'When you have a large collection of animals to transport from one end of the world to the other you cannot, as a lot of people seem to think, just hoist them aboard the nearest ship and set off with a gay wave of your hand.'
Gerald Durrell and his wife are the proud owners of a small zoo on the island of Jersey. But there's one thing that's better than a small zoo - a bigger one! So Durrell heads off to South America to collect more animals.
Along windswept Patagonian shores and in Argentine tropical forests, he encounters a range of animals from penguins to elephant seals. But as always, he is drawn to those rare and interesting creatures which he hopes will thrive and breed in captivity . . .
Told with enthusiasm and without sentimentality, Gerald Durrell's The Whispering Land is an often hilarious but always inspiring foray into the South American wilds. Views: 540
From the acclaimed author of Woman in the Dunes comes Secret Rendezvous, the bizarrely erotic and comic adventures of a man searching for his missing wife in a mysteriously vast underground hospital.
From the moment that an ambulance appears in the middle of the night to take his wife, who protests that she is perfectly healthy, her bewildered husband realizes that things are not as they should be. His covert explorations reveal that the enormous hospital she was taken to is home to a network of constant surveillance, outlandish sex experiments, and an array of very odd and even violent characters. Within a few days, though no closer to finding his wife, the unnamed narrator finds himself appointed the hospital’s chief of security, reporting to a man who thinks he’s a horse. With its nightmarish vision of modern medicine and modern life, Secret Rendezvous is another masterpiece from Japan’s most gifted and original writer of serious fiction. Views: 540
A recollection of the shattering days during World War II when, though the fall of France was imminent, a handful of French pilots continued to fight on against the Germans. Translated by Lewis Galantière. Views: 540
The story of Hereward, called Hereward the Wake after his death, in which the author has blended fact and fiction, as he does so well. Hereward was an Anglo-Saxon king of the 11th century who lived and died by his sword. Views: 540
The Savage Vengeance of Boadicea
I wish there were a man strong enough to stand against me
AD61: Nero has a comfortable grip on his empire. In Gaul, in Germany, in the Middle East, all is quiet. But in Britain his tax collectors beat and rape the daughters of an obscure minor chieftain, sparking an upheaval that is to cause seventy thousand deaths and bring to his ears the name Boadicea.
Against the backdrop of Boadicea's doomed, bloody rebellion, Henry Treece sets the story of young Gemellus Ennius, whose secret mission is complicated by his love for a British princess, and whose relationship with his Celtic half-brother reflects the conflict between tribalism and civilisation.
Treece's empathic understanding of the Celtic spirit combines here with a masterly attention to detail, in a powerful rendering of the stark, confused, violent mood of the age.
Mr Treece can certainly keep your heart beating and your eyes glued to his pages - The New York Times
Cover Illustration: Michael Heslop Views: 540
Product DescriptionThree junior detectives investigate a mystery involving an Oriental chest, a sunken ship, and a baffling dual identity. Views: 539
Life is tough for the Winter family in London, with little money and Dad out of work. Luckily Aunt Cora comes to the rescue with an invitation to live in California. From that moment on, talented Rachel and Tim dream of stardom in America. The family couldn't be more surprised when a movie producer picks plain peevish Jane for the lead part of Mary in The Secret Garden. No one's ever noticed Jane before. Could this be the chance of a lifetime?
Alternate Title: The Painted Garden Views: 539
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is the story of a dramatic year in Virginia's Blue Ridge valley. Annie Dillard sets out to see what she can see. What she sees are astonishing incidents of "mystery, death, beauty, violence." Views: 539
*A Wind in the Door* is a fantastic adventure story involving Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe, the chief characters of *A Wrinkle in Time*. The seed from which the story grows is a rather ordinary situation of Charles Wallace's having difficulty in adapting to school. He is extremely bright, so much so that he gets punched around a lot for being "different". He is also strangely, seriously ill (mitochondritis - the destruction of farandolae, minute creatures of the mitochondria in the blood). Determined to help Charles Wallace in school, Meg pays a visit to his principal, Mr. Jenkins, a dry, cold man with whom Meg herself has had unfortunate run-ins. The interview with Mr. Jenkins goes badly and Meg worriedly returns home to find Charles Wallace waiting for her. "There are," he announces, "dragons in the twins' vegetable garden. Or there were. They've moved to the north pasture now."
Dragons? Not really, but an entity, a being stranger by far than dragons; and the encounter with this alien creature is only the first step that leads Meg, Calvin, and Mr. Jenkins out into galactic space, and then into the unimaginable small world of a mitochondrion. And, at last, safely, triumphantly, home. Views: 539
This novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 195. An allegorical story of World War I, set in the trenches in France and dealing ostensibly with a mutiny in a French regiment, it was originally considered a sharp departure for Faulkner. Recently it has come to be recognized as one of his major works and an essential part of the Faulkner oeuvre. Faulkner himself fought in the war, and his descriptions of it "rise to magnificence," according to The New York Times, and include, in Malcolm Cowley's words, "some of the most powerful scenes he ever conceived." Views: 539
Anton Chekhov's only full-length novel, this Penguin Classics edition of The Shooting Party is translated and edited by Ronald Wilks, with an introduction by John Sutherland.
The Shooting Party centers on Olga, the pretty young daughter of a drunken forester on a country estate, and her fateful relationships with the men in her life. Adored by Urbenin, the estate manager, whom she marries to escape the poverty of her home, she is also desired by the dissolute Count Karneyev and by Zinovyev, a magistrate, who knows the secret misery of her marriage. When an attempt is made on Olga's life in the woods, it seems impossible to discover the perpetrator in an impenetrable web of lust, deceit, loathing and double-dealing. One of Chekhov's earliest experiments in fiction combines the classic elements of a gripping mystery with a short story of corruption, concealed love and fatal jealousy.
Ronald Wilks's brilliant new translation of this work is the first in over seventy years. It brilliantly captures the immediacy of the dialogue that Chekhov was later to develop into his great dramas. This edition also includes an introduction by John Sutherland, suggestions for further reading and explanatory notes.
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was born in Taganrog, a port on the sea of Azov. In 1879 he travelled to Moscow, where he entered the medical faculty of the university, graduating in 1884. During his university years, he supported his family by contributing humorous stories and sketches to magazines. He published his first volume of stories, Motley Tales, in 1886, and a year later his second volume In the Twilight, for which he received the Pushkin Prize. Today his plays, including 'Uncle Vanya', 'The Seagull', and 'The Cherry Orchard' are recognised as masterpieces the world over.
If you enjoyed The Shooting Party, you might like Chekhov's Plays, also available in Penguin Classics. Views: 539
Set in the days of the Empire, with the British ruling in Burma, Burmese Days describes both indigenous corruption and Imperial bigotry, when 'after all, natives were natives - interesting, no doubt, but finally only a 'subject' people, an inferior people with black faces'. Against the prevailing orthodoxy, Flory, a white timber merchant, befriends Dr Veraswami, a black enthusiast for Empire. The doctor needs help. U Po Kyin, Sub- divisional Magistrate of Kyauktada, is plotting his downfall. The only thing that can save him is European patronage: membership of the hitherto all-white Club. While Flory prevaricates, beautiful Elizabeth Lackersteen arrives in Upper Burma from Paris. At last, after years of 'solitary hell', romance and marriage appear to offer Flory an escape from the 'lie' of the 'pukka sahib pose'. Views: 539
The only one of Sinclair Lewis's later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith, It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, rampant promiscuity, crime, and a liberal press. Now finally back in print, It Can't Happen Here remains uniquely important, a shockingly prescient novel that's as fresh and contemporary as today's news. Views: 539
Lovely young Carla Ponce, a resident of Peru, invites Nancy, Bess and George to visit her and solve a mystery that promises to lead to a fabulous treasure. A clue is carved on an intriguing wooden plaque belonging to Carla’s family. When a notorious gang headed by El Gato steals the priceless relic, Nancy quickly recovers the old plaque. Through clever deductions, perseverance, and dangerous adventures, Nancy and her friends help to capture a ring of vicious smugglers and make an astounding archaeological discovery. This book is the original text. A revised text does not exist. Views: 538
