Vintage books The Bridge On The River Kwai Boulle Pierre

A haunting yet humorous evocation of a society dangerously trapped in its past • Two Irish-American scholars from Harvard journey to Albania in the 1930s with a tape recorder (a 'new fangled' invention) in order to record the last genuinely oral epic singers. Their purpose, they say, is to show how Homer's epics might have been culled from a verbal tradition. But the local Governor believes its an elaborate spying mission and arranges for his own spy to follow them.The two dedicated scholars realise only too late that they have stumbled over an ants' nest • This simple tale by Albania's most eminent and gifted novelist serves to lift the veil on one of the most secret and mysterious countries of modern Europe

Maggie and Tom Tulliver are both wilful, passionate children, and their relationship has always been tempestuous. As they grow up together on the banks of the River Floss, Tom's self-righteous stubbornness and Maggie's emotional intensity increasingly brings them into conflict, particularly when Maggie's beauty sparks some ill-fated attachments. George Eliot's story of a brother and sister bound together by their errors and affections is told with tenderness, energy and a profound understanding of human nature

The end of the world • Or the beginning… • On to the shores of Texas a raging sea coughs up two castaways: Jim and Natty, shipwrecked on their way home from Treasure Island • The Nightingale sunk, their silver gone, captured, weak and afraid, the pair steal a treasure they should have left well alone • The adventure of the New World lies in wait…

The definitive account of North Korea - its veiled past and uncertain future - from former White House adviser and Korea expert Victor Cha • ‘We killed Americans • We are killing Americans • We will kill Americans.’ • North Korean schoolchildren conjugating verbs • How did North Korea become The Impossible State, where citizens found humming South Korean pop songs risk being sent to a gulag, and yet a starving populace clings fiercely to its Dear Leader Kim Jong-un? What does the future hold for a regime with terrifying nuclear ambitions and an endless war with its southern counterpart? Former White House adviser and Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University, Victor Cha, pulls back the curtain on the world’s most isolated country to provide this unprecedented and timely insight into North Korea’s history, present and future

Trapped within a waterfall on the wild Franklin River, Tasmanian river guide, Aljaz Cosini, lies drowning. As the tourists he has been guiding down the river seek to save him, Aljaz is beset by visions horrible and fabulous. As the rapids rise, Aljaz relives not just his own life but also his country’s dreaming

As America recovers from the Second World War, two families' journeys begin • James Vincent, born in 1942 to an Irish-American family, escapes his parents' turbulent marriage and attends law school in New York, where he moves up the social ladder as a prosperous and bright attorney • Meanwhile, Agnes Miller, a beautiful black woman on date with a handsome suitor, is pulled over by the police on a rural road in Georgia. The terrible moments that follow make her question her future and pivot her into a hasty marriage and new life in the Bronx • Illuminating more than six decades of sweeping change - from the struggle for civil rights and the chaos of Vietnam to Obama's first year as President - James and Agnes's families will come together in unexpected, intimate and profoundly human ways

In the small village in Provence where Stefan Hertmans has made his home, people have long spoken of an ancient pogrom and hidden treasure. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, an extraordinary collection of Jewish documents was found in a synagogue in Cairo • Hertmans has based The Convert on these historical sources, tracing the life of a young Christian noblewoman who abandoned everything for the love of a rabbi's son. In this startlingly contemporary novel, Hertmans follows in her footsteps as the lovers flee through France together, pursued by crusading knights, and recounts her dazzling journey full of love and hardship, courage and hate, as she travels on towards Jerusalem alone

A seaside pier collapses • An expedition to Mars goes terribly wrong • A thirty-stone man is confined to his living room • One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean • Another woman is saved from drowning • Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox • A group of explorers find a cave of unimaginable size deep in the Amazon jungle • A man shoots a stranger in the chest on Christmas Eve

'Her brilliance in capturing the ripples on the surface of family life gives her a claim to be the Jane Austen of our age' Daily Mail • Having sacked her handyman, newly-widowed Mrs Emerson finds a replacement in Elizabeth, a lanky, awkward girl. The Emersons, with their seven adult children, have a reputation for craziness, and Elizabeth finds herself drawn into their disorderly lives against her will. But in the end it is hard to tell whether she is a victim of the needy Emersons, or the de facto ruler of the family

In this absorbing volume, David Lodge turns his incisive critical skills onto his own profession, salutes the great writers who have influenced his work, wonders about the motives of biographers, ponders the merits of creative writing courses, pulls the rug from under certain theoretical critics and throws open the curtains on his own workshop

Mia Holl lives in a state governed by The Method, where good health is the highest duty of the citizen. Everyone must submit medical data and sleep records to the authorities on a monthly basis, and regular exercise is mandatory • Mia is young and beautiful, a successful scientist who is outwardly obedient but with an intellect that marks her as subversive. Convinced that her brother has been wrongfully convicted of a terrible crime, Mia comes up against the full force of a regime determined to control every aspect of its citizens' lives

Шляпа, лента, птичка, роза. Для жителей острова исчезнувшая вещь больше не имеет никакого значения. Его можно сжечь в саду, выбросить в реку или передать Полиции памяти. Довольно скоро остров забывает о его существовании • Когда молодая писательница обнаруживает, что ее редактору грозит опасность быть арестованным Полицией памяти, она отчаянно хочет спасти его. По какой-то причине он не забывает, и ему становится все труднее скрывать свои воспоминания. Кто знает, что исчезнет в следующий раз? • "Полиция памяти" Ёко Огавы - красивая, захватывающая и провокационная басня о силе памяти и травме утраты, написанная одним из величайших писателей Японии • Книга на английском языке • Hat, ribbon, bird, rose. To the people on the island, a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning