Stefan Zweig's seminal memoir recalls the golden age of pre-war Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall.

Through the story of his life and his relationships with the leading literary figures of the day, Zweig's fervent, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction.

This translation by the award-winning Anthea Bell captures the passionate fluency of Zweig's writing in arguably his most important work, completed the day before his suicide in 1942 - a unique elegy for a lost world of security and peace.

My dreadful situation forced me … to try splitting myself into a Black self and a White self, to keep from being crushed by the terrible void around me

A prisoner of the Nazis for years, what if your only stimulation was imagining games of chess against yourself, second-guessing your increasingly obsessed and divided brain? Then, decades later, you can play the World Champion, but might it return you to the edge of madness … and tip you over?

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil. A group of passengers on a cruise ship challenge the world chess champion to a match. At first, they crumble, until they are helped by whispered advice from a stranger in the crowd - a man who will risk everything to win. Stefan Zweig's acclaimed novella Chess is a disturbing, intensely dramatic depiction of obsession and the price of the past.

'Zweig's fictional masterpiece' GUARDIAN 'An intoxicating, morally shaking read... A real reminder of what fiction can do best' ALI SMITH 'It's just a masterpiece. When I read it I thought, how is it that I don't already know about this?' WES ANDERSON _______________ The only novel written by one of the most popular writers of the twentieth century In 1913, young second lieutenant Hofmiller discovers the terrible danger of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance-so begins a series of visits, motivated by pity, which relieve his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope. Stefan Zweig's unforgettable novel is a devastating depiction of the betrayal of both honour and love, amid the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

A dead man hangs from the portal of St Paul's Chapel in Damascus. He was a Muslim officer - and he was murdered. But when Detective Barudi sets out to interrogate the man's mysterious widow, the Secret Service takes the case away from him. Barudi continues to investigate clandestinely and discovers the murderer's motive: it is a blood feud between the Mushtak and Shahin clans, reaching back to the beginnings of the 20th century. And, linked to it, a love story that can have no happy ending, for reconciliation has no place within the old tribal structures. Rafik Schami's dazzling novel spans a century of Syrian history in which politics and religions continue to torment an entire people. Simultaneously, his poetic stories from three generations tell of the courage of lovers who risk death sooner than deny their passions. He has also written a heartfelt tribute to his hometown Damascus and a great and moving hymn to the power of love.

'I had never heard of Zweig until six or seven years ago, as allthe books began to come back into print, and I more or less by chance bought a copy of Beware of Pity. I immediately lovedthis book, his one, big, great novel-and suddenly there weredozens more in front of me waiting to read.' Wes Anderson The Society of the Crossed Keys contains Wes Anderson's selections from the writings of the great Austrian author Stefan Zweig, whose life and work inspired The Grand Budapest Hotel. A CONVERSATION WITH WES ANDERSON Wes Anderson discusses Zweig's life and work with Zweig biographer George Prochnik. THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY Selected extracts from Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, an unrivalled evocation of bygone Europe. BEWARE OF PITY An extract from Zweig's only novel, a devastating depictionof the torment of the betrayal of both honour and love. TWENTY-FOUR HOURS IN THE LIFE OF A WOMAN One of Stefan Zweig's best-loved stories in full-a passionate tale of gambling, love and death, played out against the stylish backdrop of the French Riviera in the 1920s. "I defy anyone to read these tasters of Zweig's work without being compelled to read on. Pushkin might as well do their readers all a favour and sell The Society of the Crossed Keys with a complete Zweig back catalogue." Independent 'The World of Yesterday is one of the greatest memoirs of the twentieth century, as perfect in its evocation of the world Zweig loved, as it is in its portrayal of how that world was destroyed.' -- David Hare 'Beware of Pity is the most exciting book I have ever read...a feverish, fascinating novel' -- Antony Beevor 'One of the joys of recent years is the translation into English of Stefan Zweig's stories.'--Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and, between the wars was an international bestselling author. With the rise of Nazism, he left Austria, and lived in London, Bath, New York and Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Wes Anderson's films include Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr Fox, and Moonrise Kingdom. He directed and wrote the screenplay for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

A memoir of brutality, heroism and personal discovery from Europe's dark heart, revealing one of the most extraordinary untold stories of the Second World War In the spring of 1945, at Rechnitz on the Austrian-Hungarian border, not far from the front lines of the advancing Red Army, Countess Margit Batthyany gave a party in her mansion. The war was almost over, and the German aristocrats and SS officers dancing and drinking knew it was lost. Late that night, they walked down to the village, where 180 enslaved Jewish labourers waited, made them strip naked, and shot them all, before returning to the bright lights of the party. It remained a secret for decades, until Sacha Batthyany, who remembered his great-aunt Margit only vaguely from his childhood as a stern, distant woman, began to ask questions about it. A Crime in the Family is Sacha Batthyany's memoir of confronting these questions, and of the answers he found. It is one of the last untold stories of Europe's nightmare century,spanning not just the massacre at Rechnitz, the inhumanity of Auschwitz, the chaos of wartime Budapest and the brutalities of Soviet occupation and Stalin's gulags, but also the silent crimes of complicity and cover-up, and the damaged generations they leave behind. Told partly through the surviving journals of others from the author's family and the vanished world of Rechnitz, A Crime in the Family is a moving and revelatory memoir in the vein of The Hare with the Amber Eyes and The House by the Lake. It uncovers barbarity and tragedy but also a measure of peace and reconciliation. Ultimately,Batthyany discovers that although his inheritance might be that of monsters, he does not bear it alone.

Ten turning points in history, vividly sketched by the great Stefan Zweig "Such dramatically concentrated, such fateful hours, in which a timeless decision hangs on a single date, a single hour, even just a single minute, rarely occur in everyday life, and only rarely in the course of history." One of the twentieth century's great humanists and a hugely popular fiction writer, Stefan Zweig's historical works bring the past to life in brilliant Technicolor. This collection contains ten typically breathless and erudite dramatizations of some of the most tense and important episodes in human history. From General Grouchy's failure to intervene at Waterloo, to the miraculous resurrection of George Frideric Handel, this, Stefan Zweig's selection of historical turning points, newly translated by Anthea Bell, is idiosyncratic, fascinating and as always hugely readable. The perfect stocking-filler for the Europhile in your life' Philosophy Football 'Shooting Stars forms part of an ambitious project by Pushkin Press to bring Zweig's work to the attention of the English-reading public, an enterprise that has been entirely successful. Zweigmania seems to break out with the publication of each book, with readers discovering his work by word-of-mouth and by accident.' Guardian 'Zweig's impassioned pursuit of personal freedom seems more relevant than ever' Newsweek About the Author Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only novel Beware of Pity. He later moved on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. With the fall of France in 1940 Zweig left Britain for New York, before settling in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press. About the Author Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only novel Beware of Pity. He later moved on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. With the fall of France in 1940 Zweig left Britain for New York, before settling in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.

Who was Jean Amery? Victim or survivor? Agnostic or Jew? Austrian or exile? Philosopher or journalist? Jean Amery is not easy to classify but what this biography (the first in any language) demonstrates is that he is more - far more - than some enigmatic cult figure: he is one of the most influential of Holocaust survivors and one of the most provocative writers and thinkers of the 20th century. Jean Amery - born Hans Maier in Austria in 1912 - is perhaps best known for his seminal work, "At the Mind's Limits", one of the central texts on what Amery himself described as 'the subjective state of the victim.' But as Irene Heidelberger-Leonard's book reveals, Amery was not just a 'professional concentration camper', as he sometimes dubbed himself in a mixture of mockery and resignation. Drawing on a wide range of previously unpublished documents, Heidelberger-Leonard illuminates the turbulent life of this complex figure, from his middle class origins in pre-war Austria; his flight from his homeland to join the Resistance; his imprisonment in Auschwitz and Belsen; to his eventual suicide in 1978. This definitive biography examines how Amery grappled with what it meant to be both a victim and survivor of the concentration camps and what his experiences there reveal about the tension between human dignity and the reality of horror. Focusing chiefly on Amery's literary works, one of the book's great strengths lies in exploring how every aspect of Amery's life and thought is inextricably connected with his writings. This biography brilliantly demonstrates the importance of Amery in his own time and shows how his relevance extends far beyond.

WINNER OF THE 2007 CHLA BOOK AWARD

Children's literature has transcended linguistic and cultural borders since books and magazines for young readers were first produced, with popular books translated throughout the world.

Emer O'Sullivan traces the history of comparative children's literature studies, from the enthusiastic internationalism of the post-war period which set out from the idea of a supra-national world republic of childhood to modern comparative criticism. Drawing on the scholarship and children's literature of many cultures and languages, she outlines the constituent areas that structure the field, including contact and transfer studies, intertextuality studies, intermediality studies and image studies. In doing so, she provides the first comprehensive overview of this exciting new research area. Comparative Children's Literature also links the fields of narratology and translation studies, to develop an original and highly valuable communicative model of translation.

Taking in issues of children's 'classics', the canon and world literature for children, Comparative Children's Literature reveals that this branch of literature is not as genuinely international as it is often fondly assumed to be and is essential reading for those interested in the consequences of globalization on children's literature and culture."

WINNER OF THE 2007 CHLA BOOK AWARD! Children's literature has transcended linguistic and cultural borders since books and magazines for young readers were first produced, with popular books translated throughout the world. Emer O'Sullivan traces the history of comparative children's literature studies, from the enthusiastic internationalism of the post-war period - which set out from the idea of a supra-national world republic of childhood - to modern comparative criticism. Drawing on the scholarship and children's literature of many cultures and languages, she outlines the constituent areas that structure the field, including contact and transfer studies, intertextuality studies, intermediality studies and image studies. In doing so, she provides the first comprehensive overview of this exciting new research area. Comparative Children's Literature also links the fields of narratology and translation studies, to develop an original and highly valuable communicative model of translation. Taking in issues of children's 'classics', the canon and world literature for children, Comparative Children's Literature reveals that this branch of literature is not as genuinely international as it is often fondly assumed to be and is essential reading for those interested in the consequences of globalization on children's literature and culture.

'Walter Trier's deceptively innocent drawings are as classic as Kastner's words; I never tire of them' Quentin Blake Martin's school is no ordinary school. There are snowball fights, kidnappings, cakes, a parachute jump, a mysterious man called 'No-Smoking' who lives in a railway carriage and a play about a flying classroom. As the Christmas holidays draw near, Martin and his friends - nervous Uli, cynical Sebastian, Johnny, who was rescued by a sea captain, and Matthias, who is always hungry (particularly after a meal) - are preparing for the end-of-term festivities. But there are surprises, sadness and trouble on the way - and a secret that changes everything. The Flying Classroom is a magical, thrilling and bittersweet story about friendship, fun and being brave when you are at your most scared. (It also features a calf called Eduard, but you will have to read it to find out why.) Erich Kastner, writer, poet and journalist, was born in Dresden in 1899. His first children's book, Emil and the Detectives, was published in 1929 and has since sold millions of copies around the world and been translated into around 60 languages. After the Nazis took power in Germany, Kastner's books were burnt and he was excluded from the writers' guild. He won many awards, including the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1960. He died in 1974. Walter Trier was born in Prague in 1880. In 1910 he moved to Berlin, where he would later be introduced to Kastner, and began his career drawing cartoons for the Berliner Illustrated. He also contributed to the satirical weekly Simplicissimus, where during the 1920s, despite great personal risk, he ridiculed Hitler and the Nazi Party in a series of cartoons. In 1936 he fled to London, where he was involved in producing anti-Nazi leaflets and political propaganda drawings. He would go on to have a rich career, producing around 150 covers for the humorous magazine Lilliput. He died in 1951 in Ontario, Canada. Anthea Bell is an award-winning translator. Having studied English at Oxford University, she has had a long and successful career, translating works from French, German and Danish. She is best known for her translations of the much-loved Asterix books, Stefan Zweig and W.G. Sebald.

'Already hailed as a Cold War classic.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent Books of the Year 'Utterly absorbing, funny and humane. A romp through a twisted century in the heart of Europe.' Anna Funder, author of Stasiland International bestseller and Winner of the German Book Prize A sweeping story of one family over four generations in East Germany: the intertwining of love, life and politics under the GDR regime.

A brilliantly evocative, atmospheric novel about the delusion and indecision of a wealthy family in the last days of the Third Reich as the Russians advance from the east In January 1945, the German army is retreating from the Russian advance. Germans are fleeing the occupied territories in their thousands, in cars and carts and on foot. But in a rural East Prussian manor house, the wealthy von Globig family seals itself off from the world. Protected from the deprivation and chaos around them, they make no preparations to leave until a decision to harbour a stranger for the night begins their undoing. Finally joining the great trek west, the remaining members of the family face at last the catastrophic consequences of the war. Profoundly evocative of the period, sympathetic yet painfully honest about the motivations of its characters, All for Nothing is a devastating portrait of the complicities and denials of the German people as the Third Reich comes to an end.

One voice is the weapon against tyranny in this powerful hymn to courage and freedom. Four teenagers escape from their prison-like boarding schools to take up the fight against the tyrannical government that murdered their parents fifteen years earlier. Fleeing across icy mountains from a pack of terrifying dog-men sent to hunt them down, only three of the friends make it safely to Jahn's Restaurant, the headquarters of a secret resistance movement. It is here they learn about courage, freedom and love, and discover the astonishing power of one voice as the battle begins - to free a depressed and terrified nation from a generation of cruelty, and to save their captured friend, forced to fight to the death in a barbaric ancient game.

SOON TO BE THE MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES, TOTENFRAU KILL BILL meets DEXTER via THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, WOMAN OF THE DEAD is a wild ride of a thriller where the first stage of grief is revenge. And revenge is a dish best served bloody. How far would you go to avenge the one you love? Blum has a secret buried deep in her past. She thought she'd left the past behind. But then Mark, the man she loves, dies. His death looks like a hit-and-run. It isn't a hit-and-run. Mark has been killed by the men he was investigating. And then, suddenly, Blum rediscovers what she's capable of... 'An ironclad guarantee of sleepless nights' Barry Forshaw, Independent 'Fast, edgy and gripping ... full of quirks, with a conflicted heroine as killer at its heart. Do not miss it' Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail

One cruel night, Meggie's father reads aloud from a book called "Inkheart," and an evil ruler escapes the boundaries of fiction and lands in their living room. Suddenly, Meggie is smack in the middle of the kind of adventure she has only read about in books.

An authorized biography of one of the most powerful women in the world sheds light on the person behind the politician.

With the Eurozone engulfed in an unprecedented crisis, one political figure looms largest of all, Angela Merkel, the leader of its most powerful economy, Germany. While foreign affairs have become the central issues of her chancellorship in this crucial election year, the entire world is anxiously looking to Germany to play its part in Europe's rescue. From her youthful days of hitchhiking in Tbilisi to being the guest of honor at a White House state dinner, this book examines how a girl from East Germany rose to the highest echelons of European power.

As well as explaining how Angela Merkel's world view was shaped and influenced by her background and ideology, this lively account discusses her personal relations with international counterparts such as David Cameron, Barack Obama, and Vladimir Putin, as well as her attitude towards the countries and cultures over which they rule.

The Baader-Meinhof Group--later known as the Red Army Faction (RAF)--was a violent urban guerilla group which terrorized Germany in the 1970s and '80s, killing 47 people, wounding 93, taking 162 hostages, and robbing 35 banks--all in an attempt to bring revolution to the Federal Republic.
Stefan Aust's masterful history of the Group presents the definitive account, capturing a highly complex story both accurately and colorfully. Much new information has surfaced since the mass suicide of the Groups' leaders in the 1980s. Some RAF members have come forward to testify in new investigations and formerly classified Stasi documents have been made public since the fall of the Berlin Wall, all contributing to a fuller picture of the RAF and the events surrounding their demise. Aust presents the complete history of the RAF, from the creation in 1970 to the breakup in 1998, incorporating all of the new information. For instance, there is growing evidence that the German secret service eavesdropped on Baader, Meinhof, and the other RAF members imprisoned in Stammheim and that they knew that the terrorists planned a mass suicide, but did nothing to prevent it. Also, there is new information about the role of the RAF lawyers (among them Otto Schily who later was Minister of the Interior in Gerhard Schroder's cabinet), and the roles of the different RAF members and the rivalry between them. The volume will also contain numerous photos.
Terrorism today is never far from most people's thoughts. Baader-Meinhof offers a gripping account of one of the most violent terrorist groups of the late twentieth century, in a compelling look at what they did, why they did it, and how they were brought tojustice.

Bavaria, Germany, 1947. At the end of the war, Afra Zauner returns to her parents' cottage on the edge of Mauther Forest. Unmarried, and pregnant. As she struggles to raise her child, her father's shame, her mother's fury and the loud whispers of the neighbours begin to weigh upon her. She doesn't believe in her sin. But everyone else does. And someone brings judgement down upon her. Many years later, Hermann Muller is throwing a drunk out of his tavern. A traveller, who won't stop ranting about a murder left unsolved, about police who never investigated. Out of curiousity, the file is reopened. And in the cold light of hindsight, a chilling realisation creeps upon the community. No-one ever atoned for Afra's death. But her story is waiting to be told. Andrea Maria Schenkel returns to the form of her groundbreaking The Murder Farm, narrating through suspects, victims and investigators to lead the reader to their own awful understanding.

Hinrich takes his existence at face value. His wife, on the other hand, has always been more interested in the after-life. Or so it seemed. When she dies of a stroke, Hinrich goes through her papers, only to discover a totally different perspective on their marriage. Thus commences a dazzling intellectual game of shifting realities. ------- Why Peirene chose to publish this book: 'This novella deals with the weighty subjects of marriage and death in an impressively light manner. Shifting realities evolve with a beautiful sense of irony and wit. It is a tone that allows us to reflect - without judgment - on misunderstandings, contradictory perceptions and the transience of life.' Meike Ziervogel, Publisher

One Sunday morning in October, Istvan and his wife Vera start their day as usual. They tidy their house; Vera makes a festive cake to put in the freezer and cuts fresh roses for a vase in the living room. That evening, after nearly fifty years of marriage, they lie down in the bed that they share and take their own lives. Having survived the tumult of twentieth-century Europe and after raising a family together, they could not accept the words 'until death do us part'. Vera and Istvan met at a recital in Budapest in 1940, and from that moment Vera knew that he was the man she would marry. A deep and abiding friendship grew between them. While sifting through the fragments of the family history in an attempt to understand this glamorous and enigmatic couple, their granddaughter Johanna Adorjan imagines their final day. Amid the family stories and portraits by friends, she dares to give voice to their never-mentioned experiences in the Holocaust and their escape from Hungary during the uprising of 1956. An Exclusive Love is both a love story and a journey of self-understanding, beautifully told and shot through with tender humour. It is a history at once personal and universal, a tale of memory, belonging and devotion.

Emma lives alone in a big farmhouse with her animals for company: she talks to her chickens, cuddles up to her pigs in the sty and caresses her cows. But she also must make a living from her livestock, selling meat and making sausages. For Emma, it's all part of a natural process, and she does her best to give the pigs a short and sweet death, having developed her very own way of killing her pigs most tenderly. For all her happiness on the farm, there are two things in Emma's life she desperately wants: money to save her farm, which is deeply in debt, and a man. One night, she is woken by a crash. In her field, she finds a wrecked Ferrari. and in it, an unconscious man - with an enormous amount of cash. It looks like Emma's prayers have been answered - but have they? Will the mysterious Max adapt to rural life, or will his past come back to haunt them?

The Baron, bored on holiday, begins a flirtation with a beautiful woman via her twelve-year-old son. He befriends the child and charms him, all the while attempting to seduce the mother - but he cannot begin to imagine the effect he is having on the boy's life... Burning Secret is a witty, potent look at innocence, adult attraction and childhood passion.