Skjønnlitteratur

SUSAN JUST HAD TO ASK HER GRANDFATHER TO TAKE HIS VEST OFF. It's hard to grow up normally when Grandfather rides a white horse and wields a scythe - especially when you have to take over the family business, and everyone mistakes you for the Tooth Fairy. And especially when you have to face the new and addictive music that has entered Discworld.

Perfect marriages. Perfect neighbours. Perfect lies.

Continuing the story of The Hobbit, this is the second part of Tolkien's epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, featuring an exclusive cover image from the film, the definitive text, and a detailed map of Middle-earth.

Continuing the story begun in The Hobbit, this is the first part of Tolkien's epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, featuring an exclusive cover image from the film, the definitive text, and a detailed map of Middle-earth.

Wondering if Into the Water could be as good as The Girl on the Train? It's better. A triumph. Clare Mackintosh, bestselling author of I Let You GoThe addictive No. 1 psychological thriller from the author of The Girl on the Train, the runaway Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller and global phenomenon.*****Just days before her sister plunged to her death, Jules ignored her call.Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules must return to her sister's house to care for her daughter, and to face the mystery of Nel's death.But Jules is afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of this small town that is drowning in secrecy . . . And of knowing that Nel would never have jumped.***** Paula Hawkins does it again! Into the Water is a moody and chilling thriller that will have you madly turning the pages. A gripping, compulsive read! Shari Lapena, bestselling author of The Couple Next Door Fans of Paula Hawkins The Girl on the Train rejoice: her second novel Into the Water is even better. A brilliantly plotted and fast-paced juggernaut of a read that hurtles to a heart-stopping conclusion. Good Housekeeping (Book of the Month) A twisting whodunnit that leaves you both gratified and surprised (also the best kind) . . . Not just a brilliant thriller but also a furious feminist howl . . . Stylist Dark, gothic and twisty as a snake in the grass. I read it in one sitting. Erin Kelly, author of He Said, She Said Into the Water is superb. Sinister layers, complex characters and a plot that'll keep you guessing. Ali Land, author of Good Me, Bad Me

National bestseller2017 National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Finalist ABA Indies Introduce Winter / Spring 2017 Selection Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Spring 2017 Selection ALA 2018 Notable Books Selection An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family's journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi Bui. This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves. At the heart of Bui's story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent-the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home. In what Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen calls "e;a book to break your heart and heal it,"e; The Best We Could Do brings to life Thi Bui's journey of understanding, and provides inspiration to all of those who search for a better future while longing for a simpler past.

'Crackles with excitement and adventure on every page' Fantasy Book ReviewEnter a war-torn world where gunpowder and magic collideThe nation of Fatrasta is a haven for criminals, rebels, adventurers and sorcerers seeking relics of the past. As insurrection grows, only the iron will of the Lady Chancellor holds the capital city of Landfall together.Yet an ancient power as old as time is rising, and the fate of this young nation now rests in the hands of a spy, a disgraced war hero and a mercenary general with a past as turbulent as Landfall's present.Sins of Empire is the explosive new epic fantasy from Gemmell Award-winning author Brian McClellan. Look out for Wrath of Empire, book two in the Gods of Blood and Powder series, in May 2018.Praise for Brian McClellan:'Gunpowder and magic. An explosive combination' Peter Brett'Brings a welcome breath of gunpowder-tinged air to epic fantasy' Anthony Ryan 'Tense action, memorable characters, rising stakes . . . Brian McClellan is the real thing' Brent Weeks'Innovative magic, quick-paced plot, interesting world. I had a blast' Brandon SandersonBooks by Brian McClellan: Gods of Blood and PowderSins of EmpireWrath of EmpireThe Powder Mage trilogyPromise of Blood (Winner of the Gemmell Morningstar Award)The Crimson CampaignThe Autumn Republic

Shooting stars tear across the night sky, then a gigantic artificial cylinder descends from Mars to land near London. Inquisitive locals gather round, only to be struck down by a murderous Heat-Ray. Giant destructive machines disgorge from the cylinder, destroying everything in their path on a merciless march towards the capital. Can humanity survive this Martian onslaught? A gripping adventure written in semi-documentary style, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells is the seminal man versus machine adventure which has inspired countless science fiction stories and novels. This Macmillan Collector's Library edition of The War of the Worlds contains an introduction by author James P. Blaylock.Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

'An engrossing and inspiring story of loss, love and hope, set against a backdrop of art, activism and addiction.' ObserverThe Christodora is home to Milly and Jared, a privileged young couple with artistic ambitions. Their neighbour, Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist but is now a lonely addict, becomes connected to Milly's and Jared's lives in ways none of them can anticipate. Meanwhile, the couple's adopted son, Mateo, grows to appreciate the opportunities for both self-realization and oblivion that New York offers. As the junkies and protestors of the 1980s give way to the hipsters of the 2000s and they, in turn, to the wealthy residents of the crowded, glass-towered city of the 2020s, enormous changes rock the personal lives of Milly and Jared and the constellation of people around them. Moving kaleidoscopically from the Tompkins Square Riots and attempts by activists to galvanize a response to the AIDS epidemic, to the New York City of the future, Christodora recounts the heartbreak wrought by AIDS, illustrates the allure and destructive power of hard drugs, and brings to life the ever-changing city itself.

The perfect read for Hallowe'en, this new hardback volume of Jackson's finest stories reveals the queen of American gothic at her unsettling, mesmerising bestThere's something nasty in suburbia. In these deliciously dark tales, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the country manor, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods...

An exclusive On the Other Side novella featuring the characters Vincent Winters and Evie SnowProve yourself worthy.Prove yourself true.Fight like you didn'tand she'll come to you. Evie Snow was the love of Vincent Winters' life, and of every lifetime he would ever live, but they didn't get the ending they wanted. He never stopped loving her though and he never, ever, forgot about her.Suddenly Vincent has the chance to right an old wrong and to finally prove himself worthy of Evie's love - he just needs to get to her first.As Vincent begins the journey of a lifetime, he learns more about love than he ever thought possible, and somehow, some way, he may also find his way back to the only woman he ever truly loved . . .

The Summer Book 'TOVE JANSSON' WITH A FOREWORD BY ESTHER FREUD An elderly artist and her six-year-old grand-daughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. As the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself. Written in a clear, unsentimental style, full of brusque humour, and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own life and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of her adult novels. This new edition, with a Foreword by Esther Freud, sees the return of a European literary gem - fresh, authentic and deeply humane. New and beautifully presented edition of a Scandinavian literary classic by Finland's most translated author should appeal to all ages dissolving boundaries between fiction, biography and travel.

In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge s cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are often on his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another. Kiran Desai s brilliant novel, published to huge acclaim, is a story of joy and despair. Her characters face numerous choices that majestically illuminate the consequences of colonialism as it collides with the modern world.

The bond between a mother and her child is the strongest in the natural world. So why would a young woman, dreaming of America, throw her newborn baby into the waves of the wild Atlantic ocean? Life in the Scottish Hebrides can be harsh - 'The Edge of the World' some call it. For Kirsty MacLeod, the love of Murdo promises a new life away from the scrape of the land and the repression of the church. But the Great War looms and the villages hold a grand Road Dance to send their young men off to battle. As the dancers swirl and sup, Kirsty is overpowered and raped by an unknown assailant. She hides her dark secret, fearful of what it will mean for her and the baby she is carrying. Only the embittered doctor, a man with a cold wife and a colder bed, suspects. On a fateful day of surging seas and swelling pain Kirsty learns that her love will never be back. Now she must make her choice and it is no choice at all. And the hunt for the baby's mother and his killer become one and the same.

Jennifer Egan's spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an ageing former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist's couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life-divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed up band in the basement of a suburban house-and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, revelling in San Francisco's punk scene as he discovers his ardour for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang-who thrived and who faltered-and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie's catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou's far flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to Powerpoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both-and escape the merciless progress of time-in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.

The universal computer mind Omnius has retreated to its last stronghold, where it plots a devastating new strategy that could undo the victories of the Butlerian Jihad. The surviving Titans are creating new lieutenants to do their will when at last they return to attack the human beings they once ruled.In the years of peace too many of mankind have forgotten that their machine enemies never sleep. But some have forgotten nothing - and learned from their triumphs. The brilliant military commander Vorian Atreides, son of a Titan, has the gift of long life from his terrifying father and knows the machines' minds better than any man alive. Norma Cenva, the genius inventor of humanity's best defences, dreams of new discoveries that will make man invincible. And on the windswept desert planet Arrakis, the power that can give them victory waits.The authors of PRELUDE TO DUNE have written the triumphant climax to the history of the Dune universe: the story most eagerly anticipated by its readers.'If you're familiar with the Dune universe it is oddly compelling. This is a successful space opera that spins in a few genuine surprises.' Locus

The dark and romantic novel by Jojo Moyes, internationally bestselling author of Me Before You, After You and the new bestseller Still Me. 'Warm, engaging and acutely observed.' - Woman and HomeIsabel Delancey has always taken her gifted life for granted. But when her husband dies suddenly, leaving her with a mountain of debt, she and her two children are forced to abandon their home and move to a crumbling pile in the country.With the house falling down around them, and the last of her savings fast disappearing, Isabel turns to her neighbours, not knowing that her mere presence there has stirred up long-standing obsessions.As she fights to make her house a home, passions and lives collide. Isabel will discover an instinct for survival she never knew she had - and that a heart can play a new song . . .

Adapted as a major TV series, produced by Steven Spielberg, King's bestselling novel centres on a small town suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible dome.In UNDER THE DOME, King has produced another riveting masterpiece. The end of every chapter hooks you into the next, drawing you inside a psychological drama that is so rich, you don't read it, you live it.It is the story of the small town of Chester's Mill, Maine which is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. No one can get in and no one can get out.The normal rules of society are suddenly changed and when food, electricity and water run short, the community begins to crumble. As a new and more sinister social order develops, Dale Barbara, Iraq veteran, teams up with a handful of intrepid citizens to fight against the corruption that is sweeping through the town and to try to discover the source of the Dome before it is too late . . .

A beautiful novel by the much-loved Rosamunde Pilcher.Elfrida Phipps loves her new life in her pretty Hampshire village. She has a tiny cottage, her faithful dog Horace and the friendship of the neighbouring Blundells - particularly Oscar - to ensure that her days include companionship as well as independence. But an unforeseen tragedy upsets Elfrida's tranquillity: Oscar's wife and daughter are killed in a terrible car crash and he finds himself homeless when his stepchildren claim their dead mother's inheritance. Oscar and Elfrida take refuge in a rambling house in Scotland which becomes a magnet for various waifs and strays who converge upon it, including an unhappy teenage girl. It could be a recipe for disaster. But somehow the Christmas season weaves its magical spell and for Elfrida and Oscar, in the evening of their lives, the winter solstice brings love and solace.

'Although it's difficult to believe, the sixties are not fictional; they actually happened' (Author's Afterword)Stephen King, whose first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974, the year before the last US troops withdrew from Vietnam, is the first hugely popular writer of the TV generation. Images from that war - and the protests against it - had flooded America's living rooms for a decade.Hearts in Atlantis is composed of five linked stories set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.Full of danger, full of suspense, most of all full of heart, Hearts in Atlantis will take some readers to a place they have never been...and others to a place they have never been able to completely leave.

Includes the brilliant story 'The Mist', now adapted into a major Netflix series.Hold tight. We are going into a number of dark places, but I think I know the way. Just don't let go of my arm . . . Unrivalled master of suspense Stephen King takes the unsuspecting reader on a fantastic journey through the dark shadows of our innermost fears. Do the dead sing? In this bumper collection of chilling tales, we meet: a woman who has never crossed The Reach, the water dividing her from the mainland; a gramma who only wants to hug little George, even after she is dead; an innocent looking toy with sinister powers; and a primeval sea creature with an insatiable appetite.

Everything is familiar. But everything has changed.Coming back to the little community is like walking into a nightmare for Jim Gardener, poet, drunk, potential suicide.It all looks the same, the house, the furniture, Jim's friend Bobbi, her beagle (though ageing), even the woods out at the back.But it was in the woods that Bobbi stumbled over the odd, part-buried object and felt a peculiar tingle as she brushed the soft earth away.Everything is familiar. But everything is about to change.

The Stephen King Amusement Park - an unnerving experience, with rides every which way to hell . . . and a few to glory.A solitary finger pokes out of a drain. Novelty teeth turn predatory. The Nevada desert swallows a Cadillac. Meanwhile, the legend of Castle Rock returns . . . and grows on you. What does it all mean? What else could it mean? Stephen King is here with a powerful collection of stories - a vast, many-chambered cave of a volume.The long reach of Stephen King's imagination will take you on a roller coaster to places you've never been before. You will lose sleep. But Stephen King, writing to beat the devil, will do your dreaming for you.

You re a firestarter honey just one big Zippo lighter.A year ago, he was an upstanding instructor of English at Harrison State College. Now Andy is on the run with his daughter. A pigtailed girl named Charlie. A girl with an unimaginably terrifying gift.It is a gift which could be used to corrupt authorities. Soon Charlie will be caught up in the menace of a fateful drug experiment and a sinister government ploy

Introduction and Notes by Gene M. Moore, Universiteit van Amsterdam.Generally regarded as the pre-eminent work of Conrad's shorter fiction, Heart of Darkness is a chilling tale of horror which, as the author intended, is capable of many interpretations. Set in the Congo during the period of rapid colonial expansion in the 19th century, the story deals with the highly disturbing effects of economic, social and political exploitation of European and African societies and the cataclysmic behaviour this induced in some individuals.The other two stories in this book - Youth and The End of the Tether - concern the sea and those who sail upon it, a genre in which Conrad reigns supreme.

Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.Far from fading with time, Kenneth Grahame's classic tale of fantasy has attracted a growing audience in each generation.Rat, Mole, Badger and the preposterous Mr Toad, have brought delight to many through the years with their odd adventures on and by the river, and at the imposing residence of Toad Hall.

Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly old skinflint. He hates everyone, especially children.But at Christmas three ghosts come to visit him, scare him into mending his ways, and he finds, as he celebrates with Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and their family, that geniality brings its own reward.This finest of all Christmas stories is beautifully illustrated with Arthur Rackham's superb line drawings.

Agu is just a boy when war arrives at his village. His mother and sister are rescued by the UN, while he and his father remain to fight the rebels. 'Run!' shouts his father when the rebels arrive. And Agu does run. Straight into the rebels' path. In a vivid, sparkling voice, Agu tells the story of what happens to him next. His story is shocking and painful, and completely unforgettable.Beasts of No Nation gives us an extraordinary portrait of the chaos and violence of war. It is a gripping and remarkable debut.

Kitchen-boy Simon is bored, restless and fourteen years old - a dangerous combination. It seems, however, that his life has just taken a turn for the better when he's apprenticed to his castle's resident wizard. As Simon's learning to read and write under Doctor Morgenes' tutelage, forces greater than he could possible imagine are gathering: forces which will change Simon's life - and his world - forever. Following the death of Good King John, Osten Ard is plunged into civil war as his sons battle for control of the fabled Dragonbone Chair - the country's throne as well as the symbol of its power. Simon is forced to flee the only home he has ever known, a journey which will test him beyond his worst nightmares. With THE DRAGONBONE CHAIR, Tad Williams introduced readers to the incredible fantasy world of Osten Ard and kicked off the beloved, internationally bestselling series Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

In a little coffee shop in one of the most dangerous places on earth, five very different women come together. SUNNY, the proud proprietor, who needs an ingenious plan - and fast - to keep her caf and customers safe.YAZMINA, a young pregnant woman stolen from her remote village and now abandoned on Kabul's violent streets.CANDACE, a wealthy American who has finally left her husband for her Afghan lover, the enigmatic Wakil.ISABEL, a determined journalist with a secret that might keep her from the biggest story of her life.And HALAJAN, the sixty-year-old den mother, whose long-hidden love affair breaks all the rules. As these five women discover there's more to one another than meets the eye, they form a unique bond that will for ever change their lives and the lives of many others.The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul is the heart-warming and life-affirming fiction debut from the author of the bestselling memoir The Kabul Beauty School.