Harper Collins Publishers strana 5 z 10

The first of a new-look series of Hercule Poirot books for the 21st century 'It's been hushed up very nicely, hasn't it? But he was murdered, wasn't he?' There are certain things that are best left unsaid. Though tragedy had touched the life of the wealthy Richard Abernethie, his sudden death seemed pretty unremarkable for a man of his age. So why would his sister wait until his funeral to say he had been murdered? When she is savagely killed with a hatchet the next day, her extraordinary remark suddenly takes on a chilling significance. In desperation, the family solicitor turns to Hercule Poirot to unravel the mystery...

A charity murder game at a Devon house turns into the real thing...Sir George and Lady Stubbs, the hosts of a village fete, hit upon the novel idea of staging a mock murder mystery. In good faith, Ariadne Oliver, the well known crime writer, agrees to organise their murder hunt. Despite weeks of meticulous planning, at the last minute Ariadne calls her friend Hercule Poirot for his expert assistance. Instinctively, she senses that something sinister is about to happen...Beware - nobody is quite what they seem!

Set sail on a wonderful adventure in this toddler-friendly board book from award-winning, bestselling picture book creator, Oliver Jeffers! There once was a boy and one day he found a penguin at his door...The boy decides the penguin must be lost and tries to return him. But no one seems to be missing a penguin. So the boy decides to take the penguin home himself, and they set out in his row boat on a journey to the South Pole. But when they get there, the boy discovers that maybe home wasn't what the penguin was looking for after all...

Celebrate the 10th anniversary of How to Catch a Star with this new toddler-friendly board book edition! An inspirational story from internationally bestselling, multi-prize-winning picture book creator Oliver Jeffers. Once there was a boy who loved stars so much that he wished he had one of his very own. Every night he watched the stars in the sky from his bedroom window and dreamed of how he could be their friend and how they could play hide-and-go-seek together. So, one day, he decided to set about catching a star of his very own...

Go with God and Fight Like the Devil. The remarkable new novel by Britain's master storyteller, which culminates at the Battle of Poitiers. 1356: France stands alert to danger. The English army, victorious at the battle of Crecy and led by the Black Prince, is invading and the French are hunting them down. The bloodiest battles of the Hundred Years War are yet to be fought. Thomas of Hookton, an English archer, becomes trapped with his outnumbered army. And here, near the town of Poitiers, an extraordinary confrontation will ignite one of the greatest battles of all time.

Agatha Christie's life and career told through the decades, from the never-before-published original ending to her first book to the unused ideas for her last, complete with two unpublished Agatha Christie stories - including a lost Miss Marple. In this follow-up volume to the acclaimed Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, Christie archivist and expert John Curran leads the reader through the six decades of Agatha Christie's writing career, unearthing some remarkable clues to her success and a number of never-before-published excerpts and stories from her archives. Starting his investigation in the 1920s, John Curran examines the conventions of detective novels as they existed then and how Agatha Christie's publisher talked her into changing the ending of her very first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, a move that almost certainly changed the fortunes of not only her career but the future of the whole crime writing genre. For the very first time, this book prints Agatha's original ending, painstakingly transcribed from her notebooks. Every decade saw Agatha Christie's success grow to new heights. The emergence of the world-famous Collins Crime Club in 1930 brought with it the very first Miss Marple mystery, the austerity of the 1940s had Agatha Christie preparing to kill off Hercule Poirot, and the 1950s saw her experiment increasingly with formats influenced by more modern thrillers. Focusing on the detail of more than 20 Christie novels to illustrate this, John Curran shows the evolution of Agatha's writing through the decades, including the influence of the swinging sixties and seventies, concluding the book with a look at Agatha's last notebook, using his Christie knowledge to speculate about what she had in mind based on her brief notes for an unwritten final book. Also includes a number of short stories from the archives reproduced in full, including the unpublished The Man Who Knew, How I Created Hercule Poirot, and an early draft for a Miss Marple story, The Case of the Caretaker's Wife.

C.S. Lewis's dazzling allegory about heaven and hell - and the chasm fixed between them - is one of his most brilliantly imaginative tales, as he takes issue with the ideas in William Blake's 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'. In a dream, the narrator boards a bus on a drizzly afternoon and embarks on an incredible voyage through Heaven and Hell. He meets a host of supernatural beings far removed from his expectations, from the disgruntled, ghostly inhabitants of Hell to the angels and souls who dwell on the plains of Heaven. This powerful, exquisitely written fantasy is one of C.S. Lewis's most enduring works of fiction and a profound meditation on good and evil.

In this fascinating and often hilarious work - winner of the Royal Society of Science Prize 2007 - pre-eminent psychologist Daniel Gilbert shows how - and why - the majority of us have no idea how to make ourselves happy. We all want to be happy, but do we know how? When it comes to improving tomorrow at the expense of today, we're terrible at predicting how to please our future selves. In 'Stumbling on Happiness' Professor Daniel Gilbert combines psychology, neuroscience, economics and philosophy with irrepressible wit to describe how the human brain imagines its future - and how well (or badly) it predicts what it will enjoy. Revealing some of the amazing secrets of human motivation, he also answers thought-provoking questions - why do dining companions order different meals instead of getting what they want? Why are shoppers happier when they can't get refunds? And why are couples less satisfied after having children while insisting that their kids are a source of joy?

'I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life, and with these my autobiography deals' - Carl Gustav Jung. In 1957, four years before his death, Carl Gustav Jung began writing his life story. But what began as an exercise in autobiography soon morphed into an altogether more profound undertaking. The result is an absorbing piece of self-analysis: a frank statement of faith, philosophy and principles from one of the great explorers of the human mind. Covering everything from Sigmund Freud, analytical psychology and Jungian dream interpretation to a forthright discussion of Christianity and the existence of God, these final reflections on an extraordinary life are a fitting coda to the work of Carl Gustav Jung.

This deluxe slipcased edition of The Hobbit, printed and bound using superior materials including a silk ribbon marker, features the definitive text, plus Tolkien's paintings and drawings in full colour, and a special fold-out version of Thror's Map. Bilbo Baggins enjoys a quiet and contented life, with no desire to travel far from the comforts of home; then one day the wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves arrive unexpectedly and enlist his services -- as a burglar -- on a dangerous expedition to raid the treasure-hoard of Smaug the dragon. Bilbo's life is never to be the same again. Seldom has any book been so widely read and loved as J.R.R. Tolkien's classic tale, The Hobbit. Since its first publication in 1937 it has remained in print to delight each new generation of readers all over the world, and its hero, Bilbo Baggins, has taken his place among the ranks of the immortals: Alice, Pooh, Toad!

A fascinating exploration of the contents of Agatha Christie’s 73 recently discovered notebooks, including illustrations, deleted extracts, and two unpublished Poirot stories. When Agatha Christie died in 1976, aged 85, she had become the world's most popular author. With sales of more than two billion copies worldwide, she had achieved the impossible - more than one book every year since the 1920s, every one a bestseller. So prolific was her output, it was even claimed that Agatha must have a photographic memory. Was this true? Or did she resort over those 55 years to more mundane methods of planning her ingenious crimes? Following the death of Agatha's daughter, Rosalind, at the end of 2004, a remarkable legacy was revealed. Unearthed among her affairs at the family home of Greenway were Agatha Christie's private notebooks, 73 handwritten volumes which, though known about for years, had been largely ignored, probably because Agatha's unmistakable handwriting was so hard to read. But when archivist John Curran began deciphering the notebooks, the extent of this treasure trove became apparent… This book lifts the lid on Agatha Christie's biggest secret - how her pencilled notes, lists and drafts led to her many successful books, plays and stories. Alternative plots, titles and characters, deleted scenes, even her plans for the books she didn't get to write - John Curran's investigation reveals a wealth of unpublished material, including two complete Hercule Poirot short stories never before published: The Incident of the Dog's Ball and the unseen thirteenth Labour of Hercules!