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International number one bestseller Sebastian Fitzek plunges
readers into the depths of their own souls in a new high-concept
thriller. The Soul Breaker destroys women. He doesn't kill them, or
mutilate them. But he leaves them completely dead inside, paralysed
and catatonic. His only trace a note left in their hands. There are
three known victims when suddenly the abductions stop. The Soul
Breaker has tired of his game, it seems. Meanwhile, a man has been
found in the snow outside an exclusive psychiatric clinic. He has
no recollection of who he is, or why he is there. Unable to match
him to any of the police's missing people, the nurses call him
Casper. Casper makes little progress regaining his memory, but he
grows restless and wants to leave the clinic to piece together the
few clues to his life. But the weather has taken a turn for the
worse, and the clinic becomes completely cut off to the world
outside. No one is able to reach the clinic, and its staff and
patients cannot leave. So when the head psychiatrist is found
trembling, naked and distraught, with a slip of paper clasped in
her hands, it seems somehow the Soul Breaker has returned...
The author of 13 1⁄ 2 Lives of Captain Bluebear transports us to a
magical world. Optimus Yarnspinner, finds himself marooned in the
subterranean world of Bookholm, the City of Dreaming Books, where
reading can be dangerous, where ruthless Bookhunters fight to the
death.
"From the Hardcover edition."
Isolated in the vastness of the South Atlantic and fortress-like in
appearance, the Island of St Helena was important for centuries
only as a victualling station for ships of the British East India
Company, on their long voyages to and from India via the Cape of
Good Hope. It was on one of these journeys that Arthur Wellesley,
later the Duke of Wellington, took note of the island's remote
impregnability. It was Wellington who suggested St Helena as
Napoleon Bonaparte's place of imprisonment and exile after his
defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Until his death in 1821, the former
Emperor spent his final years under constant British guard. His
exile transformed a speck on the maritime map into the most famous
island in the world.
Malaisea, the unhealthiest town in the whole of Zamonia, is home to
Echo the Crat, a multi-talented creature resembling a cat in
appearance but capable of speaking any language under the sun,
human or animal. When his mistress dies, Echo finds himself out on
the street. Dying of starvation, he is compelled to sign a contract
with Ghoolion the Alchemaster, Malaisea's evil alchemist-in-chief.
This fateful document gives Ghoolion the right to kill Echo at the
next full moon and render him down for his fat, with which he hopes
to brew an alchemical concoction that will make him immortal. In
return, he promises to regale the little Crat with the most
exquisite gastronomic delicacies until his time is up. But Ghoolion
has reckoned without Echo's talent for survival and his ability to
make new friends. These include the Leathermice, the Cogitating
Eggs, the Golden Squirrel, the Cooked Ghost, Theodore T. Theodore
the one-eyed Tuwituwu, and, above all, Izanuela Anazazi, the last
Uggly in Malaisea. Walter Moers's magnificent translation of
Optimus Yarnspinner's novel introduces us to yet another of
Zamonia's hotbeds of adventure: Malaisea, a place where sick is
healthy, up is down, right is wrong, and Ghoolion the Alchemaster
reigns supreme - until Echo crosses his path.
"At fifty the good Buddhist takes to the road, leaving all his
belongings behind. His sole possession is a begging bowl. That's
how it should be. The problem was, there were four million dollars
in my begging bowl and the mafia were after me. It was their money.
They wanted it back, and they also wanted the girl, the woman who
was with me: Sonia Kovalevskaya". Not only a thriller about murder
and big money but also a powerful evocation of the cruel history
that binds Russia and Germany. Gunter Ohnemus, born in 1946, lives
in Munich and writes novels, essays and translations. This is his
first novel to be translated into English.
There's only one Auntie Poldi: bewigged, cursing in Bavarian, and
knocking back a wee shot of grappa as a pre-breakfast aperitif ...
or is there? No one is as they seem (and sound) in this hilarious
new mystery featuring Sicily's sultriest sleuth. Strange dealings
are afoot in the Apostolic Palace-a nun leapt to her death shortly
after participating in a seemingly routine exorcism. But when a
priest clad in Gammarelli and a Vatican Commissario with an almost
unholy level of sex appeal turn up at her door, Poldi is shocked to
hear that she's a suspect in their case. Who is the woman being
exorcised, and where has she disappeared to? And why in the world
does she claim, in perfect Bavarian, to be Poldi, Isolde
Oberreiter, of Torre Achirafari? Poldi will need all the help she
can get to clear her name, but her nephew has been distracted by a
love affair gone sour, someone in the town has been graffitiing
death threats on her front door, and her local friends seem to be
avoiding her. And even Vito Montana balks when Poldi discovers that
the case hinges on a lost Madonna statue, stolen years ago from the
Pope himself... Forza Poldi! With a pair of mysterious twins
dogging her every move and a mandate to maintain sobriety, will
Poldi be able to find the lost statue in time, and survive her
sixty-first birthday?
Over two hundred years ago Bookholm, the City of Dreaming Books,
was destroyed by a catastrophic firestorm. Optimus Yarnspinner, who
witnessed this disaster, has since become Zamonia's greatest writer
and is resting on his laurels at Lindworm Castle. Spoilt by his
monumental success and basking in adulation, he one day receives a
disturbing message that finally reinvests his life with meaning: a
cryptic missive that lures him back to Bookholm. Rebuilt on a
magnificent scale, the city is once more a vibrant literary
metropolis and Mecca of the book trade teeming with book fanatics
of all kinds. On the track of the mysterious letter that brought
him there, Yarnspinner has scarcely set foot in the city before he
falls prey to its spirit of adventure. He is reunited with old
friends like Inazia Anazazi the Uggly and Ahmed ben Kibitzer the
Nocturnomath, but he also encounters the city's new marvels, which
include the mysterious Biblionauts, the warring Puppetists, and the
city's latest craze, the Invisible Theatre. Yarnspinner strays ever
deeper into the Labyrinth of Dreaming Books, which seems to wield a
strange power over Bookholm's destinies. He is eventually drawn
into an irresistible maelstrom of events far more sensational than
any of the adventures he has previously embarked upon.
Optimus Yarnspinner, a young Zamonian writer, inherits very little
from his beloved godfather apart from an unpublished short story by
an unknown author. This manuscript proves to be such a superb piece
of writing that he can't resist the temptation to investigate the
mystery surrounding the author's identity. The trail takes him to
the City of Dreaming Books. After falling under the spell of this
book-obsessed metropolis; Yarnspinner also falls into the clutches
of its evil genius, Pfistomel Smyke, who treacherously maroons him
in the city's labyrinthine catacombs. He finds himself in a
subterranean world where reading books can be genuinely dangerous,
where ruthless Bookhunters fight to the death for literary gems and
the mysterious Shadow King rules a murky realm populated by
Booklings, one-eyed beings whose vast library includes live books
equipped with teeth and claws. Walter Moers transports us to a
magical world where reading is still a genuine adventure, where
books can not only entertain people but also drive them insane or
even kill them. Only those intrepid souls who are prepared to join
Optimus Yarnspinner on his perilous journey should read this book.
We wish the rest of you a long, safe, unutterably dull and boring
life!
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Little Apple (Paperback)
Leo Perutz; Translated by John Brownjohn
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R309
R251
Discovery Miles 2 510
Save R58 (19%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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'Now that he had sampled all the terrors of the age, life meant
nothing to him any more. If Selyukov came now, he was ready for
him' Officer Georg Vittorin is consumed by murderous thoughts.
Returning home to Vienna in 1918 after three years in a Russian
Prisoner of War camp, all he can do is daydream of taking revenge
on Captain Selyukov, the loathsome officer who offended his honour.
But as Vittorin plans his retribution, fate will have its own
agenda, leading him on a wild and wintry goose chase across
revolutionary Russia and halfway around Europe; via
Constantinople's underworld, a Bolshevik prison, and death's door.
Little Apple is a wryly told adventure story of one man's
obsession, and the wicked tricks our minds can play. Men will die
in Vittorin's hands - but not as he intended...
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Rumo (Paperback, New ed)
Walter Moers; Translated by John Brownjohn
2
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R803
R662
Discovery Miles 6 620
Save R141 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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Astonishingly inventive, amusing and engrossing, Rumo is a
captivating story from the unique imagination of Walter Moers. Rumo
is a little Wolperting who will one day become the greatest hero in
the history of Zamonia. Armed with Dandelion, his talking sword, he
fights his way across Overworld and Netherworld, two very different
worlds chock-full of adventures, dangers, and unforgettable
characters: including Rala, the beautiful girl Wolperting who
cultivates a hazardous relationship with death; General Ticktock,
the evil commander of the Copper Killers; Ushan DeLucca, the finest
and most weather-sensitive swordsman in Zamonia; Professor Abdullah
Nightingale, inventor of the Chest-of-Drawers Oracle; and, worse
luck, the deadly Metal Maiden.
'Within the first 15 pages I was carried away by the sheer craziness of it all.Some Minipirates find a baby bear with blue fur inside a walnut shell floating on the ocean towards a giant whirlpool. They rescue him and teach him about knots and waves, and that a good white lie is often considerably more exciting than the truth. Then, when he outgrows their ship to such an extent that he is in danger of sinking it, they abandon him on an island with a bottle of seaweed juice and a loaf of seaweed bread. Thus Bluebear comes to the end of his first life and embarks on his second. By the end of the book, he has expended exactly half of his 27 lives. Again and again, Moers confounds our expectations as the narrative twists and turns, travels backwards and forwards in time.Part science fiction, part fairy tale, part myth, part epic, the book is a satire on all these genres and so constantly satirises itself.Very amusing' Daily Telegraph
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Catalyst (Paperback)
Alain Claude Sulzer; Translated by John Brownjohn
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R666
Discovery Miles 6 660
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Have you ever done something you wish you could forget? Wracked
with grief after an accident killed his wife and unborn child, all
Marc Lucas wants is to wipe his memory. Until he returns home one
night to find that his key doesn't fit in the lock and his wife is
alive, well and pregnant - but claims not to recognise him. Marc is
drawn into a nightmare world, one where it's impossible to separate
reality from fiction. Is he going mad? Or is there a conspiracy at
work - one that could cost him his memory, his sanity...even his
life.
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Discovery Miles 3 300
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