Vintage books Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage Мураками Харуки

A gripping chronicle of the personal and political rivalries from the birth of Queen Victoria to the unification of Germany during the decades leading up to WW1 from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie • 2018 marks the centenary of the end of the First World War. How did it all begin? • With the biographer's rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives, Massie brings to life a crowd of glittering figures: the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow; Britain's greatest twentieth-century Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionised the British Navy and brought forth the battleship, H.M.S. Dreadnought. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstanding and tensions, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in this powerful narrative

Selected as a Book of the Year by The Times and The Economist • China's history is an epic tapestry of courtly philosophies, warring factions and imperial intrigue. Yet, over five thousand years, one ancient element has so dramatically shaped the country's fate that it remains the key to unlocking China's story. That element is water • In The Water Kingdom Philip Ball takes us on a grand tour of China's defining element, from the rice terraces and towering karts of its battle-worn waterways, to the vast engineering projects that have struggled to contain water's wrath. What surfaces is the secret history of a people and a nation, drawn from its deep reverence for nature's most dynamic force

The vivid scenes on the Bayeux Tapestry depict the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It is one of Europe's greatest treasures and its own story is full of drama and surprise • Who commissioned the tapestry? Was it Bishop Odo, William's ruthless half-brother? Or Harold's dynamic sister Edith, juggling for a place in the new court? Hicks shows us this world and the miracle of the tapestry's making: the stitches, dyes and strange details in the margins. For centuries it lay ignored in Bayeux cathedral until its 'discovery' in the eighteenth century. It became a symbol of power as well as art: townsfolk saved it during the French Revolution; Napoleon displayed it to promote his own conquest; the Nazis strove to make it their own; and its influence endures today

Генрих VIII, известный своей властью и прославленный своим интеллектом, возглавлял один из самых великолепных - и опасных - дворов в Европе эпохи Возрождения • Никогда прежде подробная личная биография этого харизматичного монарха не была представлена на фоне культурного, социального и политического фона его блистательного двора. Теперь Элисон Вейр оживляет беспокойную, сложную фигуру короля. Насыщенный красочными описаниями, скрупулезный в исторических деталях, богатый зрелищами, интригами, страстью и роскошью, в своей книге "Генрих VIII. Король и двор" Вейр блестяще изображает короля Генриха VIII, его двор и очаровательных мужчин и женщин, которые соперничали за его внимание и награды • Книга на английском языке • Henry VIII, renowned for his command of power and celebrated for his intellect, presided over one of the most magnificent-and dangerous-courts in Renaissance Europe

In settings that range from small town Illinois to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, these stories are distinguished by Maxwell's inimitable wisdom and kindness, his sense of the small details that make up a life, the nuances of joy and sadness that change its direction. Whether describing the reunion of two brothers who will never agree, the furniture of the apartment that becomes everything to a childless couple, the search for the perfect French meal or the life of a ne'er-do-well uncle, Maxwell's stories capture responses that are recognisable in us all

Codenamed 'Orphan' by his Russian recruiter, Maclean was Britain's most gifted traitor. But as he leaked huge amounts of top-secret intelligence, an international code-breaking operation was rapidly closing in on him. Moments before he was unmasked, Maclean escaped to Moscow • Drawing on a wealth of previously classified material, A Spy Named Orphan now tells this story for the first time in full, revealing the character and devastating impact of perhaps the most dangerous Soviet agent of the twentieth century

Understand how our immune system fights disease and enables the body to heal itself • 'Thrilling... Reads like the best kind of adventure story' STEPHEN FRY • 'Excellent' TIM SPECTOR, Sunday Times bestselling author of Spoon-Fed • Here, Professor Daniel Davis charts the groundbreaking scientific quest to understand how it fights disease and enables the body to heal itself. He explains how it is affected by stress, sleep, age and our state of mind, and reveals how all of this knowledge is now unlocking a revolutionary approach to medicine and well-being • The Beautiful Cure tells a dramatic story of detective work and discovery, of puzzles solved and of the mysteries that remain, and of lives sacrificed and saved

The Northmen’s Fury tells the Viking story, from the first pinprick raids of the eighth century to the great armies that left their Scandinavian homelands to conquer larger parts of France, Britain and Ireland. It recounts the epic voyages that took them across the Atlantic to the icy fjords of Greenland and to North America over four centuries before Columbus and east to the great rivers of Russia and the riches of the Byzantine empire • One summer’s day in 793, death arrived from the sea. The raiders who sacked the island monastery of Lindisfarne were the first Vikings, sea-borne attackers who brought two centuries of terror to northern Europe. Before long the sight of their dragon-prowed longships and the very name of Viking gave rise to fear and dread, so much so that monks were reputed to pray each night for delivery from ‘the Northmen’s Fury’

In 1981 Tim Parks moved from England to Italy and spent the next thirty years alongside hundreds of thousands of Italians on his adopted country’s vast, various and ever-changing networks of trains • Through memorable encounters with ordinary Italians – conductors and ticket collectors, priests and prostitutes, scholars and lovers, gypsies and immigrants – Tim Parks captures what makes Italian life distinctive. He explores how trains helped build Italy and how the railways reflect Italians’ sense of themselves from Garibaldi to Mussolini to Berlusconi and beyond

Four Hundred Souls is an epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, told by ninety leading Black voices -- co-curated by Ibram X. Kendi, author of the million-copy bestseller How To Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire • In chronological chapters, each by a different author and spanning five years, the book charts the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans to the present - a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles and stunning achievements • Contributors include some of today's leading writers, historians, journalists, lawyers, poets and activists. Together - through essays and short stories, personal vignettes and fiery polemics - they redefine America and the way its history can be told

Leskov’s stories of Russian life are explosions of imagination. Peopled by outsized characters including serfs, princes, Gypsy girls, horse dealers, nomadic Tartars and garrulous storytellers, Leskov’s writing exuberantly fables the national character of his age. For the first time, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translation brings Leskov’s original storytelling and irresistible voice to life

"Смерть в Венеции" Томаса Манна - это история одержимости. Густав фон Ашенбах - успешный, но стареющий писатель, который приезжает в Венецию на каникулы. Однажды за ужином Ашенбах замечает исключительно красивого юношу, который остановился со своей семьей в том же отеле. Вскоре его дни начинают вращаться вокруг встреч с этим мальчиком, и он слишком рассеян, чтобы обращать внимание на зловещие слухи, которые начали распространяться о болезни, распространяющейся по городу • Книга на английском языке • 'A story of the voluptuousness of doom' Thomas Mann • Death in Venice is a story of obsession. Gustave von Aschenbach is a successful but ageing writer who travels to Venice for a holiday. One day, at dinner, Aschenbach notices an exceptionally beautiful young boy who is staying with his family in the same hotel