Penguin Group

Outwardly a novel about life in a country-house in whose grounds there is to be a pageant, «Between the Acts» is also a striking evocation of English experience in the months leading up to the Second World War. Through dialogue, humour and the passionate musings of the characters, Virginia Woolf explores how a community is formed (and scattered) over time. The pageant, a series of scenes from English history, and the private dramas that go on between the acts, are closely interlinked. Through the figure of Miss La Trobe, and author of the pageant, Virginia Woolf questions imperialist assumptions and, at the same time, re-creates the elusive role of the artist.

A novel constructed around the last great poem of a fictional American poet, John Shade, and an account of his death. The poem appears in full and the narrative develops through the lengthy, and increasingly eccentric, notes by his posthumous editor.

Follows a man's thoughts and dreams during a single night. It is also a book that participates in the re-reading of Irish history that was part of the revival of the early 20th century. The author also wrote Ulysses, Dubliners and Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.

Even easier than Level 1 All Aboard Reading books, Picture Readers combine rebus pictures, super-simple vocabulary, and cut-out flash cards to develop and reinforce reading skills. In The Big Snowball, a little boy's runaway snowball causes village-wide calamity! Simple rhyming text and funny illustrations describe the snowball's path through the town, and the silly ending will leave kids giggling.

The #1 New York Times Bestselling series featuring Lucas Davenport. Of all the criminals that Lucas Davenport has hunted, none has been as frighteningly intelligent as the woman who's hunting him now.

Through realistic pastels and watercolors, Johnson proposes a new look at the urban landscape, pointing out how letters appear in a variety of places, from interstates to a simple sawhorse at a construction site.

Estate agent Frankie Blue is known on his home turf — White City, Shepherd's Bush — as 'Frank theFib'. He's a liar — but one who always tries to tell the truth. He has been friends with Diamond Tony, a hairdresser, Colin, a computer nerd, and Nodge, a cabbie, since schooldays. Now they are thirty, and trying to live the same life as they did then — drinking, girls, coke, and football. But Frankie is bored. He's decided to carry out the great 'betrayal' — he's going to get married. From the moment he tells his mates, the whole patchwork of their friendships begins to collapse — revealing the sad, shocking but often hilarious truths that lie underneath.

The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged as well. Ignatius ignores them as he heaves his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him. Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission — and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to do it with...

'Twas the night before Valentine's Day, and all through the town, Children were busy, not making a sound. They gathered their scissors, their glitter and glue, Pink and red paper, and paint brushes, too... The Night before Valentine's Day looks in on a house full of excited children, busily cutting out heart-shaped cards and writing silly Valentine rhymes. The next day at school is a day of parties and games — and even a surprise visitor bearing a special Valentine gift for the whole class!

Lynley Dodd, winner of numerous awards for her hugely popular series featuring Hairy Maclary and his many canine and feline friends, continues to entertain us with delightful rhyming text. Enjoy the entire Hairy Maclary collection as he and his mischevious companions explore their neighborhood. Gold Star First Readers are for children learning basic reading skills. The simple text incorporates repetition and rhyme to encourage and build confident readers. The vivid, full-color illustrations enhance children's understanding of what they read.

The Pearl is Steinbeck's flawless parable about wealth and the evil it can bring. When Kino, an Indian pearl-diver, finds 'the Pearl of the world' he believes that his life will be magically transformed. He will marry Juana in church and their little boy, Coyotito, will be able to attend school. Obsessed by his dreams, Kino is blind to the greed, fear and even violence the pearl arouses in him and his neighbours. Written with haunting simplicty and lyrical simplicity, The Pearl sets the values of the civilized world against those of the primitive and finds them tragically inadequate.

It's New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail-hour to breakfast at Tiffany's. And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveller, a tease. She is irrepressibly 'top banana in the shock department', and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.

The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them.

'There is only one book to a man' Steinbeck wrote of East of Eden, his most ambitious novel. Set in the rich farmland of Salinas Valley, California, this powerful, often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families — the Trasks and the Hamiltons — whose generations helplessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love and the murderous consequences of love's absence.

Alice Loudon seems to have everything: close friends, a loving boyfriend, a successful career. Then one day she meets a stranger while crossing the street and — impulsively, immediately — abandons her old, safe life for a passionate affair. It leads her into a dark, dangerous realm of eroticism and extreme experience that both entices and alarms her. Adam Tallis, heroic survivor of a disastrous mountaineering expedition, teaches her things about herself she never knew. As she learns more about her lover, she enters his world of risk and transgression — and begins to uncover a past filled with troubling secrets. But love and sexual obsession overwhelm her until they threaten everything: her safety, her sanity, and, finally, her life.

'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.' Poet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love, 'to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets'. This seduction is one of many dimensions in Nabokov's dizzying masterpiece, which is suffused with a savage humour and rich, elaborate verbal textures.

Книга Джеймса Джойса «Улисс» — одна из самых необычных в мировой литературе. Это довольно объемная работа (в ней более 260 тысяч слов) и традиционно «Улисс» считается трудной книгой для прочтения. «Улисс» Джойса сразу после появления вызвал массу противоречивых откликов и споров. Действие книги происходит в родном городе Джойса — Дублине. Каждый эпизод происходит в определенном месте города, а место действия всегда имеет подробное описание.

Now repackaged with stunning new cover art, this #1 bestseller is a chilling story set in a lonely Nevada town where the evil embedded in the landscape is awesome — but so are the forces summoned to combat it. Reissue.

Well, it's no wonder. The plot-suspicion for an elderly woman's murder falls on her mysterious lodger — is from Agatha Christie. The wonderful character happens to be the world's most famous sleuth, Hercule Poirot.

The classic mystery that introduced Miss Jane Marple Miss Jane Marpleas passion for gossip leads to the investigation of a local manas murder. The victim was not liked in the least, and his death isnat raising eyebrows. But his recently revealed secrets are.

Following the death of a friend, poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering into the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday. There, Dennis enters the fragile and bizarre world of Aimée, the naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr Joyboy, the master of the embalmer's art ... A dark and savage satire on the Anglo-American cultural divide, The Loved One depicts a world where love, reputation and death cost a very great deal.

Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on a dinner-party tip from Mrs Algernon Stitch, he feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising little war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia. One of Waugh's most exuberant comedies, Scoop is a brilliantly irreverent satire of Fleet Street and its hectic pursuit of hot news.

In this nightmare vision of a not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends rob, rape, torture and murder — for fun. Alex is jailed for his vicious crimes and the State undertakes to reform him — but how and at what cost?

Conquer your fear of flying — for good. In this life-changing new book Allen Carr turns his unique methods to fear of flying, a problem which affects thousands of people, causing trauma, guilt and embarrassment, and turning holidays into a nightmare. The Easy Way to Enjoy Flying shows how fear of flying is nothing to be ashamed of, but is part of human nature — yet one which is ultimately based on gross misconceptions. Eliminating these misconceptions will remove the fear and enable you to enjoy flying to the full. This book: • Dispels our most common fears of flying: engine failure, turbulence, bad weather • Explodes the myths and brainwashing from the media and Hollywood that surround flying • Removes the root of fear itself, unlike other relaxation methods which concentrate on the symptoms of fear • Enables you to feel safe and secure in a plane • Gives helpful tips for the day of your next fear-free flight By the time you have finished this book you will be looking forward to your next flight. Flying will no longer be a white-knuckle ride but a pleasurable and exhilarating experience.