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Books > Fiction > Special features > Classic fiction
Brave New World predicts - with eerie clarity - a terrifying vision
of the future. Read the dystopian classic. EVERYONE BELONGS TO
EVERYONE ELSE Welcome to New London. Everybody is happy here. Our
perfect society achieved peace and stability through the
prohibition of monogamy, privacy, money, family and history itself.
Now everyone belongs. You can be happy too. All you need to do is
take your Soma pills. Discover the brave new world of Aldous
Huxley's classic novel, written in 1932, which prophesied a society
which expects maximum pleasure and accepts complete surveillance -
no matter what the cost. 'A masterpiece of speculation... As
vibrant, fresh, and somehow shocking as it was when I first read
it' Margaret Atwood, bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale 'A
grave warning... Provoking, stimulating, shocking and dazzling'
Observer **One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**
'It is past the half-hour. My time is coming nearer with every tick
of the clock.' Horace Manning, scientist, recluse and 'closed book'
even to his friends is found dead in his study at 4am, following a
dinner in honour of his daughter Helen's engagement. An
ivory-handled carving knife rests between his shoulder blades as
the houseguests gather about to witness the awful crime. The
telephone line has been sabotaged; a calculated murder has been
committed. Rewinding twelve hours, the events of the afternoon and
evening unfold, along with a multitude of motives from a closed
cast of suspects and clues until the narrative reaches 4am again -
then races on to its riveting conclusion at 4pm (twice round the
clock). First published in 1935, this is a lively and unpretentious
mystery thriller and a true lost gem of the Golden Age of crime
writing.
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.
'I hate murders and I hate murderers, but I must admit that the
discovery of a bearded corpse would give a fillip to my jaded
mind.' Vivian Lestrange - celebrated author of the popular mystery
novel The Charterhouse Case and total recluse - has apparently
dropped off the face of the Earth. Reported missing by his
secretary Eleanor, whom Inspector Bond suspects to be the author
herself, it appears that crime and murder is afoot when Lestrange's
housekeeper is also found to have disappeared. Bond and Warner of
Scotland Yard set to work to investigate a murder with no body and
a potentially fictional victim, as E C R Lorac spins a twisting
tale full of wry humour and red herrings, poking some fun at her
contemporary reviewers who long suspected the Lorac pseudonym to
belong to a man (since a woman could apparently not have written
mysteries the way that she did). Incredibly rare today, this
mystery returns to print for the first time since 1935.
'He stretched out his two long, lank arms, that looked like spider’s
claws, and seemed to embrace with them the expanse before him'
His inheritance squandered and engagement severed, Guido di Cortese
stalks the desolate Genoese coast. A monstrous creature, shipwrecked by
a ferocious storm, offers him unimaginable wealth to exchange bodies,
entwining their fates. Transformation, with two further tales of
striking and eerie power here, shows how Mary Shelley haunts us still.
On holiday in Keldstone visiting his nephew, Jim, blanket
manufacturer Athelstan Digby agrees to look after the old bookshop
on the ground floor of his lodgings while his hosts are away. On
the first day of his tenure, a vicar, a chauffeur and an
out-of-town stranger enquire after The Life and Death of Mr. Badman
by John Bunyan. When a copy mysteriously arrives at the shop in a
bundle of books brought in by a young scamp, and is subsequently
stolen, Digby moves to investigate the significance of the book
along with his nephew, and the two are soon embroiled in a case in
which the stakes have risen from antiquarian book-pinching to
ruthless murder. First published in a limited run in 1934, this
exceedingly rare and fast-paced bibliomystery set against the
landscapes of Yorkshire is long overdue its return to print.
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