Vintage books Slide Rule Shute Nevil

Nevil Shute’s classic Second World War novel is an uplifting, satisfying and moving story • John Howard is determined to brighten up his old age by taking a fishing trip to France. However, during his stay the Nazis invade and he is forced to try to escape back to England with the two small children of some friends who must stay behind to help the Allied war effort. As the conflict grows closer, the roads become impassable and Howard also comes across five more children who need his help. He ends up leading this motley group of youngsters through the French countryside, constantly beset by danger yet heroically protecting his charges

In their trusty fishing boat Genevieve, armed with a flame thrower and limited ammunition, a small group of officers and men take a stand against the might of the German army after the fall of France in World War II. This is classic Shute: at once a thrilling adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat, and a heartbreaking tale of the ravages of war

Read this classic uplifting, moving and heartwarming story about life in the face of the cold war • Theodore Honey is a shy, inconspicuous aircraft engineer whose eccentric interests in quantum mechanics and spiritualism are frowned upon in aviation circles. But when a passenger plane crashes in unexplained circumstances, Honey must convince his superiors that his unorthodox theories are correct before more lives are lost

Through a series of mishaps, Henry Warren, a recently divorced City financier, ends up in hospital in a Northern town ruined by the closure of its shipyard. Moved by the fate of the town's inhabitants, Warren risks his fortune and reputation to save the shipyard and restore the town to its former prosperity. In seeking to change the fate of the town, he radically changes his own

Nevil Shute wrote this prophetic novel just before the start of the Second World War. In it he describes the devastation that results from an aerial bomb attack on Southampton that destroys the city's infrastructure and leaves the inhabitants at the mercy of cholera and further assaults. The story follows the trials and tribulations of the Corbett family as they try to get to safety

'A compelling novel about the tragedy of corrupting power, set in post-independence Kenya...Ngugi writes with passion about every form, shape and colour which power can take' Sunday Times • After decades of British rule Kenya has declared its independence, but drought and poor harvests still govern the village of Ilmorog. Undeterred, Munira, Karega, Wanja and Abdulla each move to Ilmorog in search of a more provincial life, only to find themselves suspects in a crime that signals a dark turning of the times • A classic of modern African literature, Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s damning satire of politics and corruption in Kenya would prove the catalyst for his imprisonment by the Kenyan government

The year is 1972, the Cold War is far from over and Serena Frome, in her final year at Cambridge, is being groomed for MI5. Sent on Operation Sweet Tooth – a highly secret undercover mission – she meets Tom Haley, a promising young writer. First she loves his stories, then she begins to love the man. Can she maintain the fiction of her undercover life? And who is inventing whom? To answer these questions, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage – trust no one

In The Day of the Locust a young artist, Tod Hackett, arrives in LA full of dreams. But celebrity and artifice rule and he soon joins the ranks of the disenchanted that drift around the fringes of Hollywood. When he meets Faye Greener, an aspiring actress, he is intoxicated and his desperate passion explodes into rage • Miss Lonelyhearts is a decidedly off-kilter, darkly comic tale set in New York in the early 30s. A nameless man is assigned to produce a newspaper advice column. It was meant to be a joke. But as endless letters from the Desperate, Sick-of-it-All and Disillusioned pile up for Miss Lonelyhearts's attention the joke begins to escape him

‘Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? • And, live we how we can, yet die we must’ • What is the true meaning of power? Are some simply born to it or can it be acquired like a skill? Does it always breed corruption and greed or can it be a force for good? From kings to prisoners and from battle-fields to courts, Shakespeare’s peerless understanding of power and its repercussions remains as pertinent today as it has ever been • Selected from Macbeth, Julius Caesar, A Winter’s Tale, Measure for Measure, Henry V, Richard II

'He is the greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or such novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison to him' Vladimir Nabokov • The story of K. and his arrival in a village where he is never accepted, and his relentless, unavailing struggle with authority in order to gain entrance to the castle that seems to rule it. K.'s isolation and perplexity, his begging for the approval of elusive and anonymous powers, epitomises Kafka's vision of twentieth-century alienation and anxiety

The bestselling classic from a 'magnificent story-teller' (Independent on Sunday). Journey to the glittering seventeenth-century court, and witness the rise and fall of young, charming Robert Merivel • When a twist of fate delivers an ambitious young medical student to the court of King Charles II, he is suddenly thrust into a vibrant world of luxury and opulence. Blessed with a quick wit and sparkling charm, Robert Merivel rises quickly, soon finding favour with the King, and privileged with a position as ‘paper groom’ to the youngest of the King’s mistresses. But by falling in love with her, Merivel transgresses the one rule that will cast him out from his new-found paradise…

In the last years of British rule in Jerusalem, a lonely, bookish Israeli boy befriends a British soldier in this tale of friendship in the face of enmity • Jerusalem 1947 • British soldiers patrol the streets, and bullets and bombs are a nightly occurrence • Caught up in the fervour and unrest against the occupying forces,12-year old Proffy dreams of being an underground fighter. But some of his dreams are less heroic • Temptation lurks everywhere for the youth who wants to be a man – and betrayal not far behind