Penguin A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees Kenko

Nikolai Gogol's short fiction, collected here as The Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector and Selected Stories, deeply influenced later Russian literature with powerful depictions of a society dominated by petty bureaucracy and base corruption. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes by Ronald Wilks, and an introduction by Robert A. Maguire • This volume includes a selection of Gogol's most admired short fiction and his most famous drama. A hilarious and biting political satire, 'The Government Inspector' has been popular since its first performance and was regarded by Nabokov as the greatest Russian play ever written. The stories gathered here, meanwhile, range from comic to tragic and describe the isolated lives of low-ranking clerks, lunatics and swindlers

The extraordinary story of how China became the powerful country it is today • Even at the high noon of Europe's empire-building China nonetheless kept its sovereignty. Robert Bickers' major new book is the first to describe fully what has proved to be one of the modern era's most important stories: the long, often agonizing process by which the Chinese had by the end of the 20th century regained control of their own country. Out of China uses a brilliant array of unusual, strange and vivid sources to recreate a now fantastically remote world. Today Chinese nationalism stays firmly rooted in memories of its degraded past - the quest for self-sufficiency, the determination to assert China's standing in the world, to stake its outstanding territorial claims, and never to be vulnerable to renewed attack

The Penguin Book of Card Games is the authoritative up-to-date compendium, describing an abundance of games to be played both for fun and by serious players • Auctions, trumpless hands, cross-ruffing and lurching: card players have a language all of their own. From games of high skill (Bridge) to games of high chance (Newmarket) to trick-taking (Whist) and banking (Pontoon), David Parlett, seasoned specialist in card games, takes us masterfully through the countless games to choose from • Not content to merely show us games with the conventional fifty-two card pack, Parlett covers many games played with other types of cards - are you brave enough to play with Tarot? With a 'working description' of each game, with the rules, variations and origins of each, as well as an appendix of games invented by the author himself, The Penguin Book of Card Games will delight, entertain and inform both the novice and the seasoned player

The Penguin Dictionary of Economics explains a host of economic terms, from acceleration principle to venture capital, Euro to X-efficiency, globalisation to zero-sum game. The eighth edition has been fully revised and updated to include those terms that have become so familiar since the global recession begun ('quantitative easing' and 'sub-prime' among them), but whose meanings escape most of us. Wide-ranging and accessible, this detailed practical and international guide will be indispensable for students of economics and professionals (in business, finance or the public sector), and for anyone wishing to follow economic discussions in the media today

The first part of his trilogy on the Spanish Empire, Hugh Thomas's Rivers of Gold brings the rise of Spain's global empire vividly to life, capturing the spirit of an ebullient age • Inspired by hopes of both riches and of converting native people to Christianity, the Spanish adventurers of the fifteenth century convinced themselves that an Earthly Paradise existed in the Caribbean. This is the story of the hundreds of conquistadors who set sail on the precarious journey across the Atlantic - taking with them wheat, the horse, the guitar and the wheel as well as guns, malaria and slaves - to create an empire that made Spain the envy of the world

The writings of one of the great woman adventurers of the twentieth century - the 'female Lawrence of Arabia' - and the subject of a new film starring Nicole Kidman • In the last century, few people lived more astounding - or influential - lives than Gertrude Bell. During World War I, she worked her way up from spy to army major to become one of the most powerful woman in the British Empire. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, she was instrumental in drawing the borders that define the region today, including creating an independent Iraq. This is the epic story of Bell's life, told through her letters, military dispatches, diary entries, and other writings. It offers a unique and intimate look behind the public mask of a woman who shaped nations

The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations provides an authoritative overview of this complex and constantly shifting subject. Ranging from the Arab-Israeli conflict to weapons of mass destruction, this is an indispensable and comprehensive guide to the events, organisations, theories and concepts that are shaping today's global community

The First Graphic Adaptation of the Multi-Million Bestseller • '12th June, 1942: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.' • In the summer of 1942, fleeing the horrors of the Nazi occupation, Anne Frank and her family were forced into hiding in the back of an Amsterdam warehouse • Aged thirteen when she went into the secret annexe, Anne Frank kept a diary in which she confided her innermost thoughts and feelings, movingly revealing how the eight people living under these extraordinary conditions coped with the daily threat of discovery and death • Adapted by Ari Folman, illustrated by David Polonsky, and authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel, this is the first graphic edition of the beloved diary of Anne Frank

'The piteousness of his little soft shroud of hair falling down his brow and swept aside by the hand over blue serious eyes' • Described by Kerouac as 'my most serious sad and true book', Visions of Gerard forms the first volume of his memoir cycle the 'Duluoz Legend' • Based on Jack Kerouac's memories of the beloved older brother who died when he was a boy, it is unique among his novels for its dreamlike evocation of the sensations of childhood - its wisdom, anguish, intensity, innocence, joy and pain. It is a haunting exploration of the precariousness of existence

The novel tells the story of Lyman Ward, a retired professor of history and author of books about the Western frontier, who returns to his ancestral home in the Sierra Nevada. Wheelchair-bound with a crippling bone disease, Ward embarks nonetheless on a search to rediscover his grandmother, no long dead, who made her own journey to Grass Valley nearly a hundred years earlier

Everyone is talking about Grace's family • But for all the wrong reasons • Grace wanted to give her daughters the childhood she never had. And with teenage golden girl Lilly she's never had to worry • But when Lilly mysteriously collapses at school, Grace's carefully ordered world crashes down. It turns out Lilly isn't the perfect daughter after all and Grace becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth • Which is when she takes her eyes off her youngest daughter, Mia and learns that the closer the family, the darker the secrets • Beneath the Surface explores the weight of the past upon the present, the burden of keeping secrets and what happens when children get caught in the undercurrents of adult relationships

In the Gulf of Mexico, flames erupt from the seabed turning oilrigs into infernos • Luckily, Kurt Austin and the NUMA team are on hand to rescue the crews before the burning rigs sink beneath the waves. But what caused this fireball? • It's soon clear this is sabotage, but at the same time oil fields around the world are dying • Tasked with discovering the truth, Kurt is led to alternative energy scientist Tessa Franco • Franco's company seeks the end of the oil age. But is she part of the solution - or the problem? • With the world simmering on the verge of catastrophe, Kurt's in a race against time to discover the extraordinary truth - one that may lie with an audacious experiment and a submarine lost fifty years ago