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How did money come to be invented? Why does it now have such significance in our lives? Does it make us happier or unhappier? And what does the future hold for it? With brilliant clarity and insight, Yuval Noah Harari takes the reader on a journey from the very first coins through to 21st century economics and shows us how we are all on the brink of a revolution, whether we like it or not. Selected from the books Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah HarariVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series:Home by Salman RushdieBabies by Anne EnrightEating by Nigella LawsonDrinking by John Cheever

London is under threat. It has become a haven for political exiles and anarchists. Frequent bomb threats and disturbances interrupt the lives of the city's inhabitants, who live in fear of the terrorists in their midst. One such terrorist is Verloc. He is the secret agent who is given the mission to strike right at the heart of London's pride by blowing up Greenwich Observatory. But his decision to drag his innocent family into the plot leads to tragic consequences on a more personal than political level.

May 1914. Britain is on the eve of war with Germany. Richard Hannay is living a quiet life in London, but after a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger he stumbles into a hair-raising adventure - a desperate hunt across the country and against the clock, pursued by the police and a cunning, ruthless enemy. Hannay's life and the security of Britain are in grave peril, and everything rests on the solution to a baffling enigma: what are the thirty-nine steps?

A NEW TRANSLATION BY MICHAEL MORPURGO, AUTHOR OF WAR HORSE If a little fellow comes along, if he laughs, if he has golden hair, and if he never answers questions, then you will know who he is. He is the Little Prince, the mysterious, innocent and beautiful boy who appears to a pilot stranded in the desert and makes an extraordinary request. He has captured the hearts of millions of readers around the world since his story first appeared in 1943, written down by an aristocratic French aviator who soon after disappeared during a flight across the sea. The Little Prince journeys to our planet from his home among the stars, encountering all sorts of benighted grown-ups along the way, and a fox, who teaches him how to see the important things in life. But the Prince has left behind a flower growing on his star, a rose which is his treasure and his burden, and before long he must return to it. Master storyteller Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse, has translated what is for him 'one of the greatest stories ever written' so that more English readers might discover the joy of reading this enchanting fable. The Little Prince is a story for everyone, for children and grown-up children, for kings, geographers and lamp-lighters, even for the very serious and the very wise

Arthur Machin's life changes when he is picked for the Rugby league team in his local town. Once a struggling coal miner's son, now he can buy what he likes - a car, a fur coat for his widowed landlady, Mrs Hammond, who is becoming something more. But fame makes a mess of things. Machin is troubled by advances from the boss's wife, he challenges the sensibilities of the comfortable classes and struggles to understand why his success fails to impress Mrs Hammond. Gritty, full of ambition and anger, This Sporting Life is an unflinching and surgical dissection of one man's life and a rare foray onto the sports field in British fiction.

The Vintage Classics Europeans series - with covers provided by textile design firm Wallace Sewell, these are must-have editions of European masterpieces, celebrating the warp and weft of a shared literary treasuryAging writer Gustave von Aschenbach is disappointed by Venice. The skies are leaden, the air is thick and sultry, and a sickening stench emanates from the murky labyrinth of canals. It would hardly be sensible to stay, especially not when rumours of a `sickness' spread through the city. And yet Aschenbach cannot leave: he has seen an entirely beautiful young boy and has fallen under an enchantment. He must stay near the boy, though never speaking to him, even until it is too late. Also includes the stories 'LITTLE HERR FRIEDEMANN', 'THE JOKER', 'THE ROAD TO THE CHURCHYARD', 'GLADIUS DEI', 'TRISTAN' and 'TONIO KRUGER'. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY DAVID LUKE`Mann was a master magician of German - and world - literature in the twentieth century' Sunday Telegraph

The Vintage Classics Europeans series - with covers provided by textile design firm Wallace Sewell, these are must-have editions of European masterpieces, celebrating the warp and weft of a shared literary treasury. TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY EDITH GROSSMANWidely regarded as the world's first modern novel, and one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of a noble knight and his faithful squire as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. Except the knight is not really a knight, his princesses are servant girls, his enchanted castles are inns and his giants are windmills. Don Quixote's goodness is real however, and his wish for the world to be full of adventures and passion is so profoundly human that, four hundred years after its first appearance, his story still crackles, beguiles and inspires. `If there is one novel you should read before you die, it is Don Quixote' Ben Okri

Flush was an English cocker spaniel who belonged to the nineteenth-century poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Virginia Woolf learned of him from the love letters Elizabeth wrote to her future husband, fellow poet Robert Browning, and found `the figure of their dog made me laugh so, I couldn't resist making him a Life.' The resulting `biography' combines sensuous imaginative description with sharp social comment, and brings Woolf's unsentimental humour and insight to the fore. We see Flush as loyal confidant to Elizabeth on her sickbed at Wimpole Street, and from his jealous perspective we witness her courtship by Browning, their elopement and new life in Italy. The perfect accessible introduction to Woolf's genius, a unique blend of fact and fiction, Flush is perhaps best read in the company of a canine companion. This edition includes the four original illustrations by Vanessa Bell and an afterword by Margaret Forster. Cover designed by the award-winning Finnish designer Aino-Maija Metsola

A beautiful new hardback edition of Mary Shelley's Gothic horror classic, Frankenstein, to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the book's first publicationINCLUDES A CULTURAL HISTORY OF FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTERNavigating the Arctic, the captain of a ship rescues a man wandering near death across the ice caps. How the man got there reveals itself a story of ambition, murder and revenge. As a young scientist, Victor Frankenstein pushed moral boundaries in order to cross the final frontier and create life. But his creation is a monster stitched together from grave-plundered body parts who has no place in the world, and his existence can only lead to tragedy.

EDITED, INTRODUCED AND ILLUSTRATED BY AUDREY NIFFENEGGERHaunted houses, spectral chills, and of course, the odd cat. . . In this volume, Audrey Niffenegger, bestselling author of The Time Traveler's Wife, has brought together her selection of the very creepiest, weirdest and wittiest ghost stories around. Scare yourself silly with old favourites by Edgar Allan Poe and M. R. James. Entertain the unnerving with tales from Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link and Audrey Niffenegger herself. And as bedtime nears, allay your fears with funny new writing from Amy Giacalone and the classic wit of Saki. When the nights draw in and the fire burns low, enjoy the eeriness, the dread and the comedy of all things ghostly.

Relax and relish Nigella Lawson's delicious prose in her first, revelatory cookery book, published as a reading edition in Vintage Classics for the first time to celebrate twenty years of How to Eat. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JEANETTE WINTERSON `How to eat, how to cook, how to write: I want two copies of this book, one to reference in the kitchen and one to read in bed' Yotam Ottolenghi When Nigella Lawson's first book, How to Eat, was published in 1998, two things were immediately clear: that this fresh and fiercely intelligent voice would revolutionise cookery writing, and that How to Eat was an instant classic of the genre. Here was a versatile culinary bible, through which a generation discovered how to feel at home in the kitchen and found the confidence to experiment and adapt recipes to their own needs. This was the book to reach for when hastily organising a last-minute supper with friends, when planning a luxurious weekend lunch or contemplating a store-cupboard meal for one, or when trying to tempt a fussy toddler. This was a book about home cooking for busy lives. The chief revelation was the writing. Rather than a set of intimidating instructions, Nigella's recipes provide inspiration. She has a gift for finding the right word to spark the reader's imagination, evoking the taste of the ingredients, the simple, sensual pleasures of the practical process, the deep reward of the finished dish. Passionate, trenchant, convivial and wise, Nigella's prose demands to be savoured, and ensures that the joy and value of How to Eat will endure for decades to come. (This Vintage Classics reading edition of How To Eat is faithful to the original and has no pictures of the recipes. Photos below are from a celebratory How To Eat cooking session.)

The Vintage Classics Europeans series - with covers provided by textile design firm Wallace Sewell, these are must-have editions of European masterpieces, celebrating the warp and weft of a shared literary treasury. In 1999, journalist and historian Geert Mak criss-crossed the continent in the simple yet monumental quest to trace European twentieth-century history as the world slipped into the twenty-first. In Europe is a dazzling account of that journey, and combines the larger story of Europe with intimate, vivid detail. It is also now a poignant reminder that the European project was then and is now a unprecedented experiment; that we still have `a great deal to tell each other and a great deal to explain.

The Vintage Classics Europeans series - with covers provided by textile design firm Wallace Sewell, these are must-have editions of European masterpieces, celebrating the warp and weft of a shared literary treasury. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY AWARD-WINNING NOVELIST (AUTHOR OF ULVERTON) AND POET ADAM THORPEMadame Bovary begins where many other novels end: with marriage. But Emma Bovary is ill-prepared for the prosaic reality of life as a country doctor's wife, and so plunges into a doomed search for passion and delight, flitting from fantasy to religion, from hedonism to devoted motherhood, from shopping to extra-marital sex. Flaubert's brutally beautiful tale is subversive in its sexual frankness, revolutionary in its influence and an inexhaustible pleasure to read. `One of the finest novels in any language' Independent

WINNER OF THE 1976 BOOKER PRIZE 'If you are looking for an intellectual and artistic honesty, a patient thoughtfulness and detailed insight into other lives...this novel will delight and move you' Guardian In spite of his brilliance, Colin Saville doesn't fit in easily at the grammar school in town - 1940s middle-class society is so different from the mining village of his childhood. He makes tentative friendships and meets girls over long, empty summers but feels like an outsider with them and, increasingly, at home. Following the pattern of David Storey's own early years, Saville is a remarkably honest portrait of the tensions between parents and children, the difficulties of making one's own way in life, and the social divisions that persist still.

The Vintage Classics Europeans series - with covers provided by textile design firm Wallace Sewell, these are must-have editions of European masterpieces, celebrating the warp and weft of a shared literary treasury It is the spring of 1869 and there is talk of revolution in Sicily, by day the rattle of firing squads and by night the flickering lights of bonfires lit by rebel bands. Prince Fabrizio knows that beneath these outward signs of transformation, the sensuality, languor and corruption of his native land will never change. But can his family's ancient power endure? Lampedusa's macabre myth remains astounding relevant, reflecting any modern edifice of power and money just as surely as it shows us a corner of Italy long ago. TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY ARCHIBALD COLQUHOUN

Have you ever kept a diary? This is the diary of a young girl growing up in sixties America - an honest account of teenage life. But as well as discovering new friends, dating and going to parties, the author of this diary discovers something else: drugs. It is the era of free love and experimentation with mind-bending substances. And one thing leads to another. This book was first published several decades ago as the shocking real diary of a young woman. Whether it is fact or fiction is up to you to decide. BACKSTORY: Read the fascinating story of this mysterious book's first publication