Penguin The First Man Камю Альбер

Is it possible to die a happy death?This is the central question of Camus's astonishing early novel, published posthumously and greeted as a major literary event. It tells the story of a young Algerian, Mersault, who defies society's rules by committing a murder and escaping punishment, then experimenting with different ways of life and finally dying a happy man. In many ways A Happy Death is a fascinating first sketch for The Outsider, but it can also be seen as a candid self-portrait, drawing on Camus's memories of his youth, travels and early relationships. It is infused with lyrical descriptions of the sun-drenched Algiers of his childhood - the place where, eventually, Mersault is able to find peace and die 'without anger, without hatred, without regret'

The last novel from the unsurpassed master of American detective fiction, Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man is a genre-defining mystery novel, published in Penguin Modern Classics • Ex-detective Nick Charles plans to spend a quiet Christmas holed up in a hotel suite with his glamorous wife Nora, their pet Schnauzer and a case of good Scotch. But then a bullet-riddled corpse and a missing inventor (not to mention the attentions of a beautiful young woman) force him out of retirement and back into business. Trying to make sense of false leads, suspicious alibis and mistaken identities, Nick and Nora are thrown into a world of gangsters, hoodlums and speakeasies, where no-one can be trusted. Dashiell Hammett was credited with inventing the hardboiled crime novel, and this story of murder and mayhem in Manhattan, with its breakneck plot, snappy dialogue - and the hard-drinking, wisecracking couple Nick and Nora - is one of his most thrillingly enjoyable mysteries

A first ink drawing showed a hanged man swinging from a gallows on which perched an enormous crow. And there were at least twenty other etchings and pen or pencil sketches that had the same leitmotif of hanging • On the edge of a forest: a man hanging from every branch • A church steeple: beneath the weathercock, a human body dangling from each arm of the cross. . . Below another sketch were written four lines from Francois Villon's Ballade of the Hanged Men • On a trip to Brussels, Maigret unwittingly causes a man's suicide, but his own remorse is overshadowed by the discovery of the sordid events that drove the desperate man to shoot himself • This novel has been published in previous translations as Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets and The Crime of Inspector Maigret

'This is the record of a box man'. Anonymous and alone, the box man peeps out of his cut-out eyeholes and watches the world from behind his four cardboard walls. At first repulsed by the strange phenomenon of people who have decided to abandon society and live in boxes on the Tokyo streets, he has found himself drawn into the anonymity and voyeurism of their life. As he becomes obsessed with spying on a young nurse, his identity slips away, in Kobo Abe's eerie, disorienting and seductive masterpiece of unease

What happens when a weekend athlete – of average skill at best – joins the professional golf circuit? George Plimpton spent a month of self-imposed torture on the PGA tour to find out, meeting amateurs, pros, caddies, officials, fans and hangers-on along the way • In The Bogey Man we find golf legends, adventurers, stroke-saving theories, superstitions, and other golfing lore, and best of all, Plimpton’s thoughts and experiences – frustrating, humbling and, sometimes, thrilling – from the first tee to the last green

A moving nineteenth-century account - lost for many decades - of a Chinese official's all-consuming love for his wife • 'Our passion was so great. Will the Old Man understand and help us once again?' • The Old Man of the Moon is Shen Fu's intimate and moving account of his marriage - from early passion to the trials of poverty and separation - and his great, enduring love for his wife in eighteenth-century China • Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe

Zara and Joe go with their class to the Gerlock Caves. There's a story about the Gerlock Caves, Zara tells her teacher. There's a man. He walks in those caves at night and throws scissors at people. Penguin Readers is a series of popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, written for learners of English as a foreign language. The series is aligned to the Common European Framework and includes language activities that help develop key skills. The Scissor-Man, a Level 7 Reader, is B2 in the CEFR framework. The longer text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing future perfect simple, mixed conditionals, past perfect continuous, mixed conditionals, more complex passive forms and modals for deduction in the past

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction • The Invisible Man, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly • Griffin is a scientist, and he discovers how to make things invisible. Then he becomes invisible himself. Griffin thinks that an invisible man will have a lot of power

Who rose to enduring fame on Blood and Typewriters? • Who told the pregnant Portia of the Chambers it would come out in the end? • Who advised Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C. to adopt a more judicial attitude? • The answer is barrister Horace Rumpole.His legal triumphs, plundering sorties into the 'Oxford Book of English Verse' and less-than-salubrious hat are celebrated in the first omnibus, including Rumpole of the Bailey, The Trials of Rumpole and Rumpole's Return • John Mortimer's hilarious Rumpole, which fans of Sherlock Holmes and P.G. Wodehouse will love, sees the magician of the Old Bailey at his unpredictable and brilliant best

Murder Squad 4: Alongside Jack the Ripper there is another brutal serial killer roaming the streets of Victorian London • Spring 1890 • The spectre of Jack the Ripper still haunts Inspector Walter Day, his injured leg a daily reminder of his violent brush with London's most feared killer. He alone is convinced that the Ripper remains at large • But, worse is to come for Scotland Yard's Murder Squad. A new killer is terrorizing the citizens of London. They call him the Harvest Man; he hides away in the attics of the unsuspecting, emerging at night to terrorize his victims • This macabre new threat requires Inspector Day to confront his demons, but he soon discovers that the Ripper himself continues to toy with Scotland Yard's finest. The game has only just begun

The stories of Exile and the Kingdom explore the dilemma of being an outsider - even in one's own country - and of allegiance. With intense power and lyricism, Camus evokes beautiful but harsh landscapes, whether the shimmering deserts of his native Algeria or the wild, mysterious jungles of Brazil • Here a Frenchwoman is gradually seduced by the sheer difference of North Africa, a mutilated renegade is driven mad by the cruelty of his own people, and a barrel-maker watches the slow decline of his craft. A kindly teacher must choose between the law and a life, while a modest painter is out of his depth in the hypocrisy of the art world, and a French engineer discovers a new sense of belonging in a distant land • French novelist, essayist, and playwright

With his face swaddled in bandages, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses and his hands covered even indoors, Griffin - the new guest at The Coach and Horses - is at first assumed to be a shy accident-victim. But the true reason for his disguise is far more chilling: he has developed a process that has made him invisible, and is locked in a struggle to discover the antidote. Forced from the village, and driven to murder, he seeks the aid of an old friend, Kemp. The horror of his fate has affected his mind, however - and when Kemp refuse to help, he resolves to wreak his revenge