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Absorbing . . . impossible to resist." --The Washington Post As Europe erupts, can one young spy protect his queen? International bestselling author Ken Follett takes us deep into the treacherous world of powerful monarchs, intrigue, murder, and treason with his magnificent new epic, A Column of Fire. In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clash, testing friendship, loyalty, and love. Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious conflict dividing the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. The shrewd, determined young monarch sets up the country's first secret service to give her early warning of assassination plots, rebellions, and invasion plans. Over a turbulent half century, the love between Ned and Margery seems doomed as extremism sparks violence from Edinburgh to Geneva. Elizabeth clings to her throne and her principles, protected by a small, dedicated group of resourceful spies and courageous secret agents. The real enemies, then as now, are not the rival religions. The true battle pitches those who believe in tolerance and compromise against the tyrants who would impose their ideas on everyone else--no matter what the cost. Set during one of the most turbulent and revolutionary times in history, A Column of Fire is one of Follett's most exciting and ambitious works yet. It will delight longtime fans of the Kingsbridge series and is the perfect introduction for readers new to Ken Follett.

The debut novel of the year." --Vogue "A richly volatile study of grief, wonderment and love." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal "A startling, poignant debut." --The Atlantic "Raw and ravishing, this novel pulses with vulnerability and shimmering anger." --Nicole Dennis-Benn, O, the Oprah Magazine "Stunning. . . . Powerfully moving and beautifully wrought, What We Lose reflects on family, love, loss, race, womanhood, and the places we feel home." --Buzzfeed "Remember this name: Zinzi Clemmons. Long may she thrill us with exquisite works like What We Lose. . . . The book is a remarkable journey." --Essence From an author of rare, haunting power, a stunning novel about a young African-American woman coming of age--a deeply felt meditation on race, sex, family, and country Raised in Pennsylvania, Thandi views the world of her mother's childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present. She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor--someone, or something, to love. In arresting and unsettling prose, we watch Thandi's life unfold, from losing her mother and learning to live without the person who has most profoundly shaped her existence, to her own encounters with romance and unexpected motherhood. Through exquisite and emotional vignettes, Clemmons creates a stunning portrayal of what it means to choose to live, after loss. An elegiac distillation, at once intellectual and visceral, of a young woman's understanding of absence and identity that spans continents and decades, What We Lose heralds the arrival of a virtuosic new voice in fiction. One of the New York Times, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Redbook, Marie Claire, Essence, Houston Chronicle, LA Daily News, Nylon, and Elle's Books to Read This Summer

From the bestselling author of Stalingrad, Berlin and D-Day, Antony Beevor's Ardennes. 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble tells the story of the German's ill-fated final stand. On 16 December, 1944, Hitler launched his 'last gamble' in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes. He believed he could split the Allies by driving all the way to Antwerp, then force the Canadians and the British out of the war. Although his generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the vengeful Red Army approaching from the east. Many were exultant at the prospect of striking back. The Ardennes offensive, with more than a million men involved, became the greatest battle of the war in western Europe. American troops, taken by surprise, found themselves fighting two panzer armies. Belgian civilians fled, justifiably afraid of German revenge. Panic spread even to Paris. While many American soldiers fled or surrendered, others held on heroically, creating breakwaters which slowed the German advance. The harsh winter conditions and the savagery of the battle became comparable to the eastern front. And after massacres by the Waffen-SS, even American generals approved when their men shot down surrendering Germans. The Ardennes was the battle which finally broke the back of the Wehrmacht. "Revealing, profound and thoroughly unputdownable, Stalingrad is an extraordinary achievement which transcends its genre." (Vitali Vitaliev, Daily Telegraph (on Stalingrad)). "This brilliant storyteller...makes us feel the chaos and the fear as if every drop of blood was our own: that is his gift. It is much more than just a humane account; it is compellingly readable, deeply researched and beautifully written." (Simon Sebag Montefiore, Spectator (on Berlin)). "This is a terrific, inspiring, heart-breaking book. It makes the argument all over again that the world would be an infinitely better place if it didn't keep producing subject matter for military historians: but as long as it does, we can rejoice that at the top of that profession is Antony Beevor." (Sam Leith, Daily Mail (on D-Day)). "His book is the definitive history. This is World War II as Tolstoy would have described it - the great and the small." (Gerard DeGroot, Washington Post (on The Second World War)). Antony Beevor is the renowned author of Stalingrad, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson Prize for History and the Hawthornden Prize for Literature, and Berlin, which received the first Longman-History Today Trustees' Award. His books have appeared in thirty foreign editions and sold over six million copies.

Shortlisted for the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Elif Shafak's The Flea Palace is a moving and highly original novel about a group of individuals who live in the same building and who together become embroiled in a mystery. By turns comic and tragic, The Flea Palace is an outstandingly original novel driven by an overriding sense of social justice. Bonbon Palace was once a stately apartment block in Istanbul. Now it is a sadly dilapidated home to ten wildly different individuals and their families. There's a womanizing, hard-drinking academic with a penchant for philosophy; a 'clean freak' and her lice-ridden daughter; a lapsed Jew in search of true love; and a charmingly naive mistress whose shadowy past lurks in the building. When the rubbish at Bonbon Palace is stolen, a mysterious sequence of events unfolds that result in a soul-searching quest for truth. "Picaresque." (Guardian). "Hyperactive and hilarious." (Independent).

Published in celebration of Holiday s centenary, the first biography to focus on the singer s extraordinary musical talent When Billie Holiday stepped into Columbia s studios in November 1933, it marked the beginning of what is arguably the most remarkable and influential career in twentieth-century popular music. Her voice weathered countless shifts in public taste, and new reincarnations of her continue to arrive, most recently in the form of singers like Amy Winehouse and Adele. Most of the writing on Holiday has focused on the tragic details of her life her prostitution at the age of fourteen, her heroin addiction and alcoholism, her series of abusive relationships or tried to correct the many fabrications of her autobiography. But now, "Billie Holiday "stays close to the music, to her performance style, and to the self she created and put into print, on record and on stage. Drawing on a vast amount of new material that has surfaced in the last decade, critically acclaimed jazz writer John Szwed considers how her life inflected her art, her influences, her uncanny voice and rhythmic genius, a number of her signature songs, and her legacy."

Penguin presents I'm Not Here to Give a Speech, the complete speeches of Nobel laureate and beloved novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez collected and published in English for the first time. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has charmed generations of readers with his distinctive and richly expressive style. His talent for language is seen here as never before, in the public speeches he gave throughout his extraordinary life. These speeches chart Marquez's growth as a writer and orator, from an early talk given as a teenager graduating high school to his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. They offer new insight into the workings of the author's mind, drawing a portrait of Marquez as a writer and as a man. This is a rare gem from a writer who touched readers across the globe. I Am Not Here to Give a Speech is a must-buy for anyone who ever fell in love with Macondo or cherished a battered copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. Praise for Gabriel Garcia Marquez: "The greatest novel in any language of the last fifty years". (Salman Rushdie on One Hundred Years of Solitude). "Should be required reading for the entire human race". (New York Times on One Hundred Years of Solitude). "A masterpiece". (Evening Standard on Chronicle of a Death Foretold). "As a reading experience it is completely magical". (Observer on Living to Tell the Tale). "It asks to be read more than twice, and the rewards are dazzling". (Observer on The Autumn of the Patriarch). "Marquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do". (Salman Rusdhie on Collected Stories). Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born in Colombia in 1927 and studied at the National University of Colombia. He worked as a journalist in Colombia, Rome, Paris, Barcelona and New York. He is the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Love in the Time of Cholera, The General in His Labyrinth and many more. Marquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 and died in 2014.

Poetry by Heart - based on the hugely successful nationwide schools competition, 200 magical poems to learn by heart. "The poems we learn stay with us for the rest of our lives. They become personal and invaluable, and what's more they are free gifts - there for the taking". (Simon Armitage). Two years ago former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion had the idea of setting up Poetry by Heart - a nationwide annual competition for secondary schools which asked contestants to learn two or three poems and be judged on their recitations, first at school level, then regional, then in a national final held at London's National Portrait Gallery. It's proved a huge success, with hundreds of schools participating in the first year, and numbers up by 20 per cent in the second. Coinciding with the start of the third year of competition, and published on National Poetry Day whose theme coincidentally in 2014 is Recitation, this Poetry by Heart anthology brings together the pool of poems - 200 altogether - from which contestants make their choices. Specially picked by Motion and his three co-editors, these poems make up a treasure house - of almost-unknown poems and familiar poems from the mainstream; love poems and war poems; funny poems and heartbroken poems; poems that recreate the world we know and poems written on the dark side of the moon. And all chosen with a view to their being recited out loud. From William Wordsworth to Wilfred Owen, Emily Bronte to Elizabeth Bishop this wonderfully enjoyable anthology will be enjoyed by all ages and includes the best poets from the past to the present day. In a groundbreaking feature, the book includes QR codes which allow readers to use their mobile phones to listen to recordings of the poems - many of them specially recorded by the poets themselves. Sir Andrew Motion was Poet Laureate from 1999 till 2009, and is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, London. Jean Sprackland'sTilt won the Costa Poetry award in 2008. She is a Reader in Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. Julie Blake is co-Founder and Director of The Full English, an organization based in Bristol which provides support to teachers of English Literature. Mike Dixon is an educational consultant specializing in English in the classroom.

Ken Follett's Century Trilogy follows the fortunes of five intertwined families--American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh--as they make their way through the twentieth century. It has been called "potent, engrossing" ("Publishers Weekly") and "truly epic" ("Huffington Post"). "USA Today "said, "You actually feel like you're there." "Edge of Eternity," the finale, covers one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, encompassing civil rights, assassinations, Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution--and rock and roll. East German teacher Rebecca Hoffman discovers she's been spied on by the Stasi for years and commits an impulsive act that will affect her family for generations... George Jakes, himself bi-racial, bypasses corporate law to join Robert F. Kennedy's Justice Department and finds himself in the middle of not only the seminal events of the civil rights battle, but also a much more personal battle... Cameron Dewar, the grandson of a senator, jumps at the chance to do some espionage for a cause he believes in, only to discover that the world is much more dangerous than he'd imagined... Dimka Dvorkin, a young aide to Khrushchev, becomes an agent for good and for ill as the Soviet Union and the United States race to the brink of nuclear war, while his twin sister, Tania, carves out a role that will take her from Moscow to Cuba to Prague to Warsaw--and into history. These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as they add their personal stories and insight to the most defining events of the 20th century. From the opulent offices of the most powerful world leaders to the shabby apartments of those trying to begin a new empire, from the elite clubs of the wealthy and highborn to the passionate protests of a country's most marginalized citizens, this is truly a drama for the ages. With the Century Trilogy, Follett has guided readers through an entire era of history with a master's touch. His unique ability to tell fascinating, brilliantly researched stories that captivate readers and keep them turning the pages is unparalleled. In this climactic and concluding saga, Follett brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again.

From Jess Walter, the bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins, comes We Live in Water - a darkly funny, utterly compelling collection of stories about the American family. We Live in Water brings to vivid life a world of lost fathers and redemptive con men, of personal struggles and diminished dreams, a world marked by the wry wit and generosity of spirit that has made Jess Walter one of America's most talked-about writers. In 'Thief', a blue-collar worker turns unlikely detective to find out which of his kids is stealing from the family vacation fund. In 'We Live in Water', a lawyer returns to a corrupt North Idaho town to find the father who disappeared thirty years earlier. In 'Anything Helps', a homeless man has to 'go to cardboard' to raise enough money to buy his son the new Harry Potter book. In 'Virgo', a local newspaper editor tries to get back at his superstitious ex-girlfriend by screwing with her horoscope. The final story transforms slyly from a portrait of Walter's hometown into a moving contemplation of our times. "A ridiculously talented writer". (The New York Times). "One of my favourite young American writers". (Nick Hornby). "Darkly funny, sneakily sad, these stories are very, very good". (Publisher's Weekly). "A witty and sobering snapshot of recession-era America". (Kirkus). Jess Walter is the author of six novels, including The Financial Lives of the Poets, published by Penguin. Beautiful Ruins was a number one New York Times bestseller. We Live in Water is his first collection of short fiction. Jess Walter lives in Spokane, Washington with his family. He is currently writing for Radio 4.

In the autumn of 1944, Andrew Borowiec, wearing two left shoes and bleeding from numerous shrapnel wounds, limped into a German prisoner-of-war camp. Andrew was one of the youngest boy soldiers who fought in the Warsaw Rising, witnessing the worst street fighting since Stalingrad. Wounded in the leg, he emerged from the sewers and gave himself up, taking a chance as a prisoner of war. In the prison camp he secretly kept a diary on toilet paper, and this became the basis of his extraordinary acco.

From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.

Královna Černého pobřeží Bélit se zrodila na ostrovech vzdáleného jihu. V čele ebenově tmavých válečníků připlula k civilizovaným zemím, kde se k nim přidal Conan Cimmeřan, jenž si získal jméno Amra. Piráti, vedení touhou po bohatství a staré pomstě, ovládli Západní oceán. Brázdili moře, přepadali koráby i sídla, mordovali a drancovali. Získali si plno nepřátel. Nejednalo se jen o národy z pobřeží, přidali se k nim i nadpřirozené bytosti a zákeřní vyslanci temnot. Vyvstalo i plno otázek. Co přimělo Bélit, že se stala pirátkou? Jak bílá žena ovládla posádku složenou z pověrčivých divochů? Proč její úhlavní nepřátelé představovali Stygijci se svými hadími mazlíčky a děsivými mágy? Skutečně zemřeli všichni členové její rodiny a nemusela se obávat zrady? Nevrátí se ze záhrobí některý z protivníků? Nespojí se piráti v boji proti čirému zlu i se svým nepřítelem? Odpovědi nalezneme v jednotlivých povídkách. Povídky: - Píseň proradných vln - Zrození bohyně - Volání zrady - Přetržené pouto - Gondola temné smrti - Bubnování temných srdcí

There's nothing like a dental chair to remind a man that he's alone in the world, subject to pain, blood, decay, and a slow attenuation back down to the elements.' Paul O'Rourke - dentist extraordinaire, reluctant New Yorker, avowed atheist, disaffected Red Sox fan, and a connoisseur of the afternoon mochaccino - is a man out of touch with modern life. While his thriving dental practice occupies his days, his insomniac nights are filled with speculation and regret, as he ponders his mistakes with his ex-girlfriend (and receptionist) Connie, questions all the rituals that give his life meaning, and alternately marvels at and rails against the optimism and ignorance of the rest of humanity. So it goes, until someone begins to impersonate Paul online. Deeply committed to an analog life, Paul watches in impotent horror as a website, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account are created in his name to promote a little-known ancient religion. And yet what began as an outrageous violation of privacy soon becomes something far more soul-frightening: the possibility that the virtual 'Paul' might be a better version of the man in the flesh. Suddenly, everything Paul believes, or doesn't, seems to be at stake...Joshua Ferris's dazzlingly inventive, brutally comic new novel cuts to the very heart of modern existence: the meaning of life, the certainty of death, and the importance of good oral hygiene.

April 2014 marks the 75th anniversary of the first Viking hardcover publication of Steinbeck's crowning literary achievement First published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into haves and have-nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man's fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman's stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes the very nature of equality and justice in America. As Don DeLillo has claimed, Steinbeck "shaped a geography of conscience" with this novel where "there is something at stake in every sentence." Beyond that--for emotional urgency, evocative power, sustained impact, prophetic reach, and continued controversy--"The Grapes of Wrath "is perhaps the most American of American classics. To commemorate the book's 75th anniversary, this volume is modeled on the first edition, featuring the original cover illustration by Elmer Hader and specially designed endpapers by Michael Schwab.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire by Will Hermes - Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever. "A must-read for any music fan". (Boston Globe). Crime was everywhere, the government was broke and the city's infrastructure was collapsing, but between 1974 and 1978 virtually all forms of music were being recreated in New York City: disco and salsa, the loft jazz scene and the Minimalist classical composers, hip hop and punk. Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith arrived from New Jersey; Grandmaster Flash transformed the turntable into a musical instrument; Steve Reich and Philip Glass shared an apartment as they experimented with composition; the New York Dolls and Talking Heads blew away the grungy clubs; Weather Report and Herbie Hancock created jazz-rock; and Bob Dylan returned with Blood on the Tracks. Recommended by Nick Hornby, this fascinating and hugely inspiring book will be loved by readers of Just Kids by Patti Smith, Chronicles by Bob Dylan, How Music Works by David Byrne and The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross.

Sense and Sensibility | Pride and Prejudice | Mansfield Park | Emma | Northanger Abbey | Persuasion | Lady Susan. Few novelists have conveyed the subtleties and nuances of their own social milieu with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. Through her vivacious and spirited heroines and their circle, she paints vivid portraits of English middle-class life as the eighteenth century came to a close. Each of the novels is a love story and a story about marriage - marriage for love, for financial security, for social status. But they are not mere romances; ironic, comic and wise, they are masterly studies of the society Jane Austen observed. The seven novels in this volume contain some of the most brilliant, dazzling prose in the English language.