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Penguin Group
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«This is an Englishman's continuing search through space and time for a decent cup of tea...Arthur Dent's accidental association with that wholly remarkable book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has not been entirely without incident. Arthur has travelled the length, breadth and depth of known, and unknown, space. He has stumbled forwards and backwards through time. He has been blown up, reassembled, cruelly imprisoned, horribly released and colourfully insulted more than is strictly necessary. And, of course, he has comprehensively failed to grasp the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Arthur has, though, finally made it home to Earth. But that does not mean he has escaped his fate. For Arthur's chances of getting his hands on a decent cuppa are evaporating along with the world's oceans. Because no sooner has he arrived than he finds out that Earth is about to be blown up...again. «And Another Thing»...by Eoin Colfer is the rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth instalment of «The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy» trilogy. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favourite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer and at least one very large slab of cheese.» |
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This poem — originally published anonymously, written after Wilde's two year's hard labor in Reading prison — is the tale of a man who has been sentenced to hang for the murder of the woman he loved. The Ballad of Reading Gaol follows the inmate through his final three weeks, as he stares at the sky and silently drinks his beer ration. Heart-wrenching and eye-opening, the ballad also expresses perfectly Wilde's belief that humanity is made up only of offenders, each of us deserving a greater charity for the severity of our crimes. |
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When Audrey makes a devastating discovery about her husband, New York radical lawyer Joel Litvinoff, she is forced to re-examine everything she thought she knew about their forty-year marriage. Joel's children will have to deal with this unsettling secret themselves, but meanwhile, they are trying to cope with their own dilemmas. Rosa, beautiful, disillusioned revolutionary, is grappling with a new-found attachment to Orthodox Judaism. Unhappily married Karla is falling in love with an unlikely suitor at the hospital where she works. Adopted brother Lenny is back on drugs again. In the course of battling their own demons and each other, every member of the family is called upon to decide what — if anything — they still believe in. |
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«The Catcher in Rye» is the ultimate novel for disaffected youth, but it's relevant to all ages. The story is told by Holden Caulfield, a seventeen-year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Throughout, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection. Lazy in style, full of slang and swear words, it's a novel whose interest and appeal comes from its observations rather than its plot intrigues (in conventional terms, there is hardly any plot at all). Salinger's style creates an effect of conversation, it is as though Holden is speaking to you personally, as though you too have seen through the pretences of the American Dream and are growing up unable to see the point of living in, or contributing to, the society around you. Written with the clarity of a boy leaving childhood, it deals with society, love, loss, and expectations without ever falling into the clutch of a cliche.» |
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We all play games. In every encounter with other people we are doing so. The nature of these games depends both on the situation and on who we meet. Eric Berne's classic Games People Play is the most accessible and insightful book ever written about the games we play: those patterns of behaviour that reveal hidden feelings and emotions. Wise and witty, it shows the underlying motivations behind our relationships and gives you the keys to unlock the psychology of others — and yourself. You'll become more honest, more effective, and a true team player. |
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A spy, a killer, an imposter, and three extraordinary heroes are featured in one unique novel. In The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters...three most-unlikely but nevertheless extraordinary heroes become inadvertently involved in the diabolical machinations of a cabal bent upon enslaving thousands through a devilish 'process': Miss Temple is a feisty young woman with corkscrew curls who wishes only to learn why her fiance Roger broke off their engagement...Cardinal Chang was asked to kill a man, but finding his quarry already dead he is determined to learn who beat him to it and why...And Dr Svenson is chaperone to a dissolute Prince who has become involved with some most unsavoury individuals...An adventure like no other, in a mysterious city few have travelled to, featuring a heroine and two heroes you will never ever forget. |
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Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling. Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor was first published in 1985. Alternating between the eighteenth century, when Nicholas Dyer, assistant to Christopher Wren, builds seven London churches that house a terrible secret, and the 1980s, when London detective Nicholas Hawksmoor is investigating a series of gruesome murders on the sight of certain old churches, Hawksmoor is a brilliant tale of darkness and shadow. |
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Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling. William Boyd's An Ice-Cream War was published in 1982, an auspicious debut by a young writer who would go on to be recognized as 'the finest storyteller of his generation' (Sebastain Faulks). It follows the fortunes of several wildly different characters — including an expat farmer and a young English aristocrat — as they are swept up in the fighting in German East Africa during the First World War, their lives converging amid battle, betrayal, love, comedy and tragedy. |
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Nick Hornby returns to his roots — music and messy relationships — in this funny and touching new novel which thoughtfully and sympathetically looks at how lives can be wasted but how they are never beyond redemption. Annie lives in a dull town on England's bleak east coast and is in a relationship with Duncan which mirrors the place; Tucker was once a brilliant songwriter and performer, who's gone into seclusion in rural America — or at least that's what his fans think. Duncan is obsessed with Tucker's work, to the point of derangement, and when Annie dares to go public on her dislike of his latest album, there are quite unexpected, life-changing consequences for all three. Nick Hornby uses this intriguing canvas to explore why it is we so often let the early promise of relationships, ambition and indeed life evaporate. And he comes to some surprisingly optimistic conclusions. |
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Roy is still young when his father, a failed dentist and hapless fisherman, puts a 44 magnum to his head and commits suicide on the deck of his beloved boat. Throughout his life, Roy returns to that moment, gripped by its memory and the shadow it casts over his small-town boyhood, describing with poignant, mercurial wit his parents' woeful marriage and inevitable divorce, their kindnesses and weaknesses, the absurd and comic turning-points of his past. Finally, in Legend of a Suicide, Roy lays his father's ghost to rest. But not before he exacts a gruelling, exhilarating revenge. Revolving around a fatally misconceived adventure deep in the wilderness of Alaska, this is a remarkably tender story of survival and disillusioned love. |
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'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...' Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation, Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use. Bill Bryson's classic Mother Tongue is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language. |
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'I have nothing to declare', Wilde once told an American customs official, 'except my genius'. A socialite, a wit, a man who flaunted convention and was unafraid to shock, Oscar Wilde was a great writer and a great man. This new collection of wit and wisdom demonstrates the brilliance of his vision, the audacity of his style. Such is the scope of the material, it brings to life the Wilde of great feeling as well as the Wilde of great art. |
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«This is a brilliant new book from the bestselling author of «The Tipping Point» and «Blink». Why are people successful? For centuries, humankind has grappled with this question, searching for the secret to accomplishing great things. In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an invigorating intellectual journey to show us what makes an extreme overachiever. He reveals that we pay far too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where successful people are from: their culture, their family, and their generation. Gladwell examines how the careers of Bill Gates and the performance of world-class football players are alike; what top fighter pilots and The Beatles have in common; why so many top lawyers are Jewish; why Asians are good at maths; and why it is correct to say that the mathematician who solved Fermat's Theorem is not a genius. Just as he did in «Blink», Gladwell overturns many of our conventional notions and creates an entirely new model for seeing the world. Brilliant and entertaining, this is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.» |
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The Queen of Storytellers is back — with a triumphant tale of one woman's struggle over adversity. In 1786, a fisherman's daughter from Cornwall called Mary Broad was sentenced to be hung for theft. But her sentence was commuted, and she was transported to Australia, one of the first convicts to arrive there. How Mary escaped the harsh existence of the colony and found true love, and how she was captured and taken back to London in chains, only to be released after a trial where she was defended by no less than James Boswell, is one of the most gripping and moving stories of human endeavour (based on an amazing true story) you will ever read. |
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From the reign of the Tsars in the early 19th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union and beyond, the short story has long occupied a central place in Russian culture. Included are pieces from many of the acknowledged masters of Russian literature — including Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn — alongside tales by long-suppressed figures such as the subversive Kryzhanowsky and the surrealist Shalamov. Whether written in reaction to the cruelty of the bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy of communism or the torture of the prison camps, they offer a wonderfully wide-ranging and exciting representation of one of the most vital and enduring forms of Russian literature. |
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Meet Max and Lucy Summers — half-sisters and the best of friends. Max is a gorgeous showbiz reporter whose life is a whirlwind of celebrity parties, glamorous bars, juicy gossip and gorgeous men. Lucy, a beautiful, elegant fashion writer, has always been the sensible one, taking care of her little sister and never seeking the limelight. But that all changes when she falls for Hartley, Britain's sexiest royal bachelor, and her lovelife is suddenly splashed across the front pages of the tabloids. And when Hartley's ex-girlfriend starts scheming to get her man back, Lucy realizes that she's up against more than just the paparazzi...Meanwhile Max, tired of the non-stop partying that her job entails, has finally met the perfect man but when she finds out who he really is, she realizes that they can't be together. Can Max walk away from the love of her life? And will Lucy play the fame game in order to keep hers? |
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From bonding to bondage, from B&Q to Belarus, along with seven smelly cats, three useless handymen, two slimy estate agents, social workers, and a bonker lady, this is the story of a very unlikely friendship. Georgie Sinclair's husband has walked out; her sixteen-year-old son is busy surfing born-again websites; and all those overdue articles for Adhesives in the Modern World are getting her down. So when Georgie spots Mrs Shapiro, an eccentric old Jewish emigre neighbour with an eye for a bargain and a fondness for matchmaking, rummaging through her skip in the middle of the night, it's just the distraction she needs. And although they mistrust each other at first — Georgie doesn't like the look of that past-its-sell-by-date fish, while Mrs Shapiro thinks Georgie needs to smarten herself up and grab a new husband — a firm friendship is formed over the reduced-price shelf at the supermarket. Then Mrs Shapiro is admitted to hospital and to Georgie's surprise, she is named as her next of kin. But sorting out Mrs Shapiro's semi-derelict mansion in Highbury, home to seven stinky cats with agendas of their own, is no easy job when the handyman called in to change the locks turns out to be not what he seems and his two assistants, 'the Uselesses', are doing more breaking than fixing. And what about the two slimy estate agents (one with a charming taste for bondage) who start competing to trick Mrs Shapiro into selling her rickety old house, or the social worker determined to commit her to a nursing home? As Georgie steps in to help her new friend, she finds herself unravelling a mystery which takes her from Highbury to wartime Europe to the Middle East, and learning a bit about DIY along the way. |
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Lucy stole her friend Rose's 'happily ever after' because she wanted Rose's husband, Peter, and Lucy always gets what she wants. Big mistake. Rose was the ideal wife and is the ideal mother; Lucy was the perfect mistress. Connie — best friend to both Lucy and Rose — is stuck in the middle. She's got Lucy's worries about being wife, mother and career bitch in one ear and Rose's struggle at being a plain old single mum in the other. But Connie has her own troubles: she's just got the hang of family life when an old flame pops up to rekindle a bit of passion...on the side. For Rose, Lucy and Connie — young wives all — it looks like there's a few more twists in the marriage tale still to come. |
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Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the best-known and most talked-about couple in the world. When they got together in 2005 it made headlines worldwide — everyone wanted to know the full story of what had happened: had Brad cheated on Jen? How long had the affair been going on? Just what happened on the set of Mr and Mrs Smith to break up Hollywood's golden couple? Since the birth of 'Brangelina', Brad and Ange have never been out of the spotlight. Whether it's speculation about their wild and incredible sex life or the apparent cracks in their relationship, the public are fascinated. But never before has a book told the full story — of the relationships and lives that Brad, Jen and Angelina all led before fate brought them together, of the irresistible chemistry that drew Brad and Angelina together, of their relationship together, from its glorious honeymoon period through to its shaky present. Finally, Chas Newkey-Burden separates the rumours from the reality and the truth from the lies. This is the astonishing, electrifying and untold story of Brangelina. Once you pick up this book you will not be able to put it down... |
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At 66 Star Street in Dublin, someone is watching over the lives of the people living in its flats. But no one is aware of it — yet... One of them is ready to take the plunge and fall in love; another is torn between two very different lovers. For some, secrets will come to light, which for others will have tragic consequences. |
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