Showing 49–64 of 126 resultsSorted by latest
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£9.99
From one of the greatest Chinese authors of the twentieth century, these delicate stories illuminate the most intimate matters of the human heart. Since childhood, Ruliang has had the peculiar habit of sketching a certain profile in the margins of his books. He has mapped out this same face, over and over again, without knowing why – until he meets Cythnia. As brief and evocative as sketches themselves, these five stories of lost loves, nostalgia and migration reveal a master of feeling at the peak of her powers.
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£9.99
What begins as a miracle of science soon turns into a nightmare. After a plague wipes out all of Russia’s chickens, eyes fall on zoologist Periskov and his strange discovery that promises to revive their population. But quickly, the state’s attempt to control nature spirals rapidly out of control, and soon all of Moscow is under siege by creatures they hadn’t bargained for. ‘The Fatal Eggs’ is Mikhail Bulgakov’s savage, darkly comic tale of progress gone wrong. Blending satire with science fiction, it captures the dangers of unchecked power – and the absurdity of believing that catastrophe can be neatly managed.
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£10.99
Her name is Meryem, but you’d be surprised at how difficult people find that to spell. Meryem is twenty-five years old and has just started working at the offices of Supersaurio – the most important supermarket chain in the Canary Islands. Watched over by the chain’s benevolent blue dinosaur logo, Meryem contends with co-workers who don’t mean to sound sexist, but aren’t women just harder work than men?, a boss who seems determined to make Meryem’s life as miserable as possible, and Omar – smart, funny, very-senior-but-nevertheless-seems-like-a-normal-person Omar, who also happens to be devastatingly handsome. We follow Meryem as she makes the transition from intern, to temp, to arrive finally at the promised land of fixed employment – only to find that she might have left part of her soul behind.
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£9.99
She’s living a perfect life – so why does Laurence feel so torn?Weekends in the country, weekdays in Paris – Laurence’s life features all the trappings of 1960s French bourgeoisie. She has money, a handsome husband, two daughters and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though her mind writes copy while she’s at home, and dreams of domesticity in the office.All her life she has strived to meet the expectations of others. But when her 10-year-old daughter, Catherine, starts to vocalise her despair about the unfairness of the world, Laurence must finally grapple with a life that prizes image over truth.Slim but powerful, this is a classic story of womanhood and its oppressors, parents and their children, and the quest for personal truth – by the iconic feminist Simone de Beauvoir.’The best book I’ve read so far this year’ The Times’Beautifully written, what surprises is how very modern this feminist rite
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£14.99
Fleeing a pitch-dark past, Emilia Innocenti arrives in a tiny village deep in the mountains of Piedmont, Northern Italy, with one aim; to hide away from the world. Surrounded only by a handful of inhabitants, the looming Alps and the weight of her own terrible crime, Emilia is determined to let isolation be her punishment. Equally intent on cutting himself off from the world is Bruno, one of her only neighbours. In the wake of a devastating loss, living in complete solitude seems like the perfect complement to the pain in his heart. But when Emilia and Bruno meet, the two realise they can’t be alone forever – and maybe, they no longer want to be. As Emilia’s dark secret threatens to break the surface, both will question everything they thought they knew about each other – and themselves.
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£10.99
Riko Nishioka is deputy manager of the Pegasus Shobo Kichijoji bookstore. After five years working part-time, she’s finally secured a full-time position at the age of forty. But now she has a nemesis. Aki Kobata, twenty-seven, has waltzed in as a full-time employee thanks to her family connections. A free spirit with a rebellious streak and a silver spoon in her mouth, she’s anything but a team player. The two are always clashing – both at work and over their personal lives. But when Riko is given notice that the store will be closing in six months’ time, they face a stark choice. Can they put their petty enmities aside to boost sales and save their livelihoods or will they go down fighting each other?
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£9.99
Nestled among rugged mountains, in a remote part of Catalonia frequented by wolf hunters, bandits, witches, deserters, ghosts, beasts and demons, sits the old farmhouse called Mas Clavell. Inside, an impossibly old woman lies on her deathbed while family and caretakers drift in and out. All the women who have ever lived and died in that house are waiting for her to join them. They are preparing to throw her a party. As day turns to night, four hundred years’ worth of memories unspool, and the house reverberates with the women’s stories. Stories of mysterious visions, of those born without eyelashes and tongues or with deformed hearts. But it begins with the story of the matriarch Blanca who double-crosses the devil, heedless of what the consequences might be.
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£14.99
The sixth book in the unstoppable, multi-million bestselling Japanese series; four guests with four poignant stories get another chance at lasting happiness.
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£14.99
During WWII, a young Tuscan woman falls in love with a man from the rural depths of southern Italy. As the conflict finally draws to a close, the two travel from Rome to finally meet with his family. But very quickly a dawning realisation breaks: her in-laws and their friends are eccentric in the extreme. They barely leave the house and they rarely speak to their son, fretting instead about their ‘daughter’ – a loud little dog – and worrying constantly, incessantly, about the weather. And, worst of all, they speak with a nostalgic warmth about the region’s recently overthrown fascist regime.
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Set in Romania at the height of Ceausescu’s reign of terror, this autobiographical novel tells the story of a group of young students, each of whom has left the impoverished provinces in search of better prospects in the city.
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£15.99
Musashino, 1959. A young Japanese flight attendant is found strangled on the icy banks of the river. The police suspect foul play – but the deeper they dig, the more they collide with a wall of silence. At the centre of it all stands a foreign priest and the Guglielmo Church, a charitable Christian mission. The dead woman’s connection to the church is undeniable. But what begins as a routine investigation quickly turns into something far more treacherous, entangling together narcotics, post-war relief schemes and the delicate web of international diplomacy. As the story moves from back alleys to diplomatic sanctuaries, following the twists and turns of Detective Fujisawa’s investigation, Seicho Matsumoto masterfully constructs a slow-burning procedural where truth is clear but justice is not permitted.
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£10.99
An astonishing family drama of the highest order, addictively entertaining and utterly unforgettable
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£14.99
Juno Isabella Flock is a dancer and performance artist who spends her days caring for her ailing husband, and her nights chatting to love scammers online. She’s aware of the risks these men pose – she’s watched a documentary about them – but she’s also discovered a heady freedom in these online conversations, and the things they allow her to say. When Juno meets Owen Wilson223 – or, to use his real name, Benu – she senses an immediate connection between them, even though they’re separated by thousands of miles. Gradually, they reveal more and more about themselves to each other: about their real selves, and about who they really want to be. And just as Juno sees through Benu’s lies, he sees through hers too.
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An artist's life, a pact with the devil, a novel about the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.
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£14.99
In this savage and side-splitting literary thriller, an ordinary woman dives headfirst into a world of petty criminals, crooked cops, and accidental assassins. Around her orbit a washed-up fixer blackmailed by his boss’s daughter, a policeman’s wife undercover at a third-rate detective agency, a ghost marriage-broker with an attraction to hairdressers, and a son who unknowingly becomes her rival. What starts as survival turns into vengeance. For Mrs Shim is done with being everyone’s doormat.
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£9.99
Andreas lives his whole life in the Austrian Alps, where he arrives as a young boy taken in by a farming family. He is a man of very few words and so, when he falls in love with Marie, he doesn’t ask for her hand in marriage, but instead has some of his friends light her name at dusk across the mountain. When Marie dies in an avalanche, pregnant with their first child, Andreas’ heart is broken. He leaves his valley just once more, to fight in WWII – where he is taken prisoner in the Caucasus – and returns to find that modernity has reached his remote haven.