The Penguin English Library edition of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell 'How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?' Elizabeth Gaskell's compassionate, richly dramatic novel features one of the most original and fully-rounded female characters in Victorian fiction, Margaret Hale. It shows how, forced to move from the country to an industrial northern town, she develops a passionate sense of social justice, and a turbulent relationship with mill-owner John Thornton. North and South depicts a young woman discovering herself, in a nuanced portrayal of what divides people, and what brings them together. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Een aand in 1914 word Koos de la Rey op pad na ’n rebellie noodlottig gewond. Die teiken was die bendelid William Foster. Dat De la Rey in die spervuur beland het, was pure toeval. Of was dit?

Die roman is 'n verweefde tapisserie waarin die verhale van vele vertel word: die storie van o.a. Billy Foster se dogter, Helena; die trawalle van die hensopper Segrys Heyns en sy agterryer Tappies Mahlangu; die speurtog van poliesman Isak Heyns.

’n Merkwaardige, hoogs leesbare geskiedkundige roman.

'Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'

Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party.

In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.

George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps the most pervasively influential book of the twentieth century.

Outback Western Australia, 1958.

For generations, the MacBrides have lived on a remote sheep station, Meredith Downs. A million arid acres, it’s an ocean of land, where the weather is a capricious god, and time still roams untamed.

One ordinary day, on a lonely road, under the unending blue sky, patriarch Phil MacBride swerves to avoid a kangaroo. In seconds the lives of the entire MacBride family are shattered. Instead of leaving wounds to heal, Fate comes for them yet again, in a twist of consequences that will cause one of them to lose their life, and another to sacrifice theirs for the sake of an innocent child.

Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide, as he is forced to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.

A sweeping novel of family and belonging, of compassion and hope, A Far-flung Life is the epic novel about people trying to do their best, each seeking shelter from the storm of life – and a powerful testament to the enduring strength of love.

The breathtaking new novel about the boundaries between worlds and individuals, from the internationally bestselling author of 1Q84.

When a young man’s girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he sets his heart on finding the imaginary city where her true self lives. His search will lead him to take a job in a remote library with mysteries of its own.

When he finally makes it to the walled city, a shadowless place of horned beasts and willow trees, he finds his beloved working in a different library – a dream library. But she has no memory of their life together in the other world and, as the lines between reality and fantasy start to blur, he must decide what he’s willing to lose.

A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a parable for these strange times.

A young woman is murdered in her flat and a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star is found behind her eyelid. Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case, alongside his long-time adversary Tom Waaler, and initially wants no part in it.

But Harry is already on his final warning and has little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor when it becomes apparent that Oslo has a serial killer on its hands.

It's the summer of 1985 and the residents of Delmont Close are preparing a neighbourhood barbecue to watch the biggest music event in history: Live Aid. A day like no other that will end having reached millions and changing the lives of all who attend.

House-proud Lydia Gordon, whose idols are Princess Di and Delia Smith, is determined to put on a show that will impress everyone - with her posh garden and state-of-the-art television, and her sweet husband and two children, Hanna and David.

But as the guests flood into number nine, so do all of the secrets that have been kept in the close.

Rita, a new neighbour from Australia, is hoping for a fresh start but harbours a shocking event in her past; Steve, a young Falklands veteran, battles his own demons; and Mr Wilson is surely too good-looking to ever be trusted.

But as the hours count down to the last performance of the night, it's Lydia who faces the heart-breaking truth that her immaculate home and flawless family might not be so perfect after all.

And if each of their neighbours is guilty of hiding something, so are the Gordons at number nine ...

Die nuutste roman van topverkoperskrywer Helena Hugo. Caroline is maar dertig jaar oud toe sy haar agtste kind in die wêreld bring. Al waarop sy gehoop het was om te sterf. Die kloof tussen haar en Willem is so wyd dit lyk asof hulle mekaar nooit weer sal vind nie. Intussen dan pak die onweerwolke van oorlog op die horison saam. Maar die hoop beskaam nie: Genesing begin by 'n weggooikind en 'n gekneusde veldblom.

After a long and happy life with a loving human family, tabby cat Fuuta has passed into the afterlife. But he is not as far from his owner Michiru as it seems. Sometimes the divide between the lands of the living and the dead can be traversed.

Eager to see Michiru again, Fuuta interviews for a position at Café Pont, which sits in the liminal space between the two worlds. The café is known for its unique service: its living customers can request meetings with the person they'd most like to see again, through the specially selected spirits of messenger cats.

Fuuta must investigate and deliver his messages without unnerving the living, or worse, upsetting the balance of the universe itself. It is a weighty task for a tabby cat, but Fuuta rises to the challenge. After all, the job offers a special reward: he will get to see Michiru again. And he'll do anything to reunite with his family.

Mangi and his fiancée, Aza, have been living together in Linden for the past eight years. One day while cleaning their bedroom, Mangi discovers Aza’s secret. The uncovering of Aza's lie is the catalyst to the unravelling of their already tumultuous relationship. When Aza eventually ends their relationship, Mangi is left destitute.

Mangi searches for meaning as he makes his way through the streets of Joburg in The City Is Mine.

Gloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city programme – Big Apple, Big Heart – that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives. But Nico is sceptical. A classic live-at-home, unemployed Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents the indignity of moving from his self-contained basement flat and back into his childhood bedroom.

As the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nico’s sisters, while finding her way into Gloria’s heart. But as Martine’s disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico grows only more hostile to both his mother’s altruism and the ‘migrant crisis’ in general – though turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself.

When FBI profiler Kaely Quinn's mother is diagnosed with cancer, Kaely takes time off work to go to Dark Water, Nebraska, to help her brother care for their mother. Upon her arrival, she learns of a series of fires in the small town, attributed by the fire chief to misuse of space heaters in the frigid winter. But Kaely is skeptical, and a search for a pattern in the locations of the fires bolsters her suspicions.

After yet another blaze devastates a local family, Kaely is certain a serial arsonist is on the loose. Calling upon her partner from St. Louis, Noah Hunter, and her brother's firefighter neighbor who backs Kaely's suspicions, Kaely and her team begin an investigation that swiftly leads them down a twisted path.

When the truth is finally revealed, Kaely finds herself confronting a madman who is determined his last heinous act will be her death.

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020, an enthralling Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance from one of Japan's greatest writers.

Hat, ribbon, bird rose.

To the people on the island, a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning. It can be burned in the garden, thrown in the river or handed over to the Memory Police. Soon enough, the island forgets it ever existed.

When a young novelist discovers that her editor is in danger of being taken away by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn't forget, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next?

Jesse is 15. She loves her friends, her little brother and her parents - even when they're arguing, which feels like constantly these days. But most of all, she loves playing video games. Even from her hospital bed.

Alex is 29. He doesn't love a lot of things. To be honest, he's not really sure he knows how to. His desk at work, as VR games designer, is empty, much like his life feels sometimes.

Then Jesse makes a wish. A simple one: a video experience made of her life, something to be there, just in case she isn't.

One loving teenager.
One lonely adult.

Which one will get the happy ending?

Hierdie splinternuwe versameling van Nataniël bevat 31 stories — 5 in Engels, 26 in Afrikaans. Verskeie van die stukke is uit Nataniël-produksies oor ’n periode van twee jaar: Ring Van Vuur, Nineveh Song, Cake Topper en Duif.

When New York architect Tate Donovan arrives in Cape Cod to design his best friend’s summer home, he is hoping to make a fresh start. Recently discharged from an upscale psychiatric facility where he was treated for acute depression, he is still wrestling with the pain of losing his beloved sister. Sylvia’s deathbed revelation—that she can see spirits who are still tethered to the living world, a gift that runs in their family—sits uneasily with Tate, who struggles to believe in more than what reason can explain. But when he takes up residence at a historic bed-and-breakfast on the Cape, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Wren who will challenge every assumption he has about his logical and controlled world.

Tate and Wren find themselves forging an immediate connection, one that neither has ever experienced before. But Tate gradually discovers that below the surface of Wren’s idyllic small-town life, hatred, jealousy, and greed are festering, threatening their fragile relationship just as it begins to blossom. Tate realizes that in order to free Wren from an increasingly desperate fate, he will need to unearth the truth about her past before time runs out . . . a quest that will make him doubt whether we can ever believe the stories we tell about ourselves, and the laws that govern our existence. Love—while transformative—can sometimes be frightening.

A story about the power of transcendent emotion, Remain asks us all: Can love set us free not only from our greatest sorrows, but even from the boundaries of life and death?

When he is eight years old, Alfie Logan discovers the magical ability to get a second chance at everything. He can undo any moment and live it again. The one catch: he must accept the consequences of his second try - for better or worse.

He grows up correcting his mistakes and saving himself from adolescent embarrassments. He even takes foolishly dangerous risks, just to see what it's like to come close to death, before tapping back to safety. Eventually, Alfie turns his gift to his love life, studying his crushes and going back to make himself more appealing. In time, he falls deeply in love with Gianna, the woman he believes is the one. He seems to find contentment.

But as the years pass, Alfie's eye begins to wander. Which is when he learns a lone caveat to his power: once he undoes a love, that person can never fall in love with him again. Knowing if he gives into to temptation, he will risk losing what he has with Gianna, Alfie makes a choice that changes his life forever.

The book begins many years later, after an ailing Alfie is arrested for allegedly cheating and winning millions at a casino roulette wheel. As a curious detective interrogates him, he slowly uncovers Alfie's incredible story, and its most unlikely conclusion.

In Twice, America's favourite storyteller, Mitch Albom, is at the top of his powers. A love story that is enchanting, probing, and clairvoyant in matters of the heart, Twice will make you think, weep, and overflow with love from beginning to end.

Sometimes, enough is enough…

Debbie Mullen is losing it. For years, she has compiled all her best advice into her column, Dear Debbie, where the wives of New England come for sympathy and neighbourly advice. Through her work, Debbie has heard from countless women who are ignored, belittled, or even abused by their husbands. And Debbie does her best to guide them in the right direction.

Or at least, she did.

These days, Debbie's life seems to be spiralling out of control. She just lost her job. Something strange is happening with her teenage daughters. And her husband is keeping secrets, according to the tracking app she installed on his phone. Now, Debbie's done being the bigger person. She's done being reasonable and practical. It's time to take her own advice.

And now it's time for payback against all the people in her life who deserve it the most.

Fransien Theron, ’n jong kunstenaar, besluit om haarself te gaan afsonder op ’n gasteplaas in die Baviaanskloof. Dis tyd om finaal afskeid te neem van haar baba wat sy twee jaar gelede in ’n ongeluk verloor het, en te aanvaar dat Hein van haar wil skei. Sy onderneem
om die kloof se berg uit te klim en vir oulaas iets van die mooi herinneringe, wat sy en haar geliefdes in gelukkiger tye gedeel het, tydens volmaan te ervaar.

Terwyl sy stap, kruis haar pad onwetend met dié van ’n beseerde luiperdwyfie wat onlangs haar opgeskote welpie in die kake van ’n slagyster verloor het. Instinktief begin hierdie twee bewus raak van mekaar se verlies, en onder die waaksame blik van die maan gebeur
iets wat Fransien se lewe onherroeplik verander. Haar innerlike reis na heelword begin.

In hierdie magiese ruimte waar skoenlappers volgens die eksentrieke Tobie fêries op hul vlerke rondkarwei, begin Fransien weer kleur en vorm sien en leer sy opnuut hoe om voluit te lewe.

Muhammad has always tried to be the praise-worthy son. In the close-knit Muslim community in Cape Town where he was raised by his fiercely religious mother, Zaynab, he performs his prayers on time and he lives by the rules of his faith. But beneath the surface, Muhammad feels trapped between who he is expected to be and who he truly is.

When Muhammad meets Riyaaz at a braai one evening, his world suddenly shifts in drastic and unexpected ways.

Set against the vivid backdrop of Cape Malay culture and the complexities of Coloured identity, Haram is both tender and unflinching. The novel captures the rhythms of prayer as well as the secrets that families hide – in a bustling city alive with unspoken desires.

In 1916 keer Caleb Kelly, ’n jong WOI-veteraan, getraumatiseerd en geskend terug na die Oos-Kaap. Die afgryse wat hy in Frankryk beleef het, is ingebrand in sy wese.

Kort ná sy terugkeer vernietig olifante die windpomp op sy plaas.

Caleb is woedend en gereed om wraak te neem. Maar dan gebeur iets onverwags en sy toorn maak plek vir ’n vriendskap met ’n trop wat bedags tussen die ruigtes naby die plaas skuil.

Intussen word grootskaalse landbou-ontwikkeling in die Sondagsriviervallei deur die regering van stapel gestuur. Dewald Troskie word aangestel om die olifante in die omgewing uit te dun.

Deur historiese feite met fiksie te verweef neem Bakkes lesers op ’n reis vanaf 1919 tot die stigting van die Addo-olifantpark in 1931. Soetdoring in die ruigtes is meer as ’n historiese roman – dit is ’n meditasie oor trauma en genesing, oor die mensdom se vermoë tot
beide vernietiging en verlossing. Die onbreekbare band tussen Caleb en sy trop olifante sal lesers ontroer, uitdaag en inspireer.

A mother they will always remember. A legacy they will treasure forever.

Grieving the sudden loss of their beloved mother, five sisters each receive a mysterious letter exactly one month after her death. Felicia Morgan Weston’s message to her daughters reveals an astonishing secret, upending everything they thought they knew.

Widowed at a young age, Felicia devoted herself to raising her young daughters alone. But, unbeknownst to the world and even her own family, she also harbored a breathtaking secret: under the alias Morgan Reed, she became a bestselling thriller writer, whose novels topped the bestseller charts and captivated millions.

As Felicia’s daughters grapple with the startling truth of their mother’s double life, they rediscover the depth and resilience of the love that shaped their lives.

Can their mother's hidden past help them to forge a new path for the future?

Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven't spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

Helene de Kock se eerste Inspirasie-omnibus is nou beskikbaar, met twee lekker verhale: Kruispad vir Kara en Engel op die drumpel.

Kruispad vir Kara: Kara Geertse is Tukkies se skatryk joolprinses met die wêreld aan haar voete. Dan sterf haar pa en sy en haar ma word sonder 'n sent gelos. Sy staan voor 'n kruispad, en sy is sielalleen.

Wat, of wie, gaan haar help om staande te bly? Kruispad vir Kara is 'n roerende liefdesverhaal wat jou weer hoop vir die lewe en die liefde sal gee.

Engel op die drumpel: In Huis Exodus geld net een reël: moenie jou probleme myne maak nie. Marli Jooste ontdek dit sommer met haar aankoms. Sy word heen en weer gesleur tussen dit wat sy nog altyd geglo het en nuwe, opwindende dinge. Totdat Marli op 'n dag moet besluit oor die lewe of die dood. 'n Storie van liefde en die hoop wat nooit beskaam nie.

There are two things that Ruby Dhanji loves with her whole entire heart: Christmas and anything to do with the UK. For Ruby the holiday season means joy, generosity, and warm memories with her late mother. And now she’s on the verge of realizing the dream she and her mom always had: moving to England and opening a cozy inn. The only problem, Ruby needs some hotel experience first.
 
Rashid just doesn’t get all the holiday hype. But when he meets a woman dragging home a Christmas tree alone from the Winter Market, he has to offer to help—even if he soon finds Ruby adores all the things he dislikes. When Ruby discovers that Rashid’s family owns a luxury boutique hotel chain in Britain, she offers him a proposition: she’ll help him give his young nieces an amazing Christmas if he’ll facilitate an introduction to his family.
 
As Ruby and Rashid get closer, she realizes that the great big grump loves his large, eccentric family fiercely. And when their friendship turns to something more, she’s afraid she’s falling for someone weeks before she moves across the Atlantic and she’ll soon have to decide which dream she wants to chase.