Vintage books Dark Lies the Island Barry Kevin

Written in alternating chapters, W or the Memory of Childhood, tells two parallel tales, in two parts. One is a story created in childhood and about childhood. The other story is about two people called Gaspard Winckler: one an eight-year-old deaf-mute lost in a shipwreck, the other a man despatched to search for him, who discovers W, an island state based on the rules of sport. As the two tales move in and out of focus, the disturbing truth about the island of W reveals itself • Perec combines fiction and autobiography in unprecedented ways, allowing no easy escape from these stories, or from history

Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs. The Astounding Interconnectedness of the UniverseThe most thrilling, genre-busting, unlikely science book you’ll ever read, from the world-renowned, multi-award-winning, superstar physicist Lisa Randal • 66 million years ago, a ten-mile-wide object from outer space hurtled into the Earth at incredible speed. The impact annihilated the dinosaurs, along with three-quarters of the other species on the planet. But what if this catastrophe was the sign of something greater: an opening vista onto the interconnectedness of the universe itself? • This is the story of the astounding forces that underpin our existence; a horizon-expanding tour of the cosmos that unifies what we know about the universe with new thinking. From the far-flung reaches of space, the makeup of the universe and our solar system's place within it, to the mysterious and elusive stuff of dark matter and how it affects life here on Earth

The official book behind the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley • Alan Turing was the mathematician whose cipher-cracking transformed the Second World War. Taken on by British Intelligence in 1938, as a shy young Cambridge don, he combined brilliant logic with a flair for engineering. In 1940 his machines were breaking the Enigma-enciphered messages of Nazi Germany's air force. He then headed the penetration of the super-secure U-boat communications • But his vision went far beyond this achievement. Before the war he had invented the concept of the universal machine, and in 1945 he turned this into the first design for a digital computer • Turing's far-sighted plans for the digital era forged ahead into a vision for Artificial Intelligence

The pre-eminent study of the six wives of Henry VIII by a master historian • Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived • CATHERINE OF ARAGON: the pious Spanish Catholic who suffered years of miscarriages and failed to produce a male heir • ANNE BOLEYN: the pretty, clever, French-educated Protestant whose marriage to Henry changed England forever • JANE SEYMOUR: the demure and submissive contrast to Anne Boleyn's radical and vampish style • ANNE OF CLEVES: 'the mare of Flanders' whose short marriage to the overweight Henry followed a farcical 'beauty contest' • CATHERINE HOWARD: the flirtatious teenager whose adulteries made a fool of the ageing king... CATHERINE PARR: the shrewd, religiously radical bluestocking who outlived him

The next round in the beloved Two Pints series from the ever-brilliant, always hilarious imagination of bestselling author of The Commitments and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha • Two men meet for a pint - or three - in a Dublin pub. They chew the fat, set the world to rights and mourn friends gone: David Bowie, Prince, Princess Leia and Young Frankenstein. Around them the world of Brexit, Trump, and referendums storm, but some things - good things - never change • Inspired by the last five years of news, Roddy Doyle's Two for the Road offers a strong brew of Roddy Doyle's comic genius - to be downed in one riotous sitting, or savoured over, laugh after laugh

The untold story of Britain's most secretive special forces unit • June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich falls across Europe. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan - a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees. This top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Others simply call them a suicide squad • From British internment camps, to the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp, Leah Garrett follows this band of brothers who will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis

The restrictions of a wartime childhood in in London and subsequent post-war shortages have done little to enrich Timothy's early youth • But everything changes when his glamorous older sister, Kath, invites him to spend the summer at Heidelberg. Kath, who left home long ago to work for the American army, introduces her sixteen-year-old brother to a lifestyle that is deliriously fast, furious and extravagant • Dazzled by the indulgent habits of the American forces, but at the same time sensitive to the broken spirits of the German community beneath this sparkling surface, Timothy will find that his summer holiday is in more ways than one an unforgettable rite of passage

The lives of two close-knit couples are irrevocably changed by an untimely death in this Sunday Times bestselling novel • Alex and Christine and Zach and Lydia have been inseparable since their twenties. From student house-shares and grubby pubs to proper homes and grown-up careers, the two couples' lives have been interlinked for decades. Then one evening, Alex and Christine receive a call from a distraught Lydia. Zach is dead • Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of their loss bringing them closer, the three of them find that love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness as old entanglements and resentments rise from the past

The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in 1804 in a village in Japan's snow country and was expected to lead a life much like her mother's. Instead - after three divorces and with a temperament much too strong-willed for her family's approval - she ran away to follow her own path in Edo, the city we now call Tokyo • Stranger in the Shogun's City is a rare, captivating portrait of one woman as she endeavours to recreate herself and her life, and provides a window into the drama and excitement of Japan at a pivotal moment in history

In a near-future London, Sappho, Picasso and Handel each set upon the same plan - to flee the city by train. Finding themselves fellow passengers, the poet, the painter and the musician discover their fates drawn together by the curious agency of a book • As stories within stories unfold and journeys intersect, another world comes to the fore - one of painful beauty, where language has the power to heal • 'Winterson's belief in love, beauty, and most of all, language, is evangelical and redemptive...it is timely and exciting to read' Rachel Cusk, The Times

This is the story of a haunted Irish childhood • The setting is Derry in the Northern Ireland of the 40s and 50s, fraught with political hatred, family secrets and lethal intrigue. As a young boy tries to make sense of life, poverty and violence shift and obscure the facts; meanwhile his night-time reading of Irish legends weaves enchantment through reality. Claustrophobic but lyrically charged, breathtakingly sad but vibrant and unforgettable, this is one of the finest books about growing up – in Ireland or anywhere – that has ever been written

When Pearl Tull’s husband, Beck, abandons her she pours her energies into preserving normality. Only gradually do her three children realise their father is gone for good. Now, as Pearl lies on her deathbed, the impact of Beck’s abrupt departure unspools: on Cody who can’t overcome his anger, on mild Ezra who must always keep the peace, and on bright, errant Jenny. And so the secrets, memories and anguish of the Tull family begin to surface