Vintage Books strana 58 z 75

This collection of Vonnegut's letters is the autobiography he never wrote - from the letter he posted home upon being freed from a German POW camp, to notes of advice to his children: 'Don't let anybody tell you that smoking and boozing are bad for you. Here I am fifty-five years old, and I never felt better in my life'. Peppered with insights, one-liners and missives to the likes of Norman Mailer, Gunter Grass and Bernard Malamud, Vonnegut is funny, wise and modest. As he himself said: 'I am an American fad-of a slightly higher order than the hula hoop.' Like Vonnegut's books, his letters make you think, they make you outraged and they make you laugh. Written over a sixty-year period, and never published before, these letters are alive with the unique point of view that made Vonnegut one of the most original writers in American fiction.

Two children are brought to a wild garden on the shores of Sydney Harbour to shelter from the Second World War. The boy's mother has died in the Blitz. The girl is the daughter of a Sydney woman and a Communist executed in a Greek prison. In wartime Australia, these two children form an extraordinary bond as they negotiate the dangers of life as strangers abandoned on the far side of the world. Patrick White died before his novel could be completed, leaving behind a masterpiece in the making.

Happy Valley is Patrick White's first novel, published in London in 1939 when White was twenty-seven. It was praised by, among others, Graham Greene and Elizabeth Bowen, and won the Australian Literature Gold Medal in 1941, but, fearing that he had libelled one of the families portrayed in the novel, White did not allow the novel to be republished in English in his lifetime. Happy Valley is a place of dreams and secrets, of snow and ice and wind. In this remote little town, perched in its landscape of desolate beauty, everybody has a story to tell about loss and longing and loneliness, about their passion to escape. I must get away, thinks Dr Oliver Halliday, thinks Alys Browne, thinks Sidney Furlow. But Happy Valley is not a place that can be easily left, and White's vivid characters, with their distinctive voices, move bit by bit towards sorrow and acceptance.

A New York Times #1 Bestseller A New York Times and Washington Post notable book, and one of the Financial Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Slate, Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, and BookPage's best books of the year Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is the long-awaited new novel—a book that sold more than a million copies the first week it went on sale in Japan—from the award-winning, internationally best-selling author Haruki Murakami. Here he gives us the remarkable story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present. It is a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages. From the Hardcover edition.

This is by the author of Stoner. Will Andrews is no academic. He longs for wildness, freedom, hope and vigour. He leaves Harvard and sets out for the West to discover a new way of living. In a small town called Butcher's Crossing he meets a hunter with a story of a lost herd of buffalo in a remote Colorado valley, just waiting to be taken by a team of men brave and crazy enough to find them. Will makes up his mind to be one of those men, but the journey, the killing, harsh conditions and sheer hard luck will test his mind and body to their limits.

Detective Paul Hjelm and his team receive an urgent call from the FBI. A murderer whose methods bear a frightening resemblance to a serial killer they believed long dead is on his way to Sweden. For years the FBI hunted the so-called 'Kentucky Killer', their agents haunted by the terrible injuries he inflicted on his victims through his signature device: a weapon that squeezed the vocal cords shut. Has he somehow returned from beyond the grave to torture a new generation, or do they have a copy-cat on their hands? And what do they want in Sweden? If they are to capture the killer, the team must collaborate with their colleagues in the FBI on a desperate hunt that will take them from rainswept city streets to deserted Kentucky farmhouses, and will push them to the limits of their endurance.

The world's finest living short story writer turns to her family for inspiration; and what follows is a fictionalised, brilliantly imagined version of the past. From her ancestors' view from Edinburgh's Catle Rock in the eighteenth century to her parents' thwarted ambitions in Ontario, and her own awakening in 1950s Canada, Munro effortlessly weaves fact and myth to create an epic story of past and present, proving that fiction has much to tell us about life.

The Guardian called Warm Bodies 'the zombie novel with a heart'; Audrey Niffenegger said 'Warm Bodies is an unexpected treat', and Stephenie Meyer eagerly looked forward to the next book. Here it is: the prequel to Warm Bodies, released to coincide with the major film adaptation from the producers of Twilight, starring Teresa Palmer and Nicholas Hoult. Julie Grigio drives with her parents through the crumbling wastelands of America - a nightmarish family road trip in search of a new home. A few hundred miles away, Nora Greene finds herself the reluctant, terrified guardian of her younger brother when her parents abandon them in the not-quite-empty ruins of Seattle. In the darkness of a forest, a dead man in a red tie opens his eyes. With no memory of who or what he is, he must unravel the grim mystery of his existence - right after he learns how to think, how to walk, and how to satisfy the monster howling in his belly...Two warped families and a lonely monster. Unknown to any of them, their paths are set to cross in a startling encounter that will change the course of their lives - or deaths - forever.

Only one thing was clear and certain - that at all costs he was going home, home to his own beloved master...' The Hunter children must go abroad for the summer, so they reluctantly leave their three pets in the care of a friend. But the faithful animals only know they must get home again, somehow. So the labrador, the old bull terrier and the dainty Siamese cat set off on a perilous journey through the wilderness. But how will domestic animals fare against river rapids, hunger, icy temperatures and ferocious wild beasts? And if they make it home, will their owners be waiting for them? Includes exclusive material: In the Backstory you can find out about some incredible real-life pet adventures! Vintage Children's Classics is a twenty-first century classics list aimed at 8-12 year olds and the adults in their lives. Discover timeless favourites from The Jungle Book and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to modern classics such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

How do you catch a killer who doesn't seem to exist? One snowy night in the cathedral city of Lafferton, an old woman is dragged from her bed and strangled with a length of flex. DCS Simon Serrailler and his team search desperately for clues to her murderer. All they know is that the killer will strike again, and will once more leave the same tell-tale signature. Then they track down a name: Alan Keyes. But Alan Keyes has no birth certificate, no address, no job, no family, no passport, no dental records. Nothing. Their killer does not exist.

Peter and Tilte are trying to track down two notorious criminals: their parents. They are the pastor and the organist, respectively, of the only church on the tiny island of Fino. Known for fabricating cheap miracles to strengthen their congregation's faith, they have been in trouble before. But this time their children suspect they are up to mischief on a far greater scale. When Peter and Tilte learn that scientific and religious leaders from around the world are assembling in Copenhagen for a conference, they know their parents are up to something. Peter and Tilte's quest to find them exposes conspiracies, terrorist plots, an angry bishop, a deranged headmaster, two love-struck police officers, a deluded aristocrat and much more along the way.

The inspirational tale of a writer who finds himself caught up in the extraordinary stories of three young immigrant girls in Sweden. Tea-Bag, a young Nigerian girl, has fled a refugee camp in Spain for the promise of a new life in Sweden. Tania has made a long and dangerous journey to escape the horrors of human trafficking. Leila has come with her family from Iran. All of them are facing different challenges in their new home. Meanwhile, celebrated poet Jesper Humlin is looking for inspiration. Harried by his mother and girlfriend, misunderstood by his publisher and tormented by his stock broker, Jesper needs a new perspective on life. A chance encounter with Tea-Bag leads him into the shadow world of the immigrant experience in Sweden. Initially he sees the girls purely as material for his work, but they have very different ideas. In The Shadow Girls, Henning Mankell tells the extraordinary stories of three young women who are determined to overcome the hardships they face to take control of their own lives. This inspiring novel encompasses both humour and tragedy and illuminates the experiences of those left on the margins of our society.

You might think I'd have grown out of getting myself into scrapes now that I'm half past sixteen. But between being vexed by my freckles, taunted by a brazen Jersey cow and kept on my toes by the new twins, Dora and Davy, life at Green Gables is just as eventful as ever. I do try to be a little more grown-up now that I'm a school teacher. The other day I asked the class, 'If you had three candies in one hand and two in the other, how many would you have altogether?' One of my pupil's piped up, 'A mouthful.' Could you have kept a straight face? Includes exclusive material: In 'The Backstory' you can find out about going to school in Avonlea and learn all about the real Green Gables Vintage Children's Classics is a twenty-first century classics list aimed at 8-12 year olds and the adults in their lives. You can discover timeless favourites from The Jungle Book and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to modern classics such as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

From the author of Suite Francaise this is a compelling story of infatuation, passion and self-destructive love. Yves Harteloup is a disappointed young man, scarred by the war. He returns for the summer to the rich, comfortable Atlantic resort of Hendaye, where he spent blissful childhood holidays. There he becomes infatuated by a beautiful, bored young woman, Denise, whose rich husband is often away on business. Intoxicated by summer nights and Yves' intensity, Denise falls passionately in love, before the idyll has to end and Yves must return to his mundane office job. In the mournful Paris autumn their love founders on mutual misunderstanding and Denise is driven mad with desire and jealous suspicion until, acting on her sophisticated mother's advice, she takes action...which she may regret forever.

Terrified, a young prisoner in the Second World War closes his eyes and pictures himself going out to bat on a sunlit cricket ground in Hampshire. Across the courtyard in a Victorian workhouse, a father too ashamed to acknowledge his son. A skinny girl steps out of a Chevy with a guitar; her voice sends shivers through the skull. Soldiers and lovers, parents and children, scientists and musicians risk their bodies and hearts in search of connection - some key to understanding what makes us the people we become. Provocative and profound, Sebastian Faulks's dazzling novel journeys across continents and time to explore the chaos created by love, separation and missed opportunities. From the pain and drama of these highly particular lives emerges a mysterious consolation: the chance to feel your heart beat in someone else's life.

From the author of The Satanic Verses and Midnight's Children, which was awarded the Best of the Booker Prize in 1993, comes an unflinchingly honest and fiercely funny account of a life turned upside-down. On Valentine's Day, 1989, Salman Rushdie received a telephone call from a BBC journalist that would change his life forever: Ayatollah Khomeini, a leading Muslim scholar, had issued him with a death sentence. This is his own account of how he was forced to live in hiding for over a decade; at once intimate and explosive, this is the personal tale behind the international story. How does a man live with the constant threat of murder? How does he continue to work when deprived of his freedom? How does he sustain friendships, or fall in and out of love? How does he fight back? For over a decade, Salman Rushdie dwelt in a world of secrecy and disguise, a world of security guards and armoured cars, of aliases and code names. In Joseph Anton, Rushdie tells the remarkable story of one of the crucial battles, in our time, for freedom of speech. It is shortlisted for the James Tait Black Biography Prize.