Vintage Books strana 29 z 69

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING GLENN CLOSE A husband. A wife. A secret. Behind any great man, there's always a greater woman. Joe and Joan Castleman are on an aeroplane, 35,000 feet above the ocean. Joe is thinking about the prestigious literary prize he is about to receive and Joan is plotting how to leave him. For too long Joan has played the role of supportive wife, turning a blind eye to his misdemeanours, subjugating her own talents and quietly being the keystone of his success. The Wife is an acerbic and astonishing take on a marriage from its public face to the private world behind closed doors. Wolitzer has masterfully created an expose of lives lived in partnership and the truth that behind the compromises, dedication and promise inherent in marriage there so often lies a secret...

Food and travel writer Michael Booth and his family embark on an epic journey the length of Japan to explore its dazzling food culture. They find a country much altered since their previous visit ten years earlier (which resulted in the award-winning international bestseller Sushi and Beyond). Over the last decade the country's restaurants have won a record number of Michelin stars and its cuisine was awarded United Nations heritage status. The world's top chefs now flock to learn more about the extraordinary dedication of Japan's food artisans, while the country's fast foods - ramen, sushi and yakitori - have conquered the world. As well as the plaudits, Japan is also facing enormous challenges. Ironically, as Booth discovers, the future of Japan's culinary heritage is under threat. Often venturing far off the beaten track, the author and his family discover intriguing future food trends and meet a fascinating cast of food heroes, from a couple lavishing love on rotten fish, to a chef who literally sacrificed a limb in pursuit of the ultimate bowl of ramen, and a farmer who has dedicated his life to growing the finest rice in the world... in the shadow of Fukushima.

When two Parisian women are murdered in their homes, the police suspect young accordionist Clement Vauquer. As he was seen outside both of the apartments in question, it seems like an open-and-shut case. Desperate for a chance to prove his innocence, Clement disappears. He seeks refuge with old Marthe, the only mother figure he has ever known, who calls in ex-special investigator Louis Kehlweiler. Louis is soon faced with his most complex case yet and he calls on some unconventional friends to help him. He must show that Clement is not responsible and solve a fiendish riddle to find the killer...

A timely and powerful must-read on how the big tech companies are damaging our culture - and what we can do to fight their influenceFour titanic corporations are now the most powerful gatekeepers the world has ever known. We shop with Amazon, socialise on Facebook, turn to Apple for entertainment, and rely on Google for information. They have conquered our culture and set us on a path to a world without private contemplation or autonomous thought: a world without mind. In this book, Franklin Foer makes a passionate, deeply informed case for the need to restore our inner lives and reclaim our intellectual culture before it is too late. At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. It is a message that could not be more timely.

Jaron Lanier, `the father of Virtual Reality ... a high-tech genius' (Sunday Times), tells the extraordinary story of how in just over three decades Virtual Reality went from being a dream to a reality - and how its power to turn dreams into realities will transform us and our world. Virtual Reality has long been one of the dominant cliches of science fiction. Now Virtual Reality is a reality: those big headsets that make people look ridiculous, even while radiating startled delight; the place where war veterans overcome PTSD, surgeries are trialled, aircraft and cities are designed. But VR is far more interesting than any single technology, however spectacular. It is, in fact, the most effective device ever invented for researching what a human being actually is - and how we think and feel. More than thirty years ago, legendary computer scientist, visionary and artist Jaron Lanier pioneered its invention. Here, in what is likely to be one of the most unusual books you ever read, he blends scientific investigation, philosophical thought experiment and his memoir of a life lived at the centre of digital innovation to explain what VR really is: the science of comprehensive illusion; the extension of the intimate magic of earliest childhood into adulthood; a hint of what life would be like without any limits. As Lanier shows, we are standing on the threshold of an entirely new realm of human creativity, expression, communication and experience. While we can use VR to test our relationship with reality, it will test us in return, for how we choose to use it will reveal who we truly are. Welcome to a mind-expanding, life-enhancing, world-changing adventure.

Vaclav Havel's remarkable and rousing essay on the tyranny of apathy, with a new introduction by Timothy Snyder Cowed by life under Communist Party rule, a greengrocer hangs a placard in their shop window: Workers of the world, unite! Is it a sign of the grocer's unerring ideology? Or a symbol of the lies we perform to protect ourselves? Written in 1978, Vaclav Havel's meditation on political dissent - the rituals of its suppression, and the sparks that re-ignite it - would prove the guiding manifesto for uniting Solidarity movements across the Soviet Union. A portrait of activism in the face of falsehood and intimidation, The Power of the Powerless remains a rousing call against the allure of apathy.

Of all the great novelists writing today, none shows the same gift as Martin Amis for writing non-fiction - his essays, literary criticism and journalism are justly acclaimed. The Rub of Time comprises superb critical pieces on Amis's heroes Nabokov, Bellow and Larkin to brilliantly funny ruminations on sport, Las Vegas, John Travolta and the pornography industry. The collection includes his essay on Princess Diana and a tribute to his great friend Christopher Hitchens, but at the centre of the book, perhaps inevitably, are essays on politics, and in particular the American election campaigns of 2012 and 2016. One of the very few consolations of Donald Trump's rise to power is that Martin Amis is there to write about him.

He’s the best cop they’ve got. When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath it’s up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess. He’s also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past. He’s rewarded for his success. Power. Money. Respect. They’re all within reach. But a man like him won’t get to the top. Plagued by hallucinations and paranoia, Macbeth starts to unravel. He’s convinced he won’t get what is rightfully his. Unless he kills for it.

Hana and her little sister Emi are part of an island community of haenyo, women who make their living from diving deep into the sea off the southernmost tip of Korea. One day Hana sees a Japanese soldier heading for where Emi is guarding the day's catch on the beach. Her mother has told her again and again never to be caught alone with one. Terrified for her sister, Hana swims as hard as she can for the shore. So begins the story of two sisters suddenly and violently separated by war. Moving between Hana in 1943 and Emi as an old woman today, White Chrysanthemum takes us into a dark and devastating corner of history - and two women whose love for one another is strong enough to triumph over the evils of war.

Ottila McGregor is thirty years old and has decided it's time to sort her life out. She's going to quit drinking, stop cheating and finally find true happiness. Easy, right? Getting in the way of this plan are: 1. Grace, her best friend, who believes self-improvement is for people in their forties. 2. Mina, her sister, who is mentally ill, and it might be Ottila's fault. 3. Thales, the Greek guy who works in the hospital cafeteria - probably the best, most dangerous person Ottila's ever met. Told through a scrapbook of emails, receipts, therapy transcripts and other ephemera, this is an infectious one-off of a novel that makes you wince and laugh in equal measure.

What is the secret behind happiness? In an attempt to find out, Burkeman tackles a range of subjects from stress, procrastination, laughter, time management and creativity. It's a subject that has occupied some of the greatest philosophers of all time, from Aristotle to Paul McKenna. But how do we sort the good ideas from the terrible ones? Over the past five years, Oliver Burkeman has delved deep into the `happiness industry.' Witty and thought-provoking, Help! doesn't claim to have solved the problem of human happiness, but it might just bring us one step closer.

What if `positive thinking' and relentless optimism aren't the solution to the happiness dilemma, but part of the problem? Oliver Burkeman turns decades of self-help advice on its head and paradoxically forces us to rethink our attitudes towards failure, uncertainty and death. It's our constant efforts to avoid negative thinking that cause us to feel anxious, insecure and unhappy. What if happiness can be found embracing the things we spend our lives trying to escape? Wise, practical and funny, The Antidote is a thought-provoking, counter-intuitive and ultimately uplifting read, celebrating the power of negative thinking.

OLD CRIMES, NEW CONSEQUENCES THE PAST In wartime Reykjavik, a young woman is found strangled behind the National Theatre, a rough and dangerous area of the city known as `the shadow district'. An Icelandic detective and a member of the American military police are on the trail of a brutal killer. THE PRESENT A 90-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered with his own pillow. Konrad, a former detective now bored with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings in the dead man's home reporting the shadow district murder that date back to the second world war. It's a crime that Konrad remembers, having grown up in the same neighbourhood. A MISSING LINK Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did the police arrest the wrong man? How are these cases linked across the decades? Will Konrad's link to the past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of wartime Reykjavik to rest? THE SHADOW DISTRICT IS THE FIRST IN A MAJOR NEW SERIES OF NOVELS FROM THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER ARNALDUR INDRIDASON

*** Selected as a 2017 Book of the Year in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Observer and The Economist ***`A gripping story of Churchill's unlikely rise to power' ObserverLondon, May 1940. Britain is under threat of invasion and Neville Chamberlain's government is about to fall. It is hard for us to imagine the Second World War without Winston Churchill taking the helm, but in Six Minutes in May Nicholas Shakespeare shows how easily events could have gone in a different direction. It took just six minutes for MPs to cast the votes that brought down Chamberlain. Shakespeare moves from Britain's disastrous battle in Norway, for which many blamed Churchill, on to the dramatic developments in Westminster that led to Churchill becoming Prime Minister. Uncovering fascinating new research and delving into the key players' backgrounds, Shakespeare gives us a new perspective on this critical moment in our history. `Totally captivating. It will stand as the best account of those extraordinary few days for very many years' Andrew Roberts`Superbly written... Shakespeare has a novelist's flair for depicting the characters and motives of men' The Times`Utterly wonderful... It reads like a thriller' Peter Frankopan

`Cracking... A journey into the dark underbelly of the British Raj' Daily ExpressIndia, 1920. Captain Sam Wyndham is visiting the kingdom of Sambalpore, home to diamond mines and the beautiful Palace of the Sun. But when the Maharaja's eldest son is assassinated, Wyndham realises that the realm is riven with conflict. Prince Adhir was unpopular with religious groups, while his brother - now in line to the throne - appears to be a feckless playboy. As Wyndham and Sergeant `Surrender-not' Banerjee endeavour to unravel the mystery, they become entangled in a dangerous world. They must find the murderer, before the murderer finds them. Praise for the Sam Wyndham series:`An exceptional historical crime novel' C.J. SANSOM`A thought-provoking rollercoaster' IAN RANKIN`Confirms Abir Mukherjee as a rising star of historical crime fiction' The TimesIf you enjoyed A Necessary Evil, pre-order the third Sam Wyndham mystery, Smoke and Ashes, now.

“We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don’t want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets.” With wit and irreverence, lexicographer Kory Stamper cracks open the obsessive world of dictionary writing, from the agonizing decisions about what to define and how to do it to the knotty questions of ever-changing word usage. Filled with fun facts—for example, the first documented usage of “OMG” was in a letter to Winston Churchill—and Stamper’s own stories from the linguistic front lines (including how she became America’s foremost “irregardless” apologist, despite loathing the word), Word by Word is an endlessly entertaining look at the wonderful complexities and eccentricities of the English language.