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Death Goes on Skis: Introduced by Sandi Toksvig - 'Her detective novels are hilarious' (Virago Modern Classics)
by Nancy Spain'Her detective novels are hilarious - less about detecting than delighting, with absurd farce and a wonderful turn of phrase . . . Nancy Spain was bold, she was brave, she was funny, she was feisty. I owe her a great deal' Sandi ToksvigMiriam Birdseye is daring, brilliant - and a long way from The Ivy. Our dashing heroine, a famous revue artist, takes to the slopes with her coterie of admirers. Champagne flows and wherever Miriam goes she leaves a trail of gossip in her wake.Fellow ski-resort guests include the celebrated Russian ex-ballerina, Natasha Nevkorina, whose beauty is matched only by her languor, Natasha's burly husband, nightclub owner Johnny DuVivien, and the wealthy Flahertés, a family who have made their money importing scents: handsome playboy Barney, his wife Regan, their two obnoxious children and the governess, Rosalie. Unbeknownst to Regan, Barney's mistress, a film star, is also there with her husband.When secrets start to unravel, tensions rise, and soon amateur sleuths Miriam and Natasha have not one but two murders to solve. In the hands of Nancy Spain, for whom farce and humour are a lot more fun than a conventional detective novel, the result is a deliciously wild ride.'An either intense or sombre approach to crime is to Miss Spain foreign: in her world an inspired craziness rules . . . Her wit, her zest, her outrageousness, and the colloquial stylishness of her writing are quite her own' Elizabeth Bowen
The Last Pearl Fisher of Scotland
by Julia StuartFrom the bestselling author of Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo comes the story of one man's quest to find a pearl, save his marriage – and track down a missing rabbit named Frank'The Last Pearl Fisher of Scotland is a gently comic, gently tragic novel, full of lyricism, humanity and the pearl that is love. Read it at once'A. L. KennedyBrodie McBride is having a tough time.The last expert in the ancient art of pearl fishing, he’s on a quest to track down the pearl that will complete a necklace for his wife, Elspeth, convinced that the love token will save their marriage.But Scotland’s rivers are running out of mussels, Elspeth is running out of patience, and their daughter, Maggie, is running wild with her moustachioed pet rabbit.And when Maggie takes matters into her own hands, determined to keep the family together, the McBrides are soon at the centre of international commotion that will change everyone’s lives forever.
My Turn to Make the Tea: 'I envy anyone yet to discover the joy of Monica Dickens ... she's blissfully funny' Nina Stibbe (Virago Modern Classics #808)
by Monica DickensINTRODUCED BY LISSA EVANS'I envy anyone yet to discover the joy of Monica Dickens. She's beady eyed, big hearted and blissfully funny' Nina StibbePoppy, newly recruited cub reporter at the Downingham Post, is determined to prove to the editor that he's wrong in his belief that 'Women are a nuisance in the office'. He certainly doesn't think she's a nuisance when it's time for the tea round - a job which never fails to fall to the only female reporter.What Poppy lacks in experience, she makes up for in spirit and ambition. She'll make the Downingham Post the best regional newspaper there is - even if she occasionally gets the names wrong in court hearings. Life, for a single professional woman in the post-war years, certainly has its challenges - from finding a room, when the tyrannical landlady doesn't consider Poppy to be quite respectable, to changing her editor's deeply entrenched ways. This semi-autobiographical novel, recounted with Monica Dickens's wit, warmth and wry observation, will charm all who read it.If you enjoyed My Turn to Make the Tea, you will love One Pair of Feet, Dickens's novel of being a wartime trainee nurse, also published in Virago Modern Classics.
Player Piano: The debut novel from the iconic author of Slaughterhouse-5
by Kurt VonnegutPlayer Piano is the debut novel from one of history's most innovative authors, published on Vonnegut's 100th birthday.In Player Piano, the first of Vonnegut's wildly funny and deadly serious novels, automata have dramatically reduced the need for America's work force. Ten years after the introduction of these robot labourers, the only people still working are the engineers and their managers, who live in Ilium; everyone else lives in Homestead, an impoverished part of town characterised by purposelessness and mass produced houses.Paul Proteus is the manager of Ilium Works. While grateful to be held in high regard, Paul begins to feel uneasy about his position - especially after a trip to Homestead. Eventually, Paul makes the decision to rebel against all he's been given, inciting seismic repercussions...'His black logic...gives us something to laugh about and much to fear' New York Times Book ReviewWatch the documentary about his life - Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time - on Prime
Trio: A Novel
by William Boyd'An elating read' Sunday TimesA producer. A novelist. An actress.It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. There are riots in Paris and the Vietnam War is out of control. While the world is reeling our three characters are involved in making a Swingin' Sixties movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. Elfrida is drowning her writer's block in vodka; Talbot, coping with the daily dysfunction of making a film, is hiding something in a secret apartment; and the glamorous Anny is wondering why the CIA is suddenly so interested in her.But the show must go on and, as it does, the trio's private worlds begin to take over their public ones. Pressures build inexorably - someone's going to crack. Or maybe they all will.From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel that asks the vital questions: what makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't?_______________________________________________PRAISE FOR WILLIAM BOYD'The ultimate in immersive fiction . . . magnificent' Sunday Times'A finely judged performance: a deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination' Guardian on Love is Blind'William Boyd has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries' Daily Telegraph'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Sebastian Faulks
Cooking Alone
by Kathleen Le RicheSupper for one? Whether you're a career girl, eccentric bedsitter or wild bachelor, this vintage 1950s cookery gem is the essential guide to dining in solitude (with a new foreword by Bee Wilson).The Career Woman (who buys a chicken as a treat)The Bedsitter (who experiments with newfangled gadgets)The Old Lady (who feeds her menagerie of pets)The Schoolboy Moocher (who makes toffee and wallows in grapes) The Bachelor (who learns to stockpile food)Meet the experts in cooking alone . . . 'Every servantless man and woman should read her.' Truth Supper for one? Cooking Alone (1954) is a delicious miniature compendium of tales inspired by a cast of eccentric solitary characters. Brimming with entertaining anecdotes, recipes (rabbit with aubergine and prunes, anyone?) and top tips (ever wondered how to store ice cream in a bedsit?), Kathleen Le Riche is a witty, charming guide to the single life. Reissued with a new foreword by Bee Wilson, this vintage delight is a hymn to the pleasures of dining solo.'A clever book, and amusing too. Somebody ought to bestow its author's name upon a sauce.' Belfast News Letter'Delightful . . . Ingenious.' Home and Country'Remarkable. Aside from its wit and period charm, this [recognises] that the most important ingredient in the kitchen is the human ... Nearly seventy years on, this still feels like a radical message.' Bee Wilson'Richly imagined ... There is great tenderness and defiance in Le Riche's attention to the pleasures of the solitary cook.' Rebecca May Johnson
Animal Farm
by George OrwellOne of the most celebrated works of modern literature, Animal Farm is George Orwell's satire on the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Stalin's subsequent rule. It tells the story of the animals of Manor Farm, as they rise up against the drunken farmer Mr Jones and the ensuing leadership battle between two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon. They set in motion their 'system of thought', Animalism, a clear play on Communism, with seven tenets including, 'All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.'
Dictators in Cartoons: Unmasking Monsters and Mocking Tyrants
by Tony HusbandWhat is it that makes dictators fear cartoonists? The answer is that they can't stand to be ridiculed. Cartoonists may not be able to topple tyrants or change the course of history, but they can lessen the climate of fear and bring courage to the victims of state bullying with their subversive drawings.In this book, you'll find dictators and wielders of power transformed into midgets, hotel porters, moustachioed horses, even a humble pear. Figures include:• Hitler • Stalin• Mussolini • Franco• Mao Zedong• Robert MugabeWritten by renowned cartoonist and commentator Tony Husband, this shrewd and funny pictorial history traces the fightback led by artists against tyranny and its figureheads.
The Golden Ocean
by Patrick O’BrianThe first novel Patrick O’Brian ever wrote about the sea – and the precursor to the famous Aubrey/Maturin series – is now available in ebook format for the first time.
The Looking-Glass Conference
by Godfrey BlundenA brilliantly funny satire on modern diplomacy.The Far Eastern republic of Inevitable Khaos is at war with the repulic of Incredible Khaos and an international conference is gathering in a neutral European capital to discuss the problem. First on the scene come the security authorities wrangling about accommodation for their delegations. Two Russian painters may be spies, refugees seeking political asylum or the advance guard of the Russian delegation. And a young Khaotian patriot decides to live in a tree outside the conference building until peace comes to his country.Next arrive the delegates themselves: they discuss procedure, protocol and the official language. But the main pre-occupation of each is to utter the precise cliche that will fire the world's imagination and immortalize his attendance at the conference.The Looking-Glass Conference is a brilliant political satire. It is uproariously funny, but Mr Blunden's host of characters are endearingly human and their varied national characteristics are unmistakably true to life.
The Ups and Downs of Being a Parent
by Tony HusbandParenting is harder than you think, but most parents are too busy to notice. Nothing can prepare you for what lies ahead: you'll lose sleep and gain weight; you won't have a proper day off for years; you'll become slovenly in how you dress and you'll find the years are slipping away faster than ever. But the amazing thing is, whatever your children do to you, you'll love them just the same. The Ups and Downs of Being a Parent is a gift book on the joys of parenthood, featuring more than 120 brilliant cartoons drawn by Private Eye's Tony Husband. It'll help you see where everybody's going wrong.
Dr. Seuss’s ABC
by Dr. SeussFrom Aunt Annie’s alligator to the colourful Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz, Dr. Seuss’s delightful book introduces early learners to the letters of the alphabet through an amazing array of crazy creatures. Enjoy this fantastic classic anytime, anywhere. Hilariously read by comic legend, Rik Mayall.
Hunches in Bunches
by Dr. SeussA new paperback edition, never before published in the UK, written and illustrated by the one and only Dr. Seuss.
I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew
by Dr. SeussAs our hero struggles to reach the city of Solla Sollew, where they never have troubles, at least very few, we realise that it’s better to face up to life’s problems than to try to run away from them!
Look Back in Anger: Collected Plays: Epitaph For George Dillon, The World Of Paul Slickley And Dejavu (Faber Drama Ser. #Vol. 9)
by John OsborneIn 1956 John Osborne's Look Back in Anger changed the course of English theatre.'Look Back in Anger presents post-war youth as it really is. To have done this at all would be a significant achievement; to have done it in a first play is a minor miracle. All the qualities are there, qualities one had despaired of ever seeing on stage - the drift towards anarchy, the instinctive leftishness, the automatic rejection of "official" attitudes, the surrealist sense of humour . . . the casual promiscuity, the sense of lacking a crusade worth fighting for and, underlying all these, the determination that no one who dies shall go unmourned.' Kenneth Tynan, Observer, 13 May 1956'Look Back in Anger . . . has its inarguable importance as the beginning of a revolution in the British theatre, and as the central and most immediately influential expression of the mood of its time, the mood of the "angry young man".' John Russell Taylor
Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories
by Dr. SeussIn this hilarious book, featuring three timeless fables, Dr. Seuss explores the pitfalls of growing too big for your boots!
The Merry Muse
by Eric LinklaterA hitherto unknown pornographic manuscript of Robert Burns is found in the effects of a dead schoolmaster of impeccable reputation. Max Arbuthnot, an Edinburgh lawyer and a rich man, who at the age of sixty has a rampant appetite for the pleasures of the flesh, takes charge of it.As the manuscript is lost, found again, stolen, and variously shuttles back and forth, the infection of its bawdiness creates havoc in Edinburgh.It's ultimate fate is only decided after a series of bizarre adventures.Part farce, part satire on manners and social attitudes, The Merry Muse sparkles from beginning to end. It is the work of a master, written at the height of his powers."[Linklater] has created one of his most memorable characters in that solid and yet strangely vulnerable citizen, the inimitable Max. - The New York Times"This is one of those rare books of comedy in which the humor depends solidly on situation and character and not merely on wisecrack" - Chicago Daily Tribune
The Sirens Of Titan: The science fiction classic and precursor to Douglas Adams (S.F. MASTERWORKS #10)
by Kurt VonnegutWelcome to the Best of the Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fictionWhen Winston Niles Rumfoord flies his spaceship into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum he is converted into pure energy and only materializes when his waveforms intercept Earth or some other planet. As a result, he only gets home to Newport, Rhode Island, once every fifty-nine days and then only for an hour.But at least, as a consolation, he now knows everything that has ever happened and everything that ever will be. He knows, for instance, that his wife is going to Mars to mate with Malachi Constant, the richest man in the world. He also knows that on Titan - one of Saturn's moons - is an alien from the planet Tralfamadore, who has been waiting 200,000 years for a spare part for his grounded spacecraft . . . A finalist for the 1960 Hugo Award, The Sirens of Titan was Vonnegut's second novel. It received wide acclaim, and played with ideas of free will and predestination, themes he continued to explore in his later works. In 2015, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.-'The Sirens of Titan is marvellous. It's so funny it made me want to cry' - Infinity Plus'A classic, ripe with wit and eloquence and a cascade of inventiveness' - Brian Aldiss 'His best book . . . He dares not only to ask the ultimate question about the meaning of life, but to answer it' - Esquire
Spanish Galleon
by Nigel TranterAn old story from the loose lips of a whiskey-sodden seaman sets Glaswegian giant Roddy Roy MacGregor off in search of wealth beyond his wildest dreams. On the tiny Hebridean Isle of Inishewen, he soon finds himself embroiled in a devious and highly illegal plot to raise the sunken treasure of a legendary Spanish galleon before the authorities, or the locals, can lay claim to it. Aided by members of the Clan MacAimish - the lovely daughter of the chief among them - Roddy seeks to scupper the efforts of the English salvage expedition and take the treasure for himself, and for the good of Scotland. 'One of Scotland's most prolific and respected writers' The Times
The Old Men at the Zoo
by Angus WilsonSet in a near future (the novel was first published in 1961 and is set in the period 1970-73), this is Angus Wilson's most allegorical novel, about a doomed attempt to set up a reserve for wild animals. Simon Carter, secretary of the London Zoo, has accepted responsibility and power to the prejudice of his gifts as a naturalist. But power is more than just the complicated game played by the old men at the zoo in the satirical first half of this novel: it lies very near to violence, and in the second half real life inexorably turns to fantasy - the fantasy of war.This tense and at times brutal story offers the healing relationship between man and the natural world as a solution for the power dilemma.
Penguin Readers Level 3: Roald Dahl James and the Giant Peach (Penguin Readers Roald Dahl)
by Roald DahlLearn English with James and the Giant Peach! A Penguin Readers book. Discover fifteen famous Roald Dahl adventures, adapted for learners of English aged 7+. Can you read them all?Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. Readers include simplified text, illustrations and language learning exercises. Please note that the eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book.In these Penguin Readers editions, Roald Dahl's stories have been aligned to the CEFR framework A1 to A2+, in four levels. Each book is also Lexile measured. The graded readers feature illustrated new words, language activities, and fun games between chapters, encouraging students and teachers to structure learning and make real progress. Every book also includes projects and discussions.Visit the Penguin Readers website for downloadable quizzes, worksheets and answer keys. Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock a digital book and audio edition (not available with the eBook).James and the Giant Peach, a Level 3 Reader, is A2 in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing first conditional, past continuous and present perfect simple for general experience. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear on most pages.When James's parents die, he has to live with his two horrible aunts. He is lonely and sad. But then, a peach in his aunts' garden starts to grow bigger and bigger. What strange and wonderful friends will James meet inside the peach?
When the Green Woods Laugh: Book 3 (The Larkin Family Series #3)
by H. E. Bates'There!' Pop said. 'There's the house. There's Gore Court for you. What about that, eh? How's that strike you? Better than St Paul's, ain't it, better than St Paul's?'And so Pop Larkin - junk-dealer, family man and Dragon's Blood connoisseur - manages to sell the nearby crumbling, tumbling country home to city dwellers Mr and Mrs Jerebohm for a pretty bundle of notes. Now he can build his daughter Mariette the pool she's long been nagging him for. But the Larkin's new neighbours aren't quite so accepting of country ways - especially Pop's little eccentricities. In fact, it's not long before a wobbly boat, a misplaced pair of hands and Mrs Jerebohm's behind have Pop up before a magistrate . . .
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (The Roald Dahl Classic Collection)
by Roald DahlHowever small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance was there. This beautiful edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, part of The Roald Dahl Classic Collection, features official archive material from the Roald Dahl Museum and is perfect for Dahl fans old and new.So, enter a world where invention and mischief can be found on every page and where magic might be at the very tips of your fingers . . .The Roald Dahl Classic Collection reinstates the versions of Dahl’s books that were published before the 2022 Puffin editions, aimed at newly independent young readers.
Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book (Dr Seuss Large Formats Ser.)
by Dr. SeussA sleepy tale full of wonderful yawning creatures from the iconic Dr. Seuss, gets a brand new look! This book is the original (and the best) remedy for children who don’t want to go to sleep.
Flat Stanley (Flat Stanley)
by Jeff BrownThe magical and brilliantly funny adventures of everyone’s favourite flat boy – Flat Stanley. With wonderful new illustrations by the award-winning author/illustrator Rob Biddulph. Stanley Lambchop was just an ordinary boy – until a noticeboard fell on him. Now he’s flat as a pancake!