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Little, Brown and Company
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These dazzling short works are crafted with all the weight and resonance of the novels for which E. L. Doctorow is famous. You will find yourself set down in a mysterious redbrick house in rural Illinois ('A House on the Plains'), working things out with a baby-kidnapping couple in California ('Baby Wilson'), living on a religious-cult commune in Kansas ('Walter John Harmon'), sharing the heartrending cross-country journey of a young woman navigating her way through three bad marriages ('Jolene: A Life'), and witnessing an FBI special agent at a personal crossroads while he investigates a grave breach of White House Security ('Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden'). Comprised in a variety of moods and voices, these remarkable portrayals of the American spiritual landscape show a modern master at the height of his powers. |
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‘Sometimes when he didn’t know he was being watched Meggie would look at him and try desperately to imprint his face upon her brain’s core... And he would turn to find her watching him, a look in his eyes of haunted grief, a doomed look. She understood the implicit message, or thought she did; he must go, back to the Church and his duties. Never again with the same spirit, perhaps, but more able to serve. For only those who have slipped and fallen know the vicissitudes of the way...’ |
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When Janey Wilcox makes it big as a Victoria's Secret model, she finally gets the celebrity status she has always craved. Suddenly the car of her dreams is hers, and even better, so is that house in New York's exclusive Hamptons. No longer will she have to choose her boyfriends according to who has a house she can summer in. At the most exclusive of Hampton parties, Janey finds herself mingling with Hollywood celebrities and the cream of New York society. But all this is secondary when she is charmed and captivated by a handsome, successful man, a man who quickly becomes her new beau. Janey, though, is not the type to live happily ever after, especially with her chequered past of far from good behaviour… |
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The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks or military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman’s life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine intelligence could see the horrors in his past. |
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Frank, no ordinary sixteen-year-old, lives with his father outsIde a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; and his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return — an event that explodes the mysteries of the past and changes Frank utterly. Iain Banks' celebrated first novel is a work of extraordinary originality, imagination and horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; and compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all. |
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A little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing. Innocent in the ways of the world, an ingenue when it comes to pop and fashion, the Elect of God of a small but committed Stirlingshire religious cult: Isis Whit is no ordinary teenager. When her cousin Morag — Guest of Honour at the Luskentyrian's four — yearly Festival of Love — disappears after renouncing her faith, Isis is marked out to venture among the Unsaved and bring the apostate back into the fold. But the road to Babylondon (as Sister Angela puts it) is a treacherous one, particularly when Isis discovers that Morag appears to have embraced the ways of the Unsaved with spectacular abandon. Truth and falsehood; kinship and betrayal; 'herbal' cigarettes and compact discs — Whit is an exploration of the techno-ridden barrenness of modern Britain from a unique perspective. |
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Precious Ramotswe, that cheerful Botswanan private investigator of traditional build, is now married to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The Agency is busy, but Mma Ramotswe cannot ignore the plea which is made by a woman who comes to her with a tale of particular misfortune. Unfortunately, her attempts to help are interrupted by a close encounter between her tiny white van and a bicycle, and by a spectacular disagreement between her assistant, Mma Makutsi, and one of the apprentices at the garage. This apprentice has found a fancy girlfriend who drives a Mercedes-Benz. How can he be rescued from his folly? And as for Mma Makutsi, she has found a dancing class, and a man who may not be able to dance very well, but who admires her greatly. And all of this happens against a background of quiet sessions of bush tea, and of a land that stretches out forever under mile upon mile of empty sky... |
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The eighth instalment of Alexander McCall Smith`s wonderful No.1 Ladies` Detective Agency series. |
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«Brilliantly insightful analysis of Hitler's Germany first published in 1940, written by the author of «Defying Hitler».» |
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«Dark family secrets and a passionate love affair, full of his trademark warmth, humanity and ingenuity, this is Iain Banks` best novel since «The Crow Road».» |
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The third novel in Alexander McCall Smith's irresistibly charming series about the residents of 44 Scotland Street. |
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«Under a Blood Red Sky» is a breathtaking epic novel — a tale of love, escape, revenge and redemption.» |
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«A new series of supernatural thrillers with a characteristic British flavour, from the acclaimed writer of «Lucifer» and «Hellblazer».» |
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Trudi Canavan, author of the bestselling Black Magician trilogy, embarks up on a wonderful new fantasy series set in a classical world of magic, heroes, gods and forbidden love. |
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Part of a series that aims to collectively produce the most comprehensive statement on the psychotheraputic treatment of adolescents. This volume dicusses every aspect of individual and group therapy, and work with parents. |
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The first instalment of a fast-paced fantasy duology, brimming with action and adventure. |
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Welcome to the future, where everlasting life is just an upload away. |
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«Christopher Moore is a very sick man, in the very best sense of the word» Carl Hiaasen.» |
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