Vintage books Notwithstanding Берньер Луи де

Enter Louis de Bernieres' magical, tragic and hilarious South American odyssey • When the spoilt and haughty Dona Constanza tries to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, she starts a running battle with the locals. The skirmishes are so severe that the Government dispatches a squadron of soldiers led by the fat, brutal and stupid Figueras to deal with them • Despite visiting plagues of laughing fits and giant cats upon the troops, the villagers know that to escape the cruel and unusual tortures planned for them, they must run. Thus they plan to head for the mountains and start a new and convivial civilisation…

It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals but over time he proves himself to be civilised, humorous – and a consummate musician • When Pelagia, the local doctor's daughter, finds her letters to her fiance go unanswered, Antonio and Pelagia draw close and the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender?

Set against the backdrop of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in south-west Anatolia - a town in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have co-existed peacefully for centuries • When war is declared and the outside world intrudes, the twin scourges of religion and nationalism lead to forced marches and massacres, and the peaceful fabric of life is destroyed. Birds Without Wings is a novel about the personal and political costs of war, and about love: between men and women; between friends; between those who are driven to be enemies; and between Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty, and Ibrahim the Goatherd, who has courted her since infancy. Epic in sweep, intoxicating in its sensual detail, it is an enchanting masterpiece

In the brief golden years before the outbreak of World War I, Rosie McCosh and her three very different sisters are growing up in an eccentric household in Kent, with their neighbours the Pitt boys on one side and the Pendennis boys on the other. But their days of childhood adventure are shadowed by the approach of the conflict that will engulf them on the cusp of adulthood • When the boys end up scattered along the Western Front, Rosie is left confused by her love for two young men - one an infantry soldier and one a flying ace. Can she, and her sisters, build new lives out of the opportunities and devastations that follow the Great War?

From the master of historical fiction, this book follows an unforgettable family after the Second World War • Some bonds are hard to break • Daniel Pitt was an RAF fighter in the First World War and an espionage agent for the SOE in the Second. Now the conflicts he faces are closer to home • Daniel's marriage has fractured beyond repair and Daniel's relationship with his son, Bertie, has been a failure since Bertie was a small boy • But after his brother Archie's death, Daniel is keen for new perspectives. He first travels to Peshawar to bury Archie in the place he loved best, and then finds himself in Canada, avoiding his family and friends back in England. Daniel and Bertie's different experiences of war, although devastating, also bring with them the opportunity for the two to reconnect

'The kind of book that changes readers for the better' Guardian • When a family tragedy means Mick is sent to the outback to live with his Granpa, it looks as if he has a lonely life ahead of him. The cattle station is a tough place for a child, where nature is brutal and the men must work hard in the heat and dust. However, after a cyclone hits, things change for Mick. Exploring the floodwaters, he finds a lost puppy covered in mud and half-drowned. Mick and his dog immediately become inseparable as they take on the adventures offered by their unusual home, and the business of growing up, together • In this charming prequel to the much-loved Red Dog, Louis de Bernieres tells the moving story of a young boy and his Granpa, and the charismatic and entertaining dog who so many readers hold close to their hearts

The enchanting story of a very remarkable dog from the author of the bestselling Captain Corelli's Mandolin • ‘In early 1998 I went to Perth in Western Australia in order to attend the literature festival, and part of the arrangement was that I should go to Karratha to do their first ever literary dinner. Karratha is a mining town a long way further north. The landscape is extraordinary, being composed of vast heaps of dark red earth and rock poking out of the never-ending bush • I imagine that Mars must have a similar feel to it. I went exploring and discovered the bronze statue to Red Dog outside the town of Dampier. I felt straight away that I had to find out more about this splendid dog. A few months later I returned to Western Australia and spent two glorious weeks driving around collecting Red Dog stories and visiting the places that he knew, writing up the text as I went along

A heartbreaking story of love, loss and survival from the multi-million copy bestselling author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin • Returning from life as a fighter pilot in the First World War, Daniel is struggling to put the trauma of the Western Front behind him • As the 1920s dawn, he and his wife Rosie move to a tea plantation in Ceylon with their small daughter to make a fresh start. Yet navigating their new world could test their marriage to its limits • Back in England, Rosie's sisters are dealing with impossible challenges in their searches for family, purpose and happiness. These are precarious times, and taking unconventional means may be the only way to get what they want. Around them the world changes, and events in Germany take a dark and forbidding turn

Transporting us to all corners of the globe, the tales in Louis de Bernieres’ worldly and entertaining collection Labels and Other Stories feature a cast of unlikely and unforgettable heroes who can be found collecting luxury tinned cat-food labels, posting fish to the President, falling in love with dolphin deities and dining with Brazilian street thieves. And in ‘Gunter Weber's Confession’, we return once more to the Greek island of Captain Corelli's Mandolin and its much-loved characters • Full of wit, charm and warmth, Labels and Other Stories shows the imaginative range and unique storytelling power of one of our msot treasured writers

This is a great love story set in the tragedy of war. It is 1941. The Italian officer, Captain Corelli, falls in love with Pelagia, a young Greek girl. But Pelegia’s fiancé is fighting the Italian army…Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is now a film, starring Nicolas Cage

Widely regarded as the world's first modern novel, and one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain

Если вдруг рядом с вами появится смешливый золотоволосый мальчуган, который не будет отвечать ни на какие вопросы, вы сразу поймёте, кто это такой • Маленький принц – таинтсвенный, невинный и симпатичный мальчонка, который является пилоту, застрявшему в пустыне, и обращается к нему с необычной просьбой. Он прибыл на нашу планету из другой галактики, встречаясь по пути с причудливыми взрослыми всех мастей, а также с лисом, который научил его ценить истинно-важные вещи. Но дома, на его родной звезде, осталась Роза – его сокровище и ноша, к которой он спешит вернуться • «Маленький принц» – история для каждого. Для детей и для взрослых детей. Для королей, географов и фонарщиков. Даже для очень серьёзных и очень мудрых • Виртуозный рассказчик Майкл Морпурго, автор романа «Боевой конь», создал новый перевод полюбившейся читателю сказки Антуана де Сент-Экзюпери, чтобы как можно больше англоязычных читателей могли ощутить радость от знакомства с этим чарующим произведением