Baltasar And Blimunda

In early 18th-century Lisbon, Baltasar, a soldier who has lost his left hand in battle, falls in love with Blimunda, a young girl with visionary powers. From the day that he follows her home from the auto-da-fe where her mother is burned at the stake, the two are bound body and soul by love of an unassailable strength. A third party shares their supper that evening: Padre Bartolomeu Lourenco, whose fantasy is to invent a flying machine. As the Crown and the Church clash, they purse his impossible, not to mention heretical, dream of flight.

Bulfinch's Mythology

The justly famous Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch contains three volumes the major contents of which are retained in this abridgment for the student and general reader. The Age Of Fable -- The gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome, as well as the mythology of the Germanic tribes, England and the Near East. The Legend Of Charlemange -- Accounts of the reign of the first great French Emperor, his wars and conquests. The Age Of Chivalry -- King Arthur and his court, Lancelot and Guenever, and the death of Arthur.

Blind Willow Sleeping Woman

A young man accompanies his cousin to the hospital to check an unusual hearing complaint and recalls a story of a woman put to sleep by tiny flies crawling inside her ear; a mirror appears out of nowhere and a nightwatchman is unnerved as his reflection tries to take control of him; a couple's relationship is unbalanced after dining exclusively on exquisite crab while on holiday; a man follows instructions on the back of a postcard to apply for a job, but an unknown password stands between him and his mysterious employer. In each one of these stories Murakami sidesteps the real and sprints for the surreal. Everyday events are transcended, leaving the reader dazzled by this master of his craft.

Brave New World

The book begins with a lengthy introduction, detailing the author???s views of how he thinks the entire world will function in the far future, in a global society that he terms The World State. The individual story only begins in the 7th chapter, where the reader is properly introduced to the story of Bernard and Lenina, two inhabitants of the World State. Bernard has a single friend in life, whose name is Helmholtz Watson. Bernard and Lenina go on a holiday to New Mexico where they meet John the Savage and Linda, both of whom have lived hard lives due to being ostracised by all the people they lived with.

Chaos

Chaos brings together work in the field of chaos theory, an extension of classical mechanics, in which simple and complex causes are seen to interact. Mathematics may only be able to solve simple linear equations which experiment has pushed nature into obeying in a limited way, but now that computers can map the whole plane of solutions of non-linear equations a new vision of nature is revealed. The implications are staggeringly universal in all areas of scientific work and philosophical thought.

Chekhov : The Essential Plays

Because Chekhov???s plays convey the universally recognizable, sometimes comic, sometimes dramatic, frustrations of decent people trying to make sense of their lives, they remain as fresh and vigorous as when they were written a century ago. Gathered here in superb new renderings by one of the most highly regarded translators of our time???versions that have been staged throughout the United States, Canada, and Great Britain???are Chekhov???s four essential masterpieces for the theater.

The Child In Time

On a routine trip to the supermarket with his daughter one Saturday morning, Stephen Lewis, a well-known writer of children???s books, turns his back momentarily. When he looks around again, his child is gone. In a single moment, everything is changed. The kidnapping has a devastating effect on Stephen???s life and marriage. Memories and the present become inseparable ??? as Stephen gets lost in daydreams of the past ??? and time bends back on itself, dragging Stephen???s own childhood back into the present.

Chocolat

When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud denounces her as a serious moral danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. As passions flare and the conflict escalates, the whole community takes sides. Can the solemnity of the Church compare with the sinful pleasure of a chocolate truffle?

Clear Light Of The Day

While their parents went to parties at Delhi's Roshanara Club, the children of the Das family brought themselves up, reading Byron, listening to the gramophone and watching over sad, alcoholic Mira masi. Many years later, the youngest, Tara now a mother of two has returned from America to the scene of her unusual, lonesome childhood. Here, as always, is her sister Bim, doggedly single college-lecturer and caretaker of all. In her presence, Tara sinks into the blissful torpor of home, at once her dreamy old self but careful as ever around her older sister. For at the heart of this reunion are numerous tensions: Tara feels the persistent guilt of having, like the others, abandoned Bim, their autistic brother Baba is increasingly unquiet and Bim has not spoken to their other brother, Raja, for years and refuses to go to his daughter's wedding. Clear Light of Day is vintage Anita Desai, a novel as wonderfully contemplative as a cup of afternoon tea.

The Cobra

Cocaine is worth billions of dollars a year to the drug cartels who spread their evil seed across Western society. It causes incalculable misery, poverty and death. And slowly, gradually, its power is spreading... A MAN ON A MISSION Ex-CIA special ops, Paul Devereux, intellectual, dedicated and utterly ruthless, is given what seems like an impossible task: Stop the drug barons, whatever it costs. At his disposal, anything he wants - men, resources, money. He must assemble a team equal to the lawless men who control this deadly trade. AN UNTHINKABLE SOLUTION Up to now the drug cartels have had it their way. Up to now, the forces of law and order have played by the rules. That is about to change. Those rules no longer apply - and a dirty war is about to get a whole lot dirtier.

Cockroaches : A Harry Hole Thriller

Detective Harry Hole arrives in a steaming hot Bangkok. The Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a seedy motel room, and Harry has been sent to investigate. It???s clear that the Ambassador???s family are hiding some secrets of their own, but few people are willing to talk. He needs to solve a crime and avoid a scandal When Harry lays hands on some incriminating CCTV footage, things only get more complicated. The man who gave him the tape goes missing, and Harry realises that failing to solve a murder case is by no means the only danger that faces the unwary.

Collected Stories

Desai creates unforgettable moments, both visual and emotional.??? Daily telegraph buried resentments, unexpected disappointments, new friendships, small acts of cruelty, journeys that take you back to where you started. With trade mark compassion and tender irony, Anita desai???s short stories give us familiar worlds made unfamiliar, to wonderful effect. An ageing couple is stranded in a stultifying Delhi summer by the visit of arogueish old oxford friend, who trades on his charm; an American woman turns to hippies living in the Indian hills, homesick for the farmlands of Vermont; a dog terrorizes the neighbourhood but is cherished by his stern master; a Delhi girl of slender means fiends a new kind of freedom with her young friends, in her barsati home; a peaceful game of hideand seek turns into a nightmare; a businessman sees his own death. For the first time ever,in one masterly volume, here are Anita desai???s collected stories ??? from her very first storyto her most recent one, published this year. ???Exquisite??? stories whose beauty is in the detail, and their knowledge of the humanpsyche. They sparkle, not with the brash glitter of rhinestones, but with the intenser, morecomplex fire of real diamonds.??? TheTtimes

Notes From A Defeatist

Sacco paved the way for Palestine with his powerful triptych on modern war and its innocent victims, originally published in his comic Yahoo and collected here: 'When Good Bombs Happen to Bad People' chronicles the effect of aerial warfare on civilians, from Germany and Japan in World War II to Libya in 1986; 'More Women, More Children, More Quickly' is written from a victim's perspective, as Sacco illustrates his mother's harrowing experiences during Italian and German WWII raids on Malta; and 'How I Loved the War', Defeatist's centrepiece, is Sacco's impassioned but sardonic reflection on the Gulf War, and the surrounding propaganda and media circus. Published during the reign of Bush I, it has since acquired an even sharper relevance.Defeatist also features Sacco's first (relatively) long-form piece, 'In the Company of Long Hair', a hilarious roadie's-eye view of an American punk band's eventful European tour from Amsterdam to Madrid, as well as 'Cartoon Genius', 'Voyage to the End of the Library', 'A Disgusting Experience', and 'On My Day Off', a cycle of funny and rueful autobiographic comics that display Sacco's graphic verve to its fullest extent.

Nothing To Lose (Jack Reacher)

The Old Man And The Sea

Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway's magnificent fable is the tale of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. This story of heroic endeavour won Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature. It stands as a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of man's challenge to the elements.

Omerta

Omert??, the Sicilian code of silence, has been the cornerstone of the Mafia's sense of honour for centuries. Born in the Sicilian hills, omert?? carried the Mafia through a hundred years of change, but now at the century's end it is becoming a relic from a bygone age. Honour may be silent - but money talks. New York - a mob boss is assassinated. His nephew Astorre Viola and the head of the city's FBI both launch investigations into the murder. But this time silence spreads like a contagion: the silence of rival gangs, the silence of crooked bankers, even the silence of the courts. The world of the Mafia is riven with greed, and Viola knows that now is the time to claim his destiny...

Palestine

In late l991 and early 1992, at the time of the first Intifada, Joe Sacco spent two months with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, travelling and taking notes. Upon returning to the United States he started writing and drawing Palestine, which combines the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of comic-book storytelling to explore this complex, emotionally weighty situation. He captures the heart of the Palestinian experience in image after unforgettable image, with great insight and remarkable humour. The nine-issue comics series won a l996 American Book Award. It is now published for the first time in one volume, befitting its status as one of the great classics of graphic non-fiction.

Ptolemys Gate

The tremendous climax of the Bartimaeus sequence. Three years on from the events in The Golem's Eye, the magicians' rule in London is teetering on a knife-edge, with strikes, riots and general unrest. The Prime Minister is largely controlled by two advisers, one of whom is 17-year-old Nathaniel. Meanwhile, living under a false identity, Kitty has been researching djinn; she has come to believe that the only way to destroy the magicians is with an alliance between djinn and ordinary people.Kitty seeks out Bartimaeus and embarks on a terrifying journey into the djinn's chaotic domain ??? the Other Place ??? which no human being has ever survived. But even as she does so, Makepeace engineers a dramatic coup d'etat.The outcome is a shattering of the magicians' control and all magical laws are turned upside down. Can Bartimaeus, Nathaniel and Kitty settle old scores to prevent the earth's destruction?

The Railway Children

They were not railway children to begin with. When their Father mysteriously leaves home Roberta (everyone calls her Bobbie), Phyllis and Peter must move to a small cottage in the countryside with Mother. It is a bitter blow to leave their London home, but soon they discover the hills and valleys, the canal and of course, the railway. But with the thrilling rush and rattle and roar of the trains comes danger too. Will the brave trio come to the rescue? And most importantly, can they solve the disappearance of their Father?

Manto : Selected Short Stories

Saadat Hasan Manto's first collection of stories was published in the 1940s, but his stories have an enduring relevance. Now read by more people than ever before, the simple clarity of his stories about arginalized people, his astute understanding of the complexity of human nature and the poignancy of his stories on Partition transcend spatial and temporal boundaries many of his characters are legendary and his taut narratives are a great source of insight into the human condition. Widely regarded as one of the greatest short-story writers of the Subcontinent, Manto is now, a hundred years after his birth, also acknowledged as one of the most powerful voices of his time. An enigma in his lifetime, and plagued by financial troubles, alcoholism and legal persecution in the last years of his life, he draws a posthumous wave of near-universal admiration. Aatish Taseer's sensitive translation captures the lyricism and power of Manto's voice. Manto, Selected Stories, with two new stories, is a collection to be savoured by new readers and old fans of Manto alike.