Sort of Books Sculptor’s Daughter Jansson Tove

Aunt Gerda – the good listener – fears the encroaching forgetfulness of old age. Her solution is to create an artwork that will record and, inevitably, betray the secrets long confided in her. So begins Jansson’s short story debut, a tour de force of scalpel-sharp narration that takes us from a disquieting homage to the artist Edward Gorey, to perfect evocations of childhood innocence and recklessness, to a city ravaged by storms, or the slow halting thaw of spring. These stories are gifts of originality and depth • The Finnish-Swedish writer and artist Tove Jansson achieved worldwide fame as the creator of the Moomin stories, written between 1945 and 1970 and still in print in more than twenty languages. However, the Moomins were only a part of her prolific output

Летающие чашки, побег из тюрьмы и плавучий театр…это «Опасное лето!» • Если вдруг вы не знали, Муми-тролли – это добрые существа с бархатной шерсткой и гладкими круглыми носиками. Они живут в высоком синем доме, расположенном в лесной долине у морского побережья и очень любят философствовать • Из-за извержения в Долине Муми-троллей случилось наводнение. Муми-тролли вынуждены покинуть свой дом и временно поселиться в плавучем театре. Но на этом опасности не заканчиваются: в один день театр уплывает, а Муми-тролль, Фрёкен Снорк и Малышка Мю остаются на земле… • Смогут ли они воссоединиться с семьей до того, как опустится занавес? • «Опасное лето» – это четвертая книга в серии о муми-троллях, которая была опубликована в 1954 году. По сей день она выпускается более чем на 50 языках

Зимой Муми-тролли впадают в спячку. По крайней мере, так было раньше. Но одной зимой Муми-тролль проснулся… • Если вдруг вы не знали, Муми-тролли – это добрые существа с бархатной шерсткой и гладкими круглыми носиками. Они живут в высоком синем доме, расположенном в лесной долине у морского побережья и очень любят философствовать. А еще они любят солнце и каждую зиму впадают в спячку, просыпаясь лишь с приходом весны • Но в одну из зим Муми-тролль случайно просыпается во время спячки и оказывается один-одинешенек в загадочном мире, покрытом снегом. «Волшебная зима» – это история о том, как ошеломленный Муми-тролль справляется со своим одиночеством, а затем исследует сверкающие снежные просторы вместе с мудрым Туу-тикки и бесстрашной Малышкой Мю

Муми-тролль просыпается во время спячки и не может уснуть. Перед ним открывается новый мир зимних развлечений • В 1961 году по просьбе своего итальянского издателя Туве Янссон подготовила новое издание «Волшебной зимы». Текст и черно-белые иллюстрации не претерпели никаких изменений. Была нарисована новая обложка и добавлены новые страницы с цветными иллюстрациями и полноценный цветной разворот. «Волшебная зима» – это единственная книга про Муми-троллей, которая была переиздана самой Туве Янссон. Издание, которое мечтает получить любой поклонник серии и коллекционер, теперь доступно для читателей из Великобритании • Книги Туве Янссон о Муми-троллях станут прекрасным подарком для детей • По мотивам книги был снят мультфильм • Книга на английском языке

Истории финской художницы Туве Янссон о Муми-троллях уже больше 50 лет выпускаются более чем на 35 языках. В Европе за ними уже давно закрепился статус любимой детской классики, а благодаря современному сериалу BBC Two новые поколения детей смогут познакомиться с очаровательными и смешными обитателями долины Муми-троллей • Издательство Sort of Books с гордостью представляет книгу «Что дальше? Книга о Муми-троллях, Мюмбле и Малышке Мю» с цветными иллюстрациями, вырезанными элементами и в переводе одной из самых известных британских поэтесс современности Софи Ханны • Книги о Муми-троллях станут прекрасным подарком для детей • Книга на английском языке • Finnish artist Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories have been continually in print for more than half a century, in 35 languages

Drawn from youth and older age, and spanning most of the twentieth century, this newly translated selection provides a thrilling showcase of the great Finnish writer’s prose, scattered with insights and home truths. It has been selected and is introduced by Ali Smith, and there are afterwords by Philip Pullman, Esther Freud and Frank Cottrell Boyce • The Winter Book features thirteen stories from Tove Jansson’s first book for adults, The Sculptor’s Daughter (1968) along with seven of her most cherished later stories (from 1971 to 1996), translated into English and published here for the first time

An elderly artist and her six-year-old grand-daughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. As the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges – one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself • Written in a clear, unsentimental style, full of brusque humour, and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own life and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of her adult novels. This new edition, with a Foreword by Esther Freud, sees the return of a European literary gem – fresh, authentic and deeply humane

In the deep winter snows of a Swedish hamlet, a strange young woman fakes a break-in at the house of an elderly artist in order to persuade her that she needs companionship. But what does she hope to gain by doing this? And who ultimately is deceiving whom? In this portrayal of two women encircling each other with truth and lies, nothing can be taken for granted. By the time the snow thaws, both their lives will have changed irrevocably

Chris Stewart’s Driving over Lemons told the story of his move to a remote mountain farm in Las Alpujarras – an oddball region of Spain, south of Granada. Funny, insightful and real, the book became an international bestseller • A Parrot in the Pepper Tree, the sequel to Lemons, follows the lives of Chris, Ana and their daughter, Chloe, as they get to grips with a misanthropic parrot who joins their home, Spanish school life, neighbours in love, their amazement at Chris appearing on the bestseller lists… and their shock at discovering that their beloved valley is once more under threat of a dam • A Parrot in the Pepper Tree also looks back on Chris Stewart’s former life – the hard times shearing in midwinter Sweden (and driving across the frozen sea to reach island farms); his first taste of Spain, learning flamenco guitar as a 20-year old; and his illustrious music career, drumming for his school band Genesis (sacked at 17, he never quite became Phil Collins), and then for a circus

It is the summer of 1947. A novice Lutheran priest, his wife and baby daughter arrive at a windswept island off the coast of Finland, where they are welcomed by its frugal, self-sufficient community of fisher folk turned reluctant farmers. In this deeply atmospheric and quietly epic tale, Lundberg uses a wealth of everyday detail to draw us irresistibly into a life and mindset far removed from our own – stoic and devout yet touched with humour and a propensity for song. With each season, the young family’s love of the island and its disparate and scattered inhabitants deepens, and when the winter brings ice, new and precarious links appear. Told in spare, simple prose that mirrors the islanders’ unadorned style, this is a story as immersive as it is heartrending

The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society finds Chris and his family still living on their farm, El Valero, and with its easy ‘Sun-Lit’ charm and funny, evocative anecdotes, it will draw in new and old readers alike • You will find yourself laughing out loud as Chris is instructed by his daughter on local teenage mores; bluffs his way in art history to millionaire Bostonians; is rescued off a snowy peak by the Guardia Civil; and joins an Almond Blossom Appreciation Society • You’ll cringe with Chris as he stries his hand at office work in an immigrants’ advice centre in Granada, spurred into action by the arrival of four destitute young Moroccans at El Valero. And you’ll never see olive oil in quite the same way again… • In this sequel to ‘Lemons’ and ‘Parrot’, Chris Stewart’s optimism and zest for life is as infectious as ever

‘If we want to understand what has been lost to time, there is no way other than through the exercise of imagination. …imagination applied with delicate rather than broad strokes.’ So wrote the award winning Japanese author Kyoko Nakajima of her story Things Remembered and Things Forgotten, a prose piece that illuminates, as if by throwing a switch, the layers of wartime devastation that lie just below the surface of Tokyo’s insistently modern culture • Of the ten acclaimed stories in this collection are pervaded by an air of Japanese ghostliness. In beautifully crafted and deceptively light prose, Nakajima portrays men and women beset by cultural amnesia and unaware of how haunted they are – by fragmented memories of war and occupation, by fading traditions, by buildings lost to firestorms and bulldozers, by the spirits of their recent past