This box set of the 50 books in the new Penguin Modern series celebrates the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics list and its iconic authors. Including avant-garde essays, radical polemics, newly translated poetry and great fiction, here are brilliant and diverse voices from across the globe. Ground-breaking and original in their day, their words still have the power to move, challenge and inspire. Letter from Birmingham Jail Telivision Was a Baby… The Breakthro...
Miss Clare Hartill, teacher at a girls’ boarding school, has a bewitching ability to get her own way, whether it is among the staff or the pupils who’ll do anything to please her. When nineteen-year-old Alwynne Durand is hired, Clare takes this innocent and enthusiastic but undisciplined young teacher under her wing. Soon, the pair are spending every moment together, with Alwynne growing as dependent on Clare as she is drawn to her beguiling wit and charm. But when tragedy t...
The government is a vast, complex system that citizens pay for, rebel against, rely upon, dismiss, and celebrate. It’s also our shared resource for addressing the biggest problems of society. And it’s made up of people, mostly unrecognized and uncelebrated, doing work that can be deeply consequential and beneficial to everyone.Michael Lewis invited his favourite writers to find someone doing an interesting job for the government and write about them. The stories they found ar...
The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, and to rule as a Caesar was to stand as an actor upon the great stage of the world. No biographies invite us into the lives of the Caesars more vividly or intimately than those by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, written from the centre of Rome and power, in the early 2nd century AD.That Rome lives more vividly in people's imagination than any other ancient empire owes an inordinate amount to Suetonius. Now award-winning author and ...
‘Free Speech!’ is a clarion call all over the world, yet what it means today is more contested than ever. Many cultures regard it as dangerous: in China, India, and across the Islamic world, unorthodox views about politics, sex, and religion are repressed and people are often punished for expressing them. Even in the west, where it is held up as a core value, there is widespread discord and disagreement about what freedom of expression means. Amidst perennial imbalances of po...
I’m not supposed to feel this way…To my family, I’m only useful for one thing: my surname. I’m Briar Lane. My father’s chess piece. A pawn to be traded.But all it took was a dirty secret stuffed in a jacket pocket to unravel my world and send me running to the one place I knew they would never find me: Crimson Ridge.I thought I’d be starting over alone. I never expected to find my father’s adopted brother, the ex-pro bull rider who consumes my space, and now, my every thought...
We can move the dial on painEvery one of us will experience pain, be it back pain, the pain of childbirth, or living in an ageing body. Not a single one of us will escape. But what if everything you thought you knew about pain was wrong?We’ve been told that pain is purely physical, something to do just with bones and body parts. The truth is that pain is constructed by the brain – influenced not just by injuries, but also by emotions, expectations and environment. This means ...
Who on earth is Elon Musk and what is he doing? Is he a hero, a villain, or does he swing constantly between those two poles? According to the constant media gush driven by his every act and pronouncement, Musk is best understood in personal terms. This book argues differently. Rather than seeing Musk as an individual, it sees him as an avatar of something called Muskism: a playbook for our new postliberal age.It’s not that Musk himself holds a coherent set of beliefs; you co...
Following a harsh winter, the dam gates at Farris Lake have been badly damaged, and as summer approaches the lake must be drained for repairs. Under the intense summer sun, the idyllic lake transforms into a barren wasteland – until the secrets that have long been buried beneath the surface are uncovered… On both sides of the lakebed, new evidence relating to unsolved cold cases is discovered – the remains of a young man who went missing eight years ago, and the belongings of...
Fourteen-year-old Emmie Bean loves her family. But she worries about them too. Her mother is gone (no one will say where). Her father drinks instead of writing. Her younger brother Oliver has started stealing. And older sister Alice disappears on illicit dates.Then there is their isolated house’s menagerie of birds and animals, including Mo the squirrel and Murgatroyd the tortoise, all of which require Emmie’s love and attention. When the Sargents, a childless couple, move in...
In The Secret Language of Work, McGoff shares her best, customizable scripts for how to communicate in the professional world—word-for-word, exactly what to say during interviews, while negotiating salaries, when you need to set boundaries with co-workers, as you advocate for yourself, and in any sticky situation at the office. With McGoff’s advice, you will master the unwritten rules of language that are key to career advancement.Learning how to say the right words, in the r...
Searching for her sister’s soul, Danae journeys to the Underworld. In the dark caverns below the earth, she must brave her worst fears and face Hades, the terrifying God of the Dead. Hermes, Messenger of the Gods, is sent on a secret mission by his father, Zeus. Seizing the chance to finally win his family’s respect and the heart of the woman he loves, Hermes must risk everything to succeed. Meanwhile, on Mount Olympus, Hera, the Queen of Heaven, watches from the shadows, her...
In the war-torn world of Anwyvn, where maegic is seen as a scourge, halflings like Rhya are hunted down and hanged on sight. But Rhya’s execution is interrupted by an unexpected saviour.Because the strange birthmark on her chest means she is a Remnant — one of four souls scattered across Anwyvn, fated to restore the balance of maegic or die trying.Soon she is thrust into the lives of two very different men of two very different kingdoms. Both immensely powerful. Neither of wh...
Idealistic Alexandra is throwing a party to meet a more glamorous crowd. Marianne, more sardonic, worries it’ll be the usual sort.The party is in Alexandra’s attic flat. Marianne will contribute a few bottles of red optimistically labelled Bordeaux. Can it be judged a success? There’s Donald the bus conductor with high-brow dreams, nervous bespectacled Bernhardt and Marius the ghostwriter. Not to mention a brace of Peters. It’s left to sexy, young Pisa and riotous, middle-age...
January 1945. The end of the war at last feels within reach, and the Rowntrees workers dream of returning to work on chocolate rather than munitions. Within the Freeman household, there are also dreams of a romantic nature.Rose cannot wait for the day she will marry Ned, and he no longer flies off on terrifying raids over Germany. Landgirl Annie is also to be wed, after accepting a romantic proposal from farmer, Mike.Youngest sister Molly has a less happy romantic adventure, ...
There is always a next conversation, and there is no one better than trial lawyer Jefferson Fisher at giving you the tools to be ready for whatever it may bring.Fisher, one of the leading voices on real-world communication, has gained millions of followers through short, simple, practical videos teaching people how to argue less and talk more. Whether it’s handling a heated conversation, dealing with a difficult personality, or standing your ground with confidence, his down-t...
Paris, 1900Carousel-maker Gilbert works tirelessly to finish his masterpiece in time for the city's Exposition Universelle. But Gilbert is struggling in the wake of his wife and son's tragic deaths, and as he finalises his creation, a dangerous idea forms in his mind . . .Chicago, 1920Having come to America for a new life, when Maisie unearths a neglected carousel, she seizes the chance for a new destiny. But twenty years ago, the carousel was linked to a number of people ine...
The 50/50 killer preys on couples.He manipulates their love for each other and makes them play a game.He stalks them, tortures them and then forces them to choose.What is going to break first? Their will or their love for each other?Only two things are certain:One of them will die.And the other will have killed them.
The essential companion for every mother embarking on maternity leave'In one important sense maternity leave is poorly named, as it involves no actual leave. You are constantly on, even when your offspring is having a nap. There is nothing restful about it. In another sense maternity leave is aptly named, because it’s a period of leave from all you know: taking leave of one’s mind, body, job, and relationships'When Emma Barnett began her second maternity leave, she realized t...
At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use, but living beings – who should be recognized as such in both imagination and law. Is a River Alive? takes the reader on an exhilarating exploration of the past, present and futures of this ancient, urgent concept.The book flows first to northern Ecuador, where a miraculous cloud-forest and its rivers are threatened by goldmining.Then, to the wounded rivers, creeks and lagoons of sout...
'Almost Reckless isn't just a book, it's a permission slip. It's about the courage it takes to step off the algorithm's path, the clarity that comes from defining your own principles, and the joy of building something that feels unmistakably yours.' Will Guidara, bestselling author of Unreasonable HospitalityAmy Smilovic's cult fashion brand, Tibi, was a thriving $70 million dollar business when she realized she was working towards someone else's idea of success. So she threw...
Henry VII was one of England's unlikeliest monarchs. An exile and outsider with barely a claim to the throne, his victory over Richard III at Bosworth Field seemed to many in 1485 only the latest in the sequence of violent convulsions among England's nobility that would come to be known as the Wars of the Roses – with little to suggest that the obscure Henry would last any longer than his predecessor. To break the cycle of division, usurpation, deposition and murder, he had b...
'The women of the world are serving notice. We want wages for every dirty toilet, every indecent assault, every painful childbirth, every cup of coffee and every smile. And if we don’t get what we want, we will simply refuse to work any longer!'Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provocative idea, and an unfulfilled promise.Here historian Emily Callaci tells the story of...
When Neil Dawson's father commits suicide, he is devastated by the loss. But even through his grief, Neil knows something isn't right. Among his father's possessions, he finds a copy of an old novel, The Black Flower.Opening it will take Neil into an investigation full of danger, pain and subterfuge.Detective Hannah Price is also mourning her father, having followed his footsteps into the police force.When she gets assigned to Neil's father's case, it will lead her on a journ...
Harlow is a 29-year-old wizarding school dropout who is blackmailed into returning to Neverthorn Academy to help defend against the dark wizard Nocta. So now she's stuck retaking all the classes she didn't pass the first time and being mentored by the annoyingly sexy Professor Typhon. But Typhon and the other professors are hiding a secret and Harlow needs to figure out what it is and fast. Because Nocta is coming for Neverthorn and Harlow might be the only one who can stop h...
From 'a song that always reminds me of you', to 'our favourite holiday traditions', Dear Mum, I Love You is the perfect personalised gift for mothers. Through thought-provoking questions and easy to fill in prompts, the giver of this book is encouraged to remind their mothers - and themselves - how much their relationship is truly treasured and appreciated. Beautifully illustrated by Alice Williams, this is a special place to gather cherished memories of childhood, holidays, ...
Emotiva, conmovedora, diferente... Invisible narra, a travs de los ojos de un nio, una historia que podra ser la de cualquiera de nosotros.Quin no ha deseado alguna vez ser invisible?Quin no ha deseado alguna vez dejar de serlo?El problema es que nunca he llegado a controlar bien ese poder: A veces, cuando ms ganas tena de ser invisible, era cuando ms gente me vea, y en cambio, cuando deseaba que todos me vieran, era cuando a mi cuerpo le daba por desaparecer.Wzruszająca, por...
She spent years in the Veil as an invisible cupid. Unable to talk, touch or love anyone, which made her a little bitter.Now, Emelle has a life . . . and a bounty on her head. The fae prince wants her dead, and her three gorgeous genfins are arrested. The royal culling trials are about to begin, but Emelle isn't going to let everything be taken from her without a fight.There's rebellion in the air, a princess who's not all she appears to be and a lamassu fae who claims to be E...
OVER 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDEA Sunday Times AND New York Times BESTSELLERThe Danish word hygge is one of those beautiful words that doesn't directly translate into English, but it more or less means comfort, warmth or togetherness.Hygge is the feeling you get when you are cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, in warm knitted socks, in front of the fire, when it is dark, cold and stormy outside. It that feeling when you are sharing good, comfort food with your closest ...
Reacher had no idea where he was. No idea how he had got there. But someone must have brought him. And shackled him. And whoever had done those things was going to rue the day. That was for damn sure. Jack Reacher wakes up, alone, in the dark, handcuffed to a makeshift bed. His right arm has suffered some major damage. His few possessions are gone. He has no memory of getting there. The last thing Reacher can recall is the car he hitched a ride in getting run off the road. Th...
Streetwise George and his big, childlike friend Lennie are drifters, searching for work in the fields and valleys of California. They have nothing except the clothes on their back, and a hope that one day they'll find a place of their own and live the American dream. But dreams come at a price. Gentle giant Lennie doesn't know his own strength, and when they find work at a ranch he gets into trouble with the boss's daughter-in-law. Trouble so bad that even his protector Georg...
* SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD * Lea Ypi grew up in one of the most isolated countries on earth, a place where communist ideals had officially replaced religion. Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was almost impossible to visit, almost impossible to leave. It was a place of queuing and scarcity, of political executions and secret police. To Lea, it was home. People were equal, neighbours he...
When Mae is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Run out of a sprawling California campus, the Circle links users' personal emails, social media, and finances with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of transparency. Mae can't believe her great fortune to work for them - even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange enc...
Discover the standalone enemies-to-lovers dark mafia romance from the New York Times bestselling author and TikTok sensation, perfect for fans of Penelope Douglas and Sophie Lark. 'This book was a masterpiece' ***** Reader review ‘I couldn’t put it down, definitely recommend and the spice omg’ ***** Reader review 'Dark and delicious' ***** Reader review 'BookTok did not disappoint' ***** Reader review When Cecily Knight sneaks into the Heathen Club’s initiation on behalf of a...
What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.' Autobiographical stories from one of Japan's masters of modernist story-telling.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan,...
A colourful universe of aristocratic buffoonery and public school nonsense' Greg James, host of BBC Radio 1 BreakfastPoor Pongo Twistleton only has to endure his energetic seventy-year-old Uncle Fred for lunch, once a year, but when he descends from Ickenham (he's the fifth Earl, don't you know) he has a plan that will make Pongo's hair stand on end and re-introduce him to his long-lost fiancée Sally Painter.But Pongo is busy impressing his future father-in-law Sir Aylmer Bos...
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubl...
Rosalie Harrow is unmarried, near destitute and faces two choices: snag a wealthy gentleman or take a position as a governess. But headstrong Rosalie sees both futures as a kind of cage.When Rosalie receives an invitation to Alcott Hall, she believes she’s there to meet the Dowager Duchess of Norland, the mysterious childhood friend of her late mother. Instead, Rosalie is thrust in the middle of a house party of eligible high society ladies all desperate to win the hand of th...
Welcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of a radical sympathy toward criminals has become the norm – and a grand skyscraper in the heart of Tokyo is planned to house wrongdoers in compassionate comfort. Acclaimed architect Sara Machina has been tasked with designing the city's new centrepiece, but is riven by doubt. As she casts her mind to the terrible crime she experienced as a young girl, she wonders if she might think against the grain of her time: could it b...
Evie Sage didn’t mean to become the right-hand woman to the kingdom’s most terrifying villain. One minute, she was applying for an entry-level position that promised “light paperwork and occasional beheadings,” and the next, she was knee-deep in magical mayhem, murder plots, and an entirely inappropriate crush on her brooding, sharp-jawed, walking disaster of a boss.Now, with a magical prophecy unraveling, assassins showing up in the break room, and a suspicious amount of fro...
This selection of Poe's stories, poetry and other writing demonstrates the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. 'The Fall of the House of Usher' describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In 'The Tell-Tale Heart', a murderer's insane delusions threaten to betray him, while stories such as 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Cask of Amontillado' explore extreme states of decade...
While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasn't totally unexpected. But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed. How did it come about that his wife, who was shy and withdrawn, and only left their house twice a week to go to haiku meetings ended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighbourhood?Whe...
History belongs to the heroes. But to get the full story, sometimes you have to ask the side characters.The lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Henry VIII and Queen Victoria fill bookshelves and fascinate scholars all over the world. But little attention is given to the ferret who posed for the renaissance master, the servant who oversaw the Tudor’s toilet time, or the famous horse who thrilled the miserable old monarch.These supporting cast members have been waiting in the wings for...
You may not know the stranger in room six. But they know everything about you.It's been fifteen years since Belinda was convicted of her husband's murder. Now, she's ready for her life to begin again, and she's set on that happening at Sunnyside Home for the Young at Heart.The owner, Mabel, has spent her life here. First as an evacuee during the Blitz and now as the care home's oldest resident, Mabel has held the secrets of this house for as long as she can remember. Secrets ...
Falling in love can be murder…No one in Lily Lennox’s life can understand why, each of the past five summers, she has shut her successful business and chosen instead to be paid minimum wage life-guarding at the exclusive Riovan Wellness Resort in a sun-soaked Caribbean island.Fortunately for her, they also aren’t aware of the mysterious deaths that have occurred on the island every time she’s there.Lily always tries to avoid bringing attention to herself. After all, if your m...
Why can no two people ever see the same rainbow? What happens when you pull a pop song apart into pure sine waves and play it back on a piano? Why does the wake behind a duck always form an angle of exactly 39 degrees? And what did mathematicians have to do with the great pig stampede of 2012? The answer to each of these questions can be found in the triangle.In Love Triangle, stand-up comedian, ex-maths teacher and Sunday Times number one bestselling author Matt Parker is on...
It's never too late to find where you belong...Thea knew the holiday house her late husband Marco bought in Tuscany wasn't pristine. But when she relocates to Italy for the summer with her children, she's shocked by how much work Casa Luna needs. And she only has six weeks to fix it up ready to sell! Her only option is to ask the tight-knit Italian community for help.In return, Thea and her children become involved in the community kitchen, working alongside handsome chef Gio...
We have always lived with ethically significant others, whether they are the pets we keep, the gods we believe in or the machines we are endowing with life. How should we treat them as our world changes?In Animals, Robots, Gods, acclaimed anthropologist Webb Keane provides a new vision of ethics, defined less by our minds, religion or society, and more by our interactions with those around us. Drawing on ground-breaking research by fieldworkers around the world, he explores t...
WINNER OF THE IRISH BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO NOVEL OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR THE KERRY GROUP IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEARFINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR FICTION'Donal Ryan’s writing has earned him a place among the greatest names in Irish literature and this lyrical novel speaks to the very heart of modern Irish society.' Maria Dickenson, Chair of the IBA judges'Beautiful...a book full of love and hope, more needed in these days than ever' Kit de Waal'I am blown...
Orlando has always been an outsider...His longing for passion, adventure and fulfilment takes him out of his own time. Chasing a dream through the centuries, he bounds from Elizabethan England amd imperial Turkey to the modern world.Will he find happiness with the exotic Russian Princess Sasha? Or is the dashing explorer Shelmerdine the ideal man? And what form will Orlando take on the journey - a nobleman, traveller, writer? Man or... woman?
The story of Britain is revealed through its buildings, and yet the language of architecture is a mystery to all but a few. In this enlightening history, spanning castles and cathedrals to factories and railway stations, Jenkins translates the hidden narratives infused in the facades we walk past every day.Britain’s history has been formed by its politics, religion and society and these influences can be seen in the architectural styles that have shaped its landscape. From pr...
Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement. Writing as an artist, activist, and social critic, Baldwin probes the complex condition of being black in America - from life in Harlem, to the protest novel, movies, and the experience of African Americans abroad - and many of his observations have proven almost ...
Jean-Baptiste Clamence is a soul in turmoil. Over several drunken nights he regales a chance acquaintance with his story. From this successful former lawyer and seemingly model citizen a compelling, self-loathing catalogue of guilt, hypocrisy and alienation pours forth.The Fall (1956) is a brilliant portrayal of a man who has glimpsed the hollowness of his existence. But beyond depicting one man's disillusionment, Camus's novel exposes the universal human condition and its ab...
Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality' Margaret Drabble Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter. Its twelve chapters follow the first year of the narrator's separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, de-satur...
Frantz Fanon's seminal work on the trauma of colonization made him the leading anti-colonialist thinker of the twentieth century. Written at the height of the Algerian war for independence from French colonial rule and first published in 1961, it analyses the role of class, race, national culture and violence in the struggle for freedom. Fanon, himself a psychotherapist, makes clear the economic and psychological degradation inflicted by imperialism. Showing how decolonizatio...
A husband forms gruesome plans for his new fridge; a government employee has a haunting experience on his commute home; prisoners serve as entertainment for wealthy party guests; an army officer suffers a monstrous tropical illness. These short stories contain some of the most groundbreaking and innovative writing in Dutch literature from 1915 to the present day, with most pieces appearing here in English for the first time. Blending unforgettable snapshots of the realities o...
Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. After their marriage the rumours begin, poisoning her husband against her. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoine...
How the world’s best actors communicate with gravitas – and how you can, too.‘The theatre stars’ voice guru’ Daily MailActing is all about charisma. Whether you’re an A-list star or an extra, when you’re on stage you need to perform in a way that makes your audience listen.That stage presence is something we can all learn from. Every time you speak up in a meeting, recount an anecdote, or tell a joke, it’s essential to communicate with gravitas.Jeannette Nelson knows a thing ...
Nobody before Borges had ever attempted this strange and wonderful mixture of arcana, popular literature, national myth, the nature of time and classical themes. Now we can see it in all its intense and disturbing brilliance, certain that we will never see anything like it again' - Justin Cartwright, Independent on Sunday
From the moment Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya in 1914 to manage a coffee plantation, her heart belonged to Africa. Drawn to the intense colours and ravishing landscapes, Karen Blixen spent her happiest years on the farm and her experiences and friendships with the people around her are vividly recalled in these memoirs. Out of Africa is the story of a remarkable and unconventional woman and of a way of life that has vanished for ever.
Abandoned by her husband, Amanda Wingfield comforts herself with recollections of her earlier, more gracious life in Blue Mountain when she was pursued by 'gentleman callers'. Her son Tom, a poet with a job in a warehouse, longs for adventure and escape from his mother's suffocating embrace, while Laura, her shy crippled daughter, has her glass menagerie and her memories. Amanda is desperate to find her daughter a husband, but when the long-awaited gentleman caller does arriv...
'Insistently asks the question: What would you do? Would you fight, or acquiesce, or collaborate? ... Karski was deeply patriotic and ludicrously brave ... an astonishing testament of survival' Ben Macintyre, author of Operation Mincemeat It is 1939. Jan Karski, a brilliant young Polish student, enjoys a life of parties and pleasure. Then war breaks out and his familiar world is destroyed. Now he must live under a new identity, in the resistance. And, in a secret mission that...
For the past fifty years, Louise Glück has been a major force in modern poetry, distinguished as much for the restless intelligence, wit and intimacy of her poetic voice as for her development of a particular form: the book-length sequence of poems. This volume brings together the twelve collections Glück has published to date, offering readers the opportunity to become immersed in the artistry and vision of one of the world's greatest poets.From the allegories of The Wild Ir...
In 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 a...
‘One of the masters of the short story’ GuardianThese six stories of obsession, secrets, delusions and desires from one of the greatest European writers show individuals caught up in forces beyond their control – whether an art dealer agreeing to a heartbreaking deception, a soldier destroyed by war, a servant infatuated with her employer or a young boy witnessing illicit adult passions. Portraying innocence lost and lives crushed by history, each tale is a psychologically ac...
Florentino Ariza has never forgotten his first love. He has waited nearly a lifetime in silence since his beloved Fermina married another man. No woman can replace her in his heart. But now her husband is dead. Finally - after fifty-one years, nine months and four days - Florentino has another chance to declare his eternal passion and win her back. Will love that has survived half a century remain unrequited?
The subject of this book is the life of the former cement-worker and haulier Franz Biberkopf in Berlin. As our story begins, he has just been released from prison, where he did time for some stupid stuff, and now he is back in Berlin, determined to go straight.To begin with, he succeeds. But then he gets involved in a set-to with an unpredictable external agency that looks an awful lot like fate. To see and hear this will be worthwhile for many readers who, like Franz Biberko...
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his plane vanished over the Mediterranean Sea during a reconnaissance mission. Nearly eighty years later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power.The narrator is a pilot downed in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the miraculous appearance of a little prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. "In the fa...
At Waterloo Station, hopeful new arrivals from the West Indies step off the boat train, ready to start afresh in 1950s London. There, homesick Moses Aloetta, who has already lived in the city for years, meets Henry 'Sir Galahad' Oliver and shows him the ropes. In this strange, cold and foggy city where the natives can be less than friendly at the sight of a black face, has Galahad met his Waterloo? But the irrepressible newcomer cannot be cast down. He and all the other lonel...
Over the past two centuries, economic growth has freed billions from poverty and made our lives far healthier and longer. As a result, the unfettered pursuit of growth defines economic life around the world. Yet this prosperity has come at an enormous price: deepening inequalities, destabilizing technologies, environmental destruction and climate change.Confusion reigns. For many, in our era of anaemic economic progress, the worry is slowing growth - in the UK, Europe, China ...
Delightful. This is a book to be read slowly for its savor.' The AtlanticIn 1960, John Steinbeck set out in his pick-up truck with his dog Charley to rediscover and chronicle his native USA, from Maine to California. He felt that he might have lost touch with its sights, sounds and the essence of the American people. Moving through the woods and deserts, dirt tracks and highways to large cities and glorious wildernesses, Steinbeck observed - with remarkable honesty, insight ...
Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ... Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he is the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator ...
