- Table View
- List View
White Rose Rebel: A Novel Of The Female Braveheart
by Janet PaisleyAnne Farquharson is a Highland girl – tempestuous, bold, determined to be her own woman. Yet the clan Farquharson is threatened. The Highlands suffer at the domineering hand of English King George, while there are rumours that Bonnie Prince Charlie, exiled to France, is raising an army in a bid for the throne.When Anne marries a clan chief and creates a shaky alliance, she is doing more than taking his bed. Soon she is drawn into the heart of a brutal and bloody conflict, and as the Jacobite rebellion escalates, she and her husband find themselves on opposite sides of the battlefield. White Rose Rebel is inspired by the true story of a Highland heroine who risked everything for her country and its rightful king.
The Bunker Diary
by Kevin BrooksWINNER OF THE 2014 CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL.Room meets Lord of the Flies, The Bunker Diary is award-winning, young adult writer Kevin Brooks's pulse-pounding exploration of what happens when your worst nightmare comes true - and how will you survive?I can't believe I fell for it. It was still dark when I woke up this morning. As soon as my eyes opened I knew where I was. A low-ceilinged rectangular building made entirely of whitewashed concrete.There are six little rooms along the main corridor.There are no windows. No doors. The lift is the only way in or out.What's he going to do to me?What am I going to do? If I'm right, the lift will come down in five minutes. It did. Only this time it wasn't empty . . .Praise for The Bunker Diary:[Kevin Brooks'] pacey plots . . . have made him a cult among teens. This, though, is the big one. It should be read by everyone. - Amanda Craig, The Times Kevin Brooks has won the Branford Boase Award and been shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the Booktrust Teenage Prize, the Manchester Book Award and for the Carnegie Medal (for Martyn Pig, Road of the Dead and Black Rabbit Summer). Kevin Brooks was born in Exeter and studied in Birmingham and London. He had a varied working life, with jobs in a crematorium, a zoo, a garage and a post office, before - happily - giving it all up to write books. Kevin is the author of Being, Black Rabbit Summer, Killing God (published as Dawn in the USA), iBoy and Naked for Penguin. He now lives in North Yorkshire.****If you enjoyed The Bunker Diary and want to get inside more of your favourite books, then check out spinebreakers.co.uk for exclusive author interviews, competitions and much more.****
The Beast Within
by Émile ZolaLa Bete humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion, and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered this his 'most finely worked' novel, and in it he powerfully evokes life at the end of the Second Empire in France, where society seemed to be hurtling into the future like the new locomotives and railways it was building. While expressing the hope that human nature evolves through education and gradually frees itself of the burden of inherited evil, he is constantly reminding us that under the veneer of technological progress there remains, always, the beast within.
Pardon My French: Unleash Your Inner Gaul
by Charles TimoneyTHINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT FRANCE: You burnt Joan of Arc! ? Smuggling live chickens into rugby matches is patriotic ? How many times to kiss on the cheek ? Where not to cross the road ? French guns don't go 'bang' ? What do you call a party? ? bon appetit is vulgar ? A six-pack is a bar of chocolate ? The dangers of being called Peter or Penny ? Your smallest finger is your 'ear' finger ? The importance of Wednesdays ? How to tip ? and when to celebrate Christmas? Forget the French you learnt at school. Based on twenty years of hard-won knowledge, Pardon My French takes you through all the words you need to survive, shows how and why they work, and steers you past all the pitfalls and potential embarrassments of speaking French in France. From sugar-cube etiquette to why the Marseillaise is all about slaughtering Austrians and Prussians as bloodily as possible, Charles Timoney lays bare the Gallic mindset alongside their bizarre language. Covering all areas of everyday life from eating and drinking to travel, work and, crucially, swearing and sounding like a teenager, this is not just the most entertaining, but also the most useful book on France and the French you'll ever read.
The Little Sister: Later Novels And Other Writings - The Lady In The Lake; The Little Sister; The Long Goodbye; Playback; Double Indemnity; Selected Essays And Letters (Phillip Marlowe #5)
by Raymond ChandlerThe Little Sister is a classic detective novel by the master of hard-boiled crimeHer name is Orfamay Quest and she's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing brother Orrin. Or leastways that's what she tells PI Philip Marlowe, offering him a measly twenty bucks for the privilege. But Marlowe's feeling charitable - though it's not long before he wishes he wasn't so sweet. You see, Orrin's trail leads Marlowe to luscious movie starlets, uppity gangsters, suspicious cops and corpses with ice picks jammed in their necks. When trouble comes calling, sometimes it's best to pretend to be out . . .'Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence' Daily Telegraph 'One of the greatest crime writers, who set standards others still try to attain' Sunday Times'Chandler is an original stylist, creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes' Anthony BurgessBest-known as the creator of the original private eye, Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen, and he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Good-bye, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, Killer in the Rain, The High Window and Trouble is My Business.
This Side of Paradise: (webster's Thesaurus Edition) (Penguin Modern Classics)
by F. Scott FitzgeraldAmory Blaine, intent on rebelling against his staid, Midwestern upbringing, longs to acquire the patina of Eastern sophistication. In his quest for sexual and intellectual enlightenment, he progresses through a series of relationships, until he is cast out into the real world.
Another Country: Early Novels And Stories - Go Tell It On The Mountain; Giovanni's Room; Another Country; Going To Meet The Man (Penguin Modern Classics #2)
by James Baldwin Colm Tóibín'Let our novelists read Mr Baldwin and tremble. There is a whirlwind loose in the land' Sunday TimesWhen Another Country appeared in 1962, it caused a literary sensation. James Baldwin's masterly story of desire, hatred and violence opens with the unforgettable character of Rufus Scott, a scavenging Harlem jazz musician adrift in New York. Self-destructive, bad and brilliant, he draws us into a Bohemian underworld pulsing with heat, music and sex, where desperate and dangerous characters betray, love and test each other to the limit.'In Another Country, Baldwin created the essential American drama of the century' Colm Tóibín'An almost unbearable, tumultuous, blood-pounding experience' Washington Post'Brilliantly and fiercely told' The New York Times
The Good Wife
by Elizabeth BuchanFrom the author of the bestselling phenomenon REVENGE OF THE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN comes a compulsive novel about the fascinating tangle of marriage.Fanny Savage was once dutiful, clever, vulnerable and dreamy. Now married to Will, a successful politician with big ambitions, her life is a whirlwind of public engagements and loyalty to the party, a position that requires her to look good and remain silent. But she's no fool. She's well aware that the world outside her home is one that seethes with despair and danger, division and lack of faith, and how fragile happiness can be. She wonders if she's been happy coping with the transition from eager bride to politician's wife? Has she been the Good Wife? Does being good mean being truthful?
How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, And Languages Live Or Die (Popular Penguins Series)
by David CrystalIn this fascinating survey of everything from how sounds become speech to how names work, David Crystal answers every question you might ever have had about the nuts and bolts of language in his usual highly illuminating way. Along the way we find out about eyebrow flashes, whistling languages, how parents teach their children to speak, how politeness travels across languages and how the way we talk show not just how old we are but where we’re from and even who we want to be.
Let It Come Down: A Novel (Abacus Bks.)
by Paul BowlesLet It Come Down, with its title from Macbeth, tells the story of Dyar, a New York bank clerk who throws up his secure, humdrum job to find a reality abroad with which to identify himself, and his macabre experiences in the inferno of Tangiers as he gives in to his darkest impulses. Rich in descriptions of the corruption and decadence of the International Zone in the last days before Moroccan independence, Bowles's second novel is an alternately comic and horrific account of a descent into nihilism.
The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street
by Charles NichollIn 1612 Shakespeare gave evidence at the Court of Requests in Westminster – it is the only occasion his spoken words are recorded. The case seems routine – a dispute over an unpaid marriage-dowry – but it opens up an unexpected window into the dramatist’s famously obscure life-story. Charles Nicholl applies a powerful biographical magnifying glass to this fascinating episode in Shakespeare’s life. Marshalling evidence from a wide variety of sources, including previously unknown documentary material on the Mountjoys, he conjures up a detailed and compelling description of the circumstances in which Shakespeare lived and worked, and in which he wrote such plays as Othello, Measure for Measure and King Lear.
Lonesome Traveler: Road Novels, 1957-1960 - On The Road; The Dharma Bums; The Subterraneans; Tristessa; Lonesome Traveler; Journal Selections (Penguin Modern Classics #Vol. 174)
by Jack KerouacAs he roams the US, Mexico, Morocco, Paris and London, Kerouac records life on the road in prose of pure poetry. Standing on the engine of a train as it rushes past fields of prickly cactus; witnessing his first bullfight in Mexico while high on opium; meditating on a sunlit roof in Tangiers or falling in love with Montmartre - Kerouac reveals both the endless diversity of human life and his own particular philosophy of self-fulfillment.
The Women's War: A Play In Five Acts
by Alexandre DumasThe Baron des Canolles is a man torn apart by the civil war that dominates mid-seventeenth century France. For while the naïve Gascon soldier cares little for the politics behind the battles, he is torn apart by a deep passion for two powerful women on opposing sides of the war: Nanon de Lartigues, a keen supporter of the Queen Regent Anne of Austria, and the Victomtesse de Cambes, who supports the rebellious forces of the Princess de Condé. Set around Bordeaux during the first turbulent years of the reign of Louis XIV, The Women's War sees two women taking central stage in a battle for all France. Humorous, dramatic and romantic, it offers a compelling exploration of political intrigue, the power of redemption, the force of love and the futility of war.
The Psychology of Love: The Psychology Of Art, Literature, Love, And Religion (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Sigmund FreudThis volume brings together Freud's main contributions to the psychology of love. His illuminating discussions of the ways in which sexuality is always psychosexuality - that there is no sexuality without fantasy, conscious or unconscious - have changed the ways we think about erotic life. In these papers Freud develops his now famous theories about the sexuality of childhood and the transgressive nature of human desire.In the famous case study of the eighteen-year-old 'Dora', we see Freud at work, both putting into practice and testing his sexual theories that were to change the modern world.
Selected Poems: Tennyson
by Alfred Lord TennysonTennyson's poetry epitomizes the Victorian age, for which he became a spokesman. His finest poems are often steeped in a sensuous melancholy, as in Maud, or are chivaric, heroic and allegorical, as in The Lady of Shalot and Morte d'Arthur.
Sound Bites: Eating on Tour with Franz Ferdinand
by Alex KapranosIn September 2005, Alex Kapranos began writing about what he ate while touring the world with the rock band Franz Ferdinand. The writing is as much about where he eats and the people he eats with as the unusual flavours he tastes on the road. Whether it’s munching donuts with cops in Brooklyn, swallowing bull’s balls with the band in Buenos Aires or queuing for a saveloy in South Shields, these are surprising and vivid snapshots of life on the road. Funny, poignant, sickening or sexual depending on the situation, the material, both new and previously published in the Guardian, is fascinating and entertaining.
The Changing Faces of Jesus (Compass Ser.)
by Geza VermesDuring his life Jesus did not view himself as divine, nor did his disciples. In THE CHANGING FACES OF JESUS the great scholar Vermes works back through successively earlier accounts of the life of Christ to finally reveal the true, historical figureof Jesus hidden beneath the Gospels: a Palestinian charismatic convinced he had an essential role to play in bringing about the kingdom of God.
The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 (The\penguin History Of Europe Ser.)
by Tim BlanningThe Pursuit of Glory brings to life one of the most extraordinary periods in European history – from the battered, introvert continent after the Thirty Years War to the dynamic one that experienced the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon. Tim Blanning depicts the lives of ordinary people and the dominant personalities of the age (Louis XIV, Frederick the Great, Napoleon), and explores an era of almost unprecedented change, growth and cultural, political and technological ferment that shaped the societies and economies of entire countries.
The Subterraneans: Road Novels, 1957-1960 - On The Road; The Dharma Bums; The Subterraneans; Tristessa; Lonesome Traveler; Journal Selections (Penguin Modern Classics #1)
by Jack Kerouac Ann DouglasThe Subterraneans haunt the bars and clubs of San Francisco, surviving on a diet of booze and benzedrine, Proust and Verlaine. Living amongst them is Leo, an aspiring writer, and Mardou, half-Indian, half-Negro, beautiful and neurotic. Their bitter-sweet and ill-starred love affair sees Kerouac at his most evocative. Many regard this as being Kerouac's most touching and tender book.
The Wayward Bus (Penguin Modern Classics)
by John SteinbeckThe Wayward Bus travelled the backroads through the lush California countryside. Its driver was a man of the land - lusty, hot-blooded and uninhibited. On the bus was a girl who danced at stag parties, a travelling salesman strictly out for fun, a boy coming into manhood and a college girl pursuing her secret, passionate quest. This is a story of crisis and passion, of love and longing. In many ways it is one of Steinbeck's most powerful novels, not least because it shows just how profound his knowledge of human beings and their emotions is.
Quite Honestly
by John MortimerQuite Honestly - a hilarious crime novel by bestselling Rumpole author John MortimerLife couldn't be better for Lucinda Purefoy. She's got a steady boyfriend, a degree in social sciences and the offer of a job in advertising. With all this, she felt she should 'pay back her debt to society' and 'do a little good in the world'.That's why she joined SCRAP (short for 'Social Carers, Reformers and Preceptors'), an organization which trains girls like Lucy to become the 'guide, philosopher and friend' to ex-convicts coming out of prison, to find them a job, a home and to encourage them to kick the habit of stealing things.And so Lucy finds herself standing outside the gates of Wormwood Scrubs, on a windy March morning, waiting to greet her first SCRAP 'client', a career-burglar called Terry Keegan. What happens next confounds expectations and produces a story full of surprises. With a cast of characters that rivals anything in his famous Rumpole stories and a compulsive plot, Quite Honestly is a wonderfully comic novel. If you like to read P.D. James and P.G. Wodehouse, you will love this book. Sir John Mortimer was a barrister, playwright and novelist. His fictional political trilogy of Paradise Postponed, Titmuss Regained and The Sound of Trumpets has recently been republished in Penguin Classics, together with Clinging to the Wreckage and his play A Voyage round My Father. His most famous creation was the barrister Horace Rumpole, who featured in four novels and around eighty short stories. His books in Penguin include: The Anti-social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole; The Collected Stories of Rumpole; The First Rumpole Omnibus; Rumpole and the Angel of Death; Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders; Rumpole and the Primrose Path; Rumpole and the Reign of Terror; Rumpole and the Younger Generation; Rumpole at Christmas; Rumpole Rests His Case; The Second Rumpole Omnibus; Forever Rumpole; In Other Words; Quite Honestly and Summer's Lease.
The Birds and Other Plays
by Aristophanes David Barrett Alan H. SommersteinThe plays in this volume all contain Aristophanes' trademark bawdy comedy and dazzling verbal agility. In THE BIRDS, two frustrated Athenians join the birds to build the utopian city of 'Much Cuckoo in the Clouds'. THE KNIGHTS is a venomous satire on Cleon, a prominent Athenian demagogue, while THE ASSEMBLY WOMEN deals with the battle of the sexes as the women of Athens infiltrate the all-male Assembly in disguise. The lengthy conflict with Sparta is the subject of PEACE, inspired by the hope of a settlement in 421 BC, and WEALTH reflects on the economic catastrophe that hit Athens after the war.
Funny You Should Say That: A Compendium of Jokes, Quips and Quotations from Cicero to the Simpsons
by Andrew Martin'A fool and his words are soon parted' wrote William Shenstone in 1764; one might add that 'A wit and his words are rarely collected'. Here is the antidote: a dazzling survey of the funniest remarks, quips and observations from Ancient Rome, the Bible and Chaucer right up to The Simpsons and Little Britain. Over 5,000 of the very funniest remarks to have appeared on paper since, well, paper was invented. The quotations are arranged thematically and cover all aspects of life: from the world we inhabit to the things we eat, smoke and drink; from the way we move around to what and how we learn - oh, and the pointlessness of football. There is a short biography of all of the authors in the book, a brief contextual note for each quotation and an index of keywords to help you find you chosen witticism quickly. But do not be over-hasty when you use this book: it is a browser's delight, and should be enjoyed at leisure.
The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Adaptation Of The Novel By F. Scott Fitzgerald (Penguin Modern Classics)
by F. Scott Fitzgerald Tony TannerJay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach ... Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby - young, handsome, fabulously rich - always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, though no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel.Contains explanatory notes and an introduction written by Tony Tanner.
Plays and Fragments: The Plays And Fragments (World's Classics)
by Norma Miller MenanderMenander (c. 341-291 BC) was the foremost innovator of Greek New Comedy, a dramatic style that moved away from the fantastical to focus upon the problems of ordinary Athenians. This collection contains the full text of 'Old Cantankerous' (Dyskolos), the only surviving complete example of New Comedy, as well as fragments from works including 'The Girl from Samos' and 'The Rape of the Locks', all of which are concerned with domestic catastrophes, the hazards of love and the trials of family life. Written in a poetic style regarded by the ancients as second only to Homer, these polished works - profoundly influential upon both Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence, and the wider Western tradition - may be regarded as the first true comedies of manners.