Vintage books Either/Or Batuman Elif

Written in alternating chapters, W or the Memory of Childhood, tells two parallel tales, in two parts. One is a story created in childhood and about childhood. The other story is about two people called Gaspard Winckler: one an eight-year-old deaf-mute lost in a shipwreck, the other a man despatched to search for him, who discovers W, an island state based on the rules of sport. As the two tales move in and out of focus, the disturbing truth about the island of W reveals itself • Perec combines fiction and autobiography in unprecedented ways, allowing no easy escape from these stories, or from history

Manhattan has become the Island of Death • The former President of the United States stands barefoot in a purple toga around a cooking fire in the lobby of the Empire State Building • He is Dr Wilbur Daffodil-II Swain and Slapstick or Lonesome No More! is his story – one of monstrous twins, orgies, revenge, golf, utopian schemes, and very little tooth brushing. In this post-apocalyptic black comedy – dedicated to Laurel and Hardy – Vonnegut is at his most hilarious, grotesque, and personal

Or so Nancy thinks. Then the lake ices over completely and the Swallows and Amazons, along with Dick and Dorothea - 'the D's' - plan a race to find the North Pole. How will they reach it if they can't sail? By sledges of course! But when a blizzard blows up and there is a mix up about signals, the D's disappear into the Arctic night. Disaster looms. Can the Swallows and Amazons save their friends?

An edge-of-your-seat thriller for all fans of James Ellroy, Cormac McCarthy and John Grisham. For fans of The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Rock • After three years' hard time, minding no-one's business but his own, Ray Klein wins his parole. That same day, the disciplinary perfection of Green River State Penitentiary is torn apart by tribal war, and the prison falls into the hands of its inmates • As the River sucks them all towards the abyss, Klein must choose either to claim his freedom and leave the ones he cares for to die, or risk everything and fight

What if everything you’d ever wanted was no longer enough? • Adam and Rachel are getting married at last. Childhood sweethearts whose lives and families have been intertwined for years; theirs is set to be the wedding of the year • But then Rachel’s cousin Ellie makes an unexpected return to the family fold. Beautiful, reckless and troubled, Ellie represents everything that Adam has tried all his life to avoid – and everything that is missing from his world. As the long-awaited wedding approaches, Adam is torn between duty and temptation, security and freedom, and must make a choice that will break either one heart, or many

A passenger is missing...but was she ever on board at all? • This was meant to be the perfect trip. The Northern Lights. A luxury press launch on a boutique cruise ship • A chance for travel journalist Lo Blacklock to recover from a traumatic break-in that has left her on the verge of collapse • Except things don't go as planned • Woken in the night by screams, Lo rushes to her window to see a body thrown overboard from the next door cabin. But the records show that no-one ever checked into that cabin, and no passengers are missing from the boat • Exhausted and emotional, Lo has to face the fact that she may have made a mistake - either that, or she is now trapped on a boat with a murderer

'Two Surface-dwellers. Two! He’s a Fattypuff and you’re a Thinifer. There’s no doubt about it!’ • This is the tale of two brothers. Edmund is a little on the plump side and Terry is a bit of a rake. When they discover the countries under the Earth they are divided and sent to the warring kingdoms of the Fattypuffs and the Thinifers. The Fattypuffs eat hourly with light snacks in between. The Thinifers like nothing more than discipline and work six days a week. Whether you are a jolly Fattypuff or a driven Thinifer you’ll be rooting for the brothers to bring peace to the countries under the Earth • Includes exclusive material: In the Backstory you can take the quiz to find out if you’re a Fattypuff or a Thinifer! • Vintage Children’s Classics is a twenty-first century classics list aimed at 8-12 year olds and the adults in their lives

'Darling, this is Younes. Yesterday he was my nephew, today he is our son' • Younes' life is changed forever when his poverty-stricken parents surrender him to the care of his more affluent uncle. Re-named Jonas, he grows up in a colourful colonial Algerian town, and forges a unique friendship with a group of boys, an enduring bond that nothing - not even the Algerian Revolt - will shake. He meets Emilie - a beautiful, beguiling girl who captures the hearts of all who see her - and an epic love story is set in motion • Time and again Jonas is forced to to choose between two worlds: Algerian or European; past or present; love or loyalty, and finally decide if he will surrender to fate or take control of his own destiny at last

When Elspeth Noblin dies she leaves her beautiful flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina Poole, on the condition that their mother is never allowed to cross the threshold. But until the solicitor's letter falls through the door of their suburban American home, either Julia nor Valentina knew their aunt existed. The twins hope that in London their own, separate, lives can finally begin but they have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them and works in the cemetery itself • As the twins unravel the secrets of their aunt, who doesn't seem quite ready to leave her flat, even after death, Niffenegger weaves together a delicious and deadly ghost story about love, loss and identity

A wickedly observed novel about falling in love at the end of your life, by the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Finkler Question • At the age of ninety-something, Beryl Dusinbery is forgetting everything – including her own children. She spends her days stitching morbid samplers and tormenting her two carers with tangled tales of her husbands and affairs • Shimi Carmelli can do up his own buttons, walks without a frame and speaks without spitting. Among the widows of North London, he’s whispered about as the last of the eligible bachelors. He forgets nothing –especially not the shame of a childhood incident that has long hung over him. There's very little left remaining for either of them. . . But perhaps just enough to heal some of the hurt inflicted along the way, and find new meaning in what's left

'Extraordinary... one of her finest novels' Guardian • "If everybody in the world didn't keep watching to see what everybody else did, we'd all go berserk." • Jenny believes that sighting an owl is a portent of death. When she spots a stranger looking in through her window one night, she believes that he is an omen too. But fate doesn't work in the way that either of them expect • This novel of suspense and paranoia draws on Highsmith's own experience of being a stalker

- Правда редко бывает чистой и никогда не бывает простой. Современная жизнь была бы очень скучной, если бы было и то, и другое, а современная литература - совершенно невозможной • Является ли ложь просто неприятной правдой о жизни или чем-то, что следует праздновать? На этих ослепительно остроумных страницах мы находим всевозможные обманы. От вымышленных имен до воображаемых друзей и фиктивных помолвок Уайльд доказывает, что он знаток творчества, и утверждает, что ложь сама по себе может быть видом искусства • Выбран из "Важности быть серьезным", "Упадка лжи" и "Портрета Дориана Грея" • Книга на английском языке • ‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility