Search results for ""penguin books""

Although best remembered today for his novels, Thomas Hardy thought of himself as a poet forced by circumstance to write fiction for a living. This generous selection of nearly two hundred poems includes such familiar pieces as "During Wind and Rain," "Channel Firing," "Afterwards," "The Darkling Thrush," and "The Oxen," but it will also acquaint readers with many less-celebrated works, among them "To Lizbie Browne," "After the Last Breath," "My Spirit Will Not Haunt the Mound," "The Haunter," "Old Furniture," "A Procession of Dead Days," "The Harbour Bridge," "At a Country Fair," "Last Love-Word," "Waiting Both," and "Proud Songsters." With an introduction and annotations by Robert Mezey, this Penguin Classics edition will help readers to recognize Hardy as one of the greatest English poets of this century.

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Nietzsche's first published book, The Birth of Tragedy is a compelling argument for the necessity of art in lifeThis landmark work of criticism is fuelled by Nietzsche's enthusiasms for Greek tragedy, the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the music of Wagner, to whom the book was dedicated. Nietzsche outlined a distinction between two central forces in art: the Apolline, representing beauty and order, and the Dionysiac, a primal or ecstatic reaction to the sublime. He believed the combination of these states produced the highest forms of music and tragic drama, which not only reveal the truth about suffering in life, but also provide a consolation for it. Impassioned and exhilarating in its conviction, The Birth of Tragedy has become a key text in European culture.Translated by Shaun WhitesideEdited by Michael Tanner

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Son of a bankrupt landowner, Frank Gresham is intent on marrying his beloved Mary Thorne, despite her illegitimacy and apparent poverty. Frank's ambitious mother and haughty aunt are set against the match, however, and push him to save the family's mortgaged estate by making a good marriage to a wealthy heiress. Only Mary's loving uncle, Dr Thorne, knows the secret of her birth and the fortune she is to inherit that will make her socially acceptable in the eyes of Frank's family - but the high-principled doctor believes she should be accepted on her own terms. A telling examination of the relationship between society, money and morality, Dr Thorne (1858) is enduringly popular for Trollope's affectionate depiction of rural English life and his deceptively simple portrayal of human nature.

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Poet, pattern-designer, environmentalist and maker of fine books, William Morris (1834-96) was also a committed socialist and visionary writer, obsessively concerned with the struggle to achieve a perfect society on earth. News From Nowhere, one of the most significant English works on the theme of utopia, is the tale of William Guest, a Victorian who wakes one morning to find himself in the year 2102 and discovers a society that has changed beyond recognition into a pastoral paradise, in which all people live in blissful equality and contentment. A socialist masterpiece, News From Nowhere is a vision of a future free from capitalism, isolation and industrialisation. This volume also contains a wide selection of Morris's writings, lectures, journalism and letters, which expand upon the key themes of News From Nowhere.

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One of the major political figures of his time, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) served in the court of Elizabeth I and ultimately became Lord Chancellor under James I in 1617. A scholar, wit, lawyer and statesman, he wrote widely on politics, philosophy and science - declaring early in his career that 'I have taken all knowledge as my province'. In this, his most famous work, he considers a diverse range of subjects, such as death and marriage, ambition and atheism, in prose that is vibrant and rich in Renaissance learning. Bacon believed that rhetoric - the force of eloquence and persuasion - could lead the mind to the pure light of reason, and his own rhetorical genius is nowhere better expressed than in these vivid essays.

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Samuel Richardson's Pamela is a captivating story of one young woman's rebellion against the social order, edited by Peter Sabor with an introduction by Margaret A. Doody in Penguin Classics.Fifteen-year-old Pamela Andrews, alone in the world, is pursued by her dead mistress's son. Although she is attracted to Mr B, she holds out against his demands and threats of abduction and rape, determined to protect her virginity and abide by her moral standards. Psychologically acute in its explorations of sex, freedom and power, Richardson's first novel caused a sensation when it was published, with its depiction of a servant heroine who dares to assert herself. Richly comic and full of lively scenes and descriptions, Pamela contains a diverse cast of characters ranging from the vulgar and malevolent Mrs Jewkes to the aggressive but awkward country squire who serves this unusual love story as both its villain and hero.In her introduction, Margaret Ann Doody discusses the epistolary genre of novels and examines the role of women and class differences. This edition, based on the 1801 text and incorporating corrections made in 1810, makes Richardson's final version of the two-volume generally available for the first time.Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was born in Derbyshire, the son of a joiner. He received little formal education, but in 1706 was apprenticed to a London printer, going on to become a leading figure of the trade in the capital. Pamela originated as a volume of model letters for unskilled letter-writers, but as Richardson became more fascinated by the characters in his letters than the letters themselves, the germ of a novel began to emerge. Upon its publication in 1740 Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded became a national sensation.If you enjoyed Pamela, you might like Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, also available in Penguin Classics.

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One of the greatest figures of his age, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59) was widely admired throughout his life for his prose, poetry, political acumen and oratorical skills. Among the most successful and enthralling histories ever written, his History of England won instantaneous success following the publication of its first volumes in 1849, and was rapidly translated into most European languages. Beginning with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and concluding at the end of the reign of William III in 1702, it illuminates a time of deep struggle throughout Britain and Ireland in vivid and compelling prose. But while Macaulay offers a gripping narrative, and draws on a wide range of sources including historical accounts and creative literature, his enduring success also owes a great deal to his astonishing ability to grasp, and explain, the political reality that has always underpinned social change.

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Setting out to make his fortune in a far-off country, a young traveller discovers the remote and beautiful land of Erewhon and is given a home among its extraordinarily handsome citizens. But their visitor soon discovers that this seemingly ideal community has its faults - here crime is treated indulgently as a malady to be cured, while illness, poverty and misfortune are cruelly punished, and all machines have been superstitiously destroyed after a bizarre prophecy. Can he survive in a world where morality is turned upside down? Inspired by Samuel Butler's years in colonial New Zealand and by his reading of Darwin's Origin of Species, Erewhon (1872) is a highly original, irreverent and humorous satire on conventional virtues, religious hypocrisy and the unthinking acceptance of beliefs.

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After the restoration of King Charles II to the British throne in 1660, dramatists experienced new freedom in an age that broke from the strict morality of puritan rule and in which elegance and wit became the chief virtues. Irreverent, licentious and cynical, the three plays collected here hold up a mirror to this dazzling era and satirize the gulf between appearances and reality. In Etherege's The Man of Mode (1676), the womanizing Dorimant meets his match when he falls in love with the unpretentious Harriet, while Wycherley's The Country Wife (c. 1675) depicts the rakish Horner who fakes impotence to fool trusting husbands into giving him easy access to their wives. And in Congreve's Love for Love (1695), the extravagant Valentine can only win his beloved Angelica if he loses his inheritance.

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This new selection of Rossetti's poems brings together works by one of the most significant nineteenth-century English poets. It includes an illuminating introduction, a chronology of Rossetti's life and works, and explanatory notes.

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Composed during the fourteenth century in the English Midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the events that follow when a mysterious green-coloured knight rides into King Arthur's Camelot in deep mid-winter. The mighty knight presents a challenge to the court: he will allow himself to be struck by one blow, on the condition that he will be allowed to return the strike on the following New Year's Eve. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge, decapitating the stranger - only to see the Green Knight seize up his own severed head and ride away, leaving Gawain to seek him out and honour their pact. Blending Celtic myth and Christian faith, Gawain is among the greatest Middle English poems: a tale of magic, chivalry and seduction.

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Leo Tolstoy's last completed novel, Resurrection is an intimate, psychological tale of guilt, anger and forgiveness, translated from the Russian with an introduction and notes by Anthony Briggs in Penguin Classics.Serving on the jury at a murder trial, Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov is devastated when he sees the prisoner - Katyusha, a young maid he seduced and abandoned years before. As Dmitri faces the consequences of his actions, he decides to give up his life of wealth and luxury to devote himself to rescuing Katyusha, even if it means following her into exile in Siberia. But can a man truly find redemption by saving another person? Tolstoy's most controversial novel, Resurrection (1899) is a scathing indictment of injustice, corruption and hypocrisy at all levels of society. Creating a vast panorama of Russian life, from peasants to aristocrats, bureaucrats to convicts, it reveals Tolstoy's magnificent storytelling powers.Anthony Briggs' superb new translation preserves Tolstoy's gripping realism and satirical humour. In his introduction, Briggs discusses the true story behind Resurrection, Tolstoy's political and religious reasons for writing the novel, his gift for characterization and the compelling psychological portrait of Dmitri. This edition also includes a chronology, notes and a summary of chapters.Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) spent his youth in wasteful idleness until 1851, when he travelled to the Caucasus and joined the army with his older brother, fighting in the Crimean war. After marrying in 1862, Tolstoy settled down, managing his estates and writing two of his best-known novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1878). A Confession (1879-82) marked a spiritual crisis in his life, and in 1901 he was excommunicated by the Russian Holy Synod. He died in 1910, in the course of a dramatic flight from home, at the small railway station of Astapovo.If you enjoyed Resurrection, you might like Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov, also available in Penguin Classics.

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A collection of poems exemplifying Romantic aesthetic ideals, whose unique beauty lies in their revolutionary exploration of the 'overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility', Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads is edited with a note on the text by Michael Schmidt in Penguin Classics.Published in 1798, Lyrical Ballads is a dazzling collaboration containing twenty-three poems by close friends, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - two major figures of English Romanticism. The volume heralded a new approach to poetry and expresses the poets' reflections on mankind's relationship with the forces of the world. Coleridge's contribution includes the nightmarish vision of 'The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere', one of the works for which he became best known, as well as the fantastical conversational poem 'The Foster-Mother's Tale' and the melancholic 'The Nightingale'. Wordsworth's 'We are Seven' depicts a child's naïve optimism in the face of the cruel mortality, while 'Goody Blake and Harry Gill' and 'Simon Lee' celebrate the simplicity and strength he perceived in country people, and 'Tintern Abbey' explores the healing powers of nature.This Penguin Classics edition allows readers to recapture the full impact and power of Lyrical Ballads. It also includes a note on the history of the text by Michael Schmidt.Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) has been criticized as a political turn-coat, drug addict and plagiarist whose wrecked career left only a handful of magical early poems. But the shaping influence of his highly imaginative criticism is now generally accepted, and his position, along with that of William Wordsworth (1770-1850), as one of the two great progenitors of the English Romantic spirit is assured. A great innovator, Wordsworth permanently enlarged the range of English poetry both in subject matter and treatment.If you enjoyed the Lyrical Ballads, you might like Wordsworth's Selected Poems, also available in Penguin Classics.

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Described as 'Mad, bad and dangerous to know' by one of his lovers, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Byron was the quintessential Romantic. Flamboyant, charismatic and brilliant, he remains almost as notorious for his life - as a political revolutionary, sexual adventurer and traveller - as he does for his literary work. Yet he produced some of the most daring and exuberant poetry of the Romantic age, from 'To Caroline' and 'To Woman' to the satirical English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, his exotic Eastern tales and the colourful narrative of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the work that made him famous overnight and gave birth to the idea of the brooding Byronic hero.

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This collection illuminates the uniquely fascinating era between 1820 and 1950 in French poetry - a time in which diverse aesthetic ideas conflicted and converged as poetic forms evolved at an astonishing pace. It includes generous selections from all the established giants - among them Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Breton - as well as works from a wide variety of less well-known poets such as Claudel and Cendrars, whose innovations proved vital to the progress of poetry in France. The significant literary schools of the time are also represented in sections focusing on such movements as Romanticism, Symbolism, Cubism and Surrealism. Eloquent and inspirational, this rich and exhilarating anthology reveals an era of exceptional vitality.

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The era between the accession of Henry VIII and the crisis of the English republic in 1659 formed one of the most fertile epochs in world literature. This anthology offers a broad selection of its poetry, and includes a wide range of works by the great poets of the age - notably Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Sepnser, John Donne, William Shakespeare and John Milton. Poems by less well-known writers also feature prominently - among them significant female poets such as Lady Mary Wroth and Katherine Philips. Compelling and exhilarating, this landmark collection illuminates a time of astonishing innovation, imagination and diversity.

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As Malcolm Cowley says in his introduction, the first edition of Leaves of Grass 'might be called the buried masterpiece of American writing', for it exhibits 'Whitman at his best, Whitman at his freshest in vision and boldest in language, Whitman transformed by a new experience.' Mr Cowley has taken the first edition from its narrow circulation among scholars, faithfully edited it, added his own introduction and Whitman's original introduction (which never appeared in any other edition during Whitman's life), and returned it to the common readership to whom the great poet really speaks.

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Dazzling in its prosodic innovations, such as the 'sprung rhythm' he pioneered, and wide-ranging in its complexity and metaphysical interest. The Penguin Classics edition of Gerard Manley Hopkins's Poems and Prose is selected and edited with an introduction by W.H. Gardner.Closer to Dylan Thomas than Matthew Arnold in his 'creative violence' and insistence on the sound of poetry, Gerard Manley Hopkins was no staid, conventional Victorian. On entering the Jesuit order the age of twenty-four, he burnt all his poetry and 'resolved to write no more, as not belonging to my profession, unless by the wishes of my superiors'. The poems, letters and journal entries selected for this edition were written in the following twenty years of his life, and published posthumously in 1918. His verse is wrought from the creative tensions and paradoxes of a poet-priest who wanted to evoke the spiritual essence of nature sensuously, and to communicate this revelation in natural language and speech-rhythms while using condensed, innovative diction and all the skills of poetic artifice.Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) was born in Essex, the eldest son of a prosperous middle-class family. He was educated at Highgate School and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Classics and began his lifelong friendship with Robert Bridges. In 1866 he entered the Roman Catholic Church and two years later he became a member of the Society of Jesus. In 1877 he was ordained and was priest in a number of parishes including a slum district in Liverpool. From 1882 to 1884 he taught at Stonyhurst College and in 1884 he became Classics Professor at University College, Dublin. In his lifetime Hopkins was hardly known as a poet, except to one or two friends; his poems were not published until 1918, in a volume edited by Robert Bridges.If you enjoyed Hopkins' Poems and Prose, you might like John Clare's Selected Poems, also available in Penguin Classics.

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English Romantic poetry from its beginnings and its flowering to the first signs of its decadence. Nearly all the famous piéces de résistance will be found here - 'Intimations of Immortality', 'The Ancient Mariner', 'The Tyger', excerpts from 'Don Juan' - as well as some less familiar poems. As far as possible the poets are arranged in chronological order, and their poems in order of composition, beginning with eighteenth-century precursors such as Gray, Cowper, Burns and Chatterton. Naturally most space has been given over to the major Romantics - Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Clare and Keats - although their successors, poets such as Beddoes and Poe, are included too, as well as early poems by Tennyson and Browning. In an excellent introduction David Wright discusses the Romantics as a historical phenomenon, and points out their central ideals and themes.

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Disdainful of America’s booming commercialism and industrialism, Henry David Thoreau left Concord, Massachusetts, in 1845 to live in solitude in the woods near Walden Pond. Walden, the account of his stay, conveys at once a naturalist’s wonder at the commonplace and a Transcendentalist’s yearning for spiritual truth and self-reliance. But even as Thoreau disentangled himself from worldly matters, his musings were often disturbed by his social conscience. Civil Disobedience, also included in this volume, expresses his antislavery and antiwar sentiments, and has influenced non-violent resistance movements worldwide. Both give a rewarding insight into a free-minded, principled and idiosyncratic man.

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In this universally acclaimed book Elizabeth David deals with all aspects of flour-milling, yeast, bread ovens and the different types of bread and flour available. The recipes cover yeast cookery of all kinds, and the many lovely, old-fashioned spiced breads, buns, pancakes and muffins, among others, are all described with her typical elegance and unrivalled knowledge.

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French Country Cooking - first published in 1951 - is filled with Elizabeth David's authentic recipes drawn from across the regions of France.'Her books are stunningly well written ... full of history and anecdote' ObserverShowing how each area has a particular and unique flavour for its foods, derived as they are from local ingredients, Elizabeth David explores the astonishing diversity of French cuisine. Her recipes range from the primitive pheasant soup of the Basque country to the refined Burgundian dish of hare with cream sauce and chestnut puree. French Country Cooking is Elizabeth David's rich and enticing cookbook that will delight and inspire cooks everywhere.Elizabeth David (1913-1992) is the woman who changed the face of British cooking. Having travelled widely during the Second World War, she introduced post-war Britain to the sun-drenched delights of the Mediterranean and her recipes brought new flavours and aromas into kitchens across Britain. After her classic first book Mediterranean Food followed more bestsellers, including French Country Cooking, Summer Cooking, French Provincial Cooking, Italian Food, Elizabeth David's Christmas and At Elizabeth David's Table.

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Gerd Gigerenzer's Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty illustrates how we can learn to make sense of statistics and turn ignorance into insight. However much we want certainty in our lives, it feels as if we live in an uncertain and dangerous world. But are we guilty of wildly exaggerating the chances of some unwanted event happening to us? Are we misled by our ignorance of the reality of risk? Far too many of us, argues Gerd Gigerenzer, are hampered by our own innumeracy, while statistics are often presented to us in highly confusing ways. With real world examples, such as the incidence of errors in tests for breast cancer or HIV, or in DNA fingerprinting, and the manipulation of statistics for evidence in court, he shows that our difficulty in thinking about numbers can easily be overcome. 'Indispensable ... The book will change the attentive reader's way of looking at the world' Sunday Telegraph 'An important book ... the reader is presented with a powerful set of tools for understanding statistics ... anyone who wants to take responsibility for their own medical choices should read it' New Scientist 'Gigerenzer makes clear thinking easier' Evening Standard 'More than ever, citizens need to know how to evaluate risk ... This book should be pressed into the palms of ' Independent Gerd Gigerenzer is Director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and former Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. He has published two academic books on heuristics, Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart and Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox as well as a popular science book, Gut Feelings: Short Cuts to Better Decision Making.

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Modern history shows that a nation's success largely depends on the way it manages its money. But where do money and politics meet? From 1700 to the present day, Niall Ferguson offers a bold and original analysis of the evolution of today's economic and political landscape. Far from being driven by the profit motive alone, our recent history, as Ferguson makes brilliantly clear, has also been made by potent and often conflicting human impulses - sex, violence and the desire for power. In this dazzling, powerful and controversial explanation of modern world history and the fundamental force that lurks behind it all, Niall Ferguson answers the big questions about finance and its crucial place in bringing happiness and despair, warfare and welfare, boom and crash to nations buffeted by the onward march of history. 'A marvellous combination of persuasion and provocation ... The Cash Nexus has enough ideas for a dozen books' Martin Daunton, History Today 'The Cash Nexus is ... packed with intriguing arguments and controversial propositions ... [an] outstanding book' Frank McLynn, Independent 'Ferguson is one of the most technically accomplished historians writing today ... The Cash Nexus offers an important corrective to the naïve story of economic growth' Robert Skidelsky, New York Review of Books

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Gitta Sereny is one of the world's most respected journalists and historians. This book gathers together the best of her writing on Germany from over sixty years. It amounts to an extraordinary portrait of the country and its people, how they have come to terms with their Nazi past, both collectively and in specific instances - and how the burden of their guilt has altered the national identity. She writes about key individuals - Stangl, Speer - and the questions which their lives raise. Thepenetration and conviction of her writing throughout is startling and she constantly reminds us why it is important to consider the questions she addresses - war guilt, holocaust denial and the temptations of obedience.

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Why do even well-educated people often understand so little about maths - or take a perverse pride in not being a 'numbers person'?In his now-classic book Innumeracy, John Allen Paulos answers questions such as: Why is following the stock market exactly like flipping a coin? How big is a trillion? How fast does human hair grow in mph? Can you calculate the chances that a party includes two people who have the same birthday? Paulos shows us that by arming yourself with some simple maths, you don't have to let numbers get the better of you.

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This second volume of Niall Ferguson's acclaimed, landmark history of the legendary Rothschild banking dynasty concludes his myth-breaking portrait of one of the most powerful and fascinating families of modern times. With all the depth, clarity and drama with which he traced the Rothschild's ascent, Ferguson shows how their power waned as conflicts from Crimea to the Second World War repeatedly threatened the stability of their worldwide empire, and how their failure to establish themselves successfully in the United States would prove fateful. At once a classic family saga and a major work of economic, social and political history, this is the definitive biography of some of the most powerful financiers of recent times.

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Before George R. R. Martin there was Dorothy Dunnett . . . PERFECT for fans of A Game of Thrones.'She is a brilliant story teller, The Lymond Chronicles will keep you reading late into the night, desperate to know the fate of the characters you have come to care deeply about.' The Times Literary SupplementThe Disorderly Knights is the third book in the series-----------------------------'The trouble about Mr Crawford is that he puts up with his enemies and plays merry hell with his friends'Summer, 1551, and Francis Crawford of Lymond is in Malta to assist the Knights of St John defend the island from an invading Turkish fleet. But under a weak leader there is dissension in the ranks of the Knights - and the chances of repelling invasion look slim.Here Lymond meets Knight Grand Cross Graham Reid Malett - known as Gabriel - a fellow Scot famed for his virtues. It is soon clear that Gabriel's wiles in war and intrigue rival Lymond's own as he attempts to bring his new comrade in arms into the bosom of his scheming. And if Gabriel should fail then his sister, Joleta, whose seductive charms no man can resist is waiting to prevail.Caught between warring factions and nations, between the wiles of Gabriel and the lascivious charms of Joleta, will Lymond prove strong enough to remain his own man?'Romance in the grand manner. I recommend it for your delight' Sunday Times'Melodrama of the most magnificent kind' The Guardian

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The complete Blackadder scripts by Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, Rowan Atkinson and John Lloyd.Twenty-six years ago, Edmund Blackadder made his first appearance on our screens. Comedy has never been the same since (nor indeed has history). Gathered here - in this twenty-sixth anniversary commemorative edition - are the complete scripts of Blackadder's adventures and, mostly, misadventures. Blackadder, Blackadder II, Blackadder the Third and Blackadder Goes Forth. Every word, every lie, every cunning plan and cock-up.From medieval nastiness, through Elizabethan and Regency glory, to the mud and sautéed rats of the First World War, Blackadder and his oafish underling Baldrick can be most definitely blamed for ruining England's reputation as a country with a great history.This historical record has been set down by Mr Richard Curtis, Mr Ben Elton, Mr Rowan Atkinson and Mr John Lloyd.Richard Curtis is the writer/director behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and The Boat That Rocked) and Ben Elton is the bestselling author and writer of The Young Ones, The Man From Auntie and The Thin Blue Line. The character of Blackadder was played by Rowan Atkinson, who is the star of the Mr Bean TV series and films, and Johnny English. The four Blackadder series, produced by John Lloyd, won numerous BAFTAs and also an EMMY.

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In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue indefinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility.

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Discover the addictive and uplifting story of reinvention, self-discovery and the meaning of true love from the bestselling author of Life Swap and The Friends We Keep'Inspirational, uplifting, made me laugh and left me feeling very happy' 5***** Reader Review'Compulsively readable' Sunday Times'Perfect if you want to feel uplifted . . . So relatable' 5***** Reader Review_______Jemima Jones is overweight. About seven stone overweight.Treated like a slave by her thin and bitchy flatmates, lorded over at the Kilburn Herald by the beautiful Geraldine (less talented, but better paid), her only consolation is food.What with that and her passion for her charming, sexy colleague Ben, she knows her life needs changing.But can Jemima reinvent herself?And should she?_______'The kind of novel you'll gobble up in a single sitting' Cosmopolitan'Green writes with acerbic wit about the law of the dating jungle' Sunday ExpressReaders ADORE Jemima J:'Truly uplifting and fun' 5***** Reader Review'I was utterly engrossed' 5***** Reader Review'A fantastic book that you can't put down' 5***** Reader Review'Beautiful and heartwarming' 5***** Reader Review'Light hearted, warm and funny' 5***** Reader Review

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One of the greatest epics in Western literature, THE ILIAD recounts the story of the Trojan wars. This timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves to its tragic conclusion. In his introduction, Bernard Knox observes that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it co-exists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace.

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An extraordinary tale of madness, genius and obsession, discover the true story of the two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary - and literary history!The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, begun in 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand of those words. But when the committee insisted on honouring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, a millionaire and American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane . . . charged with murder!_____________________'A weird and wonderful story of an eccentric friendship, and a slice of history' Sunday Times'What a revelation. Beautifully told and awe-inspiring' Daily Mail'Simon Winchester could not have told it better . . . a splendid book' Economist 'Masterful . . . one of those rare stories that combine human drama and historical significance' Independent

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This is an all new version of the popular PARALLEL TEXT series, containing eight pieces of contemporary fiction in the original Spanish and in English translation. Including stories by Fuentes, Molinas, Marquez and Cortazar, this volume gives a fascinating insight into Spanish and Latin American culture and literature as well as providing an invaluable educational tool.

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The Death of Yugoslavia is a survey of the pressures and events that contributed to the break-up of former Yugoslavia, considered from a historical rather than a political or sociological point of view.

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Misha Glenny's acclaimed account of the war in former Yugoslavia contains substantial new material that discusses the end of the five-year conflict and looks ahead to an uneasy future in this turbulent region. Writing in the Evening Standard, Fitzroy Maclean said ‘Misha Glenny’s deeply disturbing book is, to my mind, essential reading for anyone trying to understand, or even just follow, events in what was once Yugoslavia’.

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This is an all new version of the popular PARALLEL TEXT series, containing eight pieces of contemporary fiction in the original Italian and in English translation. Including stories by Calvino, Benni, Sciascia and Levi, this volume gives a fascinating insight into Italian culture and literature as well as providing an invaluable educational tool.

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This, the eagerly awaited link between THE FOREST HOUSE and THE MISTS OF AVALON, spans the creation of Avalon itself, right up to the birth of King Arthur.This enchanting novel of the Holy Isle is told through the successive lives of its three most powerful priestesses: Caillean; Dierna; and finally Viviane, high priestess of Avalon and Lady of the Lake who safeguards the Grail.

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The Habsburgs have been described at one extreme as demons – responsible for a ‘long history of atrocities’; and, at the other, as dodos – living fossils unable to adapt to the modern world. In reality, the flamboyant royal family appear, in many ways, to have behaved much like most other monarchies. Their story, however, is none the less enthralling for that. It is populated by such unforgettable figures as mad Queen Juana, progressing through Spain with her husband’s decaying body; the ‘heroically fertile’ Maria Theresa, and the quixotic Maximilian, ‘Emperor’ of Mexico.

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The Bible According to Spike Milligan is an irreverent but very funny spoof of The Old Testament in which, in his own inimitable fashion, Spike Milligan gives his version of the best known biblical stories.In the Bible, according to Spike Milligan: "In the beginning God created the Heaven and Earth and darkness was upon the face of the deep; this was due to a malfunction at Lots Road Power Station...And God said 'Let there be light'."'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times 'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese 'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard 'That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man' Stephen Fry Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.

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This is one of the few records published by Gurdjieff in which he offers guidance to his 'community of seekers', the pupils from many countries who joined him in Paris and New York.The first section is mainly autobiographical, relating material crucial to an understanding of the nature and intensity of personal effort required for an all-inclusive work on oneself. This is followed by a series of talks which Gurdjieff gave to his pupils in New York in 1930, and then by a long, but incomplete, essay on 'The Outer and Inner World of Man'.

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An inspirational, allegorical guide to living. 'The Prophet' is the most famous work of religious fiction in the twentieth century and had sold millions of copies in more than twenty languages. Gibran has his protagonist, called Simply the prophet, deliver spiritual, yet practical homilies on a wide variety of topics central to daily life: love; marriage and children; work and play; possessions; beauty; truth; joy and sorrow; death and many more.

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Elie Wiesel's harrowing first-hand account of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, Night is translated by Marion Wiesel with a preface by Elie Wiesel in Penguin Modern Classics.Born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary, as a child, Elie Wiesel was sent to the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. This is his account of that atrocity: the ever-increasing horrors he endured, the loss of his family and his struggle to survive in a world that stripped him of humanity, dignity and faith. Describing in simple terms the tragic murder of a people from a survivor's perspective, Night is among the most personal, intimate and poignant of all accounts of the Holocaust. A compelling consideration of the darkest side of human nature and the enduring power of hope, it remains one of the most important works of the twentieth century.Elie Wiesel (b. 1928) was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist. During an interview with the distinguished French writer, Francois Mauriac, he was persuaded to write about his experiences in the death camps. The result was his internationally acclaimed memoir, La Nuit or Night, which has since been translated into more than thirty languages.If you enjoyed Night, you might also like Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'A slim volume of terrifying power'The New York Times'To the best of my knowledge no one has left behind him so moving a record' Alfred Kazin'Wiesel has taken his own anguish and imaginatively metamorphosed it into art' Curt Leviant, Saturday Review

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The inspiration for the new film from Oscar award-winning director Barry Jenkins'Achingly beautiful' Guardian Harlem, the black soul of New York City, in the era of Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. The narrator of Baldwin's novel is Tish nineteen, and pregnant. Her lover Fonny, father of her child, is in jail accused of rape. Flashbacks from their love affair are woven into the compelling struggle of two families to win justice for Fonny. To this love story James Baldwin brings a spare and impassioned intensity, charging it with universal resonance and power.'If Beale Street Could Talk affirms not only love between a man and a woman, but love of a type that is dealt with only rarely in contemporary fiction - that between members of a family' Joyce Carol Oates

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Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) caught the popular imagination with his vast and enterprising comparative study of the beliefs and institutions of mankind, which in its third edition numbered 12 volumes. Reissued here is Frazer's own single-volume abridgement of 1922.

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A black comedy of manners about vast wealth and a woman who can define herself only through the perceptions of others. The beautiful Lily Bart lives among the nouveaux riches of New York City – people whose millions were made in railroads, shipping, land speculation and banking. In this morally and aesthetically bankrupt world, Lily, age twenty-nine, seeks a husband who can satisfy her cravings for endless admiration and all the trappings of wealth. But her quest comes to a scandalous end when she is accused of being the mistress of a wealthy man. Exiled from her familiar world of artificial conventions, Lily finds life impossible.

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A landmark in American literature, presented in its complete and unexpurgated version. Dreiser's unsparing story of a country girl's rise to riches as the mistress of a wealthy man marked the beginning of the naturalist movement in America. Both its subject matter and Dreiser's objective, nonmoralizing approach made it highly controversial, and only a heavily edited version could be published in 1900. In this restored version, the truly revolutionary nature of Sister Carrie is made fully evident.

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Evelyn Waugh chose the name "Labels" for his first travel book because, he said, the places he visited were already "fully labelled" in people's minds. Yet even the most seasoned traveller could not fail to be inspired by his quintessentially English attitude and by his eloquent and frequently outrageous wit. From Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, from Egyptian porters and Italian priests to Maltese sailors and Moroccan merchants - as he cruises around the Mediterranean his pen cuts through the local colour to give an entertaining portrait of the Englishman abroad.

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