Penguin Group

Designed to be tough and immensely practical, as well as amazingly good value, the new Rough Guide Maps forge a new standard in city maps. Apart from travel information, and the city's sites, monuments and attractions, the Maps show every shop, restaurant, bar and hotel listed in the Rough Guide travel guide to the city in question, together with their opening times and, in many cases, phone numbers. Each map covers the main area of the city on one side and an enlarged downtown city centre map on the reverse.

Designed to be tough and immensely practical, as well as amazingly good value, the new Rough Guide Maps forge a new standard in city maps. Apart from travel information, and the city's sites, monuments and attractions, the Maps show every shop, restaurant, bar and hotel listed in the Rough Guide travel guide to the city in question, together with their opening times and, in many cases, phone numbers. Each map covers the main area of the city on one side and an enlarged downtown city centre map on the reverse.

The Rough Guide Map of California is the most comprehensive map to this spectacular destination. California is a hugely popular destination for independent travellers and fly-drive packages. The state is blessed with fine weather, sweeping beaches, a dramatically picturesque interior and the best-known coastal freeway in North America, Route 1, connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco along the rugged coastline of Big Sur. The scale of 1:800,000 (1 inch: 12.6 miles) provides enough detail to include even the minor roads whilst being manageable for use in the car or whilst walking.

As with our city map series, Rough Guide Country and Regional Maps are printed on waterproof and «rip-proof» polyart paper, They offer an unbeatable combination of practicality, clarity of design and amazing value.

Florida is the most popular holiday destination in North America. The Rough Guide Map of Florida is the perfect companion to any trip whether on foot or driving. The map covers the state in detail, from cosmopolitan Miami to Orlando's theme parks and historic St Augustine to the palm-fringed sands of the Florida Keys. The Rough Guide Map pinpoints all the essential attractions, from John F. Kennedy Space Centre to Universal Studios and transport links, from petrol stations to airports.

The Rough Guide Map Madrid is the indestructible and essential companion to this lively and vibrant city. The map provides a highly legible guide to the city's streets, pinpointing places of note for the first-time visitor as well as hidden gems for frequent visitors. More than just a map, there are listings of the best places to stay, eat and drink, as researched by the Rough Guide to Madrid author. There is also a full street index and a 'Time Map' outlining opening hours to help plan your day and avoid wasted trips to closed attractions. There is also a comprehensive public transport map to help the visitor master the network of metro lines and bus routes.

Designed to be tough and immensely practical, as well as amazingly good value, the new Rough Guide Maps forge a new standard in city maps. Apart from travel information, and the city's sites, monuments and attractions, the Maps show every shop, restaurant, bar and hotel listed in the Rough Guide travel guide to the city in question, together with their opening times and, in many cases, phone numbers. Each map covers the main area of the city on one side and an enlarged downtown city centre map on the reverse.

When she meets Nick, lovely, funny, handsome Nick, there has to be a catch. Nick has problems with money and commitment: it seems you can't have everything. Wealthy investment banker Ed, on the other hand, could be the answer and he seems to be crazy about Libby. Can she overlook his irritating habits, and his even more irritating moustache, and find true love? Libby has some serious choices to make. Can she make the right ones?

On a June morning in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway, the glittering wife of a Member of Parliament, is preparing for a grand party that evening. As she walks through London, buying flowers, observing life, her thoughts are in the past, and she remembers the time when she was as young as her own daughter Elizabeth; her romance with Peter Walsh, now recently returned from India; and the friends of her youth. Elsewhere in London, Septimus Smith is being driven mad by shell shock. As the day draws to its end, his world and Clarissa's collide in unexpected ways. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mrs. Dalloway is the central feature in the hugely successful film The Hours starring Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf. The feature film The Hours is three linked stories, each of which takes place in one day in the life of a particular woman: a modern-day Clarissa Dalloway played by Meryl Streep, a wife and mother in Los Angeles just after World War II played by Julianne Moore, and Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) the day she started writing Mrs. Dalloway.

Rachel Johnson's hilarious take on life as a yummy mummy in West London and on Exmoor has been making her newspaper readers chortle for the last couple of years: now they are seamlessly turned into a diary of her year, from the dog's birthday party in January (games of Paws-the-Parcel) to the June sports days (where the mummies turn up at the school sports day in sports bras and running shorts with little back packs containing high energy drinks — and that's just for them) to summer on Exmoor hosting demanding visiting ponies.

Escaping the ills of the British climate, the Durrell family — acne ridden Margo, gun-toting Leslie, bookworm Lawrence and budding naturalist Gerry, along with their long-suffering mother and Roger the dog — take off for the island of Corfu. In a series of colourful villas, the yellow to accommodate friends, the white to avoid having to put up family, the Durrells give a sometimes reluctant home to a trail of local fauna, among them scorpions, geckos, toads, bats and butterflies. Recounted with immense humour and charm, this is a wonderful account of a rare, magical childhood.

Some are born odd, some achieve oddness, and some are just in the wrong place at the wrong time ... The Devon family's a good example: there's thirty-nine-year-old Glenn, whose main interest in life is rubbish collection; his mother, Bel, who teaches tap steps to eight-year-olds but acts as if she's running the Kirov; and his sister, Netta, who spent her early life simply being considered mad by association. Which is why she's dreading six weeks back in their company, helping them move house. Also struggling to conform are Paul Gooding, a newly qualified doctor with a highly embarrassing past; his flatmate, Armand, who's obsessed with foot hygiene; and his colleague, Carrie, who (inadvertently) keeps killing people. Odd One Out. When enough people are out of step, they can form an army of their own ...

‘If there was one thing that set James Bond really moving, it was being passed at speed by a pretty girl …’ From the moment he first meets Teresa di Vicenzo – a reckless playgirl with a love of fast cars and danger – Bond is fascinated. She also leads him to new information on one of the most dangerous criminals in the world, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. In his Alpine mountain base, Blofeld is developing weapons that could threaten the whole world. Only 007 – with the help of someone who can handle herself at speed – can stop the evil genius. Filled with ski chases, schnapps and snow-bound lairs, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service also shows confirmed bachelor Bond’s icy reserve finally melting …

For three years and eight months Felix has lived in a convent orphanage high in the mountains in Poland. But Felix is different from the other orphans. He is convinced his parents are still alive and will come back to get him. When a group of Nazi soldiers come and burn the nuns' books, Felix is terrified that his Jewish, bookseller parents will also be in danger. After escaping from the orphanage, Felix embarks on a long and dangerous journey through Nazi occupied Poland, befriending a little orphan girl called Zelda and a kindly dentist, Barney, who hides and cares for Jewish children. But when the Nazis discover them, Barney makes the ultimate sacrifice for the children.

This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared. Discover the importance of a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup, the incredible luxury of a book, the ingenious possibilities of a nail, a piece of string or a single match in a world where survival is all. Here safety, warmth and food are the first objectives. Reading it, you enter a world of incarceration, brutality, hard manual labour and freezing cold — and participate in the struggle of men to survive both the terrible rigours of nature and the inhumanity of the system that defines their conditions of life.

Famously associated with the term ‘magical realism’, Marquez is probably South America’s most famous literary export. Equally tragic, joyful and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude inhabits a strange dream-like space where very little makes real sense, but everything is mysteriously and vividly alive nonetheless. Blending fantasy and reality seamlessly, the characters struggle hopelessly against a merciless backdrop of madness, corruption and death…all measured out equally with farce and fatality; as profound a statement on the human condition as possible. In every sense, this is literature on the grandest of scales. An acknowledged masterpiece, this is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy with comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.

The third novel from the hugely popular, critically acclaimed author of Ralph's Party and Thirtynothing. Bee Bearhorn had a number one hit single in 1985. And was never heard of again. Fifteen years later she is found dead in her flat and nobody seems to care. Ana Wills has daydreamed for years about the famous and exotic half-sister she hasn't seen since she was thirteen and when she comes to London to clear out Bee's flat she is surprised to discover that her life was far from glamourous. Instead of going home, Ana tracks down Bee's two closest friends, mad Lol and strong, silent Flint and together they set out to find out whatever happened to Bee Bearhorn.

Martha appears to have the perfect life: two lovely children and plenty of money. Eliza lives in a rented, one-bedroom flat with her musician boyfriend Greg, and all her maternal feelings are lavished on her dog. When Eliza ditches Greg and turns up on her sister’s doorstep, she expects to be swallowed into the sanctuary of Martha’s warm loving home. But Martha’s husband has just announced he’s leaving. For good. Proving to both women that a wedding ring isn’t a life raft. Then Martha meets Jack, who is everything she’s never wanted, whilst Eliza is dating dozens of men in the hope of finding the perfect husband. Suddenly the sisters are faced with the same challenge; is there such a thing as the perfect love? Or the perfect life?

Portraying social life in fashionable Bath and centred around Catherine Morland, this novel ridicules the popular tales of romance and terror and contrasts with these the normal realities of life.

The humorous story of a former priest and lecturer in theology who pays a final visit to his dying aunt in Hawaii.

When Kino, a poor Mexican pearl-diver, finds a magnificent pearl – ‘the Pearl of the World’ – he believes that all his dreams can come true. He will marry his wife in the church, wearing fine new clothes; their infant son will never want for anything – least of all the medicine so recently denied to him – and the boy might one day go to school, learn to read and write. But Kino’s vision of a bright future blinds him to the greed and fear the pearl arouses in his neighbours and in himself, and his shining dream begins to blacken and twist … John Steinbeck’s timeless tale of wealth and the evil it can bring is powerfully illustrated by José Clemente Orozco.

After two years of being deafened by the TICKTOCK of her biological clock and tormented by Mother Nature's refusal to grant her a baby, Emma Hamilton decides to go for the instant solution: finding a Russian baby in need of a home. But Emma hasn't reckoned on the route to adoption being so complicated. Between proving that she's fit to be a mother (by inventing an unblemished past and discovering an unsuspected talent for housekeeping), driving her long-suffering husband insane with madcap schemes to make them the perfect would-be parents (a few Russian verbs a night and they'll be fluent in no time), and tripping over red tape every step of the way (who knew social workers could be so terrifying?) Emma finds out that adoption is far from the easy option — and that perfection has very little to do with finding the perfect match.

Connie has been happily married for a year. She's just met John Harding. Imagine the sexiest man you can think of. He's a walking stag weekend. He's a funny, disrespectful, fast, confident, irreverent pub crawl. He is also completely unscrupulous. He's about to destroy Connie's peace of mind, her grand plan for living happily ever after with her gentle, loving husband Luke. It's against the rules. It's the closest thing you'll get to an affair, without actually having one.

Can it really be true that 'golf' stands for 'Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden'? Or that 'rule of thumb' comes from an archaic legal principle that a man may chastise his wife, but only with a rod no thicker than his thumb? These and hundreds of other stories are commonly told and retold whenever people meet. They grow up in part because expressions are often genuinely mysterious. Why, for example, are satisfying meals 'square' rather than any other shape? And how did anyone ever come up with the idea that if you're competent at something you can 'cut the mustard'? Michael Quinion here retells many of the more bizarre tales, and explains their real origins where they're known. This is a fascinating treasure-trove of fiction and fact for anyone interested in language.