Black Swan Like Water for Chocolate Esquivel Laura

On the banks of the River Seine in 1899, a young woman takes her final breath before plunging into the icy water. Although she does not know it, her decision will set in motion an astonishing chain of events. It will lead to 1950s Norway, where a grieving toy-maker is on the cusp of a transformative invention, all the way to present-day Canada where a journalist, battling a terrible disease, risks everything for one last chance to live • Taking inspiration from a remarkable true story, Coming Up for Air is a bold, richly imagined novel about the transcendent power of storytelling and the immeasurable impact of every human life

'If you care about something you have to protect it. If you're lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.' • Summer, 1953. In the small town of Gravesend, New Hampshire, eleven-year-old John Wheelwright and his best friend Owen Meany are playing in a Little League baseball game. When Owen hits a foul ball which kills John's mother, their lives are changed in an instant • It is dismissed as a tragic accident but Owen disagrees. He believes that he is God's instrument, put on Earth for a higher purpose. And as the boys come into adulthood to the background of the Vietnam War, a series of remarkable events show that perhaps Owen's divine plan was not imagined after all • Discover the funny yet poignant classic by the bestselling author of The World According to Garp

An early memoir from the world's most famous atheist, and scientist • Born to parents who were enthusiastic naturalists, and linked through his wider family to a clutch of accomplished scientists, Richard Dawkins was bound to have biology in his genes. But what were the influences that shaped his life? And who inspired him to become the pioneering scientist and public thinker now famous (and infamous to some) around the world? • In An Appetite for Wonder we join him on a personal journey from an enchanting childhood in colonial Africa, through the eccentricities of boarding school in England, to his studies at the University of Oxford’s dynamic Zoology Department, which sparked his radical new vision of Darwinism, The Selfish Gene. Through Dawkins’s honest self-reflection, touching reminiscences and witty anecdotes, we are finally able to understand the private influences that shaped the public man who, more than anyone else in his generation, explained our own origins

Пруды: небольшие водоемы, как естественного, так и искусственного происхождения, где обитают удивительные, разнообразные формы жизни. Пруды определяют наше детство: лягушачью икру, золотых рыбок, кормление уток, а также нашу деревенскую жизнь, наши фермы, наш ландшафт. И они многослойны - от карпа, кружащего у дна, до водяных лодочников, лысухи и птиц-стрекоз над головой. В книге "Тихая вода. Глубинная жизнь пруда" Джон Льюис-Стемпел погружается в темные глубины, как в буквальном, так и в переносном смысле, чтобы исследовать тихие воды британской сельской местности в течение каждого месяца года • Книга на английском языке • Great nature writing needs to be informative, detailed, accurate, lyrical, and, above all, to instil a sense of gratitude and wonder

For eight-year-old Rufus life has become complicated. His parents, Josie and Tom, have divorced and are setting off on separate paths. But now, other people have had to become involved, like his mother's new husband Matthew and his father's new friend Elizabeth. What's even worse is that there are other children too, Matthew's three teenagers, who have been conditioned by their mother Nadine to hate his mother Josie • Matthew's children come to their father for weekends and make it clear how much they loathe Josie. Rufus secretly prefers to be with his father, in his peaceful flat in Bath, where he realises that he doesn't actually hate the idea of a stepmother, if she is peaceful and sane like Elizabeth. But where other people's children are concerned, neat solutions seldom occur

For centuries, scientists had only one way to study the brain: wait for misfortune to strike - strokes, seizures, infections, lobotomies, horrendous accidents, phantom limbs, Siamese twins - and see how the victims changed afterwards. In many cases their survival was miraculous, and observers marvelled at the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed. Parents suddenly couldn't recognise their children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars and paedophiles. Some people couldn't speak but could still sing. Others couldn't read but could write • The stories of these people laid the foundations of modern neuroscience and, century by century, key cases taught scientists what every last region of the brain did

For amiable City trader Jimmy Corby money was the new Rock n' Roll. His whole life was a party, adrenalin charged and cocaine fuelled. If he hadn't met Monica he would probably have ended up either dead or in rehab • But Jimmy was as lucky in love as he was at betting on dodgy derivatives, so instead of burning out, his star just burned brighter than ever. Rich, pampered and successful, Jimmy, Monica and their friends lived the dream, bringing up their children with an army of domestic helps • But then it all came crashing down. And when the global financial crisis hit, Jimmy discovers that anyone can handle success. It's how you handle failure that really matters

The addictive new psychological thriller from the author of The Girl on the Train, the runaway Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller and global phenomenon. In the last days before her death, Nel called her sister. Jules didn't pick up the phone, ignoring her plea for help. Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules has been dragged back to the one place she hoped she had escaped for good, to care for the teenage girl her sister left behind. But Jules is afraid. So afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of knowing that Nel would never have jumped. And most of all she's afraid of the water, and the place they call the Drowning Pool... With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, satisfying read that hinges on the stories we tell about our pasts and their power to destroy the lives we live now

They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men • Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. In the morning, she's gone • In a community where daughters rebel, men quietly rage, and drinking is a means of forgetting, mysteries like these are not out of the ordinary. The trapper found hanging with the dead animals for two weeks. Locked doors and stone circles. The disappearance of Lauren's mother a decade ago • Lauren looks for answers in her tarot cards, hoping she might one day be able to read her father's turbulent mind

Pioneering study of the science behind quantum computing and what the new quantum reality will mean for mankind • The quantum computer is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Pioneering physicists are on the brink of unlocking a new quantum universe which provides a better representation of reality than our everyday experiences and common sense ever could. The birth of quantum computers – which, like Schrцdinger’s famous ‘dead and alive’ cat, rely on entities like electrons, photons or atoms existing in two states at the same time – is set to turn the computing world on its head • In his fascinating study of this cutting-edge technology, John Gribbin updates his previous views on the nature of quantum reality, arguing for a universe of many parallel worlds where ‘everything is real’

Young Pak Jun Do is convinced he is special. He knows he must be the unique son of the master of the orphanage, and definitely not some kid dumped by his parents. Surely it was obvious from the way his father singled him out for regular beating? • He finds his calling when he is picked as a spy and kidnapper for his nation, the glorious Democratic Republic of North Korea • He knows he must find his true love, Sun Moon, the greatest opera star who ever lived, before it’s too late • He knows he’s not like the other prisoners in the camp • He’s going to get out soon • Isn't he? • This hilarious, dark literary epic of a young boy's rise in North Korea from orphan to high-ranking officer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the National Book Award

Molly has lived on the streets for nearly a decade. She has close friends but spends most of her nights sleeping rough in dangerous places. So when a new acquaintance invites her on a journey across the country, she decides to go along. He is searching for treasure while she is searching for hope • At every stop on their unusual quest, Molly senses something close behind her: the footsteps of an old enemy and the memories of a life she has tried to erase. And yet she must find the courage to continue if she’s ever going to discover a place that really feels like home • A vibrant, invigorating, and affecting novel and the inspiring portrait of a young homeless woman from Observer New Face of Fiction Mahsuda Snaith