lives of four princesses - two grandmothers, a mother and a daughter - of the Royal courts of India. Their extraordinary story takes in tiger hunts, exotic palaces and lavish ceremonies in India, as well as the glamorous international scene of the Edwardian and interwar era. It is also an intimate portrait of four remarkable women - Chimnabai, Sunity, Indira and Ayesha - who changed the world they lived in. Through their lives Lucy Moore tells the history of a nation during an era of great change: the rise and fall of the Raj from the Indian Mutiny to Independence and beyond.
Shattered (Francis Thriller #39)
by Dick FrancisShattered is a classic novel from Dick Francis, one of the greatest thriller writers of all time.Cheltenham Races, New Year's Eve. Gerard Logan witnesses the death of his close friend, jockey Martin Stukely, after a fall from his horse. In the aftermath, Gerard is left to pick up the pieces - including a mysterious unmarked videotape that Martin secretly left him.But before Gerard gets to watch it, the videotape is stolen.And soon further crimes against Gerard and those close to him start to occur. What was on the missing videotape? And why are the attacks continuing?In order to stay alive, Gerard needs to keep one step ahead of his enemies and uncover the truth - before his livelihood and everything he loves is shattered for good.Packed with intrigue and hair-raising suspense, Shattered is one of the many blockbuster thrillers from legendary crime writer Dick Francis. Other novels include the huge bestsellers Dead Heat, Under Orders and Silks. The Dick Francis legacy continues through his son Felix Francis: Refusal is his latest novel, following Bloodline and Gamble.Praise for the Dick Francis novels:'The narrative is brisk and gripping and the background researched with care . . . the entire story is a pleasure to relish' Scotsman'Dick Francis's fiction has a secret ingredient - his inimitable knack of grabbing the reader's attention on page one and holding it tight until the very end' Sunday Telegraph'Still the master' Racing Post'The master of suspense and intrigue' Country LifeDick Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys. The winner of over 350 races, he was champion jockey in 1953/1954 and rode for HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, most famously on Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National. On his retirement from the saddle, he published his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, before going on to write forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), and the biography of Lester Piggott. Dick Francis died in February, 2010, at the age of 89, but he remains one of the greatest thriller writers of all time.
Second Wind (Francis Thriller #38)
by Dick FrancisPerry Stuart, TV meteorologist, chiefly predicts periods of English drizzle, with bursts of heavier rain and sunshine to follow. His life calm and ordered, his face familiar to every British household, Stuart’s profound weather knowledge and accuracy have given him high status among forecasters, but no physical baptism by storm.Not, that is, until a fellow forecaster offers him a Caribbean hurricane-chasing ride in a small aeroplane as a holiday diversion. By frightening accident, Stuart learns more secrets from the flight than wind speeds – and back home in England he faces threats and danger as deadly as anything that nature can evolve.‘Second Wind’ is a twisting spiralling hurricane of a thriller that will defy anyone to treat the weather as an everyday topic of conversation.
Sunset Song (A\scots Quair Ser. #1)
by Ali Smith Lewis Grassic GibbonWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALI SMITHYoung Chris Guthrie lives a brutal life in the harsh landscape of northern Scotland, torn between her passion for the land, duty to her family and her love of books. When her mother, broken by repeated childbirths, takes her own life and poisons her two youngest children, Chris is left with her father to run the farm on her own. Soon she is alone, and for the first time can choose how to spend her life. But as the First World War begins, everything changes, and the young men leave Scotland for battle. The first in Gibbon's classic trilogy A Scot's Quair, Sunset Song is infused with local vernacular, and innovatively blends Scots and English in an intense description of Scottish life in the early twentieth century.
The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works: Or The Life Of Jacke Wilton (classic Reprint)
by Thomas Nashe J. SteaneWritten in the late sixteenth century, at the pinnacle of the English Renaissance, the rich and ingenious works of Thomas Nashe uniquely reveal the ambivant nature of the Elizabethan era. Mingling the devout and the bawdy, scholarship and slang, they express throughout an irrepressible, inexhaustible wit and an astonishing command of language. This collection of Nashe's finest works includes The Unfortunate Traveller, the sharp and grotesque tale of Jack Wilton, an Englishman travelling through Europe; Pierce Penniless, a biting satire on the society of his age; Terrors of the Night; Lenten Stuff; the sensual poem The Choice of Valentines; and extracts from Christ's Tears over Jerusalem and other works. Wide-ranging in subject, all capture the unique voice and fantastic ingenuity of one of the most entertaining Elizabethan writers - a man regarded by his contemporaries as the 'English Juvenal'.
Thin
by Grace BowmanBright, popular, pretty and successful, Grace Bowman had the world at her feet. So what drove her to starve herself nearly to death at the age of 18? And what, more importantly, made her stop? A grippingly honest account of life with anorexia nervosa, A Shape of My Own is Grace's hearbreaking, shocking and, finally, inspirational memoir. An extraordinary story, it is also a common one - is there a woman in the western world who has a normal relationship with food? A compulsive read, essential for anyone hoping to understand more about eating disorders and overcoming addiction.
Typhoon and Other Stories: Large Print (Everyman's Library Classics Series)
by Joseph ConradIn these four stories, written between 1900 and 1902, Joseph Conrad bid gradual farewell to his adventurous life at sea and began to confront the more daunting complexities of life on land in the twentieth century. In 'Typhoon' Conrad reveals, in the steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate, the differences between instinct and intelligence in a partnership vital to human survival. 'Falk', the companion sea-story, contrasts, as Conrad once put it, 'common sentimentalism with the frank standpoint of a more or less primitive man', a man with a conscience, however, about the girl he desires. In one of the 'land-stories' Conrad explores the utter isolation of an East European emigrant in England; in the other, the plight of a woman ironically trapped by the unwitting alliance of two retired widowers - each blind in his own way.
Under Orders (Francis Thriller #40)
by Dick Francis‘Sadly, death at the races is not uncommon. However, three in a single afternoon was sufficiently unusual to raise more than an eyebrow.’It’s the third death on Cheltenham Gold Cup Day that really troubles super-sleuth Sid Halley. Former champion jockey Halley knows the perils of racing all too well – but in his day, jockeys didn’t usually reach the finishing line with three .38 rounds in the chest. But this is precisely how he finds jockey Huw Walker – who, only a few hours earlier, had won the coveted Triumph Hurdle.Just moments before the gruesome discovery, Halley had been called upon by Lord Enstone to make discrete enquiries into why his horses appeared to be on a permanent losing streak. Are races being fixed? Are bookies taking a cut? And if so, are trainers and jockeys playing a dangerous game with stakes far higher than they realise? Halley’s quest for answers draws him ever deeper into the darker side of the race game, in a life-or-death power play that will push him to his very limits – both professionally and personally.In his first new novel for six years, Dick Francis returns to prove once again that he is the Grand Master of thriller writing.
Americana (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Don DeLilloProsperous, good-looking and empty inside, 28-year-old advertising executive David Bell appears on the surface to have everything. But he is a man on the brink of losing his sanity. Trapped in a Manhattan office with soulless sycophants as his only company, he makes an abrupt decision to leave New York for America's mid-west. His plan: to film the small-town lives of ordinary people and make contact with the true heart of his homeland. But as Bell puts his films together in his hotel room, he grows increasingly convinced that there is no heart to find. Modern America has become a land that has reached the end of its reel...
Fear and Trembling: Dialectical Lyric by Johannes De Silentio (Penguin Great Ideas Ser.)
by Alastair Hannay Soren KierkegaardWriting under the pseudonym of Johannes de silentio, Kierkegaard uses the form of a dialectical lyric to present his conception of faith. Abraham is portrayed as a great man, who chose to sacrifice his son, Isaac, in the face of conflicting expectations and in defiance of any conceivable ethical standard. The infamous and controversial 'teleological suspension of the ethical' challenged the contemporary views of Hegel's universal moral system, and the suffering individual must alone make a choice 'on the strength of the absurd'. Kierkegaard's writings have inspired both modern Protestant theology and existentialism.