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Too Cool for School, Hammy the Wonder Hamster!
by Poppy HarrisBethany has an amazing secret - her hamster, Hammy, is the cleverest hamster you will ever meet.He loves to learn everything that Bethany and her little brother do at school - and when they bring back a big brass trombone, Hammy can't wait to have a go!But little hamsters should be careful about making too much noise - especially ones as special as Hammy - because you never know who might be listening...
Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories: And Other Stories (The Psammead Ser.)
by Washington IrvingThe legendary enchantment of Rip Van Winkle in the Kaatskill Mountains; the gruesome end of Ichabod Crane, who met the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow; the spectre bridegroom who turned out to be happily substantial; the pride of an English village and the come-uppance of the over-zealous Mountjoy - these witty, perceptive and captivating tales range from fantasy to romance.
The Story of My Purity: A Novel
by Francesco Pacifico Stephen Stephen TwilleyThe Story of My Purity by Francesco Pacifico is an unmissable novel from an exciting young voice in European fiction.Thirty years old and already trapped in a sexless marriage, Piero Rosini has decided to dedicate his life to Jesus. Novels and music were filling his head with bullshit; his bourgeois life in a fancy neighborhood had taken him far away from spiritual purity and the Lord's truth. So he's moved to an unfinished housing development on the outskirts of Rome and thrown himself into his work at an ultraconservative Catholic publishing house.Yet still Piero is suffocating. He can't get his beautiful sister-in-law out of his head. Temptations (both physical and intellectual) are breaking down his religious resolve. He decides to flee to Paris, which turns out not to be the best way of guarding his purity.Pacifico's exuberant novel brings us Europe old and new and the inner workings of a conflicted but always compelling mind. This is fiction with great humour, intelligence, and vision, from a young writer at the beginning of a tremendous career.Francesco Pacifico has written for a number of Italian publications, as well as for Rolling Stone and GQ, and has translated into Italian the works of Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Dave Eggers, Will Eisner, and more. He lives in Rome.
TimeRiders: The Doomsday Code (Book 3) (TimeRiders #3)
by Alex ScarrowLiam O'Connor should have died at sea in 1912.Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010.Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2026.But all three have been given a second chance - to work for an agency that no one knows exists.Its purpose: to prevent time travel destroying history . . . In 1993 British computer hacker Adam Lewis finds his name in a coded manuscript that is almost one thousand years old. How did Adam's name get in there . . . and why? Confronted by Adam in 2001, the TimeRiders travel back to Sherwood Forest in 1193 to discover the origins of the ancient message. But when a strange hooded man appears interested in the same thing, they begin to wonder what terrible threat this cryptic link from the past holds for the future . . .
Chocky (Penguin Modern Classics)
by John WyndhamMatthew's parents are worried. At eleven, he's much too old to have an imaginary friend, yet they find him talking to and arguing with a presence that even he admits is not physically there. This presence - Chocky - causes Matthew to ask difficult questions and say startling things: he speaks of complex mathematics and mocks human progress. Then, when Matthew does something incredible, it seems there is more than the imaginary about Chocky. Which is when others become interested and ask questions of their own: who is Chocky? And what could it want with an eleven-year-old boy?
Three Plays: The White Devil, The Duchess Of Malfi, The Devil's Law-case (English Library)
by John Webster David GunbyThe plays of Jacobean dramatist John Webster are masterpieces of early seventeenth-century English theatre. ‘The White Devil’ depicts a dark, sinister world of duplicity, intrigue and murderous infidelity, while ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ tells the macabre story of a woman who marries beneath herself and sets in motion a terrible cycle of violence. Unlike these revenge tragedies, ‘The Devil’s Law-Case’ asserts social order in a plot filled with twists of fate. Written at a time when the court of King James was rife with instability and corruption, Webster’s disturbing plays reflect this abuse of power and are known for their horrific vision of humanity – yet they are also some of the most rich, sophisticated dramas ever composed.
The City of Ladies: The Treasury Of The City Of Ladies (Penguin Great Ideas Ser. #Vol. 28)
by Christine De PizanThroughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.Pioneering female writer Christine de Pizan's spirited defence of her sex against medieval misogyny and literary stereotypes is now recognized as one of the most important books in the history of feminism, and offers a telling insight into the role of women in a man's world.
Great House
by Nicole KraussDuring the winter of 1972, a woman spends a single night with a young Chilean poet before he departs New York, leaving her his desk. It is the only time they ever meet. Two years later, he is arrested by Pinochet's secret police and never seen again. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers a lock of hair among her papers that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer has spent a lifetime reassembling his father's study, plundered by the Nazis from Budapest in 1944; now only one item remains to be found.Connecting these lives is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or give it away. And as the narrators of Great House make their confessions, this desk comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared.Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change?Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.
Selected Poems: Donne (British Poets Ser.)
by John DonneRegarded by many as the greatest of the Metaphysical poets, John Donne (1572-1631) was also among the most intriguing figures of the Elizabethan age. A sensualist who composed erotic and playful love poetry in his youth, he was raised a Catholic but later became one of the most admired Protestant preachers of his time. The Selected Poems reflects this wide diversity, and includes his youthful Songs and Sonnets, epigrams, elegies, letters, satires, and the profoundly moving Divine Poems composed towards the end of his life. From joyful poems such as 'The Flea', which transforms the image of a louse into something marvellous, to the intimate and intense Holy Sonnets, Donne breathed new vigour into poetry by drawing lucid and often startling metaphors from the world in which he lived. His poems remain among the most passionate, profound and spiritual in the English language.
The Children Of Dynmouth
by William TrevorThe Children Of Dynmouth - a classic prize-winning novel by William TrevorPenguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. The 1970s was a decade of anger and discontent. Britain endured power cuts and strikes. America pulled out of Vietnam and saw its President resign from office. Feminism and face lifts vied for women's hearts (and minds). And for many, prog rock, punk and disco weren't just music but ways of life. William Trevor's The Children of Dynmouth (Winner of the Whitbread Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize) was first published in 1976 and is a classic account of evil lurking in the most unlikely places. In it we follow awkward, lonely, curious teenager Timothy Gedge as he wanders around the bland seaside town of Dynmouth. Timothy takes a prurient interest in the lives of the adults there, who only realise the sinister purpose to which he seeks to put his knowledge too late.'A small masterpiece of understatement ... a work of rare compassion' Joyce Carol Oates, New York TimesIf you enjoyed The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer, you will love this book. It will also be adored by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.
Henry VI Part Three: King Henry Vi. Part 1. King Henry Vi. Part 2. King Henry Vi. Part 3. King Richard Iii. King Henry Viii
by William Shakespeare Gillian DayHenry VI Part III is the third of William Shakespeare's plays set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England, and prepares the ground for one of his best-known and most controversial plays: the tragedy of King Richard III (Richard III of England). It follows on from Henry VI, part 1 and Henry VI, part 2.
The Eaten Heart: Unlikely Tales of Love (Penguin Great Loves Ser. #Vol. 3)
by Giovanni BoccaccioTen young Florentines take refuge in the countryside from the Black Death and tell stories to pass the time. From the unfaithful wife who unwittingly eats her lover’s heart to the sly peasant plotting to seduce a whole nunnery, these are tales of lust, adventure and unexpected twists of fate.United by the theme of love, the writings in the Great Loves series span over two thousand years and vastly different worlds. Readers will be introduced to love’s endlessly fascinating possibilities and extremities: romantic love, platonic love, erotic love, gay love, virginal love, adulterous love, parental love, filial love, nostalgic love, unrequited love, illicit love, not to mention lost love, twisted and obsessional love….
Forever Rumpole: The Best of the Rumpole Stories
by John MortimerForever Rumpole - a hilarious new selection of the very best Rumpole stories by John MortimerHorace Rumpole lives alongside Mr Pickwick and Bertie Wooster as one of the immortal comic characters in English fiction. With his curmudgeonly wit, his literary allusions, his disdain for personal ambition and his lack of pomposity, he has, in the words of the Daily Telegraph, 'ascended to the pantheon of literary immortals'.Forever Rumpole contains seven stories originally chosen by the author himself as his favourites, together with a further seven from the later period and the opening chapters of a Rumpole novel that Sir John was working on when he died in 2009. The book also includes a fascinating introduction by Ann Mallalieu, fellow lawyer and for many years Sir John's colleague in practice.'Rumpole, like Jeeves and Sherlock Holmes, is immortal' P. D James, Mail on Sunday'I thank heaven for small mercies. The first of these is Rumpole' Clive James, ObserverSir John Mortimer was a barrister, playwright and novelist. His fictional trilogy about the inexorable rise of an ambitious Tory MP in the Thatcher years (Paradise Postponed, Titmuss Regained and The Sound of Trumpets) has recently been republished in Penguin Classics, together with Clinging to the Wreckage and his play A Voyage round My Father. His most famous creation was the barrister Horace Rumpole, who featured in four novels and around eighty short stories. His books in Penguin include: The Anti-social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole; The Collected Stories of Rumpole; The First Rumpole Omnibus; Rumpole and the Angel of Death; Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders; Rumpole and the Primrose Path; Rumpole and the Reign of Terror; Rumpole and the Younger Generation; Rumpole at Christmas; Rumpole Rests His Case; The Second Rumpole Omnibus; Forever Rumpole; In Other Words; Quite Honestly and Summer's Lease.
22 Britannia Road
by Amanda Hodgkinson22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson is a heartbreaking and powerful novel about wartime secrets and the difficulties of adjusting to postwar lifeIt is 1946 and Silvana and eight-year-old Aurek board a ship that will take them from Poland to England. Silvana has not seen her husband Janusz in six years, but, they are assured, he has made them a home in Ipswich.However, after living wild in the forests for years, carrying a terrible secret, all Silvana knows is that she and Aurek are survivors. Everything else is lost. While Janusz, a Polish soldier who has criss-crossed Europe during the war, hopes his family will help put his own dark past behind him.But the war and the years apart will always haunt each of them unless they together confront what they were compelled to do to survive.'The characters are so convincing and the writing's so unshowily accomplished that it soon becomes something gripping. An admirable debut' Daily Mail 'A most accomplished first novel. Powerful story-telling and entirely convincing in its evocation of post-war England. Very good' Penelope Lively'Keep your Kleenex handy reading 22 Britannia Road' Grazia'An affecting story, extremely well told' The TimesAmanda Hodgkinson was born in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset and grew up in Essex and Suffolk.She currently lives in south-west France with her husband and two daughters. 22 Britannia Road is her first novel.
Spilt Milk
by Amanda Hodgkinson'A potent, moving story of mother and sisterhood' Sainsbury's Magazine'A tale of sisterhood, lies and illegitimate babies' Good HousekeepingThe new novel from the author of 22 Britannia Road, Amanda Hodgkinson.1913. Unmarried sisters Nellie and Vivian Marsh live an impoverished existence in a tiny cottage on the banks of the Little River in Suffolk. Their life is quiet and predictable, until a sudden flood throws up a strange fish on their doorstep and a travelling man who will change them forever. 1939. Eighteen-year-old Birdie Farr is working as a barmaid in the family pub in London. When she realises she is pregnant she turns to her mother Nellie, who asks her sister to arrange an adoption for Birdie's new born daughter. But as the years pass Birdie discovers she cannot escape the Marsh sisters' shadowy past - and her own troubling obsession with finding her lost daughter will have deep consequences for all of them . . . Amanda Hodgkinson was born in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset and grew up in Essex and Suffolk. She currently lives in south-west France with her husband and two daughters. Her first novel, 22 Britannia Road, is available in Penguin.
How to Achieve True Greatness (Penguin Great Ideas Ser.)
by Baldesar CastiglioneThroughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
In the Shadow of Gotham (Detective Simon Ziele Ser. #1)
by Stefanie PintoffAt the dawn of the twentieth century, a deranged killer is on the prowl.New York, 1905.After losing his fiancee in the General Slocum ferry disaster, Detective Simon Ziele transferred to a country town north of Manhattan in the hope of escaping his grief. But only months later he's faced with the shocking murder of a young girl - battered to death in her bedroom on a cold winter's afternoon. And when Alistair Sinclair, one of Columbia University's most noted criminologists learns about the case, he realises it bears an uncanny resemblance to the deranged mutterings of one his research subjects. Ziele must work with Sinclair to determine whether his patient - with a terrifying history of violent behaviour and brutal fantasies - did indeed seek out this innocent young victim ... before the vicious murderer strikes again.In the Shadow of Gotham tells the atmospheric and gripping tale of a haunted man who must search for a killer, while on the run from his own demons ...
A Tale of a Tub: The Battle Of The Books (Mobi Classics Series)
by Jonathan SwiftThroughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.
Selected Letters
by Madame SevigneOne of the world's greatest correspondents, Madame de Sévigné (1626-96) paints an extraordinarily vivid picture of France at the time of Louis XIV, in eloquent letters written throughout her life to family and friends. A significant figure in French society and literary circles, whose close friends included Madame de La Fayette and La Rochefoucauld, she reflected on both significant historical events and personal issues, and in this selection of the most significant letters, spanning almost fifty years, she is by turns humorous and melancholic, profound and superficial. Whether describing the new plays of Racine and Molière, speculating on court scandals - including the intrigues of the King's mistresses - or relating her own family concerns, Madame de Sévigné provides throughout an intriguing portrait of the lost age of Le Roi Soleil.
Pierre and Jean: Father And Son, Boitelle And Other Stories
by Guy MaupassantThe fraternal love that Pierre Roland feels for his younger brother Jean has always been tinged with jealousy. But when a lawyer arrives at the house of their parents, to declare that an old family friend has bequeathed his entire fortune to Jean, this envy rapidly becomes an all-consuming force. Despising himself for the hate that he feels, Pierre roams the seaport of Le Havre alone, desperate to come to terms with his brother's success. As he walks through the streets, however, one thought dominates his mind. Why was he not left a share of the friend's estate? Vivid, ironical and emotionally profound, Pierre and Jean is considered Maupassant's greatest novel - an intensely personal story of suspicion, jealousy and family love.
Love in a Cold Climate: "pursuit Of Love", "love In A Cold Climate", "the Blessing" And "don't Tell Alfred" (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Nancy MitfordIn one of the wittiest novels of them all, Nancy Mitford casts a finely gauged net to capture perfectly the foibles and fancies of the English upper class. Set in the privileged world of the county house party and the London season, this is a comedy of English manners between the wars by one of the most individual, beguiling and creative users of the language.
The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories
by Malcolm BradburyThis anthology is in many was a ‘best of the best’, containing gems from thirty-four of Britain's outstanding contemporary writers. It is a book to dip into, to read from cover to cover, to lend to friends and read again. It includes stories of love and crime, stories touched with comedy and the supernatural, stories set in London, Los Angeles, Bucharest and Tokyo. Above all, as you will discover, it satisfies Samuel Butler's anarchic pleasure principle: 'I should like to like Schumann's music better than I do; I daresay I could make myself like it better if I tried; but I do not like having to try to make myself like things; I like things that make me like them at once and no trying at all …'
Henry IV Part Two: King Richard Ii. First Part Of King Henry Iv. Second Part Of King Henry Iv. King Henry V. First Part Of King Henry Vi. Second Part Of King Henr
by William Shakespeare Adrian PooleAngered by the loss of his son in battle, the Earl of Northumberland supports another rebellion against King Henry IV, bringing the country to the brink of civil war. Sick and weary, the old King sends out his forces, including the unruly Sir John Falstaff, to meet the rebels. But as the conflict grows, he must also confront a more personal problem - how to make his reprobate son Prince Hal aware of the duties he must bear, as heir to the throne.
The Concubine of Shanghai
by Hong YingChina, 1907. Sixteen-year-old orphan Cassia is sold by her aunt to a brothel. There, she works as a lowly maid for Madame Emerald until a powerful and dangerous client plucks her from obscurity.Master Chang is the boss of the fearsome Shanghai Triad and he always gets what he wants. Despite her unbound feet and breasts, Cassia swiftly becomes Chang's favourite mistress. He showers her with luxuries as he embarks on her sexual awakening.But Chang's world is violent and precarious, and those such as Cassia who depend on him are bound to his fate . . .
The Village of Stepanchikovo: And its Inhabitants: from the Notes of an Unknown
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Ignat AvseySummoned to the country estate of his wealthy uncle Colonel Yegor Rostanev, the young student Sergey Aleksandrovich finds himself thrown into a startling bedlam. For as he soon sees, his meek and kind-hearted uncle is wholly dominated by a pretentious and despotic pseudo-intellectual named Opiskin, a charlatan who has ingratiated himself with Yegor’s mother and now holds the entire household under his thumb. Watching the absurd theatrics of this domestic tyrant over forty-eight explosive hours, Sergey grows increasingly furious - until at last, he feels compelled to act. A compelling comic exploration of petty tyranny, The Village of Stepanchikovo reveals a delight in life’s wild absurdities that rivals even Gogol’s. It also offers a fascinating insight into the genesis of the characters and situations of many of Dostoyevsky’s great later novels, including The Idiot, Devils and The Brothers Karamazov.