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Reality Hunger is a manifesto for a burgeoning group of interrelated but unconnected artists who, living in an unbearably artificial world, are breaking ever larger chunks of 'reality' into their work. The questions Shields explores - the bending of form and genre, the lure and blur of the real - play out constantly around us, and Reality Hunger is a radical reframing of how we might think about this 'truthiness': about literary licence, quotation, and appropriation in television, film, performance art, rap, and graffiti, in lyric essays, prose poems, and collage novels.Drawing on myriad sources, Shields takes an audacious stance on issues that are being fought over now and will be fought over far into the future. Converts will see Reality Hunger as a call to arms; detractors will view it as an occasion to defend the status quo. It is certain to be one of the most controversial and talked about books of the season.

These eight stories by leading 20th century French writers offer fascinating insights into French life and literature and are accompanied by a parallel English text, making them valuable for both French and English language students.Among the diverse and entertaining stories in the collection are the wistful masterpiece Green Tobacco by Clair Sainte-Soline; the exuberant tale of The Ants by the post-war king of caf society, Boris Vian, and a suspense in the nineteenth-century erotic tradition from Andre de Mandiargues.

Let The Devil Sleep is the gripping third crime novel by John Verdon in the David Gurney series.Ten years ago a serial killer went quiet - now he's back.Dave Gurney, a retired NYPD homicide detective, agrees to meet a young woman making a documentary on The Good Shepherd. A decade ago a series of roadside shootings made The Good Shepherd killer headline news. But then the killings stopped, and nobody could say for sure why. Finding himself drawn back into the case, Gurney soon discovers new facts the original investigation missed and literally stakes his life on finding The Good Shepherd. He makes himself a target so that the killer will come for him.The latest puzzle masterpiece from the internationally bestselling author of Think of a Number and Shut Your Eyes Tight. John Verdon returns with another instalment in the David Gurney Series. Following the success of Think of a Number and Shut Your Eyes Tight comes John Verdon's latest masterpiece Let The Devil Sleep. Fans of Tess Gerritsen and James Hayman will love this series. Praise for John Verdon:'The best thriller I've read in a long, long time' Tess Gerritsen'Wow! Totally absorbing, brilliantly written. The best book I've read this year' The SunJohn Verdon, a former Manhattan advertising executive, lives with his wife on a small hilltop in upstate New York. His first two Dave Gurney novels are Think of a Number and Shut Your Eyes Tight.

This volume contains sixteen examples of the English short story at its best: immediately captivating and hugely entertaining. Some stories are classics, such as James Joyce s The Dead ; others like Mr Loveday s Little Outing by Evelyn Waugh are relatively unknown and a joy to discover. The collection also includes Charles Dickens premonitory tale, The Signalman which was inspired by his own horrific experiences in a train crash. Katherine Mansfield s The Voyage , meanwhile, is a sensual narrative centring on a boat journey and set in her native New Zealand. Virginia Woolf s Kew Gardens is different again, dramatically evoking its setting, awash with colour and light. Tragic or comic, traditional or modernist, each and every piece demonstrates perfectly how the short story form can be as engaging and satisfying as a novel, if not more so.

A Sunday Telegraph and Times Higher Education 'Book of the Week', Deborah Cohen's Family Secrets is a gripping book about what families - Victorian and modern - try to hide, and why.In an Edinburgh town house, a genteel maiden lady frets with her brother over their niece's downy upper lip. Would the darkening shadow betray the girl's Eurasian heritage? On a Liverpool railway platform, a heartbroken mother hands over her eight-year old illegitimate son for adoption. She had dressed him carefully that morning in a sailor suit and cap. In a town in the Cotswolds, a vicar brings to his bank vault a diary - sewed up in calico, wrapped in parchment - that chronicles his sexual longings for other men. Drawing upon years of research in previously sealed records, the prize-winning historian Deborah Cohen offers a sweeping and often surprising account of how shame has changed over the last two centuries. Both a story of family secrets and of how they were revealed, this book journeys from the frontier of empire, where British adventurers made secrets that haunted their descendants for generations, to the confessional vanguard of modern-day genealogy two centuries later. It explores personal, apparently idiosyncratic, decisions: hiding an adopted daughter's origins, taking a disabled son to a garden party, talking ceaselessly (or not at all) about a homosexual uncle.In delving into the familial dynamics of shame and guilt, Family Secrets investigates the part that families, so often regarded as the agents of repression, have played in the transformation of social mores from the Victorian era to the present day. Written with compassion and keen insight, this is a bold new argument about the sea-changes that took place behind closed doors.Born into a family with its own fair share of secrets, Deborah Cohen was raised in Kentucky and educated at Harvard and Berkeley.She teaches at Northwestern University, where she holds the Peter B. Ritzma Professorship of the Humanities.Her last book was the award-winning Household Gods, a history of the British love-affair with the home.

A young and inexperienced sea captain finds that his first command leaves him with a ship stranded in tropical seas and a crew smitten with fever. As he wrestles with his conscience and with the increasing sense of isolation that he experiences, the captain crosses the shadow-line between youth and adulthood. In many ways an autobiographical narrative, Conrad's novella was written at the start of the Great War when his son Borys was at the Western Front, and can be seen as an attempt to open humanity s eyes to the qualities needed to face evil and destruction.

Winter 1793 - the Reign of Terror rips through revolutionary France, as every able-bodied man is pressed into military service. The city of Toulon has turned itself over to the British - the red ensign of Lord Admiral Hood's flagship, Victory, offering a defiant symbol of protection to its people. In Plymouth, Master and Commander Charles Hayden is summoned to the port admiral - his orders are to return to the ill-fated frigate, HMS Themis. Placed in temporary command, he is to join the escort for the last convoy of the season - braving the wintry seas to supply Hood's fleet in the Mediterranean. Hayden's uncanny knack for attracting the attention of the French navy sees the Themis thrown back into action only hours out of port. Soon, Hayden's captaincy and military skill are stretched to their utmost as he finds himself at the vanguard of this brutal clash of empires.

The story of an unwanted Chinese daughter growing up during the Communist Revolution, blamed for her mother's death, ignored by her millionaire father and unwanted by her Eurasian step mother. A story of greed, hatred and jealousy; a domestic dramais played against the extraordinary political events in China and Hong Kong. Written with the emotional force of a novel but with a vividness drawn from a personal and political background. FALLING LEAVES has become a surprise bestseller all over the world.

Dix Steele is back in town, and 'town' is post-war LA. His best friend Brub is on the force of the LAPD, and as the two meet in country clubs and beach bars, they discuss the latest case: a strangler is preying on young women in the dark. Dix listens with interest as Brub describes their top suspect, as yet unnamed. Dix loves the dark and women in equal measure, so he knows enough to watch his step, though when he meets the luscious Laurel Gray, something begins to crack. The American Dream is showing its seamy underside.

The brilliantly witty novel from the bestselling author of Getting Rid of Matthew and Strictly Between Us.Rebecca, Daniel, Alex and Isabel have been best friends since university. Rebecca married Daniel, Alex married Isabel and, for twenty years, they have been inseparable. But all that is about to change...When Alex walks out on Isabel, Rebecca thinks things can't get any worse. But then she finds out the reason why and she's left harbouring a secret she'd rather forget...And there's more upheaval to come in Rebecca's life as her emaciated, neurotic, self-obsessed colleague, Lorna - her arch nemesis at work - suddenly becomes a regular feature in her social life.Rebecca's once-happy foursome is now a distant memory and with hearts broken and friendships fractured, it seems that change is never a good thing. Or is it?Praise for Jane Fallon:'Intelligent, edgy and witty' Glamour'A brilliant and original tale' Sun'Chick lit with an edge' Guardian

A fascinating examination of ethics, religion and psychology, this selection of Schopenhauer's works contains scathing attack on the nature and logic of religion, and an essay on ethics that ranges from the American slavery debate to the vices of Buddhism. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

'Sean McMeekin has written a classic of First World War history ... This superb and original book is the reality behind Greenmantle' Norman StoneThe Berlin-Baghdad Express explores one of the big, previously unresearched subjects of the First World War: the German bid for world power - and the destruction of the British Empire - through the harnessing of the Ottoman Empire. McMeekin's book shows how incredibly high the stakes were in the Middle East - with the Germans in the tantalizing position of taking over the core of the British Empire via the extraordinary railway that would link Central Europe and the Persian Gulf. Germany sought the Ottoman Empire as an ally to create jihad against the British - whose Empire at the time was the largest Islamic power in the world.The Berlin-Baghdad Express is a fascinating account of western interference in the Middle East and its lamentable results. It explains and brings to life a massive area of fighting, which in most other accounts is restricted to the disaster at Gallipoli and the British invasions of Iraq and Palestine.

Since the original, prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME is one of the greatest, most entertaining reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is the Penguin Proust that makes Proust accessible to a new generation.Each book is translated by a different, superb translator working under the general editorship of Professor Christopher Prendergast, University of Cambridge.

Since the original prewar translation there has been no completely new rendering of the French original into English. This translation brings to the fore a more sharply engaged, comic and lucid Proust. IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME is one of the greatest,most entertaining reading experiences in any language. As the great story unfolds from its magical opening scenes to its devastating end, it is the Penguin Proust that makes Proust accessible to a new generation.Each volume is translated by a different, superb translator working under the general editorship of Professor Christopher Prendergast, University of Cambridge.

These are unique stories of timeless wisdom and understanding from the Zen Masters. With rich and fascinating tales of swords, tigers, tea, flowers and dogs, the writings of the Masters challenge every perception - and seek to bring all readers closer to enlightenment.Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

Flann O'Brien's first novel is a brilliant impressionistic jumble of ideas, mythology and nonsense. Operating on many levels it incorporates plots within plots, giving full rein to O'Brien's dancing intellect and Celtic wit. The undergraduate narrator lives with his uncle in Dublin, drinks too much with his friends and invents stories peopled with hilarious and unlikely characters, one of whom, in a typical O'Brien conundrum, creates a means by which women can give birth to full-grown people. Flann O'Brien's blend of farce, satire and fantasy result in a remarkable, astonishingly innovative book.

A classic mystery from Dick Francis, the champion of English storytellers. Just after learning that his stepfather is gravely ill, artist Al Kinloch, returning to his remote home in the Scottish Highlands, is attacked by four men. They ask one question - 'where is it?' - then leave him for dead. Baffled and hurt, Al visits his stepfather and learns millions of pounds are missing and a valuable racehorse is under threat. Roughed up already, Al decides he has nothing to lose getting to the bottom of this. Unfortunately, the thugs who beat him up and the person behind them will make sure that Al doesn't survive their next encounter... Praise for Dick Francis: 'As a jockey, Dick Francis was unbeatable when he got into his stride. The same is true of his crime writing' Daily Mirror 'Dick Francis's fiction has a secret ingredient - his inimitable knack of grabbing the reader's attention on page one and holding it tight until the very end' Sunday Telegraph 'The narrative is brisk and gripping and the background researched with care . . . the entire story is a pleasure to relish' Scotsman 'Francis writing at his best' Evening Standard'A regular winner . . . as smooth, swift and lean as ever' Sunday Express 'A super chiller and killer' New York Times Book Review Dick Francis was one of the most successful post-war National Hunt jockeys. The winner of over 350 races, he was champion jockey in 1953/1954 and rode for HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, most famously on Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National. On his retirement from the saddle, he published his autobiography, The Sport of Queens, before going on to write forty-three bestselling novels, a volume of short stories (Field of 13), and the biography of Lester Piggott. During his lifetime Dick Francis received many awards, amongst them the prestigious Crime Writers' Association's Cartier Diamond Dagger for his outstanding contribution to the genre, and three 'best novel' Edgar Allan Poe awards from The Mystery Writers of America. In 1996 he was named by them as Grand Master for a lifetime's achievement. In 1998 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 2000. Dick Francis died in February 2010, at the age of eighty-nine, but he remains one of the greatest thriller writers of all time.

Old Masters (1985) is Thomas Bernhard's devilishly funny story about the friendship between two old men. For over thirty years Reger, a music critic, has sat on the same bench in front of a Tintoretto painting in a Viennese museum, thinking and railing against contemporary society, his fellow men, artists, the weather, even the state of public lavatories. His friend Atzbacher has been summoned to meet him, and through his eyes we learn more about Reger - the tragic death of his wife, his thoughts of suicide and, eventually, the true purpose of their appointment. At once pessimistic and exuberant, rancorous and hilarious, Old Masters is a richly satirical portrait of culture, genius, nationhood, class, the value of art and the pretensions of humanity.

Examines the beginning of the Christian movement during the first centuries AD, and the explosive force of its expansion throughout the Roman world

The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman is the gripping first instalment in a remarkable trilogy. Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is a vast and desolate place - a place without joy or hope. Most of its occupants were taken there as boys and for years have endured the brutal regime of the Lord Redeemers whose cruelty and violence have one singular purpose - to serve in the name of the One True Faith. In one of the Sanctuarys vast and twisting maze of corridors stands a boy. He is perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old - he is not sure and neither is anyone else. He has long-forgotten his real name, but now they call him Thomas Cale. He is strange and secretive, witty and charming, violent and profoundly bloody-minded. He is so used to the cruelty that he seems immune, but soon he will open the wrong door at the wrong time and witness an act so terrible that he will have to leave this place, or die. His only hope of survival is to escape across the arid Scablands to Memphis, a city the opposite of the Sanctuary in every way: breathtakingly beautiful, infinitely Godless, and deeply corrupt. But the Redeemers want Cale back at any price... not because of the secret he now knows but because of a much more terrifying secret he does not. The Left Hand of God is a must read. It is the first instalment in a gripping trilogy by Paul Hoffman. Imagine if Phillip Pullmans His Dark Materials met Umberto Ecos Name of the Rose. Fans of epic heroic fiction will love this series. Praise for Paul Hoffman: This book gripped me from the first chapter and then dropped me days later, dazed and grinning to myself Conn Iggulden Tremendous momentum Daily Telegraph A cult classic . . . Daily Express

This is a book about the meaning of time, what it is, when it has started, how it flows and where to. It examines the consequences of Einstein's theory of relativity and offers startling suggestions about what recent research may reveal.

The successful writer Oki has reached middle age and is filled with regrets. He returns to Kyoto to find Otoko, a young woman with whom he had a terrible affair many years before, and discovers that she is now a painter, living with a younger woman as her lover. Otoko has continued to love Oki and has never forgotten him, but his return unsettles not only her but also her young lover. This is a work of strange beauty, with a tender touch of nostalgia and a heartbreaking sensitivity to those things lost forever.

What is the difference between a musical note and any other sort of sound? What is harmony, and why does it sound good? Why is it easy to tell the difference between a flute and a clarinet even if they are playing exactly the same note? Why do ten violins sound only twice as loud as one? What is perfect pitch, and do I have it?Discover the answers to these and many other questions in John Powell's charming, straight-talking and ear-opening guide to what music is and how exactly it works. Written by a composer with a PhD in physics, How Music Works is a unique and entertaining guide. Opening up the world of acoustics and the science of music to deepen our appreciation and understanding of what we listen to, How Music Works covers subjects from the difference between how we hear a musical note and any other kind of sound, to a brief history of the scale system, why a run of arpeggios sounds 'romantic' and why a flute sounds different to a clarinet. The perfect book for players and listeners alike.

Before George R. R. Martin there was Dorothy Dunnett . . . PERFECT for fans of A Game of Thrones.'She is a brilliant story teller, The Lymond Chronicles will keep you reading late into the night, desperate to know the fate of the characters you have come to care deeply about.' The Times Literary SupplementThe Game of Kings is the first book in the series -----------------------------'I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands'It is 1547 and, after five years imprisonment and exile far from his homeland, Francis Crawford of Lymond - scholar, soldier, rebel, nobleman, outlaw - has at last come back to Edinburgh. But for many in an already divided Scotland, where conspiracies swarm around the infant Queen Mary like clouds of midges, he is not welcome. Lymond is wanted for treason and murder, and he is accompanied by a band of killers and ruffians who will only bring further violence and strife.Is he back to foment rebellion?Does he seek revenge on those who banished him? Or has he returned to clear his name?No one but the enigmatic Lymond himself knows the truth - and no one will discover it until he is ready . . .'A storyteller who could teach Scheherazade a thing or two about pace, suspense and imaginative invention'New York Times'Melodrama of the most magnificent kind' The Guardian

Before George R. R. Martin there was Dorothy Dunnett . . . PERFECT for fans of A Game of Thrones.'She is a brilliant story teller, The Lymond Chronicles will keep you reading late into the night, desperate to know the fate of the characters you have come to care deeply about.' The Times Literary SupplementThe Disorderly Knights is the third book in the series-----------------------------'The trouble about Mr Crawford is that he puts up with his enemies and plays merry hell with his friends'Summer, 1551, and Francis Crawford of Lymond is in Malta to assist the Knights of St John defend the island from an invading Turkish fleet. But under a weak leader there is dissension in the ranks of the Knights - and the chances of repelling invasion look slim.Here Lymond meets Knight Grand Cross Graham Reid Malett - known as Gabriel - a fellow Scot famed for his virtues. It is soon clear that Gabriel's wiles in war and intrigue rival Lymond's own as he attempts to bring his new comrade in arms into the bosom of his scheming. And if Gabriel should fail then his sister, Joleta, whose seductive charms no man can resist is waiting to prevail.Caught between warring factions and nations, between the wiles of Gabriel and the lascivious charms of Joleta, will Lymond prove strong enough to remain his own man?'Romance in the grand manner. I recommend it for your delight' Sunday Times'Melodrama of the most magnificent kind' The Guardian

This work assesses Darwin's theory of evolution and looks at why it arises such heated debate among scientists, philosophers and sociologists. The book aims to show that Darwinism does not devalue the miracles of life.

A Tiny Bit Marvellous is comedian Dawn French's hilarious pageturner. Everyone hates the perfect family.So you'll love the Battles.Meet Mo Battle, about to turn 50 and mum to two helpless, hormonal teenagers. There's 17-year-old daughter Dora who blames Mo for, like, EVERYTHING and Peter who believes he's quite simply as darling and marvellous as his hero Oscar Wilde. Somewhere, keeping quiet, is Dad . . . who's just, well... Dad.However, Mo is having a crisis. She's about to do something unusually wild and selfish, which will leave the entire family teetering on the edge of a precipice. Will the family fall? Or will they, when it really matters, be there for each other?A Tiny Bit Marvellous is the number one bestselling novel from one of Britain's favourite comic writers. Praise for A Tiny Bit Marvellous:'Funny, really enjoyable, highly recommended. A wonderful writer - witty, wise, poignant' Wendy Holden'A fantastic slam-dunk pageturner. Funny, enriching . . . page after page I laughed out loud' Mail on Sunday'Beautifully observed. Makes you laugh on every page' The Times'A brilliantly observed, very funny novel of family life' Woman and Home

This is the third book in the "e;House of Niccolo"e; series. Set in 15th-century Cyprus, this novel continues the saga of Nicholas van der Poel, international mercenary who started out as a dyer's apprentice, as he plays for the highest stakes with the greatest super-powers in Europe.

The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyers apprentice who schemes and swashbucukes his way to thehelm of a merchantile empire. NICCOLO RISING, Book One of the series, finds us in Bruges, 1460. Street smart, brilliant at figures, adept at the subtleties of diplomacy and the well-timed untruth, Dunnett's hero rises from wastrel to prodigy in abreathless adventure that wins him the love of the strongest woman in Bruges and the hatred of two powerful enemies. NICCOLO RISING combines history, adventure and high romance in the tradition stretching from Alexandre Dumas to Mary Renault.

January 1474, in the deep cold of an ice-bound Danzig: a man is spending a frivolous winter not facing up to his responsibilities ... It is the merchant Niccolo, diviner, soldier, banker to Kings; shunned by all who know him after revelations of hismurderous mischief-making. But his talents are too great to be squandered, and a subtle political dance ensues as rivals in Poland, Venice, and Persia bid for his services in trade and war and diplomacy. Niccolo has lost his family; but he will discover a new purpose in life...