It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
The year is 1984, and life in Oceania is ruled by the Party. Under the gaze of Big Brother, Winston Smith yearns for intimacy and love - 'thought crimes' that, if uncovered, would mean imprisonment, or death. But Winston is not alone in his defiance, and an illicit affair will draw him into the mysterious Brotherhood and the realities of resistance.
Nineteen Eighty-Four has been described as chilling, absorbing, satirical, momentous, prophetic and terrifying. It is all these things, and more.
The Authoritative Text. With an introduction by Robert Harris.
*This stunning edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four features period artwork by Elizabeth Friedlander, one of Europe's pre-eminent 20th century graphic designers. Look out for complementary editions of Orwell's essential works Animal Farm and Down and Out in Paris and London.*
Laurent Binet lives and works in France. His first novel, HHhH, was an international bestseller which won the prestigious Prix Goncourt du premier roman, among other prizes. The 7th Function of Language won the Prix de la FNAC and Prix Interallie. Civilisations is a bestseller that has won the Grand Prix de l''Academie francaise.>
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell's fable of revolutionary farm animals - the steadfast horses Boxer and Clover, the opportunistic pigs Snowball and Napoleon, and the deafening choir of sheep - who overthrow their elitist human master only to find themselves subject to a new authority, is one of the most famous warnings ever written.
Rejected by such eminent publishing figures as Victor Gollancz, Jonathan Cape and T.S. Eliot due to its daringly open criticism of Stalin, Animal Farm was published to great acclaim by Martin Secker and Warburg on 17 August 1945. One reviewer wrote 'In a hundred years' time perhaps Animal Farm ... may simply be a fairy story: today it is a fairy story with a good deal of point.' Seventy-five years since its first publication, Orwell's immortal satire remains an unparalleled masterpiece and more relevant than ever.
The Authoritative Text. With an introduction by Christopher Hitchens.
*This stunning edition of Animal Farm features period artwork by Elizabeth Friedlander, one of Europe's pre-eminent 20th century graphic designers. Look out for complementary editions of Orwell's essential works Nineteen Eighty-Four and Down and Out in Paris and London.*
It's 1945: a German bomber flies over Iceland in a blizzard. Puzzlingly, there are both German and American officers on board. One of the senior German officers claims that their best chance of survival is to try to walk to the nearest farm and sets off, a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He soon disappears into the white vastness.
Kotaro Isaka (Author) Kotaro Isaka is a bestselling and multi-award-wining writer who is published around the world. He has won the Shincho Mystery Club Award, Mystery Writers of Japan Award, Japan Booksellers'' Award and the Yamamoto Shugoro Prize and twelve of his books have been adapted for film or TV.
In the wake of his parents'' tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne.
Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects the new, angry boy is responsible for his disappearance. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number that Tom prank called from the phone booth to an abandoned house in the Black Mirror Wood. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices begin to whisper in his ear . . .
You know who I am. She''s going to burn. The one you love is going to burn. There''s not a thing you can do about it.
When another classmate disappears, Richard must find a way to prove his innocence-and preserve his sanity-as he grapples with the dark magic that is possessing Ballantyne and pursuing his destruction.
Then again, Richard may not be the most reliable narrator of his own story.
Two decades after Portuguese novelist and Nobel Laureate José Saramago shocked the religious world with his novel The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, he has done it again with Cain, a satire of the Old Testament. Written in the last years of Saramago's life, it tackles many of the moral and logical non sequiturs created by a wilful, authoritarian God, and forms part of Saramago's long argument with religion.
The stories in this book are witty and provocative. After Adam and Eve have been cast out of Eden, Eve decides to go back and ask the angel guarding the gate if he can give her some of the fruit that is going to waste inside. The angel agrees, and although Eve swears to Adam that she offered the angel nothing in return, their first child is suspiciously blond and fair-skinned. Cain, in his wandering, overhears a strange conversation between a man named Abraham and his son Isaac - and manages to prevent the father from murdering the son. The angel appointed by God to prevent the murder arrives late due to a wing malfunction. Cain brushes off his apology. 'What would have happened if I hadn't been here?' Cain asks, 'and what kind of god would ask a father to sacrifice his own son?'
J.M. Coetzee''s work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, Boyhood, Youth, Disgrace, Summertime, The Childhood of Jesus and, most recently, The Schooldays of Jesus. He was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.>
Elizabeth Costello is a writer of international renown. Famous for an early novel from which, it seems, she will never escape, she has reached the stage where her remaining function is to be venerated and applauded. What matters to her is the search for a means of articulating her vision.
Philida decides to risk her whole life by lodging a complaint against Francois, who has reneged on his promise to set her free. His father has ordered him to marry a white woman from a prominent Cape Town family, and Philida will be sold on to owners in the harsh country up north.
When Anna McDonald's world is suddenly shattered, she tries to avoid her pain by listening to a true crime podcast. But when she hears one of the victim's names, she realises that this is a murder she can't ignore. This is a crime she must solve herself. CONVICTION isÿa topical, poignant thriller, touching on issues surrounding the #MeToo movement.
A pure pleasure of a novel set in Georgian London, where the discovery of a mysterious ancient Greek vase sets in motion conspiracies, revelations and romance. There is a fine line between coincidence and fate... London, 1799. Dora Blake is an aspiring jewellery artist who lives with her uncle in what used to be her parents'' famed shop of antiquities. When a mysterious Greek vase is delivered, Dora is intrigued by her uncle''s suspicious behaviour and enlists the help of Edward Lawrence, a young man seeking acceptance into the Society of Antiquaries. Edward sees the ancient vase as key to unlocking his academic future. Dora sees it as a chance to restore her parents'' shop to its former glory, and to escape her uncle. But what Edward discovers about the vase has Dora questioning everything she has ever known about her life, her family and the world as she knows it. As Dora uncovers the truth she starts to realise that some mysteries are buried, and some doors are locked, for a reason. Gorgeously atmospheric and deliciously page-turning, Pandora deals with themes of secrets and deception, love and fulfilment, fate and hope.
Freedom comes in many forms... At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist finds she is struggling. She is lonely and exhausted. She had imagined - what was it she had imagined? Her husband, always travelling for his work, calls her from faraway hotel rooms. One more toddler bedtime, and she fears she might lose her mind. Instead, quite suddenly, she starts gaining things, surprising things that happen one night when her child will not sleep. Sharper canines. Strange new patches of hair. New appetites, new instincts. And from deep within herself, a new voice... With its clear eyes on contemporary womanhood and sharp take on structures of power, Nightbitch is an outrageously original, joyfully subversive read that will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. Addictive enough to be devoured in one sitting, this is an unforgettable novel from a blazing new talent.
This outstanding collection of short stories showcases all the writing skill that has made Jo Nesbo the undisputed ''king of all crime writers'' ( Daily Express ) and a repeat Sunday Times #1 bestseller. Filled with dark intrigue, twists and unforgettable characters, these page-turners will have you reading late into the night. PRAISE FOR JO NESBO: '' The Kingdom is a stunning novel from a storyteller with few equals'' Daily Express ''Fast-moving... Stunning'' Sunday Times ''Tense, nerve-shredding'' Daily Express
In many ways, the brothers Carl and Roy Opgard have succeeded in life. Or at least they''ve had as much success as is possible in a small town like Os where they''ve had to kill their way to the top. Carl manages the area''s swanky spa hotel, while Roy has made ambitious plans for an amusement park complete with a roller coaster.
The only way is up for the two brothers. Unless the local sheriff can bring them down.
The sheriff believes he has new evidence that will prove the brothers involvement in several past murders, but Carl and Roy Opgard are used to covering their tracks, and they''re not afraid to get their hands dirty.
The high body count of Os is about to get higher.
Blood Ties is a grandiose and explosive suspense novel about loyalty, family ties, consuming love, and the fight against powerful forces. It will transport you to a community in crisis and tell the story of two brothers on the verge of losing all that they''ve fought for.
A German businessman is the third to die: murdered in a seaside guesthouse. A note pinned on his body is addressed to Colonel Otto Skorzeny, Hitler's favourite commando and once the most dangerous man in Europe, and warns Skorzeny that they are coming for him next.
Ismail Kadare is Albania''s best-known novelist and poet. Translations of his novels have appeared in more than forty countries. He was awarded the inaugural Man Booker International Prize in 2005, the Jerusalem Prize in 2015, and the Neustadt Prize in 2020.>
Paris, 2018. Diegane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, discovers a legendary book titled The Maze of Inhumanity. It has an immediate hold over him. No one knows what happened to the author, T.C. Elimane, who was accused of plagiarism, his reputation destroyed by the critics.
Obsessed with discovering the truth about Elimane''s disappearance, Faye weaves past and present, countries and continents, following the author''s labyrinthine trail from Senegal to Argentina and France and confronting the great tragedies of history.
Will he get to the truth at the centre of the maze?
A gripping literary quest novel and a masterpiece of perpetual reinvention, The Most Secret Memory of Men confronts the impact of colonialism and neo-colonialism, the holocaust in Europe, dictatorships in South America and the Caribbean, genocide in Africa, and collaboration and resistance everywhere. Above all, it is a love song to literature and its timeless power.
I look at all of Carver's work as just one story, for his stories are all occurences, all about things that just happen to people and cause their lives to take a turn... In formulating the mosaic of the film Short Cuts, which is based on these nine stories and a poem, 'Lemonade', I've tried to do the same thing- to give the audience one look... But it all began here. I was a reader turning these pages. Trying on these lives' - Robert Altman in his introduction.
A wildly inventive story collection from legendary film director Pedro Almodovar
The Last Dream brings together for the first time twelve unpublished stories from Almodovar''s personal archive, written between the late sixties and the present day. Both a tantalising glimpse into Almodovar''s creative mind and a masterclass in how to tell a story, this intimate and mischievous collection reflects Almodovar''s obsessions and many of the themes of his cinematic work, spanning genres from autofiction to comedy, parody, pastiche and gothic. The title story, ''The Last Dream'', is a beautiful chronicle of the death of Almodovar''s mother, and other stories include: a love story between Jesus and Barabbas; a cult film director out in search of painkillers on a bank holiday weekend; the primary version of the film Bad Education; and a gothic tale of a repentant vampire among monks.
In his introduction, Almodovar writes: ''I''ve been asked to write my autobiography more than once, and I''ve always refused; it''s also been suggested that I let someone else write my biography, but I have always felt somewhat resistant to the idea of a book entirely about me as an individual. I''ve never kept a diary, and whenever I''ve tried, I''ve never made it to page two; in a sense, then, this book represents something of a paradox. It might be best described as a fragmentary autobiography, incomplete and a little cryptic.''
A celebration of the relationship between life and art, fiction and reality from an artist unafraid to write about our most intimate moments, these stories explore desire, mortality, loneliness and the pain and glory of artistic creation, laced with playful humour and a deep love of literature and culture.
THE LIVING Erlendur works nights. He's a young officer in Traffic, not yet a detective. And Reykjavik's nights are full of car crashes, robberies, drinkers and fighters. Sometimes an unexplained death.
THE LOST A homeless man Erlendur knows is found drowned. But few people care. Or when a young woman on her way home from a club vanishes. Both cases go cold.
THE SEARCHER Two lost people from two different worlds. Erlendur is not an investigator, but his instincts tell him their fates are worth pursuing. How could they be linked?
IN THE HEART OF THE NIGHT Inexorably, he is drawn into the blackness of the city's underbelly, where everyone is in the dark or on the run.
