Biography, Literature and Literary studies Books
Cambridge University Press Northanger Abbey
Book SynopsisThis fully annotated critical edition of Northanger Abbey is based on the text of the novel as published posthumously in 1818. It features an appendix summarising the plots and situations of the Gothic fictions Austen parodied, an extensive critical introduction, a chronology of Austen's life and an authoritative textual apparatus.Trade Review'Benedict and Le Faye … provide in their respective volumes a generous, helpful, and historically informed introduction to the work and its reception; a set of informative, judicious explanatory notes; and a meticulously prepared and visually well presented text. … The Northanger Abbey edition is excellent … offers a magnificent summary …' Devoney Looser, University of MissouriTable of ContentsGeneral Editor's preface; Acknowledgments; Chronology; Introduction; Note on the text; Northanger Abbey; Appendix: summaries and extracts from Ann Radcliffe's novels; Corrections and emendations to 1818 text; List of abbreviations; Explanatory notes.
£20.99
Cambridge University Press GhostSeers Detectives and Spiritualists
Book SynopsisThis book is a study of the narrative techniques which developed for two very popular forms of fiction in the nineteenth century - ghost stories and detective stories - and the surprising similarities between them in the context of contemporary theories of vision and sight.Trade Review"Ghost-Seers, Detectives, an Spiritualists presents absorbing discussions of overlooked theories and diversifies our understanding of visual perception in the nineteenth century, especially as it applies to the popular literature of the period." --JournalTable of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. Outer Vision, Inner Vision: Ghost-Seeing and Ghost Stories: 1. Contextualizing the ghost story; 2. The rise of optical apparitions; 3. Inner vision and spiritual optics; 4. 'Betwixt ancient faith and modern incredulity'; Part II. Seeing is Reading: Vision, Language, and Detective Fiction: 5. Visual learning: sight and Victorian epistemology; 6. Scopophilia and scopophobia: Poe's readerly flâneur; 7. Stains, smears, and visual language in The Moonstone; 8. Semiotics vs. encyclopedism: the case of Sherlock Holmes; Part III. Into the Invisible: Science, Spiritualism, and Occult Detection: 9. Detective fiction's uncanny; 10. Light, ether, and the invisible world; 11. Inner vision and occult detection: Le Fanu's Martin Hesselius; 12. Other dimensions, other worlds; 13. Psychic sleuths and soul doctors; Coda.
£31.90
Cambridge University Press AntiSemitism and its Metaphysical Origins
Book SynopsisThis book articulates a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of Jew hatred as a metaphysical aspect of the human soul. Proceeding from the Jewish thinking that the anti-Semites oppose, David Patterson argues that anti-Semitism arises from the most ancient of temptations, the temptation to be as God, and thus to flee from an absolute accountability to and for the other human being.Trade Review'David Patterson's remarkable book offers a new method for a provocative evaluation of anti-Semitism. It uses a 'Jewish approach to understanding Jew hatred' and sees the roots of this hatred springing from ancient, metaphysical origins. Analyzing the human ambition for unlimited power, it argues that longing to kill God drives the desire to kill the Jews. Incisive, lucid and extremely well researched, this work opens up new questions and gives new answers to the urgent issue of the hatred of the Jews.' Zsuzsanna Ozsvath, Leah and Paul Lewis Chair of Holocaust Studies, Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, University of Texas, Dallas'David Patterson transforms the proposition of the first theological conversation in Genesis: 'You will be like God' into his hermeneutical instrument to explore the metaphysical origins of anti-Semitism and what drives this scourge of humankind's history. His extensive acquaintance with ancient, medieval, modern and postmodern Jewish and non-Jewish sources grounds and elaborates his thesis that anti-Semitism is the manifestation par excellence of deicide. This is a fascinating, intriguing and evocative study truly worthy of our serious engagement.' Martin Rumscheidt, College of Arts and Sciences, Case Western Reserve University'Anti-Semitism and its Metaphysical Origins is a relentless investigation into this dangerous phenomenon. With broad erudition and systematic analysis, it surely makes us better-informed students. But the book does more than that. With fiercely energetic prose, David Patterson teaches us about anti-Semitism from a God-centered vantage point. To this end, he recruits gems of Torah to provoke a sea change in our thinking about the subject - and about ourselves.' Alan Rosen'Daring, brilliant, comprehensive, challenging, disturbing - those words describe David Patterson's magisterial interpretation of anti-Semitism. From now on, no attempts to understand and resist anti-Semitism will be sound unless they grapple with Patterson's provocative thesis: Anti-Semitism originates in humanity's craving to be rid of God and ethical obligation. That deadly temptation ultimately entails destruction of Jewish life and tradition, the most enduring and persistent sources that bear witness to the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the divine commandment against murder, and the injunction to love one's neighbor as oneself.' John K. Roth, Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna CollegeTable of ContentsIntroduction: anti-Semitism as deicide; 1. Preliminary explanations; 2. The arrogation of God: Christian theological anti-Semitism; 3. Islamic jihadism: religious-fanatic anti-Semitism; 4. The elimination of God: philosophical anti-Semitism in modern thought; 5. National socialist anti-Semitism; 6. Antihistorical anti-Semitism: Holocaust denial; 7. Anti-Zionist anti-Semitism; 8. Jewish Jew hatred; 9. Sounding the depths of the anti-Semitic soul: Arthur Miller's Focus; Concluding reflection: the messianic side of the soul of Adam.
£31.90
Cambridge University Press American Literature and the Free Market 158 Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture Series Number 158
Book SynopsisThe years after World War Two have seen a widespread fascination with the free market. In this book, Michael W. Clune considers this fascination in postwar literature. In the fictional worlds created by works ranging from Frank O'Hara's poetry to nineties gangster rap, the market is transformed, offering an alternative form of life, distinct from both the social visions of the left and the individualist ethos of the right. These ideas also provide an unsettling example of how art takes on social power by offering an escape from society. American Literature and the Free Market presents a new perspective on a number of wide ranging works for readers of American post-war literature.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Introduction: the economic fiction; 1. Freedom from you; 2. Frank O'Hara and free choice; 3. William Burroughs' virtual mind; 4. Blood money: sovereignty and exchange in Kathy Acker; 5. 'You Can't See Me': rap, money, and the first person; Conclusion: the invisible world; Bibliography; Notes; Index.
£23.99
Cambridge University Press Contemporary Fiction in French
Book SynopsisIllustrating the fluidity and constant evolution of our global literary field, this collection analyses contemporary French fiction in context, claiming the collapse of distinction between 'French' and 'Francophone' literature has opened up French writing to a world of new influences.
£21.84
Cambridge University Press The Cambridge Companion to British Black and
Book SynopsisThis Companion offers a comprehensive account of the influence of contemporary British Black and Asian writing in British culture. While there are a number of anthologies covering Black and Asian literature, there is no volume that comparatively addresses fiction, poetry, plays and performance, and provides critical accounts of the qualities and impact within one book. It charts the distinctive Black and Asian voices within the body of British writing and examines the creative and cultural impact that African, Caribbean and South Asian writers have had on British literature. It analyzes literary works from a broad range of genres, while also covering performance writing and non-fiction. It offers pertinent historical context throughout, and new critical perspectives on such key themes as multiculturalism and evolving cultural identities in contemporary British literature. This Companion explores race, politics, gender, sexuality, identity, amongst other key literary themes in Black andTrade Review'This volume meets the high standards we expect from the Cambridge Companion series. Each contributor is an academic with expertise in the area on which they write. Each chapter is engagingly and accessibly written, providing a necessarily selective overview of the subject.' Linda Kemp, Languages and Literature'This volume will be helpful to undergraduates by providing original and challenging scholarship, and an excellent chronology and guide to further reading. It will also be useful to researchers looking for new frameworks to approach contemporary English literature.' WasafiriTable of ContentsIntroduction Deirdre Osborne; Part I. Traces and Routes: 1. (1940s–70s) Susheila Nasta; 2. British Black and Asian writing since 1980 Chris Weedon; Part II. Translocations and Transformations: 3. Liberationist political poetics Birgit Neumann; 4. Women's fiction and literary (self) determination Pallavi Rastogi; 5. Brutalised lives and brutalist realism Modhumita Roy; 6. Stages of representation D. Keith Peacock; Part III. Restorations and Renovations: 7. Recalibrating the past James Procter; 8. Black women subjects in auto/biographical discourse Suzanne Scafe; 9. British Black and Asian LGBTQ writing Kanika Batra; 10. The poetics and politics of spoken word poetry Corinne Fowler; 11. Post-colonial plurality in fiction Malachi McIntosh; Part IV. National, International, Trans-global: 12. 'Adoption aesthetics' John McLeod; 13. Genre crossings: rewriting 'the lyric' in Black British poetry Romana Huk; 14. 'Other' voices and the British literary canon Bénédicte Ledent; 15. Critical outlooks Paul Warmington.
£22.79
Cambridge University Press Thomas Hardy and Animals
Book SynopsisThomas Hardy and Animals examines the human and nonhuman animals who walk and crawl and fly across and around the pages of Hardy''s novels. Animals abound in his writings, yet little scholarly attention has been paid to them so far. This book fills this gap in Hardy studies, bringing an important author within range of a new and developing area of critical inquiry. It considers the way Hardy''s representations of animals challenged ideas of human-animal boundaries debated by the Victorian scientific and philosophical communities. In moments of encounter between humans and animals, Hardy questions boundaries based on ideas of moral sense or moral agency, language and reason, the possession of a face, and the capacity to suffer and perceive pain. Through an emphasis on embodied encounters, his writings call for an extension of empathy to others, human or nonhuman. In this accessible book Anna West offers a new approach to Hardy criticism.Trade Review'… an important and welcome contribution to Hardy scholarship. … West's volume serves as a good beginning point … on this compelling and complex subject. … Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.' R. D. Morrison, CHOICE'Thomas Hardy and Animals is an outstanding piece of work that makes an important contribution to Hardy studies and to scholarship on animals in the Victorian period.' Jennifer McDonell, Victorian Studies'… West's excellent study provides a very welcome introduction to the 'creatures' that play so notable a part in Hardy's oeuvre.' Adrian Tait, The British Society for Literature and ScienceTable of ContentsIntroduction: Hardy's 'shifted [...] centre of altruism': an ethics of encounter and empathy; 1. What does it mean to be a creature?; 2. 'The only things we believe in are the sheep and the dogs'; 3. 'Artful' creatures, part one: animal language; 4. 'Artful' creatures, part two: can a snake have a face?; 5. 'Artful' creatures, part three: 'pre-posthumanist' Hardy; 6. Useful creatures: rethinking Hardy's humanitarianism.
£31.90
Penguin Publishing Group The Women of Brewster Place Penguin Contemporary
Book SynopsisThe National Book Award-winning novel—and contemporary classic—that launched the brilliant career of Gloria Naylor, now with a foreword by Tayari Jones “[A] shrewd and lyrical portrayal of many of the realities of black life . . . Naylor bravely risks sentimentality and melodrama to write her compassion and outrage large, and she pulls it off triumphantly.” —The New York Times Book Review“Brims with inventiveness—and relevance.” —NPR's Fresh Air In her heralded first novel, Gloria Naylor weaves together the stories of seven women living in Brewster Place, a bleak-inner city sanctuary, creating a powerful, moving portrait of the strengths, struggles, and hopes of black women in America. Vulnerable and resilient, openhanded and openhearted, these women forge their lives in a place that in turn threatens and protects—a common prison and a shared home. Naylor rende
£14.45
Penguin Putnam Inc The Long Valley
Book SynopsisA Penguin ClassicFirst published in 1938, this volume of stories collected with the encouragement of his longtime editor Pascal Covici serves as a wonderful introduction to the work of Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Set in the beautiful Salinas Valley of California, where simple people farm the land and struggle to find a place for themselves in the world, these stories reflect Steinbeck’s characteristic interests: the tensions between town and country, laborers and owners, past and present. Included here are the O. Henry Prize-winning story “The Murder”; “The Chrysanthemums,” perhaps Steinbeck’s most challenging story, both personally and artistically; “Flight,” “The Snake,” “The White Quail,” and the classic tales of “The Red Pony.” With an introduction and notes by John H. Timmerman.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in
£15.30
Penguin Putnam Inc The Pastures of Heaven
Book SynopsisA Penguin ClassicIn Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck’s beautifully rendered depictions of small yet fateful moments that transform ordinary lives, these twelve early stories introduce both the subject and style of artistic expression that recur in the most important works of his career. Each of these self-contained stories is linked to the others by the presence of the Munroes, a family whose misguided behavior and lack of sensitivity precipitate disasters and tragedies. As the individual dramas unfold, Steinbeck reveals the self-deceptions, intellectual limitations, and emotional vulnerabilities that shape the characters’ reactions and gradually erode the harmony and dreams that once formed the foundation of the community. This edition includes an introduction and notes by James Nagel.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics
£12.63
Penguin Putnam Inc The Return of the Soldier Penguin
Book SynopsisWriting her first novel during World War I, West examines the relationship between three women and a soldier suffering from shell-shock. This novel of an enclosed world invaded by public events also embodies in its characters the shifts in England's class structures at the beginning of the twentieth century.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
£12.32
The University of Chicago Press From the Book of Giants Phoenix Poets
Book SynopsisSong for Thom GunnThere is no east or westin the wood you fear and seek,stumbling past a gate of mossand what you would not take. And what you thought you had(the Here that is no rest)you make from it an aidto form no east, no west. No east. No west. No needfor given map or bell,vehicle, screen, or speed. Forget the house, forget the hill. Taking its title from a set of writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, From the Book of Giants retunes the signal broadcast from these ancient fragments, transmitting a new sound in the shape of a Roman drain cover, in imitations of Dante and Martial, in the voice of a cricket and the hard-boiled American photographer Weegee, in elegies both public and personal, and in poems that range from the social speech of letters to the gnomic language of riddles. Out of poetry's complex of complaint and praise, Joshua Weiner discovers, in one poem, his own complicity in Empire during his son's baseball game at the White House. In another, an embroidere
£50.51
Random House USA Inc The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories Anchor
Book SynopsisThis definitive collection of work from Hans Christian Andersen—one of the immortals of world literature—not only includes his own notes to his stories but is the only version available in trade paperback that presents Andersen's fairy tales exactly as he collected them in the original Danish edition of 1874. Recognizing the literary merit of Andersen's own simple colloquial language, which Victorian translators and their imitators very often altered to sentimentalize or vulgarize, translator Erik Haugaard has remained faithful to the original text. The fairy tales Hans Christian Andersen wrote, such as The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling, The Red Shoes, and The Nightingale, are remarkable for their sense of fantasy, power of description, and acute sensitivity, and they are like no others written before or since. Unlike the Brothers Grimm, who collected and retold folklore, Andersen adopted the most ancient literary forms of the fairy tale and the folktale and di
£999.99
WW Norton & Co Dirty Love
Book SynopsisIn this heartbreakingly beautiful book of disillusioned intimacy and persistent yearning, beloved and celebrated author Andre Dubus III explores the bottomless needs and stubborn weaknesses of people seeking gratification in food and sex, work and love.Trade Review"First rate fiction by a dazzling talent. (starred review)" -- Kirkus Reviews"Reading these stories is like visiting a classic steakhouse where the coolly professional waiters don't hold your cultivated taste for high-concept haute cuisine against you, but rather decide to remind you what you've been missing by giving you one of the best dining experiences you've ever had." -- Jeff Turrentine - New York Times Book Review"Highly recommended…. Filled with heartbreak, slices of happiness, and unrelenting hope." -- Lisa Block - Library Journal"It’s that just-out-of-reach desire that creates such poignancy in each of these stories, including one about a philandering bartender named Robert, who likes to pretend he’s a poet. He’s not, but Dubus is. He’s got a transparent, easy style that’s never self-consciously lyrical but constantly delivers phrases of insight and gentle wit that lay open these characters without scalding them with irony, as we’ve come to expect from so many clever novelists." -- Ron Charles - Washington Post"I can think of no novelist who renders the gritty, down-and-out corners of New England better than Dubus, and those beautifully specific, contained slices of American life open into whole universes of love, violence, guilt, and betrayal." -- The New Republic"Powerful… lush." -- Anthony Doerr - Boston Globe"Fabulous…[Dubus’s] writing is as gorgeous as ever." -- Kim Curtis - Associated Press"[Dubus] writ[es] with…winning candor and intelligence." -- Mark Athitakis - Star Tribune"Staggeringly good… . Dubus can home in more quickly and efficiently on a character’s inner life than any writer I’ve encountered in recent memory." -- Jeff Turrentine - New York Times Book Review"Intimate short stories and novellas about the difficulty of sharing lives, about betrayal and fidelity and the emotional violence we inflict on the people we love." -- Nina MacLaughlin - Boston Magazine"Dubus delivers strong insights into bad behavior." -- Mary Pols - San Francisco Chronicle"Gorgeous." -- Chloe Schama - The New Republic"[N]obody does quiet desperation better than Dubus." -- The New Yorker"The loosely linked stories vividly paint the intensity of despair, uncertainty, loneliness and affection, and the many demons that torment the soul. Dubus’s offerings feel intimate and are powerfully executed." -- April L. Judge - Library Journal
£18.04
WW Norton & Co A Guide for the Perplexed
Book SynopsisThe incomparable Dara Horn returns with a spellbinding novel of how technology changes memory and how memory shapes the soul.Trade Review"Readers will be taken in by this literary thriller’s fast-paced plot and complicated but well-imaged characters. A sure bet." -- Library Journal"[An] intense, multilayered story… Horn's writing comes from a place of deep knowledge…" -- Jami Attenberg - New York Times Book Review"It’s not every day you come across a genuinely page-turning kidnapping story that is also replete with historical, psychological, and interpretive insights into Maimonides, envy, and motherhood, not to mention replicating the narrative structure and central themes of the biblical story of Joseph. A Guide for the Perplexed is Dara Horn’s most ambitious, audacious, edifying, and entertaining novel yet." -- Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them"[A Guide for the Perplexed] is so beautiful, so mystical, so exciting… I really urge you to read Dara Horn." -- Bill Goldstein - NBC's Weekend Today Show"Dara Horn's fourth, and best…. [A] humane, erudite novel." -- Boston Globe"Horn moves seamlessly back and forth in time." -- Entertainment Weekly"Intricate and suspenseful, A Guide for the Perplexed is both learned and heartfelt, an exploration of human memory, its uses and misuses, that spans centuries in a twisty braid full of jaw dropping revelations and breathtaking reversals. An elegant and brainy page-turner from a master storyteller." -- Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Caleb’s Crossing"A work marked by brilliant conceits and clever plotting." -- Kirkus Reviews"[Within A Guide for the Perplexed] beats the living heart of a very human drama, one that will have readers both caught up in the suspense and moved by the tragic dimensions of the unresolved dilemma at the core of the story." -- Booklist, Starred Review"Horn is embracing her own, livelier brand of Jewish history, embodied in the joys of discovering-and creating-the past anew." -- Tablet Magazine"Wondrous…a richly layered novel…. Horn has magically summoned the wisdom of the ages to address a most contemporary dilemma…riveting and suspenseful…. A novelist at the height of her powers." -- Andrew Ferman - Miami Herald"A Guide for the Perplexed is a richly layered book that leaves a reader…grateful and impressed." -- Jewish Daily Forward
£19.64
WW Norton & Co Keep Your Head Down Vietnam the Sixities and a
Book SynopsisAn award-winning poet highlights the vibrant history of his generation in a farewell to Vietnam, the chaotic sixties, and their long aftermath.Trade Review"Starred Review. In his first book of nonfiction, Anderson tells his story in inviting, poetic prose. He begins with his dysfunctional childhood in Memphis, then offers an evocative depiction of his service in Vietnam, which included a firefight on his first day in the field and more than his share of closely observed horror. He shows the hell of war as he went through it. Only in recent years did Anderson stop drinking, find meaningful work as a poet and teacher, marry and make a life-changing trip back to Vietnam in 2000. Yet what Anderson dubs “Snakebrain” (the demons inside him) remains a part of him. His beautifully told story is one of redemption, but also one without a happy ending." -- Publishers Weekly
£19.94
WW Norton & Co One Hundred Names for Love
Book SynopsisFinalist for the Pulitzer Prize Finalist for the National Book Circle Critics Award "Diane Ackerman's most enjoyable, intimate, and heartrending work yet."—Atul GawandeTrade Review"Starred Review. Writing with her signature empathy, curiosity, brilliance, and mirth, Ackerman chronicles West’s heroic battle to reclaim words and mobility and her tailoring of West’s speech therapy to match his spectacular vocabulary and unique intelligence. A master of vivid metaphors and multifaceted narratives.... A gorgeously engrossing, affecting, sweetly funny, and mind-opening love story of crisis, determination, creativity, and repair." -- Booklist"[T]ouching…their journey makes for goofy, pun-happy reading, a little like overhearing lovers coo to each other." -- Publishers Weekly"An intimate, richly documented, and beautiful memoir …. [A] double portrait of two remarkable people." -- Joyce Carol Oates"Combine the brilliant sensibility of a poet and essayist with the compelling articulation of her mindful wisdom, and intense devotion, and voila—you have the powerful journey into the many ways love can inspire healing after profound brain damage. This gem of a book will captivate the many of us who have a relative or friend stricken by stroke—and will be of practical help to doctors and scientists as well as concerned family members. One Hundred Names for Love reminds us that healing is possible and that lives can be rebuilt from the inside out." -- Daniel Siegel, M.D.
£19.94
WW Norton & Co Bloodmoney
Book SynopsisFrom the author of the best-selling Body of Lies and The Increment: in a tragedy of revenge, the CIA falls victim to its own daring operation in the Middle East.Trade Review"Starred Review. [C]ontinues his series of top-notch CIA thrillers with this fast-paced new entry…. Ignatius writes with authority and skill about a shadow world in which nothing is as it seems and money is power. This may be fiction, but in the end the reader will be struck by how feasible the story really is.... A terrific, believable novel about the intersection of politics, ethics and finance." -- Kirkus Reviews"In addition to being a solid page-turner, [Bloodmoney] offers intriguing characters, a complicated but skillfully explicated plot and a nuanced view of Pashtun tribal culture often at odds with the larger Punjabi population. And as with all of Ignatius’ fiction, readers attuned to current events may wonder if he knows things most Americans don’t." -- Booklist
£19.94
WW Norton & Co The Sufferings of Young Werther A New Translation
Book Synopsis“Stanley Corngold’s translation is a triumph. This is a glorious achievement, a Werther for the ages.”—Christopher Prendergast
£18.04
WW Norton & Co Miss Manners Minds Your Business
Book SynopsisA witty guide to managing a real life wisely in a work-centered world.Trade Review"Intrepid, practical, and always humane, Miss Manners tackles common workplace hazards: irritating colleagues, rude customers, business travel, and office parties, which she’d prefer to see replaced by 'genuine workplace treats such as bonuses and time off.'" -- Publishers Weekly"As they parse delicate questions of hierarchy, privacy, focus, gender, age, family matters, illness, gossip, rants, business trips, meetings, and socializing, the Martins broach the very core of human relationships. They also drive home the fact that our lives would be vastly improved if we consistently worked together with dignity, respect, responsibility, patience, and, as they so ably demonstrate, a sense of humor." -- Booklist"[H]umorous yet helpful advice… an enjoyable collection." -- Library Journal"The business world would run much more smoothly if everyone lived by Miss Manners’s rules of etiquette. Her latest witty guidebook is written with her son Nicholas, who has a day job as director of operations at the Lyric Opera of Chicago." -- Bloomberg.com
£18.99
WW Norton & Co Where Mountains Are Nameless
Book SynopsisThe "compelling" (Seattle Times) story behind a most sacred piece of American wilderness.Trade Review"It will effectively send you screaming to your computer to pound out an e-mail to your congressman." -- National Geographic Adventure Magazine
£11.99
WW Norton & Co The Boy Who Followed Ripley
Book Synopsis"Ripley is an unmistakable descendant of Gatsby, that 'penniless young man without a past' who will stop at nothing." —Frank RichTrade Review"Exquisitely chilling." -- Olivia Laing, author of Crudo
£12.34
WW Norton & Co Ripleys Game
Book SynopsisWith its sinister humor and genius plotting, Ripley's Game is an enduring portrait of a compulsive, sociopathic American antihero.
£13.41
WW Norton & Co The Undertaking Life Studies from the Dismal
Book SynopsisA National Book Award Finalist "One of the most life-affirming books I have read in a long time…brims with humanity, irreverence, and invigorating candor." —Tom VanderbiltTrade Review"A startling and eloquent meditation on death and bereavement…If you think this book isn't about you, or for you, think again." -- Spin"Forceful, authentic, and full of a kind of ethical and aesthetic clarity." -- Richard Bernstein - New York Times"A memoir that is stand-out superb." -- Esquire"[Lynch] is able to take us inside the palpable business of blood, tears, and the final verse of life in a manner that is almost shocking in the relief it delivers…[A] fine, sensible, and wise book." -- Boston Globe"Lynch’s vivid prose has the electricity of writing that tells us what is going on in the secret places of the community—and the secret places of the heart." -- USA Today"[Lynch] brings the lessons of death to life, and turns life and death into art." -- Time Out New York"Lynch’s essays are consistently humane and observant of the tragic, humorous, and occasionally startling vagaries of human life…Highly recommended reading for fans of poetry, Ireland, funeral and cultural customs, or anything else. More than a study of ‘the dismal trade,’ it is a long view of what it means to be human." -- Detroit Free Press"[An] unusual and affecting book. Lynch writes beautifully and affectingly…Each of the book’s chapters…enchants and instructs while enlightening us in the ways of living, dying, and most important, in Lynch’s anything-but-dismal view, loving." -- Elle"[Lynch] devotes most of his finely composed pages to gently humorous and unabashedly affectionate portraits of the people he loves…[A] collection of powerful and cadenced essays." -- Chicago Tribune
£12.34
WW Norton & Co The Garden of Last Days A Novel
Book Synopsis“So good, so damn compulsively readable, that I can hardly believe it.” —Stephen King, Entertainment WeeklyTrade Review"Storytelling of the finest kind . . . [an] incandescent and absorbing novel." -- Boston Sunday Globe"Muscular and disquieting and turn-the-pages-so-fast-you-tear-them good." -- Esquire"A very fast and entertaining read. . . . Every passage is expertly, elegantly achieved." -- Madison Smart Bell - Philadelphia Inquirer
£11.99
WW Norton & Co All Other Nights
Book SynopsisA New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice "Slam-bang.…superb." —Washington PostTrade Review"Engrossing.…delicious." -- New York Times Book Review"Vibrant and compelling." -- Ruth Andrew Ellenson - Los Angeles Times"All Other Nights has the propulsive, suspenseful narrative of an espionage thriller, but the novel stands out because of the larger moral dilemmas Horn weaves into an epic." -- Sarah Weinman - New York Post"An enjoyably fast-paced amalgam of historical romance, spy novel and political thriller.…a rare and memorable portrait of Jewish life during the Civil War." -- Emily Bingham - Wall Street Journal"An astonishing storyteller.…[an] extraordinary novel." -- Financial Times"Riveting…written in meticulous but energetic prose…All Other Nights interrogates and celebrates nationhood and freedom.…Conflating Jewish and American history, Horn’s third and most accomplished novel portrays Passover, the festival of freedom, amid the carnage caused by slavery. Horn’s lively, timely tale extends the range of American Jewish literature beyond familiar themes of immigration, assimilation and extermination." -- Steven G. Kellman - The Forward"The richness of the background painted so ably by Dara Horn makes what is a coming-of-age saga a compelling account of one man’s development through the horrors of the Civil War.…Dara Horn’s skill as a writer and depth of comprehension is fully realized in this remarkable novel." -- Morton Teicher - Jewish Journal"A Civil War spy page-turner meets an exploration of race and religion in 19th-century America in Horn’s enthralling latest.…Horn propels the love story at a thriller’s pace; the mix of love and loyalty played out in a divided America is sublime." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)"A complex, multilayered, and thoroughly involving historical novel. Horn both unearths a fascinating, relatively unexplored aspect of American history—the role of Jewish Americans in the Civil War—and delivers a novel rich in human emotion and ambiguity. A triumph" -- Booklist (starred review)"A tale of adventure that weaves the Civil War and the Jews of the North and South together in a web of betrayal and love, dignity and loss, that takes the breath away and makes the heart pound." -- Anne Roiphe
£13.29
WW Norton & Co A Bounty of Blandings
Book SynopsisP. G. Wodehouse’s uproarious portrait of an aristocratic family whose lives revolve around an enormous Berkshire sow.
£14.99
WW Norton & Co To the Point A Dictionary of Concise Writing
Book SynopsisThe essential guide to writing succinctly.Trade Review"At a time when we are drowning in language, Robert Hartwell Fiske has thrown us a lifeline." -- Roy Peter Clark, author of How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times"If you want to write lean, succinct prose, you can do no better than to consult To the Point: A Dictionary of Concise Writing." -- Rod L. Evans, author of Tyrannosaurus Lex: The Marvelous Book of Palindromes, Anagrams, and Other Delightful and Outrageous Wordplay
£16.99
Random House Publishing Group 18 Best Stories
Book SynopsisA chilling compilation of some of Edgar Allen Poe''s best-loved stories, edited by Vincent Price and Chandler Brossard and with an introduction by Vincent Price, including: The Black Cat - The Fall of the House of Usher - The Masque of the Red Death - The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar - The Premature Burial - Ms. Found in a Bottle - A Tale of the Ragged Mountains - The Sphinx - The Murders in the Rue Morgue - The Tell-Tale Heart - The Gold-Bug - The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether - The Man That Was Used Up - The Balloon Hoax - A Descent Into the Maelstrom - The Purloined Letter - The Pit and The Pendulum - The Cask of Amontillado
£8.13
Random House USA Inc Les Misérables
Book Synopsis
£9.49
Random House USA Inc Death Of Ivan Ilyich Bantam Classics
Book SynopsisHailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.
£7.45
Random House USA Inc The Aeneid Classics Classics S
Book SynopsisAeneas flees the ashes of Troy to found the city of Rome and change forever the course of the Western world--as literature as well. Virgil's Aeneid is as eternal as Rome itself, a sweeping epic of arms and heroism--the searching portrait of a man caught between love and duty, human feeling and the force of fate--that has influenced writers for over 2,000 years. Filled with drama, passion, and the universal pathos that only a masterpiece can express. The Aeneid is a book for all the time and all people.
£7.84
Random House USA Inc Leaves of Grass Classics
Book SynopsisOne of the great innovative figures in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. Leaves Of Grass is his one book. First published in 1855 with only twelve poems, it was greeted by Ralph Waldo Emerson as 'the wonderful gift . . . the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.' Over the course of Whitman's life, the book reappeared in many versions, expanded and transformed as the author's experiences and the nation's history changed and grew. Whitman's ambition was to creates something uniquely American. In that he succeeded. His poems have been woven into the very fabric of the American character. From his solemn masterpieces 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd' and 'Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking' to the joyous freedom of 'Song of Myself,' 'I Sing the Body Electric,' and 'Song of the Open Road,'
£8.17
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc Tess of the dUrbervilles
Book SynopsisViolated by one man, forsaken by another, Tess Durbeyfield is the magnificent and spirited heroine of Thomas Hardy’s immortal work. Of all the great English novelists, no one writes more eloquently of tragic destiny than Hardy. With the innocent and powerless victim Tess, he creates profound sympathy for human frailty while passionately indicting the injustices of Victorian society. Scorned by outraged readers upon its publication in 1891, Tess of the d’Urbervilles is today one of the enduring classics of nineteenth-century literature.
£7.92
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc Peter Pan
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£7.43
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc David Copperfield
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£9.23
Random House Publishing Group thejunglebooks
Book SynopsisFirst published in 1894 and 1895, The Jungle Books remain some of the most beloved tales of all time. Adored by readers of all ages, these classic stories in two volumes spin the unforgettable story of Mowgli—a boy raised by a pack of wolves—as he learns indelible lessons about the laws of the jungle as well as the needs of the heart. Through Mowgli’s journey, readers also meet the tiger Shere Khan, who stalks man and beast alike, the rock python Kaa, who dispenses wisdom, and the aging wolf Akela, who struggles as his leadership of the pack is challenged. Set in India, Kipling’s great masterpiece is an allegory for Britain’s imperialism, filled with high adventure and extraordinary characters. The mythic tale of a boy looking for where he truly belongs—either with the man-pack of the village or the wolf-pack of the wild—The Jungle Books touch both our intellect and our emotions, while Kipling’s dazzling storytelling makes t
£999.99
Random House Publishing Group Villette
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£7.76
Random House USA Inc A Christmas Carol
Book SynopsisMerry Christmas, everyone!“Bah!” said Scrooge. “Humbug!” With those famous words unfolds a tale that renews the joy and caring that are Christmas. Whether we read it aloud with our family and friends or open the pages on a chill winter evening to savor the story in solitude, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a very special holiday experience. It is the one book that every year will warm our hearts with favorite memories of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future—and will remind us with laughter and tears that the true Christmas spirit comes from giving with love.With a heartwarming account of Dickens’ first reading of the Carol, and a biographical sketch.
£999.99
Random House USA Inc Treasure Island Bantam Classics
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£8.07
Random House USA Inc The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings
Book SynopsisFlamboyant and controversial, Oscar Wilde was a dazzling personality, a master of wit, and a dramatic genius whose sparkling comedies contain some of the most brilliant dialogue ever written for the English stage. Here in one volume are his immensely popular novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray; his last literary work, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” a product of his own prison experience; and four complete plays: Lady Windermere’s Fan, his first dramatic success, An Ideal Husband, which pokes fun at conventional morality, The Importance of Being Earnest, his finest comedy, and Salomé, a portrait of uncontrollable love originally written in French and faithfully translated by Richard Ellmann.Every selection appears in its entirety-a marvelous collection of outstanding works by the incomparable Oscar Wilde, who’s been aptly called “a lord of language” by Max Beerbohm.
£8.14
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc Ethan Frome And Other Short Stories Bantam
Book SynopsisOn a bleak New England farm, a taciturn young man has resigned himself to a life of grim endurance. Bound by circumstance to a woman he cannot love, Ethan Frome is haunted by a past of lost possibilities until his wife’s orphaned cousin, Mattie Silver, arrives and he is tempted to make one final, desperate effort to escape his fate. In language that is spare, passionate, and enduring, Edith Wharton tells this unforgettable story of two tragic lovers overwhelmed by the unrelenting forces of conscience and necessity.Included with Ethan Frome are the novella The Touchstone and three short stories, “The Last Asset,” “The Other Two,” and “Xingu.” Together, this collection offers a survey of the extraordinary range and power of one of America’s finest writers.
£7.34
Random House USA Inc The Prince and the Pauper
Book SynopsisRich with surprise and hilarious adventure, The Prince and the Pauper is a delightful satire of England’s romantic past and a joyful boyhood romp filled with the same tongue-in-cheek irony that sparks the best of Mark Twain’s tall tales. Two boys, one an urchin from London’s filthy lanes, the other a prince born in a lavish palace, unwittingly trade identities. Thus a bedraggled “Prince of Poverty” discovers that his private dreams have all come true—while a pampered Prince of Wales finds himself tossed into a rough-and-tumble world of squalid beggars and villainous thieves. Originally written as a story for children, The Prince and the Pauper is a classic novel for adults as well—through its stinging attack on the ageless human folly of attempting to measure true worth by outer appearances.
£7.61
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc Kidnapped
Book SynopsisAcclaimed by Henry James as Robert Louis Stevenson''s best novel, Kidnapped achieves what Stevenson called, the particular crown and triumph of the artist...not simply to convince, but to enchant.Spirited, romantic, and full of danger, Kidnapped is Robert Louis Stevenson''s classic of high adventure. Beloved by generations, it is the saga of David Balfour, a young heir whose greedy uncle connives to do him out of his inherited fortune and plots to have him seized and sold into slavery. But honor, loyalty, and courage are rewarded; the orphan and castaway survives kidnapping and shipwreck, is rescued by a daredevil of a rogue, and makes a thrilling escape to freedom across the wild highlands of Scotland.
£8.18
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc The Woman in White Bantam Classics
Book SynopsisWilkie Collins’ classic tale of murder, intrigue, madness, and mistaken identity ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME “There, in the middle of the broad, bright high-road—there, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven—stood thefigure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments.” Generally considered the first English sensation novel, The Woman in Whitefeatures the remarkable heroine Marian Halcombe and her sleuthing partner, drawing master Walter Hartright, pitted against the diabolical team of Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde. After more than a century since its publication, Wilkie Collins’s psychological thriller has never been out of print.
£999.99
Random House USA Inc Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Book SynopsisRobert Louis Stevenson originally wrote Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde as a 'chilling shocker.' He then burned the draft and, upon his wife's advice, rewrote it as the darkly complex tale it is today. Stark, skillfully woven, this fascinating novel explores the curious turnings of human character through the strange case of Dr. Jekyll, a kindly scientist who by night takes on his stunted evil self, Mr. Hyde. Anticipating modern psychology, Jekyll And Hyde is a brilliantly original study of man's dual nature—as well as an immortal tale of suspense and terror. Published in 1866, Jekyll And Hyde was an instant success and brought Stevenson his first taste of fame. Though sometimes dismissed as a mere mystery story, the book has evoked much literary admirations. Vladimir Nabokov likened it to Madame Bovary and Dead Souls as 'a fable that lies nearer to poetry than to ordinary prose fiction.'
£7.89
Random House Publishing Group King John and Henry VIII
Book SynopsisThese two history plays—one written in the early days of Shakespeare’s career and one at the very end—are alike in the complexity of their political vision. King John probes the nature of good and evil as self-interest and ruthless ambition proceed unchecked while an unpopular ruler wages a brutal fight to keep his throne. Henry VIII is a sumptuous spectacle of pomp and ceremony, as well as an exploration of the mysterious ways in which the rise and fall from power of individuals led ultimately to England’s destiny as a Protestant nation.
£999.99
Random House Publishing Group Ivanhoe
Book SynopsisHailed by Victor Hugo as the real epic of our age, Ivanhoe was an immensely popular bestseller when first published in 1819. The book inspired literary imitations as well as paintings, dramatizations, and even operas. Now Sir Walter Scott''s sweeping romance of medieval England has prompted a lavish new television production. In the twelfth century, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe returns home to England from the Third Crusade to claim his inheritance and the love of the lady Rowena. The heroic adventures of this noble Saxon knight involve him in the struggle between Richard the Lion-Hearted and his malignant brother John: a conflict that brings Ivanhoe into alliance with the mysterious outlaw Robin Hood and his legendary fight for the forces of good. Scott''s characters, like Shakespeare''s and Jane Austen''s, have the seed of life in them, observed Virginia Woolf. The emotions in which Scott excels are not those of human beings pitted against other human beings, but of man pitted againstNature, of man in relation to fate. His romance is the romance of hunted men hiding in woods at night; of brigs standing out to sea; of waves breaking in the moonlight; of solitary sands and distant horsemen; of violence and suspense. For Henry James, Scott was a born storyteller. . . . Since Shakespeare, no writer has created so immense a gallery of portraits.
£7.82
