Книги издательства Penguin Group

Juliet, Naked
Название: Juliet, Naked
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2010
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Описание: Nick Hornby returns to his roots — music and messy relationships — in this funny and touching new novel which thoughtfully and sympathetically looks at how lives can be wasted but how they are never beyond redemption. Annie lives in a dull town on England's bleak east coast and is in a relationship with Duncan which mirrors the place; Tucker was once a brilliant songwriter and performer, who's gone into seclusion in rural America — or at least that's what his fans think. Duncan is obsessed with Tucker's work, to the point of derangement, and when Annie dares to go public on her dislike of his latest album, there are quite unexpected, life-changing consequences for all three. Nick Hornby uses this intriguing canvas to explore why it is we so often let the early promise of relationships, ambition and indeed life evaporate. And he comes to some surprisingly optimistic conclusions.
Legend of a Suicide
Название: Legend of a Suicide
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2009
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Описание: Roy is still young when his father, a failed dentist and hapless fisherman, puts a 44 magnum to his head and commits suicide on the deck of his beloved boat. Throughout his life, Roy returns to that moment, gripped by its memory and the shadow it casts over his small-town boyhood, describing with poignant, mercurial wit his parents' woeful marriage and inevitable divorce, their kindnesses and weaknesses, the absurd and comic turning-points of his past. Finally, in Legend of a Suicide, Roy lays his father's ghost to rest. But not before he exacts a gruelling, exhilarating revenge. Revolving around a fatally misconceived adventure deep in the wilderness of Alaska, this is a remarkably tender story of survival and disillusioned love.
The Lost Book of Salem
Название: The Lost Book of Salem
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2009
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Описание: While clearing out her grandmother's cottage for sale, Connie Goodwin finds a parchment inscribed with the name Deliverance Dane. And so begins the hunt to uncover the woman behind the name, a hunt that takes her back to Salem in 1692...and the infamous witchcraft trials. But nothing is entirely as it seems and when Connie unearths the existence of Deliverance's spell book, the Physick Book, the situation takes on a menacing edge as interested parties reveal their desperation to find this precious artifact at any cost. What secrets does the Physics Book contain? What magic is scrawled across its parchment pages? Connie must race to answer these questions — and reveal the truth about Salem's women — before an ancient family curse once more fulfills its dark and devastating prophecy..
Love Nest
Название: Love Nest
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2010
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Описание: Roll the dice Grace's childhood home, Chadlicote Manor, is being sold to settle family debts. Will losing her home break her heart or is it the chance for a new life?...Move two spaces Karen's husband has the Manor in his sights as a chance to start over in rural paradise. But Karen prefers city living and, when a new flame turns up the heat, starting again might just mean the end of the road...climb the ladder Gemma is longing for a baby and, unlike her own loft apartment, Karen's house is an ideal family home. But the dream house can only have its dream baby if Gemma can convince her flakey sister to help out...to land on Up-and-coming rockstar Nick has designs on Gemma's flat. He's also taken a shine to classy estate agent, Lucinda, but she's not all she seems — and neither is he, since he's hiding a girlfriend he's looking to ditch when the sale goes through...the Love Nest where all their troubles come home to roost.
The Marquise of O
Название: The Marquise of O
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 1978
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Описание: In The Marquise of O — a virtuous widow finds herself unaccountably pregnant. And although the baffled Marquise has no idea when this happened, she must prove her innocence to her doubting family and discover whether the perpetrator is an assailant or lover. Michael Kohlhaas depicts an honourable man who feels compelled to violate the law in his search for justice, while other tales explore the singular realm of the uncanny, such as The Beggarwoman of Locarno, in which an old woman's ghost drives a heartless nobleman to madness, and St Cecilia, which portrays four brothers possessed by an uncontrollable religious mania. The stories collected in this volume reflect the preoccupations of Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) with the deceptiveness of human nature and the unpredictability of the physical world.
Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2009
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Описание: 'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...' Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation, Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use. Bill Bryson's classic Mother Tongue is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language.
Nothing : Except My Genius
Название: Nothing : Except My Genius
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2010
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Описание: 'I have nothing to declare', Wilde once told an American customs official, 'except my genius'. A socialite, a wit, a man who flaunted convention and was unafraid to shock, Oscar Wilde was a great writer and a great man. This new collection of wit and wisdom demonstrates the brilliance of his vision, the audacity of his style. Such is the scope of the material, it brings to life the Wilde of great feeling as well as the Wilde of great art.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Название: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2009
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Описание: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.' Pipes and kettledrums herald the arrival of gypsies on their annual visit to Macondo, the newly founded village where Jose Arcadio Buendia and his strong-willed wife, Ursula, have started their new life. As the mysterious Melquiades excites Aureliano Buendia's father with new inventions and tales of adventure, neither can know the significance of the indecipherable manuscript that the old gypsy passes into their hands. Through plagues of insomnia, civil war, hauntings and vendettas, the many tribulations of the Buendia household push memories of the manuscript aside. Few remember its existence and only one will discover the hidden message that it holds...This new edition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most celebrated novel is published to coincide with celebrations to mark the 80th birthday of this Nobel Prize winning author in 2007.
Outliers: Story of Success
Название: Outliers: Story of Success
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2009
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Описание: This is a brilliant new book from the bestselling author of «The Tipping Point» and «Blink». Why are people successful? For centuries, humankind has grappled with this question, searching for the secret to accomplishing great things. In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an invigorating intellectual journey to show us what makes an extreme overachiever. He reveals that we pay far too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where successful people are from: their culture, their family, and their generation. Gladwell examines how the careers of Bill Gates and the performance of world-class football players are alike; what top fighter pilots and The Beatles have in common; why so many top lawyers are Jewish; why Asians are good at maths; and why it is correct to say that the mathematician who solved Fermat's Theorem is not a genius. Just as he did in «Blink», Gladwell overturns many of our conventional notions and creates an entirely new model for seeing the world. Brilliant and entertaining, this is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
The Owl Killers
Название: The Owl Killers
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2010
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Описание: England, 1321. Deep in the heart of countryside lies an isolated village governed by a sinister regime of Owl Masters — theirs is a pagan world of terror and blackmail, where neighbour denounces neighbour and sin is punishable by murder. This dark status quo is disturbed by the arrival of a house of religious women, who establish a community outside the village. Why do their crops succeed when village crops fail; their cattle survive despite the plague? But petty jealousy turns deadly when the women give refuge to a young martyr. For she dies a gruesome death after spitting the sacramental host into flames that can't burn it — what magic is this? Or is the martyr now a saint and the host a holy relic? Accusations of witchcraft and heresy run rife while the Owl Masters rain down hellfire and torment on the women, who must look to their faith to save them from the lengthening shadow of Evil...a shadow with predatory, terrifying talons.
Presidents: American Presidency Ned
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2011
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Описание: In this magisterial examination of the Presidency over the course of the 20th Century, the author explores the history of the world's greatest elective office and the role each incumbent has played in changing the scope of its powers. Using individual presidential portraits of each of the presidents of the past century Graubard asks, and answers, a wide variety of crucial questions about each President. What intellectual, social and political assets did they bring to the White House, and how quickly did they deplete or mortgage that capital? How well did they cope with crises, foreign and domestic? How much attention did they pay to their election pledges after they were elected? How did they use the media, old and new? Above all, how did they conduct themselves in office and what legacy did they leave to their successors? Graubard provides original analysis in each case, and reaches many surprising conclusions.
Reflections on the Revolution in Europe
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2010
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Описание: 'We need books like this' — Literary Review. Western Europe became a multiethnic society in a fit of absence of mind. Taking us from English suburbs to Parisian housing estates, this provocative, unflinching and engrossing book tackles uncomfortable questions about immigration and Islam head-on, and asks: Why can't we face the truth?
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Название: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2010
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Описание: At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man converses with a stranger. As dusk deepens to dark, he begins the tale that has brought him to this fateful meeting...Among the brightest and best of his graduating class at Princeton, Changez is snapped up by an elite firm and thrives on New York and the intensity of his work. And his infatuation with fragile Erica promises entree into Manhattan society on the exalted footing his own family once held back in Lahore. For a time, it seems as though nothing will stand in the way of Changez's meteoric rise to personal and professional success: the fulfillment of the immigrant's dream. But in the wake of September 11, he finds his position in the city he loves suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and perhaps even love.
Remember Me
Название: Remember Me
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2011
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Описание: The Queen of Storytellers is back — with a triumphant tale of one woman's struggle over adversity. In 1786, a fisherman's daughter from Cornwall called Mary Broad was sentenced to be hung for theft. But her sentence was commuted, and she was transported to Australia, one of the first convicts to arrive there. How Mary escaped the harsh existence of the colony and found true love, and how she was captured and taken back to London in chains, only to be released after a trial where she was defended by no less than James Boswell, is one of the most gripping and moving stories of human endeavour (based on an amazing true story) you will ever read.
The Return of the Naked Chef
Название: The Return of the Naked Chef
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2010
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Описание: The bestselling, brilliant young chef is back with a second book to accompany a major BBC TV series. There is no doubt that Jamie Oliver has captured the heart of the nation with his passion for simple, delicious, home-cooked food. His talent is huge, his style relaxed and his fans just want more! So here it is...another book filled with fresh ingredients, 'pukka' recipes and boundless enthusiasm. Get stuck in with Jamie.
Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2005
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Описание: From the reign of the Tsars in the early 19th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union and beyond, the short story has long occupied a central place in Russian culture. Included are pieces from many of the acknowledged masters of Russian literature — including Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn — alongside tales by long-suppressed figures such as the subversive Kryzhanowsky and the surrealist Shalamov. Whether written in reaction to the cruelty of the bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy of communism or the torture of the prison camps, they offer a wonderfully wide-ranging and exciting representation of one of the most vital and enduring forms of Russian literature.
Scandalous
Название: Scandalous
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2010
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Описание: Meet Max and Lucy Summers — half-sisters and the best of friends. Max is a gorgeous showbiz reporter whose life is a whirlwind of celebrity parties, glamorous bars, juicy gossip and gorgeous men. Lucy, a beautiful, elegant fashion writer, has always been the sensible one, taking care of her little sister and never seeking the limelight. But that all changes when she falls for Hartley, Britain's sexiest royal bachelor, and her lovelife is suddenly splashed across the front pages of the tabloids. And when Hartley's ex-girlfriend starts scheming to get her man back, Lucy realizes that she's up against more than just the paparazzi...Meanwhile Max, tired of the non-stop partying that her job entails, has finally met the perfect man but when she finds out who he really is, she realizes that they can't be together. Can Max walk away from the love of her life? And will Lucy play the fame game in order to keep hers?
The Third Reich at War
Название: The Third Reich at War
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2009
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Описание: In 1939 Hitler mobilized Germany into all-out war. Richard Evans' astonishing, acclaimed history conjures up a whole society plunged into conflict — from generals and front-line soldiers to Hitler Youth activists and middle-class housewives — tracing events from the invasion of Poland and the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler's plans for genocide and his eventual suicide. The Third Reich at War is a historical masterpiece, showing how Germany rushed headlong into destroying itself and an entire continent.
The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2006
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Описание: The Third Reich in Power examines how it was possible for a group of ideological obsessive to remould a society famous for its sophistication and complexity into a one-party state directed at war and race hate. Richard J. Evans shows how the Nazis won over the hearts and minds of German citizens, twisted science, religion and culture, and transformed the economy, education, law and order to achieve total dominance in German politics and society. Drawing on an extraordinary range of research, blending narrative, description and analysis he creates a picture of a dictatorship consumed by visceral hatreds and ambitions and driven by war.
Typhoon
Название: Typhoon
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Жанр: Penguin Group
Год: 2009
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Описание: Hong Kong 1997 — only a few short months of British rule remain before the territory returns to Chinese rule. It’s a febrile place. And in that claustrophobic environment of uncertainty and fear the spooks are hard at work, jostling for position and influence. So when an elderly man emerges from the seas off the New Territories, claiming to know secrets he will share only with the Governor himself, a young MI6 agent, Joe Lennox, sees an opportunity to make his reputation. But when the old man, a high-profile Chinese professor, is spirited away in the middle of the night by Joe’s superiors in collusion with the CIA, it’s clear that there’s a great deal more than a young spy’s career at stake. The professor, it seems, holds the key to a sinister and ambitious plan that could have awesome and catastrophic repercussions for China in the twenty-first century.