Vintage books Michael Kohlhaas von Kleist Heinrich

In The Marquise of O-, a virtuous widow finds herself unaccountably pregnant. And although the baffled Marquise has no idea when this happened, she must prove her innocence to her doubting family and discover whether the perpetrator is an assailant or lover. Michael Kohlhaas depicts an honourable man who feels compelled to violate the law in his search for justice, while other tales explore the singular realm of the uncanny, such as The Beggarwoman of Locarno, in which an old woman's ghost drives a heartless nobleman to madness, and St Cecilia, which portrays four brothers possessed by an uncontrollable religious mania. The stories collected in this volume reflect the preoccupations of Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) with the deceptiveness of human nature and the unpredictability of the physical world

Michael Braungart and William McDonough propose a plan for our planet in this stunning new edition of their radical ecological manifesto • This book proposes a new vision for modern industry. Instead of our current wasteful and polluting methods of manufacturing, we could be taking nature as a model for making things. With the right redesign, objects that have come to the end of their useful lives should provide the basis for something new. In designing and producing products we need to stop worrying about being 'less bad' and start finding ways of actually being good • Patterns of Life: Special Editions of Groundbreaking Science Books

Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. But this time it is different: his wife is having the affair, and he is still in love with her. When Beard's professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for Beard to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster

Michael and Pauline seemed like the perfect couple - young, good-looking, made for each other • The moment she walked into his mother's grocery store in Baltimore, he was smitten, and in the heat of World War II fervour, they marry in haste. From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counter-culture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayers of later years, we watch their lives unspool and see the consequences of their very mismatched marriage

Two men have been enlisted to kill the head of the Gestapo. This is Operation Anthropoid, Prague, 1942: two Czechoslovakian parachutists sent on a daring mission by London to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich - chief of the Nazi secret services, 'the hangman of Prague', 'the blond beast', 'the most dangerous man in the Third Reich'. His boss is Heinrich Himmler but everyone in the SS says 'Himmler's brain is called Heydrich', which in German spells HHhH • HHhH is a panorama of the Third Reich told through the life of one outstandingly brutal man, a story of unbearable heroism and loyalty, revenge and betrayal. It is a moving and shattering work of fiction

One of Amos Oz's earliest and most famous novels, My Michael was a sensation upon its initial publication in 1968 and it has an enduring power to surprise and mesmerize • 1950s Jerusalem • Hannah Gonen has just married and is thrilled and pained by her young well-meaning husband, Michael. Haunted by her dreams of two boys who disappeared from Jerusalem after the establishment of the state of Israel, Hannah gradually withdraws from her husband into a private world of fantasy and suppressed desires

Two tigers cannot share the same mountain - Chinese proverb • Despite geographical proximity, cultural similarities, and shared status as highly powerful nations, China, Korea and Japan love to hate each other. Why? • In search of an answer, Michael Booth journeys across East Asia to explore the mutual animosity that frequently threatens to draw the world into all-out war. From misjudged cake decorations to electoral meddling, contradictory origin myths to territorial disputes, this deeply researched and hugely entertaining book shows that no conflict is too small to keep the fires of neighbourly hostility burning

Two boys running away from a bleak reformatory begin the adventure of a lifetime, escaping despair, experiencing freedom and happiness but also running up against the cruel complexities of everyday life • On a promontory jutting out into the Atlantic wind stands the Home run by Brother Benedict, where boys are taught a little of God and a lot of fear. To Michael Lamb, one of the youngest brothers, the regime is without hope, and when he inherits a small legacy he defies his elders and runs away, taking with him a twelve-year-old boy, Owen Kane. Radio Eireann call it a kidnapping. For Michael the act is the beginning of Owen's salvation. Posing as father and son, they concentrate on discovering the happiness that is so unfamiliar to them both

Food and travel writer Michael Booth and his family embark on an epic journey the length of Japan to explore its dazzling food culture. They find a country much altered since their previous visit ten years earlier (which resulted in the award-winning international bestseller Sushi and Beyond) • Over the last decade the country’s restaurants have won a record number of Michelin stars and its cuisine was awarded United Nations heritage status. The world’s top chefs now flock to learn more about the extraordinary dedication of Japan’s food artisans, while the country’s fast foods – ramen, sushi and yakitori – have conquered the world. As well as the plaudits, Japan is also facing enormous challenges. Ironically, as Booth discovers, the future of Japan’s culinary heritage is under threat

Every morning Hakan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm. Then, one day he fails to come home • Detective Kurt Wallander is not officially involved but Hakan's son is engaged to his daughter Linda. A few months earlier Hakan was eager to talk to Kurt about a controversial incident from his past. Could this be connected to his disappearance? • When Hakan's wife also goes missing, Wallander is determined to uncover the truth but the investigation will force him to look back over his own past, as he comes to the unsettling realisation that even those we love the most can remain strangers to us

A gripping chronicle of the personal and political rivalries from the birth of Queen Victoria to the unification of Germany during the decades leading up to WW1 from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie • 2018 marks the centenary of the end of the First World War. How did it all begin? • With the biographer's rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives, Massie brings to life a crowd of glittering figures: the young, ambitious Winston Churchill; the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow; Britain's greatest twentieth-century Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey; and Jacky Fisher, the eccentric admiral who revolutionised the British Navy and brought forth the battleship, H.M.S. Dreadnought. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstanding and tensions, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in this powerful narrative

"Смерть в Венеции" Томаса Манна - это история одержимости. Густав фон Ашенбах - успешный, но стареющий писатель, который приезжает в Венецию на каникулы. Однажды за ужином Ашенбах замечает исключительно красивого юношу, который остановился со своей семьей в том же отеле. Вскоре его дни начинают вращаться вокруг встреч с этим мальчиком, и он слишком рассеян, чтобы обращать внимание на зловещие слухи, которые начали распространяться о болезни, распространяющейся по городу • Книга на английском языке • 'A story of the voluptuousness of doom' Thomas Mann • Death in Venice is a story of obsession. Gustave von Aschenbach is a successful but ageing writer who travels to Venice for a holiday. One day, at dinner, Aschenbach notices an exceptionally beautiful young boy who is staying with his family in the same hotel