At the start of World War One, German warships controlled Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa. The British had no naval craft at all upon 'Tanganjikasee', as the Germans called it. This mattered: it was the longest lake in the world and of great strategic advantage. In June 1915, a force of 28 men was despatched from Britain on a vast journey. Their orders were to take control of the lake. To reach it, they had to haul two motorboats with the unlikely names of Mimi and Toutou through the wilds of the Congo. The 28 were a strange bunch — one was addicted to Worcester sauce, another was a former racing driver — but the strangest of all of them was their skirt-wearing, tattoo-covered commander, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. Whatever it took, even if it meant becoming the god of a local tribe, he was determined to cover himself in glory. But the Germans had a surprise in store for Spicer-Simson, in the shape of their secret 'supership' the Graf von Gotzen... Unearthing new German and African records, the prize-winning author of The Last King of Scotland retells this most unlikely of true-life tales with his customary narrative energy and style. Fitzcarraldo meets Heart of Darkness, this is rich, vivid and flashmanesque in its appeal — military history at its most absorbing and entertaining.

This beautiful novel opens on the eve of World War II as a group of middle-class Jews arrive in the resort town of Badenheim, somewhere in Austria, ready to spend another idyllic summer vacation. But Europe in 1939 is no vacationland. Rumours of war rumble into the resort town, but the characters struggle to convince themselves that everything is perfectly normal.

«When Mouse takes a stroll through the woods, he meets a fox, an owl, and a snake who all want to eat him! So Mouse invents a gruffalo, a monster with «terrible tusks and terrible claws, terrible teeth, and terrible jaws.» But will Mouse's frightful description be enough to scare off his foes? After all, there's no such thing as a gruffalo . . . is there? Sturdy pages and a cozy trim make this rhyming read-aloud perfect for preschoolers. Winner of the prestigious British Smarties Prize.»

When a Victorian scientist propels himself into the year 802,701 AD, he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment and peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realises that this beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great culture now weak and childishly afraid of the dark. They have every reason to be afraid: in deep tunnels beneath their paradise lurks another race descended from humanity the sinister Morlocks. And when the scientist's time machine vanishes, it becomes clear he must search these tunnels, if he is ever to return to his own era.

On the marriage of Julius von Felden and Melanie Merz, the fortunes of two families are somewhat fatally entwined. In A Legacy, Sybille Bedford depicts their vastly different worlds the wealthy bourgeois life of the Merzes in Berlin and the aristocratic eccentricity of the von Felden dynasty in rural Baden. Portrayed with exquisite wit and acute observation, their personal upheavals and tragedies are set against the menacing backdrop of a newly unified Germany combined with Prussian militarism in the decades before the First World War.

The Hearing Trumpet is the story of 92-year-old Marian Leatherby, who is given the gift of a hearing trumpet only to discover that what her family is saying is that she is to be committed to an institution. But this is an institution where the buildings are shaped like birthday cakes and igloos, where the Winking Abbess and the Queen Bee reign, and where the gateway to the underworld is open. It is also the scene of a mysterious murder. Occult twin to Alice in Wonderland, The Hearing Trumpet is a classic of fantastic literature that has been translated and celebrated throughout the world.

An embittered Roman General returns from war, having captured the Queen of the Goths and her three sons. Sacrificing the eldest, in memory of his own sons killed in battle, he provokes the queen's unending hatred. And when she is made empress by the new emperor of Rome, she quickly begins to plot a murderous revenge of barely conceivable cruelty.

Leaving behind both home and beloved, a young man travels to Milan to meet his closest friend. Once there, however, he falls in love with his friend's new sweetheart and resolves to seduce her. Love-crazed and desperate, he is soon moved to commit cynical acts of betrayal. And comic scenes involving a servant and his dog enhance the play's exploration how passion can prove more powerful than even the strongest loyalty owed to a friend.

A poor physician's daughter cures the King of France, and in return is promised the hand of any nobleman she wishes. But the man she chooses, the proud young Count of Rosillion, refuses to consummate the forced marriage and flees to Florence. Depicting the triumph of trickery over youthful arrogance, All's Well that Ends Well is among Shakespeare's darkest romantic comedies, yet it remains a powerful tribute to the strength of love.

One of the major poets of Romanticism, Wordsworth epitomized the spirit of his age with his celebration of the natural world and the spontanous expression of feeling. This volume contains a rich selection from the most creative phase of his life, including extracts from his masterpiece, The Prelude, and the best-loved of his shorter poems such as Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Tintern Abbey, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, Lucy Gray, and Michael. Together these poems demonstrate not only Wordsworth's astonishing range and power, but the sustained and coherent vision that informed his work.

Ellie and Dan are living proof that opposites attract. He always follows instructions and she throws the manual away. He loves sports whereas Ellie's allergic to any form of exercise. Ellie doesn't have a mother. And Dan does — a mother who wants to take over EVERYTHING. At first Ellie is thrilled to have Linda as her adopted mother and to be a part of the close, loving Cooper family. But when she and Dan decide to get married and wedding plans progress, she starts to wonder: is it normal for Linda and Dan to speak on the phone twice a day? How on earth do they come to be having a reception with Chilean bloody seabass and humongous bloody white ribbons tied everywhere when all she wanted was a quiet registry office? In fact, is she marrying Dan OR HIS MOTHER? And Ellie's problems have just begun. When she discovers she's pregnant she realises that Linda's only been rehearsing for the real takeover. She seems to want to live her life through Ellie and in the words of the immortal Princess Diana, there are three of them in the marriage.

If you want to succeed here you must be able to handle the English sense of humour. So proclaims George Mikes' timeless exploration of this curious phenomenon. Whether it's understatement, self-deprecation or plain cruelty, the three elements he identifies as essential to our sense of humour, being witty here is a way of life. Perfectly placed as an adopted Englishman himself, Mikes delivers his shrewd advice — helpfully divided into 'Theory' and 'Practice' — with a comic precision that does his chosen country proud. Drawing on a trove of examples from our rich comic canon, from Orwell (Every joke is a tiny revolution) to Oscar Wilde, this is the essential handbook for natives and foreigners alike. Mrs Kennedy: I don't think, Mr Churchill, that I have told you anything about my grandchildren. Winston Churchill: For which, madam, I am infinitely grateful.

While Wall Street was busy creating the biggest credit bubble of all time, a few renegade investors saw it was about to burst, bet against the banking system — and made a fortune. This book tells the story of the misfits, mavericks and geniuses who, against all odds, made the greatest financial killing in history.

‘He’s simple-minded, but he has all his wits about him, in the most noble sense of the word, of course’ Returning to St Petersburg from a Swiss sanatorium, the gentle and naive Prince Myshkin – known as ‘the idiot’ – pays a visit to his distant relative General Yepanchin and proceeds to charm the General, his wife and his three daughters. But his life is thrown into turmoil when he chances on a photograph of the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna. Utterly infatuated with her, he soon finds himself caught up in a love triangle and drawn into a web of blackmail, betrayal and, finally, murder. In Prince Myshkin, Dosteyevsky set out to portray the purity of ‘a truly beautiful soul’ and to explore the perils that innocence and goodness face in a corrupt world. David McDuff’s new translation brilliantly captures the novel’s idiosyncratic and dream-like language and the nervous, elliptic flow of the narrative. This edition also includes a new introduction by William Mills Todd III, which is a fascinating examination of the pressures on Dostoyevsky as he wrote the story of his Christ-like hero.

What words mean exactly the same as delectable? Did you know that the opposite of friable is tough? Can you think of the antonym for ceaseless or another word for capsize? To extend your vocabulary, broaden your verbal range and spice up your linguistic dexterity, you need look no further than The Penguin Dictionary of English Synonyms and Antonyms. This classic work of reference provides: • A clear and complete alphabetical listing of thousands of words and their closest synonyms • The antonym of the headword (where applicable) • Antonyms for verbs, nouns and adjectives • In the list of headwords, words and phrases that have recently entered the language Invaluable for speakers (or orators) and writers (or scribes), this clear and concise work of reference offers hours of entertainment and enlightenment.

A new reference title, The Penguin Dictionary of Statistics is an extremely useful and comprehensive guide to the subject. An ideal reference book for A-level mathematics students and undergraduates, this dictionary is also accessible to students of other disciplines (economics, geography) who regularly use statistics, and to those in the business community who want to understand the terminology. Detailed definitions are supported by diagrams and charts.

In this acclaimed tour de force, Twain moves from broad comedy to biting social satire, from the pure joy of wild high jinks to deeply probing insights into the nature of man. Features a new Introduction by Leland Krauth.

In the final years of his life, Chekhov had reached the height of his powers as a dramatist, and also produced some of the stories that rank among his masterpieces. The poignant The Lady with the Little Dog and About Love examine the nature of love outside of marriage — its romantic idealism and the fear of disillusionment. And in stories such as Peasants, The House with the Mezzanine and My Life Chekhov paints a vivid picture of the conditions of the poor and of their powerlessness in the face of exploitation and hardship. With the works collected here, Chekhov moved away from the realism of his earlier tales — developing a broader range of characters and subject matter, while forging the spare minimalist style that would inspire such modern short-story writers as Hemingway and Faulkner.