Five-year old Matilda longs for her parents to be good and loving and understanding, but they are none of these things. They are perfectly horrid to her. Matilda invents a game of punishing them each time they treat her badly and she soon discovers she has supernatural powers.
An apocalyptic tale set in a nation ruled by Big Brother, where speech is doctored and thoughts are controlled by totalitarian agents. From the author of Animal Farm and Down and Out in Paris and London.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST NBCC JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FINALIST ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017 ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POSTS MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017 ONE OF NPRS GREAT READS OF 2017 A USA TODAY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR AN AMAZON.COM BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A BUSINESS INSIDER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "Impossible to put down." -- NPR "A novel that readers will gulp down, gasping. -- The Washington Post "The word 'masterpiece' has been cheapened by too many blurbs, but My Absolute Darling absolutely is one." --Stephen King A brilliant and immersive, all-consuming read about one fourteen-year-old girl's heart-stopping fight for her own soul. Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her father. Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high-school boy who tells jokes, lives in a big clean house, and looks at Turtle as if she is the sunrise. And for the first time, the larger world begins to come into focus: her life with Martin is neither safe nor sustainable. Motivated by her first experience with real friendship and a teenage crush, Turtle starts to imagine escape, using the very survival skills her father devoted himself to teaching her. What follows is a harrowing story of bravery and redemption. With Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, the reader watches, heart in throat, as this teenage girl struggles to become her own hero--and in the process, becomes ours as well. Shot through with striking language in a fierce natural setting, My Absolute Darling is an urgently told, profoundly moving read that marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster?! Or is he all of these?
Forced by the sudden death of her father to act as paid companion to the comical - and tiresome - Mrs Van Hopper, our herione meets handsome widower Maxim de Winter on a trip to Monaco and accepts his sudden marriage proposal. But she is unprepared for the shadows cast by his past.
The Penguin English Library Edition of Moby-Dick by Herman Melvillebr>br>''The frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain...''br>br>Moby-Dick is one of the most expansive feats of imagination in the whole of literature: the mad, raging, Shakespearean tale of Captain Ahab''s insane quest to kill a giant white whale that has taken his leg, and upon which he has sworn vengeance, at any cost. A creation unlike any other, this is an epic story of fatal monomania and the deepest dreams and obsessions of mankind.br>br>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.>
Named one of the years most anticipated books by The New York Times , Harpers Bazaar, BuzzFeed , and more What does it mean for a family to lose a child they never really knew? One afternoon, in a town in southeastern Nigeria, a mother opens her front door to discover her sons body, wrapped in colorful fabric, at her feet. What follows is the tumultuous, heart-wrenching story of one familys struggle to understand a child whose spirit is both gentle and mysterious. Raised by a distant father and an understanding but overprotective mother, Vivek suffers disorienting blackouts, moments of disconnection between self and surroundings. As adolescence gives way to adulthood, Vivek finds solace in friendships with the warm, boisterous daughters of the Nigerwives, foreign-born women married to Nigerian men. But Viveks closest bond is with Osita, the worldly, high-spirited cousin whose teasing confidence masks a guarded private life. As their relationship deepens--and Osita struggles to understand Viveks escalating crisis--the mystery gives way to a heart-stopping act of violence in a moment of exhilarating freedom. Propulsively readable, teeming with unforgettable characters, The Death of Vivek Oji is a novel of family and friendship that challenges expectations--a dramatic story of loss and transcendence that will move every reader.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An Amazon Best Book of 2019 A Washington Post 10 Books To Read in July A Los Angeles Times Seven Highly Anticipated Books for Summer Reading A USA Today 20 of the Seasons Hottest New Books A New York Post 25 Best Beach Reads of 2019 You Need to Pre-Order Now A Bustle The Best New True Crime Books You Can Read Right Now Maureen Callahans deft reporting and stylish writing have created one of the all-time-great serial-killer books: sensitive, chilling, and completely impossible to put down. --Ada Calhoun, author of St. Marks Is Dead Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. The names of notorious serial killers are usually well-known; they echo in the news and in public consciousness. But most people have never heard of Israel Keyes, one of the most ambitious and terrifying serial killers in modern history. The FBI considered his behavior unprecedented. Described by a prosecutor as "a force of pure evil," Keyes was a predator who struck all over the United States. He buried "kill kits"--cash, weapons, and body-disposal tools--in remote locations across the country. Over the course of fourteen years, Keyes would fly to a city, rent a car, and drive thousands of miles in order to use his kits. He would break into a stranger's house, abduct his victims in broad daylight, and kill and dispose of them in mere hours. And then he would return home to Alaska, resuming life as a quiet, reliable construction worker devoted to his only daughter. When journalist Maureen Callahan first heard about Israel Keyes in 2012, she was captivated by how a killer of this magnitude could go undetected by law enforcement for over a decade. And so began a project that consumed her for the next several years--uncovering the true story behind how the FBI ultimately caught Israel Keyes, and trying to understand what it means for a killer like Keyes to exist. A killer who left a path of monstrous, randomly committed crimes in his wake--many of which remain unsolved to this day. American Predator is the ambitious culmination of years of interviews with key figures in law enforcement and in Keyes's life, and research uncovered from classified FBI files. Callahan takes us on a journey into the chilling, nightmarish mind of a relentless killer, and to the limitations of traditional law enforcement.
An elating read'' Sunday Timesbr>br>A producer. A novelist. An actress.br>br>It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. There are riots in Paris and the Vietnam War is out of control. While the world is reeling our three characters are involved in making a Swingin'' Sixties movie in sunny Brighton. br>br>All are leading secret lives. Elfrida is drowning her writer''s block in vodka; Talbot, coping with the daily dysfunction of making a film, is hiding something in a secret apartment; and the glamorous Anny is wondering why the CIA is suddenly so interested in her.br>br>But the show must go on and, as it does, the trio''s private worlds begin to take over their public ones. Pressures build inexorably - someone''s going to crack. Or maybe they all will.br>br>From one of Britain''s best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel that asks the vital questions: what makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn''t?br>_______________________________________________br>br>PRAISE FOR WILLIAM BOYDbr>br>''The ultimate in immersive fiction . . . magnificent'' Sunday Timesbr>br>''A finely judged performance: a deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination'' Guardian on Love is Blindbr>br>''William Boyd has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries'' Daily Telegraphbr>br>''Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation'' Sebastian Faulks>
Biographical noteBorges was born in Buenos Aires in 1899. A poet, critic and short story writer, he received numerous awards for his work including the 1961 International Publisher's Prize (shared with Samuel Beckett). He died in 1986. He has a reasonable claim, with Kafka and Joyce, to be the most influential writer of the 20th Century. Andrew Hurley is Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan. He has translated works by Borges, Padilla and Arenas. Main descriptionThe most popular anthology of Jorge Luis Borges's short stories, Fictions is a wildly original and influential collection of fantastic tales, translated from the Spanish with an afterword by Andrew Hurley in Penguin Modern Classics. Jorge Luis Borges's Fictions introduced an entirely new voice into world literature. It is here that we find the astonishing accounts of 'Funes the Memorious', the man who can forget nothing; 'Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote', who recreates Miguel de Cervantes's epic word-for-word; a society run on the basis of an all-encompassing game of chance in 'The Lottery in Babylon'; the mysterious world of 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius' which seems to be supplanting our own ; and the 'Library of Babel', which contains every possible book in the whole universe. Here too are the philosophical detective stories and the haunting tales of Irish revolutionaries, gaucho knife fights and dreams within dreams which proved so influential (and yet impossible to imitate). This collection was eventually to bring Borges international fame; over fifty years later, it remains endlessly intriguing. Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A poet, critic and short story writer, he received numerous awards for his work including the 1961 International Publisher's Prize (shared with Samuel Beckett). He has a reasonable claim, along with Kafka and Joyce, to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. If you enjoyed Fictions, you might like Italo Calvino's The Complete Cosmicomics, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Hurley's efforts at retranslating Borges are not anything but heroic. His visions are clear, elegant, crystalline'Ilan Savans, The Times Literary Supplement 'One of the most memorable artists of our age'Mario Vargas Llosa
Representing the letter «H» in a series of twenty-six collectible editions, describes the quest for spiritual illumination by a Brahmin who forgoes a life of sensual decadence and wealth for fasting, homelessness and meditation.
Biographical noteGustave Flaubert was born in Rouen in 1821. After illness interrupted a career in law, he retired to live with his widowed mother and devote himself to writing. He achieved limited success in his own lifetime, but his fame and reputation grew steadily after his death in 1880. Geoffrey Wall teaches French at the University of York. His biography of Flaubert has been translated into four languages. Michèle Roberts is the half-English half-French writer of ten highly praised novels. Main descriptionGustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary is one of the most influential - and scandalous - novels of the nineteenth century. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with an introduction by Geoffrey Wall, with a preface by Michele Roberts. Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857. It was deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine; but Flaubert insisted: 'Madame Bovary, c'est moi.' Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was born in Rouen. After illness interrupted a career in law, he retired to live with his widowed mother and devote himself to writing. Madame Bovary won instant acclaim upon book publication in 1857, but Flaubert's frank display of adultery in bourgeois France saw him go on trial for immorality, only narrowly escaping conviction. Both Salammbo (1862) and The Sentimental Education (1869) were poorly received, and Flaubert achieved limited success in his own lifetime - but his fame and reputation grew steadily after his death. If you enjoyed Madame Bovary you might also like Stendhal's The Red and the Black, also available in Penguin Classics. 'Its beauty is enchanting and terrible'A.S. Byatt, author of Possession 'An extraordinarily innovative work: its style was at once ironic and lyrical, detached and passionate, ambiguous and precise'Kate Summerscale
A portrait of New York City, drawn by describing the interconnected lives of dozens of people - bankers, chefs, bums, cabdrivers and others. Written in an impressionistic style, with vivid descriptions and bursts of overheard conversation, it has more in common with films than traditional novels.
Ali Neuman, the chief of the Cape Town police crime unit, investigates the murder of Nicole Wiese, found in the city's botanical gardens, and the trail soon leads him to a brutal narcotics gang with links to a former official.
Biographical noteVictor Hugo (1802-85) was the most forceful, prolific and versatile of French nineteenth-century writers. He wrote Romantic costume dramas, many volumes of lyrical and satirical verse, political and other journalism, criticism and several novels, the best known of which are Les Misérables (1862) and the youthful Notre-Dame de Paris (1831). A royalist and conservative as a young man, Hugo later became a committed social democrat and during the Second Empire of Napoleon III was exiled from France, living in the Channel Islands. He returned to Paris in 1870 and remained a great public figure until his death: his body lay in state under the Arc de Triomphe before being buried in the Panthéon. Main descriptionNow a major musical film from Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway, and also featuring Amanda Seyfreid, Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron-Cohen, Victor Hugo's Les Misérables is one of the great works of western literature.Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience, when, owing to a case of mistaken identity, another man is arrested in his place; and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine (Anne Hathaway), driven to prostitution by poverty. Victor Hugo (1802-85) wrote volumes of criticism, Romantic costume dramas, satirical verse and political journalism but is best remembered for his novels, especially Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), also known as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables (1862) which was adapted into one of the most successful musicals of all time. 'All human life is here'Cameron Mackintosh, producer of the musical Les Misérables'One of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world'Upton Sinclair'A great writer - inventive, witty, sly, innovatory' A. S. Byatt, author of Possession
On a June morning in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway, the glittering wife of a Member of Parliament, is preparing for a party she is giving that evening. As she walks through London, buying flowers, she remembers the time when she was as young as her own daughter Elizabeth. Elsewhere in London Septimus Smith is being driven mad by shell shock.
Martin Eden (1909), l'un des plus romanesques parmi les romans de London, peut se lire entre les lignes comme une sorte d'autobiographie. Martin, ouvrier devenu écrivain, n'arrive plus à se reconnaître dans le prolétariat dont il est issu, mais vomit la bourgeoisie qui lui tend les bras. Amoureux d'une jeune fille riche, il comprend que sa place ne sera jamais auprès d'elle, refuse les compromissions qui lui permettraient de la conquérir. Se devinant voué à la solitude et à l'échec, il décide de précipiter sa fin.Martin Eden, le chef-d'oeuvre de Jack London : dans une traduction pour la première fois fidèle à l'original.
A phenomenal worldwide bestseller for more than forty years, Richard Adams's Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.
When adulteress Thâeráese and her lover Laurent murder her sickly husband Camille, the ghost of Camille haunts them after their marriage, transforming their passion for each other into hatred.
From James McBride, author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird , comes a wise and witty novel about what happens to the witnesses of a shooting. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .45 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project's drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong , James McBride's funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird . In Deacon King Kong , McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood's Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters--caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York--overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion. Bringing to these pages both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water . Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.
