Penguin Books strana 417 z 487

'Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower block?' For disgraced TV presenter Martin Sharp the answer's pretty simple: he has, in his own words, 'pissed his life away'. And on New Year's Eve, he's going to end it all. But not, as it happens, alone.

"The Giving Tree" is a classic and moving story by Shel Silverstein. Once there was a little tree ...and she loved a little boy. So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein. Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk ...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave. This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein has created a moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return. Shel Silverstein's very first children's book "Lafcadio", the "Lion Who Shot Back" was published in 1963, and followed the next year by two other books. The first of those, "The Giving Tree", is a moving story about the love of a tree for a boy; it took four years before Harper Children's books decided to publish it. Shel returned to humour that same year with "A Giraffe and a Half". His first collection of poems and drawings, "Where the Sidewalk Ends", appeared in 1974, and his second, "A Light in the Attic", in 1981. When he was a G.I. in Japan and Korea in the 1950, he learned to play the guitar and to write songs, including "A Boy Named Sue" for Johnny Cash. In 1984, Silverstein won a Grammy Award for Best Children's Album for "Where the Sidewalk Ends" - 'recited, sung and shouted' by the author. He was also an accomplished playwright, including the 1981 hit, "The Lady or the Tiger Show". The last book to be published before he died in 1999, was "Falling Up" (1996).

Originally written in 1952 but not published till 1985, Queer is an enigma - both an unflinching autobiographical self-portrait and a coruscatingly political novel, Burroughs' only realist love story and a montage of comic-grotesque fantasies that paved the way for his masterpiece, Naked Lunch. Set in Mexico City during the early fifties, Queer follows William Lee's hopeless pursuit of desire from bar to bar in the American expatriate scene. As Lee breaks down, the trademark Burroughsian voice emerges; a maniacal mix of self-lacerating humor and the Ugly American at his ugliest. A haunting tale of possession and exorcism, Queer is also a novel with a history of secrets, as this new edition reveals.

"Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood" is the thrilling novelisation by Oliver Bowden based on the game series. 'I will journey to the black heart of a corrupt Empire to root out my foes. But Rome wasn't built in a day and it won't be restored by a lone assassin. I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze. This is my brotherhood.' Rome, once mighty, lies in ruins. The city swarms with suffering and degradation, her citizens living in the shadow of the ruthless Borgia family. Only one man can free the people from the Borgia tyranny - Ezio Auditore, the Master Assassin. Ezio's quest will test him to his limits. Cesare Borgia, a man more villainous and dangerous than his father the Pope, will not rest until he has conquered Italy. And in such treacherous times, conspiracy is everywhere, even within the ranks of the brotherhood itself..."Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood" is based on the phenomenally successful gaming series. Fans of the game will love these stories. Other titles in the series include "Assassin's Creed: Renaissance", "Assassin's Creed: Forsaken", "Assassin's Creed: The Secret Crusade", and "Assassin's Creed: Revelations". Oliver Bowden is the pen-name of an acclaimed novelist.

From Twentieth Century Fox comes this modern-day re-imagining of Jonathan Swift's classic satire.Lemuel Gulliver is just an ordinary guy working in the mail room of the New York Tribune.No one ever takes him seriously, until he gets his big break and is sent on a writing trip to investigate the Bermuda Triangle.But instead of fun in the sun, Gulliver is shipwrecked and lands on an island called Lilliput. There he convinces the population of tiny, tiny people that where he comes from, he is 'President the Awesome', an intergalactic warrior and the person who invented basketball.But can Gulliver really live up to his newly created giant persona, or in the end will he go back to being his scared old self?

In "Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes", Keri Smith, creator of "Wreck This Journal", asks readers to explore what it feels like to throw themselves off balance - on purpose. Your whole life you've been taught to avoid making a mess: try to keep everything under control, colour inside the lines, make it perfect, and at all costs, avoid contact with things that stain. Keri Smith's "Mess" asks you to do the opposite of what you have been taught. Think of it as your own personal rumpus room. A place to lest loose, to trash, to spew, to do the things you are not allowed to do in the real world. Smith dares readers to drop some kind of coloured liquid (ink, tea, coffee) onto a page from a good height (at least five feet); draw in the dark (or with eyes closed); creatively misspell words; paint a picture in a water-based medium (pen, marker, watercolour, etc) and leave it out during a rain or snowstorm; and bury this book, then dig it up. Bestselling author Keri Smith is a freelance illustrator by trade, and has illustrated for the "Washington Post", "The New York Times", "Ford Motor Company", "People", "The Body Shop" and "Hallmark". She is the author of "Wreck This Journal", "How to be an Explorer of the World" and "Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes". She lives in Canada.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's "The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone" is the most influential and talked-about book on society in the last decade - now updated with a new chapter on the controversy the book has ignited. Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? What makes the Swedish thinner than the Australians? The answer: inequality. This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show: How almost everything - from life expectancy to mental illness, violence to illiteracy - is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is; that societies with a bigger gap between rich and poor are bad for everyone in them - including the well-off; how we can find positive solutions and move towards a happier, fairer future. Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, "The Spirit Level" has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world.

"A romp for the ages" ("Vanity Fair")-now with a graphic cover and deluxe packaging Renowned novelist, historian, and biographer Peter Ackroyd takes on what is arguably the greatest poem in the English language and presents it in a prose vernacular that makes it accessible to readers while preserving the spirit of the original. A mirror for medieval society, "The Canterbury Tales" concerns a motley group of pilgrims who meet in a London inn on their way to Canterbury and agree to take part in a storytelling competition. Ackroyd's contemporary prose emphasizes the humanity of these characters-as well as explicitly rendering their bawdy humor-yet still masterfully evokes the euphonies and harmonies of Chaucer's verse.

Her name is Orfamay Quest and she's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing brother Orrin. Or least ways that's what she tells PI Philip Marlowe, offering him a measly twenty bucks for the privilege. But Marlowe's feeling charitable – though it's not long before he wishes he wasn't so sweet. You see, Orrin's trail leads Marlowe to luscious movie starlets, uppity gangsters, suspicious cops and corpses with ice picks jammed in their necks. When trouble comes calling, sometimes it's best to pretend to be out . . .

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator.

Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married - until someone framed Malloy for armed robbery. Now his stretch is up and he wants Velma back. PI Philip Marlow meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood and, out of the generosity of his jaded heart, agrees to help him. Dragged from one smoky bar to another, Marlowe's search for Velma turns up plenty of dangerous gangsters with a nasty habit of shooting first and talking later. And soon what started as a search for a missing person becomes a matter of life and death . . .

Samantha Sharp turned seventeen, left her old life behind and moved to London, determined to make her fortune. Ten years later and she's a super-agent to the stars, with her name in the papers, millions in the bank, and one success after another. Love has taken a back seat because her past has put her off relationships for good.

Samantha Sharp turned seventeen, left her old life behind and moved to London, determined to make her fortune. Ten years later and she's a super-agent to the stars, with her name in the papers, millions in the bank, and one success after another. Love has taken a back seat because her past has put her off relationships for good.

Fifteen-year old John Trenchard lives in a quiet village. But after dark, Moonfleet is a village with secrets. A dead man walks the streets, and smugglers do their work. When John accidentally learns about this dangerous world, his life suddenly changes. But will he live – or will he die?

Sarah and Jessica arrive in New Zealand for a holiday. They find a mobile phone in the taxi from the airport. It is Michael’s mobile, but they can’t find him? He has messages from home – are they important? Go with the girls on a New Zealand adventure.

George and Lennie are friends and they have plans for the future. But Lennie is not very smart and he sometimes makes trouble. George wants to help him but that is not always easy. Then one night, when Lennie is alone, something happens. What can George do now? Can he help — or is it too late?