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Книги издательства «Random House, Inc.»
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The fourth book in the Science of Discworld series, and this time around dealing with The Really Big Questions, Terry Pratchett's brilliant new Discworld story Judgement Day is annotated with very big footnotes (the interleaving chapters) by mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen, to bring you a mind-mangling combination of fiction, cutting-edge science and philosophy. Marjorie Daw is a librarian, and takes her job — and indeed the truth of words — very seriously. She doesn't know it, but her world and ours — Roundworld — is in big trouble. On Discworld, a colossal row is brewing. The Wizards of Unseen University feel responsible for Roundworld (as one would for a pet gerbil). After all, they brought it into existence by bungling an experiment in Quantum ThaumoDynamics. But legal action is being brought against them by Omnians, who say that the Wizards' god-like actions make a mockery of their noble religion. As the finest legal brains in Discworld (a zombie and a priest) gird their loins to do battle — and when the Great Big Thing in the High Energy Magic Laboratory is switched on — Marjorie Daw finds herself thrown across the multiverse and right in the middle of the whole explosive affair. As God, the Universe and, frankly, Everything Else is investigated by the trio, you can expect world-bearing elephants, quantum gravity in the Escher-verse, evolutionary design, eternal inflation, dark matter, disbelief systems — and an in-depth study of how to invent a better mousetrap. |
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A sudden burst of nationalism has swept over Polly Perks causing her to cut off her hair, don her brother's clothes and join the local regiment so she can fight for her country. But there's only one problem — she has no idea who she'll be fighting or what she is really fighting for. And why do they want her to have a rolled-up pair of socks anyway? War teaches you a lot, she finds, when it turns out that you joined — the Monstrous Regiment. |
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Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job. Henceforth, Death is no longer going to be the end, merely the means to an end. It's an offer Mort can't refuse. As Death's apprentice he'll have free board, use of the company horse — and being dead isn't compulsory. It's a dream job — until he discovers that it can be a killer on his love life... |
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A generation after the events of The Long Earth, mankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by Stepping. Where Joshua and Lobsang once pioneered, now fleets of airships link the stepwise Americas with trade and culture. Mankind is shaping the Long Earth — but in turn the Long Earth is shaping mankind... A new 'America', called Valhalla, is emerging more than a million steps from Datum Earth, with core American values restated in the plentiful environment of the Long Earth — and Valhalla is growing restless under the control of the Datum government... Meanwhile the Long Earth is suffused by the song of the trolls, graceful hive-mind humanoids. But the trolls are beginning to react to humanity's thoughtless exploitation... Joshua, now a married man, is summoned by Lobsang to deal with a gathering multiple crisis that threatens to plunge the Long Earth into a war unlike any mankind has waged before. |
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One by one the boys begin to fall... In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war'. With the fire and patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young 'unknown soldier' experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches. |
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This title comes with an introduction by Ben Kane. Oliver Tressilian, a Cornish gentleman, is blessed with 'youth, wealth, and good digestion'. He is betrayed by his half-brother and becomes a renegade and Barbary corsair winning the title of Sakr-el-Bahr — hawk of the sea. This is the thrilling, full-blooded adventure of how a man wronged became the scourge of the Mediterranean and the terror of Christians... |
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Ten years ago, Jacques Gaillard disappeared from Paris. No investigation has yet led to any clue as to whether he is missing — or murdered. Challenged to decipher the mystery once and for all, Enzo Macleod must use new science to crack a cold case. Once a forensics expert in his native Scotland, he's taken on a bet to solve seven murders listed in a cult book by an embittered Parisian journalist. Deep in the catacombs below Paris, a skull is discovered that could be Gaillard's. But it is the peculiar items embedded within the bone that give him the most intriguing clues — and send him on a trail after the rest of the missing man. Unaware that he's also following in the footsteps of their murderer... |
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P.I. Craig Gisto, head of the latest branch of Private, is enjoying the glamorous launch party with his new team when their celebrations are interrupted by the bloodied arrival of a boy with his eyes gouged out. The boy is the kidnapped son of one of Australia's richest men — but investigating his death isn't their only pressing case. The rock star Micky Stevens is convinced someone's trying to kill him, and believes Private are the only ones who can help. As if that wasn't enough, someone is murdering the wealthy wives of the Eastern Suburbs, in the most brutal way imaginable. And if they don't catch the killer soon, the next victim could be someone close to Private... |
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During the current recession it seems our traditional stiff upper lip can only last so long before those other world-beating British skills come to the fore — quiet grumbling and resigned cynicism. Sod Calm and Get Angry is for anyone who has finally had enough of bankers and politicians and bosses telling them to keep sodding calm and to carry bloody on. Sod Calm and Get Angry is both a rallying call and essential tome of comforting wisdom for the depressed, enraged, disgruntled, disenfranchised and those of a naturally curmudgeonly disposition. On Politics — The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites' — Larry Hardiman. On Work — One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important — Bertrand Russell. On Money — The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any — Katherine Whitehorn. On Hypocrisy — Hypocrite: the man who murdered both his parents... pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan — Abraham Lincoln. On War — You can't say civilisation don't advance... for in every war they kill you a new way — Will Rogers. On Life — That's the secret to life... replace one worry with another — Charles M Schulz. |
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It's 19th-century England during the reign of King James II, but it's not the England we know from the history books. This country is overrun with wolves that roam the forests, providing the perfect setting for a witty and dramatic story spanning the whole country, from the frozen North to the city of London, and peopled with all manner of evil governesses and ancient aunts. Filled with brilliantly-drawn Dickensian characters, it would make an excellent choice for strong preteen readers who like an old-fashioned story with a strong plot and good characterisation. This book often appears on lists of best-loved children's books. |
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Back on Earth with nothing more to show for his long, strange trip through time and space than a ratty towel and a plastic shopping bag, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription, the mysterious disappearance of Earth's dolphins, and the discovery of his battered copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all conspire to give Arthur the sneaking suspicion that something otherworldly is indeed going on. God only knows what it all means. And fortunately, He left behind a Final Message of explanation. But since it's light-years away from Earth, on a star surrounded by souvenir booths, finding out what it is will mean hitching a ride to the far reaches of space aboard a UFO with a giant robot. But what else is new? |
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Keep Calm and Carry On was a WWII government poster discovered in a dusty box nine years ago. Though it never saw the light of day in 1939 (it was only supposed to go up if Britain was invaded), it has suddenly struck a chord in our current difficult times, now we are in need of a stiff upper lip and optimistic energy once again. Gordon Brown has one up in 10 Downing Street and James May wears a Keep Calm T-shirt on the telly — it is suddenly everywhere. The book is packed full of similarly motivational and cheering quotes, proverbs, mantras and wry truths to help us through the recession, from such wits as Churchill, Disraeli and George Bernard Shaw. Funny, wise and stirring — it is a perfect source of strength to get us all through the coming months. 'A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain' — Mark Twain. 'It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own' — Harry S. Truman. 'An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today' — Laurence J. Peter. 'Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine' — Lord Byron. 'Better bread with water than cake with trouble' — Russian Proverb. |
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Castle Extremis — whoever holds it can control the provinces either side that have been at war for centuries. Now the castle is about to play host to the signing of a peace treaty. But as the Doctor and Martha find out, not everyone wants the war to end. Who is the strange little girl who haunts the castle? What is the secret of the book the Doctor finds, its pages made from thin, brittle glass? Who is the hooded figure that watches from the shadows? And what is the secret of the legendary Mortal Mirror? The Doctor and Martha don't have long to find the answers — an army is on the march, and the castle will soon be under siege once more...Featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman in the hit sci-fi series from BBC Television. |
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Tolstoy's enthralling epic depicts Russia's war with Napoleon and its effects on the lives of those caught up in the conflict. He creates some of the most vital and involving characters in literature as he follows the rise and fall of families in St Petersburg and Moscow who are linked by their personal and political relationships. His heroes are the thoughtful yet impulsive Pierre Bezukhov, his ambitious friend, Prince Andrei, and the woman who becomes indispensable to both of them, the enchanting Natasha Rostov. |
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Watching a rented video, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is shocked to notice that one of the actors is identical to him in every physical detail. He embarks on a secret quest to find his double and sets in motion a train of events that he cannot control. Saramago's novel explores the nature of individuality and examines the fear and insecurity that arise when our singularity comes under threat, when even a wife cannot tell the original from the imposter... |
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Part fiction, part travelogue, the narrator of this compelling masterpiece pursues his solitary, eccentric course from England to Italy and beyond, succumbing to the vertiginous unreliability of memory itself. What could possibly connect Stendhal's unrequited love, the artistry of Pisanello, a series of murders by a clandestine organisation, a missing passport, Casanova, the suicide of a dinner companion, stale apple cake, the Great Fire of London, a story by Kafka about a doomed huntsman and a closed-down pizzeria in Verona? |
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William just wants to get at the truth. Unfortunately, everyone else wants to get at William. And it's only the third edition. William de Worde is the accidental editor of the Discworld's first newspaper. Now he must cope with the traditional perils of a journalist's life — people who want him dead, a recovering vampire with a suicidal fascination for flash photography, some more people who want him dead in a different way and, worst of all, the man who keeps begging him to publish pictures of his humorously shaped potatoes. |
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Dodger is a tosher — a sewer scavenger living in the squalor of Dickensian London. Everyone who is nobody knows Dodger. Anyone who is anybody doesn't. But when he rescues a young girl from a beating, suddenly everybody wants to know him. And Dodger's tale of skulduggery, dark plans and even darker deeds begins... |
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