Vintage books Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age Hrabal Bohumil

Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? • In a masterpiece of storytelling, Margery Allingham sends her elegant and engaging detective Albert Campion into the eccentric Palinode household, where there have been two suspicious deaths. And if poisoning were not enough, there are also anonymous letters, sudden violence and a vanishing coffin. Meanwhile the Palinodes go about their nocturnal business and Campion dices with danger in his efforts to find the truth • As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion

'Flaneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flaneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities • That is an imaginary definition.' • If the word flaneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flaneuse? • In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flaneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flaneuses who have lived and walked in those cities

The forerunner in its tone and themes to Greene's masterpiece Brighton Rock, A Gun for Sale is a noir thriller shot through with violence, betrayal and tormented souls. With an introduction by Robert Macfarlane • Raven is a ruthless assassin, a hired killer, whose cold-blooded murder of the Minister for War will have violent repercussions across Europe. As the nation prepares for battle, Raven goes on the run, hunted by the police and in search of the man who paid him in stolen banknotes, eventually unearthing the terrible truth behind his deadly assignment

'What started as a book on the frustration of funding led to the writing of an autobiography at forty... I had so little to do in the daylight hours, I stayed up late unbuttoning Levis in back rooms.' • In 1984 at the age of 40, the polymath film-maker Derek Jarman began to write his journals. In the first of these diaries, Dancing Ledge, we see his origins as a young artist, written with Jarman's distinctive immediacy, curiosity, and candour. Behind-the-scenes of his first controversial films and stage designs, at glamorous launch parties with friends like David Hockney, Ossie Clarke and Patrick Proktor, to the trials of securing funding, Dancing Ledge is a coming-of-age memoir for all fledgling artists • Dancing Ledge also chronicles a unique time in British history, capturing gay nightlife from the end of the war to the beginning of the AIDS epidemic

Ambitious and groundbreaking, Electric Shock tells the story of popular music, from the birth of recording in the 1890s to the digital age, from the first pop superstars of the twentieth century to the omnipresence of music in our lives, in hit singles, ringtones and on Spotify • Over that time, popular music has transformed the world in which we live. Its rhythms have influenced how we walk down the street, how we face ourselves in the mirror, and how we handle the outside world in our daily conversations and encounters. It has influenced our morals and social mores; it has transformed our attitudes towards race and gender, religion and politics • From the beginning of recording, when a musical performance could be preserved for the first time, to the digital age, when all of recorded music is only a mouse-click away; from the straitlaced ballads of the Victorian era and the ‘coon songs’ that shocked America in the early twentieth century to gangsta rap, death metal and the multiple strands of modern dance music: Peter Doggett takes us on a rollercoaster ride through the history of music

Andalusia is a passion - and fifteen years after his last visit Laurie Lee returned. He found a country broken by the Civil War, but the totems of indestructible Spain survive: the Christ in agony, the thrilling flamenco cry-the pride in poverty, the gypsy intensity in vivid whitewashed slums, the cult of the bullfight, the exultation in death, the humour of hopelessness-the paradoxes deep in the fiery bones of Spain. Rich with kaleidoscopic images, A Rose for Winter is as sensual and evocative as the sun-scorched landscape of Andalusia itself

Social media is supposed to bring us together - but it is tearing us apart • 'A blisteringly good, urgent, essential read' Zadie Smith • The evidence suggests that social media is making us sadder, angrier, less empathetic, more fearful, more isolated and more tribal • Jaron Lanier is the world-famous Silicon Valley scientist-pioneer who first alerted us to the dangers of social media. In this witty and urgent manifesto he explains why its toxic effects are at the heart of its design, and, in ten simple arguments, why liberating yourself from its hold will transform your life and the world for the better

It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come and, unbeknownst to them both, the events of the evening will haunt them for the rest of their lives

От автора книги «В тишине», лауреата премии Сэмюэля Джонсона в области научной литературы • В 1941 году Ричард Эванс Шультес взял отпуск в Гарвардском университете и исчез в Северной Амазонии Колумбии • Ведущий мировой специалист по галлюциногенам и лекарственным растениям этого региона, он вернулся после двенадцати лет путешествия по Южной Америке на каноэ, картографируя неизведанные реки, живя среди местных племен и документируя знания шаманов • Тридцать лет спустя его ученик Уэйд Дэвис приземлился в Боготе, чтобы пойти по стопам своего наставника, создав таким образом эпический рассказ о бесстрашных приключениях, захватывающий труд по естествознанию и свидетельство духа научных исследований • язык издания: Английский • From the author of Into The Silence, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction • In 1941, Richard Evans Schultes took a leave of absence from Harvard University and disappeared into the Northern Amazon of Colombia

'Our very best writer today' Milan Kundera • Sparkling with comic genius and narrative exuberance, I Served the King of England is a story of how the unbelievable came true. Its remarkable hero, Ditie, is a hotel waiter who rises to become a millionaire and then loses it all again against the backdrop of events in Prague from the German invasion to the victory of Communism. Ditie's fantastic journey intertwines the political and the per

Even in an age of soaring skyscrapers and cavernous sports stadiums, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence still retains a rare power to astonish. Yet the elegance of the building belies the tremendous labour, technical ingenuity and bitter personal strife involved in its creation. For over a century after work on the cathedral began in 1296, the proposed dome was regarded as all but impossible to build because of its enormous size. The greatest architectural puzzle of its age, when finally completed in 1436 the dome was hailed as one of the great wonders of the world. It has gone down in history as a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture • This book tells the extraordinary story of how the cupola was raised and of the dome's architect, the brilliant and volatile Filippo Brunelleschi

From the international bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale, Dancing Girls and Other Stories showcases Margaret Atwood's masterly skill for storytelling • Students, journalists, farmers, birdwatchers, ex-wives, adolescent lovers - and dancing girls. All ordinary people • Or are they? • In brilliant flashes of fantasy, humour and unexpected violence, Margaret Atwood reveals the complexities of human relationships and maps the motivations we scarcely know we have within us. Populated with characters who evoke laughter, compassion, terror and recognition, Atwood’s stories show why she remains one of our greatest, most original storytellers