Beat movement icon and visionary poet, Allen Ginsberg broke boundaries with his fearless, pyrotechnic verse. This new collection brings together the famous poems that made his name as a defining figure of the counterculture. They include the apocalyptic Howl, which became the subject of an obscenity trial when it was first published in 1956; the moving lament for his dead mother, Kaddish; the searing indictment of his homeland, America; and the confessional Mescaline. Dark, ecstatic and rhapsodic, they show why Ginsberg was one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century.

Contains essays, reviews and articles which illuminate the life and work of a man who created a literary manner from the process of thinking aloud and who elevated political writing to an art.

This is the number one, bestselling title in this new spin-off series from Percy Jackson creator, Rick Riordan. Old enemies awaken as camp half-blood's new arrivals prepare for war. When Jason, Piper and Leo crash land at Camp Half-Blood, they have no idea what to expect. Apparently this is the only safe place for children of the Greek Gods — despite the monsters roaming the woods and demigods practising archery with flaming arrows and explosives. But rumours of a terrible curse — and a missing hero — are flying around camp. It seems Jason, Piper and Leo are the chosen ones to embark on a terrifying new quest, which they must complete by the winter solstice in just four days time. Can the trio succeed on this deadly mission — and what must they sacrifice in order to survive?

«Never before published in Kerouac's lifetime, this 1955 biography of the founder of Buddhism is a clear and powerful study of Siddartha Gautama's life and works. «Wake Up» recounts the story of Prince Siddhartha's royal upbringing and his father's wish to protect him from all human suffering, despite a prediction that he would become a great holy man in later life. Departing from his father's palace, Siddhartha adopts a homeless life, struggles with his meditations, and eventually finds Enlightenment. Written at the end of Kerouac's career, when he became increasingly interested in Buddhist teachings, and collected for the first time in one book, this fresh and accessible biography is both an important addition to Kerouac's work and a valuable introduction to the world of Buddhism itself.»

CIA agent Max Moore is a man on a mission. An unholy alliance between Islamic terrorists and Mexican drug cartels threatens the safety of America's southern border. Moore's new team has to infiltrate the warring cartels in order to uncover the plot, but doing that is next to impossible when there's a war on America's doorstep.

Young, attractive and very ambitious, George Duroy, known to his friends as Bel-Ami, is offered a job as a journalist on La Vie francaise and soon makes a great success of his new career. But he also comes face to face with the realities of the corrupt society in which he lives — the sleazy colleagues, the manipulative mistresses and wily financiers — and swiftly learns to become an arch-seducer, blackmailer and social climber in a world where love is only a means to an end. Written when Maupassant was at the height of his powers, Bel-Ami is a novel of great frankness and cynicism, but it is also infused with the sheer joy of life — depicting the scenes and characters of Paris in the belle epoque with wit, sensitivity and humanity.

Alma Boyd Takesue is a National Park Service biologist who is spearheading the efforts to save the endangered native creatures of California's Channel Islands from invasive species such as rats and feral pigs. Her antagonist, Dave LaJoy, is a local businessman who is fiercely opposed to the killing of any animals whatsoever and will go to any lengths to subvert Alma's plans. As their confrontation plays out in a series of scenes escalating in violence, drama, and danger, When the Killing's Done deftly relates a richly humane tale about the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or wore, over the natural world. Combining action-packed adventure with delicious irony and believable characters without one trace of sanctimony, this is one of T.C. Boyle's richest and most engaging novels.

«The fourteen stories gathered here display both Boyle's astonishing range and his imaginative muscle. In the title story of this rich new collection, Boyle writes a tale that is by turns magical and moving, a powerful investigation of what it means to be human. Other tales range from the drama of a man who spins Homeric lies in order to stop going to work, to the sad comedy of a child born to Mexican street vendors who is unable to feel pain. There may be no one better than T.C. Boyle at engaging, shocking, and ultimately gratifying readers while at the same time testing his characters' emotional and physical endurance. The fourteen new stories gathered here display both Boyle's astonishing range and his imaginative muscle. From «Wild Child», a retelling of the story of Victor, the feral boy who was captured running naked through the forests of Napoleonic France, to «La Conchita», the tale of a catastrophic mudslide that allows a cynic to reclaim his own humanity, these tales are by turns magical and moving, showcasing the mischievous humor and socially conscious sensibility that have made Boyle one of the foremost living masters of the short story.»

West Germany, a simmering cauldron of radical protests, has produced a new danger to Britain: Karfeld, menacing leader of the opposition. At the same time Leo Harting, a Second Secretary in the British Embassy, has gone missing — along with more than forty Confidential embassy files. Alan Turner of the Foreign Office must travel to Bonn to recover them, facing riots, Nazi secrets and the delicate machinations of an unstable Europe in the throes of the Cold War. As Turner gets closer to the truth of Harting's disappearance, he will discover that the face of International relations — and the attentions of the British Ministry itself — is uglier that he could possibly have imagined.

The boring debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers is finally moved on by Alain de Botton's inspiring new book, which boldly argues that the supernatural claims of religion are of course entirely false — and yet that religions still have important things to teach the secular world. Rather than mocking religions, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from them — because they're packed with good ideas on how we live and arrange our societies. Blending deep respect with total impiety, de Botton (a non-believer) proposes that we should look to religions for insights into how to build a sense of community, make our relationships last, get more out of art, overcome feelings of envy and inadequacy, and much more. For too long non-believers have faced a stark choice between either swallowing peculiar doctrines or doing away with consoling and beautiful rituals and ideas. At last Alain de Botton has fashioned a far more interesting and truly helpful alternative.

Lola Daly has just found out that her boyfriend – gorgeous, charming and powerful politician Paddy de Courcy – is getting married. To someone else. Heartbroken, Lola flees Dublin to a cottage in the countryside. Can a new set of friends help her to get over him?

James Bond and Harry Potter are indebted to this classic adventure tale and its young hero, Jim Hawkins. The archetypal adventure story is presented complete with the author's map of Treasure Island and his account of how the story came about. The printed illustration wrapping around this beautiful edition uses gold foiling and blue waves strikingly printed on the navy blue cloth background. The cover illustration is by the artist Stanley Donwood, best known for his designs for the band Radiohead. Both contemporary and classic, this book has unique appeal for any lover of adventure stories.

«The «New York Times» — bestselling author of «Girl with a Pearl Earring» makes her first fictional foray into the American past in «The Last Runaway», bringing to life the Underground Railroad and illuminating the principles, passions, and realities that fueled this extraordinary freedom movement.»

Morn, a masked king, rules over a realm to which he has restored order after a violent revolution. Secretly in love with Midia, the wife of a banished revolutionary, Morn finds himself facing renewed bloodshed and disaster when Midia's husband returns, provoking a duel and the return of chaos that Morn has fought so hard to prevent. The first major work and the only play of Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita and Pnin, The Tragedy of Mister Morn is translated and published in English here for the first time, and is a moving study of the elusiveness of happiness, the power of imagination and the eternal battle between truth and fantasy.

From the acclaimed author of The Rainbow Stories comes this fever dream of a novel about an alcoholic Vietnam veteran, who devotes his government check and his waking hours to the search for a beautiful and majestic street whore — a woman who may or may not really exist.

In this remarkable autobiography, Man Ray — painter, photographer, sculptor, film maker and writer — relates the story of his life, from his childhood determination to be an artist and his technical drawing classes in a Brooklyn high school, to the glamorous and heady days of Paris in the 1940s, when any trip to the city was not complete until they had been done by Man Ray's camera. Friend to everyone who was anyone, Ray tells everything he knows of artists, socialites and writers such as Matisse, Hemingway, Picasso and Joyce, not to mention Lee Miller, Nancy Cunard, Alberto Giacometti, Gertrude Stein, Dali, Max Ernst and many more, in this decadent, sensational account of the early twentieth-century cultural world.

Retired Professor of Linguistics Desmond Bates is going deaf. It's a bother for his wife who has an enviably successful new career and is too busy to be endlessly repeating herself. Roles are reversed with his aging father, who resents his son's attempts to help him. And then there's Alex, a student whom Desmond has agreed to help after a typical misunderstanding at a party. But her increasingly bizarre requests cannot all be blamed on his defective hearing. So much for growing old gracefully...