Vintage Classics

The rediscovered Ukrainian classic - the gripping story of Kyiv during the Second World War, told by a young boy who saw it all. 'Read it and weep... Nothing I have read about that barbaric time has been as affecting as this gripping, disturbing book - rightly hailed a masterpiece' Daily Mail 'So here is my invitation: enter into my fate, imagine that you are twelve, that the world is at war and that nobody knows what is going to happen next...' It was 1941 when the German army rolled into Kyiv. The young Anatoli was just twelve years old. This book is formed from his journals in which he documented what followed. Many Ukrainians welcomed the invading army, hoping for liberation from Soviet rule. But within ten days the Nazis had begun their campaign of murdering every Jew, and many others, in the city. Babi Yar (Babyn Yar in Ukrainian) was the place where the executions took place. It was one of the largest massacres in the history of the Holocaust. Anatoli could hear the machine guns from his house. This gripping book is the story of Ukraine's Nazi occupation, told by one ordinary, brave child. His clear, compelling voice, his honesty and his determination to survive guide us through the horrors of that time. Babi Yar has the compulsion and narration of fiction but everything recounted in this book is true.

Fiftieth anniversary abridged edition WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY NATALIA SOLZHENITSYN A vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centres and secret police, of informers and spies and interrogators but also of everyday heroism, The Gulag Archipelago is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's grand masterwork. Based on the testimony of some 200 survivors, and on the recollection of Solzhenitsyn's own eleven years in labour camps and exile, it chronicles the story of those at the heart of the Soviet Union who opposed Stalin, and for whom the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair. A thoroughly researched document and a feat of literary and imaginative power, this edition of The Gulag Archipelago was abridged into one volume at the author's wish and with his full co-operation. 'Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece...The Gulag Archipelago helped create the world we live in today' Anne Applebaum THE OFFICIALLY APPROVED ABRIDGEMENT OF THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO VOLUMES I, II & III

A captivating novella about long-term relationships, getting older and how to live a good life, by the great Simone de Beauvoir. Nicole and André, a retired French couple, take a summer holiday to Russia. It is the 1960s and Russia is a beautiful, complicated place. Their guide is Macha, André's daughter from a previous relationship - a woman they both love. Adventure, inspiration, good food and good vodka are promised. Once thrilled by their romance, Nicole and André have now become too used to each other. Both harbour a growing feeling of not being fully understood - of being alone. Father and daughter engage in the grand debates of East-West relations, nationalism and socialism. But getting older, long-term relationships and how to enjoy life turn out to be the more pressing issues.

Discover this sharp, funny short story collection from the bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments A man finds himself surrounded by women who are becoming paler, more silent and literally smaller; a woman's intimate life is strangely dominated by the fear of nuclear warfare; a melancholy teenage love is swept away by a hurricane, while a tired, middle-aged affection is rekindled by the spectacle of rare Jamaican birds... In these exceptional short stories, by turns funny and searingly honest, Margaret Atwood captures brilliantly the complex forces that govern our relationships, and the powerful emotions that guide them.

Life Before Man is a tragicomic tale of love seeking to find its way in the wake of death from the bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments Elizabeth has just lost her latest lover to suicide while Nate, her husband, is working up to run off with Lesje. And Lesje? She would rather be studying dinosaurs than distracted by men. As Elizabeth, Nate and Lesje find themselves imprisoned by walls of their own construction the ghost of Elizabeth’s dead lover hangs over them. Under his shadow, and in the spell of love, their lives will collide and entangle towards a single tragicomic climax.

A clever and addictive thriller from the bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments Rennie Wilford is a young journalist running from her life. When she takes an assignment to a Caribbean island she tumbles into a world where no one is quite what they seem, least of all ‘Yankee’ Paul. Is Paul a drug smuggler? A CIA operative? Either way he’s trouble and his offer to Rennie of a no-hooks, no strings affair, will suddenly draw her into in a lethal web of corruption.

From the international bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale, Dancing Girls and Other Stories showcases Margaret Atwood's masterly skill for storytelling. Students, journalists, farmers, birdwatchers, ex-wives, adolescent lovers - and dancing girls. All ordinary people. Or are they? In brilliant flashes of fantasy, humour and unexpected violence, Margaret Atwood reveals the complexities of human relationships and maps the motivations we scarcely know we have within us. Populated with characters who evoke laughter, compassion, terror and recognition, Atwood’s stories show why she remains one of our greatest, most original storytellers.

'There he was, his trunk wrapped in hers. Whatever hurt or sorrow befell him was not really happening to him. He was on the other bank with his mother. He was not here' When a young elephant is brutally orphaned by poachers, he begins terrorising the countryside, earning his malevolent name, the Gravedigger, from the humans he kills and then tenderly buries with leaves. Manu, the studious son of a rice farmer, loses his cousin to the Gravedigger and is drawn into the alluring world of ivory hunting. Emma is working on a documentary set in a Kerala wildlife park with her best friend. Her work leads her to witness the porous boundary between conservation and corruption, until eventually she finds herself caught up in her own betrayal. 'One of the most unusual and affecting books... a compulsively readable, devastating novel' Jonathan Safran Foer VINTAGE EARTH is a collection of novels to transform our relationship with the natural world. Each one is a work of creative activism, a blast of fresh air, a seed from which change can grow. The books in this series reconnect us to the planet we inhabit - and must protect. Discover great writing on the most urgent story of our times.

'And so, with great care, he planted his hundred acorns' While hiking through the wild lavender in a wind-swept, desolate valley in Provence, a man comes across a solitary shepherd called Elzeard Bouffier. Staying with him, he watches Elzeard sorting and then planting hundreds of acorns as he walks through the wilderness. Ten years later, after surviving the First World War, he visits the shepherd again. A young forest is slowly spreading over the valley - Elzeard has continued his work. Year after year the narrator returns to see the miracle being created: a verdant, green landscape that is testament to one man's creative instinct. miracle he is gradually creating: a verdant, green landscape that is a testament to one man's creative instinct. 'I love the humanity of this story and how one man's efforts can change the future for so many' Michael Morpurgo, Independent VINTAGE EARTH is a series of books that reveals our ever-changing relationship with the environment. These are stories old and young, set in worlds real or imagined, that allow us to explore our connection to the natural world. Transformative, wild, surprising and essential, these novels take on the most urgent story of our times.

Every second son must be sacrificed at the age of fifteen. But will one boy defy all odds and triumph... On the island of Wayo Wayo, every second son must leave on the day he turns fifteen as a sacrifice to the Sea God. Atile'i is one such boy, but as the strongest swimmer and best sailor, he is determined to defy destiny and become the first to survive. Alice Shih, who has lost her husband and son in a climbing accident, is quietly preparing to commit suicide in her house by the sea. But her plan is interrupted when a vast trash vortex comes crashing onto the shore of Taiwan, bringing Atile'i with it. In the aftermath of the catastrophe, Atile'i and Alice retrace her late husband's footsteps into the mountains, hoping to solve the mystery of her son's disappearance. On their journey, memories will be challenged, an unusual bond formed, and a dark secret uncovered that will force Alice to question everything she thought she knew. VINTAGE EARTH is a collection of novels to transform our relationship with the natural world. Each one is a work of creative activism, a blast of fresh air, a seed from which change can grow. The books in this series reconnect us to the planet we inhabit - and must protect. Discover great writing on the most urgent story of our times.

When her cousin and wife fail to return from a walk, this story takes a sinister turn to a quest of survival A woman takes a holiday in the Austrian mountains, spending a few days with her cousin and his wife in their hunting lodge. When the couple fails to return from a walk, the woman sets off to look for them. But her journey reaches a sinister and inexplicable dead end. She discovers only a transparent wall behind which there seems to be no life. Trapped alone behind the mysterious wall she begins the arduous work of survival. This is at once a simple account of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one's name, and simultaneously a disturbing dissection of the place of human beings in the natural world. **PERFECT FOR FANS OF THE YELLOW WALLPAPER, STATION ELEVEN AND THE MARTIAN** VINTAGE EARTH is a collection of novels to transform our relationship with the natural world. Each one is a work of creative activism, a blast of fresh air, a seed from which change can grow. The books in this series reconnect us to the planet we inhabit - and must protect. Discover great writing on the most urgent story of our times.

'A long-time confidante of the rain and snow, I am ninety years old. The rain and snow have weathered me, and I too have weathered them' At the end of the twentieth century an old woman sits among the birch trees and reflects on the joys and tragedies that have befallen her people. A member of the Evenki tribe who wander the forests of north-eastern China, hers was a life lived in close sympathy with nature at its most beautiful and cruel. Then, in the 1930s, the intimate, secluded world of the tribe is shattered when the Japanese army invades China. The Evenki cannot avoid being pulled into the brutal conflict that marks the beginning of the end of life as they know it. 'An atmospheric modern folk-tale, the saga of the Evenki clan of Inner Mongolia - nomadic reindeer herders whose traditional life alongside the Argun river endured unchanged for centuries... This is a fitting tribute to the Evenki by a writer of rare talent' Financial Times VINTAGE EARTH is a collection of novels to transform our relationship with the natural world. Each one is a work of creative activism, a blast of fresh air, a seed from which change can grow. The books in this series reconnect us to the planet we inhabit - and must protect. Discover great writing on the most urgent story of our times.

Escape to the ocean with the entrancing, unforgettable winner of the Costa Book of the Year - as read on BBC Radio 4. On a quiet day, near the Caribbean island of Black Conch, a mermaid raises her barnacled head from the flat grey sea. She is attracted by David, a fisherman waiting for a catch, singing to himself with his guitar. Aycayia the mermaid has been living in the vast ocean all alone for centuries. When Aycayia is caught and dragged ashore by American tourists, David rescues her with the aim of putting her back in the ocean. But it is soon clear that the mermaid is already transforming into a woman. This is the story of their love affair, of an island and of the great wide sea. 'Mesmerising' Maggie O'Farrell author of The Marriage Portrait 'A unique talent' Bernadine Evaristo author of Girl, Women, Other 'Not your standard mermaid' Margaret Atwood author of The Testaments VINTAGE EARTH is a series of books that reveals our ever-changing relationship with the environment. These are stories old and young, set in worlds real or imagined, that allow us to explore our connection to the natural world. Transformative, wild, surprising and essential, these novels take on the most urgent story of our times.

A wondrous, exhilarating novel about nine strangers brought together by an unfolding natural catastrophe. The perfect literary escape. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. An Air Force crewmember in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. This is the story of these and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by the natural world, who are brought together in a last stand to save it from catastrophe. 'It changed how I thought about the Earth and our place in it' Barack Obama 'Really, just one of the best novels, period' Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House VINTAGE EARTH is a collection of novels to transform our relationship with the natural world. Each one is a work of creative activism, a blast of fresh air, a seed from which change can grow. The books in this series reconnect us to the planet we inhabit - and must protect. Discover great writing on the most urgent story of our times.

MICHAEL KOHLHAAS HAS BEEN WRONGED. HE WILL HAVE JUSTICE. Based on the real life of an ordinary horse-dealer cheated by a government official, Michael Kohlhaas is the darkly comical and magnificently weird story of one man's alienation from a corrupt legal system. When his attempts to claim his rights are thwarted by bureaucracy and nepotism, Kohlhaas vows to take justice into his own - increasingly bloody - hands. Will he be remembered as a dangerous enemy of the peace, or a vigilante hero? Praised by Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Susan Sontag, Roberto Bolano, Werner Herzog, and J. M. Coetzee, this is one of the most influential tales in German literature. In this vital new translation by the renowned poet Michael Hofmann, Kleist's bizarre, brutal and maddening story is urgent today.

THE AUTHORATITIVE TEXT 'There are occasions where it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all' Both a memoir of Orwell's experiences during the Spanish Civil War and a heartfelt tribute to those who died, Homage to Catalonia is an extraordinary first-hand record of him time on the frontline. Written with all of the depth, passion and deep human understanding that defines Orwell's writing this is a vivid account of the battles that were faced by ordinary working people as they fought for both their lives and their ideologies. Although Orwell was himself near-fatally wounded he finds both bleak and comic notes in his experience which is recorded with such clarity and depth that this short work has become one of his best known.