Vintage books Orwell. The Life Taylor D. J

In settings that range from small town Illinois to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, these stories are distinguished by Maxwell's inimitable wisdom and kindness, his sense of the small details that make up a life, the nuances of joy and sadness that change its direction. Whether describing the reunion of two brothers who will never agree, the furniture of the apartment that becomes everything to a childless couple, the search for the perfect French meal or the life of a ne'er-do-well uncle, Maxwell's stories capture responses that are recognisable in us all

The final novel from the bestselling author of the Inspector Wallander mysteries • Fredrik Welin is a seventy-year-old retired doctor. Years ago he retreated to the Swedish archipelago, where he lives alone on an island. He swims in the sea every day, cutting a hole in the ice if necessary. He lives a quiet life. Until he wakes up one night to find his house on fire • Fredrik escapes just in time, wearing two left-footed wellies, as neighbouring islanders arrive to help douse the flames. All that remains in the morning is a stinking ruin and evidence of arson. The house that has been in his family for generations and all his worldly belongings are gone. He cannot think who would do such a thing, or why. Without a suspect, the police begin to think he started the fire himself

The fourth novel by Elizabeth Bowen, described by the Guardian as 'One of the last century's greatest woman writers' • Cecilia, capricious and unable to love, inches reluctantly towards a second marriage to the kind, passionless Julian Tower. Meanwhile, her sister-in-law, Emmeline, is surprised to find the calm tenor of her life disturbed by her attraction to the predatory Mark Linkwater. Markie's appearance disrupts the lives of both women, but in the pain of misunderstanding, it is Emmeline who reveals her vulnerability in a violent and tragic act

The powerful debut from 2020 Booker Prize shortlisted author of The Shadow King • Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974 - the eve of a revolution • Yonas kneels in his mother's prayer room, pleading to his god for an end to the violence that has wracked his family and country. His father, Hailu, a prominent doctor, has been ordered to report to jail after helping a victim of state-sanctioned torture to die • And Dawit, Hailu's youngest son, has joined an underground resistance movement-a choice that will lead to more upheaval and bloodshed across a ravaged Ethiopia • Emotionally gripping, poetic and indelibly tragic, Beneath the Lion's Gaze is a transcendent story that tells a gripping story of family and of the bonds of love and friendship. It is a story about the lengths to which human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the human price of a national revolution

A revelatory portrait of Napoleon written for our own time, exploring his love of nature and the gardens that gave his revolutionary life its light and shade • Napoleon's gardens range from his childhood olive groves in Corsica, to Josephine's menageries in Paris, to the walled garden of Hougoumont at the battle of Waterloo, and ultimately to St Helena, where he could sit and scan the sea in his final months • In this innovative biography, Ruth Scurr follows the dramatic trajectory of Napoleon's life through the land he cultivated and that offered him retreat from the manifold frustrations of war and politics. Seen through the eyes of those who knew him in the shade of his gardens, Napoleon emerges a giant figure made human - both as the Emperor hunting for glory and the man in an old straw hat, leaning on his spade

'Extraordinarily mature - technically as well as emotionally' Sunday Times • Arthur Machin's life changes when he is picked for the Rugby league team in his local town. Once a struggling coal miner's son, now he can buy what he likes - a car, a fur coat for his widowed landlady, Mrs Hammond, who is becoming something more. But fame makes a mess of things. Machin is troubled by advances from the boss's wife, he challenges the sensibilities of the comfortable classes and struggles to understand why his success fails to impress Mrs Hammond • Gritty, full of ambition and anger, This Sporting Life is an unflinching and surgical dissection of one man's life and a rare foray onto the sports field in British fiction

A subtle and insightful story about boredom, passion, curiosity and memory from the Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago • A subtle and insightful story about boredom, passion, curiosity and memory from the Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago • Senhor Jose is a lonely civil servant who spends his days labouring in the labyrinthine stacks of Lisbon's central registry. Among the file-cards for the living and the dead, one - of an apparently ordinary woman - will transform his life. Breaking away from his strict routine, Jose resolves to track the woman down, obsessively following a thread of clues in a bid to rescue her from an oblivion deeper than the grave • 'When a very good book finds us at just the right moment in life, it can become stitched into our own identity

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

Terrified, a young prisoner in the Second World War closes his eyes and pictures himself going out to bat on a sunlit cricket ground in Hampshire • Across the courtyard in a Victorian workhouse, a father too ashamed to acknowledge his son • A skinny girl steps out of a Chevy with a guitar; her voice sends shivers through the skull • Soldiers and lovers, parents and children, scientists and musicians risk their bodies and hearts in search of connection - some key to understanding what makes us the people we become • Provocative and profound, Sebastian Faulks's novel journeys across continents and time to explore the chaos created by love, separation and missed opportunities. From the pain and drama of these highly particular lives emerges a mysterious consolation: the chance to feel your heart beat in someone else's life

A tangled tale of falling in love - with three very different men • Flora Trevelyan is a ten-year-old misfit, despised by her selfish and indolent parents, and left to wander the streets of a small French town whilst her parents prepare to depart for life in colonial India. There she befriends the locals, acquires an extensive vocabulary of French foul language and encounters the privileged lifestyle of the elegant, middle-class British families holidaying in 1920s France • Introduced for the first time to kindly, civilised and, above all, caring people Flora falls helplessly and hopelessly in love with not one but three young men • Over the next forty years Flora will grow from an awkward schoolgirl into a stunning beauty and explore, consummate and finally resolve each of these affairs

В Пойнз-холле, принадлежащем семейству Оливер, должен состояться ежегодный летний праздник. Постановкой пьесы об истории Англии занимается эксцентричная мисс Ла Троб • В последнем романе «Между актов» Вирджинии Вулф искусство переплетается с жизнью, а прошлое и настоящее сливаются воедино. Произведение было опубликовано посмертно • Книга на английском языке • A village pageant is to take place at Pointz Hall, the country home of the Oliver family for time beyond memory. Written and directed by the energetic Miss La Trobe, the pageant will take in the history of England from the Middle Ages. The past blends with the present and art blends with life in a narrative full of invention, affection and lyricism • Between the Acts was Virginia Woolf's final novel, and this edition contains the original text that she was working on when she died

Edward VII, who gave his name to the Edwardian era but was always known as Bertie, was fifty-nine when he finally came to power and ushered out the Victorian age. The eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Bertie was bullied by both his parents. Denied any proper responsibilities, the heir to the throne spent his time eating (which earned him the nickname ‘Tum Tum’), pursuing women (which Queen Victoria held to be the reason for Albert’s early demise), gambling, going to house parties and race meetings, and shooting pheasants. His arranged marriage to the stunning Danish princess Alexandra gave him access to the European dynastic network; but his name was linked with many beauties, including Lillie Langtry and Winston Churchill’s mother