Книги

At the turn of the twentieth century, Arctic explorer Edward Mackley sets out to reach the North Pole and vanishes into the icy landscape without a trace. He leaves behind a young wife, Emily, who awaits his return for decades, her dreams and devotion gradually freezing into rigid widowhood. A hundred years later, on a sweltering mid-summer's day, Edward's great-grand-niece Julia moves through the old family house, attempting to impose some order on the clutter of inherited belongings and memories from that ill-fated expedition, and taking care to ignore the deepening cracks within her own marriage. But as afternoon turns into evening, Julia makes a discovery that splinters her long-held image of Edward and Emily's romance, and her husband Simon faces a precipitous choice that will decide the future of their relationship. Sharply observed and deeply engaging, The Still Point is a powerful literary debut, and a moving meditation on the distances - geographical and emotional - that can exist between two people

At the turn of the twentieth century, Arctic explorer Edward Mackley sets out to reach the North Pole and vanishes into the icy landscape without a trace. He leaves behind a young…

Почти сто лет назад официально закончилось Средневековье, но на Британских островах по-прежнему казнят обвиненных в колдовстве.
У Корраг так погибла сначала бабушка, а потом и мать. Теперь и сама юная знахарка брошена в тюрьму, а на городской площади неспешно строится эшафот. Для суеверных обывателей она проклятая ведьма, для узурпатора Вильгельма Оранского — свидетельница преступления, совершенного его вассалами в горах Шотландии. Но кем она станет для ирландского священника, которого привела в эту северную глушь секретная миссия?

Почти сто лет назад официально закончилось Средневековье, но на Британских островах по-прежнему казнят обвиненных в колдовстве.
У Корраг так погибла сначала бабушка, а потом и…

One night in June 1943 James Swift, along with the Lancaster bomber he piloted, vanished. In Bomber County, his grandson Daniel seeks to discover what happened. At the same time he tries to understand the men who took part in these dangerous raids, as well as their devastating impact on the civilians below. In examining the life of one pilot, Daniel Swift also investigates why it is we have tried to forget what was then a new, shocking form of warfare, and why literature and poetry exploring these terrible losses have not found the recognition they deserve.

One night in June 1943 James Swift, along with the Lancaster bomber he piloted, vanished. In Bomber County, his grandson Daniel seeks to discover what happened. At the same time…

For fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, a stunning novel set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world.

Aden, Yemen, 1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. And home to Jama, a ten year-old boy. But then his mother dies unexpectedly and he finds himself alone in the world.

Jama is forced home to his native Somalia, the land of his nomadic ancestors. War is on the horizon and the fascist Italian forces who control parts of East Africa are preparing for battle. Yet Jama cannot rest until he discovers whether his father, who has been absent from his life since he was a baby, is alive somewhere.

And so begins an epic journey which will take Jama north through Djibouti, war-torn Eritrea and Sudan, to Egypt. And from there, aboard a ship transporting Jewish refugees just released from German concentration camps, across the seas to Britain and freedom.

This story of one boy's long walk to freedom is also the story of how the Second World War affected Africa and its people; a story of displacement and family.

For fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, a stunning novel set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world.…

Frank and Leon are two men from different times, discovering that sometimes all you learn from your parents' mistakes is how to make different ones of your own. Frank is trying to escape his troubled past by running away to his family's beach shack. As he struggles to make friends with his neighbors and their precocious young daughter, Sal, he discovers the community has fresh wounds of its own. A girl is missing, and when Sal too disappears, suspicion falls on Frank. Decades earlier, Leon tries to hold together his family's cake shop as their suburban life crumbles in the aftermath of the Korean War. When war breaks out again, Leon must go from sculpting sugar figurines to killing young men as a conscript in the Vietnam War.

Frank and Leon are two men from different times, discovering that sometimes all you learn from your parents' mistakes is how to make different ones of your own. Frank is trying…

The true cost of what the global food industry throws away.

With shortages, volatile prices and nearly one billion people hungry, the world has a food problem—or thinks it does. Farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets and consumers in North America and Europe discard up to half of their food—enough to feed all the world's hungry at least three times over. Forests are destroyed and nearly one tenth of the West's greenhouse gas emissions are released growing food that will never be eaten. While affluent nations throw away food through neglect, in the developing world crops rot because farmers lack the means to process, store and transport them to market.

But there could be surprisingly painless remedies for what has become one of the world's most pressing environmental and social problems. Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal traces the problem around the globe from the top to the bottom of the food production chain. Stuart’s journey takes him from the streets of New York to China, Pakistan and Japan and back to his home in England. Introducing us to foraging pigs, potato farmers and food industry CEOs, Stuart encounters grotesque examples of profligacy, but also inspiring innovations and ways of making the most of what we have. The journey is a personal one, as Stuart is a dedicated freegan, who has chosen to live off of discarded or self-produced food in order to highlight the global food waste scandal.

Combining front-line investigation with startling new data, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal shows how the way we live now has created a global food crisis—and what we can do to fix it.

The true cost of what the global food industry throws away.

With shortages, volatile prices and nearly one billion people hungry, the world has a food problem—or thinks it…

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as “one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years” (Baltimore Sun), with “prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes” (The Boston Globe); The Washington Post called her “the twenty-first-century daughter of Chinua Achebe.” Her award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun became an instant classic upon its publication three years later, once again putting her tremendous gifts—graceful storytelling, knowing compassion, and fierce insight into her characters’ hearts—on display. Now, in her most intimate and seamlessly crafted work to date, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as “one of the best novels to come out of Africa in…

В юго-западной части Индии, на берегу океана, между Гоа и Каликутом, есть маленький и ничем особо не примечательный городок Киттур. В этом провинциальном местечке жизнь течет медленно, но, как и везде, она наполнена смешным и страшным, трагическим и лирическим. Маленький мальчик-мусульманин, прислуживающий в привокзальной чайной, попадает в сети исламского террориста; скромного продавца книг арестовывают за продажу «Сатанинских стихов»; богатый старшеклассник-полукровка решает взорвать свой колледж; фальшивый сексолог, торгующий снадобьями и раздающий советы по части половой жизни, вынужден искать настоящее лекарство для юноши, который болен таинственным недугом. Эти и другие истории сплетаются в кружево повседневной жизни Киттура и его обитателей, и в результате получается портрет провинциальной Индии в семилетний период между двумя историческими убийствами, изменившими Индию: убийством премьер-министра Индиры Ганди в 1984 и в 1991 ее сына, также премьер-министра страны, Раджива Ганди. Именно это время стало началом огромных перемен, которые сейчас стремительно несут Индию в неизведанное.

Если в своем знаменитом «Белом тигре» Аравинд Адига нарисовал потрет человека, который способен на все, лишь бы вырваться из нищеты, то его новая книга — о маленьких людях, навсегда заблудившихся в хитросплетениях желаний и запретов.

В юго-западной части Индии, на берегу океана, между Гоа и Каликутом, есть маленький и ничем особо не примечательный городок Киттур. В этом провинциальном местечке жизнь течет…

Words are essential to our everyday lives. An average person spends his or her day enveloped in conversations, e-mails, phone calls, text messages, directions, headlines, and more. But how often do we stop to think about the origins of the words we use? Have you ever thought about which words in English have been borrowed from Arabic, Dutch, or Portuguese? Try admiral, landscape, and marmalade, just for starters.

The Secret Life of Words is a wide-ranging account not only of the history of English language and vocabulary, but also of how words witness history, reflect social change, and remind us of our past. Henry Hitchings delves into the insatiable, ever-changing English language and reveals how and why it has absorbed words from more than 350 other languages—many originating from the most unlikely of places, such as shampoo from Hindi and kioskfrom Turkish. From the Norman Conquest to the present day, Hitchings narrates the story of English as a living archive of our human experience. He uncovers the secrets behind everyday words and explores the surprising origins of our most commonplace expressions.

The Secret Life of Words is a rich, lively celebration of the language and vocabulary that we too often take for granted.

Words are essential to our everyday lives. An average person spends his or her day enveloped in conversations, e-mails, phone calls, text messages, directions, headlines, and…

Sam Marsdyke is a lonely young man, dogged by an incident in his past and forced to work his family farm instead of attending school in his Yorkshire village. He methodically fills his life with daily routines and adheres to strict boundaries that keep him at a remove from the townspeople. But one day he spies Josephine, his new neighbor from London. From that moment on, Sam's carefully constructed protections begin to crumble—and what starts off as a harmless friendship between an isolated loner and a defiant teenage girl takes a most disturbing turn.

Sam Marsdyke is a lonely young man, dogged by an incident in his past and forced to work his family farm instead of attending school in his Yorkshire village. He methodically…

Roman Ungern von Sternberg was a Baltic aristocrat, a violent, headstrong youth posted to the wilds of Siberia and Mongolia before the First World War. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Baron - now in command of a lethally effective rabble of cavalrymen - conquered Mongolia, the last time in history a country was seized by an army mounted on horses. He was a Kurtz-like figure, slaughtering everyone he suspected of irreligion or of being a Jew. And his is a story that rehearses later horrors in Russia and elsewhere. James Palmer's book is an epic recreation of a forgotten episode and will establish him as a brilliant popular historian.

Roman Ungern von Sternberg was a Baltic aristocrat, a violent, headstrong youth posted to the wilds of Siberia and Mongolia before the First World War. After the Bolshevik…

An extraordinary poetic sequence that animates and illuminates the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s, eventually becoming a meditation on the inheritance of conflict and its consequences. It is a thrillingly original, profound and lyrical work.

An extraordinary poetic sequence that animates and illuminates the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s, eventually becoming a meditation on the inheritance of conflict and its…

Балрам по прозвищу Белый Тигр — простой парень из типичной индийской деревни, бедняк из бедняков. В семье его нет никакой собственности, кроме лачуги и тележки. Среди своих братьев и сестер Балрам — самый смекалистый и сообразительный. Он явно достоин лучшей участи, чем та, что уготована его ровесникам в деревне. Белый Тигр вырывается в город, где его ждут невиданные и страшные приключения, где он круто изменит свою судьбу, где опустится на самое дно, а потом взлетит на самый верх. Но «Белый Тигр» — вовсе не типичная индийская мелодрама про миллионера из трущоб, нет, это революционная книга, цель которой — разбить шаблонные представления об Индии, показать ее такой, какая она на самом деле. Это страна, где Свет каждый день отступает перед Мраком, где страх и ужас идут рука об руку с весельем и шутками. «Белый Тигр» вызвал во всем мире целую волну эмоций, одни возмущаются, другие рукоплещут смелости и таланту молодого писателя. К последним присоединилось и жюри премии «Букер», отдав главный книжный приз 2008 года Аравинду Адиге и его великолепному роману. В «Белом Тигре» есть все: острые и оригинальные идеи, блестящий слог, ирония и шутки, истинные чувства, но главное в книге — свобода и правда.

Балрам по прозвищу Белый Тигр — простой парень из типичной индийской деревни, бедняк из бедняков. В семье его нет никакой собственности, кроме лачуги и тележки. Среди своих…

In her stunning novel, Hall imagines a new dystopia set in the not-too-distant future.

England is in a state of environmental crisis and economic collapse. There has been a census, and all citizens have been herded into urban centers. Reproduction has become a lottery, with contraceptive coils fitted to every female of childbearing age. A girl who will become known only as "Sister" escapes the confines of her repressive marriage to find an isolated group of women living as "un-officials" in Carhullan, a remote northern farm, where she must find out whether she has it in herself to become a rebel fighter. Provocative and timely, Daughters of the North poses questions about the lengths women will go to resist their oppressors, and under what circumstances might an ordinary person become a terrorist.

In her stunning novel, Hall imagines a new dystopia set in the not-too-distant future.

England is in a state of environmental crisis and economic collapse. There has been a…

In her third novel, Riley charts the peculiar final reckoning of a highly charged romance, exploring the possibility of human connection as two young people try to reconcile themselves to all of life’s bad endings, and give some meaning to their mayfly existences.

In her third novel, Riley charts the peculiar final reckoning of a highly charged romance, exploring the possibility of human connection as two young people try to reconcile…

Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? Or have we tarmacked, farmed and built ourselves out of wildness?

In his vital, bewitching, inspiring classic, Robert Macfarlane sets out in search of the wildness that remains.

Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? Or have we tarmacked, farmed and built ourselves out of wildness?

In his vital, bewitching, inspiring classic,…

As civil war rages in an unnamed West-African nation, Agu, the school-aged protagonist of this stunning debut novel, is recruited into a unit of guerilla fighters. Haunted by his father’s own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander.
While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started—a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family, still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality continues to spin further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. In a powerful, strikingly original voice, Uzodinma Iweala leads the reader through the random travels, betrayals, and violence that mark Agu’s new community. Electrifying and engrossing, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary new writer.

As civil war rages in an unnamed West-African nation, Agu, the school-aged protagonist of this stunning debut novel, is recruited into a unit of guerilla fighters. Haunted by his…

"She just sat there hardly moving, staring at the drive. Black marks formed under her eyes where her lashes bled their waxy coating onto her skin. Her rouged cheeks were smudged. Mother looked like she was melting in the heat."

Faith leads an isolated existence on her family's drought stricken farm in the Northern Transvaal of South Africa. When the rain stopped, her father took to the road as a travelling salesman, returning only at weekends. Now Faith lives with her mother Bella and dog Boesman anticipating his visits - until one day he stops coming and Bella's health begins to go into rapid decline.

Fifteen years later Bella has died incarcerated in the Sterkfontein asylum for the criminally insane. Faith has not spoken to her mother for ten years and is on the brink of a breakdown of her own. Now, with her mother's death, she inherits the farm and must return to confront the dark mysteries of the past . . .

In prose as lithe and imaginative as that of Alexandra Fuller, Rachel Zadok te Riele recreates the voice of a young girl growing up during the height of apartheid unrest in South Africa. As Faith struggles to make sense of the complex world in which she lives and come to terms with the beliefs her society and upbringing have inculcated in her, what emerges is a richly compelling, emotionally resonant tale of courage set against the backdrop of a chaotically divided and deeply beautiful country.

"She just sat there hardly moving, staring at the drive. Black marks formed under her eyes where her lashes bled their waxy coating onto her skin. Her rouged cheeks were smudged.…

This is the story of four seasons in the life of Charles Wenmoth, a twenty-seven-year-old apprentice blacksmith and Methodist lay preacher in Cornwall in 1870. Life is at its hardest; poverty is everywhere. Charles crosses and recrosses the raw, beautiful landscape, attending to the sick and helping the poor, preaching in chapels with ever-dwindling congregations. He questions his faith along the way but never quite loses it, balancing it with the pleasure he takes in nature, the light in the skies, the colors of the earth, and in his attachment to a girl to whom he is drawn by the piety and patience she maintains despite her long illness. Inspired by the language of his great-great-grandfather's diaries and the Bible, influenced by authors as diverse as Hardy, Blake, and Faulkner, Peter Hobbs has created a first novel of breathtaking ambition and stylistic innovation, and of enormous emotional power.

This is the story of four seasons in the life of Charles Wenmoth, a twenty-seven-year-old apprentice blacksmith and Methodist lay preacher in Cornwall in 1870. Life is at its…

Thirteen passengers are stranded at an airport. Tokyo, their destination, is covered in snow and all flights are cancelled. To pass the night they form a huddle by the silent baggage carousels and tell one another stories. Thus begins Rana Dasgupta's Canterbury Tales for our times.
In the spirit of Borges and Calvino, Dasgupta's writing combines an energetically modern landscape with a timeless, beguiling fairy-tale ethos, while bringing to life a cast of extraordinary individuals-some lost, some confused, some happy-in a world that remains ineffable, inexplicable, and wonderful.
A Ukrainian merchant is led by a wingless bird back to a lost lover; Robert De Niro's son masters the transubstantiation of matter and turns it against his enemies; a man who manipulates other people's memories has to confront his own past; a Japanese entrepreneur risks losing everything in his obsession with a doll; a mute Turkish girl is left alone in the house of a German man who is mapping the world.
Told by people on a journey, these are stories about lives in transit, stories that grow into an epic cycle about the hopes and dreams and disappointments that connect people everywhere.

Thirteen passengers are stranded at an airport. Tokyo, their destination, is covered in snow and all flights are cancelled. To pass the night they form a huddle by the silent…

Этот печальный, во многом глубоко прочувствованный роман прекрасно улавливает различные состояния героя. Он провел большую часть своей молодой жизни в исправительных колониях за совершенное убийство. В душе героя постоянно происходит некий судебный процесс: мог ли он действительно совершить то, что он совершил? Может ли он начать все с начала, забыть свое прошлое и стать кем-нибудь еще?
Выйдя на свободу, он рассчитывает начать новую жизнь, меняет имя, и окружающие его люди до поры до времени не подозревают ничего необычного, пока не узнают, что он попытался скрыть от них свое прошлое.

Этот печальный, во многом глубоко прочувствованный роман прекрасно улавливает различные состояния героя. Он провел большую часть своей молодой жизни в исправительных колониях за…

Отец шестнадцатилетней Камбили, героини бестселлера нигерийской писательницы Чимаманды Адичи - богатый филантроп, борец с коррупцией и фанатичный католик. Однако его любовь к Богу для жены и детей оборачивается лишь домашней тиранией, страхом и насилием. И только оказавшись в гостеприимном доме тетушки, Камбили понимает, что бывает другая любовь, другая жизнь... Уникальный лиловый куст гибискуса станет символом духовного освобождения.

Отец шестнадцатилетней Камбили, героини бестселлера нигерийской писательницы Чимаманды Адичи - богатый филантроп, борец с коррупцией и фанатичный католик. Однако его любовь к Богу…

Years after the death of toddler Adam, a family is bound together in sadness and joy as they fight to overcome feeling haunted by that tragic day. Meet the family: there's Luke at work at Paradise Meatpacking, out on the town with Jamie,hitting the bars with his unnerving mate Risley, and back in bed with his ex-fiancee. Despite his actions, he knows he can count on his parents to bail him out of trouble, or for his sister Kerry to have his back and give him sound advice, as they all struggle to understand and prevail above an untimely death years before.

Years after the death of toddler Adam, a family is bound together in sadness and joy as they fight to overcome feeling haunted by that tragic day. Meet the family: there's Luke at…

Some Great Thing

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following.

Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed…