Vintage books A German Christmas. Festive Tales From Berlin to Bavaria Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus, Grimm Jacob & Wilhelm, Heine Helme

A collection of powerful short stories from a master of the form, W Somerset Maugham • From the love affair between a missionary and a drunkard to the mystery surrounding a death at sea, this collection gives a warm and humourous insight into life and history of life in the colonies and stands as a superbly entertaining and compelling testament to Maugham's skill and power as a short story writer

Your favourite fantastic Grimm fairy tales and bedtime stories in the only complete edition of this classic collection • Wolves and grandmothers, ugly sisters, a house made of bread, a goose made of gold...the folk tales collected by the Grimm brothers created an astonishingly influential imaginative world. However, this is also a world where a woman serves her stepson up in a stew, a man marries a snake, a princess sleeps with a frog, and an evil queen dances to death in a pair of burning shoes. Violent, funny, disturbing, wise and sometimes beautiful, these stories have intrigued children, adults, scholars, psychologists and artists for centuries • The only complete edition available of the most famous collection of fairy tales ever published, this collection features the 279 stories in an acclaimed, modern, unexpurgated translation

Between 1943 and 2003 nine people have been stabbed to death with a most unusual weapon: a trident. In each case, arrests were made, suspects confessed their crimes and were sentenced to life in prison. One slightly worrying detail: each presumed murderer lost consciousness during the night of the crime and has no recollection of it • Commissaire Adamsberg is convinced all the murders are the work of one person, the terrifying Judge Fulgence. Years before, Adamsberg's own brother had been the principal suspect in a similar case and avoided prison only thanks to Adamsberg's help • History repeats itself when Adamsberg, who is temporarily based in Quebec for a training mission, is accused of having savagely murdered a young woman he had met. In order to prove his innocence, Adamsberg must go on the run from the Canadian police and find Judge Fulgence

Ebenezer Scrooge despises Christmas. He has no time for festivities or goodwill toward his fellow men and is only interested in money • Then, on the night of Christmas Eve, his life is changed by a series of ghostly visitations that show him some bitter truths about his choices • Discover Dickens's most influential book and one of the world’s favourite Christmas reads

A brilliant biography of the young Orson Welles, from his prodigious childhood and youth, his triumphs with the Mercury Theatre, to the making of Citizen Kane. Vivid, vastly entertaining, this is the definitive Welles biography

In the brief golden years before the outbreak of World War I, Rosie McCosh and her three very different sisters are growing up in an eccentric household in Kent, with their neighbours the Pitt boys on one side and the Pendennis boys on the other. But their days of childhood adventure are shadowed by the approach of the conflict that will engulf them on the cusp of adulthood • When the boys end up scattered along the Western Front, Rosie is left confused by her love for two young men - one an infantry soldier and one a flying ace. Can she, and her sisters, build new lives out of the opportunities and devastations that follow the Great War?

"Моряк, утративший благодать моря" - величайший роман Мисимы и один из величайших за последнее столетие. Банда свирепых тринадцатилетних мальчишек отвергает мир взрослых как иллюзорный, лицемерный и сентиментальный и воспитывает в себе жестокую черствость, которую они называют "объективностью". Когда мать одного из них заводит роман с корабельным офицером, он и его друзья сначала идеализируют этого человека; но вскоре они приходят к выводу, что на самом деле он мягкий и романтичный • Они расценивают это разочарование как акт предательства с его стороны - и возмездие, следующее за этим, преднамеренное и ужасающее • Книга на английском языке • Mishima's greatest novel, and one of the greatest of the past century' The Times • A band of savage thirteen-year-old boys reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical, and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call 'objectivity'

Юкио Мисима - самый знаменитый и читаемый в мире японский писатель. Прославился он в равной степени как своими произведениями во всех мыслимых жанрах (романы, пьесы, рассказы, эссе), так и экстравагантным стилем жизни и смерти (харакири после неудачной попытки монархического переворота) • «Моряк, которого разлюбило море», возможно, самый страстный роман Мисимы. В центре сюжета судьбы трех людей: мужчины, женщины, подростка. Их чувства, сплетенные в единый клубок, который невозможно распутать, стремительные события и внезапный, невообразимый финал… • Книга на английском языке • 'A major work of art' Time • A band of savage thirteen-year-old boys reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical, and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call 'objectivity'

At the age of sixteen, Marc Hamer left home with only a rucksack and started walking. By day, he observed the animals and birds. By night, he slept under hedges, in woodlands and on riverbanks. It was the beginning of a life in nature • Years later, now working as a gardener and mole-catcher in the Welsh countryside, Marc tells of the experiences that have shaped him and of the wonders that he encounters each day. He considers, too, the fascinating ways of the mole and the myths that surround this curious creature • This beautiful, meditative book explores what nature can teach us about ourselves and our search for contentment. It is a celebration of living peacefully and finding joy in the world around us

We all have treasures hidden away in the attic, well-loved and well-worn belongings that have been passed down from generation to generation. They may be damaged or no longer working, but we can't bear to part with them. The expert craftspeople of hit BBC series The Repair Shop are dedicated to restoring and conserving these heirlooms. They know that the true worth of these possessions doesn't lie in their monetary value, but in the memories they hold and the stories they tell • In this fascinating book, you'll step inside The Repair Shop's Workshop of Dreams to explore some of the most moving family stories from the hit BBC series. From a glamorous sequinned dress that belonged to a popular travelling circus performer to a pump organ that was brought from Jamaica by a member of the Windrush generation, each family item is brought vividly to life - and lovingly restored by the team of Repair Shop experts who also contribute to these expanded stories

She turned into a frog, into a lizard, into all kinds of other reptiles and then into a spindle. In these tales, young women go on long and difficult quests, wicked stepmothers turn children into geese and tsars ask dangerous riddles, with help or hindrance from magical dolls, cannibal witches, talking skulls, stolen wives, and brothers disguised as wise birds. Half the tales here are true oral tales, collected by folklorists during the last two centuries, while the others are reworking of oral tales by four great Russian writers: Alexander Pushkin, Nadezhda Teffi, Pavel Bazhov and Andrey Platonov. In his introduction to these new translations, Robert Chandler writes about the primitive magic inherent in these tales and the taboos around them, while in the afterword, Sibelan Forrester discusses the witch Baba Yaga

Mystery and excitement abound in this lively collection of fairy tales, folklore and legends, which celebrate Scotland's enormously rich oral tradition and offers a carefully chosen combination of old favourites such as Tam Lin, Thomas Rymer and Adam Bell, as well as more modern stories by master story-tellers like Andrew Lang, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and John Buchan