Margaret Drabble is one of the major literary figures of her generation. In this collection of her complete short fiction from across four decades, she examines the intense private worlds and passions of everyday people. From one man's honeymooning epiphany in Hassan's Tower to the journeying fantasies of A Voyage to Cythera, and from the sharp joy of The Merry Widow to the bloody reality of the collection's title story, these are moving, witty and provocative tales, exploring cruel and loving relationships, social change and personal obsessions, and confirming her status as a leading practitioner of the art of the short story.

«The Penguin English Library Edition of A Room with a View by E. M. Forster '»But you do,» he went on, not waiting for contradiction. «You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word expresses it ...» Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George. Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart? The Penguin English Library — 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.»

I have both the original Wilbour translation and the Norman Denny translation of this book, and Id say that the Denny translation is the more readable of the two. Graham Robb, in his award-winning biography of Hugo has called Dennys translation swiss cheese and translation as censorship. However, its well-written, and the excised sections are included as appendices to which any reader can turn. In places where Denny edits the prose, he captures the spirit of the novel.

A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante's inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila. Ferrante is the author of three previous works of critically acclaimed fiction: The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter. With this novel, the first in a trilogy, she proves herself to be one of Italy's great storytellers. She has given her readers a masterfully plotted page-turner, abundant and generous in its narrative details and characterizations, that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight her many fans and win new readers to her fiction.

Marco Polo was seventeen when he set out for China... and forty-one when he came back More than seven hundred years ago, Marco Polo traveled from the medieval city of Venice to the fabled kingdom of the great Kublai Khan, seeing new sights and riches that no Westerner had ever before witnessed. But did Marco Polo experience the things he wrote about... or was it all made-up? Young readers are presented with the facts in this entertaining, highly readable Who Was...? biography with black-and-white artwork by John OaBrien.

She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. On a June morning in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway, the glittering wife of a Member of Parliament, is preparing for a party she is giving that evening. As she walks through London, buying flowers, observing life, her thoughts are of the past and she remembers the time when she was as young as her own daughter Elizabeth, her romance with Peter Walsh, now recently returned from India; and the friends of her youth. Elsewhere in London Septimus Smith is being driven mad by shell shock. As the day draws to its end, his world and Clarissa's collide in unexpected ways.

It begins with a dead body at the far end of Baker Street tube station, all that remains of American exchange student James Gallagher—and the victim’s wealthy, politically powerful family is understandably eager to get to the bottom of the gruesome murder. The trouble is, the bottom—if it exists at all—is deeper and more unnatural than anyone suspects . . . except, that is, for London constable and sorcerer’s apprentice Peter Grant. With Inspector Nightingale, the last registered wizard in England, tied up in the hunt for the rogue magician known as “the Faceless Man,” it’s up to Peter to plumb the haunted depths of the oldest, largest, and—as of now—deadliest subway system in the world. At least he won’t be alone. No, the FBI has sent over a crack agent to help. She’s young, ambitious, beautiful . . . and a born-again Christian apt to view any magic as the work of the devil. Oh yeah—that’s going to go well.

In this imaginative retelling of Pride and Prejudice, Amanda Grange now tells the classic story through the eyes of its compelling romantic hero, Fitzwilliam Darcy — in a series of revealing letters that casts a sparkling new reflection on the manners and morals of the landed gentry in 19th-century England... Here, for the first time, are the letters written by the exceedingly proud and stubborn Mr. Darcy, covering the life-changing events that defined him — from the death of his father, to his control of his Derbyshire estate of Pemberley to his conflicted courtship with the lively, intelligent, and delightfully willful Elizabeth Bennet. Try as he may, he cannot deny his attraction to this woman with fine eyes, a playful spirit, a mind of her own... and an embarrassing family that is frankly, and utterly, beneath him. But it is Elizabeth who controls both their destinies, and whose surprises will change Darcy's life yet again.

Olympic pairs figure skating hopeful Christine Allen is training in Cabot Cove under the tutelage of former gold medalist Brian Devlin and partnered with up-and-coming Russian skater Alexei Olshansky. But when a series of mysterious accidents occur-leading to the death of one of the skaters-Jessica Fletcher suspects someone is getting away with cold-blooded murder...

She knew of no wrong that he had done; he was not violent, he was not cruel; she simply believed that he hated her. When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy her freedom, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond. Charming and cultivated, Osmond sees Isabel as a rich prize waiting to be taken. In this portrait of a young woman affronting her destiny, Henry James created one of his most magnificent heroines, and a story of intense poignancy. The Penguin English Library — 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

In Making the Future, Noam Chomsky takes on a wide range of hot-button issues including the ongoing financial crisis, Obama's presidency, the limits of the two-party system, nuclear Iran, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, corporate power, and the future of American politics. Laced throughout his critiques are expressions of commitment to democracy and the power of popular struggles. Progressive legislation and social welfare, writes Chomsky, have been won by popular struggles, not gifts from above. Those struggles follow a cycle of success and setback. They must be waged every day, not just once every four years, always with the goal of creating a genuinely responsive democratic society, from the voting booth to the workplace. Making the Future offers fierce, accessible, timely, gloves-off political writing by one of the world's foremost intellectual and political dissidents.

Written in mischievous and magically flowing prose, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle — Nabokov's other great love story — offers even more sexual and imaginative surprises than Lolita. A romance that follows Ada from her first childhood meeting with Van on his uncle's country estate, in a 'dream-bright' America, through eighty years of rapture, Nabokov's 'longest, richest, most ambitious novel' also becomes, as Brian Boyd says, a great many other things: 'myth, fairy tale, utopian idyll, family chronicle, personal memoir, historical romance, erotic catalogue ... picture gallery and filmic folly'.

The Harrisons are a large and close-knit family. But with the grandchildren fast becoming adults and elderly Pamela struggling to adapt to widowhood and the emptiness of Ashley House, the four children of the middle generation find themselves equally lost in a changing world. This is a multi-generational story of love, lies and family ties.

Cas Perry doesn't want a relationship. When her father walked out on her and her mother she decided relationships, love, marriage, the whole shegang, simlpy weren't worth the heartache. But is Cas, immoral most of the time and amoral when it comes to business, going too far with her new TV programme, Sex with an Ex? Unfeeling and unscrupulous, she ruthlessly manipulates everyone she comes into contact with. Until she meets Darren. A babe. Trouble is, he's a highly principled babe. He believes in love, marriage, fidelity and constancy, so can he believe in Cas? Is it possible the world is a better place than she imagined? And if it is, after a lifetime of playing games, is this discovery too late?

The Queen of Storytellers is back — with a triumphant tale of one woman's struggle over adversity. In 1786, a fisherman's daughter from Cornwall called Mary Broad was sentenced to be hung for theft. But her sentence was commuted, and she was transported to Australia, one of the first convicts to arrive there. How Mary escaped the harsh existence of the colony and found true love, and how she was captured and taken back to London in chains, only to be released after a trial where she was defended by no less than James Boswell, is one of the most gripping and moving stories of human endeavour (based on an amazing true story) you will ever read.

John Smith is not your average teenager. He regularly moves from small town to small town. He changes his name and identity. He does not put down roots. He cannot tell anyone who or what he really is. If he stops moving those who hunt him will find and kill him. But you can't run forever. So when he stops in Paradise, Ohio, John decides to try and settle down. To fit in. And for the first time he makes some real friends. People he cares about — and who care about him. Never in John's short life has there been space for friendship, or even love. But it's just a matter of time before John's secret is revealed. He was once one of nine. Three of them have been killed. John is Number Four. He knows that he is next...

Theodore Boone.

Jeremy Clarkson had a dream... A world where the nonsensical made sense, the idiotic was abolished and the sheer bloody brilliant was embraced. In How Hard Can It Be? our hero embarks on a quest to set the world to rights. Again. En-route he discovers how rhubarb will become the new crack, that a comb over will end anyone's quest for global domination and what unites a Filipino chambermaid in Abergavenny with Prince Andrew. For anyone who's ever woken up and thought the time has come to stop the nonsense and celebrate the sensational, read on. Because seriously, how hard can it be?

Spanning 1979-1987, The Fry Chronicles charts Stephen's arrival at Cambridge up to his thirtieth birthday. Heartbreaking, a delight, a lovely, comfy book. (The Times). Perfect prose and excruciating honesty. A grand reminiscence of college and theatre and comedyland in the 1980s, with tone-perfect anecdotes and genuine readerly excitement. What Fry does, essentially, is tell us who he really is. Above all else, a thoughtful book. And namedroppy too, and funny, and marbled with melancholy. (Observer). Arguably the greatest living Englishman. (Independent on Sunday). Extremely enjoyable. (Sunday Times). Fry's linguistic facility remains one of the Wildean wonders of the new media age. The patron saint of British intelligence. (Daily Telegraph).

Richard lands in East Asia in search of an earthly utopia. In Thailand, he is given a map promising an unknown island, a secluded beach — and a new way of life. What Richard finds when he gets there is breathtaking: more extraordinary, more frightening than his wildest dreams. But how long can paradise survive here on Earth? And what lengths will Richard go to in order to save it?