Daedalus Books

Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair, and a multimillion-pound gaming business lie at the heart of this intriguing new novel by the author of «The Player of Games» and «Consider Phlebas.»

From the author of the bestseller «A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian» comes a tender and hilarious novel about a crew of migrant workers from three continents who are forced to flee their English strawberry field for a journey across England in pursuit of a better future.

There's that short period of time before toddlers grow up and discover Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network when you can still enchant them with a classic fairy tale. If you open that door when they're young, they'll always love and want a bedtime story. This is a wonderful collection for reading aloud: eight traditional stories with broad appeal, from The Princess and the Pea, King Midas, Stone Soup, and The Lion and the Mouse, to lesser-known gems like The Glass Mountain, The Three Sillies, The Enchanted Watch, and The Little Red Hen. The magical visions and heroic adventures are brought to life with exquisite and imaginative new illustrations from Penny Dann. They make this edition one to grow on and an heirloom that will be cherished throughout the years.

Dramatically presented with dynamic paper engineering, this follow-up to Dragons Pop-Up brings magnificent dragons to vivid life.

Heinrich Obermann, a celebrated German archaeologist, has uncovered the ancient ruins of Troy on a Turkish hillside. He fervently believes that his discovery will prove that the heroes of the Iliad, a work he has cherished all his life, actually existed. Sophia, Obermann's young Greek wife, works at the site carefully preserving the ancient treasures she uncovers. But Sophia soon comes to see another side of her husband. He is mysteriously vague about his past and the wife he claims died years before. When she finds a cache of artefacts Obermann has hidden away, her suspicions about him rise, feelings that escalate when a visiting archaeologist who questions Obermann's methods dies from a mysterious fever. The arrival of a second, equally sceptical archaeologist brings Sophia's doubts to a head — and spurs Obermann to make even greater claims about the evidence he has found and the profound importance of his achievements. In The Fall of Troy, Peter Ackroyd again demonstrates his ability to evoke time and place, and to transform history into compelling fiction. Like the Homeric epics that entrance Obermann, The Fall of Troy is in part accurate, in part fantastic. It is a brilliantly told story of heroes and scoundrels, human aspirations and follies, and the temptation to shape the truth to fit a passionately held belief.

Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. Now these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback by Harper Perennial with stunning new jackets. Captain Jack Aubrey, RN, arrives in the Dutch East Indies to find himself appointed to the command of the fastest and best-armed frigate in the Navy. He and his friend Stephen Maturin take passage for England in a despatch vessel. But the war of 1812 breaks out while they are en route. Bloody actions precipitate them both into new and unexpected scenes, and Stephen's past activities as a secret agent return on him with a vengeance.

This story of the passionate, adulterous, tragic love of Lancelot and Guinevere is at once the perfect expression of 'courtly love' and its inversion. Lancelot, the heroic stranger in King Arthur's court, sacrifices all in service of his king, and yet also falls in love with Arthur's queen, the most beautiful woman in Britain. That this spotless knight, who repeatedly saves Arthur and his world from destruction, should be the fateful underminer of the king's self-confidence and, ultimately, a terrible weapon in the hands of Arthur's great adversary Galehaut, is a contradiction that has fascinated the Western mind for hundreds of years. The Arthurian legend that most of us know comes from Malory and The Once and Future King. But there are also several books, including the thirteenth-century Book of Galehaut, which gives a surprising and unfamiliar version. It is a double love story — the tale not only of Lancelot's love for Guinevere, but also the love of Galehaut, the Lord of the Distant Isles, for Lancelot.

Other Colours is a collection of immediate relevance and timeless value, ranging from lyrical autobiography to criticism of literature and culture, from humour to political analysis, from delicate evocations of his friendship with his daughter Ruya to provocative discussions of Eastern and Western art. It also covers Pamuk's recent, high profile, court case. My Father's Suitcase, Pamuk's 2006 Nobel Lecture, a brilliant illumination of what it means to be a writer, completes the selection from the figure who is now without doubt one of international literature's most eminent and popular figures.

In Self's Deception, private investigator Gerhard Self receives a request to track down the daughter of Herr Salger, the Assistant Secretary of Bonn, who's been absent from her translation classes at the university. Repelled by the pomposity of the government official, he rejects the case. But an insistent letter — and five thousand marks — changes his mind. After discreet interrogations at her school and her former residences, and a quick survey of the local hospitals, it turns out she washed up at a psych ward where he's told she had fallen out a window earlier that week and died. He quickly decides this is a lie, and decides one of the doctors is covering for her. Self quickly discovers that his quarry was involved in a terrorist incident — but a terrorist incident that the government is clearing covering up. Self helps the woman escape, finds out his own client is not Herr Salger at all but another terrorist. Now the mystery becomes what exactly happened at the military arms depot that the government doesn't want made public.

In this groundbreaking new history, Adam Tooze provides the clearest picture to date of the Nazi war machine and its undoing. There was no aspect of Nazi power untouched by economics — it was Hitler’s obsession and the reason the Nazis came to power in the first place. The Second World War was fought, in Hitler’s view, to create a European empire strong enough to take on the United States. But as The Wages of Destruction makes clear, Hitler’s armies were never powerful enough to beat either Britain or the Soviet Union — and Hitler never had a serious plan as to how he might defeat the United States. The Wages of Destruction is an eye-opening and controversial account that will challenge conventional interpretations of the period and will find an enthusiastic readership among fans of Ian Kershaw and Richard Evans.

The World According to Bertie is the fourth in the series and revolves around the many colourful characters that come and go at No. 44 Scotland Street. McCall Smith handles the characters with his customary charm and deftness — the stalwart Tory chartered surveyor, the pushy mother, and, most importantly in this novel, the beleaguered Italian-speaking prodigy, Bertie. This is classic McCall Smith — clever, witty and entertaining — and beautifully illustrated. A chance encounter with Armistead Maupin in San Francisco inspired Alexander McCall Smith to write this series of novels based around the fictional No. 44 Scotland Street in Edinburgh's New Town.

Our landscape format Encyclopedia series in the 12 x 9 1/4 trim size have been so popular that we have created a more portable format for those who are interested in a smaller paperback edition. Beautifully illustrated throughout in full color. A great value and perfectly sized for gift giving.

Highlighting the most iconic pieces from each international design movement, Vintage Furniture explores the key designers, details and materials that defi ne the most infl uential collectible furniture created since the turn of the twentieth century.

To end a history of World War II at VE Day is to leave the tale half told. While the war may have seemed all but over by Hitler's final birthday (April 20), Stafford's chronicle of the three months that followed tells a different, and much richer, story. ENDGAME 1945 highlights the gripping personal stories of nine men and women, ranging from soldiers to POWs to war correspondents, who witnessed firsthand the Allied struggle to finish the terrible game at last. Through their ground-level movements, Stafford traces the elaborate web of events that led to the war's real resolution: the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini, the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau, and the Allies' race with the Red Army to establish a victors' foothold in Europe, to name a few. From Hitler's April decision never to surrender to the start of the Potsdam Conference, Stafford brings an unprecedented focus to the war's final chapter. Narrative history at its most compelling, ENDGAME 1945 is the riveting story of three turbulent months that truly shaped the modern world.

A playful alphabet, lush with details and limned in delicate colours. Each letter of the alphabet takes possession of its own face, covering, carving, painting, and manipulating the surface of the block in a variety of inventive and unexpected ways.

Open your child's eyes to the vivid impact of the natural world EyeLike is an innovative series of three boldly illustrated, graphic titles that introduce young readers to the exciting world of colors, shapes, and numbers. The EyeLike books draw a child's attention to the details and textures of the natural world and open the door to a lifetime of discovery and learning. Nature teaches children all about colors — a chick is YELLOW, a strawberry is RED, a macaw is BLUE, peas are GREEN, and ants are BLACK.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni becomes involved in the agency's work when he investigates an errant husband. But can a man investigate such matters as competently as one of the ladies? Mma Ramotswe has her doubts. One thing, though, that she does not doubt is the good nature of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who stands for all that is solid and true in a shifting world.

Walter Kitty is no ordinary housecat. He's Fang — a swashbuckling protector of the high seas, a tiger waiting to pounce on unsuspecting prey, and a caped superhero ready to save the day. But do his people, Mr. and Mrs. Biddle, acknowledge his greatness? Not even So once in a good long while, Walter will answer to Wally or Kitten or even Snookums, but most of the time... he's Fang With a hilarious text by Barbara Jean Hicks and fabulously fun illustrations by Dan Santat, Walter Kitty is one cat readers will not soon forget

The phenomenal series set in a future New York City returns as NYPSD Lt. Eve Dallas hunts for the killer of a seemingly ordinary history teacher-and uncovers some extraordinary surprises. Craig Foster's death devastated his young wife, who'd sent him to work that day with a lovingly packed lunch. It shocked his colleagues at the private school, too, and as for the ten-year-old girls who found him in his classroom in a pool of bodily fluids-they may have been traumatized for life. Eve soon determines that Foster's homemade lunch was tainted with deadly ricin, and that Mr. Foster's colleagues have some startling secrets of their own. It's Eve's job to sort it out and discover why someone would have done this to a man who seemed so inoffensive, so pleasant... so innocent. Now Magdalena Percell... there's someone Eve can picture as a murder victim. Possibly at Eve's own hands. The slinky blonde-an old flame of her billionaire husband, Roarke-has arrived in New York, and she's anything but innocent. Roarke seems blind to Magdalena's manipulation, and he insists that the occasional lunch or business meeting with her is nothing to worry about... and none of Eve's business. Eve's so unnerved by the situation that she finds it hard to focus on her case. Still, she'll have to put aside her feelings, for a while at least-because another man has just turned up dead. Eve knows all too well that innocence can be a faAade. Keeping that in mind may help her solve this case at last. But it may also tear apart her marriage.

A cozy collection of holiday verse Who is that knocking at the door? It's old Father Fox with surprises galore Licorice & lollipops, lemons & limes A bundle of toys & a bag full of rhymes... Over thirty years ago, Father Fox's Pennyrhymes became an instant classic and was a National Book Award Finalist. Now Father Fox returns with new rhymes especially for yuletide that conjure up the excitement and mystery of the season: playing in the snow, making hot apple cider, hiding presents — all at the warm and loving home of the Fox family. The verses feel like classic children's rhymes, and rich paintings capture all the cheer and beauty of Christmastime.

In her latest spellbinding escapade, Jane Austen arrives in London to watch over the printing of her first novel, and finds herself embroiled in a crime that could end more than her career. For it is up to Jane to tease a murderer out of the ton, lest she — and her country — suffer a dastardly demise... On the heels of completing Sense and Sensibility, Jane heads to Sloane Street for a monthlong visit with her brother Henry and his wife, Eliza. Hobnobbing with the Fashionable Great at the height of the Season, Jane is well aware of their secrets and peccadilloes. But even she is surprised when the intimate correspondence between a Russian princess and a prominent Tory minister is published in the papers for all to see. More shocking, the disgraced beauty is soon found with her throat slit on Lord Castlereagh's very doorstep. Everyone who's anyone in high society is certain the spurned princess committed the violence upon herself. But Jane is unconvinced. Nor does she believe the minister guilty of so grisly and public a crime. Jane, however, is willing to let someone else investigate — until a quirk of fate thrusts her and Eliza into the heart of the case... as prime suspects! Striking a bargain with the authorities, Jane secures seven days to save herself and Eliza from hanging. But as her quest to unmask a killer takes her from the halls of government to the drawing rooms of London's most celebrated courtesan, only one thing is sure: her failure will not only cut short her life. It could lead to England's downfall. A compulsively readable, uncommonly elegant novel of historical suspense, Jane and the Barque of Frailty once again proves Jane Austen a sleuth to be reckoned with.

On September 5, 1945, Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko severed ties with his embassy in Ottawa, Canada, reporting allegations to authorities of a Soviet espionage network in North America. His defection — the first following the end of WWII, occurring less than a month after atomic bombs exploded over Japan — sent shockwaves through Washington, London, and Ottawa. The three allies, who until weeks earlier had been aligned with the Soviets, feared that key atomic secrets had been given to Russian agents, affecting the balance of postwar power. In her riveting narrative, Amy Knight documents how Gouzenko's defection, and the events that followed it, triggered Cold War fears and altered the course of modern history. Knight sheds new light on the Gouzenko Affair, showing how J. Edgar Hoover hoped to discredit the Truman administration by incriminating U.S. government insiders Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. She also probes Gouzenko's motives for defecting and brilliantly connects these events to the strained relations between the Soviet Union and the West that marked the beginning of the Cold War.

From the award-winning author of A People's Tragedy and Natasha's Dance, a landmark account of what private life was like for Russians in the worst years of Soviet repression There have been many accounts of the public aspects of Stalin's dictatorship: the arrests and trials, the enslavement and killing in the gulags. No previous book, however, has explored the regime's effect on people's personal lives, what one historian called the Stalinism that entered into all of us. Now, drawing on a huge collection of newly discovered documents, The Whisperers reveals for the first time the inner world of ordinary Soviet citizens as they struggled to survive amidst the mistrust, fear, compromises, and betrayals that pervaded their existence. Moving from the Revolution of 1917 to the death of Stalin and beyond, Orlando Figes re-creates the moral maze in which Russians found themselves, where one wrong turn could destroy a family or, perversely, end up saving it. He brings us inside cramped communal apartments, where minor squabbles could lead to fatal denunciations; he examines the Communist faithful, who often rationalized even their own arrest as a case of mistaken identity; and he casts a humanizing light on informers, demonstrating how, in a repressive system, anyone could easily become a collaborator. A vast panoramic portrait of a society in which everyone spoke in whispers — whether to protect their families and friends, or to inform upon them — The Whisperers is a gripping account of lives lived in impossible times.

Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, pink — animals can be startlingly colorful. Why are they found in so many shades, tints, and hues? From the scarlet ibis to the blue-tongued skink, award-winning author/illustrator Steve Jenkins depicts a whole world of colorful animals in his signature style. Living Color explores a range of animals from old favorites like the pink flamingo to rare and fascinating creatures such as the long-wattled umbrella bird and the ringed caecilian. How do the brilliant feathers, scales, shells, and skin of these animals help them survive? Find out in this strikingly beautiful book how animals use color to warn predators, signal friends, attract a mate, or hide from their enemies.