Vintage books Our Ancestors Calvino Italo

A witty, elegant novel about looking, seeing, thinking, knowing and understanding • Mr Palomar is a delightful eccentric whose chief activity is looking at things. He is seeking knowledge; 'it is only after you have come to know the surface of things that you can venture to seek what is underneath'. Whether contemplating a fine cheese, a hungry gecko, a woman sunbathing topless or a flight of migrant starlings, Mr Palomar's observations render the world afresh

A radical examination of Britain's relationship with the land by one of our greatest nature writers • The British love their countryside more than almost any other nation, yet they live in one of the most denatured landscapes on Earth. From the flatlands of Norfolk to the tundra-like expanse of the Flow Country in northern Scotland, Mark Cocker sets out on a personal quest through the British countryside attempting to solve this puzzle. Radical, provocative and original, Our Place tackles some of the central issues of our time whilst mapping out a future in which this overcrowded island of ours could be a place fit not just for human occupants but also for its billions of wild citizens

The choir from Our Lady of Perpetual Succour School for Girls is being bussed to the national finals in the big, big city. It's an important day for The Sopranos, with pub-crawling, shoplifting and body-piercing being the top priorities. And with a newly anchored nuclear sub in the bay, the Man Trap disco will be full of submariners on shore-leave tonight. There is no time for delays – or even for winning… • But after the fifth bottle of alco-pop on the bus it's clear that all is not going to plan, for anyone. The Sopranos are never going to be the same

Откройте для себя мрачно-комичный и своевременный шпионский триллер Грэма Грина "Наш человек в Гаване" • Уорлд - продавец пылесосов в городе, где отключено электричество. Его дочь-подросток тратит его деньги с умением, которое поражает его самого, поэтому, когда таинственный англичанин предлагает ему дополнительный доход, он поддается искушению. Взамен все, что ему нужно сделать, - это провести небольшой шпионаж и подать несколько отчетов. Но когда его фальшивые сообщения начинают сбываться, все внезапно усложняется, и Гавана становится угрожающим местом • Книга на английском языке • Bright, photographic, evocative new covers for Greene's backlist, to celebrate one of the keystone writers of the Vintage Classics list • Discover Graham Greene's blackly comic and timely espionage thriller, set amid the vice and squalor of pre-revolutionary Havana

London, 1941. The city is in blackout and an enemy is hiding in plain sight • Jack Hoste has become entangled in a national treachery. His mission: to locate the most dangerous Nazi agent in the country • He soon receives a promising lead in Amy Strallen, whose life is a world away from the machinations of Nazi sympathisers. But when Hoste pays a visit to Amy’s office, the dangerous game he is playing becomes even more lethal

John Harmon returns to England after years in exile to claim his inheritance: a great fortune and a beautiful young woman to whom he is betrothed, but has never met. When Harmon's body is pulled out of the Thames, all of London is fascinated by the mystery of the murdered man and his unclaimed riches. Scavengers, social-climbers, lawyers and teachers, a money-lender and a dolls-dressmaker, men and women both honest and villainous, will all become embroiled in this tale of love and obsession, death and rebirth

'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

'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 essential crime book of our times, from the author of the bestselling McMafia • Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2012 • We live our lives online - banking, shopping, working, dating - but have we become complacent? • Who's got your money? • We share our personal details, our thoughts and movements with a faceless screen, with no real idea what lies behind it • Who's got your identity? • DarkMarket exposes the shocking truth about what lurks behind our computers: an underground crime network that invades our privacy and threatens our security on a daily basis • Who's got your life? • Glenny tracks down the key players - including criminals, national and international security experts, police, crack addicts, the Saudi Royal Family, and most importantly, victims - to reveal the true scale of this new global threat