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Penguin Group
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Insight Guides, the world's largest visual travel series, capture the unique character of each destination's culture with a perspective only an insider can provide. Picturesque, romantic, historic or exotic, Insight covers the world's most popular destinations. |
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Marcus and Doro were part of a left wing commune from the late 1960s until the early 1990s: lentils, free love, spliffs, Left politics, cheesecloth blouses, sex, housework and cooking rotis, crochet, and allotments. Their children have grown up rather different from them: primary schoolteacher Clara craves order and clean bathrooms, son Serge is pretending to his parents that he is still doing a Maths PhD at Cambridge, while in fact working making loads of money in the City; third child Oolie Anna, who has Downs Syndrome, is desperate to escape home and live on her own. Set half in Doncaster, half in London, this is a very funny riff on modern values, featuring hamsters, cockroaches, poodles, a Chicken and multiplying rabbits, told by Marina Lewycka in her unique and brilliant combination of irony, farce and wit. |
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On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed in mysterious circumstances. His calculating father Manfred fears that his dynasty will now come to an end and determines to marry his son's bride himself despite the fact he is already married. But a series of terrifying supernatural omens soon threaten this unlawful union, as the curse placed on Manfred's ancestor, who usurped the lawful Prince of Otranto, begins to unfold. First published pseudonymously in 1764, purporting to be an ancient Italian text from the time of the crusades, The Castle of Otranto is a founding work of Gothic fiction. With its compelling blend of sinister portents, tempestuous passions and ghostly visitations, it spawned an entire literary tradition and influenced such writers as Ann Radcliffe and Bram Stoker. |
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In the foothills of the Himalayas sits a once grand, now crumbling house — home to three people and a dog. There is the retired judge dreaming of colonial yesterdays; his orphaned granddaughter Sai who has fallen for her clever maths tutor; the cook, whose son Biju writes untruthful letters home from New York City; and Mutt, the judge's beloved dog. Around the house swirls mountain mist — but also the forces of revolution and change. For a new world is clashing with the old, and the future offers both hope and betrayal... |
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What does it really mean to love another person? Is there such a thing as the perfect partner? How does infatuation differ from the real thing? The need to love and be loved is central to our idea of happiness, yet it sometimes seems that the more we reflect on it the more elusive it becomes. In this lucid and graceful meditation on the deeper meanings of intimacy, John Armstrong explores the ideas that have shaped how we view affairs of the heart. Drawing on poetry, novels, philosophy, paintings and music, he shows how love is inextricably bound up with perception and the imagination: that loving a real, complicated person and being understood and valued by them in turn is not something we find, but rather something we create. |
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This is the first volume of The Penguin Atlas of World History, which covers events from the beginning of world history to the eve of the French Revolution. A wide-ranging, chronological summary of the main cultural, scientific, religious and political events of the period is accompanied by detailed maps that clarify complex historical situations, and make this a useful reference book for students and for the home. |
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Evil comes with many different faces. A macabre human drama is re-enacted in a Gothic dolls' house one night; a whistle awakens a force of unspeakable malevolence; an ancient curse is passed from person to person; a grisly crime is avenged from beyond the grave; the tomb of a Swedish count will not rest quietly. M R James' chilling ghost stories reveal a world where the familiar becomes diabolical, the smallest object can lead to unimaginable horror, and evil brushes against everyday life in the most unexpected and sinister of ways. |
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He came home from work. She fixed him a martini. He said she looked beautiful. And then four catastrophic words hung in the air between them: I Want A Divorce. That was it. Suddenly Suzanne Finnamore was alone, with no idea of what to do next. What would she say to her young son when he woke up the next morning? How would she tell the world that he'd chosen to move on and leave her behind? She faced the news of her ex-husband's Thing Woman, she suffered the emptiness of a Valentine's Day alone, she drank all the mandarin-flavoured vodka that was festering in the freezer. But with a lot of grit and the help of her whiskey-toting mother, Bunny, and loyal friend Christian, she found the hope and humour to drag herself through. From her darkest moments of despair to the eventual freedom of life on her own, Suzanne's story will speak to anyone whose heart's been stamped on — and needed the strength to start afresh. |
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In the sticky summer heat unruly desires stir the blood... For Catullus, the brilliantly witty and outrageous young poet, and Clodia, his older, married lover, a borrowed villa in Rome is a secret, illicit meeting-place. When they are apart, Catullus burns with desire for 'his girl', while Clodia goes her own way among his rivals. Other passions simmer in the heat: the streets threaten to erupt in political violence, hearts sour and contemplate murder, and love and hate are dangerously entwined. Catullus' jealousy grows as toxic as hellebore or hemlock. Poisoning is a Roman art, and there is poison everywhere... |
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In this title, the world's strangest questions answered: What happened to the Mary Celeste? Where is the Mona Lisa? (clue: it's not in the Louvre) Is the Loch Ness Monster really a circus elephant? Will the real Paul McCartney please stand up? Who killed Marilyn Monroe? What was Agatha Christie's own mystery? Why does it rain frogs? Does Bigfoot exist? How did D. B Cooper get away with the perfect crime? and many, many more. With enough entertaining information to fuel hundreds of pub conversations, fascinating illustrations and all kinds of discoveries to surprise even the most expert conspiracy theorist, Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs is the perfect present for anybody who's ever wondered why. |
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For most people, being a single mother to three boys (two of them teenagers), sorting out your feelings for an ex-boyfriend who's now an international film star, pacifying an elderly father who keeps asking why you're not married, tolerating your bigoted brother, while keeping out of the way of a dismissive film producer who seems to have made a mission out of annoying you, would be quite enough of a challenge. Annie Lester however, is not only trying to tackle all this — she's also doing it in the small Gulf emirate of Hawar where, in the summer of 2002, the impact of America's decision to invade Iraq is just beginning to be felt. As her well-organised life begins to unravel in the most unexpected ways, Annie has to make some difficult decisions, and question where her loyalties lie. Are her sons defined by who they are, or by what they do? Can a British woman ever really be at home in the Middle East? And can James Hartley, the blue-eyed heartthrob adored by millions, really be serious about someone as ordinary as Annie Lester believes herself to be? |
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Lover. Mother. Writer. Each of these roles has meant the world to Izzy Mulcahy. But now, as she stands accused of killing her elderly father, Izzy sets out on a journey of self-discovery and finds the three roles colliding in ways that both surprise and sustain her. However, her journey also leads her to conclude that when she stands up in court her testimony will have a devastating effect on the two loves of her life, her daughter, Star, and her soulmate, Zach... |
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Captain Robert Falcon Scott didn't start out life as a hero. In fact, as a boy and young man he was considered small, frail and shy. So what was it that turned this ordinary man into a legend? Through his gripping new account of how this modest naval officer became Scott of the Antarctic, Neil Oliver vividly relates the awe-inspiring tales that inspired Britain's greatest hero. And alongside these epics of courage, fortitude and sacrifice, Oliver tells the astonishing stories of those heroes who followed Scott and whose deeds stood comparison with this iconic explorer's own humbling example. From Rorke's Drift to the Battle of Britain and Nelson to Neil Armstrong, these are men who understood — as Scott always did — that it was more important to die a hero than live a coward's life. |
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What if your boyfriend died right in front of you? It was a night of laughter and celebration. But when John dies in a dreadful accident, his girlfriend Emma is plunged into despair. She loved John more than life itself — and now death has taken him from her. She feels nothing, she has lost everything, her world spins out of control. Or so she thinks. For Emma has friends — good friends who rally around. But the shocking memory of that night returns to haunt each of them in different and trying ways. And Emma knows that if she is ever to laugh at life again, or find love she once had, she will have to let go of the man she thought she couldn't live without. She must let go and trust her heart. |
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Endpoint opens with a series of connected poems which were written on the occasions of Updike's recent birthdays and culminate in his confrontation with his final illness. They look back on the boy that Updike once was, on his family and little town and the circumstances that fed his love of writing. Then there are 'Other Poems', ranging from fanciful musings about what it would be like to be a stolen Rembrandt painting to celebratory outpourings that capture the spontaneity and flux of life. Finally, there is a set of sonnets, some of which are inspired by exotic travels in distant lands, and some of which simply take pleasure in the idiosyncrasies of nature in Updike's own backyard. For John Updike, the writing of poetry was always a special joy, and this final collection is an eloquent and moving testament to the life of this extraordinary writer. |
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Forget everything you think you know about the making of the most powerful man on the planet. President Barack Obama's triumph was not inevitable: it was the end product of a brilliant, calculated, convention-defying political campaign. In a race that will be talked about for years to come, he faced down his rivals with ruthless focus and efficiency. Race of a Lifetime is the gripping inside story of those thrilling months: from the meteoric rise of Obama and the collapsing House of Clinton to the erratic John McCain and the bewildering Sarah Palin. Brimming with exclusive revelations, this compulsively readable book lays bare the characters of the candidates, warts and all; exposes the inner workings of their operations; and, charts the true path to the White House. It's a tour de force: the sometimes shocking, often funny, and ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime. |
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'He was haunted by a feeling of invisibility, as if he were a mere spectator of his own life, with no one to identify him in the barren circumstances of the here and now'. Paul Sturgis is retired and lives alone in South Kensington. He walks alone and dines alone, taking pleasure in small exchanges with strangers. His only acquaintance is a widowed cousin whom he visits on Sundays. Unable to make sense of his solitary nature, and fearing death among strangers, he wonders whether at last he might be ready for companionship. But a chance meeting with an old girlfriend and an encounter in Venice with a recently divorced younger woman compel Sturgis to decide how (and with whom) he will spend the rest of his days... |
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It's a brand-new year and in this dramatic conclusion to the Luxe saga, the future of Manhattan's favourite socialites is looking decidedly different from the ones they had imagined for themselves. With old ties being broken and new ones formed, every decision comes at cost. And who knows who can afford it... |
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Insight Guides present the full breadth of each nation in a large format suitable for a thorough introduction to the people and sights, while cities and regions are presented in a portable format ideal for the discriminating urban explorer in pursuit of the best the area has to offer. |
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