Penguin Group

The major new biography that restores a sense of surprise, even wonder, to the way we think about Stalin, the twentieth century, revolution, and indeed the art of history itself. The product of a decade of scrupulous and intrepid research, Stalin contains a host of astonishing revelations. Kotkin gives an intimate new view of the Bolshevik regime's inner geography, bringing to the fore materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police. He explains how chaos from revolution and civil war became a permanent feature of Soviet administration, even as the regime and Stalin acquired ever more power. The book details Stalin's invention of a fabricated trial and mass executions as early as 1918, the technique he would later impose across the whole country. It places Stalin's momentous decision for collectivization more deeply than ever in the tragic history of imperial Russia. Above all, Kotkin offers a convincing explanation for the Soviet Union's enduring and monstrous power. Volume two will be published in 2016 and volume three in 2018.

The dazzling new novel in the #1 New York Times—bestselling series from the grand master of adventure... It is called zero-point energy, and it really exists — a state of energy contained in all matter everywhere, and thus all but unlimited. Nobody has ever found a way to tap into it, however — until one scientist succeeds. Unfortunately, his intentions are far from noble. The scientist is determined to avenge himself upon those who have scorned and vilified him, and constructs machines that will use the zero-point energy to unleash an apocalypse of earthquakes and cracks in the Earth’s tectonic plates. With disaster drawing closer, Kurt Austin and the NUMA team race to find the machines before they’re activated. For if they fail, the world will literally be torn apart...

When Charles Wallace Murry goes searching through a 'wrinkle in time' for his lost father, he finds himself on an evil planet where all life is enslaved by a huge pulsating brain known as 'It'. How Charles, his sister Meg and friend Calvin find and free his father makes this a very special and exciting mixture of fantasy and science fiction, which all the way through is dominated by the funny and mysterious trio of guardian angels known as Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which.

It's the start of a new term at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches and Mildred Hubble is determined not to be the worst witch this year. Everything starts so well. Mildred's class has a new form teacher — no more Miss Hardbroom for Mildred and her friends! But then the new teacher, Miss Granite, starts acting fishy; Mildred has a very bad hair day when a hair growth spell goes wrong and she has to put up with know-it-all Ethel Hallow being 'helpful'. To top it all, her beloved cat Tabby is having a nervous breakdown and refuses to fly.

In this boldly drawn portrait of 18th century England, Roy Porter defines a nation from its princes to its paupers, from its metropolis to its smallest hamlet. The topics covered run the gamut — diet, housing, prisons, rural festivals, bordellos, plays, paintings, and work and wages.

The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is a place where children endure brutal cruelty and violence in the name of the One True Faith. Lost in the Sanctuary's huge maze of corridors is a boy. He is strange witty and charming, and violent. But when he opens the wrong door at the wrong time he witnesses an act so horrible he must flee, or die.

Contains essays, reviews and articles which illuminate the life and work of a man who created a literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and who elevated political writing to an art.

This is the number one, bestselling title in this new spin-off series from Percy Jackson creator, Rick Riordan. Old enemies awaken as camp half-blood's new arrivals prepare for war. When Jason, Piper and Leo crash land at Camp Half-Blood, they have no idea what to expect. Apparently this is the only safe place for children of the Greek Gods — despite the monsters roaming the woods and demigods practising archery with flaming arrows and explosives. But rumours of a terrible curse — and a missing hero — are flying around camp. It seems Jason, Piper and Leo are the chosen ones to embark on a terrifying new quest, which they must complete by the winter solstice in just four days time. Can the trio succeed on this deadly mission — and what must they sacrifice in order to survive?

Never before published in Kerouac's lifetime, this 1955 biography of the founder of Buddhism is a clear and powerful study of Siddartha Gautama's life and works. «Wake Up» recounts the story of Prince Siddhartha's royal upbringing and his father's wish to protect him from all human suffering, despite a prediction that he would become a great holy man in later life. Departing from his father's palace, Siddhartha adopts a homeless life, struggles with his meditations, and eventually finds Enlightenment. Written at the end of Kerouac's career, when he became increasingly interested in Buddhist teachings, and collected for the first time in one book, this fresh and accessible biography is both an important addition to Kerouac's work and a valuable introduction to the world of Buddhism itself.

This is Ayn Rand's story of Howard Roark, a brilliant architect who dares to stand alone against the hostility of second-hand souls. First published in 1943, this best-selling novel is a passionate defense of individualism and presents an exalted view of man's creative potential; it is a book about ambition, power, gold and love.

CIA agent Max Moore is a man on a mission. An unholy alliance between Islamic terrorists and Mexican drug cartels threatens the safety of America's southern border. Moore's new team has to infiltrate the warring cartels in order to uncover the plot, but doing that is next to impossible when there's a war on America's doorstep.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was Carson McCullers' first novel, written in 1940. Set in a small town in the American South, it is the story of a group of people who have little in common except that they are all hopelessly lonely. A young girl, a drunken socialist and a black doctor are drawn to a gentle, sympathetic deaf mute, whose presence changes their lives. This powerful exploration of alienation is both moving and perceptive.

This is an immortal story of chivalry, treachery and death told anew for our times. The legend of King Arthur has retained its appeal and popularity through the ages: Mordred's treason, the knightly exploits of Tristan, Lancelot's fatally divided loyalties and his love for Guenevere, the quest for the Holy Grail. Now retold by Peter Ackroyd with his signature clarity, charm and relish for a good story, the result is not only one of the most readable accounts of the knights of the Round Table but also one of the most moving.

Young, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his friends as Bel-Ami, is offered a job as a journalist on La Vie francaise and soon makes a great success of his new career. But he also comes face to face with the realities of the corrupt society in which he lives — the sleazy colleagues, the manipulative mistresses and wily financiers — and swiftly learns to become an arch-seducer, blackmailer and social climber in a world where love is only a means to an end. Written when Maupassant was at the height of his powers, Bel-Ami is a novel of great frankness and cynicism, but it is also infused with the sheer joy of life — depicting the scenes and characters of Paris in the belle epoque with wit, sensitivity and humanity.

Alma Boyd Takesue is a National Park Service biologist who is spearheading the efforts to save the endangered native creatures of California's Channel Islands from invasive species such as rats and feral pigs. Her antagonist, Dave LaJoy, is a local businessman who is fiercely opposed to the killing of any animals whatsoever and will go to any lengths to subvert Alma's plans. As their confrontation plays out in a series of scenes escalating in violence, drama, and danger, When the Killing's Done deftly relates a richly humane tale about the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or wore, over the natural world. Combining action-packed adventure with delicious irony and believable characters without one trace of sanctimony, this is one of T.C. Boyle's richest and most engaging novels.

The fourteen stories gathered here display both Boyle's astonishing range and his imaginative muscle. In the title story of this rich new collection, Boyle writes a tale that is by turns magical and moving, a powerful investigation of what it means to be human. Other tales range from the drama of a man who spins Homeric lies in order to stop going to work, to the sad comedy of a child born to Mexican street vendors who is unable to feel pain. There may be no one better than T.C. Boyle at engaging, shocking, and ultimately gratifying readers while at the same time testing his characters' emotional and physical endurance. The fourteen new stories gathered here display both Boyle's astonishing range and his imaginative muscle. From «Wild Child», a retelling of the story of Victor, the feral boy who was captured running naked through the forests of Napoleonic France, to «La Conchita», the tale of a catastrophic mudslide that allows a cynic to reclaim his own humanity, these tales are by turns magical and moving, showcasing the mischievous humor and socially conscious sensibility that have made Boyle one of the foremost living masters of the short story.

West Germany, a simmering cauldron of radical protests, has produced a new danger to Britain: Karfeld, menacing leader of the opposition. At the same time Leo Harting, a Second Secretary in the British Embassy, has gone missing — along with more than forty Confidential embassy files. Alan Turner of the Foreign Office must travel to Bonn to recover them, facing riots, Nazi secrets and the delicate machinations of an unstable Europe in the throes of the Cold War. As Turner gets closer to the truth of Harting's disappearance, he will discover that the face of International relations — and the attentions of the British Ministry itself — is uglier that he could possibly have imagined.

In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.

This bestselling book gives you everything you need to transform your business, your career or your working life forever. An MBA at a top school is an enormous investment in time, effort and cold, hard cash. And if you don't want to work for a consulting firm or an investment bank, the chances are it simply isn't worth it. Josh Kaufman is the rogue professor of modern business education. Feted by everyone from the business media to Seth Godin and David Allen, he's torn up the rulebook and given thousands of people worldwide the tools to teach themselves everything they need to know. The Personal MBA teaches simple mental models for every subject that's key to commercial success. From the basics of products, sales & marketing and finance to the nuances of human psychology, teamwork and creating systems, this book distils everything you need to know to take on the MBA graduates and win.

The boring debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers is finally moved on by Alain de Botton's inspiring new book, which boldly argues that the supernatural claims of religion are of course entirely false — and yet that religions still have important things to teach the secular world. Rather than mocking religions, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from them — because they're packed with good ideas on how we live and arrange our societies. Blending deep respect with total impiety, de Botton (a non-believer) proposes that we should look to religions for insights into how to build a sense of community, make our relationships last, get more out of art, overcome feelings of envy and inadequacy, and much more. For too long non-believers have faced a stark choice between either swallowing peculiar doctrines or doing away with consoling and beautiful rituals and ideas. At last Alain de Botton has fashioned a far more interesting and truly helpful alternative.

Lola Daly has just found out that her boyfriend – gorgeous, charming and powerful politician Paddy de Courcy – is getting married. To someone else. Heartbroken, Lola flees Dublin to a cottage in the countryside. Can a new set of friends help her to get over him?

At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel. Set in the fashionable societies of Lyme Regis and Bath, Persuasion is a brilliant satire of vanity and pretension, but, above all, it is a love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities.

James Bond and Harry Potter are indebted to this classic adventure tale and its young hero, Jim Hawkins. The archetypal adventure story is presented complete with the author's map of Treasure Island and his account of how the story came about. The printed illustration wrapping around this beautiful edition uses gold foiling and blue waves strikingly printed on the navy blue cloth background. The cover illustration is by the artist Stanley Donwood, best known for his designs for the band Radiohead. Both contemporary and classic, this book has unique appeal for any lover of adventure stories.

The «New York Times» — bestselling author of «Girl with a Pearl Earring» makes her first fictional foray into the American past in «The Last Runaway», bringing to life the Underground Railroad and illuminating the principles, passions, and realities that fueled this extraordinary freedom movement.