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- Fiction/Nonfiction
(English)
13 Ghost Stories from Whitby,
Michael Wray, Anne Marshall, Chris Firth, East Coast Books,
ISBN 0953640507, 52 pages, 1999
From witches and wizards and long-tailed buzzards and
creeping things which run in hedge bottoms. Good Lord,
deliver us!
A Child Called 'It', Dave Pelzer,
Orion Non-Fiction, ISBN 0-75283-750-8, 170 pages, 2002
As a child Dave Pelzer was brutally beaten and starved by
his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother, a mother who
played tortuous, unpredictable games that left one of her
sons nearly dead.
Eine monströse,
schlimme Geschichte von
Kindsmisshandlung.
A nauseating, mind
boggling story of child abuse. Can it really be
true?
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony
Burgess, Penguin Classics, ISBN 0-14-118260-1, 140 pages,
2000
Fifteen-year-old Alex doesn't just like ultra-violence-he
also enjoys rape, drugs and Beethoven's Ninth. He and his
gang rampage through a dystopian future, hunting for
terrible thrills.
A Coffin for Dimitrios, Eric
Ambler, Vintage, ISBN 0-375-72671-3, 304 pages, 2001
A chance encounter with a Turkish colonel leads Charles
Latimer, the author of a handful of successful mysteries,
into a world of sinister political and criminal maneuvers.
At first merely curious to reconstruct the career of the
notorious Dimitrios, whose body has been identified in an
Istanbul morgue, Latimer soon finds himself caught up in a
shadowy web of assassination, espionage, drugs, and
treachery that spans the Balkans.
A David Lodge Trilogy (Changing
Places, Small World, Nice Work), David Lodge, Penguin, ISBN
0-140-17297-1, 898 pages, 1993
This book was recommended to me by Judith Strachan (Fort
William) and Jacques Berthoud (York). It's got to be
great.
A Friend of the Earth, T. C.
Boyle, Bloomsbury, ISBN 0-7475-4753-X, 275 pages, 2000
It's 2025. Tyrone O'Shaughnessy Tierwater is eking out a
bleak living in southern California, managing a pop-star's
private menagerie, holding some of the last surviving
animals in the world. Global warming is a
reality.
Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë,
Oxford World's Classics, ISBN 0-19-283478-9, 211 pages,
1998
Drawing directly on her own experiences as a governess, Anne
Brontë set out to describe the almost unbelievable
pressures that the governess's life involved - the
isolation, the frustration, the insensitive and sometimes
actively cruel treatment on the part of employers and their
families.
All Hands Down, The True Story of
the Soviet Attack on the USS Scorpion, Kenneth Sewell and
Jerome Preisler, Simon & Schuster, ISBN
978-0-7432-9798-1, 238 pages, 2008
Forty years ago, in May 1968, the submarine USS Scorpion
sank in mysterious circumstances with a loss of ninety-nine
lives. The tragedy occured during the height of the Cold War
between the United States and the Soviet Union, and it
followed by only weeks the sinking of a Soviet sub near
Hawaii.
All that remains, Patricia
Cornwell, Warner Books, ISBN 0-7515-0110-7, 438 pages,
1992
A killer is stalking youn lovers. Taking their lives ... and
leaving just one tantalizing clue ...
A Man Named Dave, Dave Pelzer,
Orion Non-Fiction, ISBN 0-75284-408-3, 426 pages, 1999
As a child Dave Pelzer was abused by his mother, who
considered him to be an 'it', not a child. But he survived
and lived to tell the his courageous story.
And be a Villain, Rex Stout,
Bantam, ISBN 0-553-23931-7, 242 pages, 1994
A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America's
greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero
Wolfe is one of the greatest fictional detectives of all
time.
An expensive place to die, Len
Deighton, Harper Collins, ISBN 0-586-02671, 244 pages,
1995
A 'clinic' on Paris's Avenue Foch designed to cater lavishly
for multiple perversions, staffed by a group of sexually and
intellectually high-powered girls and equipped with devices
ranging from an Iron Maiden to psychedelic
truth-drugs.
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt,
Flamingo, ISBN 0-00-651034-5, 426 pages, 1996
'Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the
miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable
Irish Catholic childhood.'
Angels and Demons, Dan Brown,
Corgi Books, ISBN 0-552-15073-8, 620 pages, 2001
When a world renowned scientist is found brutally murdered,
a Harvard professor, Robert Landon, is summoned to identify
the mysterious symblol seared onto the dead man's chest. His
conclusion: it is the work of the Illuminati, a secrect
brotherhood presumed extinct for nearly four hundred
years-now reborn to continue their bitter vendetta against
their sworn enemy, the Catholic church.
Animal Farm, George Orwell,
Penguin, ISBN 0-14-118270-9, 112 pages, 1989
'It's the history of a revolution that went wrong-and of the
excellent excuses that were forthcoming at every step for
the perversion of the original doctrine', wrote George
Orwell for the first edition of Animal Farm in
1945.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man, James Joyce, Penguin Classics, ISBN 0-14-243734-4,
329 pages, 2003
The story portrays Stephen Dedalus's Dublin Childhood and
youth and, in doing so, provides an oblique self-portrait of
the young James Joyce. At its center are questions of origin
and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship
of an artist to his family, culture, and race.
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John
Irving, Black Swan, ISBN 0-552-99369-7, 637 pages, 1990
Eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League
baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire, hits a foul ball
and kills his best friend's mother. Owen doesn't believe in
accidents; he believes he is God's instrument.
Archangel, Gerald Seymour, Punch,
ISBN 0-00-617299-7, 352 pages, 1983
Michael Holly, mechanical engineer, is in Moscow to clinch a
deal for his firm, and to run a small errand for the British
Intelligence Service. But he is arrested. The Sowiet secret
police will exchange him for a key Soviet agent being held
in London. Unfortunately the agent dies prematurely, and
Holly gets fifteen years in a desolate labour
camp.
Archangel, Robert Harris, Random
House, ISBN 0-679-42888-7, 373 pages, 1998
Archangel tells the story of four days in the life of Fluke
Kelso, a dissipated, middle-aged former Oxford historian,
who is in Moscow to attend a conference on the newly opened
Soviet archives. One night, Kelso is visited in his hotel
room by an old NKVD officer, a former bodygard of the secret
police chief Lavrenty Beria. The old man claims to have been
at stalin's dache on the night Stalin had his fatal stroke,
and to have helped Beria steal the dictator's private
papers, among them a notebook. Kelso decides to his last
morning in Moscow to check out the old man's
story.
A Star Called Henry, Roddy Doyle,
Jonatan Cape, ISBN 0-224-06019-8, 342 pages, 1999
An historical novel like none before it. A subversive look
behind the legends of Irish republicanism, at its centre a
passionate love story, this is a triunphant work of
fiction.
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles
Dickens, Signet Classic, ISBN 0-451-52656-2, 367 pages,
1997
The storming of the Bastille ... the death carts with dheir
doomed cargo ... the swift drop of the guillotine blade ...
this is the French Revolution that Charles Dickens vividly
captures in his famous work A Tale of Two Cities.
A Time to Die, the untold story of
the Kursk tragedy, Robert Moore, Crown Publishers, ISBN
0-609-61000-7, 262 pages, 2002
In A Time to Die, a critically acclaimed bestseller in the
United Kingdom, international reporter Robert Moore - who
covered the Kursk tragedy from Russia as it happened - draws
on exclusive access he obtained to top Russian military
figures in telling the inside story of the disaster with the
factual depth of the best journalism and the compelling
moments-by-moment tension of a thriller.
Baden-Powell, Tim Jeal, Yale
University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-12513-9, 670 pages,
1989
Founder of the Boy Scouts movement, R.S.S Baden-Powell was a
British military hero during the Boer War and an author,
actor, artist, spy and sportsman. In this absorbing and
humane account of Baden-Powell's extraordinary life, Tim
Jeal reveals for the first time the complex figure behind
the saintly public mask, showing him to be a man of both
dazzling talents and crippling secret fears.
Being, Kevin Brooks, Penguin
Books, ISBN 978-0-141-31910-0, 325 pages
'A gut-wrenching thriller ... so powerfully evocative that
it is like sitting in a private cinema of the mind.'
Telegraph
There's really a gut
wrenching part in the story. The end is not fully
satisfiying, controversial I'd say.
Betrayal, The Story of an American
Spy, Tim Weiner, David Johnston, Neil A. Lewis, Richard
Cohen Books, ISBN 1-86066-046-0, 291 pages, 1995
This New York Times reporting team's taut, remarkably vivid
account of former CIA agent Aldrich Ames's treason, arrest
and 1994 conviction as a mole for Moscow read like a spy
thriller. Between 1985 and 1993 Aldrich Ames sold out every
single agent the United States had in the Soviet
Union.
Bill Clinton, My Life,
Autobiography, Hutchinson London, ISBN 0-09-179527-3, 957
pages, 2004
No use I copy anything from the blurb here. Enough has been
said in the press by people far more acute and intelligent
than yours truly. I just had to have it. Most probably I've
read far wors books than Bill's.
Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse,
Penguin, ISBN 0-14-001783-6, 187 pages, 1962
The dimmer his surroundings, the more fantastic are his
compensatory day-dreams. Neither his family nor his
undertaker employers take kindly to his fantasies; nor do
his three girl-friends, at least two of whom he is engaged
to! So Billy wades through a confused tragic-comic Saturday,
as his past lies follow him here, there and everywhere. And
at the end of it all, his bang of revolt peters out in an
adolescent whimper.
Black Dogs, Ian McEwan, Vintage,
ISBN 0-099-27708-5, 174 pages, 1998
In 1946, a young couple set off on their honeymoon. Fired by
their ideals and passion for one another, they plan an
idyllic holiday, only to encounter an experience of darkness
so terrifying it alters their lives for ever.
Black Rabbit Summer, Kevin Brooks,
Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0-141-31911-7, 438 pages, 2008
'Black Rabbit Summer is a potent cocktail. Brooks is a
masterly writer, and this book would put many authors of
"grown up" detective fiction to shame.' Louisa Young
My second book by
Kevin Brooks. Good first half of the story but the second
half seems a bit drawn out. Not as dense as Road of the
Death.
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley,
Voyager Classics, ISBN 0-00-711589-X, 237 pages, 2001
Set in the year of stability A.F. 632 the world state has
two billion standardized citizens steeped in the virtues of
passive obedience, material consumption and mindless
promiscuity. Hatcheries breed a mass of Epsilon-Minuses for
menial labour, and fewer of the castes ranked above
them.
A simplified edition
is available from 'Longman Fiction' for the advanced
student of English, ISBN 0-582-27522-9
Catch-22, Joseph Heller, Vintage,
ISBN 0-09-953601-3, 570 pages, 1994
Widly original, brutally gruesome, a dazzling performance
that will outrage as many readers as it delights. Vulgarly,
bitterly, savagely funny, it will not be forgotten by those
who can take it. New York Times.
Catcher in the Rye, Jerome David
Salinger, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-023750-X, 192 pages, 1994
This new edition reproduces, for the first time in Penguin
Books, the original American text. A 16-year old American
boy relates in his own words the experiences he goes through
at school and after, and reveals with unusual candour the
workings of his own mind. What does a boy in his teens think
and feel about his teachers, parents, friends and
acquaintances?
Cause of Death, Patricia Cornwell,
Warner Books, ISBN 0-7515-1917-0, 370 pages, 1996
New York's Eve and the final murder scene of Virginia's
bloodiest year takes Scarpetta thirty feet below the
Elizabeth River's icy surface.
Charity, Len
Deighton, Harper Collins, ISBN
0-00-647900-6, 298
pages, 1997
With the cold war drawing to a close, Benard Samson finds
office life - whether in London or Berlin - can be just as
perilous as operating in the field. Surrounded by schemers
and their secrects, he must look out for his own
interests.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
Roald Dahl, Puffin, ISBN 0-14-131130-4, 190 pages, 2001
Mr wonka's inventions are out of this world. He's thought up
every kind of sweet imaginable in his amazing chocolate
factory, but no one has ever seen inside, or met Mr Wonka!
Charlie Bucket can't believe his luck when he finds a golden
ticket and wins the trip of a lifetime around the famous
chocolate factory.
Charlie and the Great Glass
Elevator, Roald Dahl, Puffin, ISBN 0-14-130112-0, 159
pages, 1998
Last seen flying through the sky in a giant elevator in
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie Bucket's back for
another adventure. When the giant elevator picks up speed,
Charlie, Willy Wonka, and the gang are sent hurtling through
space and time. Visiting the world's first space hotel,
battling the dreaded Vermicious Knids, and saving the world
are only a few stops along this remarkable, intergalactic
joyride.
Cinnamon Gardens, Shyam
Selvadurai, Anchor Books, ISBN 1862300739, 386 pages,
2000
In this novel set in 1920s Ceylon, the Cinnamon Gardens is a
residential enclave of wealthy Ceylonese. Among them is
Annalukshmi, an independent and high-spirited young teacher
intent on thwarting her parents' plans to arrange her
marriage.
Cleaver, Tim Parks, Vintage, ISBN
978-0-099-50725-3, 316 pages, 2007
Overweight and overwrought, Harold Cleaver, London's most
successful journalist, abruptly abandons home, partner,
mistresses and above all television, the instument that
brought him identity and power. It ist the autumn of 2004
and he flies to Milan and heads deep into the South Tyrol,
fetching up in the village of Luttach. His quest: to find a
remote mountain hut, to get beyond the reach of email, and
the mobile phone, and the interminable clamor of the public
voice.
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell,
Sceptre, ISBN 0-340-83320-3, 529 pages, 2004
'A remarkable book, made up of six resonating strands; the
narrative reaches back into the 19th century, to colonialism
and savagery in the Pacific islands, and forwards into a
dark future, beyond the collapse of civilisation. It knits
together science fiction, political thriller and historical
pastiche with musical virtuositiy and linguistic exuberance:
there won't be a bigger, bolder novel this year'. Justine
Jordan, Guardian
Dark Shadows Falling, Joe Simpson,
The Mountaineers, ISBN 0-89886-549-2, 206 pages, 1997
Climbers on the South Col of Everest rest in their tent,
looking on as an Indian climber slowly dies in the snow not
thirty yards away. Film footage is later shown on
television. How could this have come to pass? Have the noble
values that once characterized mountaineering been lost
forever?
Dead Souls, Ian Rankin, Orion,
ISBN 0-75282-684-0, 482 pages, 1999
A call from an old friend back memories and more than a
little guilt for DI John Rebus of the Lothian and Borders
police. Suddenly seems Edinburgh's streets are crowded with
the lost and forgotten.
Death of a Salesman, Arthur
Miller, Reclam, ISBN 3-15-009172-1, 170 pages, 1984
Miller's most successful play.
Deception Point, Dan Brown, Corgi
Books, ISBN 0-552-15176-9, 585 pages, 2004
When a new NASA satellite detects evidence of an
astonishingly rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the
floundering space agency proclaims a much needed
victory....a victory that has profound implications for U.S.
space policy and the impending presidential
election.
Deep Descent, Adventure and Death
Diving the Andrea Doria, Kevin F. Murray, Simon &
Schuster, ISBN 0-7434-0063-1, 300 pages, 2001
Considered the Mt. Everest of diving, the Andrea Doria is
the ultimate deepwater wreck challenge. Over the years, a
small but fanaticalgroup of extreme scuba divers have
investigated the Andrea Doria, pushing themselves to the
very limits of human endurance to explore her-and not all
have returned.
Genau so faszinierend
wie Shadow Divers. Der Autor scheut sich auch nicht
gelegentlich Kritik anzubringen.
As fascinating as
Shadow Divers. The author does not mince words when it comes
to fatal accidents.
Desperate Characters, Paula Fox,
W. W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-31894-X, 156 pages, 1970
Otto and Sophie Bentwood live childless in a renovated
Brookly brownstone. After Sophie is bitten on the hand while
trying to feed a half-starved neighorhood cat, a series of
small and ominous disasters begin to plague their lives,
revealing the fault lines and fractures in a marriage-and a
society-wrenching itself apart.
Disgrace, Coetzee J. M., Vintage,
ISBN 0-099-28952-0, 220 pages, 1999
After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical
University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice
divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student.
Dream Children, A. N. Wilson,
Abacus, ISBN 0-349-11125-1, 278 pages, 1998
When Oliver Gold, distinguished philosopher and near-guru,
moves into the faded North London home of widow Janet Rose,
he confers upon her all-female household intellectual
prestige and the gift of his honourable masculinity. Oliver
Gold becomes the women's adored and cosseted pet, their
touchstone and secular saint.
Dreams from my Father, Barack
Obama, Canongate, ISBN 978-1-84767-438-8, 442 pages,
2009
'Away from my mother, away from my grandparents, I was
engaged in a fitful interior struggle. I was trying to raise
myself to be a black man in America, and beyond the given of
my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what
that
meant.'.
Dubliners,
James Joyce, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-018554-2, 316 pages,
1914/1956/1992
In Dubliners, completed when Joyce was only twenty-five, he
produced a definitive group portrait. It is abook, as
Terence Brown suggests in his stimulating Introduction,
'rooted in intensely accurate apprehension of the detail of
Dublin life'. Extensive notes to this new edition fill in
the rich network of local and historical references. And
yet, beyond its brilliant and almost brutal realism, it is
also a book full of enigmas, ambiguities and symbolic
resonances.
Elizabeth Taylor, Ellis Amburn,
Robson Books, ISBN 1-86105-369-X, 350 pages, 2000
Frequently the target of scandalous tabloid headlines,
Elizabeth Taylor's love affairs and failed marriages have
captured the attention of the world's press for almost half
a century. Just when we thought we knew everything about
this screen siren, Ellis Amburn blows the lid off some of
Hollywood's best kept secrects.
English Passengers, Matthew
Kneale, Penguin, ISBN 0-140-28521-0, 462 pages, 2001
It is 1857 and the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson has set out for
Tasmania, hoping to find the true site of the garden of
Eden. But the journey is turning out to be less than
straightforward, dissent is growing between him and sinister
racial-theorist Dr Potter, and, unknown to both, the ship
they have hurriedly chartered is in fact a Manx smuggling
vessel, fleeing British Customs.
Enigma, Robert Harris, Arrow, ISBN
0-09-999200-0, 390 pages, 1995
March 1943. Inside Britain's codebreaking centre at
Bletchley Park, the cyptanalysts are facing their worst
nightmare: Nazi Germany's U-boats have unexpectedly changed
their Enigma cipher, and the Battle of the Atlantic suddenly
hangs in the balance.
Everything is Illuminated,
Jonathan Safran Foer, Penguin Books, ISBN 0-141-01318-4, 276
pages, 2003
A young man arrives in the Ukraine. He is searching for the
woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the
Nazis. Unfortunately, however, he is aided in his quest by
Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English
into bizarre new forms.
Extra Virgin, Annie Hawes,
Penguin, ISBN 0-140-29423-6, 338 pages, 2001
When Annie Hawes buys a hillside cottage in Italy for no
more than the price of a dodgy second-hand car, a capable
young Englishwoman becomes a surprisingly incapable Ligurian
signorina.
Faith, Peter James, Orion, ISBN
0-75283-711-7, 465 pages, 2000
To Ross Ransome, perfection is more than just an ideal-it's
his living. For Ransome is one of the most successful, and
certainly one of the richest, plastic surgeons in the
business. Even his wife is perfect. After all, he has spent
hours in surgery getting her that way. So when his wife
becomes ill and turns her back first on conventional
medicine and thaen on her marriage as she seeks help from a
charismatic alternative therapist, Ransome feels bitter and
betrayed.
Family of Spies, Inside the John
Walker Spy Ring, Pete Earley, Bantam Books, ISBN
0-553-28222-0, 456 pages, 1989
Over seventeen years John Walker sold more than one million
secrets to the Russians - vital information on codes, ship
movements, weaponry, tactics, and plans so crucial to the
survival and security of the United States that a top KGB
official called the Walker spy ring "the most important
operation in the KGB history".
Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of
Pleasure, John Cleland, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-062088-5, 221
pages, 1748
From her position of wealth and happy respectability, Fanny
Hill looks backat her early life and disreputable
adventures. Arriving in London alone, poor and innocent, she
falls into the hands of a brothel-keeper. But only when she
is separated from the man she loves does she enrol in the
'unhappy proffession' of prostitution.
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas
Hardy, Oxford World's Classics, ISBN 0-19-283391-X, 468
pages, 1998
Edited with notes by Suzanne B. Falck-Yi. With an
introduction by Simon Gatrell.
The first of Hardy's novels to give a name of Wessex to the
landscape of south-west England, and the first to gain him
widespread popularity as a novelist. When the beautiful and
spirited Bathseba Everdene inherits her own farm, she
attracts three very different suitors.
Fatherland, Richard Harris, Harper
Mass Market Paperback, ISBN 006-1006629, 1995
Berlin 1964: It has been 20 years since Nazi Germany won
World War II, and most good German citizens are gearing up
for Hitler's 75th birthday celebration. But amidst the
preparations, a disillusioned detective investigates a
murder and discovers a conspiracy of astounding
terror.
Fermat's last Theorem, Simon
Singh, Fourth Estate, ISBN 1-85702-669-1, 352 pages,
1998
The story of a riddle that confounded the world's greatest
minds for 358 years.
Friends in high Places, Donna
Leon, Arrow, ISBN 0-09-926932-5, 337 pages, 2000
When Commissario Guido Brunetti is visited by a young
bureaucrat investigating the lack of official approval for
the building of his apartment years before, his first
reaction, like any other Venetian, is to think of whom he
knows who might bring pressure to bear on the relevant
government department.
Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy
Chevalier, Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-225890-0, 248 pages,
1999
A servant's life, a master's obsession, a matter of honour.
'Beautifully written, mysterious and almost unbearably
poignant - a magical experience'. Deborah
Moggach.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's
Stone, Joanne K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, ISBN
0-7475-3274-5, 222 pages, 1997
Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he is
rescued by an owl, taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft
and Wizardry, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a
deadly duel. The Reason: Harry Potter is a
Wizard!
Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets, Joanne K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, ISBN
0-7475-4960-5, 366 pages, 1998
Harry Potter is a wizard. he is in his second year at
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Little does he
know that this year will be just as eventful as the last
...
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban, Joanne K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, ISBN
0-7475-4629-0, 318 pages, 1999
When Harry gets to Hogwarts, the atmosphere is tense.
There's an escaped mass murderer on the loose, and the
sinister prison guards of Azkaban have been called in to
guard the school.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of
Fire, Joanne K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, ISBN 0-7475-4624-X,
636 pages, 2000
Harry Potter can't wait for the start of the school year. It
is his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and
Wizardry, and there are spells to be learnt and Divination
lessons (sigh) to be attended. Harry is expecting these:
however, other quite unexpected events are already on the
march.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, a
Biography, Pierre Assouline, Thames & Hudson, ISBN
0-500-51223-X, 280 pages, 2005
The twentieth century was that of the image, and the
legendary photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, born in 1908,
was the eye of the century. His life story and the
interpretation of his work reveal first and foremost the
history of a vision.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, the man, the
image & the world, Robert Delpire und andere,
Thames & Hudson, ISBN 0-500-54267-8, 430
pages, 2003
Henri Cartier-Bresson is one of the finest and most eminent
image makers of our time. His extraordinary photographs are
shaped by an eye and a mind legendary for their unerring
ability to get to the heart of the matter.
HMS Surprise, Patrick O'Brian,
Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-649917-1, 362 pages, 2002
It follows the variable fortunes of Captain Jack Aubrey's
career in Nelson's navy as he attempts to hold his ground
against admirals, colleagues and the enemy.
Hotel du Lac, Anita Brookner,
Penguin, ISBN 014-01-4747-0, 184 pages, 1993
Into the rarefied atmosphere of the Hotel dur Lac timidly
walks Edith Hope, romantic novelist and holder of modest
dreams. Exiled from home after embarrassing herself and her
friends, Edith has refused to sacrifice her ideals and
remains stubbornly single. But among the pampered women and
minor nobility Edith finds Mr Neville, and her chance to
escape from a life of humiliating spinsterhood is
renewed.
Hot Six, Janet Evanovich, Pan
Books, ISBN 0-330-37124-X, 324 pages, 2001
'The undisputed queen of the comedy beat. A hilarious
rollercoastr ride with a heroine who would have Bridget
Jones for breakfast.' Guardian
Howard Hughes, the untold Story,
Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske, Time Warner
Paperbacks, ISBN 0-7515-3636-9, 486 pages, 2003
Remembered primarily as an eccentric and deluded
billionaire, Howard Hughes was once America's golden boy, a
celebrated aviator and Hollywood legend who romanced
hundreds of beautiful women. The scope of Hughes' life made
him one of the most influential figures in
America.
I'm the King of the Castle, Susan
Hill, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-003491-9, 226 pages, 1989
An extraordinary, evocative novel boiling over with the
terrors of childhood.
In America, Susan Sontag, Vintage,
ISBN 0-099-47321-6, 387 pages, 2001
In 1876 a group of Poles led by Maryna Zalezowska, Poland's
greatest actress, emigrate to the United States and travel
to California to found a 'utopian' commune outside the
village of Anaheim.
In cold blood, Truman Capote,
Penguin, ISBN 0-140-27418-9, 343 pages, 1965
A true account of a multiple murder and its
consequences.
In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel
Philbrick, Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-653120-2, 302 pages
The sinking of the Nantucket whaleship Essex by an enraged
spermwhale far out in the Pacific in November 1820 set in
train one of the most dramatic sea stories of all
time.
Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer,
Anchor Books, ISBN 978-0-307-38717-2, 207 pages,
1997
In april 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family
hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness
north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson
McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity,
abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all
the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for
himelf.
Fortunately, Krakauer
does not try to write a "fiction-novel" but keeps to the
facts rendered by the "hero's" journal and
interviews.
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer ,
Anchor Books, ISBN 0-385-49478-5, 333 pages, 1999
This is the terrifying story of what really happened that
fateful day at the top of the world, during what would be
the deadliest season in the history of Everest. In this
harrowing yet breathtaking narrative, Krakauer takes the
reader along with his ill-fated expedition, step by
precarious step, from Kathmandu to the mountain's pinnacle
where, plagued by a combination of hubris, greed, poor
judgement, and plain bad luck, they would fall prey to the
mountain's unpredictable fury.
A searing
book.
It's Not About the Bike, My
Journey Back to Life, Lance Armstrong, Yellow Jersey Press,
ISBN 0-224-06087-2, 294 pages, 2001
At twenty-four, Lance Armstrong was already well on his way
to becoming a sporting legend. Then, in October 1996, he was
diagnosed with stage four testicular cancer-doctors gave him
a 40 % chance of survival. On that day Armstrong's life
changed for ever and in typical fashion he met the challenge
head on-this was one fight he was determined not to
lose.
James Dean: at Speed, Lee Raskin,
David Bull Publishing, ISBN 1-893618-49-8, 144 pages,
2005
Featuring vivid photographs, personal memoriabila, and
telling reminiscences from his closest friends and family,
James Dean: at Speed captures Jimmy's life both on and off
the screen and reveals an unseen side of this quintessential
American icon. The book unveils dozens of previously
unpublished photos taken by family, friends, and amateur
photographers.
James Dean - fifty Years ago,
Dennis Stock, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, ISBN
0-8109-5903-8, 128 pages, 80 duotone illustrations, 2005
Like a restless ghost, James Dean (1931-1955) continues to
haunt us. Though he died fifty years ago, the enigmatic star
of East of Eden (1955), Rebel without a Cause (1955), and
Giant (1956) still symbolizes the mystery and torment of
adoloscence - an image that his sudden, violent death fixed
forever in the public mind.
Simply
great!
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë,
Oxford World's Classics, ISBN 0-19-283965-9, 488 pages,
2000
Jane Eyre is a novel of passion - of anger, defiance, and of
overwhelming desire. No novel, before or since, has caught
so precisely the complex emotions of childhood, where
feelings of powerlessness can mix with rage, and a bitter
sense of injustice.
Jennifer Government, Max Barry,
Abacus, ISBN 0-349-11762-4, 336 pages, 2003
In the future, the world will be run by giant American
corporations. Everybody will be so happy, tax-free and rich
that they will change their name to that of their
company.
Journey to the Center of the
Earth, Jules Verne, Penguin Classics, ISBN
0-14-062139-3, 254 pages, 1994
With his nephew and a guide the Professor travels to
Iceland. Their journey to the center of the earth begins on
the summit of a volcano and takes them down through secret
passages, across a desolate underground sea populated by
prehistoric marine monsters, on what may be a voyage of no
return.
J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American
Century, David C. Cassidy, The John Hopkins University
Press, ISBN 978-0-8018-9317-9, 462 pages, 2005
David C. Cassidy's celebrated biography is more than the
life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant physicist
who served as scientific director for the Manhattan Project.
It also tells the hidden story of the political and social
forces that shaped the world in the 20th century, when the
rise of American science contributed mightily to the
country's emergence as a dominant power in world
affairs.
Knots & Crosses, Ian Rankin,
Orion, ISBN 0-75280-942-3, 226 pages, 1998
'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of
that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you
...?
Let it Bleed, Ian Rankin, St.
Martin's, ISBN 0-312-96665-2, 302 pages, 1996
In the dark days and biting windstorms of an Edinburgh
winter, two drop-out kids dive off the towering Forth Road
Bridge. A civic office is spattered by a grisly gun-blast.
Two suicides and a murder that just don't add up, unless
John Rebus can crunch the numbers.
Living History, Hillary Rodham
Clinton, ISBN 0-7432-2224-5, Simon & Schuster, 534
pages, 2003
Like many other women of her generation, Hillary Rodham
Clinton grew up with choices and opportunities unknown to
her mother or grandmother. She charted her own course
through unexplored terrain-responding to the changing times
and her own internal compass-and became an emblem for some
and a lightning rod for others.
Livingstone, Tim Jeal, Yale
University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-09102-1, 388 pages,
2001
David Livingstone (1813-1873) has been revered as one of the
world's greatest explorers and missionaries, the European to
cross Africa and the first to find the Victoria Falls and
the source of the Congo River. Tim Jeal's masterful
biography reveals the man behind the myth, one capable of
ruthless cruelty as well as self-sacrifice and bravery, one
dogged all his life by failure as well as
success.
Living the Blues, Canned Heat's Story
of Music, Drugs, Death, Sex and Survival, Fito de la
Parra, Canned Heat Music, ISBN 0-9676449-0-9, 375 pages,
2000
' A rare first-hand insight into life in a popular band from
the sixties to the present ... Good reading' David Evans,
Music Professor
Lord of the Flies, William
Golding, Faber, ISBN 3-88389-001-4, 223 pages, 1958
Capturing generations of readerd since its publication in
1954, Lord of the Flies is a cult favorite among students
and literary critics. An adventure tale in its purest form,
this thrilling account of a group of British schoolboys
marooned on a tropical island exposes the duality of human
nature itself-the dark, eternal divide between order and
chaos, intellect and instinct, structure and
savagery.
Los Alamos, Joseph Kanon, Island
Books, ISBN 0-440-22407-1, 517 pages, 1997
It is the spring 1945. And Michael Conolly has been sent to
Los Alamos to investigate teh murder of a security officer
on the Manhattan Project. But amid the glimmering cocktail
parties and the staggering genius, Conolly will find more
than he bargained for.
Love, etc, Julian Barnes, Jonathan
Cape, ISBN 0-224-06109-7, 250 pages, 2000
In Love, etc Julian Barnes revisits Stuart, Gillian and
Oliver, using the same intimate technique of allowing the
characters to speak directly to the reader. Darker and
deeper than its predecessor, Love, etc is a compelling
exploration of contemporary love and its
betrayals.
Magnum Stories, Chris Boot,
Phaidon, ISBN 0-7148-4245-1, 510 pages, 2004
Magnum Photos is the world's pre-eminent agency for
documentary photographers. Founded in 1947 by Robert Capa,
George Rodger, David Seymour and Henri Cartier-Bresson, it
was created to allow its members the freedom to be
independent of the restrictions of commercial
photojournalism.
Margaret Bourke-White,
Photographer, Sean Callahan, Bulfinch Press, ISBN
0-8212-2490-5, 160 pages, 1998
A landmark retrospective of one of the century's most
groundbreaking photographers.
Martin Sloane, Michael Redhill,
Little, Brown and Company, ISBN 0-316-73936-7, 282 pages,
2001
A novel that brilliantly and movingly explores the vagaries
of love and friendship, the burdens of personal history, and
the enigmatic power of art.
Master & Commander, Patrick
O'Brian, Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-649915-5, 402 pages,
2002
The first in Patrick O'Brians now famous Aubrey-Maturin
novels, regarded by many as the greatest series of
historical novels ever written It establishes the friendship
between Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, who becomes
his secretive ship's surgeon and a secret agent.
Milton in America, Peter Ackroyd,
Vintage, ISBN 0-7493-8625-8, 276 pages, 1997
What if John Milton, Cromwell's secretary, anticipating the
King's return to London, had decided to flee England in
order to avoid imprisonment or death. What if he had crossed
the ocean and joined the Puritans recently settled in New
England?
Morality for Beautiful Girls,
Alexander McCall Smith, Abacus, ISBN 978-0-349-11700-3, 246
pages, 2003
In this third volume of the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
series, the irrepressible Precious Ramotswe faces supreme
problems at home and at work. With her detective agency in
financial difficulty, Mma Ramotswe takes the hard decision
to share offices with her husband-to-be, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.
But even though Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors could do with a
little help, it is Mr Matekoni himself who requires her
attention.
Musungu Jim and the great Chief
Tuloko, Patrick Neate, Penguin, ISBN 0-140-28655-1, 376
pages, 2000
When student teacher Jim Tulloh arrives in Zambawi for a
character-building experience, he doesn't realize he's about
to be sucked into the rebirth of a nation.
Mutant Message Down Under, Marlo
Morgan, Thorsons, ISBN 1-85538-484-1, 186 pages, 1995
A woman's journey into Dreamtime Australia. Summoned by a
remote tribe of nomadic Aboriginals to accompay them on a
walkabout through the outback, she makes a four month long
journey with the 'Real People'.
Mystic River, Dennis Lehane,
Harper Torch, ISBN 0-380-73185-1, 478 pages, 2001
When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave
Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to
their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and
something terrible happened-something that ended their
friendship and changed all three boys for ever.
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George
Orwell, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-027877-X, 326 pages, 1989
In Orwell's frightening vision of the future, society is
under the control of Big Brother. Every aspect of life is
closely monitored, while any hint of unorthodoxy is
ruthlessly suppressed by the thought police.
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck,
Penguin, ISBN 0-14-118510-4, 106 pages, 2000
The compelling story of two outsiders striving to find their
place in an unforgiving world. Drifters in search of work,
George and his simple-minded friend Lennie, have nothing in
the world except each other and a dream-a dream that one day
they will have some land of their own.
Once There Was a War, John
Steinbeck, Penguin Classic, ISBN 0-14-118632-1, 233 pages,
2000
If you have forgotten what the war was like, Steinbeck will
refresh your memory. Age can never dull this kind of
writing.
On the Road, Jack Kerouac, Penguin
Classics, ISBN 0-14-243725-5, 307 pages, 1991
On the Road tells the story of two friends, whose four
cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true
experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed
naïvité and wild abandon, and imbued with
Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and
his sense of language as jazz.
Paddy Clarke ha ha ha, Roddy
Doyle, Vintage, ISBN 0-74-939735-7, 278 pages, 1993
It is 1968, Paddy Clarke is ten years old, breathless with
discovery. He reads with a child's voraciousness, collecting
facts the way adults collect grey hairs and parking
tickets.
Parfume, Patrick Süsskind,
Penguin, ISBN 0-14-009993-X, 263 pages, 1987
A fantastic tale of murder and twisted eroticism controlled
by a disgusted loathing of humanity. Clever, stylish
absorbing and well worth reading. Literary Review.
See german
edition.
Pilgrim, Timothy Findley, Faber
& Faber, ISBN 0-571-20306-X, 486 pages, 1999
Populated by a fascinating parade of historical and mythical
characters, Pilgrim is a richly-layered story of a man's
search for his own destiny. Instantly engaging, superbly
crafted, breathtaking in scope and brilliantly imagined,
Pilgrim is Timoty Findley's masterwork.
Post Captain, Patrick O'Brian,
Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-649916-3, 474 pages, 2002
The second in Patrick O'Brians much loved Aubrey-Maturin
series of novels, begins with Jack Aubrey returning to an
England at peace following the Treaty of Amiens.
Quite Ugly one Morning,
Christopher Brookmyre, Abacus, ISBN 0-349-10885-4, 214
pages, 1997
A nightmare of frightening plausibility, quite ugly one
morning is a wickedly entertaining and vivacious thriller,
full of acerbic wit, cracking dialogue and villains both
reputed and shell-suited.
Resurrection Men, Ian Rankin,
Orion, ISBN 0-75284-822-4, 484 pages, 2002
Rebus is given an old, unsolved case to work on, in order to
teach him and others the merits of teamwork. But there are
those in the team who have their own secrets, and they'll
stop at nothing to protect them.
Saturday, Ian McEwan, Vintage,
ISBN 0-099-49716-6, 280 pages, 2005
Henry Perowne is a contented man - a successful
neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind and proud
father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before
dawn, drawn to the window and filled with a growing
unease.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,
Alan Sillitoe, Flamingo, ISBN 0-586-09005-3, 220 pages,
1994
Working all day at a lathe leaves Arthur Seaton with energy
to spare in the evenings. A hard-drinking, hard-fighting
young rebel of a man, he knows what he wants and he's sharp
enough to get it.
Seek my Face, John Updike,
Penguin, ISBN 0-141-01116-5, 276 pages, 2002
A gentle and multifaceted meditation on the
nature of life, memory and art. Updike has gone some way
towards fulfilling one of art's great amibitions: to contain
the whole world in a single work.
Seize the Day, Saul Bellow,
Penguin Classics, ISBN 0-14-118485-X, 118 pages, 1996
Fading charmer Tommy Wilhelm reached his day of reckoning
and is scared. In his forties, he still retains a boyish
impetuousness that has brought him to the brink of chaos: he
is separated from his wife and children, at odds with his
vain, successful father, failed in his acting career and in
a financial mess.
Shadow Divers, Robert Kurson,
Ballantine Books, ISBN 0-345-48247-6, 364 pages, 2004
In the fall of 1991, in the frigid Atlantic waters sity
miles off the coast of New Jersey, weekend scuba divers John
Chatterton and Richie Kohler made a startling discovery
under decads of accumulated sediment: a World War II German
Uboot, its interior a maze of twisted metal and human
bones.
Kalt und packend,
muss man lesen!
Cold and very
gripping, must read!
Shirley, Charlotte Brontë,
Oxford World's Classics, ISBN 0-19-283378-2, 680 pages
Set in yorkshire durng the period of the Napoleonic Wars,
the novel articulates the social realities of economic
hardship, the Luddite riots, dissatisfaction with the
government and an inadequate Church.
Stanley, the impossible life of
Africa's greatest explorer, Tim Jeal, Faber and Faber, ISBN
978-0-571-22103-5, 570 pages, 2007
Henry Morton Stanley is Britain's greatest land explorer of
all time. Yet today he is remembered as a cruel imperialist
in Africa, and as an American journalst who said: "Dr
Livingstone, I presume?" In this compelling biography, Tim
Jeal reveals the truth about Stanley and shows how the
Welsh-born workhouse boy has been misrepresented in previous
accounts of his life.
Steve McQueen Portrait of an
american Rebel, Marshall Terrill, Plexus Publishing, ISBN
0-85965-231-9, 460 pages, 1993
This definitive biography relates vivid, firsthand accounts
of McQueen's extraordinary career, and digs deep into his
personal and professional relationships with such fellow
actors as Ali McGraw, Dustin Hoffman, Edward G. Robinson and
Ann-Margret, all of whom have ranked him one of the best
actors in film history.
Stupid White Men, Michael Moore,
Penguin, ISBN 0-141-01190-4, 282 pages, 2001
This book tells you everything you need to know about how
the great and the good screw us over. It reveals-among other
things-how 'President' Bush stole an election aided only by
his brother, cousin, his dad's cronies, electoral fraud and
tame judges.
Teacher Man, Frank McCourt, Harper
Perennial, ISBN 0-00-722802-3, 258 pages, 2005
In this book Frank McCourt turns his attention to subjects
closest to his heart: teaching--why it's so important, why
it's so undervalued--and storytelling. From everyone of
these captivating pages it is clear that from the very start
he seized his students' attention by telling great stories.
And here he does it again, for us.
Tea Money, Jake Needham, Asia
Books, ISBN 974-8237-46-2, 378 pages, 2000
Barry, it seems, was fronting for Russian mobsters when he
turned the hapless bank into the private fiancial arm of
crime syndicates, terrorists, and intelligence agencies. Now
he's got a problem. The ABC has been scammed, completely
cleaned out, and Barry figures his new pals will think it
was him.
Tears of the Giraffe, Alexander
McCall Smith, Abacus, ISBN 978-0-349-11665-5, 233 pages,
2002
Following on from the brilliant The No. Ladies' Detective
Agenxy, Tears of the Giraffe charts the further adventures
of Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only - and finest - female
private detective.
As funny and
entertaining as the other books in the series.
The Alchemist, Paul Coelho, Harper
Collins, ISBN 0-00-715566-2, 177 pages, 1992
This is the magical story of Santiago, a shepherd boy who
dreams of travelling the world to seek the most wonderful
treasures known to man. From his home in Spain, he journeys
to the markets of Tangiers and, from there, into the
Egyptian desert, whre a fateful encounter with the alchemist
awaits him.
The Bay of Angels, Anita Brookner,
Penguin, ISBN 0-141-00427-4, 217 pages, 2001
Zoë ist delighted when her widowed mother marries
Simon, a generous older man who owns a villa in Nice.
However, the long, enchanted visits to France she enjoys
come to an abrupt end when Simon suffers a bad
fall.
The Beauty Room, Regi Claire,
Polygon, ISBN 0-7486-6322-3, 216 pages, 2002
After teh death of her mother, Celia Roth begins life anew
by redecorating the house where they lived together--the
house containing her mother's beauty room. But as the new
paint covers their shared history, layer upon layer of dark
truths begin to surface.
The beckoning Silence, Joe
Simpson, Vintage, ISBN 0-099-42243-3, 284 pages, 2002
Joe Simpson has experienced a life filled with adventure but
marred by death. He has endured the painfulattrition of
climbing friends in accidents, calling into question the
perilously activity to which he has devoted his
life.
The Bell, Iris Murdoch, Vintage
Classics, ISBN 0-099-28389-1, 316 pages, 1973
Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband.
Michael Meade, leader of the community, is confronted by
Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual
relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and
exercises discreet authority.
The Black Book, Ian Rankin, Orion,
ISBN 1-85797-413-1, 340 pages,1993
When a close colleague is brutally attacked, Inspector John
Rebus is drawn into a case involving a hotel fire, an
unidentified body, and a long forgotten night of terror and
murder.
The Britisch Museum is falling
down, Lodge David, Penguin, ISBN 0140062149, 176
pages, 1983
The rhythm method is the curse of Adam Appleby's life and
the cause of his children's. As his thesis awaits its birth
in the British Museum, his wife studies the thermometer at
home. But ist seems that "Vatican Roulette" has failed them
again.
The Broken Chariot, Alan Silitoe,
Flamingo, ISBN 0-00-649305-X, 300 pages, 1999
When Herbert Thurgarton-Strang wa seven, his parents took
him away from India and left him in a boarding school in
England that had everything to recommend it but
pity.
The Chemistry of Death, Simon
Beckett, Bantam Press, ISBN 0-593-05521-7, 331 pages,
2006
When the bizzarrely mutilated body of a young woman is found
near the isolated Norfolk village of Manham, it isn't just
the fact she was a friend that disturbs Dr David Hunter.
Once a high-profile forensic anthropologist, he was all too
familiar with the different faces of death, until a
devastating personal tragedy caused him to turn his back on
that life and career.
The curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time, Mark Haddon, Vintage, ISBN 0-099-47043-8,
272 pages, 2004
This is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective,
and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen
and has Asperger's Syndrome. He knows a very great deal
about maths and very little about human beings. He loves
lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow
and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than
the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a
neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey
which will turn his whole world upside down.
The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac,
Penguin Classics, ISBN 0-14-118488-4, 204 pages, 2000
Kerouac charts the spiritual quest of a group of friends in
search of Dharma, or truth. Ray Smith and his friend Japhy,
along with Morley the yodeller, head off into the high
Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude and experience the
Zen way of life. But in widly Bohemian San Francisco, with
its poetry jam sessions, marathon drinking bouts and
experiments in 'yabyum', they find the ascetic route
distinctly hard to follow.
The Da Vinci Code, special
illustrated edition, Dan Brown, Bantam Press, ISBN
0-593-05425-3, 464 pages, 2004
Breaking the mold of traditional suspense novels, The Da
Vinci Code is simultaneously lightning paced, intelligent
and intricately layered with remarkable research and
detail.
The Death of the USS Thresher, The
Story Behind History's Deadliest Submarine Disaster, Norman
Polmar, The Lyons Press, ISBN 978-1-59228-392-7, 177 pages,
2004
This revised edition of Polmar's 1964 classic is based on
interviews with the Thresher's first comman officer, other
submarine officers, and the designers of the submarine.
Polmar provides recently declassified information about the
submarine, and relates the loss to subsequent U.S. and
Soviet nuclear submarine sinkings, as well as the escape and
rescue systems developed by the Navy in the aftermath of the
disaster.
The Empire State Building, Lewis
W. Hine, Prestel, ISBN 3-7913-1996-5, 104 pages, 1998
Hine's world-famous documentary photographs taken at the
Empire State Building construction site tell the story of
how America in the 1930s toiled with nature and technology
to make monuments.
The Endurance, Caroline Alexander,
Bloomsbury, ISBN 0-7475-4670-3, 210 pages, 1999
In August 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of
twenty-seven set sail aboard the Endurance bound for the
South Atlantic-their goal to be the first explorers ever to
cross Antarctica.
The Falls, Ian Rankin, Orion, ISBN
0-75284-405-9, 480 pages, 2001
A student has gone missing in Edinburgh and there's very
little for Detective Inspector John Rebus to on apart from
his gut feeling that there's more to this case than a
runaway.
The Family; The real Story of the Bush
Dynasty, Kitty Kelley, Bantam Press, ISBN 0-593-04891-1,
705 pages, 2004
Number one bestselling author and investigative biographer
Kitty Kelley has closely examined the lives of Jacqueline
Onassis, Nancy Reagan, Frank Sinatra and the British royal
family. Now the first lady of unauthorized biography
scrutinizes the first family of the United States-and the
result is at once a rich and shocking history and a very
human portrait of the world's most powerful
dynasty.
The Ghost, Robert Harris,
Hutchinson, ISBN 978-0-09-179626-6, 305 pages, 2007
The narrator of Robert Harris's gripping new novel is a
professional ghostwriter - cynical, mercenary, and with a
nice line in deadpan humour. Accustomed to working with
fading rock stars and minor celebrities, he jumps at the
chance to ghost the memoirs of Britain's former prime
minister, especially as it means flying to the American
resort of Martha's Vineyard in the middle of winter and
finishing the book in the seclusion of a luxurious
house.
The Girl at the Lion d'Or,
Sebastian Faulks, Vintage, ISBN 0-09-977490-9, 250 pages,
1990
A beautifully controlled and powerful story of love and
conscience, will and desire which begins when a mysterious
young girl arrives to take up a post at the seedy Hotel du
Lion d'Or in a small French town in the
mid-1930s.
The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard,
Virago, ISBN 1-84408-057-9, 314 pages, 2003
Twenty years in the writing, The Great Fire is a triumphant
novel of lives shadowed by war and redeemed by love. In a
war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, people must reinvent
their lives and expectations and learn, from their past, to
dream again. A man and a woman seek to recover self-reliance
and tenderness, struggling to reclaim their
humanity.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-118263-6, 178 pages, 1990
Fitzgerald brilliantly captures both the disillusion of
post-war America and the moral failure of society obsessed
with wealth and status. But he does more than render the
essence of a particular time and place.
The haunted Coast, Michael Wray,
Anne Marshall, Chris Firth, East Coast Books, ISBN
0953640531, 46 pages, 2002
13 traditional ghost stories from the Yorkshire
Coast.
The Hippopotamus, Stephen Fry,
Arrow, ISBN 0-09-918961-5, 356 pages, 1994
Ted Wallace is an old, sour, womanising, cantankerous,
whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet and drama critic, but
he has his faults too.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy, Douglas Adams, Pan Books, ISBN 0-330-25864-8,
180 pages, 1979
On Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished
to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. For Arthur Dent,
who has only just had his house demolished that morning,
this seems already to be more than he can cope with. Sadly,
however, the weekend has only just begun.
The other books in the trilogy are:
The Restaurant at the End of the
Universe, 0-330-49121-0
Life, the Universe and everthing, 0-330-49120-2
So long, and Thanks fo all the Fish,
0-330-49123-7
Mostly Harmless, 0-330-49122-9
The horned Man, James Lasdun,
Vintage, ISBN 0-099-42835-0, 195 pages, 2002
Lawrence Miller, an English expatriate in New York, tells
the story of what appears to be an elaborate conspiracy to
frame him for a series of brutal killings.
The Intuitionist, Colson
Whitehead, Granta Books, ISBN 1-86207-236-1, 254 pages,
1999
Fusing the classic elements of the noir thriller with
serious racial, political and philosophical questions. A
groundbreaking and marvellously inventive novel.
The Joy, Paul Howard, O'Brien,
ISBN 0-86278-491-3, 188 pages, 1996
A no-holds-barred account of a criminal's time in the
notorious Dublin prison, as revealed to journalist Paul
Howard. Thes extraordinary life story tells it all. The
desperate lifestyle ao a junkie; bullying and savage
beatings among the prisoners; ingenious drug-smuggling
ploys; the despairing cry for help of failed sucide
attempt.
The Keys to the Street, Ruth
Rendell, Arrow, ISBN 0-09-918432-X, 378 pages, 1997
Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life
of someone she didn't know. And this generous act led
directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with
Alistair.
The Last Precinct, Patricia
Cornwell, Warner Books, ISBN 0-7515-2535-9, 565 pages,
2001
We enter The Last Precinct through reverberating aftershocks
of Black Notice, inconceivably finding Virgina's Chief
Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta an object of suspicion and
criminal investigation.
The Loneliness of the Long Distance
Runner, Alan Silitoe, Flamingo, ISBN 0-586-09241-2, 174
pages, 1994
Smith is an incorrigible and definat young rebel, inhabiting
a no-man's land of institutionalised Borstal. Watched over
by a phlegmy sunlight, as his steady jog-trot rhythm
transports him over an unrelenting, frost-bitten earth, he
wonders why, for whom and for what is he running.
The Long Walk, Slavomir Rawicz,
Robinson London, ISBN 1-84119-240-6, 240 pages, 2000
This is one of the world's greatest true stories of
adventure, survival and escape. Sentenced to 25 years' hard
labour in the Gulags, Rawicz escaped with six
companions.
The Lost Boy, Dave Pelzer, Orion
Non-Fiction, ISBN 0-75284-408-3, 426 pages, 1999
As a child Dave Pelzer never had a real home. Rescued from
an alcoholic, abusive mother, his only possessions were old
torn clothes he carried in a paper bag.
The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown, Bantam
Press, ISBN 978-0-593-05427-7, 509 pages, 2009
A brilliantly composed tapestry of veiled histories, arcane
icons and enigmatic codes, The Lost Symbol is an
itelligent, lightning-paced thriller that offers surprises
at every turn. For, as Robert Langdon will discover, there
is nothing more extraordinary or shocking than the secret
which hides in plain sight ...
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell
Hammett, Orion, ISBN 0-75286-533-1, 212 pages, 2005
The Maltese Falcon was originally published in 1929, marks
the first appearance of Sam Spade, and is considered to be
one of the greatest crime novels of all time. Sam Spade is
hired by the beautyful Miss Wonderley to track down her
sister. When his partner, Miles Archer, is shot down while
on the trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted as
he tracks down a jewel-encrusted treasure people are willing
to kill for.
The Man who listens to Horses,
Monty Roberts, Arrow, ISBN 0-09-979461-6, 376 pages,
1996
The book reveals Monty Roberts' deep love and understanding
of horses. We learn how, through his relationship with
various horses, he gradually acquired his knowledge of their
language and developed the methods which enabled him to
perform his 'miracles'.
The Midden, Tom Sharpe, Pan Books,
ISBN 0-330-34742-X, 344 pages, 1996
Timothy Bright doesn't exactly live up to his name. Brought
up to regard copious flows of money as his birthright, he
can't understand why the funds have been cut off, nor why
friends he recruited as Lloyd's Names no longer want to talk
to him.
The Ministry of Fear, Graham
Greene, Vintage, ISBN 0-099-28618-1, 221 pages, 2001
For Arthur Rowe the charity fête was a trip back to
childhood, to innocence, a welcome chance to escape the
terror of the Blitz, to forget twenty years of his past and
murder. Then he guesses the weight of the cake
...
The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset
Maugham, Vintage, ISBN 0-099-28476-6, 215 pages, 1999
Inspired by the life of Paul Gaugin, this book tells the
story of Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker who
abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live
his life as a painter.
The Newtonian Casino, Thomas A.
Bass, Penguin, IBSN 0-14-014593-1, 328 pages, 1990
All they needed was a computer complex enough to fit in the
sole of a shoe. Spurred on by idealism and
single-mindedness, they held wild Hallowe'en parties,
discovered chaos theory and came of age while working on
their plan to beat the bank.
The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster,
Faber and Faber, ISBN 0-571-20058-3, 314 pages, 1988
This is the ultimate postmodern thriller-a series of
brilliant variations upon the classic detective story. The
stories: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective
Agency, Alexander McCall Smith, Anchor Books, ISBN
1-4000-9688-X, 235 pages, 2005
Meet precious Ramotswe, a heroine who is endearing,
engaging, and simply irresistible. With persistent
observation, gentle intuition, and a keen desire to help
people with the problems of their lives, she solves
mysteries great and small for friends and strangers
alike.
The Pickup, Nadine Gordimer,
Bloomsbury, ISBN 0-7475-5934-1, 270 pages, 2002
What are the solutions life demands for extraordinary
circumstances? A novel of swift power and concision, 'The
Pickup' is set in the social mix of the new South Africa and
an Arab village in the desert.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar
Wilde, Penguin Popular Classics, ISBN 0-14-062033-8, 256
pages, 1891
It caused outrage when it was first published and marked the
onset of Oscar Wilde's own fatal reputation and eventual
downfall. An evocative portrayal of London life and a
powerful blast against the hypocrisies of Victorian polite
society it has become one of Oscars Wilde's most celebrated
works.
The Polish Officer, Alan Furst,
Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-649356-4, 325 pages, 1995
In 1939, as the German army ravages his country, Captain
Alexander de Milja enlists in the newly formed Polish
underground an undertakes the first of many daring acts of
defiance and disruption: transporting Poland's gold reserves
to safety hidden on board a refugee train. As the war
continues, duty takes him, under a series of false
identities, from Warsaw to Paris and the frozen
Ukraine-enduring a life of dark shadows and perpetual
deception, always on the run, alway just one step ahead of
death.
The Red Room, Herbert George
Wells, Phoenix, ISBN 0-75380-453-0, 242 pages, 1998
Wells produces some of the finest short stories in the
English language. His earliest published short stories,
'Walcote' and 'Teh Devotee of Art', appeared in 1888 when he
was twenty-two, and his last, 'Answer to Prayer', was
published in 1937. He was thus writing short stories for
almost exactly fifty years.
The Road of the Dead, Kevin
Brooks, The Chicken House, ISBN 978-1-905294-26-8, 292
pages, 2006
'This extraordinary thriller will have you gasping for
breath as you turn the page from one violent confrontation
to the next, agape at the author's ability to evoke the
atmoshere of fear and intimidation.' Scotsman
The Screwtape Letters, C. S.
Lewis, Broadman&Holman Publishers, ISBN 0-8054-2040-1,
128 pages, 1996
'My dear Wormwood, ...' So begins this product of C. S.
Lewis's wickedly funny imagination, a correspondence between
two devils, Screwtape and his young nephew,
Wormwood.
The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas
Harris, Mandarin Paperbacks, ISBN 0-7493-0054-X, 352 pages,
1990
There is a killer on the loose who knows that beauty is only
skin deep, and a trainee investigator who's trying to save
her own hide. The only man that can help is locked in an
asylum. But he's willing to put a brave face on - if it will
help him escape.
The Sound and the Fury, William
Faulkner, Vintage Classics, ISBN 0-099-47501-4, 320 pages,
1929
In essence this is a novel about lovelessness - 'only an
idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it. What else
is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?'
It is a novel about intense passionate family relationships
wherein there is no love, only self-centerdness.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne
Brontë, Oxford World's Classics, ISBN 0-19-283462-2,
470 pages, 1848
Helen Huntingdon leaves her dissolute husband in order to
earn her own living and rescue her son from his influence. A
passionate and courageous challenge to the conventions
supposedly upheld by Victorian society and reflected in
circulating-library fiction, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is
compelling in its imaginative power, in the bold naturalism
of its central scenes, the realism and range of its
dialogue.
The Third Twin, Ken Follett, Pan
Books, ISBN 0-330-34837-X, 628 pages, 1996
A chilling story of hidden evil, set at the forefront of
modern technology, 'The Third Twin' is the heart stopping
new thriller from Ken Follett.
The Victorian Internet, Tom
Standage, Berkley Science/History, ISBN 0-425-17169-8, 214
pages, 1999
A colorful tale of scientific discovery and technological
cunning, the book tells the story of the telegraph's
creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries,
oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it.
The Vintner's Luck, Elizabeth
Knox, Vintage, ISBN 0-09-927389-6, 240 pages, 2000
Burgundy 1808. One night Sobran Jodeau, a young vintner,
meets an angel in his vineyard: a gorgeous creature with
huge wings that smell of snow, a sense of humour and an
inquiring mind. They meet every year on the midsummer
anniversary of the date.
The Virgin and the Gipsy, David
Herbert Lawrence, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-018211-X, 90 pages,
1970
In The Virgin and the Gipsy the conflict between intuition
and the conventions of society is powerfully evoked. Yvette,
a young girl imprisoned within the stifling confines of home
and family, looks for release through love.
The Virgin Blue, Tracy Chevalier,
Harper Collins, ISBN 0-00-710827-3, 304 pages, 2002
The compelling story of two women, born centuries apart, and
the ancestral legacy that binds them.
The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey
Eugenides, Bloomsbury Publishing, ISBN 078-0-7475-6059-3,
249 pages, 2002
The haunting, humorous and tender story of the brief lives
of the five entrancing Lisbon sisters, The Virgin Suicides,
now a major film, is Jeffrey Eugenides' classic debut
novel.
Weird.
The Way the Crow Flies, Ann-Marie
MacDonald, Harper Perennial, ISBN 0-00-717965-0, 720 pages,
2004
On a Canadian air force base in the early 1960s, the
McCarthy family is living the post-war dream. But Madeleine,
the high-spirited eight-year-old daughter, becomes drawn
into a perilous adult world and her father Jack gets caught
in a web of Cold War secrets. When a local murder strikes at
the heart of their new home, the McCarthys' lifes are
changed forever in ways that will become clear only when the
quest for the truth, and the killer, is renewed twenty years
later.
The Witches of North Yorkshire,
Michael Wray, Anne Marshall, Chris Firth, East Coast Books,
ISBN 0953640515, 62 pages, 2001
The Woman who wouldn't talk, Susan
McDougal, Carrol & Graf Publishers, ISBN 0-7867-1302-X,
384 pages, 2003
Susan McDougal's story of how she became a nationally known
felon during Ken Starr's obsessive quest to take down the
Clintons is one of the most fascinating legacies of Bill
Clinton's presidency.
The World Without Us, Alan
Weisman, Thomas Dunne Books, ISBN 978-0-312-34729-1, 324
pages, 2007
In the world without us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly
original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the
planet: he asks us to envision our Earth without us. In
this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our
massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish
without human presence; which everyday items may become
immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would
be crushed into mere seams of reddish rocks; why some of our
earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and
how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some
man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the
universe.
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe,
Macmillan, ISBN 0-435-27246-2, 96 pages, 2002
Okonkwo was one of the greatest men in the village of
Umuofia. But then the Europeans came and they changed
Umuofia. They destroyed the old life. They destroyed Okonkwo
too. And he was buried like a dog.
Three Junes, Julia Glass, Arrow,
ISBN 0-09-946029-7, 536 pages, 2003
It's a novel about how we live, and live fully, beyond grief
and betrayals of the heart, and how family ties can offer
redemption and joy.
Timbuktu, Paul Auster, Faber and
Faber, ISBN 0-571-20104-0, 227 pages, 1999
Mr Bones is the sidekick and confidant of Willy G.
Christmas, the brilliant, troubled and altogether original
poet-saint from Brooklyn. Like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
before them, they sally forth on a last great
adventure.
'Tis, Frank McCourt, Flamingo,
ISBN 0-00-655241-2, 495 pages, 2000
With its joys and sorrows, its melancholy and its laughter,
'Tis is a dignified and moving successor to Angela's
Ashes.
To kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee,
Arrow, ISBN 0-09-941978-5, 309 pages, 1997
A layer's advice to his children as he defends the real
mockingbird of this enchanting classic-a black man charged
with the rape of a white girl.
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf,
Penguin, ISBN 0-14-027416-2, 236 pages, 1964
James, the youngest son of Mr and Mrs Ramsay, has a devout
wish to visit the lighthouse, but his father, a rather
pompous, philosophical man, seems determined to disappoint
him. It is only many years later, when the war has brought
dramatic changes to society and to the Ramsay family in
particular that the journey is made under very different
circumstances.
Touching the Void, Joe Simpson,
Vintage, ISBN 0-09-977101-2, 205 pages, 1997
'One of the absolute classics of mountaineering ... a
document of psychological, even philosophical witness of the
rarest compulsion'. Sunday Times.
Spannend, ergreifend,
man kann es bis zum Schluss nicht mehr weglegen.
Absolutely gripping
and fascinating.
Twelve Irish Ghost Stories,
verschiedene Autoren, Oxford Paperbacks, ISBN 0-19-288070-5,
144 pages, 1998
The spectres which haunt these Irish ghost stories include a
massacred Spanish sailors, a silver-robed woman who plies
her guests with poison, a mutilated pedlar, a benign but icy
embrace, and the devil himself. They are drawn from the rich
and varied literary tradition of a culture long enchanted by
things supernatural.
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the
Sea, Jules Verne, Penguin Popular Classics, ISBN
0-14-062118-0, 382 pages, 1994
A mysterious creature, larger and more rapid than a whale,
has been haunting the deep: Professor Aronnax has been
invited to join the task force to rid the seas of the
monster.
Ulysses, James Joyce, Oxford
World's Classics, ISBN 0-19-283464-9, 980 pages, 1993
The 1922 text. Edited with an introduction and notes by Jeri
Johnson. In a series of episodes covering the course of a
single day, 16 June 1904, the novel traces the movements of
Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus through the streets of
Dublin.
'Until you are dead', Steven
Truscott's long ride into history, Sher Julian, Vintage
Canada, ISBN 0-676-97381-7, 584 pages, 2001
In 1959, a popular schoolboy, just fourteen years old, was
convicted and sentenced to hang for the rape and murder of a
twelve-year-old classmate. That summer, Canada lost its
innocence and the shocking story of Steven Truscott became
stamped in the nation's memory.
Where I'm calling from, Raymond
Carver, The Harvill Press, ISBN 978-1-860-46039-5, 431
pages, 1995
Shortly before he died, America's laureate of the
dispossessed made his own choice of his short stories,
revised the texts and published them in this authoritative
edition. The stories are selected from the full range of the
author's work including Furious Seasons, Will You
Please Be Quiet, Please?, What We Talk about When We
Talk about Love and Cathedral and include all seven
stories from his last collection,
Elephant.
Well made in America, Peter C.
Reid, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-051801-7, 220 pages, 1990
Lessons from Harley-Davidson on being the Best. In 1981,
Harley-Davidson was about to go under. That's when 13 of its
managers purchased the ailing motorcycle company. Saddled
with $83 million in debts, they had to avoid bankruptcy,
restore employee commitment, revolutionize manufacturing
processes, and dramatically increase sales. Today the
company realizes nearly $700 million in revenues,
productivity has increased by 50 percent, and the future
looks rosy indeed. How did this group of pioneering
ownder-managers pull off the Harley-Davidson "miracle". Here
is the inside story, told in a style that will leave you
spellbound. You'll also find an array of eminently practical
tactics and techniques for any manager who wants to take on
world-class competition-and win.
When We Were Orphans, Kazuo
Ishiguro, Faber & Faber, ISBN 0-571-20384-1, 313 pages,
2000
England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has bekcome the country's
most celebrated detective, his cases are the talk of London
society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the
mysterious disappearance of his parents, in Old Shanghai,
when he was a small boy.
Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer,
Atlantic Books London, ISBN 978-1-84887-301-8, 380
pages, 2009
In May 2002, Pat Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million
NFL contract to enlist in the United States Special
Operations Forces. He was deeply troubled by 9/11, and felt
a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda
and the Taliban. Two years later, he would die on a desolate
hillside in south-eastern Afghanistan.
Who are we? The Challenges to
America's National Identity, Samuel P. Huntington, Simon
& Schuster, ISBN 0-684-87053-3, 428 pages, 2004
Once again Samuel Huntington has written an important book
that is certain to provoke a lively debate and to shape our
national conversation about who we are.
Wicked, The Life and Times of the
Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory Maguire, Headline Review,
ISBN 0-7553-3160-5, 495 pages, 2006
When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in
the classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, we heard only
one side of the story. But what of her arch-nemesis, the
mysterious witch?
Wuthering Heights, Emily
Brontë, Oxford World's Classics, ISBN 0-19-283354-5,
372 pages, 1995
The haunting intensity of Catherine Earnshaw's attachment to
Heathcliff is the focus of a novel in which relations
between men and women are described with an emotional and
imaginative power unparalleled in English
fiction.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig, Vintage 25th Anniversary
Edition, ISBN 0-099-32261-7, 436 pages, 1999
This book is essentially, three books: an account of a
motorcycle trip from Minnesota to California, a
philosophical meditation on the concept of Quality, and the
story of a man pursued by the ghost of his former self.
Within these three books we find allegory and psychological
tension, a lesson in Eastern and Western schools of thought,
a conundrum about the meaning of the self, a commentary on
America's social and physical landscape, and some helpful
tips on the care and maintenance of the
motorcycle.
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