When the corpse of the shady industrialist who owns the local football team is found both shot and stabbed with a Parmesan knife, Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen is called to Bologna to oversee the investigation. Recovering slowly from surgery, and fleeing an equally painful crisis in his personal life, Zen is only too happy to take on what at first appears to be a routine and relatively undemanding assignment. But soon a world-famous university professor is shot with the same gun, immediately after publicly humiliating Italy's leading celebrity television chef, and the case — intertwined with the fates of an earnest student of semiotics and a mysterious young immigrant who claims to be from Ruritania — spins out of control, and Zen is in no condition to rise to the challenge. There's also a wild card in the pack, Tony Speranza, Bologna's most flamboyant private detective. Back to Bologna is dazzlingly plotted, features a cast of vivid and idiosyncratic characters, and along the way delivers both comic and serious insights into the realities of modern Italy.

In the seventh book of the acclaimed Aurelio Zen series, the Italian police detective finally receives the order he has been dreading all his professional life — his next posting is to Sicily. Indeed it soon turns out that he will need all his cunning and skill to survive in a milieu where unwritten rules are enforced with ruthless violence, one false step can prove fatal, and the truth must be paid for in blood. The gruesome discovery of an unidentified, decomposed corpse sealed in a railway wagon on a disused siding marks the beginning of Zen's most difficult and dangerous case. Set against the backdrop of the three thousand-year-old city of Catania, in the shadow of the smouldering volcano of Etna, Blood Rain reveals Aurelio Zen at his most desperate and driven.

Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.

After a shipwreck strands him far from home, ship's surgeon Lemuel Gulliver embarks on a series of remarkable adventures. From the tiny but fierce Lilliputians to the horselike Houyhnhnms and unruly Yahoos, the incredible things Gulliver encounters will spark children's imaginations.

Eleven of the best and most popular tales of the immortal sleuth include Silver Blaze, concerning the curious incident of the dog in the night-time; The Greek Interpreter, starring Holmes' even more formidable brother, Mycroft; and The Final Problem, the detective's notorious confrontation with arch-criminal Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls.

Following on from the huge success of the 44 Scotland Street series, Alexander McCall Smith has 'moved house' to a crumbling four-storey mansion in Pimlico — Corduroy Mansions. It is inhabited by a glorious assortment of characters: among them, Oedipus Snark, the first ever nasty Lib Dem MP, who is so detestable his own mother, Berthea, is writing an unauthorised biography about him; and one small vegetarian dog, Freddie de la Hay, who has the ability to fasten his own seatbelt. Although Corduroy Mansions is a fictional name, the address is now registered by the Post Office.

'If you do not want to dwell with evil-doers', wrote Richard of Devizes in 1180, 'do not live in London'. In her third exploration of the city's history, Catharine Arnold focuses on the sex trade, from slave girls brought to service Roman troops in first century Londinium, through medieval stews, 18th century sex clubs and Victorian male brothels to infamous '60s call girls and the internet 'Belle de Jour'.

Take a round-the-world trip and bring back a timeless souvenir. Our Passport Journals will allow you to revisit your memories and fulfill that wanderlust long after your travels have been completed. The pocket-sized hardcover books contain designed pages which re-create the international feel of an actual passport.

What happens within us when we read a novel? And how does a novel create its unique effects, so distinct from those of a painting, a film, or a poem? In this inspired, thoughtful, deeply personal book, Orhan Pamuk takes us into the worlds of the writer and the reader, revealing their intimate connections. Pamuk draws on Friedrich Schiller's famous distinction between 'naive' poets — who write spontaneously, serenely, unselfconsciously — and 'sentimental' poets: those who are reflective, emotional, questioning, and alive to the artifice of the written word. Harking back to the beloved novels of his youth and ranging through the work of such writers as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, Mann, and Naipaul, he explores the oscillation between the naive and the reflective, and the search for an equilibrium, that lie at the center of the novelist's craft. He ponders the novel's visual and sensual power — its ability to conjure landscapes so vivid they can make the here-and-now fade away. In the course of this exploration, he considers the elements of character, plot, time, and setting that compose the 'sweet illusion' of the fictional world. Anyone who has known the pleasure of becoming immersed in a novel will enjoy, and learn from, this perceptive book by one of the modern masters of the art.

«Portable enough to pack (just 6 x 8 3/4 inches closed) yet spacious enough to wax philosophical about the best and worst of days, this two-sided journal will let you keep your feelings safe even when you're on the go. Whatever your mood, this ruled, wire-bound journal has the place to write about it — open the «Nice» side for entries about kittens and puppies and tea parties; turn it over and open the «Naughty» side to talk about taxes and exes and the outfit you shouldn't have worn last night.»

In 200 page-filling black and white photos from the archives of London's Daily Mail, this album chronicles the singular musical career of John Lennon, from his days with the Quarry Men in 1958, along with Paul McCartney and George Harrison, to the days before and after his murder on December 8, 1980. Among the classic, rarely seen, and never before published photos here are early performances with the Beatles in the Cavern Club, the rise of Beatlemania, the band's psychedelic period, the inauguration of Apple Corp, John's life with Yoko Ono, the Beatles' breakup, and his subsequent career as an activist, musician, and father.

«This is a smaller, gift version of National Geographic's landmark publication, Through the Lens. «Through the Lens is a cornucopia of National Geographic's best photographs created since 1890 when the Society first started commissioning photographers to go out into the world and bring images back to its readership. Many of the 250 photographs have been previously published in the magazine but a great number of them are images that did not make the final edit but have great merit on their own. Readers can take a virtual tour around the world to see rice sellers in the Mekong Delta, teenagers in Brazil, duck hunters in Nebraska, and stingrays in the Cayman Islands, to name a few examples. You also move seamlessly back and forth in time, from the days when travellers climbed mountain trails by mule to color-filled lofty airplane rides above the Galapagos Islands with a greater appreciation for technological advancements and the chance to suspend time either way.»

Winners of 22 Grammy Awards — more than any other band — U2 have sold over 150m records. Whilst maintaining their reputation as one of the top rock bands of the modern era, U2 have pursued personal and ideological goals including relief of world poverty and social justice whilst also on a musical journey that has embraced many different styles.

Kids will love to learn the alphabet and first words with this wonderful pop-up book. Each page is packed with bright illustrations surrounding a fun pop-up block in the middle.

After years of living in exile, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia in 1994 and published a series of eight powerfully paired stories. These groundbreaking stories — interconnected and juxtaposed using an experimental method Solzhenitsyn referred to as binary — join Solzhenitsyn's already available work as some of the most powerful literature of the twentieth century. With Soviet and post-Soviet life as their focus, they weave and shift inside their shared setting, illuminating the Russian experience under the Soviet regime. In The Upcoming Generation, a professor promotes a dull but proletarian student purely out of good will. Years later, the same professor finds himself arrested and, in a striking twist of fate, his student becomes his interrogator. In Nastenka, two young women with the same name lead routine, ordered lives — until the Revolution exacts radical change on them both. The most eloquent and acclaimed opponent of government oppression, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, and his work continues to receive international acclaim. Available for the first time in English, Apricot Jam: And Other Stories is a striking example of Solzhenitsyn's singular style and only further solidifies his place as a true literary giant.

The Best American Comics showcases the work of both established and up-and-coming contributors. Editor Alison Bechdel — creater of the cult comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For and author of Fun Home — has culled the best stories from graphic novels, pamplet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics and webcomics to create this cutting-edge collection. With entries from Joe Sacco, Jeff Smith, and Dash Shaw, this edtion delivers a thrilling and varied journey from start to finish.

'Brilliant, deeply shocking' — New York Review of Books. Bucky Wunderlick is a rock and roll star. Dissatisfied with a life that has brought fame and fortune, he suddenly decides he no longer wants to be a commodity. He leaves his band mid-tour and holes up in a dingy, unfurnished apartment in Great Jones Street. Unfortunately, his disappearing act only succeeds in inflaming interest... DeLillo's third novel is more than a musical satire: it probes the rights of the individual, foreshadows the struggle of the artist within a capitalist world and delivers a scathing portrait of our culture's obsession with the lives of the few. 'DeLillo has the force and imagination of Thomas Pynchon or John Barth, with a sense of proportion and style which these would-be giants often lack' — Irish Times.

A riveting novel about the remarkable life-and many loves-of author H. G. Wells. H. G. Wells, author of The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, was one of the twentieth century's most prophetic and creative writers, a man who immersed himself in socialist politics and free love, whose meteoric rise to fame brought him into contact with the most important literary, intellectual, and political figures of his time, but who in later years felt increasingly ignored and disillusioned in his own utopian visions. Novelist and critic David Lodge has taken the compelling true story of Wells's life and transformed it into a witty and deeply moving narrative about a fascinating yet flawed man. Wells had sexual relations with innumerable women in his lifetime, but in 1944, as he finds himself dying, he returns to the memories of a select group of wives and mistresses, including the brilliant young student Amber Reeves and the gifted writer Rebecca West. As he reviews his professional, political, and romantic successes and failures, it is through his memories of these women that he comes to understand himself. Eloquent, sexy, and tender, the novel is an artfully composed portrait of Wells's astonishing life, with vivid glimpses of its turbulent historical background, by one of England's most respected and popular writers.

A riveting thriller about crime and punishment in Soviet-era Moscow. Like the Arkady Renko novels of Martin Cruz Smith, Robert Littell's masterful Mother Russia transports readers back in time and behind the Iron Curtain to experience the extremes of Soviet society. Robespierre Pravdin is a black marketeer who prowls Moscow's streets and alleys hustling wristwatches. Wishing only to survive in a city suffocated by paranoia and schizophrenia, Robespierre manages to make a tidy profit and stay under the state's radar-until, one day, he meets the woman called Mother Russia and becomes ensnared in the Byzantine and profoundly dangerous game of politics. This is another darkly engrossing pageturner from the bestselling author of The Sisters and The Defection of A. J. Lewinter.