Vintage books All The Names Сарамаго Жозе

In an unnamed country, on the first day of the New Year, people stop dying. There is great celebration and people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Soon, though, the residents begin to suffer. Undertakers face bankruptcy, the church is forced to reinvent its doctrine, and local 'maphia' smuggle those on the brink of death over the border where they can expire naturally • Death does return eventually, but with a new, courteous approach – delivering violet warning letters to her victims. But what can death do when a letter is unexpectedly returned?

Jose Saramago takes us on a thrilling literary journey through the land, history and culture of his native country • From the misty mountains of the north to the southern seascape of the Algarve, the travels of Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago are a passionate rediscovery of his own land • Embarking in the autumn of 1979, Saramago resolves to travel to Portugal, as well as through it. As his country emerges from an authoritarian dictatorship, he traverses his beloved homeland, neglecting its grand 'sights' in favour of Romanesque churches and cobweb-ridden chapels, determined to find belonging in the landscape which went on to inform his greatest works of fiction

In settings that range from small town Illinois to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, these stories are distinguished by Maxwell's inimitable wisdom and kindness, his sense of the small details that make up a life, the nuances of joy and sadness that change its direction. Whether describing the reunion of two brothers who will never agree, the furniture of the apartment that becomes everything to a childless couple, the search for the perfect French meal or the life of a ne'er-do-well uncle, Maxwell's stories capture responses that are recognisable in us all

A great thinker's final testament: a characteristically wise and forthright collection of essays from the author of Postwar and Thinking the Twentieth Century that feels all the more potent and important in today’s political climate • Edited and introduced by Jennifer Homans • Tony Judt’s widow and fellow historian, Jennifer Homans, has gathered together important essays from the span of Judt’s career that chronicle both the evolution of his thought and the remarkable consistency of his passionate engagement and intellectual elan • Whether the subject is the scholarly poverty of the new social history, the willful blindness of French collective memory about what happened to the country’s Jews during World War II, or the moral challenge to Israel of the so-called Palestinian problem, the majesty of Tony Judt’s work lies in his combination of unsparing honesty, intellectual brilliance, and ethical clarity

The final novel from the bestselling author of the Inspector Wallander mysteries • Fredrik Welin is a seventy-year-old retired doctor. Years ago he retreated to the Swedish archipelago, where he lives alone on an island. He swims in the sea every day, cutting a hole in the ice if necessary. He lives a quiet life. Until he wakes up one night to find his house on fire • Fredrik escapes just in time, wearing two left-footed wellies, as neighbouring islanders arrive to help douse the flames. All that remains in the morning is a stinking ruin and evidence of arson. The house that has been in his family for generations and all his worldly belongings are gone. He cannot think who would do such a thing, or why. Without a suspect, the police begin to think he started the fire himself

The powerful debut from 2020 Booker Prize shortlisted author of The Shadow King • Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974 - the eve of a revolution • Yonas kneels in his mother's prayer room, pleading to his god for an end to the violence that has wracked his family and country. His father, Hailu, a prominent doctor, has been ordered to report to jail after helping a victim of state-sanctioned torture to die • And Dawit, Hailu's youngest son, has joined an underground resistance movement-a choice that will lead to more upheaval and bloodshed across a ravaged Ethiopia • Emotionally gripping, poetic and indelibly tragic, Beneath the Lion's Gaze is a transcendent story that tells a gripping story of family and of the bonds of love and friendship. It is a story about the lengths to which human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the human price of a national revolution

The fourth novel by Elizabeth Bowen, described by the Guardian as 'One of the last century's greatest woman writers' • Cecilia, capricious and unable to love, inches reluctantly towards a second marriage to the kind, passionless Julian Tower. Meanwhile, her sister-in-law, Emmeline, is surprised to find the calm tenor of her life disturbed by her attraction to the predatory Mark Linkwater. Markie's appearance disrupts the lives of both women, but in the pain of misunderstanding, it is Emmeline who reveals her vulnerability in a violent and tragic act

This deeply personal work, follows the changing fortunes of the Mau-Tempo family – poor, landless peasants not unlike the author’s own grandparents. Saramago charts the lives of the family in Alentjo, southern Portugal, as national and international events rumble on in the background – the coming of the republic in Portugal, the First and Second World Wars, and an attempt on the dictator Salazar's life. Yet, nothing seriously impinges on the farm labourers' lives until the first stirrings of communism

Cipriano Algor, an ageing potter, lives with his daughter and her husband in the shadow of the Centre, a nebulous, constantly expanding conglomerate that provides his livelihood – until it decrees that it is no longer interested in his humble wares. Together with his daughter, they craft a new line of small ceramic figurines and, to their bafflement, the Centre orders vast quantities. But once the figures are complete, the Centre recants: there is no market for them. Resigned to idleness Cipriano moves into the soulless megaplex, until late one night he comes across a horrifying secret in the bowels of the artificial city

Watching a rented video, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is shocked to notice that one of the actors is identical to him in every physical detail. He embarks on a secret quest to find his double and sets in motion a train of events that he cannot control. Saramago's novel explores the nature of individuality and examines the fear and insecurity that arise when our singularity comes under threat, when even a wife cannot tell the original from the imposter

Dazzlingly inventive and utterly original, All Shall Be Well... is a surprise and a delight • Meet Burt Hecker, aka Eckbert Attquiet, a 63-year-old medieval re-enactor with a momentous nose, who dresses in tunics and drinks too much home-made mead. His treasured wife Kitty has died and their strange and beautiful relationship is now the stuff of history; he has sold all of his possessions and bought a one-way ticket to Europe, bent on rescuing his beloved son Tristan from the 'evil' city of Prague. If only he knew that his son doesn't want to be rescued, or found • This is the story of Burt's painful, hilarious and doomed attempts to come to terms with his own past

Highly original and magnificent in scope, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination discovers the roots of English cultural history in the Anglo-Saxon period, and traces it through the centuries • What does it mean to be English? This dazzling book demonstrates that a quintessentially English quality can be discovered in all forms of English culture, not only in literature but also in painting, music, architecture, philosophy and science • Just as London: The Biography guided the reader through the capital city with a mixture of narrative and theme, so Albion, employing the same techniques, engages the reader with stories and surprises - From Beowulf to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, via Chaucer and Shakespeare, to the Bronte sisters, Alice through the Looking Glass and Lord of the Rings • Witty, provocative and anecdotal, this is Peter Ackroyd at his most brilliant and exuberant