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Books > Fiction > Special features > Classic fiction
The book that topped the international online poll held in Agatha Christie's 125th birthday year to discover which of her 80 crime books was the world's favourite. 1939. Europe teeters on the brink of war. Ten strangers are invited to Soldier Island, an isolated rock near the Devon coast. Cut off from the mainland, with their generous hosts Mr and Mrs U.N. Owen mysteriously absent, they are each accused of a terrible crime. When one of the party dies suddenly they realise they may be harbouring a murderer among their number. The 10 strangers include a reckless playboy, a troubled Harley Street doctor, a formidable judge, an uncouth detective, an unscrupulous mercenary, a God-fearing spinster, two restless servants, a highly decorated general and an anxious secretary. One by one they are picked off. Who will survive? And who is the killer? Copies of an ominous nursery rhyme hang in each room, the murders mimicking the awful fates of its 'Ten Little Soldier Boys'. The clear winner in an international online poll held to discover the world's favourite Agatha Christie book, this new paperback also coincides with a new 3-part BBC TV adaptation featuring a stellar ensemble cast: Douglas Booth, Charles Dance, Maeve Dermody, Burn Gorman, Anna Maxwell Martin, Sam Neill, Miranda Richardson, Toby Stephens, Noah Taylor and Aidan Turner.
Aldous Huxley's 1932 dystopian classic Brave New World predicts - with eerie clarity - a terrifying vision of the future, which feels ever closer to our own reality. Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress... Huxley's ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.
Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English Literature, is an ironic novel of manners. In it the garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has only one aim - that of finding a good match for each of her five daughters. In this she is mocked by her cynical and indolent husband. With its wit, its social precision and, above all, its irresistible heroine, Pride and Prejudice has proved one of the most enduringly popular novels in the English language.
Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English Literature, is an ironic novel of manners. In it the garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has only one aim - that of finding a good match for each of her five daughters. In this she is mocked by her cynical and indolent husband. With its wit, its social precision and, above all, its irresistible heroine, Pride and Prejudice has proved one of the most enduringly popular novels in the English language.
'There he lay looking as if youth had been half-renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey, the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst the swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood; he lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion.' Thus Bram Stoker, one of the greatest exponents of the supernatural narrative, describes the demonic subject of his chilling masterpiece Dracula, a truly iconic and unsettling tale of vampirism.
One summer before World War I, a young couple escapes on a romantic weekend getaway to the small German town of Rheinsberg, north of Berlin, in the midst of a rural landscape filled with country houses and castles, cobble-stone streets, lush forests, and dreamy lakes. The story of Wolfie and Claire, told with a fresh, new style of ironic humor, became Kurt Tucholsky s first literary success and the blueprint for love for an entire generation. Kurt Tucholsky was a was a brilliant satirist, poet, storyteller, lyricist, pacifist, and Democrat; a fighter, lady s man, one of the most famous journalists in Weimar Germany, and an early warner against the Nazis. Erich Kaestner called him a "small, fat Berliner," who "wanted to stop a catastrophe with his typewriter." When Tucholsky began to write, he had five voices in the end, he had none. His books were burned and banned by the Nazis, who drove him out of his country. But he is not forgotten. Rheinsberg is at once a delightful and a deeply disquieting story. The lovers, Claire and Wolfie a silly but harmless pair escape the confines of Berlin for a romantic romp in the countryside. As their brief interlude nears its end, already consigned to memory, there comes with it an end to innocence, to frivolity. It was 1912; Kurt Tucholsky s prescience was uncanny: the holiday is over and soon we will go to war. --Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of Hester Among the Ruins and The Scenic Route Once known as Weimar Germany s greatest political satirist and one of that fabled era s most celebrated literary figures, Kurt Tucholsky is today virtually unknown in America. Now, readers have the chance to discover one of his early pieces of fiction that exhibits the intense wit, charm, and rhetorical verve for which he earned his reputation. Noah Isenberg, author of Between Redemption and Doom: The Strains of German-Jewish Modernism In Rheinsberg, Tucholsky delivers the newness and intensity of young love, sweet, sometimes strident, with repartee juxtaposed against the sylvan landscape of rural Germany. Poignant, biting, tender: a reminder of what love promises and can be. Victoria Zackheim, playwright, novelist, and anthologist A wonderful and charming love story, finally rediscovered and brought to America Claudia Dreifus, Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, New York Teachers and students of history and literature will welcome this collection of texts by Kurt Tucholsky, an early 20th century master of literary and political criticism, whose incisive and elegant voice will now be more widely available in English. Atina Grossmann, Professor of History at Cooper Union and author of Jews, Germans and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany Rheinsberg a short story of two unconventional lovers in the last carefree days of Germany before 1914. The first major work by the anti-Nazi journalist and poet Kurt Tucholsky finally appears in a new translation for English speakers. Ian King, Professor of German, Chair of the Kurt Tucholsky Society
Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that 'reaped' his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic. But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade, it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands, each individual responsible for the security of each. Among the crew is Ishmael, the novel's narrator, ordinary sailor, and extraordinary reader. Digressive, allusive, vulgar, transcendent, the story Ishmael tells is above all an education: in the practice of whaling, in the art of writing. Expanding to equal his 'mighty theme' - not only the whale but all things sublime - Melville breathes in the world's great literature. Moby Dick is the greatest novel ever written by an American.
The Little Prince is a modern fable, and for readers far and wide both the title and the work have exerted a pull far in excess of the book’s brevity. Written and published first by Antoine de St-Exupéry in 1943, only a year before his plane disappeared on a reconnaissance flight, it is one of the world’s most widely translated books, enjoyed by adults and children alike. In the meeting of the narrator who has ditched his plane in the Sahara desert, and the little prince, who has dropped there through time and space from his tiny asteroid, comes an intersection of two worlds, the one governed by the laws of nature, and the other determined only by the limits of imagination. The world of the imagination wins hands down, with the concerns of the adult world often shown to be lamentably silly as seen through the eyes of the little prince. While adult readers can find deep meanings in his various encounters, they can also be charmed back to childhood by this wise but innocent infant. This popular translation contains the author’s own delightful illustrations, bringing to visual life the small being at the tale’s heart, and a world of fantasy far removed from any quotidian reality. It is also a sort of love story, in which two frail beings, the downed pilot and the wandering infant-prince who has left behind all he knows, share their short time together isolated from humanity and finding sustenance in each other. This is a book which creates a unique relationship with each reader, whether child or adult.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the second part in Douglas Adams' smash hit sci-fi comedy and cult classic series. This stunning gift edition is illustrated by Costa Award winning Chris Riddell. If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the end of the Universe? Which is exactly what Arthur Dent and the crew of the Heart of Gold plan to do. There's just the small matter of escaping the Vogons, avoiding being taken to the most totally evil world in the Galaxy and teaching a space ship how to make a proper cup of tea. And did anyone actually make a reservation?
When Cora Lansquenet is savagely murdered with a hatchet, the extraordinary remark she made the previous day at her brother Richard's funeral suddenly takes on a chilling significance. At the reading of Richard's will, Cora was clearly heard to say, "It's been hushed up very nicely, hasn't it.... But he was murdered, wasn't he?" In desperation, the family solicitor turns to Hercule Poirot to unravel the mystery....
It's time for Tate and Gia's story. The third book in the Forbidden Love series - also suitable as a standalone - following Book #1, Truly Madly Deeply and #2, Wildest Dreams. Details coming soon . . . READERS ARE OBSESSED WITH L.J. SHEN:
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me
. . .
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. George Orwell's modern fable on the way power corrupts is as apt as ever in the twenty-first century. Educational edition of this much-loved classic from Longman.
The perfect gift for any Bronte Sisters lover for only GBP19.99. Each boxset contains seven books, together creating a comprehensive collection of the Bronte Sisters' best and much-loved works. Beautifully packaged in a ridged, matt-laminated slipcase with metallic detailing, complete with strikingly attractive, bespoke artwork. Includes: Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre, The Professor, Shirley, Villette, and Wuthering Heights
Dickens had already achieved renown with The Pickwick Papers. With Oliver Twist his reputation was enhanced and strengthened. The novel contains many classic Dickensian themes - grinding poverty, desperation, fear, temptation and the eventual triumph of good in the face of great adversity. Oliver Twist features some of the author's most enduring characters, such as Oliver himself (who dares to ask for more), the tyrannical Bumble, the diabolical Fagin, the menacing Bill Sikes, Nancy and 'the Artful Dodger'. For any reader wishing to delve into the works of the great Victorian literary colossus, Oliver Twist is, without doubt, an essential title.
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