Vintage books 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows. Two lives, one nation and a century of art under tyranny in China Ai Weiwei

Marital troubles? Sick of life? Suicide the answer? Why not get yourself a contract killer? • Nothing easier, provided you communicate only by phone and box number. You give him your photograph, specify when and where to find you, then sit back and prepare to die • Murdered, you will be of greater interest than ever you were in life. More to him than met the eye will be the judgement. A mysterious killing lives long in the popular memory. Our hero meticulously plans his own demise, except for one detail: what if he suddenly decides he wants to live?

Discover Charles Darwin's most important ideas • When the eminent naturalist Charles Darwin returned from South America on board the H.M.S Beagle in 1836, he brought notes and evidence that would form the basis of his landmark theory: that species evolve by a process of natural selection • This theory, published as The Origin of Species in 1859, is the basis of modern biology and the concept of biodiversity. It also sparked a fierce scientific, religious and philosophical debate that still rages today

Красивый, образованный и обаятельный Генри Стюарт, лорд Дарнли, заявил о своих притязаниях на английский трон, женившись на Марии Стюарт, которая сама провозгласила себя королевой Англии. Прошло совсем немного времени, прежде чем Мария обнаружила, что ее новый муж заинтересован только в том, чтобы обеспечить себе верховную власть. Затем, 10 февраля 1567 года, в результате взрыва в его квартире Дарнли погиб; интрига усилилась после того, как было обнаружено, что он, по-видимому, был задушен перед взрывом • После тщательного изучения материалов Элисон Вейр нашла решение этой вечной загадки. Используя свой дар к яркому описанию персонажей и захватывающему повествованию, Вейр написала роман "Мария, королева Шотландии, и убийство лорда Дарнли" - одну из своих самых увлекательных экскурсий в залитое кровью, одержимое властью прошлое Британии

One day, out of the blue, Henry Nagel inherits a sumptuous apartment in St John's Wood. Divine intervention? Or his late father's love nest? Henry doesn't know, but he is glad to escape the North. After nearly sixty years of angry disappointment, Henry's life is about to change • Not that the ghosts of Henry's past are prepared to disappear without a struggle - his old school-friend and rival Osmond 'Hovis' Belkin, currently enjoying success in Hollywood; his tragic great aunt Marghanita for whom Henry once entertained a dangerous passion; and his father Izzi, upholsterer turned illusionist, fire-eater and origamist, whose shade Henry interrogates relentlessly. But the present clamours as loudly as the past. His dyspeptic neighbour Lachlan wants his sympathy; Lachlan's sloppy red setter, Angus, wants a walk; and Moira, the waitress with the crooked smile and custard hair, seems to want him

'One of the outstanding writers of the world' New York Times • Because of the boyhood trauma of seeing his mother make love to another man in the presence of his dying father, Mizoguchi becomes a hopeless stutterer. Taunted by his schoolmates, he feels utterly alone untill he becomes an acolyte at a famous temple in Kyoto, where he develops an all-consuming obsession with the temple's beauty. This powerful story of dedication and sacrifice brings together Mishima's preoccupations with violence, desire, religion and national history to dazzling effect

Read this stunning Vintage Classics edition of the original story of alien invasion from the father of science fiction, H.G. Wells • No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied. Yet across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us • Then, late one night, in the middle of the English countryside, they landed

The story of modern Australia begins in eighteenth-century Britain, where people were hanged for petty offences but crime was rife, and the gaols were bursting. From this situation was born the Sydney experiment, with criminals perceived to be damaging British society transported to Sydney, an 'open air prison with walls 14,000 miles thick' • Eleven ships were dispatched in 1781, and arrived in Australia after eight hellish months at sea. Tom Keneally describes the first four years of the 'thief colony' and how, despite the escapes, the floggings, the murders and the rebellions, it survived against the odds to create a culture which would never have been tolerated in its homeland but which, in Australia, became part of the identity of a new and audacious nation

It was a time of climate change and colonialism, puritans and populism, witch hunts and war • This is the story of a home that became a warzone. Basing House in Hampshire saw one of the longest and bloodiest sieges of the English Civil War. Defended for over two years by artists and aristocrats, actors and apothecaries, women and children, it became a symbol of royalist defiance and a microcosm of the wider conflict • Drawing on unpublished manuscripts and the voices of dozens of soldiers and civilians, award-winning historian Jessie Childs weaves a thrilling tale of war and peace, terror and faith, savagery and civilization

A captivating new book from Wade Davis - winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Into the Silence - that brings vividly to life the story of the great Rio Magdalena, illuminating Colombia's complex past, present, and future • For Wade Davis, Colombia was the first country that captured his heart and gave him license to be free. Here, he tells of his travels on the mighty Magdalena, the river that made possible the nation. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of their remarkable land • Braiding together memoir, history and journalism, Magdalena is at once an absorbing adventure through a spectacular landscape and a kaleidoscopic picture of Colombia as it stands on the verge of a new period of peace

When the Khurana boys and their friend Mansoor set out for one of Delhi's markets, disaster strikes without warning. A 'small' bomb detonates, killing the brothers instantly. Mansoor is one of the few survivors • From India to America, the lives of victims and bystanders, mothers and fathers, comrades and adversaries are changed forever. Even the young bomb maker cannot escape the heat of the blast

Herbert Molin, a retired police officer, is living alone in a remote cottage in the vast forests of northern Sweden. He has two obsessions: one is the tango and the other is a conviction that he is being hunted, constantly pursued by 'demons'. He has no close friends, no close neighbours, and by the time his body is eventually found, Molin is almost unrecognisable • Lindman, a police officer on extended sick leave, hears of the death of his former colleague and, to take his mind off his own problems, decides to involve himself in the case. What he discovers, to his horror and disbelief, is a network of evil almost unimaginable in this remote district, and one which seems impossible to link to Molin's death

Walking upright on two feet is a uniquely human skill. It defines us as a species • It enabled us to walk out of Africa and to spread as far as Alaska and Australia. It freed our hands and freed our minds. We put one foot in front of the other without thinking - yet how many of us know how we do that, or appreciate the advantages it gives us? In this hymn to walking, neuroscientist Shane O'Mara invites us to marvel at the benefits it confers on our bodies and minds, and urges us to appreciate - and exercise - our miraculous ability