King Penguin

This novel explores the conflicts which underlie even the most conventional of lives - the eternal struggle between female and male, the spirit and the flesh, reason and desire. A young couple acquire a cottage in Somerset, Liffey moving to live there while her husband stays on in London.

A lonely London spinster's correspondence with an Australian novelist leads her to new freedom.

Two members of the Pirelli Youth Orchestra find their lives in danger when they try to find the practical joker whose string of pranks includes destroying a $250,000 violin.

In this tour de force of psychological unease, now a major motion picture starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Sinead Cusack, McEwan excavates the ruins of childhood and uncovers things that most adults have spent a lifetime forgetting or denying. "Possesses the suspense and chilling impact of Lord of the Flies."--Washington Post Book World.

What was the tragedy that turned O'Neill's hotel from a plush establishment into a dingy house of disrepute? Nosy professional photographer, Mrs Ivy Eckdorf is determined to find out. She has come to Dublin convinced that a tragic and beautiful tale lies behind the facade of this crumbling hotel. Owned by deaf-and-dumb Mrs Sinnott, soon to be ninety-two, the hotel is home to a cast of oddballs and degenerates: drunken gambler Eugene who lives only in his dreams; the pimp Morrissey who hires rooms for his girls; O'Shea, the hall porter, trying to keep it all together. But, rather than finding out the truth about O'Neill's, Mrs Eckdorf instead discovers something deeper, darker and closer to home than she ever expected.

As World War II draws to a close, Commando Major Harry Curtis has returned to England to fame and fortune. But after his marriage sours, he's only too happy to be given the most dangerous assignment of his career. He survives with the help of an Austrian woman, Jutta Hulin, but she disappears after he reaches safety. Seconded to Malaysia in 1950 to help the Malay Scouts and the SAS in combatting the communist insurgency. Events are complicated when he finds Jutta Hulin -- the woman who had saved his life at the end of World War II -- in an ambivalent position vis-a-vis the insurgents.

An odd assortment of people gather for a military lecture at the illustrious Shrapnel Academy and when a snowstorm makes leaving impossible, the ensuing events provide a humorous parable on the folly of human relations.

"Alma Porch, novelist and aspiring dramatist, is hired to teach a course in Trinity College's 'Better Body Through the Arts' summer program for overweight adults. On the rundown campus in the remote Australian outback, Alma is surrounded by starving matrons, orgies of sex and gluttony, and an eccentric group of staff and students who are eager to open themselves to the transforming possibilities of her screenplay, 'Foxbaby (sic)'--Cover p. .

A construction worker named Libertini Faussone and the writer-chemist narrator swap stories of their adventures.

This is the story of an old cleaning woman?known as?Weekly" or?The Newspaper" to the residents of Claremont Street for whom she works?who dreams of escape from the parasitic demands of both her past and her present. This new edition of a contemporary classic reintroduces this very popular and distinctive character.

Mémoires d'Hadrien est un roman historique de l'écrivaine française Marguerite Yourcenar, publié en 1951. Ces pseudo-mémoires de l'empereur romain Hadrien ont immédiatement rencontré un extraordinaire succès international et assuré à son auteur une grande célébrité. Il s’agit d’une œuvre dont le projet remonte à l’adolescence de l’autrice. Yourcenar considérant le projet comme trop ambitieux pour être une œuvre de jeunesse, le décrivait de la trempe de ceux « qu’on ne doit pas oser avant d’avoir dépassé quarante ans ». Le livre est présenté comme une longue lettre d’un vieil empereur adressée à son petit-fils adoptif et éventuel successeur âgé de 17 ans, Marc Aurèle. L’empereur Hadrien médite et se remémore ses triomphes militaires, son amour de la poésie et de la musique, sa philosophie ainsi que sa passion pour son jeune amant bithynien, Antinoüs.

The book 'In Custody" , shortlisted for booker prize, is contemplated with various concerning issues of the World specifically India. These themes are status of Urdu Language in India, psychological and sociological elements of Indians and their traditions, the Scheming World , etc. Deven Sharma , a lecturer in a college, is the hero without heroism in the book. Murad and Mr.Jain are specifically the examples of a scheming World. Imtiaz Begum as a new woman, a genuine example of growing Feminism.

Mary Swann is the story of four individuals who become entwined in the life of Mary Swann, a rural Canadian poet whose authentic and unique voice is discovered only hours before her husband hacks her to pieces. Who is Mary Swann? And how could she have produced these works of genius in almost complete isolation? Mysteriously, all traces of Swann's existence, her notebook, the first draft of her work, even her photograph, gradually vanish as the characters in this engrossing novel become caught up in their own concepts of who Mary Swann was.

"Edward Abbey was a hero to environmentalists and rebels of every stripe. With Fire on the Mountain, this literary giant of the New West gave readers a powerful, moving, and enduring tale that gloriously celebrates the undying spirit of American individualism. This fiftieth anniversary edition, with an introduction by historian Douglas Brinkley, reminds readers of Abbey's powerful conviction that "a patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." John Vogelin's land is his life - a barren stretch of New Mexican wilderness mercifully bypassed by civilization. Then the government moves in. And suddenly the elderly, mule-stubborn rancher is confronting the combined land-grabbing greed of the county sheriff, the Department of the Interior, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the U.S. Air Force. But a tough old man is like a mountain lion: if you back him into a corner, he'll come out fighting"--P. of cover.

In the thirteen stories in her second collection, Alice Munro demonstrates the precise observation, straightforward prose style, and masterful technique that led no less a critic than John Updike to compare her to Chekhov. The sisters, mothers and daughters, aunts, grandmothers, and friends in these stories shimmer with hope and love, anger and reconciliation, as they contend with their histories and their present, and what they can see of the future. -- Book jacket.

A collection of short pieces, including book reviews done for the New Yorker since about 1975.

Tales From Firozsha Baag is a collection of 11 short stories by Rohinton Mistry about the residents of Firozsha Baag, a Parsi-dominated apartment complex in Mumbai. Mistry's first book, it was published by Penguin Canada in 1987.

Marilynne Robinson's first novel.

Black Tickets is an astonishing collection that deals with the dreams and passions of young men and women, and depicts the desperate loneliness that pervades American live. (back cover copy) West Virginia gothic.

At the age of ten, when Martin Amis spent a year in Princeton, New Jersey, he was excited and frightened by America. As an adult he has approached that confusing country from many arresting angles, and interviewed its literati, filmmakers, thinkers, opinion makers, leaders and crackpots with characteristic discernment and wit. Included in a gallery of Great American Novelists are Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Joseph Heller, William Burroughs, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike, Paul Theroux, Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. Amis also takes us to Dallas, where presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is attempting to liaise with born-again Christians. We glimpse the beau monde of Palm Beach, where each couple tries to out-Gatsby the other, and examine the case of Claus von Bulow. Steven Spielberg gets a visit, as does Brian de Palma, whom Amis asks why his films make no sense, and Hugh Hefner's sybaritic fortress and sanitised image are penetrated.

A divorced woman returns to her childhood home where she confronts the memory of her parents' confounding yet deep bond. The accidental near-drowning of a child exposes the fragility of the trust between children and parents. A young man, remembering a terrifying childhood incident, wrestles with the responsibility he has always felt for his younger brother. In these and other stories Alice Munro proves once again a sensitive and compassionate chronicler of our times. Drawing us into the most intimate corners of ordinary lives, she reveals much about ourselves, our choices, and our experiences of love.

After the apocalypse the world is neatly divided. Rational civilization rests with the Professors in their steel and concrete villages; marauding tribes of Barbarians roam the surrounding jungles; mutilated Out People inhabit the burnt scars of cities. But Marianne, a Professor's daughter, is carried away into the jungle--a grotesque vegetable paradise--where she will become the captive bride of Jewel, the proud and beautiful Barbarian. There she will witness the savage rituals of the snake worshippers, indulge her voluptuous, virginal fantasies, taste the forbidden fruit of chaos... Erotic, exotic, and bizarre, HEROES AND VILLAINS is a post-apocalyptic romance, a gripping adventure story, a colourful embroidery of religion and magic and, not least, a dispassionate vision of life beyond our brave nuclear world.