Random House, Inc.

What happens when there is almost unlimited choice? When everything becomes available to everyone? And when the combined value of the millions of items that only sell in small quantities equals or even exceeds the value of a handful of best-sellers? In this ground-breaking book, Chris Anderson shows that the future of business does not lie in hits — the high-volume end of a traditional demand curve — but in what used to be regarded as misses — the endlessly long tail of that same curve. As our world is transformed by the Internet and the near infinite choice it offers consumers, so traditional business models are being overturned and new truths revealed about what consumers want and how they want to get it. Chris Anderson first explored the Long Tail in an article in «Wired» magazine that has become one of the most influential business essays of our time. Now, in this eagerly anticipated book, he takes a closer look at the new economics of the Internet age, showing where business is going and exploring the huge opportunities that exist: for new producers, new e-tailers, and new tastemakers. He demonstrates how long tail economics apply to industries ranging from the toy business to advertising to kitchen appliances. He sets down the rules for operating in a long tail economy. And he provides a glimpse of a future that's already here.

Thubron travelled throughout Central Asia in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union and documented the widespread social upheaval in a region reeling from political change. An inspirational writer, intrepid traveller and insightful observer, Thubron's «The Lost Heart of Asia» is an outstanding guide to the history, people and culture of a vast region resonating with history and politics.

For three thousand years, the world's most dangerous treasure has been lost. Now the code that reveals its hiding place is about to be broken...Sam Grant is a disgraced ex-SOE soldier and an adventurer by trade. But he has a secret: six years ago, a dying archaeologist entrusted him with his life's work — transcripts of mysterious writing found in a hidden cave on Crete. Deciphered, it could lead to one of the greatest prizes in history. But the treasure is as dangerous as it is valuable. The CIA wants it; so does the KGB. Helped by a brilliant Oxford professor, and a beautiful Greek archaeologist with her own secrets to hide, Grant is plunged into a labyrinth of ancient cults, forgotten mysteries and lost civilizations. But time is running out. The secrets of the distant past may hold the key to the newest threats of the modern world...

»Vintage Love» is a limited edition gift pack which consists of beautifully designed separate volumes of «Middlemarch» by George Eliot and A S Byatt's highly acclaimed novel «Possession.» «Vintage Love» is just one of ten «Vintage Classic Twins» to collect. Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. «Middlemarch»: Dorothea as a bright, beautiful and rebellious who has married the wrong man. Lydgate is the ambitious new doctor in town and has married the wrong woman. Both of them long to make a positive difference in the world. But their stories do not proceed as expected and both they, and the other inhabitants of Middlemarch, must struggle to reconcile themselves to their fates and find their places in the world. «Possession»: Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, both a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time.

Walking the streets of Moscow, indistinguishable from the rest of its population, are the Others. Possessors of supernatural powers and capable of entering the Twilight, a shadowy parallel world existing in parallel to our own, each Other owes allegiance either to the Dark or the Light. The «Night Watch», first book in the «Night Watch» trilogy, follows Anton, a young Other owing allegiance to the Light. As a Night Watch agent he must patrol the streets and metro of the city, protecting ordinary people from the vampires and magicians of the Dark. When he comes across Svetlana, a young woman under a powerful curse, and saves an unfledged Other, Egor, from vampires, he becomes involved in events that threaten the uneasy truce, and the whole city...

Stephen Fry believes that if you can speak and read English you can write poetry. But it is no fun if you don't know where to start or have been led to believe that Anything Goes. Stephen, who has long written poems, and indeed has written long poems, for his own private pleasure, invites you to discover the incomparable delights of metre, rhyme and verse forms. Whether you want to write a Petrarchan sonnet for your lover's birthday, an epithalamion for your sister's wedding or a villanelle excoriating the government's housing policy, The Ode Less Travelled will give you the tools and the confidence to do so. Brimful of enjoyable exercises, witty insights and simple step-by-step advice, «The Ode Less Travelled» guides the reader towards mastery and confidence in the Mother of the Arts.

»Vintage Youth» is a limited edition gift pack which consists of beautifully designed separate volumes of «Oliver Twist» by Charles Dickens and Irvine Welsh's controversial bestseller «Trainspotting.» «Vintage Youth» is just one of ten «Vintage Classic Twins» to collect. Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. «Oliver Twist»: Oliver is an orphan living on the dangerous London streets with no one but himself to rely on. Fleeing from poverty and hardship, he falls in with a criminal street gang who will not let him go. Dickens graphically conjures up the capital's underworld, full of prostitutes, thieves and lost and homeless children, and gives a voice to the disadvantaged and abused. «Trainspotting»: Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food into your mouth; choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life.

This book is the follow up to the previous volume, «On Beauty». Apparently beauty and ugliness are concepts that imply each other, and by ugliness we usually mean the opposite of beauty, so all we need do is define the first to understand the nature of the second. But the various manifestations of ugliness over the centuries are richer and more unpredictable than is commonly thought. The anthological quotations and the extraordinary illustrations in this book lead us on a surprising journey among the nightmares, terrors, and loves of almost three thousand years, where acts of rejection go hand in hand with touching gestures of compassion, and the rejection of deformity is accompanied by decadent ecstasies over the most seductive violations of all classical canons.Among demons, madmen, horrible enemies, and disquieting presences, among horrid abysses and deformities that verge on the sublime, among freaks and the living dead, we discover a vast and often unsuspected iconographic vein. So much so that, on gradually encountering in these pages the ugliness of nature, spiritual ugliness, asymmetry, disharmony, disfigurement, and the succession of things sordid, weak, vile, banal, random, arbitrary, coarse, repugnant, clumsy, horrendous, vacuous, nauseating, criminal, spectral, witchlike, satanic, repellent, disgusting, unpleasant, grotesque, abominable, odious, crude, foul, dirty, obscene, frightening, abject, monstrous, hair-raising, ugly, terrible, terrifying, revolting, repulsive, loathsome, fetid, ignoble, awkward, ghastly and indecent, the first foreign publisher to see this book exclaimed: 'How beautiful ugliness is!'

'She did not know what to say. She was undecided whether indignantly to assert her innocence or to break out into angry reproaches. He seemed to read her thoughts. «I've got all the proof necessary» '. Kitty Fane is the beautiful but shallow wife of Walter, a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong. Unsatisfied by her marriage, she starts an affair with Charles Townsend, a man whom she finds charming, attractive and exciting. But when Walter discovers her deception, he exacts a strange but terrible vengeance: Kitty must accompany him to his new posting in remote mainland China, where a cholera epidemic rages. First published to a storm of protest, «The Painted Veil» is a classic story of a woman's spiritual awakening.

Pete Doherty, erstwhile singer with The Libertines, is a British icon. Whether he is playing impromptu gigs in his front room or performing at Live 8, he possesses a sense of drama and expectation not seen in a performer since Sid Vicious. He is enigmatic, charismatic and thoroughly entertaining. Since leaving The Libertines, his life has become something of a rock 'n' roll soap opera where rumours of crack addiction abound, gossip about his relationship with Kate Moss is rife, and predictions for his future vary wildly. Written by Alex Hannaford, former rock and pop editor on the «London Evening Standard», and with a brand new foreword by Pete's mum, Jackie Doherty, this is the definitive biography of Pete Doherty.

Into the intrigue and violence of Indo-China comes Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious 'Third Force'. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as he intervenes he wonders why: for the sake of politics, or for love?

A devastating account of contemporary Russia by a great and brave writer. A Russian Diary is the book that Anna Politkovskaya had recently completed when she was murdered in a contract killing in Moscow. It covers the period from the Russian elections of December 2003 to the tragic aftermath of the Beslan school siege in late 2005. The book is an unflinching record of the plight of millions of Russians and a pitiless report on the cynicism and corruption of Vladimir Putin's presidency. She interviews people whose lives have been devastated by Putin's policies, including the mothers of children who died in the Beslan siege, those of Russian soldiers maimed in Chechnya then abandoned by the State, and of «disappeared» young men and women. Elsewhere she meets traumatized and dangerous veterans of the Chechen wars, and a notorious Chechen warlord in his fortified lair. Putin is re-elected as President in farcically undemocratic circumstances and yet Western leaders, reliant on Russia's oil and gas reserves, continue to pay him homage. Politkovskaya offers a chilling account of his dismantling of the democratic reforms made in the 1990s. She also criticizes the inability of liberals and democrats to provide a united, effective opposition and a population slow to protest against government legislative outrages. A Russian Diary is clear-sighted, passionate and marked with the humanity that made Anna Politkovskaya known to many as «Russia's lost moral conscience» and a heroine to readers throughout the world.

The streets of Philadelphia are blistering in the summer heat, the homicide rate is soaring and the nights belong to the mad. Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano are prowling the streets with a growing sense of unease. Where next will evil rear its ugly head? When a series of seemingly unrelated crimes shatter the restless silence of the city, their worst fears are confirmed. A beautiful secretary is slashed to death in a grimy motel shower. A street hustler brutally murdered with a chainsaw. Piece by piece, a strange and sickening puzzle presents itself: someone is meticulously recreating Hollywood's most well-known and horrifying murder scenes, capturing them on film and inserting the clips into videos — for an unsuspecting public to find. While Kevin Byrne begins furtive investigations of his own, Jessica Balzano goes undercover to work the steaming back alleys of Philadelphia, entering a violent world of underground film, pornography and seedy nightclubs, hidden to all but the initiated. Discovering that none of The Actor's victims are as innocent as they appear to be, the two detectives arrive at a terrifying reality: They are not just chasing a homicide suspect. They are stalking evil itself...

Emotional Intelligence was an international phenomenon, appearing on the «New York Times» bestseller list for over a year and selling more than 5 million copies worldwide. Now, once again, Daniel Goleman has written a groundbreaking synthesis of the latest findings in biology and brain science, revealing that we are 'wired to connect' and the surprisingly deep impact of our relationships on every aspect our lives. Far more than we are consciously aware, our daily encounters with parents, spouses, bosses, and even strangers, shape our brains and affect cells throughout our bodies, down to the level of our genes — for good or ill. In «Social Intelligence», Daniel Goleman explores an emerging new science with startling implications for our interpersonal world. Its most fundamental discovery: we are designed for sociability, constantly engaged in a 'neural ballet' that connects us brain-to-brain with those around us. Goleman explains the surprising accuracy of first impressions, the basis of charisma and emotional power, the complexity of sexual attraction, and how we detect lies. He describes the 'dark side' of social intelligence, from narcissism to Machiavellianism and psychopathy. He also reveals our astonishing capacity for 'mindsight', as well as the tragedy of those, like autistic children, whose mindsight is impaired. In this book Daniel Goleman delivers his most heartening news with powerful conviction: we humans have a built-in bias toward empathy, cooperation and altruism — provided we develop the social intelligence to nurture these capacities in ourselves and others.

George Hall doesn’t understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. ‘The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely’. Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored. At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased – as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has ‘strangler’s hands’. Katie can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband’s former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart – and come together – as a family is the true subject of Mark Haddon’s disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

In 1934, Igor Stravinsky was fifty-two, a Russian expatriate living in Paris and already regarded by many as the most important composer of his generation. «Stravinsky: The Second Exile» follows Stravinsky through the remainder of his long life, which he would spend largely in the United States. These are the years during which he would compose such masterworks as «The Rake's Progress and Symphony in C», and achieve a new level of fame as a conductor and concert pianist in his own right. In this second and final volume of Stephen Walsh's acclaimed biography, the author traces and illuminates Stravinsky's increasingly complex and often agonised family life and his crucially important relationship with his associate Robert Craft. As a musicologist and critic, Walsh is able to speak with authority and wit not only about Stravinsky's life, but also about his work, expertly following the composer's musical journey from the neoclassicism of his late French and early American periods, through his early essays in serial technique, and on finally to the astonishing complexities of this protean genius's final works. Based on exhaustive research, Stephen Walsh uncovers new and controversial material, making this the second volume of the most definitive biography of the most significant and influential composer of the twentieth century.

Libby always thought her life was well-ordered, charmed even: three gorgeous daughters, a husband who adores her, friends to see her through thick and thin. But lately, with one daughter in a constant fit of teenage sulks, a ten-year-old questioning everything in the universe and beyond, and a husband who seems to see her mainly as the manager of school runs, ironed shirts and a well-stocked fridge, motherhood is showing some of its distinctly uglier sides. But Libby soldiers on, taking her youngest to an environmental group to find answers to all those pesky universe questions, navigating egg-shells to confront her oldest about that tell-tale silver-foil packet of 21 tiny pills and cramming in some time for rekindling the spark in her marriage after the eight o'clock news. Until one day, she's had enough. She used to have more to talk about than the PTA and the price of apples at the supermarket; she used to have something to drive her life, a purpose behind things. And she wants that back — or at least some of it. So when she meets Daniel, attractive, passionate and engagingly spontaneous, she knows the turning point has come. But as domestic disaster and emotional calamity descend on the Blake household, Libby soon realizes that it's not simply a matter of starting all over again...

Florence, 1291. In a disused church on the ouskirts of the city the disfigured corpse of a master mosaic artist sits at the foot of his latest — unfinished — creation. Young, ambitious Dante Alighieri, Prior of the City, is sent out to investigate. He quickly discovers not only that the church hides secrets of its own, but that the murdered man was connected to a shadowy organisation known as the Third Heaven, a disparate band of scholars and adventurers whose influence could undermine the city's government — in favour of the all-powerful Catholic church and its brutal emissaries. Seeking to uncover the truth in the mosaic that was too dangerous to be told, Dante is drawn into a power struggle that leads him back into the secrets and myths of an ancient imperial dynasty — and into peril as the charms of a mysterious smoky-eyed dancer begin to blind his reason...

The fifteenth edition of the «Time Out Film Guide» now weighs in with more than 16,700 reviews, all written by knowledgeable critics with a real love of film. Its unrivalled coverage of international cinema, Hollywood and Bollywood, blockbusters, forgotten marvels, silent films, documentaries and esoterica includes extensive cast and crew listings. Its reach now extends into home entertainment, with six pages of reviews of notable international DVD releases from the previous twelve months.

The sixteenth edition of the «Time Out Film Guide» now weighs in with more than 17,600 reviews, all reviewed over the last 39 years by highly regarded «Time Out» film critics. Its unrivaled coverage of international cinema, Hollywood mainstream and B-movie horrors, blockbusters, forgotten marvels, silent films, documentaries and esoterica includes extensive cast and crew listings. Its reach now extends into home entertainment, with the best DVD releases of 2006/2007 and, uniquely, stop-press coverage of the Cannes film festival. «The Time Out» website will announce a worldwide Public Poll to find the best film from the first ten years of cinema's second century (from 1996 to the present). The results will first be published, with much fanfare, in the 16th edition of the «Time Out Film Guide».

»Vintage Lust» is a limited edition gift pack which consists of beautifully designed separate volumes of «Tom Jones» by Henry Fielding and Martin Amis's critically acclaimed «The Rachel Papers». «Vintage Lust» is just one of ten «Vintage Classic Twins» to collect. Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. «Tom Jones»: One of the cleverest and funniest novels ever written, and is Henry Fielding's greatest achievement. «Tom Jones», born a foundling, grown into a gallant and irresistible hero, romps through the English countryside getting himself into all kinds of trouble through his good nature and eye for the ladies. Betrayed by jealous relatives, Tom is exiled from home and must undergo a variety of trials and adventures in his quest to be reunited with his one true love. «The Rachel Papers»: Charles Highway, a precociously intelligent and highly sexed teenager, is determined to sleep with an older woman before he turns twenty. Rachel fits the bill perfectly and Charles plans his seduction meticulously, sets the scene with infinite care — but it doesn't come off quite as Charles expects...

An awful lot has happened since that bright, fateful May morning in 1997 when New Labour swept to power. Things, we were told, Could Only Get Better. Instead, things took a turn for the worse...To console Tony Blair as he embarks on his long, grinning journey into oblivion, Craig Brown has packed a special time-capsule of Britain during the Tony Years: from Cool Britannia to ASBOs and from Posh and Becks to Charles and Camilla, the nation's funniest satirist makes sense — and nonsense — of it all.

Why is it that French women look just as glamorous in a T-shirt and pair of jeans as in a sleek designer dress? How do they look sexy, chic and timelessly elegant from eighteen to eighty? Pencil-thin, stylishly dressed and, always, impeccably groomed? In search of answers, travel and lifestyle journalist, Helena Frith Powell goes behind the scenes to investigate the famous French je ne sais quoi. Talking to fashion gurus, beauty experts and It Girls, professional seducers, lingerie designers and personal shoppers, she discovers a whole new world: indispensable wardrobe and beauty secrets; shopping done the right way and exercise routines promising lasting success; advice on sex toys, family life, relationships and clandestine affaires. French women, Helena realises, achieve maximum effect with the least amount of effort. And with the help of a few little secrets, you too can become impossibly French...

»Vintage Lies» is a limited edition gift pack which consists of beautifully designed separate volumes of «What Maisie Knew» by Henry James and Ian McEwan's million-copy selling bestseller «Atonement». «Vintage Lies» is just one of ten «Vintage Classic Twins» to collect. Each twin consists of two books: a specially designed limited edition of one modern classic title and one established classic work. The books in each pair have been carefully selected to provide a thought-provoking combination. «What Maisie Knew»: Caught in the crossfire of her parents' acrimonious divorce, witness to their battles, intrigues and affairs, neglected and exploited, Maisie is a child who knows too much about the world of adults. James' portrait of a little girl who maintains her goodness and dignity in the face of the bitterness and profligacy of her warring parents is inspiring. «Atonement»: On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.