Search results for ""canongate books""

A tragic death leads Claire Clairmont to be haunted by her past and the ''summer of 1816'' she shared with Byron and Shelley in this first in an intriguing new historical trilogy.1873, Florence. Claire Clairmont, the last survivor of the ''haunted summer of 1816'' Byron/Shelley circle, is living out her final years in genteel poverty, but the appearance of British tourist, William Michael Rossetti, brings hope that she may be able to sell some of her memorabilia to earn enough cash to support her and her niece/companion, Paula. But Rossetti''s presence in Florence heralds a cycle of events that links the summer of 1816 - when Claire conceived an ill-fated child with George Gordon, Lord Byron, when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, and when four tempestuous lives came together - to a tragic death. As Claire begins to unravel the truth, she must go back to that summer of passion to discover the identity of her old enemy.

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The night before she's due to make a speech to the Robert Barnaby Society on the subject of the famous writer's 'magic chair', committee member Linda Dexter disappears. When her body is discovered two days later, fellow members Frances Black and Tom Dod determine to find out the truth about her death. Does the answer lie in the dead woman's past?

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Since The Paris Review was founded in 1953, it has given us invaluable conversations with the greatest writers of our age. Here is the fourth collection of brilliant interviews to be gathered together, 'a bible both for readers and writers, the insider gossip for those who are truly passionate about their prose.' (Observer)This new edition is introduced by Salman Rushdie and includes interviews with:William StyronMarianne MooreEzra PoundE.B. WhiteP.G. WodehouseJohn AshberyPhilip RothMaya AngelouOrhan PamukV.S. NaipaulStephen SondheimHaruki MurakamiDavid GrossmanMarilynne Robinson

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Why did the taxi crash on the autobahn in Vienna?Who exactly were Besfort Y and Rovena, the mysterious couple who died after being flung from the back seat?How was Besfort connected to the war in the Balkans? And why was his affair with Rovena clouded in jealousy and mistrust?Who wanted them dead?This is the story of the last forty weeks of their lives - a fever dream where love and obsession collide.

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In 2001, Jay Dobyns was the first federal agent to infiltrate the inner circle of the Hells Angels. His aim was simple: to examine the criminal underbelly of the world's most famous biker group and bring a major case against them. No Angel tells the thrilling, adrenaline-soaked story of one man on the brink of losing himself, and lifts the lid on one of the world's most infamous underworlds. It is a riveting tale of meticulous undercover detective work and a rare and fascinating glimpse inside the secretive world of outlaw biker gangs.

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Before he was president, he was senator. Written two years prior to the election that would change the face of the United States, The Audacity of Hope discusses the importance of empathy in politics, Obama's hopes for a different America and how the ideals of its democracy can be renewed. With intimacy and self-deprecating humour, he describes his experiences balancing his family life with his public vocation. A senator and a lawyer, a professor and a father, a Christian and a sceptic, Barack Obama has written a book of transforming power that will inspire people the world over.

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Could a story save your life?If Kelsey Newman's theory about the end of time is true, we are all going to live forever. But who would want that?Certainly not Meg, a bright spark trapped in a hopeless relationship. But if she can work out the connection between a wild beast on Dartmoor, a ship in a bottle, the science of time and a knitting pattern for the shape of the universe, she might just find a way out.

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In Peach Village, crying is forbidden. But as a child, Binu never learnt to hide her tears. Shunned by the villagers, she faced a bleak future, until she met Qiliang, an orphan who offered her his hand in marriage.Then one day Qiliang disappears. Binu learns that he has been transported hundreds of miles and forced to labour on a project of terrifying ambition and scale - the building of the Great Wall. Binu is determined to find and save her husband. Inspired by her love, she sets out on an extraordinary journey towards Great Swallow Mountain, with only a blind frog for company. What follows is an unforgettable story of passion, hardship and magical adventure.

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Does the light just go out and that's that - the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness, persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my laptop?"Mary Roach trains her considerable humour and curiosity on the human soul, seeking answers from a varied and fascinating crew of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die.Along the way she encounters electromagnetic hauntings, out-of-body experiences, ghosts and lawsuits: Mary Roach sifts and weighs the evidence in her hilarious, inimitable style.

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The third volume in Canongate's acclaimed series, with a specially commissioned introduction from The Simpsons' Matt Groening. We travel into the mid-1950s as Linus learns to talk, Snoopy begins to explore his eccentricities, Lucy's unrequited crush on Schroeder takes final shape, and Charlie Brown becomes ... well, even more Charlie Brown-ish.

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It is 1938 and Sigmund Freud, suffering from the debilitating effects of cancer, has been permitted by the Nazis to leave Vienna. He seeks refuge in England, taking up residence in the house in Hampstead in which he will die only fifteen months later. But his last months are made vivid by the arrival of a stranger, who comes and goes according to Freud's state of health. Who is the mysterious visitor and why has he come to tell the famed proponent of the Oedipus complex his strange story?Set partly in pre-war London and partly in ancient Greece, Where Three Roads Meet is as brilliantly compelling as it is moving. Former psychoanalyst and acclaimed novelist Salley Vickers revisits a crime committed long ago which still has disturbing reverberations for us all.

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Kate Grenville's The Secret River was one of the most loved novels of 2006. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and awarded the Commonwealth Writer's Prize, the story of William Thornhill and his journey from London to the other side of the world has moved and exhilarated hundreds of thousands of readers. Searching for the Secret River tells the story of how Grenville came to write this wonderful book. It is in itself an amazing story, beginning with Grenville's great-great-great grandfather. Grenville starts to investigate her ancestor, hoping to understand his life. She pursues him from Sydney to London and back, and slowly she begins to realise she must write about him. Searching for the Secret River maps this creative journey into fiction, and illuminates the importance of family in all our lives.

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Palaeolithic hunters who learnt how to kill two mammoths instead of one had made progress. Those who learnt how to kill 200 by driving a whole herd over a cliff had made too much. Many of the great ruins that grace the deserts and jungles of the earth are monuments to progress traps, the headstones of civilisations which fell victim to their own success. The twentieth-century´s runaway growth has placed a murderous burden on the planet. A Short History of Progress argues that this modern predicament is as old as civilisation. Only by understanding the patterns of progress and disaster that humanity has repeated since the Stone Age can we recognise the inherent dangers, and, with luck, and wisdom, shape its outcome.

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When Pius Fernandes, a retired schoolteacher living in modern day Dar es Salaam, discovers a diary of a British colonial administrator from 1913, he is drawn into a provocative account of the Asian community of East Africa, and the liaisons, feelings and secrets of its people, over the course of a century.Part generational history, part detective story, part social chronicle, M.G. Vassanji's award-winning novel magnificently conjures setting and period as it explores notions of identity and exile.

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Alasdair Gray is known throughout the world for his writing, but he is also a highly regarded artist who not only illustrates and designs his own books, but has created many beautiful and intriguing portraits, paintings, posters and murals.Alasdair started painting and writing from an early age, and in his seventies he's still vigorously doing both. In this autopictography he gathers together the work that has mattered most to him over the years, and weaves the story of his life through and around these pictures in his own unmistakable style. A beautifully and copiously illustrated book, designed by himself, this is life as seen by one of the millennium's most entertaining and wry creative geniuses.

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been destroyed. Japan is in ruins and occupied by the Americans. Takuya, an ex-officer in the Imperial Army, has returned to his native village only to learn that the Occupation authorities are intensifying their efforts to apprehend suspected war criminals. And those who are found guilty are being sentenced to death. Fearing that his role in the execution of a number of American pilots, Takuya takes to the road and becomes a fugitive in his own country. One Man's Justice is both a reflection on the murky reality of war and a page-turning novel of pursuit and escape.

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Vividly capturing the heat, sounds and smells of southern Italy, Conversations in Sicily astounds with its modernity, lyricism and originality. Driven by a sense of total disconnection, the narrator embarks on a journey from northern Italy to Sicily, the home he has not seen in some fifteen years. Through the conversations of the islanders and a reunion with his mother, he gradually begins to feel reconnected. But to what kind of world? Written during Mussolini's time in power, Conversations in Sicily is one of the great novels of anti-fascism.

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