Vintage books Alms For Oblivion. Volume I Raven Simon

Simon Raven's sequence of colourful and funny novels about the English upper-class misbehaving continues against a backdrop of intrigue in Athens, radicalism in Cambridge, turmoil in India and movie-making in Corfu. Dazzlingly witty and thoroughly depraved, Raven's world is also a dark mirror to our times - one that is sure to make you blush, shriek, laugh out loud and always read on • Volume 2: The Judas Boy, Places Where they Sing, Sound the Retreat and Come Like Shadows

По мнению Вирджинии Вулф, обыкновенный читатель – это человек, который читает «в свое удовольствие, а не ради того чтобы поделиться знаниями или уличить собратьев в неправильном суждении». Во второй том сборника «Обыкновенный читатель» вошли эссе, посвященные произведениям Джона Донна, Кристины Россетти и Мэри Уолстонкрафт, а также многих других поэтов и писателей. Сборник станет отличным подарком для поклонников творчества писательницы • Книга на английском языке • 'He reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others' • So Virginia Woolf described the 'common reader' for whom she wrote her second series of essays. Here she turns her brilliant eye on novels and poetry from John Donne to Christina Rossetti and Mary Wollstonecraft as well as many others

Too often we take for granted and neglect our libraries, parks, markets, schools, playgrounds, gardens and communal spaces, but decades of research now shows that these places can have an extraordinary effect on our personal and collective wellbeing. Why? Because wherever people cross paths and linger, wherever we gather informally, strike up a conversation and get to know one another, relationships blossom and communities emerge – and where communities are strong, people are safer and healthier, crime drops and commerce thrives, and peace, tolerance and stability take root • Through uplifting human stories and an illuminating tour through the science of social connection, Palaces for the People shows that properly designing and maintaining this ‘social infrastructure’ might be our single best strategy for a more equal and united society

The next round in the beloved Two Pints series from the ever-brilliant, always hilarious imagination of bestselling author of The Commitments and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha • Two men meet for a pint - or three - in a Dublin pub. They chew the fat, set the world to rights and mourn friends gone: David Bowie, Prince, Princess Leia and Young Frankenstein. Around them the world of Brexit, Trump, and referendums storm, but some things - good things - never change • Inspired by the last five years of news, Roddy Doyle's Two for the Road offers a strong brew of Roddy Doyle's comic genius - to be downed in one riotous sitting, or savoured over, laugh after laugh

On a hot summer night, a young man sits in a dark cell in a Hungarian prison. The guards do not explain why he is here; he does not know if he will ever be released. But he is far from alone. Others, too, are trapped within the stone walls - singers and students, sages and spies. As the days pass, the man is drawn into their conversations and their lives, and soon becomes a witness to their sometimes outlandish acts of rebellion • Written in the early 1980s and inspired by Andrew Szepessy's own experiences, Epitaphs for Underdogs is a beguiling and exhilarating novel about power, justice and freedom, and about the solidarity that can be found in even the most unexpected places

«Обыкновенный читатель» – это сборник эссе английской писательницы Вирджинии Вулф, посвященных одним из самых известных романистов и драматургов – от древних греков до Джейн Остен и многих других • Вирджиния Вулф была лишена образовательных привилегий, которыми обладали ее современники-мужчины, и как никто другой была способна понять проблемы «обыкновенных читателей» своего времени. Ее эссе охватывают и средневековую Англию, и царскую Россию, и елизаветинскую и викторианскую эпохи, и других эссеистов начала XX века. В первый том «Обыкновенного читателя» вошли эссе о Джейн Остен, Джордж Элиот, Нэнси Митфорд, Джозефе Конраде, Мишеле де Монтене, Даниэле Дефо и многих других выдающихся писателях • Книга на английском языке • Discover Virginia Woolf’s informative and erudite critical essays on some of the key novelists and dramatists of the canon – from the ancient Greeks to Jane Austen and beyond

Discover Pulitzer Prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author Anne Tyler's deeply personal American historical epic • Duncan Peck is a restless man, always on the move. His wife, Justine, is a fortune teller who can't remember the past. Her grandfather, Daniel, longs to find the brother who walked out of his life in 1912 never to be seen again. All three are taking journeys that lead back to the family's deepest roots, to a place where rebellion and acceptance have the haunting power to merge into one

After the early death of her philandering husband, Etsuko moves into her father-in-law's house, where she numbly submits to the old man's advances. But soon she finds herself in love with the young servant Saburo. Tormented by his indifference, yet invigorated by her desire, she makes her move, with catastrophic consequences

The mysterious death of a young woman on an Australian farm reveals a bittersweet story of doomed wartime romance amidst a family crisis • Alan Duncan returns to his family home in Australia after the war and several years of study in England. But his homecoming is marred by the mysterious suicide of his parents' quiet and reliable parlour-maid. A search through her belongings in search of clues leads to heartbreaking revelations about the woman's identity, the death of Alan's brother Bill and, above all, the disappearance of his brother's fiancee, Janet

‘A fine and powerful piece of work… Dark, at times cryptic, and hugely energetic’ Irish Times • “No!" is the first word of this haunting novel. It is how a middle-aged Hungarian-Jewish writer answers an acquaintance who asks him if he has a child, and it is how he answered his wife years earlier when she told him that she wanted one. The loss, longing and regret that haunt the years between these two 'No!'s give rise to one of the most eloquent meditations ever written on the Holocaust. As Kertesz's narrator addresses the child he couldn't bear to bring into the world, he takes readers on a mesmerising, lyrical journey through his life, from his childhood to Auschwitz to his failed marriage

Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? • Scandal, secrets and suspicions abound when one of the directors at the prestigious publishing house of Barnabas is found dead, locked in the company’s strongroom • All eyes are on the other partners at the firm – cousins of the dead man with much to gain from his demise – and all rumours hint at a connection to the disappearance of another director decades earlier • Desperate to salvage their reputation, the cousins turn to Albert Campion – but will his investigations clear the Barnabas family name, or besmirch it forever? • As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion

Simon and David - a tall ten-year-old - are in a new land, together with a woman named Ines. The small family have found a home in which David can thrive • But David is spotted by Julio Fabricante, the director of a local orphanage, playing football with his friends. He shows unusual talent. When David announces that he wants to live with Julio and the children in his care, Simon and Ines are stunned. David is leaving them, and they can only love him and bear witness • The Death of Jesus is the completion of an incomparable trilogy in which J. M. Coetzee explores the meaning of a world empty of memory but brimming with questions