Vintage books Mr. Palomar Calvino Italo

Viscount Medardo is bisected by a Turkish cannonball on the plains of Bohemia; Baron Cosimo, at the age of twelve, retires to the trees for the rest of his days; Charlemagne's knight, Agiluf, is an empty suit of armour. These three vivid images are the points of departure for Calvino's classic triptych of moral tales, now published in one volume and all displaying the exuberant talent of a master storyteller

Among the residents of a small Dorset town called Folly Down, an unlikely struggle between the forces of good and evil is taking place. For a single winter's evening, Time stands still and the bitter-sweet gift of awareness descends upon the people. Because Mr Weston the wine merchant has come to town and the advert atop his Ford van lights up the sky above the village. Whether the villagers choose to buy Mr Weston's light or dark wine is up to them

Enter the gas-lit streets of post-war Prague, the steelworks run by singed men, the covered market that smells of new-born babes, the cacophonous open-air dance hall. Mr Kafka is avoiding his landlady’s blueberry wine breath, a stonemason witnesses the destruction of a monument to Stalin he risked his life to build, and factory men strain to catch a glimpse of a beautiful bathing murderess. In these newly discovered stories, Hrabal captures men and women in an eerily beautiful nightmare and their spirit in all its misery and splendour

Agatha Christie called her ‘a shining light’. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the 'true queen' of the classic murder mystery? • A baker’s dozen of cases, each putting Albert Campion through his paces. In this miscellany of villainy, our unconventional sleuth must contend with misbehaving debutantes, sinister smuggling rings, a Dowager Countess who’s not all that she seems, an SOS message daubed in lipstick, a beleaguered New York socialite, and an elderly Egyptologist indulging in some bad behaviour…

'The most magically ingenious of the contemporary Italian novelists' The Times • Marcovaldo is an enchanting collection of twenty stories that are both melancholy and funny, farce and fantasy. Calvino charts the struggles of an Italian peasant to reconcile country habits with urban life, combining comical disasters with a surrealistic view of city life through the eyes of an outsider. As always with Calvino, nothing is quite as it seems

'Brilliant-a feast' Guardian • 'This brilliant collection of essays should be a feast for his admirers, as well as for those who approach his dazzling oeuvre for the first time-Calvino is not only constantly and supremely intelligent; he is constantly and supremely faithful to his narrative imagination' Guardian

A spectacular display of this key European writer's early work • This dazzling collection of stories follows the individual adventures of a varied cast of characters and masterfully illustrates Calvino's unique perspective and narrative gifts. As well as the thirteen tales from his Difficult Loves collection this volume also includes Smog and A Plunge into Real Estate

'I can think of no finer writer to have beside me while Italy explodes, Britain burns, while the world ends' Salman Rushdie • From the age of twelve, the Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo makes his home among ash, elm, magnolia, plum and almond, living up in the trees. He walks through paths made from the twisted branches of olive, makes his bed in a holly oak, bathes in a fountain constructed from poplar bark. An aerial library holds the books with which he educates himself in philosophy and mathematics. Suspended among the leaves, the Baron adventures with bandits and pirates, conducts a passionate love affair, and watches the Age of Enlightenment pass by beneath him

‘The funniest book in the world’ Evelyn Waugh • Mr Charles Pooter is a respectable man. He has just moved into a very desirable home in Holloway with his dear wife Carrie, from where he commutes to his job of valued clerk at a reputable bank in the City. Unfortunately neither his dear friends Mr Cummings and Mr Gowing, nor the butcher, the greengrocer's boy and the Lord Mayor seem to recognise Mr Pooter's innate gentility, and his disappointing son Lupin has gone and got himself involved with a most unsuitable fiancee • George and Weedon Grossmith's comic novel, perfectly illustrated by Weedon, is a glorious, affectionate caricature of the English middle-class at the end of nineteenth century

Мистер и миссис Рэмзи вместе со своими детьми и близкими друзьями отдыхают на острове Скай. Они планируют посетить маяк, который виден из окна их летнего домика, но визит постоянно откладывается. Ничем не примечательные на первый взгляд события позволяют читателям узнать о сложных семейных взаимоотношениях в доме Рэмзи • «На маяк» считается самым популярным романом Вирджинии Вулф • Произведения Вулф для серии Vintage Classics были отобраны писательницей Джанет Уинтерсон. В издании используется оригинальный текст романа, опубликованного Вирджинией и Леонардом в Hogarth Press • По мотивам произведения был снят фильм «На маяке» • Книга на английском языке • The serene and maternal Mrs Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr Ramsay, together with their children and assorted guests, are holidaying on the Isle of Skye

Robert Poste's child is back at Cold Comfort Farm. But all is not well. Flora finds the farm transformed into a twee haven filled with Toby jugs and peasant pottery, and rooms labelled 'Quiete Retreate' and 'Greate laundrie'. It is, Flora winces, 'exactly like being locked in the Victoria and Albert Museum after closing time' • Worse, the farm is hosting a conference of the pretentious International Thinkers Group - a group made up of the 'sadistic owl' Mr Peccavi, loathsome Mr Mybug and the overpowering Mrs Ernestine Thump • And worst of all, there are no Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. All the he-cousins have gone abroad to make their fortunes and the female cousins are having a pretty thin time of it. Once again the sensible Flora decides to take the situation in hand

The gripping adventure that invented the mystery of Shangri-La • Flying out of India, a light aircraft is hi-jacked and flown into the high Tibetan Himalayas. The few passengers on board anxiously await their fate, among them Conway, a talented British consul. But on landing they are unexpectedly conducted to a remote valley, a legendary paradise of peace and beauty, known as Shangri-La. Have they been kidnapped? Can they escape? And do they even want to? • From the author of Goodbye Mr Chips, this is the epic adventure story of literature's most entrancing utopia and one of our most enduring literary mysteries