Vintage books Colonel Sun Эмис Кингсли

Hubert Anvil is a 10 year old boy blessed with the voice of an angel. The Church hierarchy decrees that Hubert should be turned into a castrato - an alteration that could bring Hubert fame and fortune, but would also cut him off from an adult world he is curious to discover. In a dystopian world where Martin Luther never reformed and where the Holy Office's power is absolute, where will Hubert turn if he decides to defy their wishes?

Lionel Asbo has just won ?139,999,999.50 on the Lottery • A horribly violent, but horribly unsuccessful criminal, Lionel’s attentions up to now have all been on his nephew, Desmond Pepperdine. He showers him with fatherly advice (‘carry a knife’) and introduces Des to the joys of internet porn. Meanwhile, Des desires nothing more than books, a girl to love and to steer clear Uncle Li’s psychotic pitbulls, Joe and Jeff • But Lionel’s winnings are not necessarily all good news. For Des has a secret, and its discovery could unleash his uncle’s implacable vengeance

When you betray the Fisherman • Jon is on the run. He has crossed Oslo's biggest crime lord. Fleeing to an isolated corner of Norway, to a mountain town so far north that the sun never sets, Jon hopes to find sanctuary among a local religious sect • You can run • Hiding out in a shepherd's cabin in the wilderness, all that stands between him and his fate are Lea, a bereaved mother and her young son, Knut. But while Lea provides him with a rifle and Knut brings essential supplies, the midnight sun is slowly driving Jon to insanity. And then he discovers that the Fisherman's men are getting closer • But you can't hide

This gossipy account of Louis XIV is a clear and fascinating historical biography from Nancy Mitford • During his reign Louis XIV was the most powerful king in Europe. He presided over a golden age of military and artistic achievement in France, and deployed his charm and talents for spin and intrigue to hold his court and country within his absolute control. The Sun King's universe centred on Versailles, a glittering palace from where Louis conducted his government and complex love affairs. Nancy Mitford describes the daily life of this splendid court in sumptuous detail, recreating the past in vivid colour

A sharp twist on the noir genre from one of England’s finest fiction writers • 'I worked one hundred murders,' says Detective Mike Hoolihan, an American policewoman. 'In my time I have come in on the aftermath of maybe a thousand suspicious deaths, most of which turned out to be suicides, accidentals or plain unattendeds. So I've seen them all: jumpers, stumpers, dumpers, dunkers, bleeders, floaters, poppers, bursters. But of all the bodies I have ever seen none has stayed with me, in my gut, like the body of Jennifer Rockwell. I say all this because I am part of the story I am going to tell, and I feel the need to give you some idea of where I'm coming from.' • Night Train is a mystery story which lingers in the reader's mind even after Mike Hoolihan declares the case closed

'Other People had me purring with pleasure' The Times • Like a ghost or a fugitive, Mary roams through London - pursuing and pursued by memory and forgetting, by the compelling Amy Hide and the charming Mr Wrong • Martin Amis sustains an unnervingly high degree of suspense as Mary and the reader yearn to grasp what has happened to Mary's past and ponder what its loss has gained her. Unfolding is a metaphysical thriller where jealousy guarded secrets jostle with startling insights. Other People is ambitious and accomplished, heralding for Amis an unexpected new direction as a novelist and for the rest of us an experience not to be missed

Life...is shapeless, it does not point to and gather round anything, it does not cohere. Artistically, it's dead. Life's dead • So begins a love letter to life, a resuscitation of sorts, encountering vibrant characters from Saul Bellow, to Philip Larkin to Iris Murdoch and Elizabeth Jane Howard, and to the person who captivated Amis' twenties, the alluringly amoral Phoebe Phelps • Amis addresses our burning questions: how to live, how to grieve, and how to die?

У Малкольма, Питера, Чарли и их проспиртованных из-за непомерного употребления вина жён осталась лишь одна мечта: выпить в Уэльсе всё, что горит. Но появление в их жизни орденоносного писателя и профессионального валлийца Алуна Уивера вместе с его супругой Рианнон становится потрясением для их повседневной жизни. Точнее, оно её взбалтывает и смешивает • "Старые черти" - удостоенный Букеровской премии роман Кингсли Эмиса • Книга на английском языке • Malcolm, Peter and Charlie and their Soave-sodden wives have one main ambition left in life: to drink Wales dry. But their routine is both shaken and stirred when they are joined by professional Welshman Alun Weaver (CBE) and his wife, Rhiannon

The Bridge on the River Kwai tells the story of three POWs who endure the hell of the Japanese camps on the Burma-Siam railway - Colonel Nicholson, a man prepared to sacrifice his life but not his dignity; Major Warden, a modest hero, saboteur and deadly killer; Commander Shears, who escaped from hell but was sent back • Ordered by the Japanese to build a bridge, the Colonel refuses, as it is against regulations for officers to work with other ranks. The Japanese give way but, to prove a point of British superiority, construction of the bridge goes ahead - at great cost to the men under Nicholson's command

Иэн Макьюэн - один из "правящего триумвирата" современной британской прозы (наряду с Джулианом Барнсом и Мартином Эмисом), лауреат Букеровской премии за роман "Амстердам" • "Искупление" - это поразительная в своей искренности "хроника утраченного времени", которую ведет девочка-подросток, на свой причудливый и по-детски жестокий лад переоценивая и переосмысливая события "взрослой" жизни. Став свидетелем изнасилования, она трактует его по-своему - и приводит в действие цепочку роковых событий, которая аукнется самым неожиданным образом через много-много лет • Книга на английском языке • The publication of Atonement cemented Ian McEwan’s reputation as one of the most exciting and accomplished writers of his generation. From its breath-taking opening section, telling the events of a fateful summer’s day in 1935, McEwan unravels a tale of love and war that breaks the heart, even as the master novelist’s provocative twists of form dazzle the senses

A German businessman is the third to die: murdered in a seaside guesthouse • A note pinned on his body is addressed to Colonel Otto Skorzeny, Hitler’s favourite commando and once the most dangerous man in Europe. It warns Skorzeny that they are coming for him next • Lieutenant Albert Ryan is ordered by the Irish Minister for Justice, Charles Haughey, to protect Skorzeny, but Ryan defied his parents and scandalised his home town to join the British Army and fight the Nazi regime. Can Ryan bring himself to protect a man who caused the deaths of thousands: a man who now lives safely in Ireland in the lap of luxury?

If you loved BBC4's Hemingway, rediscover this poignant story of the inability to capture lost youth, by the Nobel Prize-winning author of A Farewell to Arms • Richard Cantrell is an American colonel living in Venice just after the Second World War. The fighting has left him scarred and embittered, a middle-aged man with a heart condition. It seems that only the love of Renata, a nineteen-year-old countess can save him. But Cantrell is living in the shadow of war, every move he makes dictated by old battle instincts, and it is possible that for him the longed-for peace may have come too late • 'The most important author since Shakespeare' New York Times