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Книги издательства «Random House, Inc.»
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Los Angeles, 1991. Maximilian Ophuls, one of the makers of the modern world, is knifed to death in broad daylight on the doorstep of his illegitimate daughter India, slaughtered by his Kashmiri driver, a mysterious figure who calls himself Shalimar the Clown. The dead man is a World War II Resistance hero, a man of formidable intellectual ability and much erotic appeal, a former United States ambassador to India, and subsequently America's counter-terrorism chief. The murder looks at first like a political assassination but turns out to be passionately personal. This is the story of Max, his killer, and his daughter — and of a fourth character, the woman who links them, whose story explains them all. The story of a deep love gone fatally wrong, destroyed by a shallow affair, it is an epic narrative that moves from California to France, England, and above all, Kashmir. At its heart is the tale of that earthly paradise of peach orchards and honey bees, of mountains and lakes, of green-eyed women and murderous men: a ruined paradise, not so much lost as smashed. Lives are uprooted, names keep changing — nothing is permanent, yet everything is connected. Spanning the globe and darting through history, Salman Rushdie's majestic narrative captures the heart of the reader and the spirit of a troubled age. |
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On Christmas Eve 1957, alone in the cockpit of his Vampire, an RAF pilot is returning from Germany to Lakenheath on leave — 66 minutes of trouble-free, routine flying. Then, out over the North Sea, the fog begins to close in, radio contact ceases, and the compass goes haywire. |
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«Prisoner of war, optometrist, time-traveller — these are the life roles of Billy Pilgrim, hero of this miraculously moving, bitter and funny story of innocence faced with apocalypse. «Slaughterhouse 5» is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centring on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden in the Second World War, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.» |
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In these Hemingway stories, which are partly autobiographical, men and women of passion live, fight, love and die in scenes of dramatic intensity. They range from hauntingly tragedy on the snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro, to brutal America with its deceptive calm, and war-ravaged Europe. |
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«Emotional Intelligence was an international phenomenon, appearing on the «New York Times» bestseller list for over a year and selling more than 5 million copies worldwide. Now, once again, Daniel Goleman has written a groundbreaking synthesis of the latest findings in biology and brain science, revealing that we are 'wired to connect' and the surprisingly deep impact of our relationships on every aspect our lives. Far more than we are consciously aware, our daily encounters with parents, spouses, bosses, and even strangers, shape our brains and affect cells throughout our bodies, down to the level of our genes — for good or ill. In «Social Intelligence», Daniel Goleman explores an emerging new science with startling implications for our interpersonal world. Its most fundamental discovery: we are designed for sociability, constantly engaged in a 'neural ballet' that connects us brain-to-brain with those around us. Goleman explains the surprising accuracy of first impressions, the basis of charisma and emotional power, the complexity of sexual attraction, and how we detect lies. He describes the 'dark side' of social intelligence, from narcissism to Machiavellianism and psychopathy. He also reveals our astonishing capacity for 'mindsight', as well as the tragedy of those, like autistic children, whose mindsight is impaired. In this book Daniel Goleman delivers his most heartening news with powerful conviction: we humans have a built-in bias toward empathy, cooperation and altruism — provided we develop the social intelligence to nurture these capacities in ourselves and others.» |
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The story of the dissolution of the once aristocratic Compson family told through the eyes of three of its members. In different ways they prove to be inadequate to their own family history, unable to deal with either the responsibility of the past or the imperatives of the present. |
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«Twenty two year old, Sumire is in love for the first time with a woman seventeen years her senior. But, whereas Miu is a glamorous and successful older woman with a taste for classical music and fine wine, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Jack Kerouac novel. Surprised that she might, after all, be a lesbian, Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend, K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire and should she ever tell Miu how she feels about her? K, a primary school teacher, is used to answering questions, but what he most wants to say to Sumire is «I love you.» He consoles himself by having an affair with the mother of one of his pupils. But, when a desperate Miu calls him out of the blue from a sunny Greek island and asks for his help, he soon discovers that all is not as it seems and something very strange has happened to Sumire.» |
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For Ned, 1978 seems a blissful year. Handsome, popular, responsible, and a fine cricketer, life if progressing smoothly, if not effortlessly. When he meets Partia Fendeman his personal jigsaw appears complete. What if her left-wing parent despise his Tory MP father? Doesn't that just make them star-crossed lovers? And surely, in the end, won't the Fendemans be won over by their happiness? But of course, one person's happiness is another's jealous spite. And spite is about to change Ned's life forever. A promise made to a dying teacher and a vile trick played by fellow pupils rocket Ned from cricket captain to solitary confinement, from Head Boy to political prisoner. More than twenty years later, Ned returns to London, a very different man from the boy seized outside a Knights bridge language college. A man implacably focused on revenge, revenge is a dish he plans to savour and serve to those who conspired against him, and those who forgot him. |
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In 1941, Irène Némirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that sixty-five years later, Suite Française would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece Set during a year that begins with France’s fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, Suite Française falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion and make their way through the chaos of France; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation who find themselves thrown together in ways they never expected. Némirovsky’s brilliance as a writer lay in her portrayal of people, and this is a novel that teems with wonderful characters, each more vivid than the next. Haughty aristocrats, bourgeois bankers and snobbish aesthetes rub shoulders with uncouth workers and bolshy farmers. Women variously resist or succumb to the charms of German soldiers. However, amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places. Irene Némirovsky conceived of Suite Française as a four or five-part novel. It was to be a symphony – her War and Peace. Although only two sections were finished before her tragic death, they form a book that is beautifully complete in itself, and awe-inspiring in its understanding of humanity. |
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Tender Branson, the last surviving member of the Creedish death cult, has commandeered a Boeing 747, emptied of passengers, in order to tell his story to the plane's black box before it crashes. Brought up by the repressive cult and, like all Creedish younger sons, hired out as a domestic servant, Tender finds himself suddenly famous when his fellow cult members all commit suicide. As media messiah, he ascends to the very top of the freak-show heap before finally and apocalyptically spiralling out of control. |
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Ripley wanted out. He wanted money, success, the good life — and he was willing to kill for it. This is the first novel to feature Patricia Highsmith's anti-hero, Tom Ripley. |
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In Miami, 1992, a tropical garden of a city where corruption pulses beneath the lush surface is the perfect city for a vampire. Yet Lestat — hero, rock star, incorrigible seducer and the most powerful and sensual vampire of them all — prowls this savage garden in desperate misery. Restlessly pursuing the mystery of his dark existence, Lestat yearns to think, breathe and feel as a man, free of his nightmare immortality. When, stalked in his turn by the only creature able to grant his desire, Lestat rashly seizes the chance. While the Body Thief, cloaked in Lestat's immortal powers, lays a trail of carnage across America and the Caribbean, Lestat himself is abandoned to the fragility of human life, and discovers that a mortal body is no fit receptacle for a vampire's soul. Rejected by the other vampires, a tormented and appallingly vulnerable Lestat is forced to seek human help to recover his vampire self; help he abuses unforgivably when, in a mesmerizing climax, he succumbs to the basest urge in any nature. |
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Troy Phelan is a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the United States. He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and looking for a way to die, His heirs, to no one's surprise especially Troy's — are circling like vultures. Nate O'Riley is a high-octane Washington litigator who's lived too hard, too fast, for too long. His second marriage in a shambles, he is emerging from his fourth stay in rehab armed with little more than his fragile sobriety, good intentions, and resilient sense of humour. Returning to the real world is always difficult, but this time it's going to be murder. Rachel Lane is a young woman who chose to give her life to God, who walked away from the modern world with all its strivings and trapping and encumbrances, and went to live and work with a primitive tribe of Indians in the deepest jungles of Brazil. In a story that mixes legal suspense with a remarkable adventure, their lives are forever altered by the startling secret of the Testament. |
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A classic Rendellian loner, Mix Cellini is superstitious about the number 13. Living in a decaying house in Notting Hill, Mix is obsessed with 10 Rillington Place, where the notorious Christie committed a series of foul murders. He is also infatuated with a beautiful model who lives nearby — a woman who would not look at him twice. Mix's landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer is equally reclusive — living her life through her library of books. Both landlady and lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mix's life, a long pent-up violence explodes. |
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«An old man wearing a brown robe is found wandering disoriented in the Arizona desert. He is miles from any human habitation and has no memory of how he got to be there, or who he is. The only clue to his identity is the plan of a medieval monastery in his pocket. So begins the mystery of «Timeline», a mystery that will catapult a group of young scientists back to the Middle Ages and into the heart of the Hundred Years' War. Imagine the risks of such a journey. Imagine the impossible.» |
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Harry Morgan was hard, the classic Hemingway hero, rum-running, gun-running and man-running from Cuba to the Florida Keys in the depression. He ran risks, too, from stray coastguard bullets and sudden double-crosses. But it was the only way he could keep his boat, keep his independence, and keep his belly full. |
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«Vintage Lust» is a limited edition gift pack which consists of beautifully designed separate volumes of «Tom Jones» by Henry Fielding and Martin Amis's critically acclaimed «The Rachel Papers». «Vintage Lust» is just one of ten «Vintage Classic Twins» to collect. Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. «Tom Jones»: One of the cleverest and funniest novels ever written, and is Henry Fielding's greatest achievement. «Tom Jones», born a foundling, grown into a gallant and irresistible hero, romps through the English countryside getting himself into all kinds of trouble through his good nature and eye for the ladies. Betrayed by jealous relatives, Tom is exiled from home and must undergo a variety of trials and adventures in his quest to be reunited with his one true love. «The Rachel Papers»: Charles Highway, a precociously intelligent and highly sexed teenager, is determined to sleep with an older woman before he turns twenty. Rachel fits the bill perfectly and Charles plans his seduction meticulously, sets the scene with infinite care — but it doesn't come off quite as Charles expects...» |
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This novel looks at life in the dark underside of Edinburgh, the AIDS capital of Europe, through the jaded eyes and harsh vernacular of heroin addict Mark Renton, who is sick of his friends, sick with the city and its deserted docklands, and above all sick with himself. |
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Why is it that French women look just as glamorous in a T-shirt and pair of jeans as in a sleek designer dress? How do they look sexy, chic and timelessly elegant from eighteen to eighty? Pencil-thin, stylishly dressed and, always, impeccably groomed? In search of answers, travel and lifestyle journalist, Helena Frith Powell goes behind the scenes to investigate the famous French je ne sais quoi. Talking to fashion gurus, beauty experts and It Girls, professional seducers, lingerie designers and personal shoppers, she discovers a whole new world: indispensable wardrobe and beauty secrets; shopping done the right way and exercise routines promising lasting success; advice on sex toys, family life, relationships and clandestine affaires. French women, Helena realises, achieve maximum effect with the least amount of effort. And with the help of a few little secrets, you too can become impossibly French... |
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