Vintage books A High Wind in Jamaica Hughes Richard

«Ха-ха! Я Жаб, похититель автомобилей! Нет такой темницы, что удержала бы меня!» • Уже вовсю пахнет весной, и Крот открывает для себя уйму новых занятий: прогулки на лодке с Водяным Крысом (он же дядюшка Рэт), посиделки с мистером Барсуком, безобразия на дороге с лихим разбойником мистером Жабом из Тоуд-холла. Эти четверо становятся неразлучными друзьями, но очередная выходка Жаба не обходится без серьёзных последствий. Смогут ли герои объединиться и одолеть коварных хорьков, ласок и горностаев из жуткой Дикой чащи? • «Ветер в ивах» – нестареющая классика и одна из самых известных британских книг для детей и подростков, которую, впрочем, по достоинству оценят читатели всех возрастов. Повесть основана на сказках, которые Кеннет Грэм рассказывал своему сыну, и серии писем, выступившей в качестве их продолжения

An enthralling story about desire, new love and the mysteries of science from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory • Stuart Ressler, a brilliant biologist, sets out in 1957 to crack the genetic code. His efforts are sidetracked by other, more intractable codes – social, moral, musical, spiritual – and he falls in love with a member of his research team • Years later, another young man and woman team up to investigate a different mystery – why did the eminently promising Ressler suddenly disappear from the world of science? • Strand by strand, these two love stories twist about each other in a double helix of desire

'I can think of no finer writer to have beside me while Italy explodes, Britain burns, while the world ends' Salman Rushdie • From the age of twelve, the Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo makes his home among ash, elm, magnolia, plum and almond, living up in the trees. He walks through paths made from the twisted branches of olive, makes his bed in a holly oak, bathes in a fountain constructed from poplar bark. An aerial library holds the books with which he educates himself in philosophy and mathematics. Suspended among the leaves, the Baron adventures with bandits and pirates, conducts a passionate love affair, and watches the Age of Enlightenment pass by beneath him

London, 1941. The city is in blackout and an enemy is hiding in plain sight • Jack Hoste has become entangled in a national treachery. His mission: to locate the most dangerous Nazi agent in the country • He soon receives a promising lead in Amy Strallen, whose life is a world away from the machinations of Nazi sympathisers. But when Hoste pays a visit to Amy’s office, the dangerous game he is playing becomes even more lethal

Retreat takes us on a stunning journey through the many ways humans step back from daily life, both in today's world and in our past • 'A vivid personal quest...rich and almost eerily timely' William Fiennes • From mindfulness and meditation to yoga breaks and spiritual bootcamps, stepping back from daily life remains a human obsession. In this endlessly enlightening book, Nat Segnit experiences retreats around the world as he investigates why we seek solitude, what we get out of it, and what is going on in our brains and bodies when we achieve it. Along the way, he meets yogic scholars, scientists, religious leaders, philosophers and artists, gaining fascinating - and often startling - insights

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

The Gulag, the Stalinist labour camps to which millions of Russians were condemned for political deviation, has become a household word in the West. This is due to the accounts of many witnesses, but most of all to the publication, in 1962, of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the novel that first brought Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to public attention. His story of one typical day in a labour camp as experienced by prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is sufficient to describe the entire world of the Soviet camps

From the author of the widely acclaimed Heat, an exhilarating account of Bill Buford's adventures in the world of French cooking • 'A romping, chomping, savoury tour de force... Hilarious' Simon Schama • What does it take to master French cooking? This is the question that drives Bill Buford to abandon his perfectly happy life in New York City and (with his wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow) move to Lyon, the so-called gastronomic capital of France • But what was meant to be six months in a new city turns into a wild five-year odyssey. As Buford apprentices at Lyon's best boulangerie, studies at a legendary culinary school and cooks at a storied Michelin-starred restaurant, he discoveries the true grit, precision and passion of the French kitchen

Semyon is disturbed. He has woken up in the living room with blood on his shirt, an angry wife and no idea where he was the night before. When this happens several mornings in a row, he realises he needs to investigate • After his friend Volodka follows him one night, they discover he's meeting a tall, blonde woman and accompanying her to her apartment. In the daytime he doesn't know this woman or where her apartment is and, odder yet, someone is watching Volodka watching Semyon • Meanwhile, there are some strange goings-on in Kyiv - an unemployed sniffer-dog handler makes a dangerous discovery, a single mother is providing breast milk for an unusual recipient and a vengeful cat is on the loose

A poetic meditation on life and death, by one of the most renowned and respected film-makers and intellectuals of our time • In November 1974, when Werner Herzog was told that his mentor Lotte Eisner, the film-maker and critic, was dying in Paris, he set off to walk there from Munich, ‘in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot’. Along the way he recorded what he saw, how he felt, and what he experienced, from the physical discomfort of the journey to moments of rapture. It is a remarkable narrative – part pilgrimage, part meditation, and a confrontation between a great German Romantic imagination and the contemporary world. This edition of the book is being published for the first time as a classic piece of proto-psychogeography, to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the legendary director’s walk

Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? • First, there is a skeleton in a dinner jacket. Then a corpse in a golden aeroplane. After another body, private detective Albert Campion nearly makes a fourth • Both the skeleton and the corpse have died with suspicious convenience for Georgia Wells, a monstrous but charming actress with a raffish entourage. Georgia's best friend just happens to be Valentine, a top couturiere and Campion's sister. In order to protect Valentine, Campion must unravel a story of blackmail and ruthless murder • As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion

During the course of a single night, Father Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix, a Chilean priest, who is a member of Opus Dei, a literary critic and a mediocre poet, relives some of the crucial events of his life. He believes he is dying and in his feverish delirium various characters, both real and imaginary, appear to him as icy monsters, as if in sequences from a horror film • Thus we are given glimpses of the great poet Pablo Neruda, the German writer Ernst Junger, General Pinochet, whom Father Lacroix instructs in Marxist doctrine, as well as various members of the Chilean intelligentsia whose lives, during a period of political turbulence, have touched upon his