Skjønnlitteratur

Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that have shaped the past century. He weaves together the cracking of the Axis codes during WWII and the quest to establish a free South East Asian 'data haven' for digital information in the present.

The poetry and prose collected in Plainwater are a testament to the extraordinary imagination of Anne Carson, a writer described by Michael Ondaatje as "the most exciting poet writing in English today." Succinct and astonishingly beautiful, these pieces stretch the boundaries of language and literary form, while juxtaposing classical and modern traditions. Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers miniature lectures on topics as varied as orchids and Ovid. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy. She constructs verbal photographs of a series of mysterious towns, and takes us on a pilgrimage in pursuit of the elusive and intimate anthropology of water. Blending the rhythm and vivid metaphor of poetry with the discursive nature of the essay, the writings in Plainwater dazzle us with their invention and enlighten us with their erudition.

'The ultimate hard science fiction novel' James Blish

A battle - charged and epic heroic fantasy by the Sunday Times bestselling author David Gemmell, perfect for fans of Joe Abercrombie, Duncan M.

Nothing but trouble can ensue when Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia instructs him to steal a silver jug from Totleigh Towers, home of magistrate and hell-hound, Sir Watkin Bassett.

'Fear and Trembling' tells the story of a young woman who spends a year working at a Japanese firm. She soon learns that at the Yumimoto Corporation hierarchy means everything, and her time there soon turns into a comic nightmare of terror and self-abasement.

Struwwelpeter in English Translation is a captivating piece of literature penned by the talented Heinrich Hoffmann. Published in the year 2000 by Dover Publications Inc., this book has since stood the test of time, remaining relevant and engaging to its readers. The genre of the book is hard to pin down to just one, as it successfully blends elements of various genres, creating a unique reading experience. The author, Hoffmann, is renowned for his ability to weave intricate narratives that captivate the reader's attention from the first page to the last. The book has been translated into English, broadening its reach and making it accessible to a wider audience. Dover Publications Inc., the publisher of the book, has done an excellent job in ensuring the book's quality and availability. If you're in search of a book that offers a unique and compelling narrative, Struwwelpeter in English Translation by Heinrich Hoffmann is a great choice.

And the more desperate the circumstances become, the more desperate the stories they tell - and the more devious their machinations to make themselves the hero of the inevitable play/movie/non-fiction blockbuster that will certainly be made from their plight.

A Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel of plague and time travel by an SFWA Grand Master of Science Fiction.

Teaches a few basic knots: the bowline, sheet bend, and rolling hitch, among others - and splices in three-strand and braided rope. This book also covers decorative rope and canvaswork - the traditional arts of the sailor.

Passionate, independent-minded nonfiction from the international bestselling author of 'The Corrections'.Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom' was the literary sensation of 2010, whilst 'The Corrections' was the best-loved and most written-about novel the previous decade. 'How to be Alone', is a collection of the personal essays and painstaking, often humorous reportage that have earned Franzen a wide and loyal readership, including what has come to be known as 'The Harper's Essay', Franzen's controversial 1996 look at the fate of the novel. From the sex-advice industry to the way a supermax prison works, from his father's struggle with Alzheimer's disease to a rueful account of Franzen's brief tenure as an Oprah Winfrey author, each piece wrestles with Franzen's familiar themes: the erosion of civic life and private dignity, and the hidden persistence of loneliness, in postmodern imperial America.These collected essays record what Franzen calls 'a movement away from an angry and frightened isolation toward an acceptance - even a celebration - of being a reader and a writer.' They voice a wry distrust of the claims of technology and psychology, the love-hate relationship with consumerism, and the subversive belief in the tragic shape of the individual life that help make Franzen one of the sharpest, toughest-minded, and most entertaining social critics at work today.

Return to the classical hard-science fiction of the kind popular in the Golden Age

Saramago's Jesus is the son not of God but of Joseph. In the wilderness he tussles not with the Devil - a kindly and necessary evil - but with God, a fallible, power-hungry autocrat. And he must die not for the sins of the fathers but for the sins of the Father.

Fiesta had already established him as a novelist of exceptional power, but with these short stories, his second collection, he showed that it is possible, within the space of a few pages, to recreate a scene with absolute truth, bringing to life details observed only by the eye of a uniquely gifted artist.

Thomas Mann's first great novel, written at the age of 25, is an epic study of decadence among the merchant families of Hamburg at the end of the nineteenth century. The novel is based on Mann's own experience as the son of a German merchant prince, but it goes far beyond his own experience in its sweep and comprehensiveness.

Born Jalal ad-Din Mohammed Balkhi in Persia early in the thirteenth century, the poet known as Rumi expressed the deepest feelings of the heart through his poetry.

Coetzee - soon to be a major film starring Mark Rylance, Robert Pattinson and Johnny DeppFor decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement, ignoring the impending war between the barbarians and the Empire, whose servant he is.

This second posthumous collection from Charles Bukowski takes readers deep into the raw, wild vein of writing that extends from the early 70s to the 1990s.

The US government and big business teamed up to build dams and bridges across the American West. A band of individuals teamed up to prevent it happening. In this chaotic comedy their aim is to dismantle the machinery of progress through peaceful means, or otherwise.

To the spaceship Discovery, floating in the silent depths of space since Dave Bowman passed through the alien 'Star Gate', comes Heywood Floyd on a mission of recovery. What he finds near Jupiter is beyond the imaginings of any mere human.

At six o'clock every day, without fail, with no excuses, Sam Vimes must go home to read Where's My Cow?, with all the right farmyard noises, to his little boy. He can think of a more useful book for a boy who lives in a city. So Sam Vimes starts adapting the story.

Then an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, blows in on the changing wind with her young daughter, and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church. I loved it.'Chocolat was Joanne Harris's first book about Vianne Rocher, and was turned into the Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp.

Dragonholders, Lord Holders and Craftmasters crowded into the tiny inner room to learn the secrets of their beginnings. Ana AIVAS had other gifts to offer, stored information of old crafts that had been forgotten, of medicine, music and technology. But the greatest promise AIVAS offered was the chance to rid Pern of Thread forever.

Of all the young singers at the Harperhall of Pern, Piemur was the one chosen for the leading role at Lord Groghe's Gather...and then his voice broke. But Masterharper Robinton, Menolly and Sebell had other plans for Piemur. So, whilst serving as a messanger-drum apprentice, Piemur carried out special errands for the three.

When Menolly, daughter of Yanus Sea Holder, arrived at the Harper Craft Hall, she came in style, aboard a huge bronze dragon, followed by her nine fire lizards. The Masterharper of Pern, aware of her unique skills, had chosen her as his only girl apprentice. But the holdless girl had first to overcome many heartaches in this strange new life.

Anne McCaffrey was one of the world's leading science-fiction writers, and won both the Hugo and Nebula awards as well as the Margaret A. Edwards' Lifetime Literary Achievement Award. She was deeply honoured to have been made a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 2005, and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006. Born and raised in the US and of Irish extraction, she moved to Ireland in 1970 where she lived in the ¿Garden of Ireland¿, County Wicklow, until her death in 2011 at the age of eighty-five. She is the creator of the Dragonriders of Pern¿ series. Her website is www.pernhome.com.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MALCOLM BRADBURYDenis Stone, a naive young poet, is invited to stay at Crome, a country house renowned for its gatherings of 'bright young things'.

A heroic fantasy by the Sunday Times bestselling author David Gemmell in which the forces of good and evil and the living and the dead face each other in battle...Perfect for fans of Joe Abercrombie, Duncan M.