Vintage Books strana 36 z 69

In the late 1960s Andy Warhol, one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, set out to turn an ordinary book into a piece of pop art. He said that he wanted to create a 'bad' novel 'because doing something the wrong way always opens doors'. The result was this astonishing account of the famously influential group of artists, superstars, addicts and freaks who made up the world of Warhol's Factory. "A: A novel" was created from audiotapes recorded in and around the Factory between August 1965 and May 1967 and transcribed verbatim, complete with typos and missing words. It begins with the fabulous Warhol superstar Ondine popping pills and follows its characters as they converse with inspired, speed-driven wit and cut swathes through the clubs, coffee shops, hospitals and whorehouses of 1960s Manhattan. This is a unique conceptual project - part novel, part artwork - and is the perfect literary manifestation of Andy Warhol's pop art sensibility.

He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt. Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. Joseph Heller's unfo rgettable novel is a hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man's efforts to survive it. This fiftieth-anniversary edition celebrates Heller's masterpiece with an introduction by Howard Jacobson, rare images from Heller' s personal archive and essays by the likes of Norman Mailer, Anthony Burgess and Christopher Hitchens. "Reading Catch-22" is nothing less than a rite of passage. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.

In the depths of winter, a killer stalks the city streets. His victims are two young women, both found with twenty-four inexplicable puncture wounds, both drowned in their own blood. The crime scenes offer no clues, the media is reaching fever pitch, and the police are running out of options. There is only one man who can help them, and he doesn't want to be found. Deeply traumatised by the snowman investigation, which threatened the lives of those he holds most dear, Inspector Harry Hole has lo st himself in the squalor of Hong Kong's opium dens. But with his father seriously ill in hospital, Harry reluctantly agrees to return to Oslo. He has no intention of working on the case, but his instinct takes over when a third victim is found bruta lly murdered in a city park. The victims appear completely unconnected to one another, but it's not long before Harry makes a discovery: the women all spent the night in an isolated mountain hostel. And someone is picking off the guests one by one. A heart-stopping thriller from the bestselling author of "The Snowman", "The Leopard" is an international phenomenon that will grip you until the final page.

Harry Hole, drunkard, loner and brilliant detective is reassigned to surveillance after a high profile mistake. He's bored by his new job until a report of a rare and unusual gun being fired sparks his interest because of its possible links to Neo Na zi activity. Then a former soldier is found with his throat cut. Next Harry's former partner is murdered. Why had she been trying to reach Harry on the night her head was smashed in? The investigation leads Harry to suspect that the crimes have their roots in the battlefields of Eastern Front during WWII. In a quest that takes him to South Africa and Vienna, Harry finds himself perpetually one step behind the killer. He will be both winner and loser by the novel's nail-biting conclusion. The Red breast. He's your judge, jury and executioner...And he must be stopped.

The stories in Julian Barnes' long-awaited third collection are attuned to rhythms and currents: of the body, of love and sex, illness and death, connections and conversations. Each character is bent to a pulse, propelled on by success and loss, by n ew beginnings and endings. In "East Wind" a divorced estate agent falls in love with a European waitress, but is tempted, despite his happiness, to investigate her past; in "The Limner" a deaf painter discovers his patron's likeness after spending ti me among his staff. Anchored off the coast of Brazil, Garibaldi spies his future wife through a telescope, and in "Marriage Lines", a widower returns to a remote Scottish Island to relive a favourite holiday. These are also lives in flux - in the 'st ages, transitions, arguments; incompatibilities which grow' - as in the title story, where a man reflects on the break-up of his marriage, brought into new perspective by the actions of his parents; two writers, a 'good team', return from an event re hearsing familiar arguments; in "Gardener's World", a couple bond, fall out and bond again over flowers and vegetable patches. Positioned in between are a series of evenings at "Phil & Joanna's", where among the topics of conversation - the environme nt, politics, the Britishness of marmalade, toilet graffiti and the perils of smoking - we witness the guests' lives shift in sections over the course of a year. Ranging from the domestic to the extraordinary, from the vineyards of Italy to the Engli sh seaside in winter, the stories in Pulse resonate and spark, each imbued with the humour, poignancy and perception that marks all Julian Barnes' work. This is an imaginative and expertly-constructed new collection from a master of the form.

When talented young writer Nathan Zuckerman makes his pilgrimage to sit at the feet of his hero, the reclusive master of American Literature, E. I. Lonoff, he soon finds himself enmeshed in the great Jewish writer's domestic life, with all its complexity, artifice and drive for artistic truth. As Nathan sits in breathlessly awkward conversation with his idol, a glimpse of a dark-haired beauty through a closing doorway leaves him reeling. He soon learns that the entrancing vision is Amy Bellette, but her position in the Lonoff household - student? mistress? - remains tantalisingly unclear. Over a disturbed and confusing dinner, Nathan gleans snippets of Amy's haunting Jewish background, and begins to draw his own fantastical conclusions...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILL SELF The citizens of the One State live in a condition of 'mathematically infallible happiness'. D-503 decides to keep a diary of his days working for the collective good in this clean, blue city state where nature, privacy and individual liberty have been eradicated. But over the course of his journal D-503 suddenly finds himself caught up in unthinkable and illegal activities - love and rebellion. Banned on its publication in Russia in1921, We is the first modern dystopian novel and a satire on state control that has once again become chillingly relevant.

On a beautiful starry night in the city of Kahani in the land of Alifbay a terrible thing happened: twelve-year-old Luka's storyteller father, Rashid, fell suddenly and inexplicably into a sleep so deep that nothing and no one could rouse him. To sav e him from slipping away entirely, Luka must embark on a journey through the Magic World, encountering a slew of phantasmagorical obstacles along the way, to steal the Fire of Life, a seemingly impossible and exceedingly dangerous task. With "Haroun and the Sea of Stories", Salman Rushdie proved that he is one of the best contemporary writers of fables, and it proved to be one of his most popular books with readers of all ages. While Haroun was written as a gift for his first son, "Luka and the Fire of Life", the story of Haroun's younger brother, is a gift for his second son on his twelfth birthday. Lyrical, rich with word-play, and with the narrative tension of the classic quest stories, this is Salman Rushdie at his very best.

The most ingenious, inventive and exciting of our novelists, rich in exactly etched and moving portraits of real human beings' V. S. Pritchett, The Times 'A superb storyteller with a gift for provoking controversy' New York Times 'Graham Greene had w it and grace and character and story and a transcendent universal compassion that places him for all time in the ranks of world literature' John le Carre --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

The original novel that inspired the films! First published more than fifty years ago, Pierre Boulle’s chilling novel launched one of the greatest science fiction sagas in motion picture history. In the not-too-distant future, three astronauts land on what appears to be a planet just like Earth, with lush forests, a temperate climate, and breathable air. But while it appears to be a paradise, nothing is what it seems. They soon discover the terrifying truth: On this world humans are savage beasts, and apes rule as their civilized masters. In an ironic novel of nonstop action and breathless intrigue, one man struggles to unlock the secret of a terrifying civilization, all the while wondering: Will he become the savior of the human race, or the final witness to its damnation? In a shocking climax that rivals that of the original movie, Boulle delivers the answer in a masterpiece of adventure, satire, and suspense.

'He is using you for what you are worth' Tom Ripley wants money, success, and the good life - and he's willing to kill for it.Struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors, and the law, Ripley leaps at the chance to start afresh on a free trip to Europe. But when his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking. This is the first in Highsmith's classic series featuring the character of Tom Ripley. The Talented Mr Ripley also inspired the Academy Award-winning film starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law. One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.

264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the ‘netsuke’, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined… The Ephrussis came from Odessa, and at one time were the largest grain exporters in the world; in the 1870s, Charles Ephrussi was part of a wealthy new generation settling in Paris. Charles’s passion was collecting; the netsuke, bought when Japanese objets were all the rage in the salons, were sent as a wedding present to his banker cousin in Vienna. Later, three children – including a young Ignace – would play with the netsuke as history reverberated around them. The Anschluss and Second World War swept the Ephrussis to the brink of oblivion. Almost all that remained of their vast empire was the netsuke collection, dramatically saved by a loyal maid when their huge Viennese palace was occupied. In this stunningly original memoir, Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century and tells the story of a unique collection.

We, the Drowned is an enthralling tale bursting with humour and drama, which chronicles the irresistible pull of the sea and the fate of those who venture forth in search of its distant horizons. The year is 1848 and Denmark is at war with Germany. A fierce battle between the two navies culminates in the tremendous explosion of one of the Danish warships, killing most of the crew. The eccentric sailor Laurids Madsen has a miraculous escape when he is propelled up to the sky but lands safely on h is feet. The experience changes Laurids, and after the war he returns not to his family, but to the anonymity of the high seas. At home in the Danish port of Marstal, his wife waits a year and then another but after three years, with no grave to mour n beside she finally accepts that he has been swallowed by the sea. Years later young Albert Madsen sets off in search of his father on a voyage that will take him to the furthest reaches of the globe and into the clutches of the most nefarious compa ny. From the barren rocks of Newfoundland to the lush plantations of Samoa, from the roughest bars in Tasmania, to the frozen coasts of northern Russia, We, the Drowned spans four generations, two world wars and a hundred years. In the great traditio n of Melville, Conrad and Stevenson it is an epic story of adventure, courage, ruthlessness and passion. It is a magnificent story of war, of fathers and sons, of the women they leave behind, and above all, of the sea.

It's Silver Hill Village, 2012. On the twentieth day of the seventh moon Kwok Yun is making her way across the rice fields on her Flying Pigeon bicycle. Her world is turned upside down when she sights a UFThing - a spinning plate in the sky - and helps the Westerner in distress whom she discovers in the shadow of the alien craft. It's not long before the village is crawling with men from the National Security and Intelligence Agency armed with pointed questions. And when the Westerner that Kwok Yun saved repays her kindness with a large dollar cheque she becomes a local celebrity, albeit under constant surveillance.

The best prose writer in English' - Gore Vidal. Celebrated as a masterpiece from its first publication, "A Single Man" is the story of George Falconer, an English professor in suburban California left heartbroken after the death of his lover Jim. With devastating clarity and humour, Christopher Isherwood shows George's determination to carry on, evoking the unexpected pleasures of life as well as the soul's ability to triumph over loneliness and alienation. 'A virtuoso piece of work...courageous...powerful' - "Sunday Times".