Победители — стр. 2

Роман
Beryl Bainbridge 2.0
The sinking of the world's greatest luxury liner, the invincible and magnificent S. S. Titanic, has captured people's attention ever since that tragic April night in 1912, when 1500 people lost their lives. And no one has better dramatized this memorable event than Beryl Bainbridge in Every Man for Himself.
Лучший первый роман
John Lanchester 3.2
Winner of the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel and a New York Times Notable Book, The Debt to Pleasure is a wickedly funny ode to food. Traveling from Portsmouth to the south of France, Tarquin Winot, the book's snobbish narrator, instructs us in his philosophy on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of the menu. Under the guise of completing a cookbook, Winot is in fact on a much more sinister mission that only gradually comes to light.
Детская книга
Anne Fine 4.0

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

A stunning adaptation for schools by the Children’s Laureate Anne Fine, of her much-loved children’s novel. Why is Tulip always in trouble? And why does Natalie find Tulip’s dangerous games so fascinating. A powerful story about troubled teenagers and their relationship to the adult world.
The Tulip Touch is suitable for class work, drama lessons and school productions. The resource material includes advice on staging the play, ideas for improvisation arising from the script, poems and extracts from fictional and non-fictional writing. The issues of parenthood, families, growing up and peer pressure are explored through drama, discussion and written work.
Поэзия
Seamus Heaney 0.0

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

The poems in Seamus Heaney's collection The Spirit Level keep discovering the possibilities of 'a new beginning' in all kinds of subjects and circumstances. What is at stake, in poem after poem, is the chance of buoyancy and balance, physical, spiritual and political. Private memories, classical scenes, humble domestic objects - a whitewash brush, a sofa, a swing - are endowed with talismanic significance, while friends and relatives are invoked for their promise and steadfastness. Throughout the collection, Heaney addresses his concerns, which inevitably include the political situation in his native Northern Ireland, in a poetry that never ceases to be fluid, alert and completely truthful.
Биография
Диармайд Маккалох 0.0
Thomas Cranmer, the architect of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, was the archbishop of Canterbury who guided England through the early Reformation—and Henry VIII through the minefields of divorce. This is the first major biography of him for more than three decades, and the first for a century to exploit rich new manuscript sources in Britain and elsewhere.
Diarmaid MacCulloch, one of the foremost scholars of the English Reformation, traces Cranmer from his east-Midland roots through his twenty-year career as a conventionally conservative Cambridge don. He shows how Cranmer was recruited to the coterie around Henry VIII that was trying to annul the royal marriage to Catherine, and how new connections led him to embrace the evangelical faith of the European Reformation and, ultimately, to become archbishop of Canterbury. By then a major English statesman, living the life of a medieval prince-bishop, Cranmer guided the church through the king's vacillations and finalized two successive versions of the English prayer book.
MacCulloch skillfully reconstructs the crises Cranmer negotiated, from his compromising association with three of Henry's divorces, the plot by religious conservatives to oust him, and his role in the attempt to establish Lady Jane Grey as queen to the vengeance of the Catholic Mary Tudor. In jail after Mary's accession, Cranmer nearly repudiated his achievements, but he found the courage to turn the day of his death into a dramatic demonstration of his Protestant faith.
From this vivid account Cranmer emerges a more sharply focused figure than before, more conservative early in his career than admirers have allowed, more evangelical than Anglicanism would later find comfortable. A hesitant hero with a tangled life story, his imperishable legacy is his contribution in the prayer book to the shape and structure of English speech and through this to the molding of an international language and the theology it expressed.
Роман
Салман Рушди 4.2
Мораиш Зогойби по прозвищу Мавр излагает семейную историю, вплетая в нее рассказы о современной Индии, в которых вымысел переплетается с правдой, но правит всем безудержное воображение автора. Сага о семействе да Гама — Зогойби, о проклятьях и ненависти, о безумной страсти, о преступных наклонностях и тяге к прекрасному, перемежается монологами главного героя, посвященными искусству, религиозному фанатизму, национальным традициям и, конечно же, любви.
Лучший первый роман
Кейт Аткинсон 4.1

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

"Музей моих тайн" — дебютный роман прославленной Кейт Аткинсон, получивший престижную Уитбредовскую премию, обойдя "Прощальный вздох мавра" Салмана Рушди; ее цикл романов о частном детективе Джексоне Броуди ("Преступления прошлого", "Поворот к лучшему", "Ждать ли добрых вестей?", "Чуть свет, с собакою вдвоем"), успевший полюбиться и российскому читателю, Стивен Кинг окрестил "главным детективным проектом десятилетия".

Когда Руби Леннокс появилась на свет, отец ее сидел в пивной "Гончая и заяц", рассказывая женщине в изумрудно-зеленом платье, что не женат. Теперь Руби живет в тени йоркского собора, в квартирке над родительским зоомагазином, и пытается разобраться в запутанной истории четырех поколений своей семьи. Куда пропала прабабушка Алиса после того, как ее сфотографировал заезжий французский фотограф мсье Арман? Почему в пять лет Руби, ничего ей не объяснив, отправили жить к тете, и явно не на каникулы? Отыскивая дорогу в лабиринте рождений и смертей, тайн и обманов, девочка твердит себе: "Меня зовут Руби. Я драгоценный рубин. Я капля крови. Я Руби Леннокс".
Детская книга
Michael Morpurgo 0.0
Michael travels to Scilly for his Great Aunt Laura's funeral and inherits her diary, which reveals the moving story of her childhood, the great storms and the discovery of Zanzibar.
Поэзия
Бернард О’Донохью 0.0
'The Weakness is one of those very rare collections of poems which haunt the reader with a sense of intrusive wonder. . . I'm fascinated by O'Donoghue's wry vision, his infinitely gentle manner of displacing our more predictable reactions to things as they are, so that we glimpse their underlying tragedy. ' - TOM PAULIN PASSIVE SMOKING takes up where THE WEAKNESS left off. Many of the poems involve O'Donoghue's Irish background and the collection includes numerous pen-portraits of family, friends and acquaintances, some hilarious, other very moving. Some poems begin in anecdote and memory but transform into parable and allegory. O'Donoghue's tone of voice is very approachable - very reader-friendly - he combines an obvious knowledge of literature with an eye and ear for colloquial speech and a good yarn.
Биография
Roy Jenkins 0.0
From the New York Times bestselling author of Churchill, a towering historical biography, available for the first time in paperback.

William Gladstone was, with Tennyson, Newman, Dickens, Carlyle, and Darwin, one of the stars of nineteenth-century British life. He spent sixty-three of his eighty-nine years in the House of Commons and was prime minister four times, a unique accomplishment. From his critical role in the formation of the Liberal Party to his preoccupation with the cause of Irish Home Rule, he was a commanding politician and statesman nonpareil. But Gladstone the man was much more: a classical scholar, a wide-ranging author, a vociferous participant in all the great theological debates of the day, a voracious reader, and an avid walker who chopped down trees for recreation. He was also a man obsessed with the idea of his own sinfulness, prone to self-flagellation and persistent in the practice of accosting prostitutes on the street and attempting to persuade them of the errors of their ways. This full and deep portrait of a complicated man offers a sweeping picture of a tumultuous century in British history, and is also a brilliant example of the biographer’s art.
Роман
William Trevor 4.5

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

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Фред Д’Агюяр 0.0
From William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner to Toni Morrison's Beloved, modern American fiction engaged with slavery has provoked fiery controversy. So will The Longest Memory, the powerful, beautifully crafted, internationally acclaimed fictional debut of prizewinning Guyanese poet Fred D'Aguiar. In language extraordinary for its tautness and resonance, The Longest Memory tells the story of a rebellious, fiercely intelligent young slave, who in 1810 attempts to flee a Virginia plantation - and of his father who inadvertently betrays him. The young slave's love for a white girl who slakes his forbidden thirst for learning and his painful relationship with his father are hauntingly evoked in this novel of astonishing lyrical simplicity. It is a measure of D'Aguiar's achievement and bravery that The Longest Memory is informed not only by the complicities between black slave and white master but also by the tensions among slaves themselves - between stoic survivalists and passionate rebels. Remarkable for its keenness of observation, subtlety, and restraint, The Longest Memory heralds the arrival of a major new voice in the contemporary literature of the African diaspora.
Детская книга
Джеральдин Маккорин 0.0
Inez and her brother are amazed to find a huge hole being dug right outside the front door of their father's shop. Then suddenly more holes appear all over the main street and before long the cars can't use the road and everyone has to walk around balancing on planks of wood. It can only be a matter of time before the foundations give way and the whole town collapses. People are travelling from all over the country - the word on everyone's lips is GOLD.
Поэзия
Джеймс Фентон 0.0
Out of Danger (1994) was Fenton's first collection of poems in ten years, and the poems in it renew and amplify the qualities of unflinching observation and freewheeling verbal play that made his earlier Children in Exile so distinctive and distinguished. The poems in this book's title sequence address the dangers of love, and the love of danger; Fenton proposes that in love, politics, and poetry alike the truth is "something you say at your peril" and yet "something you shouldn't contain." Part II of the book, "Out of the East," is a series of ironical fight songs about political violence-- in Manila, the Middle East, Tiananmen Square, and elsewhere. Part III, "Maski Paps," reveals again Fenton's celebrated talents for light-verse nonsense. And in "The Manila Manifesto" he turns his gifts loose upon the world of poetry itself in ways that will both enrage and delight. Out of Danger is refined and daring, jocular and deeply challenging.
Биография
Бренда Мэддокс 0.0
This award-winning work examines Lawrence's perplexing, restless life through the greatest contradiction in it - his marriage - taking it not just as another aspect of Lawrence but as the encompassing whole. His marriage to Frieda von Richthofen Weekley was a mismatch made in heaven, and yet it lasted until the tubercular Lawrence lost his heroic struggle for life, a struggle in which, he told Frieda, "nothing mattered but you." Or so she claimed.
Роман
Джоан Брэйди 0.0

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

'A modern work of genius' Spectator
Winner of the Costa/Whitbread Book of the Year Award 1993
Forced into slavery as a child, Jonathan Carrick escapes to a new life but within him lies the need for revenge against George Stokes, the son of his former master.
Mallory Carrick, confined to a wheelchair, seeks to find out the truth about her grandfather's history.
Haunting, elegant and passionate, Theory of War is a novel about how the past lives on through following generations. It follows one woman's journey to discover what her grandfather might have experienced and how his suffering still haunts his descendants.
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Rachel Cusk 0.0
Winner of the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel

Agnes Day is mildly discontent. As a child, she never wanted to be an Agnes—she wanted to be a pleasing Grace. Alas, she remained the terminally middle class, hopelessly romantic Agnes. Now she's living with her two best friends in London and working at a trade magazine. Life and love seem to go on without her. Not only does she not know how to get back into the game, she isn't even sure what the game is. But she gives a good performance—until she learns that her roommates and her boyfriend are keeping secrets from her, and that her boss is quitting and leaving her in charge. In great despair, she decides to make it her business to set things straight. Saving Agnes is a perceptive, fresh, and honest novel that has delighted readers and critics on both sides of the Atlantic.
Детская книга
Anne Fine 2.0
When the annual school science fair comes round, Mr Cartwright's class don't get to work on the Soap Factory, the Maggot Farm or the Exploding Custard Tins. To their intense disgust they get the Flour Babies - sweet little six-pound bags of flour that must be cared for at all times.
Биография
Эндрю Моушн 0.0
'An exemplary biography of its kind - detailed, meticulous and sympathetic.' Peter Ackroyd, The Times

'Larkin lived a quietly noble and exemplary version of the writer's life; Motion - affectionate but undeceived about the man's frailties, a diligent researcher and a deft reader of poetry - has written an equally exemplary 'Life' of him.' Peter Conrad, Observer

'Honest but not prurient, critical but also compassionate, Motion's book could not be bettered.' Alan Bennett, London Review of Books

'There will be other lives of Larkin, but Motion's, like Forster's of Dickens, will always have a special place.' John Carey, Sunday Times
Роман
Аласдер Грей 4.0
`Бедные-несчастные` - прихотливо построенный любовный роман с элементами фантастики, готики и социальной сатиры. В нем сталкиваются различные версии весьма увлекательных событий, происходящих в Шотландии в конце XIX века.
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Джефф Торрингтон 0.0

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

Set in the Gorbals, Glasgow in the late '60s. Christmas is approaching and Thomas Clay is beset by problems: his pregnant wife Rhoda is in the maternity hospital prematurely; he's waiting for a housing transfer; he has no job and his novel is unpublished. Goodwill does not, it seems, extend to him.
Детская книга
Джиллиан Кросс 0.0
Tad and Cissie are on the run with Khush the elephant. Clammy-fingered, steely-eyed Hannibal Jackson will do anything to capture the animal. Maybe even kill ...Staying ahead means being faster and smarter-but how do you hide an elephant? Especially one with a mind of its own.
Биография
Виктория Глендиннинг 0.0
In this lively, affectionate, and compellingly readable biography, Victoria Glendinning, the greatly admired literary biographer (of Rebecca West, Vita Sackville-West, Edith Sitwell, and Elizabeth Bowen), gives us for the first time a woman's intuitive view of Anthony Trollope. She brings to her story of this legendary writer a fresh emphasis on family, particularly on Trollope's relationship with his formidable mother, with his failure of a father, with his bullying older brother (Mother's favorite), and with his tubercular sisters. But it is Anthony as husband and lover that intrigues her most; she investigates with sensitivity the nature of his (unconsummated) love for the liberated young American Kate Field, and, most important, she discovers Rose, regarded in past biographies as a shadowy figure of a wife but viewed here as central to his life, 'bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh'. Throughout, Glendinning explores the disjunction between the outer man - the hearty, 'clubbish, roast-beef' type of Englishman that Anthony became - and the vulnerable inner self, haunted by an unhappy childhood (he was a scruffy charity student at Harrow, hazed by his own brother, separated from his adored mother for years while she was discovering America). We come to know him during his demeaning tenure in London as a junior post office clerk and a postal investigator in famine-stricken Ireland, where he acquired his passion for hunting and for dancing, and where he found his dearest love, Rose. Ireland turned his life around. And soon the novels appeared, slowly bringing him fame and fortune, distinguished friends, and new worlds as he traveled to America, the West Indies, Australia, and South Africa. What gives Victoria Glendinning's book its particular vitality, intimacy, and wit is that she lets Trollope speak for himself. By using telling incidents from his forty-seven novels, plus travel books, stories, and autobiography, she weaves a fascinating tapestry, showing us
Роман
Jane Gardam 5.0
Eliza Peabody is one of those dangerously blameless women who believe they have God in their pocket. She is a modern-day Florence Nightingale, always up at the Hospice or the Wives' club; she is too enthusiastic; she talks too much. Her concern for the welfare of her wealthy south London neighbours even extends to ingenuous, well-meaning notes of unsolicited advice under the door.

It is just such a one-sided correspondence that heralds Eliza's undoing. Did her letter have something to do with Joan's abrupt disappearance from number forty-one? What to make of the long absences of her husband and Joan's, and of the two men's new, inseparable friendship? And why will no one else on Rathbone Road speak of Joan? As Eliza's own life seems to disintegrate, she finds that, despite the pity and embarrassment with which her neighbours greet her, she is at last being drawn into their lives - although not in the way she had once fantasised about. This is a sharp, poignant and wickedly funny tale of love, heartache and disillusionment.
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Гордон Берн 0.0
How does it feel to be never allowed to die? In his classic debut novel, Gordon Burn takes Britain's biggest selling vocalist of the 1950s and turns her story into an equation of celebrity and murder. Fictional characters jostle for space with real life stars - from John Lennon to Doris Day and Sammy Davis Jnr - as Burn, in a breathtaking act of appropriation, reinvents the popular culture of the post-war years. As beautifully written as it is disturbing, Alma Cogan remains a stingingly relevant exploration of the sad, dark underside of fame.

'An extraordinary, unprecedented novel. Audacious, innovative and totally compelling.' William Boyd
Детская книга
Диана Хендри 0.0
HENRY MIRABA CADA HERRAMIENTA, ÉSTAS PARECÍAN PERFECTAMENTE NORMALES; ENTONCES ESCUCHÓ EL TIC TAC... DESPUÉS DE OBSERVAR EL RELOJ DURANTE DIEZ RÁPIDOS TICS Y OCHO LENTOS TACS, HENRY COMENZÓ A ENTENDERLO. Y LO QUE LEYÓ EN LA CARÁTULA LO HIZO PONERSE TAN BLANCO COMO LAS NUEVAS FLORES DEL JARDÍN.
Поэзия
Майкл Лонгли 0.0
Emerging, as it did, after over a decade of silence, Gorse Fires had an immediate and resounding impact - revealing a poetry that seemed renewed and re-energised - and winning the Whitbread Prize for Poetry in 1991. It is now regarded as the pivotal book in Michael Longley's distinguished career. If Ireland remains Longley's starting-point or implied focus, it is often sighted through disturbing perspectives that derive from foreign cultures, from Homer's Odyssey, from the Second World War, and from the Holocaust. Even his beautifully precise poems about the West of Ireland are shadowed by the many destructive forces ranged against the creative act. Longley's versions of Odysseus' return to Ithaca and 'Ghetto' (based on the Polish ghettoes) epitomise his concern with the meaning of home and family. He sees these archetypes of Western civilisation as vulnerable, problematic, violated by power. Odysseus' homecoming involves murder and vengeance as well as reunions - a connection with the ambiguities of life in Northern Ireland. Gorse Fires is an unusual artistic blend: darkly austere, yet abundant in images, catalogues and syntactical virtuosity. The formal links between poems gives the whole collection the air of a richly varied sequence; it is a work of the highest order. Winner of the Whitbread Prize for Poetry.
Биография
Джон Ричардсон 0.0

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

As he magnificently combines meticulous scholarship with irresistible narrative appeal, Richardson draws on his close friendship with Picasso, his own diaries, the collaboration of Picasso's widow Jacqueline, and unprecedented access to Picasso's studio and papers to arrive at a profound understanding of the artist and his work. 800 photos.
Роман
Nicholas Mosley, Sven Birkerts 0.0

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

-- A sweeping, comprehensive epic, Hopeful Monsters tells the story of the love affair between Max, an English student of physics and biology, and Eleanor, a German Jewess and political radical. Together and apart, Max and Eleanor participate in the great political and intellectual movements which shape the twentieth century, taking them from Cambridge and Berlin to the Spanish Civil War, Russia, the Sahara, and finally to Los Alamos to witness the first nuclear test.
-- Hopeful Monsters received Britain's prestigious Whitbread Award in 1990.
-- Praising Mosley's ability to distill complex modes of thought, the New York Times called Hopeful Monsters a "virtual encyclopedia of twentieth century thought, in fictional form".
-- First U.S. edition by Dalkey Archive ('90), most recent paperback by Vintage ('93).
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Hanif Kureishi 3.6
A bureaucrat becomes a suburban guru who marries a follower with a son who's a punk rocker named Charlie Hero. Consequently, the guru's son is propelled from his bland life into a series of erotic experiences in London.
Детская книга
AK
Peter Dickinson 0.0
AK depicts the horrible story of child warriors in Africa. Paul was a homeless orphan boy when guerilla soldiers found him wandering in the bush. The soldiers taught him to carry a gun, an old AK, and become a “Warrior” — someone to prepare meals for a soldier “uncle,” serve as a sentry or act as a decoy in ambushes. When the war ends, Paul’s uncle, Michael, declares that the boy is to be his adopted son. It will be Paul’s job to get an education, learn English and study the country’s dominant cultures. All arms are to be turned in to the government, but Paul buries his AK in a secret place.

Paul is learning the Fulu language in a settlement away from Dangoum, the capital city, when word comes that there has been a coup. Along with a couple of the other boy Warriors and Jilli, the young girl teaching him Fulu, Paul strikes out for Dangoum where he is certain his uncle’s life is in danger. It is a route that will take him past the spot where the AK is buried, and Paul knows the time has come to dig it up.

Written at an average reading level with graphic depictions of war, the story presents two possible results of the violence — one showing a positive direction; one locked into the bleak recurrence of strife and warfare — and challenges the citizens of today to effect a change for the better.
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Пол Дуркан 0.0
Critically acclaimed for his vibrant and eclectic "poetry of the present moment", Paul Durcan is one of the most dramatically intense modern Irish poets. Drawing its strength from its urgent treatment of a wide range of contemporary subject matter, Durcan's poetry is striking for the subtlety and strangeness of its unique imagery.

In Daddy, Daddy Durcan pushes out in a radical new direction. Fusing the personal with the political, his angry response to violence and oppression in poems such as "The Murder of Harry Keyes" and "Shanghai, June 1989" is incisive and humane. Here also are love poems of all manner and kind; bizarre meditations on the nature of loneliness; and poems of celebration of writers and artists like Primo Levi, Sylvia Plath, and Paul Cezanne.

Durcan also embarks on an exploration of his relationship with his father, creating poetry that is compelling in its probing artistry and painful honesty.
Биография
Энн Туэйт 0.0
A.A. Milne is one of the most successful English writers ever. His heart-warming creations—Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin, Eeyore, Tigger and Piglet—have become some of the best-loved children’s characters of all time, and readers the world over are familiar with the stories from the Hundred Acre Wood. Yet the man himself has remained an enigma. Although in many ways his behaviour was that of a typical golf-playing, pipe-smok-ing Englishman, Milne refused to be typecast, and his publishers despaired when he turned from writing popular columns for Punch to writing detective stories. They complained again when the detective writer presented them with a set of children’s verse, but when When We Were Very Young became one of the best-selling books of all time, Milne’s credibility as one of the world’s favorite authors was sealed.
Роман
Линдсей Кларк 3.0
Soon after moving to the secluded Norfolk village of Munding, Alex Darken has a disturbing encounter with the ageing poet Edward Nesbit and his young lover Laura. They are obsessively researching the lives of Sir Henry Agnew and his daughter Louisa who lived in Munding in the nineteenth century and were deeply engaged in alchemical practices. By recovering the lost secret of the hermetic mysteries, Edward and Laura hope to find an alternative to the destructive materialism of the post-industrial world. Once drawn into their fervent quest for knowledge, Alex finds himself entangled in a passionate and intense intrigue that reaches across two centuries. A beautifully written, ambitious and captivating novel, which takes a profound look at issues of nature, human existence and forgotten knowledge, "The Chymical Wedding", which won the 1989 Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, is already considered a classic for its stylistic prowess and philosophical resonances.
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Джеймс Гамильтон-Патерсон 0.0
Gerontius is the story of a real voyage in the life of Sir Edward Elgar, the celebrated composer of the quintessentially English tune 'Land of Hope and Glory'. The cruise up the Amazon is a holiday for the disillusioned music-maker. In telling the story of his journey, Hamilton-Paterson explores the waning of creative genius, post-war disenchantment and the effects of the changing times on an artist imprisoned in his own immense reputation.
Детская книга
Хью Скотт 0.0
Winner of the 1989 Whitbread Children's Novel Award. Part of the 1995 Scottish Book Fortnight promotion.
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Майкл Донахи 0.0
This is Michael Donaghy's first full-length collection of verse. The critic Alfred Corn commented, "Michael Donaghy's poems have the fine-tuned precision of a ten-speed bike...Poems so original, wry, and philosophical as this are hard to come by. Don't think of passing them up."
Биография
Ричард Холмс 0.0

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

Winner of the 1989 Whitbread Prize for Book of the Year, this is the first volume of Holmes's seminal two-part examination of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of Britain's greatest poets.

Coleridge: Early Visions is the first part of Holmes's classic biography of Coleridge that forever transformed our view of the poet of 'Kubla Khan' and his place in the Romantic Movement. Dismissed by much recent scholarship as an opium addict, plagiarist, political apostate and mystic charlatan, Richard Holmes's Coleridge leaps out of the page as a brilliant, animated and endlessly provoking figure who invades the imagination. This is an act of biographical recreation which brings back to life Coleridge's poetry and encyclopaedic thought, his creative energy and physical presence. He is vivid and unexpected. Holmes draws the reader into the labyrinthine complications of his subject's personality and literary power, and faces us with profound questions about the nature of creativity, the relations between sexuality and friendship, the shifting grounds of political and religious belief.
Роман
Salman Rushdie 3.7
Banned in India before publication, this immense novel by Booker Prize-winner Rushdie ( Midnight's Children ) pits Good against Evil in a whimsical and fantastic tale. Two actors from India, "prancing" Gibreel Farishta and "buttony, pursed" Saladin Chamcha, are flying across the English Channel when the first of many implausible events occurs: the jet explodes. As the two men plummet to the earth, "like titbits of tobacco from a broken old cigar," they argue, sing and are transformed. When they are found on an English beach, the only survivors of the blast, Gibreel has sprouted a halo while Saladin has developed hooves, hairy legs and the beginnings of what seem like horns. What follows is a series of allegorical tales that challenges assumptions about both human and divine nature. Rushdie's fanciful language is as concentrated and overwhelming as a paisley pattern. Angels are demonic and demons are angelic as we are propelled through one illuminating episode after another. The narrative is somewhat burdened by self-consciousness that borders on preciosity, but for Rushdie fans this is a splendid feast. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; first serial to Harper's; BOMC alternate; QPBC alternate; author tour.
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Пол Сейер 4.0

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.


Winner of the 1988 Whitbread Award, "The Comforts of Madness" is narrated by a catatonic who never speaks. To the rest of the world he is an inert body and is subjected to a variety of experiments, but his own consciousness is vital and reflective.
Детская книга
Джуди Аллен 0.0
Jo’s secret haven is the beautiful garden of the big house nearby – until it is sold to a property developer who plans to cover it with houses and flats. In her efforts to save it she finds herself tangling with a very mixed collection of neighbours, struggling to find her way around the unreasonably big Town Hall, having to deal with the secret problem she thinks of only as It, learning quite a lot about her own family and getting some unexpected help from a long-dead ancestor.
Поэзия
Peter Porter 0.0
With this new collection, Peter Porter shows his maturity as a poet and displays his ability to work in a variety of forms. The "oracle" of the title is the English language, with the poet acting as a "priest" bound to carry messages to the outside world. Porter's themes here are childhood, dreams, painting, history, and most important, words and their responsibilities.
Биография
Эндрю Уилсон 0.0
In this landmark biography of Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, A.N. Wilson narrates the complex drama of the writer's life: his childhood of aristocratic privilege but emotional deprivation, his discovery of his literary genius after aimless years of gambling and womanizing, and his increasingly disastrous marriage. Wilson sweeps away the long-held belief that Tolstoy's works were the exact mirror of his life, and instead traces the roots of Tolstoy's art to his relationship with God, with women, and with Russia. He also breaks new ground in recreating the world that shaped the great novelist's life and art--the turmoil of ideas and politics in nineteenth-century Russia and the incredible literary renaissance that made Tolstoy's work possible. 24 pages of illustrations.
Роман
Иэн Макьюэн 3.6
У детского писателя Стивена Льюиса прямо из супермаркета неожиданно и необъяснимо исчезает трехлетняя дочь. Это событие переворачивает всю жизнь Стивена, наглядно демонстрирует ему, что дочь была единственным смыслом его жизни. Личная драма Стивена разворачивается на фоне непрекращающегося течения времени, затеявшего странную борьбу с главным героем. Лишь постепенно Стивен понимает, что не человек владеет своим временем, а время властвует над людьми - время зачатия и время рождения, время роста и время возмужания, словом - время как загадочная, неперсонифицированная и всемогущая сила, которую невозможно провести, но которую можно попытаться преодолеть, лишь преодолев себя.
Лучший первый роман
Фрэнсис Уиндхэм 0.0
An eccentric woman in her 30s strikes a friendship with an adolescent boy in a small southern English town at the outbreak of World War II. The young man, who serves as the narrator, leaves to attend Oxford, while Kay, the woman, takes up with an American soldier. The patterns of life of the town and of the two friends are destroyed forever by the war, and Francis Wyndham's prose gives us a window into this time, and its demise. The novel is short and simple, yet filled with first-rate writing. The book won England's Whitbread prize in 1987
Детская книга
Джеральдин Маккорин 0.0
Gabriel has no idea what the future will hold when he runs away from his apprenticeship with the bad-tempered stonemason. But God Himself, in the shape of playmaster Garvey, has plans for him. He wants Gabriel for his angel...

But will Gabriel's new life with the travelling players be any more secure? In a world of illusion, people are not always what they seem. Least of all Gabriel.

BLGeraldine McCaughrean is considered an exceptional writer of our time. She has won the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, the Whitbread Award (twice) and the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award.
Поэзия
Seamus Heaney 5.0
Poems exploring the theme of loss are joined by meditations on the conscience of the writer and exercises in an allegorical vein which will both surprise and delight the many admirers of his previous work.
Биография
Christopher Nolan 0.0
A remarkable work by several measures, Under the Eye of the Clock is the autobiography--told slyly through a third person alter-ego--of Christopher Nolan, struck at birth with brain damage and left paralyzed, spastic and mute. His first book, Dam-Burst of Dreams, written when he was a teen, was a collection of poems that exploded with linguistic virtuosity, earning him comparisons to Joyce and Yeats. Nolan, whose disability requires that someone cup his chin while he pushes a head-mounted pointer at the keyboard, tells here of battles in an un-handicapped world, the heroic efforts of his family and the sights of Ireland that surround him. The book won England's Whitbread prize.
Роман
Кадзуо Исигуро 3.9

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

Герой романа - один из самых знаменитых живописцев довоенной Японии - тихо доживает свои дни и мечтает лини, удачно выдать замуж дочку. Но в воспоминаниях он по-прежнему там, в веселых кварталах старого Токио, в зыбком, сумеречном мире приглушенных страстей, дискуссий о красоте и потаенных удовольствий...
Лучший первый роман
Jim Crace 0.0

Winner of the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize and the David Higham Award.
Детская книга
Andrew Taylor 0.0
Alison is 13. Her mother has recenty died; her dad has just bought a house in the North. Brimming with resentment, she is determined to dislike the rambling old Coal House. But as she becomes involved, the house and its unsolved mystery draws her in.
Биография
Richard Mabey 0.0
Gilbert White wrote 'The Natural History of Selborne', creating one of the most influential natural history works which provides the cornerstone to modern ecology. This biography evokes his life and times.
Роман
Питер Акройд 3.5
Питер Акройд — один из самых титулованных английских писателей, член Королевского общества литературы, командор Ордена Британской Империи. Мировую известность приобрели его бестселлеры "Дом доктора Ди", "Чаттертон", "Процесс Элизабет Кри", "Журнал Виктора Франкенштейна" Исторический детектив "Хоксмур" получил сразу две награды: премию Уитбреда, одну из наиболее авторитетных литературных премий Великобритании, и премию "Гардиан". В начале ХVIII века архитектор Николас Дайер (прототип знаменитого зодчего, Николаса Хоксмура) возводит в Лондоне шесть церквей взамен пострадавших от Великого пожара. Он, последователь религиозного культа, в основания этих построек кладет обязательную жертву — невинного ребенка. Двести пятьдесят лет спустя детектив Скотланд-ярда Н. Хоксмур расследует серию убийств, совершенных в церквях Дайера. Между Дайером и Хоксмуром сущеcтвует определенная связь, но в чем она состоит? Автор заставляет читателя самостоятельно искать разгадку этой тайны.
Лучший первый роман
Jeanette Winterson 3.6
This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God's elect. Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts. At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession. With a new introduction by the author.
Детская книга
Джанни Хоукер 0.0
It started out as a game. A game that Billy and his friend Mick play to take their minds off the fact that the mill might be closing and everyone could lose their jobs. They'll hunt down the Haverston Beast, that's killing sheep and hens and maybe even men, and kill it. So what if the farmers say it's just a dog – they know that it's real and they're out to prove it. But then Billy's dad finds out that the mill might close for ever, and suddenly the game doesn't seem so much fun any more – and the terrifying Beast might be closer to home than Billy imagined... An astonishing novel about the monster that is unemployment, and its devastating effects on a local community, The Nature of the Beast is as painfully truthful and relevant today as it was when it was first published, to critical acclaim, in 1985.
Поэзия
4.5

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

В антологии представлены крупнейшие английские поэты и поэтические школы, начиная с рубежа XX века и вплоть до современности (Т. Харди, А. Хаусмен, Р. Киплинг, Р. Олдингтон, Т. С. Элиот, У. Оден, 3. Сэссун, Р. Грейвз, Дилан Томас, Ф. Ларкин и др.), а также лучшие переводы, выполненные виднейшими советскими поэтами и переводчиками (К. Симоновым, М. Лозинским, С. Маршаком, М. Зенкевичем, И. Кашкиным, А. Сергеевым, П. Грушко и др.).
Издание сопровождается предисловием и комментариями.
Биография
Бен Пимлотт 0.0
Intellectual, crusader, patriot, bon viveur, bully, conspirator -- there were many sides to Hugh Dalton, one of the most effective, and strangest of modern political leaders.

The Torie called him a class traitor and they were right. Son of a tutor to royal princes, Dalton was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he was taught by Maynard Keynes, fell under the spell of Rupert Brooke, and learnt about socialism from Keir Hardie and Beatrice Webb.

Hardened by war and the tragic death of a young daughter, Dalton entered Parliament in 1924. For the next three decades his impact on government policy and on the leadership, organization and philosophy of the Labour Party was immense.

In 1940 Churchill put him in charge of the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.), issuing the famous command:'Set Europe Ablaze!' In 1945 Dalton became the most socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer ever, making possible the setting up of the welfare state.

Richard Crossman admired Dalton for his 'sheer intellectual and physical power'. Michael Foot described how the song in Dalton's heart 'swelled to a socialist anthem'.

In this immensely readable biography of Dalton, the first to have been written, the author not only makes use of official records, interviews and private papers, but also of the hitherto unpublished Dalton Diaries.
Роман
Christopher Hope 0.0
Winner of the 1985 Whitbread Prize for Fiction: "Kruger's Alp" moves from pulpit to black township, from Johannesburg's fortress prison to the underworld of Soho as we follow renegade priest Theodore Blanchaille in his search for the legendary gold spirited away by President Kruger in order to found an earthly paradise. Theodore Blanchaille is searching for the missing millions of the Boer leader Paul Kruger, and his lost city of gold. As a child he had heard tales of Kruger from a wayward priest; what follows is an astonishing journey that takes Blanchaille through a landscape peopled with spies, visionaries, terrorists, traitors, patriots and exiled presidents. From huge transit camps on the veld to a notorious prison block, from a township in the bloody aftermath of 'pacification' to a secret travelers' rest for fleeing pilgrims, and from the streets and cellars of Soho to paradise at last on a Swiss mountainside, "Kruger's Alp" is a fantastical political satire of extraordinary invention.
Лучший первый роман
James Buchan 0.0
Little wear to boards. Content is clean with lightly toned pages throughout. Small pencil mark to first blank page. Good DJ with toning to sides.
Биография
Peter Ackroyd 0.0
In the twentieth century, no Anglo-American poet or critic has matched the influence of Thomas Stearns Eliot. Despite his political and religious conservatism, Eliot was among the most innovative of the literary modernists, a figure to be reckoned with by admirers and critics alike. In his Whitbread Prize-winning biography, Peter Ackroyd delves into the work and mind of a man who redefined the very terms of modern poetry.
From his early days in America to his later life as a British citizen, Eliot fought successfully for his work and his privacy. But with careful research and splendid insight into the poet's character, Mr. Ackroyd has tracked Eliot to ground and brought this remarkable figure to light in an authoritative and fascinating study.
Роман
William Trevor 3.8
Penguin Classics is proud to welcome William Trevor—”Ireland’s answer to Chekhov” (The Boston Globe) and “one of the best writers of our era” (The Washington Post)—to our distinguished list of literary masters. In this award-winning novel, an informer’s body is found on the estate of a wealthy Irish family shortly after the First World War, and an appalling cycle of revenge is set in motion. Led by a zealous sergeant, the Black and Tans set fire to the family home, and only young Willie and his mother escape alive. Fatherless, Willie grows into manhood while his alcoholic mother’s bitter resentment festers. And though he finds love, Willie is unable to leave the terrible injuries of the past behind.

• First time in Penguin Classics
• Winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award
Лучший первый роман
John Fuller 0.0
John Fuller's first novel opens with the arrival of church agent Vane on a remote Welsh island where he is to investigate the disappearance of pilgrims visiting its sacred well. While Vane looks for clues and corpses the local Abbot seaches for the location of the soul. Magical and poetic, Flying to Nowhere awakens our secret hopes and fears and our need to believe in miracles.
Детская книга
Роальд Даль 4.1
Эта занимательная история о том, как научиться распознавать ведьму среди людей. Ведь ты можешь сидеть рядом с ней, не подозревая, что это - настоящая ведьма! Ведьмы так похожи на обыкновенных женщин! Но они чрезвычайно опасны для детей.
К счастью, в этой книжке у мальчика была умная и наблюдательная бабушка, которая знала кое-что о ведьминских повадках. Но даже несмотря на ее наблюдательность, ведьмы сумели ей здорово насолить!
Биография
Виктория Глендиннинг 0.0
The Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson, CH (9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), best known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author, poet and gardener. She won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927 and 1933. She was known for her exuberant aristocratic life, her passionate affair with the novelist Virginia Woolf, and Sissinghurst Castle Garden, which she and her husband, Sir Harold Nicolson, created at their estate. This is her biography.
Биография
Кеннет Роуз 4.3
A brilliant, immensely readable biography of King George V of England. A work of great insight and thoroughness that has been hailed by The Times of London as "one of the most fair-minded biographies and one of the most enthralling of out time....historical biography as it should be written."

George V was born while his grandmother Queen Victoria still reigned, and as the second son of Edward VII, he had no immediate prospects of reaching the throne, and no expectations that those prospects would ever change. Acquiring only the limited education of a nineteenth-century naval officer, he grew up indifferent to science and politics, history and the arts, his views staunchly conservative, and his favorite--and principal--occupations partridge shooting and stamp collecting. But at the age of twenty-six, with the death of his older brother, he found himself in direct line of succession to the throne--a role for which he felt "ill-equipped both by temperament and training." Nor was he able to hide the feelings of inadequacy from the populace: public ceremony visibly affected his nerves, and it was widely rumored that participation in social occasions adversely affected his digestion. When he was crowned in 1910 at the age of forty-five, he evoked little affection or enthusiasm in his people, and England's leaders found little in him to inspire their confidence. Yet by the time he died in 1936, he had become one of the most popular and generally loved of British sovereigns.

George V's life spanned seventy years, during which Britain underwent enormous change, and his reign encompassed a time of unparalleled political unrest. He saw England survive one world war and watched the approach of another. He saw the downfall of the empires of Russia (during which he made the controversial decision to deny his cousin the Tsar political asylum in Britain), Germany, and Austria-Hungary; and he was embroiled in struggles--for Irish Home Rule and for Indian self-government--that presaged the dissolution of the British Empire itself. He presided over the decline of the House of Lords and the rise of the Labour Party. He involved himself in the bitter dispute that culminated in the General Strike of 1926, and he was instrumental in the formation of the National Government in 1931. Yet, during his 25-year reign, much to the surprise of his countrymen, he brought to each problem that confronted him inspired common sense and kindliness, principled wisdom, and sensibility. Considered, at first, dull and commonplace, George V quickly gained the respect of his government and the devoted loyalty of his people.

Just as this excellent biography examines in detail and sheds new light on George's years as King, so it also illuminates the years before his ascension: his childhood, his service in the Royal Navy, the effects on him and his family of the death of his older brother Prince "Eddy," and his betrothal and marriage to Princess Mary of Teck, who had originally been engaged to marry Eddy. We see George during the years of his father's reign, when he undertook--always with appropriate decorum, but often unhappily--the rigorous duties expected of him as Prince of Wales. We see, too, King George's idyllic private life: his relationship with his children (the was the typical "Victorian Papa"), with his grandchildren, and especially with Queen Mary, whose unflagging devotion to him masked her great personal sacrifices.

Kenneth Rose combines a biographer's absolute candor and objectivity with a deep respect for his subject to give us the most convincing, insightful, and vivid portrait we have had of this complex and often maligned ruler. Culling the details of George's life and reign from a variety of sources (including previously unpublished extracts of his diaries and the recollections of members of the Royal Family), Rose goes far beyond the scope of previous biographers in his revelation of George V both as a man and as a king. A superbly conceived and written biography, and a work of major historical importance.
Лучший первый роман
Брюс Чатвин 0.0
Lewis and Benjamin Jones, identical twins, were born with the century on a farm on the English-Welsh border. For eighty years they live on the farm—sharing the same clothes, tilling the same soil, sleeping in the same bed. Their lives and the lives of their neighbors—farmers, drovers, clergymen, traders, coffin-makers—are only obliquely touched by the chaos of twentieth-century progress. Nonetheless, the twins’ world—a few square miles of Welsh countryside—is rich in the oddities, the wonders, and the tragedies of the human experience. In this extraordinary novel Bruce Chatwin has captured every nuance of the Welsh landscape and of the lives and souls of the people who lived there.
Детская книга
У. Дж. Корбетт 0.0
Recounts the many harrowing adventures of a group of mice and their leader Pentecost who set out to help Snake regain his inheritance and find a new home for themselves in the Lickey Hills.
Биография
Эдвард Крэнкшоу 0.0
The awesome figure of Otto von Bismarck, the 'Iron Chancellor', dominated Europe in the late 19th century. His legendary political genius and ruthless will engineered Prussia's stunning defeat of the Austrian Empire and, in 1871, led to his most dazzling achievement - the defeat of France and the unification of Germany.In this highly acclaimed biography Edward Crankshaw provides a perceptive look at the career of the First Reich's mighty founder - at his brilliant abilities and severe limitations and at the people who granted him the power to transform the shape and destiny of Europe.
Роман
Морис Лейтч 0.0
Against the background of war-torn Belfast, two men engage in a bitter private duel. Ned Galloway, a street-wise gunman profiting from the people's anxiety, is hired to spring "Silver" Steele, a jailed folk-hero, from a guarded hospital room. This book won the Guardian Fiction Prize.
Детская книга
Jane Gardam 0.0
Set in the Cumbrian fells - the "hollow land" - this collection of stories tells of two families: one local and one from London. Read about the exploits of friends Barry and Harry, the sweep Kendal, the Egg witch, Granny Crack, the Household Word, and many other characters.
Биография
Найджел Гамильтон 0.0
The definitive biography of Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery of El Alamein. Based on Montgomery's secret diaries, letters, and vast collection of private papers, which have remained confidential and inaccessible until now, this is the first volume of the authorized life of General Montgomery. Written by a historian who knew Montgomery intimately in his later years, Monty breaks entirely new ground. Nigel Hamilton presents the unknown Montgomery in behind-the-scenes accounts of him as soldier and leader, son, father, and husband. Aided by Montgomery's numerous letters, the author paints a vivid picture of world events as they shaped the destiny of one of the world's greatest field commanders. Illustrated with black-and-white photos. 871 pages.
Роман
David Lodge 0.0

Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.

Polly, Dennis, Angela, Adrian and their peers were bound to lose their spiritual innocence as well as their virginities on the way from the 1950s to the '70s. On the one hand there was the traditional Catholic Church, on the other the siren call of the permissive society - the appearance of the pill, the disappearance of Hell and the advent of COC (Catholics for an Open Church). It was inevitable that things would change radically. But how far could it go? How far could they go? And where would it all end? Find out in this razor-sharp novel of satiric insight and comic despair.
Детская книга
Leon Garfield 0.0
If ever I learned anything during that night, it was that, if you should hear the noise of running feet, you should not be angry, but think that somebody down below might be gasping and groaning and struggling to save his life. If you should see a boy raise his fists as if to bang on your door and then stumble away, it is not because he's a dirty little ruffian, but because he's just caught sight of somebody coming round a corner with a terrible hook. 'Really,' said Leon Garfield, 'what I try to write is that old-fashioned thing the family novel, accessible to the twelve-year-old and readable by his elders.' This classic tale of a boy who sets out to right the wrongs committed by his swindler father demonstrates how extraordinarily successful Leon Garfield was as a story-teller. His work transcends all generations. First published in 1980, John Diamond won the Whitbread Award that year, as the best children's story book, and also the prestigious Boston Globe-Horn Honor Book Award. The Horn Book wrote: Narrated with the verve and pace of a picaresque novel, [John Diamond] combines a cast of remarkable eccentrics with superb sensory descriptions...A series of heart-stopping pursuits through the twisting London streets, narrow escapes, encounters with the denizens of Whitefriars, Foxes Court, and Hanging Court Alley move the story at a precipitous rate toward a thoroughly satisfying and surprising resolution. The plot is as convoluted as William's search - packed with unexpected turns, vain hopes of treasure, false clues, and masked identities...Richly imagined and audacious in its balance of humour and suspense, the book is as absorbing as it is compelling.
Биография
Дэвид Ньюсом 0.0
A biography based upon a re-examination of the diaries following the expiry of the embargo, contains further quotation, but no extended passages.
Роман
Jennifer Johnston 5.0
Late summer near Dublin, 1920, and up at the great house there are still cucumber sandwiches for tea. Slipping away from Aunt Mary and dotty Grandfather, 18-year-old Nancy has escaped down to the shore to dream in the beach hut - longing for her life to begin.
Детская книга
Peter Dickinson 0.0
An attack in the dark, screams, burning huts...
Thirteen-year-old Theodore crouches under the trees. His father's Mission has been destroyed. His father is dead. Theodore is on his own, fleeing the Chinese rebels of the Boxer uprising.

Then Mrs Jones appears. A botanist, Mrs Jones is a feisty, aging, good-hearted woman who has an amazing (and eye-opening) vocabulary and who adopts Theodore into her band of travellers. Fleeing bandits, the group enters Tibet, where they meet the old Lama who rules a monastery. But when the Lama says they have been drawn to him by destiny, and insists that Theodore, Mrs Jones, and her young Chinese courier Lung hold the clue to the birth of the long-awaited Tulku, or reincarnated spiritual master, there seems to be no escape...
Биография
Penelope Mortimer 0.0
The sequel to Penelope's first 21 years.This follows her progress from young wife & mother of 1940.Her life with John Mortimer,divorce and success as a novelist
Роман
Paul Theroux 3.0
World-famous photographer Maude Coffin Pratt has pointed her lens at the beautiful, obscure, and obscene, and at the private places and public parts of the famous, from Gertrude Stein to Graham Greene. When the seventy-year-old Maude rummages through her archives in preparation for a triumphant retrospective, the resurrected images unleash a flood of suppressed memories -- of her extraordinary life, her celebrated subjects, and the dark, painful secret at the core of her existence.
Детская книга
Philippa Pearce 0.0
Sid, Peggy and Amy adore the two gerbils, Bubble and Squeak, but their mother detests them. A major family battle results, and it's clear life is never going to be quite the same again. But after a near fatal encounter between Bubble and Ginger the cat, Mrs Sparrow begins to see that life with 2 gerbils might not be so bad after all.
Биография
Джон Григг 0.0
John Grigg's four volume life of "Lloyd George" is one of the great political biographies. Volume 2, "The People's Champion 1902-1911", in the author's own words 'carries the story on to the zenith of his whole career before the Great War. By the end of 1911 he had already achieved far more than be claimed for most politicians in a lifetime...The period covered here is one of intense controversy and acrimony, in which Lloyd George's speeches attacking the Conservative Party and its lordly backers are among the finest examples of polemical oratory in the English language.' The central drama is the constitutional conflict surrounding Lloyd George's 1909 Budget, the People's Budget, which was such a powerful tool of social reform. There is much more besides, not least vivid portrayals of his relations with Asquith and Winston Churchill. The latter, again in John Grigg's own words 'was Lloyd George's closest colleague in two ways: they worked together on major reforming projects, and both were men of genius...They also enjoyed each other's company and had a strong affinity of temperament.' This volume won the Whitbread Prize. It is a tragedy John Grigg didn't live to complete his magnum opus but what exists is a masterpiece.
Роман
Beryl Bainbridge 0.0
Edward is throwing a dinner party with Binny , his mistress. Aware that she has long been denied those small intimacies that his wife takes for granted - choosing a birthday present for his sister, for example, or sorting his socks - he wants to give her a chance to feel more involved in his life, to socialise with some of his friends (the discreet ones). Things are a little awkward to begin with - a late start and him having to be away by half past ten - but everything seems to be going well. But then some uninvited, and reather forceful guests arrive, and it doesn't look like Edward is going to make it home on time.
Детская книга
Шела Макдональд 0.0
This beautifully poised novel chronicles the extraordinary upbringing and early adulthood of Marjory Bell in the 1920s and '30s, in a rambling South London house teeming with eccentric uncles and aunts and their hangers-on. By turns harsh, kind, immoral, hypocritical, hilarious and spiteful, they are all dominated by the baleful presence of Marjory's unrepentantly Victorian grandmother. Marjory is motherless, her father a remote, weekend visitor to 'Gran's house', where Marjory belongs, but is isolated. Gran would crush her individuality, or crush her entirely: and Marjory has to bring all her intelligence, tenacity and humour into play to survive. As she remarks at one point, 'Some of the animals in our family are nicer than some of the people.' But she does survive. Glimpses of her adult life tell us the price she pays - but how she also never loses her wit, integrity and spark for life. No End to Yesterday won the Whitbread Prize in 1977 as a children's book, but it's an adult story. Whitbread judge Lynne Reid Banks said: 'The writing showed signs of a literary gift far beyond what one normally expects in children's books or finds in adult novels. The whole environment and the period are imparted. The imagination is pricked awake by the author's skill... and finds itself capable of evoking settings, smells, textures and even the strongly "other" emotions of that earlier time.'
Роман
William Trevor 4.0
The Children Of Dynmouth - a classic prize-winning novel by William Trevor

Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain.

The 1970s was a decade of anger and discontent. Britain endured power cuts and strikes. America pulled out of Vietnam and saw its President resign from office. Feminism and face lifts vied for women's hearts (and minds). And for many, prog rock, punk and disco weren't just music but ways of life.

William Trevor's The Children of Dynmouth (Winner of the Whitbread Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize) was first published in 1976 and is a classic account of evil lurking in the most unlikely places. In it we follow awkward, lonely, curious teenager Timothy Gedge as he wanders around the bland seaside town of Dynmouth. Timothy takes a prurient interest in the lives of the adults there, who only realise the sinister purpose to which he seeks to put his knowledge too late.

'A small masterpiece of understatement ... a work of rare compassion' Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times

If you enjoyed The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer, you will love this book. It will also be adored by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd.

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.
Детская книга
Penelope Lively 4.1
Maria is always getting lost in the secret world of her imagination…
A ghostly mystery and winner of the Whitbread Award, newly republished in the Essential Modern Classics range.
Maria likes to be alone with her thoughts. She talks to animals and objects, and generally prefers them to people. But whilst on holiday she begins to hear things that aren’t there – a swing creaking, a dog barking – and when she sees a Victorian embroidered picture, Maria feels a strange connection with the ten-year-old, Harriet, who stitched it.
But what happened to her? As Maria becomes more lost in Harriet’s world, she grows convinced that something tragic occurred…
Perfect for fans of ghostly mysteries like ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’.
Роман
Уильям Макилванни 0.0
At the end of 1903, in a tough, working-class town in the West of Scotland, Tam Docherty's youngest son, Conn is born. Tam is determined that life and the pits c won't swallow up his boy the way it has him. Courageous and questioning, Docherty emerges as a leader of almost indomitable strength, but in a close-knit community tradition is a powerful opponent.
Биография
Хелен Корке 0.0
In this volume of autobiography Helen Corke, now aged 93, recalls her childhood and youth before the First World War. Her account has both a personal and a representative significance. Helen Corke has a gift for recounting the development of her own consciousness and her personality is revealed through this record of instinctive as well as of objective experience. Born into a Kentish middle-class family which was interested both in literature and trade, she was moved from town to country and back to a London suburb as her father's grocery business first prospered and then abruptly failed. Years of extreme poverty followed. For a gifted girl in such circumstances the only hope of further education was apprenticeship as an elementary school teacher. Helen took this course and records the grim (and grimy) conditions of primary education at the end of the nineteenth century.
Роман
Iris Murdoch 4.0
Sacred and profane love are related opposites; the one enjoyed renders the other necessary, so that the ever-unsatisfied heart swings constantly to and fro.
Лучший первый роман
Claire Tomalin 0.0
Witty, courageous and unconventional, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the most controversial figures of her day.

She published "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman"; travelled to revolutionary France and lived through the Terror and the destruction of the incipient French feminist movement; produced an illegitimate daughter; and married William Godwin before dying in childbed at the age of thirty-eight.

Often embattled and bitterly disappointed, she never gave up her radical ideas or her belief that courage and honesty would triumph over convention.

Winner of the Whitbread First Book Prize in 1974, this haunting biography achieved wide critical acclaim. Writing in the "New Statesman", J. H. Plumb called it, 'Wide, penetrating, sympathetic. There is no better book on Mary Wollstonecraft, nor is there likely to be'.
Детская книга
Джилл Патон Уолш 0.0
An English boy, shipwrecked, hungry, and lost, finds his way into the court of Constantine where he is interpreted as a symbol of good luck and, as such, ordered to be kept always near the king.
Детская книга
Russell Hoban 0.0
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!
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Шива Найпол 0.0
The author brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters set in a tightly knit Hindu community in Trinidad, against a backdrop of the idiosyncrasies of a particular culture and the sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant truths about human society. "A compelling, tragic, painfully comic masterpiece". THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT.
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Alan Aldridge, Уильям Пломер 0.0
Renowned illustrator Alan Aldridge introduced the fantastical world of the Butterfly Ball in this breathtaking modern classic. It is now available in a lavish new edition, complete with nature notes by Richard Fitter on each creature and an introduction to the life and work of Alan Aldridge.
Биография
Джон Уилсон 0.0
Henry Campbell-Bannerman. who now seems a remote figure, died at No. 10 Downing Street only sixty-five years ago. He had known the extremes of political failure and success. At one time he was execrated as a man who was said to sympathise with the enemies of his country. He was denounced day after day in The Times and his company was shunned by his Sovereign. But within four years of this he led the Liberal Party to its most overwhelming victory, and overnight became an immensely popular Prime Minister, with a unique position in the House of Commons. Today most people have never heard of him, and those who have tend to class him as a dim personality.

Yet the truth is that Campbell-Bannerman, or C.B. as he was always called, was a singularly attractive and interesting man. He was, moreover, an unusual person to emerge as the leader of a great political party in England, or indeed to be a politician at all, for he was easy-going and had little ambition. However desperate the political situation, he departed every autumn for ix weeks at the spa of Marienbad in Bohemia.

He became Prime Minister in 1905 and in his two years at No. 10 he presided over an Administration which contained three future Prime Ministers: Asquith, Lloyd George, and Winston Churchill. Perhaps his greatest achievement was the South African settlement, which turned Botha and Smuts into life-long friends of England and resulted in South Africa joining this country in two world wars.

When Campbell-Bannerman died in 1908 the leaders of the Liberal Party paid the warmest tributes to his courage, idealism, shrewdness and tenacity. But the Tories, led by Balfour, thought it absurd that a monument should be erected to him in Westminster Abbey. When there are such widely differing contemporary opinions of a statesman it is appropriate to make a new assessment. This is a first life of Campbell-Bannerman to appear since 1923, since when many new papers have become available. John Wilson reveals him as a much more considerable -- and charming -- character than many people suppose.
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Susan Hill 0.0
Francis Croft, the greatest poet of his age, was mad. His world was a nightmare of internal furies and haunting poetic vision. Harvey Lawson watched and protected him until his final suicide. From his solitary old age Harvey writes this brief account of their twenty years together and then burns all the papers to shut out an inquisitive world.

The tautness and control that characterize Susan Hill’s work are abundantly evident in The Bird of Night as she magnificently handles the heights and depths, the splendours and miseries of madness and friendship.
Детская книга
Rumer Godden 0.0
Everyone in Kizzy's town hates her because she's half-gypsy – a diddakoi. But Kizzy doesn't care. All she needs is Gran and her horse, Joe. But when Gran dies and their wagon burns down, Kizzy is all alone. No one wants to look after her and her beloved Joe might get sent to the knacker's yard. Can Kizzy survive in a hostile world – and save Joe?
Биография
Джеймс Поуп-Хеннесси 0.0
With incomparable brilliance, Anthony Trollope witnessed and recorded life during the later decades of Queen Victoria's reign. Now Trollope's own life comes under equally lively scrutiny, thanks to the acclaimed author of Queen Mary and Sins of the Fathers. By relating the plots and characters in Trollope's novels to real experiences, James Pope-Hennessey has produced one of the fullest and most absorbing biographies around.
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