The Woman in the Dunes Abe Kobo Penguin Group

В этих двух захватывающих романах Герберт Уэллс рисует ужасающее будущее, в котором под угрозой оказывается сама цивилизация • Рассказчик "Войны миров" быстро обнаруживает, что то, что казалось падающей звездой, на самом деле было металлическим цилиндром, приземлившимся с Марса. Шесть миллионов человек начинают в панике покидать Лондон, когда появляются захватчики с щупальцами и захватывают город. Можно ли что-нибудь сделать, чтобы остановить марсиан? • В "Войне в воздухе" наивный, но находчивый Берт Смоллуэйз приходит в восторг от скорости и очарован новыми летательными аппаратами. Любопытство случайно увлекает его в немецкий план завоевания Америки, начинающийся с разрушения Нью-Йорка. Легкость передвижения в воздушной войне означает, что ничто и никто не находится в безопасности, когда вспыхивает Тотальная война, цивилизация рушится, а надежды Берта вернуться в Лондон, чтобы жениться на своей возлюбленной, кажутся невероятно далекими

Dazzlingly original, Kobo Abe's The Woman in the Dunes is one of the premier Japanese novels in the twentieth century, and this Penguin Classics edition contains a new introduction by David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas • Niki Jumpei, an amateur entomologist, searches the scorching desert for beetles. As night falls he is forced to seek shelter in an eerie village, half-buried by huge sand dunes. He awakes to the terrifying realisation that the villagers have imprisoned him with a young woman at the bottom of a vast sand pit. Tricked into slavery and threatened with starvation if he does not work, Jumpei's only chance is to shovel the ever-encroaching sand - or face an agonising death. Among the greatest Japanese novels of the twentieth century, The Woman in the Dunes combines the essence of myth, suspense, and the existential novel

London, 1960. The lives of teenage twins Maisy and Duncan change forever the night their sick mother is taken to an asylum. Sent to live in the New Forest with their cold-hearted grandmother, Mrs Mitcham, they feel unloved and abandoned • And when one day Duncan doesn't come home from exploring in the forest, no one - least of all his grandmother - appears to care about his disappearance. The police, who've found the bodies of other missing boys, offer little hope of finding Duncan alive • Yet Maisy refuses to give up. Though she doesn't know the woods well, she knows someone who does. The strange old woman who lives at their heart • Dare Maisy enlist the help of the woman in the wood?

The Woman in the Purple Skirt is being watched. Someone is following her, always perched just out of sight, monitoring which buses she takes; what she eats; whom she speaks to. But this invisible observer isn’t a stalker – it’s much more complicated than that

Shay Bastable is the woman in the middle. She is part of the sandwich generation – caring for her parents and her children, supporting her husband Bruce, holding them all together and caring for them as best she can • Then the arrival of a large orange skip on her mother’s estate sets in motion a cataclysmic series of events which leads to the collapse of Shay’s world. She is forced to put herself first for a change • But in order to move forward with her present, Shay needs to make sense of her past. And so she returns to the little village she grew up in, to uncover the truth about what happened to her when she was younger. And in doing so, she discovers that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to find the only way is up

‘I see it all again: the silver moon swimming beneath the water and the golden gown billowing out about her…’ • 1765: Lady Isabella Gerard asks her maid to take her new golden gown and destroy it. Its shimmering beauty has been tainted by the actions of her husband the night before • Three months later: Lord Eustace Gerard stands beside the lake looking down at the woman in the golden gown. As the body slowly rolls over to reveal her face, it’s clear this is not his intended victim… • 1996: Fenella Brightwell steals a stunning gown from a stately home. Twenty years later and reeling from the end of an abusive marriage, she wonders if it has cursed her all this time. Now she’s determined to discover the history behind the beautiful golden dress…

For centuries hummingbirds have captured our imaginations: revered by Native Americans, coveted by European collectors and admired worldwide for their jewel-like plumage, acrobatic flight and immense character • Though their renown extends throughout the world, hummingbirds are found exclusively in the Americas. Small in stature yet fiercely tenacious, they have conquered every habitat imaginable: from boreal woodlands to deserts, mangrove swamps to volcanic slopes, and on islands both tropical and sub-polar. The Glitter in the Green takes us on an unforgettable journey in search of the most remarkable examples of this wildly variable family. There's the Bee Hummingbird in Cuba, the smallest species of bird to have ever lived; the diminutive Rufous Hummingbird, whose annual migration exceeds 3,000 miles; and the critically endangered Juan Fernandez Firecrown, marooned on the remote Pacific island that inspired Robinson Crusoe

The new thrilling instalment of John Connolly's popular Charlie Parker series. It is spring, and the semi-preserved body of a young Jewish woman is discovered buried in the Maine woods. It is clear that she gave birth shortly before her death. But there is no sign of a baby. Private detective Charlie Parker is engaged by the lawyer Moxie Castin to shadow the police investigation and find the infant, but Parker is not the only searcher. Someone else is following the trail left by the woman, someone with an interest in more than a missing child, someone prepared to leave bodies in his wake. And in a house by the woods, a toy telephone begins to ring. For a young boy is about to receive a call from a dead woman

An unforgettable thriller from an incredible new author, for fans of We Were Liars and Half Bad, reminiscent of The Virgin Suicides • Father wants sixteen-year-old Castley and her five siblings to hide from the world. Living in a falling-down house deep in the woods, he wants to bury their secrets where noone will ever find them • Father says they are destined to be together forever. In heaven. Father says the sooner they get there, the better • But Castley wants to be normal. She wants to kiss boys and wear jean shorts • Castley wants to live

When the Titanic sank, so did the Edwardian age that created it. In this brilliantly original history, Gareth Russell recasts a tragedy we think we know to explore an era of seismic change • With new research and previously unseen first-hand accounts, Gareth Russell peers through the most famous portholes in the world to follow six travellers. Amongst them, a Jewish-American immigrant, an American movie star, a member of the British nobility, and a titan of industry. Setting these lives against that of the Titanic, Russell investigates social class, technological advancement, political turmoil and pioneering ambition in an age that swang between folly and brilliance, hubris and triumph • A dramatic history of human endeavour told through extraordinary, diverse personalities, The Ship of Dreams dispels myth to revive the story of a ship that was to become symbolic of its own doomed era

GIGGED goes inside the Silicon Valley companies leading the way to this emerging ‘gig economy’. It tells the stories of the workers – from computer programmers to online comment moderators – who are getting by in a new wave of precarious, short-term employment. And it sketches out what tomorrow’s economy might look like: one where the fortunate get to work when they want, how they want, while the rest live lives of extraordinary hardship • It might just be the future of work for all of us

This collection of lesser-known early short fiction - ranging from absurd humorous sketches to psychological dramas and tragic tales - demonstrates Anton Chekhov's mastery of the genre, with stories about marital infidelity, betrayal, deception and love in its various forms. Although varying m tone and purpose, what these tales have in common is a profound and subtle understanding of the human condition, in its farcical and melancholy aspects, couched in Chekhov's trademark minimalist style