Vintage books The Giant's House McCracken Elizabeth

Genteel life at 'the 'Big House' continues while the Irish War of Independence rages beyond the gates, but for how long? • Read Elizabeth Bowen's accessible feminist take on the Irish aristocracy • WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY VICTORIA GLENDINNING • The Irish troubles rage, but up at the 'Big House', tennis parties, dances and flirtations with the English officers continue, undisturbed by the ambushes, arrests and burning country beyond the gates. Faint vibrations of discord reach the young girl Lois, who is straining for her own freedom, and she will witness the troubles surge closer and reach their irrevocable, inevitable climax

Venice, 1522. Intelligence arrives from the east confirming Europe's greatest fear: the vastly rich Ottoman Sultan has all he needs to wage total war - and his sights are set on Rome. With Christendom divided, Suleyman the Magnificent has his hand on its throat • From the palaces of Istanbul to the blood-soaked fields of central Europe and the scorched coasts of north Africa, The Lion House tells the true story of two civilisations in an existential duel and the rise of the most feared man of the sixteenth century. It is a tale of the timeless pull of power, dangerous to live with, deadly to live without

As a child, Luke’s mother often tells him the story of the Dumb House, an experiment on newborn babies raised in silence, designed to test the innateness of language. As Luke grows up, his interest in language and the delicate balance of life and death leads to amateur dissections of small animals – tiny hearts revealed still pumping, as life trickles away. But as an adult, following the death of his mother, Luke’s obsession deepens, resulting in a haunting and bizarre experiment on Luke’s own children

Две семьи. Семь дней. Один дом • Анджела и ее брат Ричард провели двадцать лет, избегая друг друга. Теперь, после смерти их матери, они собирают свои семьи вместе на каникулы в арендованном доме на границе с Уэльсом. Четверо взрослых и четверо детей. Семь дней совместных трапез, разведения костров, карточных игр и прогулок по мокрому снегу • Но в тишине и неподвижности долины начинают появляться призраки. Родители, которые, как думал Ричард, были у него. Родители, которые, как думала Анджела, были у нее. Прошлые и настоящие любовники. Друзья, враги, жертвы, спасители • Марк Хэддон, автор книг "Любопытный случай с собакой в ночное время" и "Место беспокойства", написал роман "Красный дом", который является забавным, пронзительным и глубоко проницательным о человеческих жизнях

Two sisters, two weddings, just months apart. These marriages produce a tangle of friends, relations and lovers that starts to unravel ten years later, during one intense week. Two of Bowen's most memorable characters are in attendance: Lady Elfrida, a creature of privilege, and Theodora Thirdman, a gawky teenager with zero self-awareness. The sunset of prosperity is upon this complacent, moneyed class, but Bowen's precise and beautiful prose pins real pain and comedy upon its inhabitants

A seductive collection of stories from the 'magnificent story-teller' (Independent on Sunday). Rose Tremain has sold over one million copies of her books • Trapped in a London flat, Beth remembers a transgressive love affair in 1960s Paris. The most famous writer in Russia takes his last breath in a stationmaster’s cottage, miles from Moscow. A father, finally free of his daughter’s demands, embarks on a long swim from his Canadian lakeside retreat. And in the grandest house of all, Danni the Polish housekeeper catches the eye of an enigmatic visitor

«Шум времени» — новейшее сочинение прославленного Джулиана Барнса • В мае 1937 года мужчина лет тридцати с небольшим ждет у лифта в ленинградском многоквартирном доме. Он ждет всю ночь, ожидая, что его заберут в Большой дом. Любая знаменитость, с которой он был знаком в предыдущее десятилетие, сейчас ему ни к чему. И немногие из тех, кого забирают в Большой дом, когда-либо возвращаются • Книга на английском языке • In May 1937 a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now. And few who are taken to the Big House ever return

The first novel from one of the twentieth century's most admired and stylish writers • It's the balmy days of the 1920s and where could be more pleasant for a holiday than a hotel on the Italian Riviera? Filled with prosperous English visitors, the Hotel offers a closed world of wealth and comfort. It also provides the stage for the display of social niceties, for passionate but unspoken love affairs and for the comedy of the shared bathroom. With great wit and insight Elizabeth Bowen's first novel lays bare the intricacies and eccentricities of polite society

The Bass Rock has for centuries watched over the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries the fates of three women are linked: to this place, to each other • In the early 1700s, Sarah, accused of being a witch, flees for her life • In the aftermath of the Second World War, Ruth navigates a new house, a new husband and the strange waters of the local community • Six decades later, the house stands empty. Viv, mourning the death of her father, catalogues Ruth's belongings and discovers her place in the past - and perhaps a way forward • Each woman's choices are circumscribed by the men in their lives. But in sisterhood there is the hope of survival and new life

The House of Mirth follows the tragic fall of Lily Bart, a beautiful socialite who loses her footing in the savage social-climbing world of New York high society in the nineteenth century • Lily Bart has no fortune, but she possesses everything else she needs to make an excellent marriage: beauty, intelligence, a love of luxury and an elegant skill in negotiating the hidden traps and false friends of New York's high society. But time and again Lily cannot bring herself to make the final decisive move: to abandon her sense of self and a chance of love for the final soulless leap into a mercenary union. Her time is running out, and degradation awaits. Edith Wharton's masterful novel is a tragedy of money, morality and missed opportunity

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

The first book in Anthony Trollope's Barchester Chronicles is a moving, insightful exploration of moral dilemmas fought in public and private • Mr Harding is a good man, the warden to an alms house which provides a peaceful home to twelve old men. The young and zealous John Bold is also a good man, but he believes he sees in Harding's comfortable existence an injustice which must be exposed. The law, the church and the self-righteous national press all have their say in the scandal that ensues, causing a crisis in the hearts and minds of many in the quiet country town of Barchester • ‘An affecting and delicate short novel’ Guardian