Penguin Group

Fidel Castro, 2008

He is the only world leader to have outlasted nine US presidents, has survived over 600 assassination attempts and remains one of the twentieth century's most controversial figures. Here Castro tells his story in full for the first time, speaking openly about everything from his parents and earliest influences to his imprisonment, guerrilla war and the Cuban revolution and on to the Bay of Pigs, the missile crisis and his relationship with Che Guevara. He also remembers the people he knew, from John F. Kennedy to Ernest Hemingway. Whatever your views on Castro are, this is an essential record of an incredible life — and even more extraordinary times. Подробнее

Memoirs of my Melancholy Whores

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 2009

'The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself a gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin'. He has never married, never loved and never gone to bed with a woman he didn't pay. But on finding a young girl naked and asleep on the brothel owner's bed, a passion is ignited in his heart — and he feels, for the first time, the urgent pangs of love. Each night, exhausted by her factory work, 'Delgadina' sleeps peacefully whilst he watches her quietly. During these solitary early hours, his love for her deepens and he finds himself reflecting on his newly found passion and the loveless life he has led. By day, his columns in the local newspaper are read avidly by those who recognise in his outpourings the enlivening and transformative power of love. The publication of «Memories of My Melancholy Whores» spearheads «Penguin's» celebration of Marquez's 80th birthday in 2007. Подробнее

That Extra Half an Inch: Hair, Heels and Everything in Between

Victoria Beckham, 2007

'I've always been a girls' girl. And I know from experience that making the very best of yourself is something any woman can do. I was never the six-foot-tall pin-up ...I've always been the girl-next-door who got lucky. I've come a long way in the last ten years, but this book isn't my attempt to tell you what or what not to do. It's just to share some of what I've learned'. Based on the phenomenal bestselling hardback, this handbag edition with exclusive new photography is updated with extra tips for where to find your must-have purchases. That Extra Half an Inch is a revealing and practical book on fashion, beauty and style. Victoria shares her secrets on dressing for special occasions, everyday wear, accessorizing, holiday tips and making the most of your wardrobe. Whether you're getting ready for work, a night out on the town or even doing the school run, this is Victoria's personal guide to feeling confident and looking great every time you step out of the front door. Подробнее

Rudolf Nureyev: The Life

Julie Kavanagh, 2008

Born on a train in Stalin's Russia, Rudolf Nureyev was ballet's first pop icon. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement — both on and off stage. Nureyev's achievements and conquests became legendary: he rose out of Tatar peasant poverty to become the Kirov's thrilling maverick star; slept with his beloved mentor's wife; defected to the West in 1961; sparked Rudimania across the globe; gave his rabid sexuality full reign; established the most rhapsodic partnership in dance history with the middle-aged Margot Fonteyn; reinvented male technique; gatecrashed modern dance; moulded new stars; and, staged Russia's unknown ballet masterpieces in the West. Julie Kavanagh's uncompromising and magnificent biography, ten years in the making, is a brilliant tribute to a superstar the world can never forget. Подробнее

Faith

Lesley Pearse, 2008

1995, Scotland — The prison of Cornton Vale. Laura Brannigan is in jail for murder. For two years she's been battling for justic — insisting that she didn't kill her best friend, Jackie. Yet with her spirits at their lowest ebb, she receives a letter that takes her back to a different time and memory of an old love ...Twenty years ago was a heady time for Laura: she'd escaped an abusive home and together with new best friend Jackie she'd made a fresh start. The pair had sworn to be sisters for ever. And Stuart had come into their lives — giving Laura a brilliant summer of love. So what went wrong in the intervening years? And why is Stuart writing to Laura now? Does he have faith in her innocence? And can he help free Laura from prison — and her past? Подробнее

Gypsy

Lesley Pearse, 2009

Liverpool, 1893, and tragedy sends Beth Bolton on a journey far from home...Fifteen-year-old Beth's dreams are shattered when she, her brother Sam and baby sister Molly are orphaned. Sam believes that only in America can they make their fortunes so, reluctantly leaving Molly with adoptive parents, brother and sister embark on the greatest adventure of their lives. Onboard the steamer to New York there are rogues aplenty. But Beth's talent with the fiddle earns her the nickname Gypsy — and the friendship of charismatic gambler Theo and sharp-witted Londoner, Jack. And after dodging trouble across America, finally the foursome head for the dangerous mountains of Canada and the Klondike river in search of gold. How far must Beth go to find happiness? And will her travels lead this gypsy to a place she can call home? Подробнее

Torture Team: Uncovering War Crimes in the Land of the Free

Philippe Sands, 2009

After 9/11, the Bush administration declared that it would have to work through 'the dark side'. And it did: the Administration turned its back on the rules and on America's commitment to the dignity of every human person. It embraced torture, looking for legal advice that justified cruelty, and making sure that it found it. Voices of dissent — in the military and elsewhere — were pushed aside, as ideology and incompotence led to illegal interrogation techniques encouraged by Jack Bauer in 24. In «Torture Team», Philippe Sands travels around America, tracking down those responsible. In their own words, he shows how war crimes were committed. He opens the door to accountability and justice. Подробнее

World War One: A Short History

Norman Stone, 2008

The First World War was the overwhelming disaster from which everything else in the twentieth century stemmed. Fourteen million combatants died, a further twenty million were wounded, four empires were destroyed and even the victors' empires were fatally damaged. The sheer complexity and scale of the war have encouraged historians to write books on a similar scale. But now Norman Stone, one of Britain's greatest historians, has achieved the almost impossible task of writing a terse, brilliantly written, opinionated and witty short history of the conflict. In only 140 pages he distils a lifetime of teaching, arguing and thinking into what will be one of the most talked about history books of years to come. Подробнее

Berlin: The Downfall 1945

Antony Beevor, 2010

The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Reich in January 1945. Political instructors rammed home the message of Wehrmacht and SS brutality. The result was the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known, with tanks crushing refugee columns under their tracks, mass rape, pillage and destruction. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or were massacred because Nazi Party chiefs, refusing to face defeat, had forbidden the evacuation of civilians. Over seven million fled westwards from the terror of the Red Army. Antony Beevor reconstructs the experiences of those millions caught up in the nightmare of the Third Reich's final collapse, telling a terrible story of pride, stupidity, fanatacism, revenge and savagery, but also one of astonishing endurance, self-sacrifice and survival against all odds. Подробнее

Stalingrad

Antony Beevor, 2007

In October 1942, a panzer officer wrote 'Stalingrad is no longer a town...Animals flee this hell; the hardest stones cannot bear it for long; only men endure'. The battle for Stalingrad became the focus of Hitler and Stalin's determination to win the gruesome, vicious war on the eastern front. The citizens of Stalingrad endured unimaginable hardship; the battle, with fierce hand-to-hand fighting in each room of each building, was brutally destructive to both armies. But the eventual victory of the Red Army, and the failure of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa, was the first defeat of Hitler's territorial ambitions in Europe, and the start of his decline. An extraordinary story of tactical genius, civilian bravery, obsession, carnage and the nature of war itself, Stalingrad will act as a testament to the vital role of the soviet war effort. Подробнее

The Autumn of the Patriarch

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 2010

As the citizens of an unnamed Caribbean nation creep through the dusty corridors of the presidential palace in search of their tyrannical leader, they cannot comprehend that the frail and withered man laying dead on the floor can be the self-styled General of the Universe. Their egocentric, maniacally violent leader, known for serving up traitors to dinner guests and drowning young children at sea, can surely not die the humiliating death of a mere mortal? Tracing the demands of a man whose egocentric excesses mask the loneliness of isolation and whose lies have become so ingrained that they are indistinguishable from truth, Marquez has created a fantastical portrait of despotism that rings with an air of reality. Подробнее

Collected Stories

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 2010

Sweeping through crumbling towns, travelling fairs and windswept ports, Gabriel García Márquez introduces a host of extraordinary characters and communities in his mesmerising tales of everyday life: smugglers, bagpipers, the President and Pope at the funeral of Macondo’s revered matriarch; a very old angel with enormous wings, stranded in a young couple’s back garden; a town plagued by dying birds that fall from the sky and an awestruck village captivated by a beautiful drowned sailor. Teeming with the magical oddities for which his novels are loved, Márquez’s stories are a delight. Подробнее

The Political Animal: An Anatomy

Jeremy Paxman, 2007

Jeremy Paxman knows every maneouvre a politician will make to avoid answering a difficult question, but here he seeks an answer to just one: What makes politicians tick? Embarking on a journey in which he encounters movers and shakers past and present, he discovers: • that Prime Ministers have often lost a parent in childhood • why Trollope is the politician’s novelist of choice • that Lloyd George once hunted Jack the Ripper • how an Admiral’s speech in parliament helped win WWII Where do politicians come from? How do they get elected? What do they do all day? And why do they seek power? All these questions and many more are addressed in Paxman’s thrilling dissection of that strange and elusive breed – the political animal. Подробнее

The Closed Circle

Jonathan Coe, 2010

Jonathan Coe’s previous novel, «The Rotters’ Club», was a novel of innocence: a nostalgic, humorous evocation of adolescent life in 1970s Britain. «The Closed Circle» is its mirror image: a novel of experience. On Millennium night, with Blair presiding over a superficially cool, sexed-up new version of the country, Benjamin Trotter finds himself watching the celebrations on his parents’ TV in the same Birmingham house in which he grew up. Watching, in fact, his younger brother, Paul, now a bright young New Labour MP who has bought wholeheartedly into the Blairite dream. Neither of them can know that their lives are about to implode. Set against the backdrop of Britain’s racial and social tensions and the country’s increasingly compromised role in America’s ‘war against terrorism’, «The Closed Circle» shuttles between London and Birmingham, taking in fat cats, media advisers and political protestors. As its characters struggle to make sense of the perennial problems of love, vocation and family in a changing world, it offers a bitter-sweet conclusion to the unfinished business of The Rotters’ Club. Подробнее

The Safe House

Nicci French, 2010

You open your home and your heart to a victim. But your house is anything but safe... Samantha Laschen is a doctor specialising in post-traumatic stress disorder. She's moved to the coast to escape her problems and to be alone with her young daughter. But now the police want her to take in Fiona Mackenzie, a girl whose parents have been savagely murdered. Yet by allowing Fiona in, Sam is exposing herself — and her daughter — to risks she couldn't possibly have imagined... Подробнее

A Confession and Other Religious Writing

Leo Tolstoy, 1987

Tolstoy's passionate and iconoclastic writings — on issues of faith, immortality, freedom, violence, and morality — reflect his intellectual search for truth and a religion firmly grounded in reality. The selection includes «A Confession», «Religion and Morality», «What Is Religion, and of What Does Its Essence Consist?» and «The Law of Love and the Law of Violence». Подробнее

Globalization and Its Discontents

Joseph Stiglitz, 2003

Our world is changing. Globalization is not working. It is hurting those it was meant to help. And now, the tide is turning … Explosive and shocking, «Globalization and Its Discontents» is the bestselling exposé of the all-powerful organizations that control our lives – from the man who has seen them at work first hand. As Chief Economist at the World Bank, Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz had a unique insider’s view into the management of globalization. Now he speaks out against it: how the IMF and WTO preach fair trade yet impose crippling economic policies on developing nations; how free market ‘shock therapy’ made millions in East Asia and Russia worse off than they were before; and how the West has driven the global agenda to further its own financial interests. Globalization can still be a force for good, Stiglitz argues. But the balance of power has to change. Here he offers real, tough solutions for the future. Подробнее

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

Orlando Figes, 2008

Drawing on a huge range of sources — letters, memoirs, conversations — Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers — whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends — or to inform on them. Подробнее

The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred

Niall Ferguson, 2007

The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? The War of the World comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson’s masterpiece. Подробнее

Fascination

William Boyd, 2008

This is William Boyd's third volume of short stories following his acclaimed collections «On the Yankee Station» (1981) and «The Destiny of Nathalie X» (1995). Described as «the finest storyteller of his generation», Boyd shows his mastery of the form as these stories range widely through time and space. In a brilliant array of styles and narratives we move from 1930s Germany to Los Angeles in the Second World War, from contemporary Oxford to 19th century Russia. Whether in London or Amsterdam. Eastbourne or a Normandy village these stories explore and expose the fraught, funny, absurd, poignant and lovelorn lives of their many and varied characters. Подробнее

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