Search results for ""Author Sam Taylor""
Faber & Faber The Two Loves of Sophie Strom
One man, one choice, two lifetimes.A house fire, Vienna, 1933: thirteen-year-old Max is orphaned, disfigured and adopted by an Aryan family who change his identity - and his prospects.A house fire, Vienna, 1933: thirteen-year-old Max saves his parents and escapes unharmed, to face life as a Jew in 1930s Austria.In one unforgettable night, Max Spiegelman's life splits in two. As war looms and Nazism continues to rise, Max is forced into choices that place him and his alter ego on opposing sides of a divided world. Tethered by their dreams, the boys watch helplessly, haunted by visions of what could have been. But in each parallel universe, they share a magnetic bond with an enchanting, grey-eyed girl.The Two Loves of Sophie Strom is a profound story about how tragedy, choice and life-altering love shape our future.
£14.99
Faber & Faber The Republic of Trees
One of the most vivid, gripping and chilling first novels of recent years, The Republic of Trees tells the story of Michael, Louis, Alex and Isobel, four children on the edge of adolescence, who run away to the forest to establish their own utopian community. All seems well in the Republic of Trees - until the sudden arrival of Joy. Under her influence, their relationships grow more erotic and obsessive, and the shadows of a nightmarish dystopia start to encroach on reality . . .
£9.08
Faber & Faber The Amnesiac
James Purdew is quietly obsessed with his own past - in particular three years of his life, about which he remembers nothing. So he travels back to the city of H, where he lived during those years, and finds a familiar house, now derelict. Stripping the wallpaper from one of the rooms, James discovers the first chapter of Confessions of a Killer, a nineteenth-century thriller, which seems to offer clues to a tragedy that took place in the house many years before, and one to which James feel inexorably linked. A journey into a mysterious world of fiction and reality, The Amnesiac is a compelling novel by one of Britain's most innovative young storytellers.
£9.65
No Starch Press,US The Coding Workbook: Build a Website with HTML & CSS
A paper-based beginner-friendly workbook for students that teaches how to build a website - without the use of a computer. This is the perfect book for any beginner who finds it easier to engage with paper than with code on a computer screen. Also perfect for classrooms in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas that lack multiple computers or even reasonable Internet access. Numerous students can work simultaneously from this workbook then try their code on a shared computer either in the classroom or at home.
£14.99
Faber & Faber The Two Loves of Sophie Strom
''Lyrical and profound, delving into the depths of human connection. You will cry.''GLAMOUR''Impressive . . . it gripped my heart and imagination.''JO BROWNING WROE''Intriguing . . . there is also significant charm and energy.''GUARDIAN''Compulsive, electrifying.''SPECTATOROne man, one choice, two lifetimes.A house fire, Vienna, 1933: thirteen-year-old Max is orphaned, disfigured and adopted by an Aryan family who change his identity and his prospects.A house fire, Vienna, 1933: thirteen-year-old Max saves his parents and escapes unharmed, to face life as a Jew in 1930s Austria.In one unforgettable night, Max Spiegelman's life splits in two. As war looms and Nazism continues to rise, Max is forced into choices that place him and his alter ego on opposing sides of a divided world. Tethered by their dreams, the boys watch helple
£17.09
Faber & Faber The Island at the End of the World
Through the eyes of eight-year-old Finn we find ourselves on a small island, surrounded by nothing but sea. Finn lives here with his Pa, his elder sister Alice and his younger sister Daisy, and has no memory of any world but this one. All he knows of the past comes from the songs and stories of his father, which tell of the great flood that drowned all the other inhabitants of the earth, a deluge their family survived thanks to the ark in which they now live.Alice, however, has entered adolescence, and treasures vague memories of her dead mother and of life before the flood. As her relationship with her father changes, she begins to see holes in his account of the past, and desperately seeks contact with the outside world. And when a boy, a stranger, is washed up on the shore, apparently in answer to the message she sent in a bottle, it appears they may not be alone after all.Set in the near future, told from three different viewpoints and written in extraordinary prose, The Island at the End of the World is an original, moving exploration of family love, truth and lies, and how strange and frightening it can feel for a child to discover the adult world.
£9.99
St Martin's Press We Are the Fire
In the cold, treacherous land of Vesimaa, children are stolen from their families, forced to undergo a horrific transformative procedure and serve as magical fire-wielding soldiers. Pran and Oksana - both taken from their homes at a young age - only have each other to hold onto in this heartless place. Pran dreams of one day destroying the empire; Oksana only dreams of returning home. When they discover the emperor has a new, more terrible mission than ever for them, Pran and Oksana vow to escape his tyranny forever. But they soon find that the only way to defeat the monsters that subjugated them may be to become monsters themselves.
£14.99
Granta Books A Meal in Winter
One morning, in the dead of winter, three German soldiers head out into the frozen Polish countryside. They have been charged by their commanders to track down and bring back for execution 'one of them' - a Jew. Having flushed out a young man hiding in the woods, they decide to rest in an abandoned house before continuing their journey back to the camp. As they prepare food, they are joined by a passing Pole whose virulent anti-Semitism adds tension to an already charged atmosphere. Before long, the group's sympathies begin to splinter as each man is forced to confront his own conscience as the moral implications of their murderous mission become clear.
£8.13
Vintage Publishing Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches From Kiev
Acclaimed author Andrey Kurkov gives powerful insight into life in Kyiv following the 2013 protests and before the 2022 Russian invasion.-16°C, sunlight, silence. I drove the children to school, then went to see the revolution. I walked between the tents. Talked with revolutionaries. They were weary today. The air was thick with the smell of old campfires. Ukraine Diaries is acclaimed writer Andrey Kurkov's first-hand account of the ongoing crisis in his country. From his flat in Kyiv, just five hundred yards from Independence Square, Kurkov can smell the burning barricades and hear the sounds of grenades and gunshot. Kurkov's diaries begin on the first day of the pro-European protests in November 2013, and describe the violent clashes in the Maidan, the impeachment of Yanukovych, Russia's annexation of Crimea and the separatist uprisings in the east of Ukraine. Going beyond the headlines, they give vivid insight into what it's like to live through - and try to make sense of - times of intense political unrest, on the path to the current crisis.
£12.99
Gallic Books The Martins
A disillusioned Parisian writer finds inspiration in the ordinary lives of his neighbours, the Martins. 'A wonderful surprise' L'Express Is it true that every life is the stuff of novels? Or are some people just too ordinary? This is the question a struggling Parisian writer asks when he challenges himself to write about the first person he sees when he steps outside his apartment. Secretly hoping to meet the beautiful woman who occasionally smokes on his street, he instead sets eyes on octogenarian Madeleine. She's happy to become the subject of his project, but first she needs to put her shopping away... Wondering if his project is doomed to be hopelessly banal, he soon finds himself tangled in the lives of Madeleine's family. Though calm on the surface, the Martins have secrets, troubles and woes, and the writer discovers that the most compelling story is that of an ordinary life.
£9.99
Hodder & Stoughton The Scent of Flowers at Night: a stunning new work of non-fiction from the bestselling author of Lullaby
'A revelation' KATY HESSEL'Brilliant' OBSERVEROver one night, alone in the Punta della Dogana Museum in Venice, Leïla Slimani grapples with the self as it is revealed in solitude. In a place of old and new, she confronts her past and her present, through her life as a Moroccan woman, as a writer, and as a daughter. Surrounded by art, she explores what it means to behold and clasp beauty; enveloped by night, she confronts the meaning of life and death.Translated from the French by Sam Taylor
£16.07
Hodder & Stoughton Of Fangs and Talons
Powerful and compelling' Guardian'Mathieu, a wonderful writer, echoes the grittiness and compassion of Émile Zola in Germinal' Sunday TimesAfter the closure of a small-town factory is announced, the local community is hit by the prospect of mass unemployment. With nothing left to lose, the desperate workers take matters into their own hands. Martel, a former trade union rep, and Bruce, a bodybuilder on steroids, resort to extreme measures. And after an attempted kidnapping goes horribly wrong, they are dragged into a spiraling frenzy of crime. In the political tradition of Balzac and Zola, Of Fangs and Talons announces Nicolas Mathieu as one of the most urgent contemporary voices in French literature.'Nicolas Mathieu has written one of the best crime novels of the year'Le Monde
£9.99
Granta Books Four Soldiers
LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2019 'I am astonished by Four Soldiers. I have never read anything like it, yet it is one of those books you feel must always have existed, a classic of writing about the human condition... A small miracle' Hilary Mantel 1919. The Russian Civil War. It is the harsh dead of winter, as four soldiers set up camp in a forest somewhere near the Romanian front line. There is a lull in the fighting, so their days are filled with precious hours of freedom, enjoying the tranquillity of a nearby pond and trying to forget their terrifying nightmares, all the while talking, smoking and waiting. Waiting for spring to come, waiting for their battalion to move on, waiting for the inevitable resumption of violence. Tightly focused and simply told, this is a story of friendship and the fragments of happiness that can illuminate the darkness of war.
£8.99
Other Press LLC Rose Royal: A Love Story
£16.99
Picador USA Civilizations
£15.37
Headline Publishing Group Good Reasons to Die
***Shortlisted for the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger 2023***'An excellent crime thriller with an explosive climax' Bill Todd, The Sun Nature is reclaiming Chernobyl. But the past is radioactive. . .In a village close to Chernobyl, detectives Joseph Melnyk and Galina Novak uncover a man's mutilated body hanging from a building. All clues left at the scene of the crime point to a double homicide that took place on the very night that the nuclear power plant exploded.Doubtful of the abilities of the Ukrainian police, the murdered man's father, a Moscow mafia boss, summons Rybalko, a Russian police officer of dubious morals, to conduct a parallel investigation to find and execute his son's killer. Rybalko goes to Ukraine and recovers the corpse, which no-one has dared to touch because of its radioactive contamination.Good Reasons to Die is a breath-taking thriller set in a dislocated Ukraine where armed conflicts, economic collapse and ecological demands are interwoven with the exhilarating hunt to find a deranged serial killer.
£12.99
Pushkin Press Beyond the Door of No Return
FINALIST FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED FICTION 'A love story, an adventure tale, and an unflinching examination of the unexpected ways that colonialism and greed ravaged everyone it touched, European and African' MAAZA MENGISTE, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Shadow King 'Diop has opened a new way of thinking about the eighteenth century and its hideous cruelties' ABDULRAZAK GURNAH, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 'A compelling romantic adventure... Through an act of remembrance, Diop seeks to build a repository of lives and histories lost to the slave trade' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Diop explores the cruelties of colonialism in a powerful story of love destroyed' SUNDAY TIMES, Historical Fiction Pick of the Month __________ The captivating new novel from David Diop, winner of the International Booker Prize Paris, 1806. Michel Adanson is dying. The last word to escape his lips is a woman's name: Maram. Who was she? Why, in the course of his long life, has he never spoken of her before? As Adanson's daughter sorts through his things, she discovers a notebook. It reveals a secret history both fantastical and terrible, of his time as a young botanist travelling in Senegal. How Adanson first heard of the 'revenant': a young woman of noble birth, abducted and sold into slavery across the seas, who then did the impossible-she came back, to live in hiding. How he became obsessed with finding her, embarking on an odyssey that would lead to danger and destruction. How a man who longed to solve the mysteries of nature instead found himself faced with the uncontrollable impulses of the human heart. Tragic and tender, alive with feeling, this is a story of adventure, revenge and impossible desires, one which subverts our every expectation about who we are and who we love.
£16.99
Headline Publishing Group Good Reasons to Die
***Shortlisted for the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger 2023***'An excellent crime thriller with an explosive climax' Bill Todd, The Sun'A suspenseful, atmospheric ride' Ben East, ObserverA haunting thriller set in the radioactive Chernobyl exclusion zone, Good Reasons to Die will keep readers hooked to the last page. In a village close to Chernobyl, detectives Joseph Melnyk and Galina Novak uncover a man's mutilated body hanging from a building. All clues left at the scene of the crime point to a double homicide that took place on the very night that the nuclear power plant exploded.Doubtful of the abilities of the Ukrainian police, the murdered man's father, a Moscow mafia boss, summons Rybalko, a Russian police officer of dubious morals, to conduct a parallel investigation to find and execute his son's killer. Rybalko goes to Ukraine and recovers the corpse, which no-one has dared to touch because of its radioactive contamination.Good Reasons to Die is a breath-taking thriller set in a dislocated Ukraine where armed conflicts, economic collapse and ecological demands are interwoven with the exhilarating hunt to find a deranged serial killer.
£18.99
Vintage Publishing You Will Not Have My Hate
'A beacon of hope in a dark world' Cathy Rentzenbrink, The PoolOne night in November 2015, when Antoine Leiris was at home looking after his baby son, his wife Hélène was killed, along with 88 other people, at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris. Three days later, Antoine wrote an open letter to his wife’s killers on Facebook. He refused to be cowed or to let his baby son’s life be defined by their acts. ‘For as long as he lives, this little boy will insult you with his happiness and freedom,’ he wrote. Instantly, that short post caught fire and was shared thousands of times around the world. An extraordinary and heartbreaking memoir, You Will Not Have My Hate is a universal message of hope and resilience in our troubled times.
£9.67
Amazon Publishing P.S. from Paris
From Marc Levy, the most-read French author alive today, comes a modern-day love story between a famous actress hiding in Paris and a bestselling writer lying to himself. They knew their friendship was going to be complicated, but love—and the City of Lights—just might find a way. On the big screen, Mia plays a woman in love. But in real life, she’s an actress in need of a break from her real-life philandering husband—the megastar who plays her romantic interest in the movies. So she heads across the English Channel to hide in Paris behind a new haircut, fake eyeglasses, and a waitressing job at her best friend’s restaurant. Paul is an American author hoping to recapture the fame of his first novel. When his best friend surreptitiously sets him up with Mia through a dating website, Paul and Mia’s relationship status is “complicated.” Even though everything about Paris seems to be nudging them together, the two lonely ex-pats resist, concocting increasingly far-fetched strategies to stay “just friends.” A feat easier said than done, as fate has other plans in store. Is true love waiting for them in a postscript?
£9.15
Faber & Faber The Country of Others
'A panoramic, ambitious tale.' The Times'Exceptional.' Salman Rushdie'Powerful.' Christine Mangan'Captivating.' Elle1944. After the Liberation, Mathilde leaves France to join her husband in Morocco. But life here is unrecognisable to this brave and passionate young woman. Her life is now that of a farmer's wife - with all the sacrifices and vexations that brings. Suffocated by the heat, by her loneliness on the farm and by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner, Mathilde grows increasingly restless. As Morocco's struggle for independence intensifies, Mathilde and her husband find themselves caught in the crossfire.From the internationally bestselling author, The Country of Others is perfect for fans of Elena Ferrante, Tracy Chevalier, and Maggie O'Farrell.
£14.99
Granta Books The Invisible Land
Dinslaken, Germany 1945. The war is over, leaving behind a broken nation. As the allied forces begin to uncover the horrors of the Holocaust, a war photographer makes the decision to capture the lives of the ordinary German people. Accompanied by his driver, the young and vulnerable O'Leary, the pair set off on a journey, one that changes both their lives forever. The Invisible Land is a story of the moral and emotional repercussions of violence, complicity and its aftermath.
£8.99
Picador USA The Heart
£15.13
Pushkin Press Esther's Notebooks 2: Tales from my eleven-year-old life
Every week, the comic book artist Riad Sattouf has a chat with his friend's daughter, Esther. She tells him about her life, about school, her friends, her hopes, dreams and fears, and then he works it up into a comic strip. This book consists of 52 of those strips, telling between them the story of a year in the life of this sharp, spirited and funny child. The result is a moving, insightful and utterly addictive glimpse into the real lives of children growing up in today's world.
£12.99
Faber & Faber In Paris With You
Because their story didn't end at the right time, in the right place,because they let their feelings go to waste,it was written, I think, that Eugene and Tatianawould find each otherten years later,one morning in winter,under terra firmaon the Meteor, Line 14 (magenta) of theParismetro.Eugene and Tatiana could have fallen in love. If things had gone differently. If they had tried to really know each other. If it had just been them, and not the others. But that was years ago and time has found them far apart, leading separate lives. Until they meet once more in Paris. What really happened back then? And now? Could they ever be together after everything?Powerful, intelligent, and set in a Parisian's-eye view of Paris, a story about the love that got away.
£7.99
Faber & Faber Adele
From the bestselling author of Lullaby'Riveting.' Evening Standard'Explosive.' Mail on Sunday'Thrilling.' Sunday Times'A must-read.' VogueHer obsessions devour her. She is helpless to stop them... Adèle has a seemingly enviable life. She is a respected journalist, living in a flawless Paris apartment with her surgeon husband and their young son. But beneath the veneer of 'having it all', Adèle is bored. She begins to orchestrate her life around one-night stands and extramarital affairs, arriving late to work and lying to her husband about where she's been, until her compulsions threaten to consume her altogether.
£9.99
The New Press Special Envoy: A Spy Novel
Jean Echenoz’s sly and playful novels have won critical and popular acclaim in France as well as in the United States, where he has been profiled by the New Yorker and called the "most distinctive voice of his generation" by theWashington Post. With his wonderfully droll and intriguing new work Special Envoy, Echenoz turns his hand to the espionage novel which, when published in France, stormed the bestseller lists. Special Envoy begins with an old general in his dilapidated office in France’s intelligence agency asking his trusted lieutenant Paul Objat for ideas about a person he wants for a particular job: someone pretty, female, and easily manipulated. Objat has someone in mind: Constance, an attractive, restless, bored woman in a failing marriage to a washed-up pop musician. She is abducted by Objat’s cronies and spirited away into the bowels of France’s intelligence bureaucracy where she is trained for the mission to spearhead the destabilization of Kim Jong-un’s regime in North Korea. Will Constance survive her mission in Pyongyang? Will her feckless husband ever write another pop hit? Joyously strange and unpredictable, full of twists and coincidences, Special Envoy is, in the words of L’Express "a pure gem, a delight at all times, a comedy monument, a celebration of the French language."
£17.99
Faber & Faber Watch Us Dance: The vibrant new novel from the bestselling author of Lullaby
'Engrossing.' Mail on Sunday'A powerful and compelling family saga.' CHRISTINE MANGAN'Beautifully atmospheric.' Financial TimesFROM THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LULLABYMorocco, 1968. The air is electric. Anything feels possible, and Mathilde is determined to celebrate it. Doesn't she have the right to enjoy life, after dedicating her best years to the war and then to this farm?Looking out at her elegant garden, Mathilde reflects on all she has achieved. Now in a newly independent country intoxicated by its own sense of freedom, she yearns for a radiant future.But her babies are now grown up, and Mathilde is about to learn that life can take wild and unexpected turns.Acclaim for The Country of Others:'A panoramic, ambitious tale.' The Times'Exceptional.' SALMAN RUSHDIE'Captivating.' Elle' I loved it and didn't want it to end.' CLAIRE MESSUD'As wild and lush as a wildflower meadow.' Observer
£12.99
Faber & Faber The Country of Others
'A panoramic, ambitious tale.' The Times'Exceptional.' Salman Rushdie'Powerful.' Christine Mangan'Captivating.' ElleFrom the internationally bestselling author of Lullaby, The Country of Others is perfect for fans of Elena Ferrante, Tracy Chevalier, and Maggie O'Farrell.1944. After the Liberation, Mathilde leaves France to join her husband in Morocco.But life here is unrecognisable to this brave and passionate young woman. Her life is now that of a farmer's wife - with all the sacrifices and vexations that brings. Suffocated by the heat, by her loneliness on the farm and by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner, Mathilde grows increasingly restless.As Morocco's struggle for independence intensifies, Mathilde and her husband find themselves caught in the crossfire.
£9.08
Quercus Publishing Equator
1871. Pete Ferguson is a wanted man. An army deserter, hunted for murder in Oregon, not to mention theft and arson in Nebraska.Taking the name of Billy Webb, he is hired by bison hunters, but leaves after a bloody dispute. He then takes the Comancheros Road, which he follows to Mexico, and then to Guatemala . . . Whatever he does, wherever he goes, Pete is a magnet for trouble and seems incapable of making the right choices. The violence that follows him keeps him away from those he loves: his brother Oliver, still on the Fitzpatrick ranch with Aileen, Alexandra and Arthur Bowman.It is a woman who will change his destiny, an Indigenous woman driven out of her lands. To save her, Ferguson will sabotage an attempted coup d'état and together, they will go to the Equator that has become Ferguson's grail, and where the malevolent forces governing this world must finally be defeated.
£9.89
Quercus Publishing Equator
1871. Pete Ferguson is a wanted man. An army deserter, hunted for murder in Oregon, not to mention theft and arson in Nebraska.Taking the name of Billy Webb, he is hired by bison hunters, but leaves after a bloody dispute. He then takes the Comancheros Road, which he follows to Mexico, and then to Guatemala . . . Whatever he does, wherever he goes, Pete is a magnet for trouble and seems incapable of making the right choices. The violence that follows him keeps him away from those he loves: his brother Oliver, still on the Fitzpatrick ranch with Aileen, Alexandra and Arthur Bowman.It is a woman who will change his destiny, an Indigenous woman driven out of her lands. To save her, Ferguson will sabotage an attempted coup d'état and together, they will go to the Equator that has become Ferguson's grail, and where the malevolent forces governing this world must finally be defeated.
£18.00
Pushkin Press Esther's Notebooks 3: Tales from my twelve-year-old life
Every week, the comic book artist Riad Sattouf has a chat with his friend's daughter, Esther. She tells him about her life, about school, her friends, her hopes, dreams and fears, and then he works it up into a comic strip. This book consists of 52 of those strips, telling between them the story of a year in the life of this sharp, spirited and hilarious child. The result is a moving, insightful and utterly addictive glimpse into the real lives of children growing up in today's world.
£12.99
Canongate Books Charlotte
Charlotte Salomon is born into a family stricken by suicide and a country at war. But there is something exceptional about her - she has a gift, a talent for painting. And she has a great love, for a brilliant, eccentric musician. But just as she is coming into her own as an artist, death is coming to control her country. The Nazis have come to power and, as a Jew in Berlin, Charlotte's life is narrowing, and she knows every second is precious.Inspiring, unflinching, terrible and hopeful, Charlotte is the heartbreaking true story of a life filled with curiosity, animated by genius and cut short by hatred.
£9.99
Vintage Publishing The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir who got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe
Armed only with a counterfeit 100-Euro note, Ajatashatru the fakir arrives in Paris. His mission? To acquire a splendid new bed of nails. His destination? IKEA.Once there he finds an obliging wardrobe in which to lay his head, only to discover on waking that he is locked in and headed for England in the back of a truck.So begins a magnificent adventure for the intrepid fakir as he travels to Italy in a suitcase, writes a novel on a shirt, flees a revenge-crazed taxi driver, flies to Libya in a hot air balloon and finds love in the unlikeliest of places…
£14.07
Vintage Publishing The 7th Function of Language
'One of the funniest, most riotously inventive and enjoyable novels you’ll read this year' - ObserverRoland Barthes is knocked down in a Paris street by a laundry van. It’s February 1980 and he has just come from lunch with Francois Mitterrand. Barthes dies soon afterwards. History tells us it was an accident. But what if it were an assassination? What if Barthes was carrying a document of unbelievable, global importance? A document explaining the seventh function of language – an idea so powerful it gives whoever masters it the ability to convince anyone, in any situation, to do anything. Police Captain Jacques Bayard and his reluctant accomplice Simon Herzog set off on a chase that takes them from the corridors of power to backstreet saunas and midnight meetings. What they discover is a worldwide conspiracy involving the President, murderous Bulgarians and a secret international debating society.
£10.99
Hodder & Stoughton Of Fangs and Talons
THE FIRST NOVEL BY NICOLAS MATHIEU, WINNER OF THE 2018 PRIX GONCOURTNicolas Mathieu's gripping first novel is the story of a world that has come to an end. With a girl, a gun and acres of snow.When a factory that employs most of a small town is scheduled to close - to the despair of the workers and disdain of the overlords - things start to fall apart. The disenfranchised factory workers have nothing left to lose. Martel, the trade union rep with innumerable tattoos and Bruce, the body-builder addicted to steroids resort to desperate measures. A bungled kidnapping on the streets of Strasbourg goes horribly wrong and they find themselves falling prey to the machinations of the criminal underworld. "[An] uncompromising portrait of a working class eaten up by the frustration and resentment of having been abandoned, and sinking into alcoholism and racism". -- Paris Match
£16.99
Quercus Publishing Retribution Road
"We owe you our lives, Sergeant, but you are our worst nightmare . . ."Burma, 1852. Sergeant Arthur Bowman, a sergeant in the East India Company, is sent on a secret mission during the Second Anglo-Burmese War. But the expedition is foiled - his men are captured and tortured. Throughout their ordeal, a single word becomes Bowman's mantra, a word that will stiffen their powers of endurance in the face of unimaginable suffering: "Survival". But for all that, only a handful escape with their lives.Some years later in London, battling his ghosts through a haze of alcohol and opium, Bowman discovers a mutilated corpse in a sewer. The victim appears to have been subjected to the same torments as Bowman endured in the Burmese jungle. And the word "Survival" has been daubed in blood by the body's side. Persuaded that the culprit is one of the men who shared his captivity, Bowman resolves to hunt him down.From the Burmese jungle to the slums of London to the conquest of the Wild West, Antonin Varenne takes us on a thrilling journey full of sound and unabated fury, reviving the lapsed tradition of the great writers of boundless adventure. Sergeant Bowman belongs to that breed of heroes who inhabit the imaginations of Conrad, Kipling, Stevenson . . . Lost soldiers who have plunged into the heart of darkness and will cross the globe in search of vengeance and redemption.Translated from the French by Sam Taylor
£12.99
Vintage Publishing HHhH
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERTwo men have been enlisted to kill the head of the Gestapo. This is Operation Anthropoid, Prague, 1942: two Czechoslovakian parachutists sent on a daring mission by London to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich - chief of the Nazi secret services, 'the hangman of Prague', 'the blond beast', 'the most dangerous man in the Third Reich'. His boss is Heinrich Himmler but everyone in the SS says 'Himmler's brain is called Heydrich', which in German spells HHhH. HHhH is a panorama of the Third Reich told through the life of one outstandingly brutal man, a story of unbearable heroism and loyalty, revenge and betrayal. It is a moving and shattering work of fiction.Laurent Binet's highly anticipated new novel, The Seventh Function of Language, is available for pre-order now...
£9.99
Vintage Publishing Life, After
'A beacon of hope in a dark world' Cathy Rentzenbrink, on international bestseller You Will Not Have My HateA moving account of single fatherhood in the wake of bereavement. When Antoine Leiris lost his wife, Hélène, in a terrorist attack in Paris, he was left to care for their baby alone. In this wry and honest book Antoine talks about how they have both fared since that terrible day.Grief is a succession of transformations. Four years later, I am no longer the same man. The same is true for Melvil. He isn't a baby anymore, but a happy little boy.Life, After follows a single father learning how to create a happy home for his son. From imagining the reviews he might receive as a parent, to dealing with the complicated emotions that arise around a new relationship and talking to children about bereavement, Antoine charts the course of their life together with remarkable humour and self-awareness. At times heartbreaking and at times vibrating with the joy of the companionship of a lively little boy, Life, After finds a way to answer the question 'How can I go on?'That is when it begins. Life, after.
£12.99
Gallic Books Devils And Saints
FROM THE WINNER OF THE PRIX GONCOURT 2023'Moving, thought-provoking and thrilling' Mail on SundayAn elderly man gives virtuoso piano performances in airports and train stations. To the incredulity of the passers-by, he refuses their offers to play in concert halls, or at prestigious gatherings. He is waiting for someone, he tells them.Joseph was just sixteen when he was sent to a religious boarding school in the Pyrenees: Les Confins, a dumping ground for waifs, strays, and other abandoned souls. His days were filled with routine and drudgery, and he thought longingly of the solace he found through music in his former life.Joe dreams constantly of escape, but it seems impossible. That is, until a chance encounter with the orphanage’s benefactor leads him to Rose, and a plan begins to form… Humorous even in its darkest moments, Devils and Saints tells a daring tale of camaraderie, love, and good triumphing over evil.
£10.99
Gallic Books A Hundred Million Years and a Day
FROM THE WINNER OF THE PRIX GONCOURT 2023Described as 'unforgettable' by the Mail on Sunday, A Hundred Million Years and a Day is a pocket-sized epic adventure story of a professor's journey to an Alpine glacier. ‘Powerful’ Sunday Times When he hears a story about a huge dinosaur fossil locked deep inside an Alpine glacier, university professor Stan finds a childhood dream reignited. Whatever it takes, he is determined to find the buried treasure. But Stan is no mountaineer and must rely on the help of old friend Umberto, who brings his eccentric young assistant, Peter, and cautious mountain guide Gio. Time is short: they must complete their expedition before winter sets in. As bonds are forged and tested on the mountainside, and the lines between determination and folly are blurred, the hazardous quest for the Earth’s lost creatures becomes a journey into Stan’s own past. This breathless, heartbreaking epic-in-miniature speaks to the adventurer within us all.
£10.99
Pushkin Press The Ghost of Frédéric Chopin
Prague, 1995: journalist Ludvík Slaný is assigned to make a documentary about a truly bizarre case. Vera Foltýnova, a middle-aged woman with no musical training, claims she has been visited by the ghost of great composer Frederic Chopin - and that he has been dictating dozens of compositions to her, to allow the world to hear the sublime music he was unable to create in his own short life. With media and recording companies taking the bait, Ludvík enlists the help of ex-Communist secret police agent Pavel Cerny? to expose Vera as a fraud. Soon, however, doubt creeps in, as he finds himself irrationally drawn towards this unassuming woman and the eerily beautiful music she plays. Could he be witnessing a true miracle? An intricately plotted mystery imbued with the dusky atmosphere of autumnal Prague, The Ghost of Frederic Chopin is an engrossing story of art, faith and the quiet accompaniment of the past.
£9.99
Picador USA HHhH
£14.95
Back Bay Books Central Park
£10.88
Quercus Publishing The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair: From the master of the plot twist
A CRIME STORY. A LOVE STORY. A WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON. MORE THAN 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD"It's that most engaging of treats, a big, fat, intelligent thriller" SIMON MAYO"It's a terrific story and I'm loving it" PHILIP SCHOFIELDAugust 30, 1975. The day of the disappearance. The day Somerset, New Hampshire, lost its innocence. That summer, struggling author Harry Quebert fell in love with fifteen-year-old Nola Kellergan. Thirty-three years later, her body is dug up from his yard, along with a manuscript copy of the novel that made him a household name. Quebert is the only suspect. Marcus Goldman - Quebert's most gifted protégé - throws off his writer's block to clear his mentor's name. Solving the case and penning a new bestseller soon merge into one. As his book begins to take on a life of its own, the nation is gripped by the mystery of 'The Girl Who Touched the Heart of America'. But with Nola, in death as in life, nothing is ever as it seems.Translated from the French by Sam Taylor
£10.99
Amazon Publishing P.S. from Paris (UK edition)
They knew their friendship was going to be complicated, but love—and the City of Lights—just might find a way. On the big screen, Mia plays a woman in love. But in real life, she’s an actress in need of a break from her real-life philandering husband—the megastar who plays her romantic interest in the movies. So she heads across the English Channel to hide in Paris behind a new haircut, fake eyeglasses, and a waitressing job at her best friend’s restaurant. Paul is an American author hoping to recapture the fame of his first novel. When his best friend surreptitiously sets him up with Mia through a dating website, Paul and Mia’s relationship status is “complicated.” Even though everything about Paris seems to be nudging them together, the two lonely ex-pats resist, concocting increasingly far-fetched strategies to stay “just friends.” A feat easier said than done, as fate has other plans in store. Is true love waiting for them in a postscript? From Marc Levy, the most-read French author alive today, comes a modern-day love story between a famous actress hiding in Paris and a bestselling writer lying to himself.
£9.15
Orion Publishing Co Don't Let Go: Some holidays are paradise, and some are murder….
'Michel Bussi is one of France's most ingenious crime writers... has plenty of twists and turns in store in this fast-moving novel about a long-planned act of revenge' Joan Smith, SUNDAY TIMES'Takes the reader on a thrilling ride across the remote isle in the Indian Ocean with plenty of twists and turns to keep them gripped until an epic, unexpected conclusion' Jon Coates, DAILY EXPRESSPicture the scene - an idyllic resort on the island of Réunion. Martial and Liane Bellion are enjoying the perfect moment with their six-year-old daughter. Turquoise skies, clear water, palm trees, a warm breeze...Then Liane Bellion disappears. She went up to her hotel room between 3 and 4pm and never came back. When the room is opened, it is empty, but there is blood everywhere. An employee of the hotel claims to have seen Martial in the corridor during that crucial hour.Then Martial also disappears, along with his daughter. An all-out manhunt is declared across the island. But is Martial really his wife's killer? And if he isn't, why does he appear to be so guilty?'Some writers try carefully calibrated alternations on a winning formula from book to book, but offer few surprises. That can't be said of the French author Michel Bussi... That refusal to repeat himself is evident in Don't Let Go, which is just as accomplished as its predecessors - GUARDIAN'As it draws towards its heart-pounding final pages, it's hard to concentrate on anything other than the outcome of the desperate manhunt - and the startling revelation of the truth. Inventive, original and incredibly entertaining' SUNDAY MIRROR
£8.09
Penguin Books Ltd Tender is the Night
F. Scott Fitzgerald's last completed novel, Tender is the Night is edited by Arnold Goldman with an introduction and notes by Richard Godden in Penguin Modern Classics.Between the First World War and the Wall Street Crash the French Riviera was the stylish place for wealthy Americans to visit. Among the most fashionable are psychoanalyst Dick Diver and his wife Nicole, who hold court at their villa. Into their circle comes Rosemary Hoyt, a film star, who is instantly attracted to them, but understands little of the dark secrets and hidden corruption that hold them together. As Dick draws closer to Rosemary, he fractures the delicate structure of his marriage and sets both Nicole and himself on to a dangerous path where only the strongest can survive. In this exquisite, lyrical novel, Fitzgerald has poured much of the essence of his own life; he has also depicted the age of materialism, shattered idealism and broken dreams.F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) has acquired a mythical status in American literary history, and his masterwork The Great Gatsby is considered by many to be the 'great American novel'. In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre, dubbed 'the first American Flapper', and their traumatic marriage and Zelda's gradual descent into insanity became the leading influence on his writing. As well as many short stories, Fitzgerald wrote five novels This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and the Damned, Tender is the Night and, incomplete at the time of his death, The Last Tycoon. After his death The New York Times said of him that 'in fact and in the literary sense he created a "generation" '.If you enjoyed Tender is the Night, you might like Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, also available in Penguin Classics.'One of the most wonderful writers of the twentieth century'Financial Times
£9.04