Последние издания книг Рассела Хобана

'O what we ben! And what we come to...' Wandering a desolate post-apocalyptic landscape, speaking a broken-down English lost after the end of civilization, Riddley Walker sets out to find out what brought humanity here. This is his story.

It is 1097 and a traveller arrives in the great, walled city of Antioch with a vision of a beautiful and mysterious geometric design that will change the lives of all those who see it. Pilgermann is a mesmerising recreation of the world of the Crusades, following its unlikely hero and those he meets on a journey of picaresque horror across a Europe of hatreds, visions and a desperate wish for salvation.

'I have gone to look for a lion.' In a world where lions have become extinct, the map-maker Jachin-Boaz nevertheless abandons his wife and son to find one, leaving just this note. But his decision has unexpected consequences. He will be pursued by his son, Boaz-Jachin, and by something else: a tawny-skinned, amber-eyed beast from another place and time, a bringer of life and death.

On an ordinary day in a strangely unfamiliar London, Kleinzeit is fired from his advertising job and told he must go to hospital with a skewed hypotenuse. There on Ward A4, he falls in love with the divine, rosy-cheeked Sister and is sent spinning into a quest involving, among other things, a glockenspiel, sheets of yellow paper, Orpheus, the Underground and that dirty chimpanzee, Death.

On 4 November 2052, Fremder Gorn is discovered drifting in deep space. He has no spacesuit, no helmet, no oxygen, but he is still alive: the sole survivor from the mysteriously vanished ship Clever Daughter. How did he get here? To find out, Fremder must search through memory, dream and the unknowable fragments of his own mind.

Born to swim thousands of miles in the ocean, the giant sea turtles are now trapped in a tank of golden-green water at London Zoo. But not for much longer. Two lonely people, a bookseller and a children's illustrator, have begun thinking turtle thoughts. As they come together to hatch a plan to release the turtles into the sea, their diaries reveal how they find their own lives changing in imperceptible and quite unintended ways.

Британский романист американо-еврейского происхождения Расселл Хобан — это отдельное явление в англоязычной литературе, магический сюрреалист, настоящий лондонец, родившийся в Пенсильвании, сын украинских евреев, участник Второй мировой. Сперва Хобан писал только для детей, но с 1973 года — как раз с романов «Лев Боаз-Яхинов и Яхин-Боазов» и «Кляйнцайт» — он начинает сочинять для взрослых, и это наше с вами громадное везение. По-русски у Расселла Хобана выходило две книги — «Мышонок и его отец» (1968), условно детская книга, и «Амариллис день и ночь» (2001), роман для взрослых, и нам в «Додо Пресс» давно хотелось опубликовать два гораздо…

From the inimitable duo of Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake, the pair behind the hilarious tales of Captain Najork, comes a story about a little boy, a fire-breathing dragon, and their sky-high adventure! “I can make fire come out of my nose and mouth,” the dragon under the pavement tells John. “I can fly. I can spin gold into straw if you have any gold.” John doesn’t have any gold – and he doesn’t need any straw. (Not yet, anyway.) The dragon tells John that if he fights the dragon and wins, the dragon will take him flying.” What a challenge! Where will it lead? John soon finds out – and he also finds out that you just never know when a bundle of straw might come in handy… With sword-flashing excitement, a moon landing and plenty of magic, this irresistible page-turner is brought back into print in a bigger format – and a beautiful, more colourful, new edition.

From the incomparable Russell Hoban comes a moving, unflinching tale of a boy who finds bravery during illness, beautifully re-imagined as a graphic-novel by award-winning illustrator Alexis Deacon. Asleep in his hospital bed, Jim dreams of a great lion with white teeth and amber eyes. This lion is Jim’s finder. According to Nurse Bami, everyone has a finder, a creature who comes looking for us when we are lost. But when the time comes for Jim’s operation, will his lion be able to find him and bring him safely home? With the inclusion of powerful dream sequences, and a triumphant message of facing one's fears, Russell Hoban’s tale of a boy’s search for strength and courage will resonate with any child dealing with adversity or sickness.

In this completely hilarious and gloriously absurd story, the pair behind the tales of Captain Najork explore just what happens when a man builds a new table … a table sturdy enough for even an elephant to dance on. “This table,” said the man. “What about the table?” said the woman. “It’s wearing me out,” said the man. What to do? The man makes a decision. He finds a tablewood tree, cuts it down, saws it up and makes a new table. There’s nothing like a new table. This one is strong enough for elephants! But… “Where would we get the elephants?” said the woman. “Advertise in the Classified Section,” said the man. “Elephants wanted for table work. Must be agile.” It looks as if the man and the woman might need some more tables! “We could open a restaurant,” said the man. A restaurant with dancing elephants … where will it all lead?!

Somewhere in the Arctic Circle, Sixteen-Face John, a shaman, learns that his first child, a soonchild, cannot hear the World Songs from her mother's womb. The World Songs are what inspire all newborns to come out into the world, and John must find them for her. But how? The answer takes him through many lifetimes and many shape-shifts, as well as encounters with beasts, demons and a mysterious benevolent owl spirit, Ukpika, who is linked to John's past...

A Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake classic, and a brilliant companion volume to How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen, this is the story of Tom who invents a jam-powered frog. Fooling around as he loves to do, Tom takes his Aunt Bundlejoy Cosysweet out on the frog out for a spin. When Captain Najork sees them hopping past his window, he and his hired sportsmen jump into their pedal-powered snake and set off in hot pursuit. Events, adventure and sheer craziness conspire to bring Tom and the Captain together at the local girls’ boarding school, where Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong Najork is in the middle of a best-of-three…

From the inimitable duo of Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake, the pair behind the hilarious tales of Captain Najork, comes a story about a little boy, a fire-breathing dragon, and their sky-high adventure! “I can make fire come out of my nose and mouth,” the dragon under the pavement tells John. “I can fly. I can spin gold into straw if you have any gold.” John doesn’t have any gold – and he doesn’t need any straw. (Not yet, anyway.) The dragon tells John that if he fights the dragon and wins, the dragon will take him flying.” What a challenge! Where will it lead? John soon finds out – and he also finds out that you just never know when a bundle of straw might come in handy… With sword-flashing excitement, a moon landing and plenty of magic, this irresistible page-turner is brought back into print in a bigger format – and a beautiful, more colourful, new edition.

One hot summer Thursday, Harry meets the rag-and-bone man and his horse, and follows them through the rain door – to a whole other world behind the weather. When Harry hears a lion roar, he wants to get home as fast as he can ... but that turns out to be easier said than done. After an exciting adventure involving a home-made dinosaur and a sky-high flight through the mother of all thunderstorms, will Harry manage to escape the thundering lion and get back home?

Fooling around as he loves to do, Tom invents a jam-powered frog, and he and his Aunt Bundlejoy Cosysweet take it out for a spin. When Captain Najork sees them hopping past his window, he and his hired sportsmen jump into their pedal-powered snake and set off in hot pursuit – bent on revenge after their earlier defeat at womble, muck and sneedball. Events, adventure and sheer craziness conspire to bring Tom and the Captain together at the local girls’ boarding school, where Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong Najork is in the middle of a best-of-three arm-wrestling contest against the Headmistress … and the Captain is finally reduced to eating swede-and-mutton slump after a very narrow escape indeed.

Tom loves to fool around. He fools around with dropping things from bridges into rivers and he fools around with barrels in alleys. He fools around so much that his maiden aunt, Miss Fidget Wonkham-Strong (who wears an iron hat and takes no nonsense from anyone), sends for Captain Najork and his hired sportsmen to teach Tom a lesson. "Captain Najork," says Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong, "is seven feet tall, with eyes like fire and a voice like thunder. He teaches fooling-around boys the lesson they so badly need, and it is not one that they soon forget." Captain Najork lays down a challenge: they will play womble, muck and speedball – in that order. And it turns out not to be Tom who gets taught a lesson after all!

“This table,” said the man. “What about the table?” said the woman. “It’s wearing me out,” said the man. What to do? The man makes a decision. He finds a tablewood tree, cuts it down, saws it up and makes a new table. There’s nothing like a new table. This one is strong enough for elephants to dance on! But… “Where would we get the elephants?” said the woman. “Advertise in the Classified Section,” said the man. “Elephants wanted for table work. Must be agile.” It looks as if the man and the woman might need some more tables! “We could open a restaurant,” said the man. A restaurant with dancing elephants … where will it all lead?

Life in a city can be atomizing, isolating. And it certainly is for William G. and Neaera H., the strangers at the center of Russell Hoban’s surprisingly heartwarming novel Turtle Diary. William, a clerk at a used-book store, lives in a rooming house after a divorce that has left him without home or family. Neaera is a successful writer of children’s books, who, in her own estimation, “looks like the sort of spinster who doesn’t keep cats and is not a vegetarian. Looks…like a man’s woman who hasn’t got a man.” Entirely unknown to each other, they are both drawn to the turtle tank at the London zoo with “minds full of turtle thoughts,” wondering how the turtles might be freed. And then comes the day when Neaera walks into William’s bookstore, and together they form an unlikely partnership to make what seemed a crazy dream become a reality.

From the inimitable duo of Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake, the pair behind the hilarious tales of Captain Najork, this is the story of John, who likes to draw monsters. Lots of them. Red monsters, yellow monsters, scaly monsters, furry monsters, even invisible monsters. Nothing but monsters! His mum and dad are beginning to worry. Then one day John starts a monster drawing that fills up a whole sheet of wrapping paper – and that’s just the tip of the tail! Will this be his biggest monster ever? Or even … how long will it remain just a drawing?

Tom loves to fool around. He fools around with dropping things from bridges into rivers and he fools around with barrels in alleys. He fools around so much that his maiden aunt, Miss Fidget Wonkham-Strong (who wears an iron hat and takes no nonsense from anyone), sends for Captain Najork and his hired sportsmen to teach Tom a lesson. "Captain Najork," says Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong, "is seven feet tall, with eyes like fire and a voice like thunder. He teaches fooling-around boys the lesson they so badly need, and it is not one that they soon forget." Captain Najork lays down a challenge: they will play womble, muck and speedball – in that order. And it turns out not to be Tom who gets taught a lesson after all!