Contemporary fiction titles are those which focus on the present or near past. Stories rooted in the current cultural, social, and political landscape which feature characters we can all recognise.
Contemporary Fiction Books
Penguin Books Ltd The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories
Book Synopsis''The stories here will provoke, delight and impress. Joost Zwagerman''s selection forms a fascinating guidebook to a landscape you''ll surely want to wander in again.'' Clare Lowden, TLS''There is a lot of northern European melancholy in the collection, though often tinged with wry humour...an excellent book'' Jonathan Gibbs, Minor Literatures''We were kids - but good kids. If I may say so myself. We''re much smarter now, so smart it''s pathetic. Except for Bavink, who went crazy''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, wTrade ReviewForms a loose narrative - both historical and literary - of the twentieth century...watching the decades roll by in this looking-glass world, familiar yet strange, is one of the book's chief pleasures...the stories here will provoke, delight and impress. Joost Zwagerman's selection forms a fascinating guidebook to a landscape you'll surely want to wander in again. -- Claire Lowden * TLS *There is a lot of northern European melancholy in the collection, though they are often tinged with wry humour...The Second World War and Dutch colonialism also cast their shadows on these stories. Unblemished comedy is in short supply. And you have to ask: is this gloominess a reflection on the Dutch temperament, or on the present selection?... An excellent book -- Jonathan Gibbs * Minor Literatures *An affectionate love-letter to the Dutch short story which deserves to be cherished by all * TN2 Magazine, Trinity College Dublin *the range of stories, styles and authors means you can happily plunge in free of preconceptions and rarely findyourself disappointed. Similar anthologies can vary wildly in quality but The Penguin Book Of Dutch Short Stories keeps the bar high throughout mainly because, it seems, Zwagerman chose to include stories he admired on merit rather than making sure a list of boxes were ticked... -- Charlie Connelly * New European *
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Nova Express The Restored Text Penguin Modern
Book SynopsisThe most ferociously political and prophetic book of the Cut-Up Trilogy, Nova Express fires the reader into a textual outer space to show us our burning planet and to reveal the operations of the Nova Mob in all their ugliness. As with The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded, William Burroughs deploys his cut-up methods to make a visionary demand that we take back the world that has been stolen from us. Edited and introduced by renowned Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris, this new edition reveals how Nova Express was cut from an extraordinary wealth of typescripts to create startling new forms of poetic possibility.The third book of Burroughs'' linguistically prophetic ''cut-up'' trilogy - following The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded - Nova Express is a hilarious and Swiftian parody of bureaucracy and the frailty of the human animal.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Ancient Tillage
Book SynopsisFor Andre, a young man growing up on a farm in Brazil, life consists of 'the earth, the wheat, the bread, our table and our family'. He loves the land, fears his austere, pious father who preaches from the head of the table as if it is a pulpit, and loathes himself, as he starts to harbour shameful feelings for his sister Ana.Trade ReviewRaduan Nassar became a sensation with his first novel. Now published in English, the world will come knocking. -- The IndependentOne of the most important novels in Brazilian literature * Revista Cult *Nassar's book is a masterwork, a rare exception in a constantly levelling out literature business * Die Zeit *While reading, and marveling at, Ancient Tillage and A Cup of Rage -- both of them set on farms in the Brazilian outback, both of them stylistically bold achievements -- we are struck by two other feelings: disappointment that Nassar wrote so little, and disbelief that it took so long to render his unique voice into English. -- Malcolm Forbes * The National *
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd A Cup of Rage
Book SynopsisLonglisted for the Man Booker International Prize''A savagely short novel of immeasurable ambition and violent beauty. This is the language of genius.'' Juan Pablos Villalobos''How often, honestly, does the unveiling in translation of a ''forgotten genius'' live up to the hype? Well here''s one that does: Raduan Nassar'' Times Literary Supplement''Yes, bastard, you''re the one I love''A pair of lovers - a young female journalist and an older man who owns an isolated farm in the Brazilian outback - spend the night together. The next day they proceed to destroy each other. Amid vitriolic insults, cruelty and warring egos, their sexual adventure turns into a savage power game. This intense, erotic cult novel by one of Brazil''s most infamous modernist writers explores alienation, the desire to dominate and the wish to be dominated.A new translation by Stefan ToblerTrade ReviewIf this country were grown-up enough to have a literary Good Sex award, this explosively erotic story from the Brazilian modernist would be a strong contender... A Cup of Rage is a burning coal of a work, superbly translated by Stefan Tobler....The writing is chewy - dense, tough, but well worth the effort -- Nick Lezard * The Guardian *'How often, honestly, does the unveiling in translation of a 'forgotten genius' live up to the hype? Well here's one that does: Raduan Nassar * Times Literary Supplement *The book contains much: rich inner monologue, political allusions and a mesmerising pull between dominance and insolence in lovers' quarrels -- Sara Wilson * World Literature Today *Raduan Nassar's work is both rare and transcendent. From the conflict between the couple in "A Cup of Rage" to the return of the prodigal son of an immigrant family in "Ancient Tillage", Nassar's narratives are dry, muscular - and when you least expect it, raise flight and achieve uncommonly lyrical plains. His books are like a land manually ploughed in a precise and essential way; there is not a single excessive word in either of them. His language sprouts up with force and expression; every word is an exposed nerve. -- Walter SallesOne of the highest points of the Portuguese language of our time -- Folha de S. PauloRaduan Nassar has created one of the most rare and incandescent books in contemporary Brazilian literature -- Leo Gilson Ribeiro * Jornal da Tarde *These are 70 pages full of wonderfully fiery and shrieking prose, to be quaffed off, hot, in one deep draught * Frankfurter Rundschau *A diagram of exciting prose about a loving relationship in his verbal outburst - a great book -- Peter Henning * Die Weltwoche *
£6.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Truce
Book SynopsisForty-nine, with a kind face, no serious ailments, a good salary and three moody children, widowed accountant Martin Santome is about to retire. He assumes he'll take up gardening, or the guitar, or whatever retired people do. What he least expects is to fall passionately in love with his shy young employee Laura Avellaneda.Trade ReviewIn this book, all the emotions of your life are identified, named and renamed. When you read it, you won't believe that you've felt so much -- Roberto SavianoArresting... emotionally astute, melancholic, uplifting and tragic... This book was written in 1960 and now, deservedly, it is a Penguin Modern Classic * London Evening Standard *The Truce remains a Latin American classic. Expertly translated here by Harry Morales, it is a simple tale about a straightforward man who falls in love with a younger woman - until disaster strikes and wrenches them apart... Intimate and moving, this novel is a real find -- Rosemary Goring * Herald Scotland *This 1960 Latin American classic had me laughing, blubbing and eager to discover more of Benedetti's books... If you imagine that being 50 heralds a life of daytime TV, cocoa and slippers, then this life-enhancing novel will shatter your dread -- Val Hennessy * Daily Mail *
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Quiet Days in Clichy
Book Synopsis''Here, even if I had a thousand dollar in my pocket, I know of no sight which could arouse in me the feeling of ecstasy''Looking back to Henry Miller''s bohemian life in 1930s Paris, when he was an obscure, penniless writer, Quiet Days in Clichy is a love letter to a city. As he describes nocturnal wanderings through shabby Montmartre streets, cafés and bars, sexual liaisons and volatile love affairs, Miller brilliantly evokes a period that would shape his entire life and oeuvre. ''His writing is flamboyant, torrential, chaotic, treacherous, and dangerous'' Anaïs Nin
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Woman who Went to Bed for a Year
Book Synopsis''Hilarious and totally Townsend. There were parts where I laughed until I cried'' Daily Mail What happens when a duvet day turns into a duvet year?Sue Townsend, the bestselling author of the Adrian Mole series, returns with The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year, a funny and touching novel about what happens when someone stops being the person everyone wants them to be. The day her twins leave home, Eva climbs into bed and stays there. For seventeen years she''s wanted to yell at the world, ''Stop! I want to get off''. Finally, this is her chance.Her husband Brian, an astronomer having an unsatisfactory affair, is upset. Who will cook his dinner? Eva, he complains, is attention seeking. But word of Eva''s defiance spreads.Legions of fans, believing she is protesting, gather in the street. While Alexander the white van man brings tea, toast and sympathy. And from this odd but comforting place Eva begins Trade ReviewWhat happens when a duvet day turns into a duvet year?Sue Townsend, the bestselling author of the Adrian Mole series, returns with The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year, a funny and touching novel about what happens when someone stops being the person everyone wants them to be. * from publisher's description *Proof, once more, that Townsend is one of the funniest writers around * The Times *Townsend's wit is razor-sharp * Daily Mirror *Laugh-out-loud . . . a teeming world of characters whose foibles and misunderstandings provide glorious amusement. Something deeper and darker than comedy * Sunday Times *She fills the pages with turmoil, anger, passion, love and big helpings of wit. It's full of colour and glows with life * Independent *Hilarious and totally Townsend. There were parts where I laughed until I cried * Daily Mail *Touching and hilarious. Bursting with witty social commentary as well as humour * Women's Weekly *A funny, poignant look at modern family life * Daily Express *
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The History of Mr. Polly
Book SynopsisWell's brilliant social novel, ranked #39 on The Guardian's list of 100 Best NovelsMr Polly is an ordinary middle-aged man who is tired of his wife's nagging and his dreary job as the owner of a regional gentleman's outfitters. Faced with the threat of bankruptcy, he concludes that the only way to escape his frustrating existence is by burning his shop to the ground, and killing himself. Unexpected events, however, conspire at the last moment to lead the bewildered Mr Polly to a bright new future - after he saves a life, fakes his death, and escapes to a life of heroism, hope and ultimate happiness.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
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Ann Veronica
Book SynopsisTwenty-one, passionate and headstrong, Ann Veronica Stanley is determined to live her own life. When her father forbids her from attending a fashionable Ball, she decides she has no choice but to leave her family home and make a fresh start in London. There, she finds a world of intellectuals, socialists, and suffragettes - a place where, as a student in Biology at Imperial College, she can be truly free. But when she meets the brilliant Capes, a married academic, and quickly falls in love, she soon finds that freedom comes at a price.
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Wells H TonoBungay
Book SynopsisPresented as a miraculous cure-all, Tono-Bungay is in fact nothing other than a pleasant-tasting liquid with no positive effects. Nonetheless, when the young George Ponderevo is employed by his Uncle Edward to help market this ineffective medicine, he finds his life overwhelmed by its sudden success. Soon, the worthless substance is turned into a formidable fortune, as society becomes convinced of the merits of Tono-Bungay through a combination of skilled advertising and public credulity. As the newly rich George discovers, however, there is far more to class in England than merely the possession of wealth.
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Sons and Lovers
Book SynopsisThe marriage of Gertrude and Walter Morel has become a battleground. Repelled by her uneducated and sometimes violent husband, delicate Gertrude devotes her life to her children, especially to her sons, William and Paul - determined they will not follow their father into working down the coal mines. But conflict is evitable when Paul seeks to escape his mother''s suffocating grasp through relationships with women his own age. Set in Lawrence''s native Nottinghamshire, Sons and Lovers (1913) is a highly autobiographical and compelling portrayal of childhood, adolescence and the clash of generations.Trade ReviewLawrence's masterpiece... a revelation. (Anthony Burgess)
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Where Angels Fear to Tread Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisA wonderful story of questioning, disillusionment, and conversion, Where Angels Fear to Tread tells the story of a prim English family's encounter with the foreign land of Italy. When attractive, impulsive English widow Lilia marries Gino, a dashing and highly unsuitable Italian twelve years her junior, her snobbish former in-laws make no attempts to hide their disapproval. But their expedition to face the uncouth foreigner takes an unexpected turn when they return to Italy under tragic circumstances intending to rescue Lilia and Gino's baby.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 tr
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd The Longest Journey
Book SynopsisRickie Elliot, a sensitive and intelligent young man with an intense imagination and a certain amount of literary talent, sets out from Cambridge full of hopes to become a writer. But when his stories are not successful he decides instead to marry the beautiful but shallow Agnes, agreeing to abandon his writing and become a schoolmaster at a second-rate public school. Giving up his hopes and values for those of the conventional world, he sinks into a world of petty conformity and bitter disappointments.
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Lady Chatterleys Lover A Propos of Lady
Book SynopsisOne of the most extraordinary literary works of the twentieth century, Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned in England and the United States after its initial publication in 1928. The unexpurgated edition did not appear in America until 1959, after one of the most spectacular legal battles in publishing history. With her soft brown hair, lithe figure and big, wondering eyes, Constance Chatterley is possessed of a certain vitality. Yet she is deeply unhappy; married to an invalid, she is almost as inwardly paralyzed as her husband Clifford is paralyzed below the waist. It is not until she finds refuge in the arms of Mellors the game-keeper, a solitary man of a class apart, that she feels regenerated. Together they move from an outer world of chaos towards an inner world of fulfillment.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 represe
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd The Secret Agent A Simple Tale Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisJoseph Conrad's dark satire on English society In the only novel Conrad set in London, The Secret Agent communicates a profoundly ironic view of human affairs. The story is woven around an attack on the Greenwich Observatory in 1894 masterminded by Verloc, a Russian spy working for the police, and ostensibly a member of an anarchist group in Soho. His masters instruct him to discredit the anarchists in a humiliating fashion, and when his evil plan goes horribly awry, Verloc must deal with the repercussions of his actions. While rooted in the Edwardian period, Conrad's tale remains strikingly contemporary, with its depiction of Londoners gripped by fear of the terrorists living in their midst. This edition of The Secret Agent contains a chronology, further reading, notes and maps of London and Greenwich. In his introduction, Michael Newton discusses London's real-life world of political anarchy, and Conrad's portrayal of the Verlocs' marriage.Trade Review“The Secret Agent is an astonishing book. It is one of the best—and certainly the most significant—detective stories ever written.” —Ford Madox Ford“The Secret Agent is an altogether thrilling ‘crime story’ . . . a political novel of a foreign embassy intrigue and its tragic human outcome.” —Thomas Mann “One of Conrad’s supreme masterpieces.” —F. R. Leavis “[The Secret Agent] was in effect the world’s first political thriller—spies, conspirators, wily policemen, murders, bombings . . . Conrad was also giving artistic expression to his domestic anxieties—his overweight wife and problem child, his lack of money, his inactivity, his discomfort in London, his uneasiness in English society, his sense of exile, of being an alien . . . The novel has the perverse logic and derangement of a dream.”—from the Introduction to the Everyman's Library edition by Paul Theroux
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Tales from Shakespeare
Book SynopsisAs children, Charles and Mary Lamb took great delight in exploring their benefactor''s extensive library; as adults they began writing children''s books together that also appealed to all generations. In Tales of Shakespeare they wished to bring their favourite plays to life for children too young to read and appreciate Shakespeare''s work. This collection of twenty of Shakespeare''s stories begins with The Tempest, which explores themes of magic, power and reconciliation, and ends with Pericles, Prince of Tyre, an exotic play of love, loss and family ties. Between these two tales are twelve romances and comedies, all written by Mary, and six tragedies, all written by Charles. Each tale is told chronologically and retains much of Shakespeare''s lyricism, phrasing and rhythm. Together, they form a captivating and accessible introduction to the Bard''s work.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Selected Stories
Book SynopsisThis collection of short stories traces D. H. Lawrence''s development as a writer. His early tales often draw on personal experiences, as in ''Odour of Chrysanthemums'', a work he described as ''full of my childhood''s atmosphere'', while the horror of the First World War haunts ''England, My England''. Later stories, such as ''Things'', powerfully express his evolving ideas about the duality of our lives. With their complex characters, these stories illuminate emotional lives and, above all, illustrate Lawrence''s passionate belief about the destructive forces in modern society and their effect on love.With an Introduction by Louise Welsh and Notes by Sue Wilson
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Book SynopsisWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALI SMITHKatherine Mansfield''s clear, sparkling and perceptive short stories revolutionized the genre, and this collection represents the whole range of her writing. Moving, resonant, full of light and colour, they range from short sharp studies to longer, richer tales, encompassing her three major volumes Bliss, The Garden Party and In a German Pension, and fifteen tantalizing fragments of unfinished stories published after her tragic death, including ''Honesty'', an intriguing tale of two bachelors, and ''The Doves'' Nest'', an exquisite story of a widowed mother and her daughter in the Riviera who receive a mysterious gentleman caller. Graceful, delicate and quietly devastating, they observe apparently trivial incidents to create sensitive, often painful revelations of her characters'' inner lives.
£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Good Soldier
Book SynopsisFord Madox Ford''s extraordinary novel of passion and betrayal, The Good Soldier, is edited with an introduction by David Bradshaw in Penguin Classics.The Dowells, a wealthy American couple, have been close friends with the Ashburnhams for years. Edward Ashburnham, a first-rate soldier, seems to be the perfect English gentleman, and Leonora his perfect wife, but beneath the surface their marriage seethes with unhappiness and deception. Our only window on the strange tangle of events surrounding Edward is provided by John Dowell, the husband he deceives. Gradually Dowell unfolds a devastating story, in which everyone''s honesty is in doubt. The Good Soldier is a masterpiece of narrative skill and emotional depth.David Bradshaw''s introduction discusses John Dowell as the classic unreliable narrator and as English literature''s most fascinating enigma, and shows how Ford Madox Ford''s unconventional narrative structure makes The Good Soldier a modernist masterwork. Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), born in Surrey and educated in England, Germany and France, changed his original surname, Hueffer, in 1919, after having served with the British army in World War I. As well as founding both the English Review and the Transatlantic Review, home to such writers as James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, Ford was the author of more than sixty works including novels, poems, criticism, travel writing and reminiscences. The Good Soldier (1915) is considered his masterpiece.If you enjoyed The Good Soldier, you might like Ford''s Parade''s End, also available in Penguin Classics, and now the subject of a major new BBC/HBO television miniseries.''A masterpiece''Julian Barnes, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending''I don''t know how many times in nearly forty years I have come back to this novel''Graham Greene
£8.54
Penguin Books Ltd Under Western Eyes Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisIt was I who removed de P- this morning. With these chilling words Victor Haldin shatters the solitary, industrious existence of Razumov, his fellow student at St Petersburg University. Razumov aims to overcome the denial of his noble birth by a brilliant career in the tsarist bureaucracy created by Peter the Great. But in pre-revolutionary Russia Peter's legacy is autocracy tempered by assassination; and Razumov is soon caught in a tragic web with Haldin's trustful sister Natalia in spy-haunted Geneva. Their fateful story is told by an elderly Englishman who loves Natalia but plays his part of a dense Westerner to the end.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
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Old Wives Tale Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisFirst published in 1908, The Old Wives' Tale affirms the integrity of ordinary lives as it tells the story of the Baines sisters--shy, retiring Constance and defiant, romantic Sophia--over the course of nearly half a century. Bennett traces the sisters' lives from childhood in their father's drapery shop in provincial Bursley, England, during the mid-Victorian era, through their married lives, to the modern industrial age, when they are reunited as old women. The setting moves from the Five Towns of Staffordshire to exotic and cosmopolitan Paris, while the action moves from the subdued domestic routine of the Baines household to the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.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 s
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Grimm Tales
Book SynopsisIn this beautiful book of classic fairy tales, award-winning author Philip Pullman has chosen his fifty favourite stories from the Brothers Grimm and presents them in a''clear as water'' retelling, in his unique and brilliant voice. From the quests and romance of classics such as ''Rapunzel'', ''Snow White'' and ''Cinderella'' to the danger and wit of such lesser-known tales as ''The Three Snake Leaves'', ''Hans-my-Hedgehog'' and ''Godfather Death'', Pullman brings the heart of each timeless tale to the fore, following with a brief but fascinating commentary on the story''s background and history. In his introduction, he discusses how these stories have lasted so long, and become part of our collective storytelling imagination. These new versions show the adventures at their most lucid and engaging yet. Pullman''s Grimm Tales of wicked wives, brave children and villainous kings will have you reading, reading aloud and rereading them for many years to come.Trade ReviewNever putting a foot wrong, the result is a magical complexity-in-simplicity that is sure to become a classic in its own right -- Adam Lively * Sunday Times *Philip Pullman has radically reworked the Grimm tales for all ages -- Nicolette Jones * Telegraph *One of Pullman's most useful additions is the vastly improved poems and jingles...his freer versions are catchy and authentic * Guardian *I've admired Philip Pullman since his early fantasy Galatea on through the splendid trilogy His Dark Materials. All of his gifts, including his prose eloquence, and his endless high Romantic imagination, are manifested in this marvelous retelling of Grimm -- Harold Bloom
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Jackson S Just an Ordinary Day
Book SynopsisA remarkable collection of dark, funny and haunting short stories from the inimitable author of ''The Lottery''.An anxious devil, an elderly writer of poison pen letters and a mid-century Jack the Ripper; a pursuit though a nightmarish city, a small boy''s thrilling train ride with a female thief, and a town where the possibility of evil lurks behind perfect rose bushes. This is the world of Shirley Jackson, by turns frightening, funny, strange and unforgettably revealed in this brilliant collection of short stories.''Jackson at her best: plumbing the extraordinary from the depths of mid-twentieth-century common. [Just an Ordinary Day] is a gift to a new generation'' - San Francisco Chronicle''For Jackson devotees, as well as first-time readers, this is a feast ... A virtuoso collection'' - Publishers WeeklyTrade ReviewJackson at her best: plumbing the extraordinary from the depths of mid-twentieth-century common. [Just an Ordinary Day] is a gift to a new generation * San Francisco Chronicle *For Jackson devotees, as well as first-time readers, this is a feast ... A virtuoso collection * Publishers Weekly *One of the great practitioners of the literature of the darker impulses -- Paul Theroux * The New York Times Book Review *The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable -- A. M. HomesA dark, disturbing, wonderful treat ... A collection to press on people and demand they read -- Alison Flood * The Bookseller *
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Collected Short Stories Jean Rhys Penguin
Book SynopsisNew to Penguin Classics, the remarkable, devastating collected stories by the author of Wide Sargasso Sea.Some of Jean Rhys''s most powerful writing is to be found in this rich, dark collection of her collected stories. Her fictional world is haunted by her own, painful memories: of cheap hotels and drab Parisian cafés; of devastating love affairs; of her childhood in Dominica; of drifting through European cities, always on the periphery and always perilously close to the abyss. Rendered in extraordinarily vivid, honest prose, these stories show Rhys at the height of her literary powers and offer a fascinating counterpoint to her most famous novel, Wide Sargasso Sea. This volume includes all the stories from her three collections,The Left Bank (1927), Tigers Are Better-Looking (1968) and Sleep It Off, Lady (1976).Trade ReviewIncludes some of the best British short stories of the last century ... You hear her voice speaking directly to you; her reality is your reality * Guardian *The force of her stories lies in the fusion of elegant prose with an uncanny penetration into the darker reaches of the soul * Washington Post *She is the novelist of longing and yearning and rage and sexual desire ... One of the twentieth-century greats -- Linda GrantThis book fully exhibits Rhys's extraordinary talent for prose * Independent *
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd Stand By Me
Book Synopsis''A woven time-travelling book, about love, land, life ... Short stories that link together like trees in a forest'' Jackie MorrisOn a clear Kentucky night in 1888, a young woman risks her life to save a stranger from a drunken mob. Almost a hundred years later, her great-grandson Andy climbs a hill at the edge of town, and is flooded with memories of all he has lived, seen and heard of the past century - of farmers wooing schoolteachers and soldiers trudging home from war; of the first motor car, the Great Depression and Vietnam; of neighbourly feuds and family secrets; of grief and betrayal - and of great friendship that endures for a lifetime.These are Wendell Berry''s tales of Port William, a little farming community nestled deep in the Kentucky River valley. They unravel the story of a town over the course of four generations, lovingly chronicling the intertwined lives of the families who call it home. Affectionate, elegiac and wry, tTrade ReviewA woven time-travelling book, about all that it is to be human, about love, land, life. Just beautiful. What an amazing writer he is. Short stories that link together like trees in a forest -- Jackie Morris, co-author of THE LOST WORDSWhat a wise and inspiring collection this is, although 'collection' hardly does it justice, it sounds far too piecemeal and ephemeral for a book with such a meditative and singular focus. It's so full of life, expanding the horizon as you read, revealing a wider and a deeper way of looking at the quotidian. Like Denis Johnson, Marilynne Robinson, or Seamus Heaney, Wendell Berry shows us that sometimes looking deeply into one world can become a profound way of looking at the whole world. -- Barney Norris, author of FIVE RIVERS MET ON A WOODED PLAINPraise for Wendell Berry: One of America's finest prose writers * Publishers Weekly *Berry richly evokes Port William's farmlands and hamlets, and his characters are fiercely individual, yet mutually protective in everything they do. . . . His sentences are exquisitely constructed, suggesting the cyclic rhythms of his agrarian world * New York Times *Intricate and beautiful, sad but strong * Washington Post *A small treasure . . . part of a long line that descends from Chaucer to Katherine Mansfield to William Trevor. * Chicago Tribune *Berry is the master of earthy country living seen through the eyes of laconic farmers.... He makes his stories shine with meaning and warmth * Christian Science Monitor *What unites [these stories] is a deep humanity, compassion and a sense of recognition that our modern lives unfolded at some point on Earth from stories such as these * Seattle Times *No writer has written of a place better or more completely than Wendell Berry has written of Port William * Arkansas Democrat Gazette *Berry is an American treasure; this collection belongs in all literary fiction collections * Library Journal *Berry's writing is graceful, poignant and compassionate, and his feel for the inner lives of his quirky rural characters makes for many memorable portraits. A valuable work of literature and historical set piece, this collection vividly captures the fabric of a kind of all-American life * Publishers Weekly *Wendell Berry writes with a good husbandman's care and economy . . . His stories are filled with gentle humor * New York Times Book Review *This is the most complete-and the most powerful-vision of any American writer in my time. The stories of the Port William Membership are a delight, a goad, and a testament less to what was than to what could be. They will leave no reader unmoved and unchanged -- Bill McKibbenWendell Berry gives us an intimate portrayal of the mind and heart of rural America. His graceful prose is truthful and eloquent. His tone is reliable and steady, like a good rain, sober and serious-all this and at times he is so funny you have to stop and roll on the floor -- Bobbie Ann Mason[Berry's] essays, poetry and fiction have fertilized a crop of great solace in my life, and helped to breed a healthy flock of good manners, to boot. As I travel this unlikely road of opportunity, as a woodworker and writer, sure, but most often as a jackass, I have his writings upon which to fix my mind and my heart, to keep my life's errant wagon between the ditches, as it were. Mr. Berry's sentences and stories deliver a great payload of edifying entertainment, which I hungrily consume, but it is the bass note of morality thumping through his musical phrases that guides me with the most constant of hands upon my plow. -- Nick Offerman, New York Times bestselling author of Paddle Your Own CanoeThe local nature of their canny, comic tonalities [...] might lead browsers to take these Berry stories as merely quaint. That would be a mistake. In fact, like Isaac Bashevis Singer, Berry has been expanding by contraction, husbanding by close focus - in Berry's case, on the familiar demesne of Port William, Ky... A masterpiece...Berry moves way beyond nostalgia toward an immersion in other lives that expresses itself as a sense of intimate apartness; a willingness to follow his characters, but not necessarily to change them. Poetry nestled inside prose: startlingly and classically moving * Kirkus Reviews *The stories express a biblical reverence for life and community, yet they're funny, too, and so beautiful * Booklist *This bewitching book, a collage amounting almost to a novel, formed of 18 short stories linked to each other by people and place, nourishes deep-seated memories of the old country ways...Berry writes with such wisdom and understanding of the Kentucky countryside and its people that it scarcely seems like fiction. These are stories about the importance of memory and history in the life of a community...they celebrate the visceral links between man and Nature...acutely observed and beautifully wrought...gently humorous, full of eccentricity, sometimes wistful and occasionally sad, but unfailingly enjoyable, rewarding, even joyful. * Country Life *Berry is a thought-provoking writer who uses humour and sorrow to evoke memorable characters, atmosphere and setting * Irish Times *
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Awakening and Selected Stories
Book SynopsisKate Chopin''s groundbreaking depiction of a woman who dares to defy the expectations of society in the pursuit of her desireWhen The Awakening was first published in 1899, charges of sordidness and immorality seemed to consign it into obscurity and irreparably damage its author''s reputation. But a century after her death, it is widely regarded as Kate Chopin''s great achievement. Through careful, subtle changes of style, Chopin shows the transformation of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother, who - with tragic consequences - refuses to be caged by married and domestic life, and claims for herself moral and erotic freedom.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.Trade Review"A Creole Bovary is this little novel of Miss Chopin's."--Willa Cather
£7.59
Penguin Group (NZ) The Whale Rider
Book SynopsisWiti Ihimaera's timeless story tells how the courage of one girl in standing against the tide of tradition enables her tribe to become reconnected with their ancestral life force.
£19.90
Penguin Books Ltd The Dharma Bums Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions
Book SynopsisA deluxe edition of Kerouac's 1958 classicPublished just one year after On The Road, this is the story of two men enganged in a passionate search for Dharma or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen Way, which takes them climbing into the High Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude.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.Trade Review"In [On the Road] Kerouac's heroes were sensation seekers; now they are seekers after truth . . . the novel often attains a beautiful dignity, and builds towards a moving climax."--The Chicago Tribune"In his often brilliant descriptions of nature one is aware of exhilarating power and originality . . . the entire cast of characters is presented with that not unrefreshing blend of naivete and sophistication that seems to be this author's forte."--The New York Times Book Review "Full of sparkling descritions of landscape and weather, light falling through trees, the smell of snow, the motion of animals . . . Jack Kerouac is a writer who cannot be charged with dullness."--The Atlantic
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Financier Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisA master of gritty naturalism, Theodore Dreiser explores the corruption of the American dream in The Financier. Frank Cowperwood, a fiercely ambitious businessman, emerges as the very embodiment of greed as he relentlessly seeks satisfaction in wealth, women, and power. As Cowperwood deals and double-deals, betrays and is in turn betrayed, his rise and fall come to represent the American success story stripped down to brutal realities-a struggle for spoils without conscience or pity. Dreiser's 1912 classic remains an unsparing social critique as well as a devastating character study of one of the most unforgettable American businessmen in twentieth-century literature.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
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantors Son
Book SynopsisTevye is the compassionate, lovable, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, and Tevye the Dairyman is a heartwarming and poignant account of life in turn-of-the-century Russia. Through the workaday world of a rural dairyman, his grit, wit, and heart, his daughters'' courtships and marriages, and the eventual menace of the pogroms, Sholem Aleichem reveals the fabric of a now-vanished world.Motl is the clear-eyed, spirited, mischievous boy who narrates Motl the Cantor''s Son, a comic novel about his emigration with his family from Russia to America. It is a journey that mirrors a larger exodus, telling the story of the disintegration of traditional Jewish life and the beginning of a new chapter of Jewish history in America.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Devil on the Cross
Book SynopsisWariinga, a young woman who moves from a Kenyan town to the capital, Nairobi, only to be exploited by her boss and later a corrupt businessman. As Wariinga struggles to survive, she realizes that her problems are only symptoms of a larger societal malaise and that much of the misfortune stems from the Western, capitalist influences on her country.Trade ReviewOne of our century's great novels * Tribune *Ngugi is the most celebrated of African novelists. What he offers is nothing less than a newdirection for African writing * British Book News *
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd Perchance to Dream
Book SynopsisContains a selection of Beaumont's stories, including five stories that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes. This volume contains an introduction by Ray Bradbury and an afterword by William Shatner, two fellow science fiction luminaries who counted themselves among Beaumont's close friends.Trade ReviewCharles Beaumont was one of the seminal influences on writers of the fantastic and macabre -- Dean KoontzThe name of Charles Beaumont will be honored and recognized for generations yet to come -- Robert Bloch
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Book SynopsisFor the centennial of its original publication, a beautiful Deluxe Edition of one of Joyce’s greatest works—featuring a foreword by Karl Ove Knausgaard, author the New York Times bestselling six-volume autobiographical novel My Struggle, which has been likened to a 21st-century Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyce’s novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays the Dublin upbringing of Stephen Dedalus, from his youthful days at Clongowes Wood College to his radical questioning of all convention. In doing so, it provides an oblique self-portrait of the young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental inTrade ReviewOne believes in Stephen Dedalus as one believes in few characters in fiction. -- H. G. Wells[Mr. Joyce is] concerned at all costs to reveal the flickerings of that innermost flame which flashes its myriad message through the brain, he disregards with complete courage whatever seems to him adventitious, though it be probability or coherence or any other of the handrails to which we cling for support when we set our imaginations free. -- Virginia Woolf[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will] remain a permanent part of English literature. -- Ezra Pound
£13.49
Penguin Putnam Inc My Mother She Killed Me My Father He Ate Me
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£17.09
Penguin Books Ltd Short Stories in Japanese New Penguin Parallel
Book SynopsisA dual-language edition of Japanese stories—many appearing in English for the first time This volume of eight short stories, with parallel translations, offers students at all levels the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of contemporary literature without having constantly to refer back to a dictionary. The stories—many of which appear here in English for the first time—are by well-known writers like Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, as well as emerging voices like Abe Kazushige, Ishii Shinji, and Kawakami Hiromi. From the orthodox to the cutting-edge, they represent a range of styles and themes, showcasing the diversity of Japanese fiction over the past few decades in a collection that is equally rewarding for beginning, intermediate, and advanced students of English or Japanese. Complete with notes, the stories make excellent reading in either language.
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd Short Stories in Chinese
Book SynopsisHere is the perfect introduction to contemporary fiction from the world''s most spoken language. These eight short stories, with parallel translations, offer students at all levels the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of contemporary literature without having constantly to refer to a dictionary. Richly diverse in themes and styles, the stories are by both new and well-established writers and range from a story by Li Rui about the honest simplicity of a Shanxi farmer to a story by Ma Yuan exposing the seamy underside of contemporary urban society. Complete with notes, these selections make excellent reading in either language.
£9.49
Penguin Putnam Inc The Saturday Night Ghost Club
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£13.49
Penguin Books Ltd The Hanging on Union Square Penguin Classics
Book SynopsisA subversively comic, genre-bending satire of bourgeois life by an essential Chinese American voice, featuring an introduction by New Yorker writer Hua Hsu, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir Stay TrueA Penguin ClassicIt's Depression-era New York, and Mr. Nut, an oblivious American everyman, wants to strike it rich, even if at the moment he's unemployed, with no job prospects in sight. Over the course of a single night, in a narrative that unfolds hour by hour, he meets a cast of strange characters—disgruntled workers at a Communist cafeteria, lecherous old men, sexually exploited women, pesky authors—who eventually convince him to cast off his bourgeois aspirations for upward mobility and become a radical activist. Absurdist, inventive, and suffused with revolutionary fervor, and culminating in a dramatic face-off against capitalist power in the figure of the greedy businessman Mr. System, The Hanging on UnTrade Review“A surreal overnight journey . . . Thirty-year-old bestseller The Joy Luck Club perennially provides irrefutable proof Asian American stories warrant shelf space. That Penguin Classics—their venerable list considered a significant barometer of what comprises the Anglophone literary canon—has added this . . . is, undoubtedly, long-awaited, long-deserved recognition.” —The Christian Science Monitor“I finished H. T. Tsiang's masterpiece a few hours ago and I'm still not sure where I am and what day this is. My mind has been picked apart and reassembled. I need a drink.” —Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story“[Tsiang] was radiant, boisterous, unforgettable.” —The New Yorker“A portrait of a New York City for the rich and the poor, the immigrant and the native-born, the newly homeless and the seasoned itinerant . . . Tsiang . . . tried to tell America what it really looked like. . . . [Unlike his] social-realist contemporaries—the Steinbecks and the dos Passoses— . . . Tsiang had little interest in steely, self-serious misery. In the book, as in his life, he is constantly cheeky and self-deprecating. . . . Tsiang’s manic spirit animates his voice. . . . Though the book’s formal aspects range from jarring to quaint to delightful, they all reflect the infectious freedom with which Tsiang wrote. His flinging disregard for the fashionable and the novelistic are thrilling, but so are the serious, deep convictions underlying them. For anyone with revolutionary sympathies, it’s an emotionally stirring book.” —The Nation“This is a voice to which the white world . . . will have to listen more and more as time passes.” —Upton Sinclair “[The Hanging on Union Square] felt like slipping into another person's hallucination.” —Hua Hsu, from the Introduction“[A] masterwork.” —Floyd Cheung, from the Afterword“Tsiang's writings are quintessentially of the intermingled (and dangerous) public street culture of downtown Manhattan creative life. He carried the mantle, unknowingly, of Wong Chin Foo—who five decades earlier challenged Denis Kearney to a duel with Irish potatoes at Cooper Union's Great Hall. And we, the Mr. Nut faction of the Asian American movement, carry on Tsiang's spirit!” —John Kuo Wei Tchen, author of New York Before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882“An artist of distinction, H. T. Tsiang created a genre unto itself in 1935 with The Hanging on Union Square. Its republication after seventy-five years rescues—from an outlaw existence—a strangely and beautifully evocative satiric allegory.” —Alan Wald, author of American Night: The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold War“[The Hanging on Union Square] is original in form without being labored; and it's remarkable for its whimsical insights into various strata of society and for its flashing counterpoint of almost savage sensuality and delicate pity. Throughout, it is alive and evocative. Mr. Tsiang's fanciful and often fantastic visions . . . convey more truth than a shelf of reportorial novels.” —Waldo Frank
£11.69
Penguin Putnam Inc The Beggars Pawn
Book SynopsisThe final book by the noted novelist, short story writer, and teacher John L'Heureux.
£11.24
Penguin Books Ltd Dirty Bird Blues
Book SynopsisA quietly influential force in African American literature and art, Clarence Major makes his Penguin Classics debut with the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of Dirty Bird Blues The PRH Audio book of Dirty Bird Blues by Clarence Major won a 2022 EARPHONE AWARD. Narrated by Dion Graham. A Penguin ClassicSet in post-World War II Chicago and Omaha, the novel features Manfred Banks, a young, harmonica-blowing blues singer who is always writing music in his head. Torn between his friendships with fellow musicians and nightclub life and his responsibilities to his wife and child, along with the pressures of dealing with a racist America that assaults him at every turn, Manfred seeks easy answers in Dirty Bird (Old Crow whiskey) and in moving on. He moves to Omaha with hopes of better opportunities as a blue-collar worker, but the blues in his soul and the dreams in his mind keep bringing him back to face himself. After a nightmarish descent into his own depths, Manfred emerges with fresh awareness and possibility. Through Manfred, we witness and experience the process by which modern American English has been vitalized and strengthened by the poetry and the poignancy of the African-American experience. As Manfred struggles with the oppressive constraints of society and his private turmoil, his rich inner voice resonates with the blues.Trade Review“The book’s folkloric street slang is pitch-perfect, and Major deserves much wider recognition for his career as a novelist, painter, poet and explainer of the Black experience in America. This is ultrarealism at its finest.”—Douglas Brinkley, New York Times Book Review
£11.69
Penguin Putnam Inc The Divorce Party
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£11.69
Penguin Random House Group The Winter Goddess
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£15.30
Penguin Books Ltd Bread Givers
Book SynopsisA timeless American novel about an immigrant girl growing up on the Lower East Side who dares to challenge her Orthodox Jewish family?s narrow conceptions of a woman?s place in the world, featuring a new foreword by the author of the New York Times bestseller Unorthodox?the basis for the hit Netflix series?and cover art by New Yorker cartoonist Liana FinckA Penguin ClassicThe youngest of four daughters in a family that left Poland in the 1920s for the crowded tenements of New York City?s Lower East Side, Sara Smolinsky has seen her sisters resign themselves, under their rabbi father?s iron fist, to loveless marriages and empty futures. They are ?bread givers,? working to feed the family while their father studies the Torah?according to which, as their father reminds them, a woman without her father or husband is ?less than nothing.? But Sara hungers for more. In defiance of her father, she breaks free, escaping home to see what the American dream holds for her in this poignant coming-of-age tale and striking portrait of feminist rebellion.For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 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.Trade ReviewBread Givers enables us to see our life more clearly, to test its values, to reckon up what it is that our aims and achievements may mean. It has a raw, uncontrollable poetry * New York Times *A fine novel ... Yezierska's sense of vernacular is wonderful * Kirkus Reviews *
£10.44
Penguin Books Ltd The Last Man
Book SynopsisMary Shelley''s landmark novel that invented the human extinction genre and initiated climate fiction, imagining a world where newly-forged communities and reverence for nature rises from the ashes of a pandemic-ravaged society, now for the first time in Penguin Classics, with a foreword by Rebecca SolnitA Penguin ClassicWritten while Mary Shelley was in a self-imposed lockdown after the loss of her husband and children, and in the wake of intersecting crises including the climate-changing Mount Tambora eruption and a raging cholera outbreak, The Last Man (1826) is the first end-of-mankind novel, an early work of climate fiction, and a prophetic depiction of environmental change. Set in the late twenty-first century, the book tells of a deadly pandemic that leaves a lone survivor, and follows his journey through a post-apocalyptic world that''s devoid of humanity and reclaimed by nature.But rather than give in to despair, Shelley uses the now-ubiquitous end-times plot to imagine a new world where freshly-formed communities and alternative ways of being stand in for self-important politicians serving corrupt institutions, and where nature reigns mightily over humanity?a timely message for our current era of climate collapse and political upheaval.Brimming with political intrigue and love triangles around characters based on Percy Shelley and scandal-dogged poet Lord Byron, the novel also broaches partisan dysfunction, imperial warfare, refugee crises, and economic collapse?and brings the legacy of her radically progressive parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, to bear on present-day questions about making a better world less centered around ?man.?Shelley?s second major novel after Frankenstein, The Last Man casts a half-skeptical eye on romantic ideals of utopian perfection and natural plenitude while looking ahead to a greener future in which our species develops new relationships with non-human life and the planet.
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd The Knockout Artist
Book SynopsisA favourite of long-time Harry Crews fans, The Knockout Artist (1988) portrays Eugene Talmadge Biggs, a young boxer from rural Georgia whose champion rise is diverted by a vulnerability, or gift, for knocking himself unconscious.As he begins to exploit his talents, the notorious Knockout Artist journeys into the New Orleans underworld and meets characters who have long since checked their morals at the door. The unforgettable climax shows Crews at his virtuoso best, when Eugene confronts his truth, and sets out to claim his freedom and win his own self-respect.
£13.49
Penguin Putnam Inc Love Again Movie TieIn
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£14.39
Penguin Books Ltd Orlando
Book SynopsisA Penguin Classics Deluxe editon of Virginia Woolf's pioneering novel, with a new foreword by Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal GirlFirst masculine, then feminine, Orlando is a young sixteenth-century nobleman who gallops through the centuries, from Elizabethan England and imperial Turkey to Virginia Woolf's own time. 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?Written for the charismatic, bisexual writer Vita Sackville-West, Orlando is one of Woolf's most popular and accessible novels, a playful mock biography of a chameleon-like historical figure that is both a wry commentary on gender and, in Woolf's own words, a ''writer's holiday'' that delights in its ambiguity and capriciousness.
£13.49
Penguin Random House India Boys Dont Cry
Book Synopsis''Awork of power, intimacy and magic'' AneesSalim, author When Maneka Pataudi is arrested as the prime suspect for the murder of her ex-husband, she reveals a chilling tale of marital abuse and neglect. But is her confession the truth or a lie? Is she telling the story as a victim or a perpetrator? And, is it better for women to kill for love or be killed for it? Based on a true story (mostly), Boys Don''t Cry is a gripping, compelling and courageous novel that takes you behind the closed doors of a modern Indian marriage.
£11.86
