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Seven Ways to Kill a Cat
By Matias Nespolo. 2009
'There's seven ways to kill a cat. But when it comes down to it, there's only two ways. In a…
civilised fashion or like a fucking savage'.In Buenos Aires, the economy has collapsed and people are protesting on the streets. But in the barrio, life goes on - the slums of the city are ruled by gangs, drugs and guns.Gringo and Chueco are almost adults, and joining the gang warfare that governs their community seems inevitable. Chueco thinks he can join El Jetita's gang but remain his own man, Gringo knows this can't happen - you obey the leader or else. As the two get drawn ever deeper into the turf war between El Jetita and his rival Charly, Gringo sees an alternative way of life, and love, pass before his eyes. A few days ago he and Chueco were joking about killing cats; now he's fighting to save his skin.If you like Jenny Colgan, Milly Johnson and Trisha Ashley, you will love this brilliantly funny romantic comedy buzzing with…
speculation and scandal from bestselling author Judy Astley."Light, fast and funny...By the time you turn the last page you'll never be able to look your neighbour in the eye again" - PRIMA"A jaunty woman's read" - DAILY MAIL"Judy Astley's books are always a joy to read." -- ***** Reader review"Always look forward to reading this author's books. Never disappointed. They make me smile. My only trouble is when I finish it...There are no more to read as I've read them all!" -- ***** Reader review"Judy Astley is a brilliant writer, you get lost in her books. They are all brilliant in my opinion." -- ***** Reader review*******************************************************************************SCANDALOUS SECRETS SET A PEACEFUL VILLAGE ALIGHT...It was Heather's silver wedding anniversary. But this important milestone did not relate to her marriage to Tom, her often-absent airline pilot husband and father of their two teenage children. It was for her first marriage - a wildly romantic, secret affair, when, at 16, she and Iain - twelve years her senior and the heir to a Scottish baronetcy - had eloped immediately after her final school speech day.The marriage had not lasted twenty-five weeks, let alone years and it was As If It Never Happened.But secrets have a habit of coming out, and when a film crew arrives in the attractive Thamesside village where Heather and Tom live, Heather is horrified to find her ex-husband amongst them.As Heather and Iain meet again, many secrets jostle to be revealed, including Tom's own highly secret life. Heather, her daughter Kate and her mother Delia are all forced to reveal things which they never thought would need to be revealed, and their peaceful Oxfordshire village community rocks with speculation and scandal...A heart-warming Cockney saga from multi-million copy seller Mary Jane Staples. Perfect for fans of Maggie Ford, Kitty Neale and…
Katie Flynn. You won't be able to put it down! READERS ARE LOVING SERGEANT JOE!"Another fun read with some surprising twists and turns" - 5 STARS"A lovely story, and so funny I couldn't help but burst out laughing at times" - 5 STARS"Excellent read" - 5 STARS"A brilliant book...Mary Jane Staples brings her characters to life! Excellent!" - 5 STARS"Awesome - a lovely fun read" - 5 STARS***********************************************************************SHE'LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO KEEP HER FAMILY SAFE FROM HARM...Everyone likes Sergeant Joe. From the family with whom he has lodgings to the bookseller who employs him in a little lucrative and harmless forgery. He is a universal favourite.When he bumps into Dolly Smith - quite literally - he meets a girl who makes quite an impression on him. Dolly is quick, lively, and full of cockney cheek. She is also a little frightened - running from a vicious-looking thug and a sinister foreigner who seem to think she has stolen something valuable. When Joe takes Dolly under his wing he thinks he is just helping her in a momentary predicament. Little does he know his life is going to change forever... For Dolly, bewitching and beguiling - is involved in something quite dangerous...September Starlings: a tender but true to life saga about families and all they entail
By Ruth Hamilton. 1994
This moving and captivating novel will keep you glued to the page and invested from the off. From the SUNDAY…
TIMES BESTSELLER, Ruth Hamilton, perfect for fans of Catherine Cookson, Dilly Court and Josephine Cox.'Very much the successor to Catherine Cookson. Her books are plot driven, they just rip along; laughs, weeps, love, they've got the lot, and they're quality writing as well' - SARAH BROADHURST, RADIO FOUR'This book breaks your heart, it is rare to find a book which stirs so many emotions.' - ***** Reader Review'I couldn't bear to turn off my Kindle... Another great read from Ruth.' - ***** Reader Review'Great story. Found myself not wanting to stop reading.' - ***** Reader Review****************************************************ONE WOMAN'S FIGHT TO FORGE HER OWN FUTURE...Laura Starling, now wealthy and successful, has survived a bitter past.She fled from a tyrannical mother into the clutches of a sadistic man. She endured poverty, fear and pain. Then along came Ben Starling, older, wiser, who smoothed her path and gave her love and security.But now Ben has become a stranger who has slipped beyond her reach. As her stability threatens to disintegrate once more, a thin, waif-like girl from Liverpool thrusts her way into Laura's life - a girl who is to prove a link with the past.But no one can help Laura make the decisions that will alter the course of her existence. As the September starlings gather, Laura realises she must take courage and forge her own future...Selected Writings
By Gerard De Nerval. 2006
Poet, visionary, short-story writer and autobiographer, Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855) explored the uncertain borderlines between dream and reality, irony and…
madness, autobiography and fiction with his groundbreaking writings. This comprehensive selection of his works includes 'Aurélia', the memoir of his madness; the haunting novella of love and memory 'Sylvie' (considered to be a masterpiece by Proust); the hermetic sonnets of 'The Chimeras'; as well as Nerval's experimental fictions and selections from his correspondence, which demonstrate his lucid awareness of how nineteenth-century psychiatry consigned his fertile imagination to the status of mental illness. Together these pieces confirm Nerval's place as a pioneering modernist, a precursor of the French Symbolists and a vital model for such writers as Marcel Proust, André Breton, Antonin Artaud and Michel Leiris.Selected Tales
By Brothers Grimm. 1982
Selected Tales contains some of the most timeless and enchanting folk and fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm, translated…
with an introduction by David Luke in Penguin Classics.These folktales collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are among the most memorable stories in European culture - conjuring up a world of spells and bewitchment, outwitted villains and cruel stepmothers, animal bridegrooms and enchanted princesses. Tales such as 'Hansel and Gretel', 'Little Red Cape' and 'The Robber Bridegroom' depict the dangers lurking in dark forests, and others, including 'Briar-Rose' and 'Snow White' show young beauties punished by unforgiving sorceresses. Other tales include 'Thickasathumb', which portrays a childless young couple whose wish for a baby is granted in an unexpected way, while 'The Frog King' tells of a rash promise made by a haughty princess to share her bed with a frog, and a fortune is won in 'The Blue Lamp', when a soldier gains a kingdom with the help of a magic lamp.David Luke's vibrant translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing the key themes of the tales and the literary background of the Brothers Grimm. This edition also includes new further reading and a chronology, with notes and a glossary.Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) are nowadays simply known as 'the brothers Grimm'. Both brothers were state-appointed librarians in Kassel, and later members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Berlin, where Frederick William IV of Prussia had invited them to settle. Two of Germany's greatest scholars, Jacob is regarded as the founder of the scientific study of the German language, and with his brother Wilhelm initiated the Deutsches Wörterbuch, a dictionary of all words in modern High German since 1450.If you enjoyed the Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm, you might like Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, also available in Penguin Classics.Since their first publication in the 1830s and 1840s, Edgar Allan Poe's extraordinary Gothic tales have established themselves as classics…
of horror fiction and have also created many of the conventions which still dominate the genre of detective fiction. As well as being highly enjoyable, Poe's tales are works of very real intellectual exploration. Attentive to the historical and political dimensions of these very American tales, this new selection places the most popular -- `The Fall of the House of Usher', `The Masque of the Red Death', `The Murders in the Rue Morgue; and `The Purloined Letter' -- alongside less well-known travel narratives, metaphysical essays and political satires.Selected Tales
By James Henry. 2001
Throughout his life, Henry James was drawn to the short story form for the freedom and variety it offered. The…
nineteen stories in this selection span James's career, from brief tales to longer works, all exploring his concerns with the old world and the new, money, fame and art. 'Daisy Miller', the work that first brought him fame, depicts a bold, unsophisticated American girl abroad, and 'In the Cage' portrays a young telegraphist's romantic fantasies about customers who send telegrams from her post office. In 'The Birthplace' a Stratford tour guide embellishes the Shakespeare legend, while in the late masterpiece 'The Jolly Corner', an elderly American returns from Europe and encounters a strange apparition. Haunting, witty and beautifully drawn, James's tales are as complex and resonant as his novels.Selected Stories
By D. H. Lawrence. 2007
This collection of short stories traces D. H. Lawrence's development as a writer. His early tales often draw on personal…
experiences, as in 'Odour of Chrysanthemums', a work he described as 'full of my childhood's atmosphere', while the horror of the First World War haunts 'England, My England'. Later stories, such as 'Things', powerfully express his evolving ideas about the duality of our lives. With their complex characters, these stories illuminate emotional lives and, above all, illustrate Lawrence's passionate belief about the destructive forces in modern society and their effect on love.With an Introduction by Louise Welsh and Notes by Sue WilsonSelected Stories: Selected Stories Of Rudyard Kipling
By Rudyard Kipling. 1987
This collection opens with The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows, the first story Kipling published as a young journalist in…
india, and ends with an acknowledged masterpiece, The Gardener, written 50 years later in the aftermath of the great war.Selected Short Stories
By Honoré De Balzac. 1977
One of the greatest French novelists, Balzac was also an accomplished writer of shorter fiction. This volume includes twelve of…
his finest short stories - many of which feature characters from his epic series of novels the Comédie Humaine. Compelling tales of acute social and psychological insight, they fully demonstrate the mastery of suspense and revelation that were the hallmarks of Balzac's genius. In The Atheist's Mass, we learn the true reason for a distinguished atheist surgeon's attendance at religious services; La Grande Breteche describes the horrific truth behind the locked doors of a decaying country mansion, while The Red Inn relates a brutal tale of murder and betrayal. A fascinating counterpoint to the renowned novels, all the stories collected here stand by themselves as mesmerizing works by one of the finest writers of nineteenth-century France.Selected Short Stories (Collins Classics Ser.)
By Rabindranath Tagore. 2005
Poet, novelist, painter and musician, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is the grand master of Bengali culture. Written during the 1890s, the…
stories in this selection brilliantly recreate vivid images of Bengali life and landscapes in their depiction of peasantry and gentry, casteism, corrupt officialdom and dehumanizing poverty. Yet Tagore is first and foremost India's supreme Romantic poet, and in these stories he can be seen reaching beyond mere documentary realism towards his own profoundly original vision.Selected Short Fiction
By Charles Dickens. 1976
This witty and amusing collection of short pieces shows Dickens liberated from the more formal and sustained demands of the…
novel and experimenting with a diverse range of fictional techniques. In his tales of the supernatural, he creates frighteningly believable, spine-tingling stories of prophetic dreams and visions, as well as more fantastical adventures with goblins and apparitions. Impressionistic sketches combine imaginatively heightened travel journals with wry observations of home and abroad, while in his dramatic monologues, Dickens demonstrates his talent for exploring the secret workings of the human mind. These short works display Dickens's exuberant sense of comedy and character as his imagination is given free rein.Seeds Of Greatness
By Jon Canter. 2006
Two friends grow up in a North London Jewish suburb. David is bright, parent-pleasing and obviously destined for great things.…
But somehow he ends up earning peanuts in a Suffolk bookshop while his devious and wayward friend Jack, becomes rich and famous as a TV chat-show host.When Jack dies, his widow and publisher commission David to write his biography; after all, dependable David can be relied upon not to dish the dirt about the sex, the drugs and the women. David however soon realises that it's finally time he stopped doing what is expected of him. Instead he must write the true story of the forty year friendship that has dominated his life and then maybe he'll get Jack out of his system. But what David soon finds is that he can never be completely free of Jack...The Secrets Between Us
By Laura Madeleine. 2018
A gripping mystery with a heart-breaking revelation, The Secrets Between Us is a sublimely satisfying story of lost love, betrayal…
and the dangers of war.‘Sublimely satisfying’ Veronica Henry, author of The Forever HouseHigh in the mountains in the South of France, eighteen-year-old Ceci Corvin is trying hard to carry on as normal. But in 1943, there is no such thing as normal; especially not for a young woman in love with the wrong person. Scandal, it would seem, can be more dangerous than war.Fifty years later, Annie is looking for her long-lost grandmother. Armed with nothing more than a sheaf of papers, she travels from England to Paris in pursuit of the truth. But as she traces her grandmother’s story, Annie uncovers something she wasn’t expecting, something that changes everything she knew about her family – and everything she thought she knew about herself…Perfect for fans of Kate Morton's The Lake House and Dinah Jeffries' Before the Rains.*Laura Madeleine's writing is...‘Mouth-watering and mysterious’ Leah Fleming, author of The Glovemaker's Daughter‘Delightful and delicious’ Nina George, author of The Little Paris BookshopThe Secret History Of Modernism
By C. K. Stead. 2001
A chance meeting has New Zealand writer Laszlo Winter thinking back to his time in London in the late 1950s.…
The Empire might be in a state of collapse, but for young 'colonials', England remains a mythical place that draws them from the farthest corners of the globe. There was Australian Samantha Conlan, clever, desirable, hopelessly in love with married Jewish New Zealander Freddy Goldstein, who carried with him a dark history. Rajiv, an earnest young Indian at work on a study of Yeats and the Indian mind. The enigmatic Margot, whose bond with her athletic brother Mark troubled Laszlo in ways he didn't quite understand. Heather, the call girl with whom Laszlo exchanged lessons on Shakespeare for lessons in love. The great writers of the time, and the details of their lives are recorded by Samantha in her idiosyncratic research project that she named her Secret History of Modernism. There was all of that and more, and then there was Laszlo, knocking blindly about among them, despairing at his academic prospects, and gradually realising that he was, would only ever be, a storyteller. Now, years later, from the other side of the world, the people seem to spring to life again, in this beguiling work by one of New Zealand's foremost writers.The Secret Garden
By Frances Hodgson Burnett. 2012
Rediscover the favourite childhood classic.***With a heartwarming introduction by Sophie Dahl***What little girl can turn a whole household upside down…
and breathe new life back into a strange, old manor? The wonderfully contrary, strong-willed, angry, misunderstood Mary Lennox.When Mary Lennox is sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody says she is the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It is true, too. Mary is pale, spoilt and quite contrary. But she is also horribly lonely. Then one day she hears about a garden in the grounds of the Manor that has been kept locked and hidden for years.And when a friendly robin helps Mary find the key, she discovers the most magical place anyone could imagine...'The book is brim full of magic and joy' Sunday TelegraphThe Secret Agent: With an Introduction by Giles Foden
By Joseph Conrad. 2007
‘Spookily topical’ Guardian Read the world’s first political thriller.London is under threat. It has become a haven for political exiles…
and anarchists. Frequent bomb threats and disturbances interrupt the lives of the city's inhabitants, who live in fear of the terrorists in their midst. One such terrorist is Verloc. He is the secret agent who is given the mission to strike right at the heart of London's pride by blowing up Greenwich Observatory. But his decision to drag his innocent family into the plot leads to tragic consequences on a more personal than political level. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GILES FODENThe Second Time I Saw You: The Oxford Blue Series #2 (The Oxford Blue series #2)
By Pippa Croft. 2014
If you can't get enough of E. L. James, Sylvia Day and Samantha Young, you'll love this passionate romance. It's…
the beginning of a new term at Wyckham College, Oxford, and a fresh start for Lauren Cusack. Her fingers were badly burnt when a whirlwind romance with gorgeous English aristocrat, Alexander Hunt, became too hot to handle - and now she's determined to keep her distance. But her resolve is shaken when Alexander appears on her doorstep, completely torn apart after hearing devastating news. Lauren knows that she should stay away, but their chemistry is undeniable and she soon finds herself back in Alexander's arms. Can Lauren handle the drama that comes with Alexander Hunt? Or will she have to sacrifice the most exhilarating passion she's ever known . . .You won't be able to put down the sizzling second novel in Pippa Croft's Oxford Blue romance series. ____________'This series has me hooked' 5***** reader review'Seriously addictive!' 5***** reader review'An exciting, sexy read' 5***** reader review'Absolutely gripping romance with plenty of heat' 5***** reader reviewSecond From Last In The Sack Race: (Henry Pratt) (Henry Pratt #5)
By David Nobbs. 1983
Born into poverty, saddled with a born loser and parrot-strangler for a dad, short sighted and ungainly, young Henry Pratt…
doesn't exactly have a head start in life.But in David Nobbs’s brilliantly funny evocation of a Yorkshire boyhood, unathletic and over-imaginative little Pratt proves he can stick up for himself with the stoic good nature of the great British underdog