Category Archives: Accessories
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
This title comes with an introduction by Marina Warner and illustrations by Mervyn Peake. Coleridge`s celebrated poem was written at the suggestion of William Wordsworth in the early days of their friendship, and published for the first time in 1798. It is the story of a nightmare voyage to the South Pole told by the
A Bunch of Fives
Since the publication of Four Bare Legs in a Bed, her first collection, Helen Simpson has been hailed as one of the best short story writers at work today. These are wickedly funny, heartfelt, and sensuous stories that deal with the full stretch, from birth to death and everything in between.
It`s A Wonderful Word
Did you know that an assassin is a hashish-eater and a yokel a country woodpecker? That Dr Mesmer mesmerised patients back to health or that Samuel Pepys enjoyed a good game of handicap? While we`re at it, what have spondulics to do with spines or lawyers with avocados? In “It`s a Wonderful Word”, bestselling author
Stalingrad
THE PREQUEL TO LIFE AND FATE NOW AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST TIME, STALINGRAD IS A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND NOW A MAJOR RADIO 4 DRAMA`One of the great novels of the 20th century, and now published in English for the first time` Observer`A gripping panorama of the human experience` Kenneth BranaghIn April 1942,
Joseph Anton
From the author of The Satanic Verses and Midnight`s Children, which was awarded the Best of the Booker Prize in 1993, comes an unflinchingly honest and fiercely funny account of a life turned upside-down. On Valentine`s Day, 1989, Salman Rushdie received a telephone call from a BBC journalist that would change his life forever: Ayatollah
June
By the award-winning author of The Twin. On a hot summer`s day in June 1969 everyone in the village gathered to welcome Queen Juliana. It would have been an unforgettable day of celebration if only the baker hadn`t been running late with his deliveries and knocked down little Hanne with his brand-new VW van. Years
Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence
It is the most persistent myth of our time: religion is the cause of all violence. But history suggests otherwise. Karen Armstrong, former Roman Catholic nun and one of our foremost scholars of religion, speaks out to disprove the link between religion and bloodshed. Religion is as old as humanity: Fields of Blood goes back
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MATTHEW PEARL Edgar Allan Poe invented the genre of detective fiction with these three mesmerising stories of a young French eccentric named C. Auguste Dupin: `The Murders in the Rue Morgue`, `The Mystery of Marie Roget` and `The Purloined Letter`. Years later Dorothy Sayers would describe these tales as `almost a
Restoration
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR. Robert Merivel is a dissolute young medical student when an accident of fate leads him to the attention of King Charles II. Finding favour with the King, Merivel embarks on the time of his life, enthusiastically enjoying the luxury, women and wine of the vibrant royal court, until
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
This powerful collection of stories, set in the mid-West among the lonely men and women who drink, fish and play cards to ease the passing of time, was the first by Raymond Carver to be published in the UK. With its spare, colloquial narration and razor-sharp sense of how people really communicate, the collection was
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please
Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976) was the first major-press short-story collection by American writer Raymond Carver. Described by contemporary critics as a foundational text of Minimalist fiction, its stories offered an incisive and influential telling of disenchantment in the mid-century American working class.
Jasper Jones
Summer, 1965. Late one night, thirteen-year-old Charlie Bucktin is startled by a knock on his window. His visitor is Jasper Jones. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is intriguing. And he needs Charlie`s help. In the dead of night, the boys steal through town, and Charlie learns of Jasper`s horrible discovery. Burdened by a terrible secret
Before She Met Me
Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011Graham Hendrick, an historian, has left his wife Barbara for the vivacious Ann, and is more than pleased with his new life. Until, that is, the day he discovers Ann`s celluloid past as a mediocre film actress. Soon Graham is pouncing on old clues, examining her books
Weekend Wodehouse
This title is presented with an introduction by Hilaire Belloc. `P.G. Wodehouse remains the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness, that no one else has ever captured quite so sharply, or with quite as much wit and affection` – Julian Fellowes. “Weekend Wodehouse” – required reading at country house parties in the late
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Sherman McCoy is a WASP, bond trader and self-appointed `Master of the Universe`. He has a fashionable wife, a Park Avenue apartment and a Southern mistress. His spectacular fall begins the moment he is involved in a hit-and-run accident in the Bronx. Prosecutors, newspaper hacks, politicians and clergy close in on him, determined to bring
Mrs Dalloway`s Party: A Short Story Sequence
Written in the same period as Mrs Dalloway these seven short stories show the author`s fascination with parties and with all the excitement, the fluctuations of mood and temper and the heightened emotions which surround these social occasions. “Mrs Dalloway`s Party” is enchanting piece of work by one of our most acclaimed twentieth century writers.
Inherent Vice
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon – private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog. It`s been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she
Elizabeth`s Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen
Elizabeth I is often portrayed as a ruthless `man`s woman`, who derided her own sex – `I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman` – and loved to flirt with the young men at her court. Yet she was born into a world of women and it is her relationships with
The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves
A Sunday Times bestseller Longlisted for the Guardian first book award A Radio 4 Book of the Week. This book is about learning to live. In simple stories of encounter between a psychoanalyst and his patients, The Examined Life reveals how the art of insight can illuminate the most complicated, confounding and human of experiences.
Confessions of an English Opium-eater
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HOWARD MARKS. Once upon a time, opium (the main ingredient of heroin) was easily available over the chemist`s counter. The secret of happiness, about which philosophers have disputed for so many ages, could be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket: portable ecstasies could be corked up in
