Penguin Group

Just before she died, Patty Bigelow confessed to having killed a man. Now her niece Tanya is obsessed with finding out the truth about her aunt's crime — and she needs Alex Delaware's help.

The most popular of Woolf's novels during her lifetime, «The Years» is at once the story of three generations of a family, the pargiters, and a savage indictment of British society at the turn of the century. A work of fluid and dazzling lucidity, the novel does not follow a simple line of development but is varied and constantly changing, emphasizing its narrative discontinuity. As the characters follow their daily rituals they struggle to understand the significance of their own lives and experiences in relation to each other and to the historical events going on around them. There is often failure yet there is also hope in the recognition that the future can be different from the past.

Young, fiery and bright, Eshlaini has her whole future ahead of her — until her father condemns her to a life of spinsterhood. Joyce has settled into Malaysian life after thirty years as an ex-pat wife — or so she thinks, until a newcomer arrives and reveals just how little of her home she knows. Jade Moon wants the best for her family — but, surrounded by Americans who reject her Korean traditions, she must first work out what 'the best' means. Though cultures and distances separate them, their experiences reflect our universal fears and desires. From a breathtaking island off Singapore to upstate New York and France, Kim Edwards takes in the world, compassionately and gracefully exploring the obstacles of time, place and circumstance in all of our quests for love, happiness and acceptance.

»The Sheltering Sky» is a book about people on the edge of an alien space; somewhere where, curiously, they are never alone' — Michael Hoffman. Port and Kit Moresbury, a sophisticated American couple, are finding it more than a little difficult to live with each other. Endeavoring to escape this predicament, they set off for North Africa intending to travel through Algeria — uncertain of exactly where they are heading, but determined to leave the modern world behind. The results of this casually taken decision are both tragic and compelling.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

This collection of writings is famous for giving us the phrase 'Freudian slip'. It also builds up a strong social history of Vienna and the middle-class social milieu of Freud and his patients. Through a series of case histories, some no longer than a few lines long, Freud explores how it is that normal people make slips of speech, writing, reading and remembering in their everyday life, and reveals what it is that they betray about the existence of a sub-text or subliminal motive to our conscious actions. As he explains, most of these slips tend of be of a relatively anodyne nature, but some are a little more sinister, particularly those where pride or thwarted love are concerned...

In the din and stink that is Cannery Row a colourful blend of misfits — gamblers, whores, drunks, bums and artists — survive side by side in a jumble of adventure and mischief. Lee Chong, the astute owner of the well-stocked grocery store, is also the proprietor of the Palace Flophouse that Mack and his troupe of good-natured 'boys' call home. Dora runs the brothel with clockwork efficiency and a generous heart, and Doc is the fount of all wisdom. Packed with invention and joie de vivre «Cannery Row» is Steinbeck's high-spirited tribute to his native California.

In these three exotic, steamy dramas Tennessee Williams portrays loss, faded lives and passionate love affairs. «The Rose Tattoo» is set in a bustling, Sicilian-American community, where newly widowed Serafina is paralysed by grief, until she has her romantic illusions about her dead husband shattered and rediscovers her true nature as a fiery prima donna, in a life-affirming celebration of love and sex. Tennessee Williams explores a new 'wild and unrestricted' theatrical form in the colourful tropical fantasy «Camino Real», while «Orpheus Descending», however, takes us into the dark territory of the Deep South: the corrupt hell of a small, brutal township, where a forbidden and tragic love affair sparks horrific violence.

The first thing Senora Prudencia Linero noticed when she reached the port of Naples was that it had the same smell as the port of Riohacha'... Their distant, nostalgic memories of home, their sense of anonymity in a foreign land, the terrifying pang of vulnerability they feel as they step over the threshold into an alien world... These pilgrims — the ageing prostitute preparing for death by teaching her dog to weep at her grave, the panicked husband scared for the life of his injured wife, the old man who allows his mind to wander on a long-haul flight from Paris — experience with all Marquez's humour, warmth and colour, what it is to be a Latin American adrift in Europe or, indeed, any outsider living far from home.

Samson Greene, a young and popular professor at Columbia University, is found wandering in the Nevada desert. When his wife, Anna, comes to take him home, she finds a man who remembers nothing, not even his own name. The removal of a small brain tumour saves his life, but his memories beyond the age of twelve are permanently lost. Here is the story of a strikingly intelligent, sensitive man returned to a world in which everything is strange and new. An emigrant in his own life, he is set free from everything and everyone who once defined him. Samson believes he has nothing left to lose. So, when a charismatic scientist asks him to participate in a bold experiment, Samson agrees. What he gains is nothing short of the beautifully painful revelation of what it is to be a human being.

Published when she was only nineteen, Francoise Sagan's astonishing first novel Bonjour Tristesse became an instant bestseller. It tells the story of Cecile, who leads a carefree life with her widowed father and his young mistresses until, one hot summer on the Riviera, he decides to remarry — with devastating consequences. In A Certain Smile Dominique, a young woman bored with her lover, begins an encounter with an older man that unfolds in unexpected and troubling ways. These two acerbically witty and delightfully amoral tales about the nature of love are shimmering masterpieces of cool-headed, brilliant observation.

Burroughs' first novel, a largely autobiographical account of the constant cycle of drug dependency, cures and relapses, remains the most unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written. Through junk neighborhoods in New York, New Orleans and Mexico City, through time spent kicking, time spent dealing and time rolling drunks for money, through junk sickness and a sanatorium, Junky is a field report (by a writer trained in anthropology at Harvard) from the American post-war drug underground. A cult classic, it has influenced generations of writers with its raw, sparse and unapologetic tone. This definitive edition painstakingly recreates the author's original text word for word.

On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, a sideburned hero of the snowy West. As Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance.

A great speech has the power to define the times, to inspire, to stir and to motivate. This collection of ancient and modern speeches includes the words of activists, politicians, philosophers and scores of others who have borne witness to significant moments from the first century to the twenty-first. Many have made history. They include: Mahatma Gandhi, Oliver Cromwell, Kevin Rudd, Inga Clendinnen, Daniel Mannix, Napoleon Bonaparte, Oericles, Thomas Jefferson, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Arundhati Roy, the 9th Earl Spencer, Elanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Colin Powell, and the Dalai Lama. Great Speeches will make a great addition to every home and library shelf.

From the bestselling author of «Rembrandt's Ghost» comes a startling new adventure featuring archaeologist Finn Ryan. In search of a Spanish galleon in the Caribbean, Ryan stumbles upon a mystery dating back to the Spanish Inquisition — and a secret with catastrophic implications for the present.

The world's best-selling pocket guides have been fully revised and updated, featuring stunning new cover designs and freshly revised page layouts. Clear colour-coded sections enable you to locate the information you need easily and include places to go, history of the area and interesting facts, and things to do, including shopping, sports, children's activities, entertainment, nightlife and more. An 'Eating Out' section provides information on where to go and what the local specialities are. The Top 10 attractions are highlighted, allowing you to set priorities for your stay and ensure you don't miss out on the best your destination has to offer. Accommodation for all budgets is recommended, along with other practical travel tips, such as transport and currency. Beautiful colour photographs accompany the text throughout, making this guide truly a pleasure to read before, during and after your visit.

Are you mad about dinosaurs? From food and fossils to herds and horns, this book is packed with fascinating facts and key information for all young dinosaur enthusiasts. It also includes a link to fantastic downloadable Mad About posters.

Just after the iron curtain fell on Eastern Europe John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer, Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the «New York Herald Tribune». This rare opportunity took the famous travelers not only to Moscow and Stalingrad — now Volgograd — but through the countryside of the Ukraine and the Caucasus. A «Russian Journal» is the distillation of their journey and remains a remarkable memoir and unique historical document. Steinbeck and Capa recorded the grim realities of factory workers, government clerks, and peasants, as they emerged from the rubble of World War II. This is an intimate glimpses of two artists at the height of their powers, answering their need to document human struggle.

Written in Berlin in 1934, «Invitation to a Beheading» contains all the surprise, excitement and magical intensity of a work created in two brief weeks of sustained inspiration. It takes us into the fantastic prison-world of Cincinnatus, a man condemned to death and spending his last days in prison not quite knowing when the end will come. Nabokov described the book as 'a violin in a void. The worldling will deem it a trick. Old men will hurriedly turn from it to regional romances and the lives of public figures ...The evil-minded will perceive in little Emmie a sister of little Lolita ...But I know a few readers who will jump up, ruffling their hair'.

Ken Follett follows his bestsellers Jackdaws and Code to Zero with an extraordinary novel of early days of World War II... It is June 1941 and the war is not going well for England. Across the North Sea, eighteen-year-old Harald Olufsen takes a shortcut on the German-occupied Danish island of Sande an discovers an astonishing sight that will change the momentum of the war. He must get word to England-except that he has no way to get there. He has only an old derelict Hornet Moth biplane rusting away in a ruined church: a plane so decrepit that it is unlikely ever to get off the ground...even if Harald knew how to fly it.

'To me' D. H. Lawerence once wrote to E. M. forster, 'you are the last Englishman.' Indeed, Forster's novels offer contemporary readers clear, vibrant portraits of life in Edwardian England. Published in 1908 to both critical and popular acclaim, A Room with a View is a whimsical comedy of manners that owes more to Jane Austen that perhaps any other of his works. The central character is a muddled young girl named Lucy Honeychurch, who runs away from the man who stirs her emotions, remaining engaged to a rich snob. Forster considered it his 'nicest' novel, and today it remains probably his most well liked. Its moral is utterly simple. Throw away your etiquette book and listen to your heart. But it was Forster's next book, Howards End, a story about who would inhabit a charming old country house (and who, in a larger sense, would inherit England), that earned him recognition as a major writer. Centered around the conflict between the wealthy, materialistic Wilcox family and the cultured, idealistic Schlegel sisters-and informed by Forester's famous dictum 'Only connect'-it is full of tenderness towards favorite characters. 'Howards End is a classic English novel... superb and wholly cherishable... one that admirers have no trouble reading over and over again' said Alfred Kazin.

»What makes his work great is that it can be felt and understood...by anybody» said Leo Tolstoy of Chekhov's plays, which express life through subtle construction, everyday dialogue, and an electrically charged atmosphere.

'Speak, memory', said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him a host of enchanting recollections — of his comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his rich, liberal-minded father, his beautiful mother, an army of relations and family hangers — on and of grand old houses in St Petersburg and the surrounding countryside in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Young love, butterflies, tutors and a multitude of other themes thread together to weave an autobiography, which is itself a work of art.

The state has been recently taken over and is being run by the tyrannical and philistine 'Average Man' party. Under the slogans of equality and happiness for all, it has done away with individualism and freedom of thought. Only John Krug, a brilliant philosopher, stands up to the regime. His antagonist, the leader of the new party, is his old school enemy, Paduk — known as the 'Toad'. Grieving over his wife's recent death, Krug is at first dismissive of Paduk's activities and sees no threat in them. But the sinister machine which Paduk has set in motion may prove stronger than the individual, stronger even than the grotesque 'Toad' himself.