Книги издательства Random House, Inc.
Название: On Ugliness
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2007
Рейтинг:
Описание:
This book is the follow up to the previous volume, «On Beauty». Apparently beauty and ugliness are concepts that imply each other, and by ugliness we usually mean the opposite of beauty, so all we need do is define the first to understand the nature of the second. But the various manifestations of ugliness over the centuries are richer and more unpredictable than is commonly thought. The anthological quotations and the extraordinary illustrations in this book lead us on a surprising journey among the nightmares, terrors, and loves of almost three thousand years, where acts of rejection go hand in hand with touching gestures of compassion, and the rejection of deformity is accompanied by decadent ecstasies over the most seductive violations of all classical canons.Among demons, madmen, horrible enemies, and disquieting presences, among horrid abysses and deformities that verge on the sublime, among freaks and the living dead, we discover a vast and often unsuspected iconographic vein. So much so that, on gradually encountering in these pages the ugliness of nature, spiritual ugliness, asymmetry, disharmony, disfigurement, and the succession of things sordid, weak, vile, banal, random, arbitrary, coarse, repugnant, clumsy, horrendous, vacuous, nauseating, criminal, spectral, witchlike, satanic, repellent, disgusting, unpleasant, grotesque, abominable, odious, crude, foul, dirty, obscene, frightening, abject, monstrous, hair-raising, ugly, terrible, terrifying, revolting, repulsive, loathsome, fetid, ignoble, awkward, ghastly and indecent, the first foreign publisher to see this book exclaimed: 'How beautiful ugliness is!'
Название: Only You Can Save Mankind
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2004
Рейтинг:
Описание:
As the mightly alien fleet from the very latest computer game thunders across the computer screen, Johnny prepares to blow them into the usual million pieces. And they send him a message: We surrender. They're not supposed to do that. They're supposed to die. And computer joysticks don't have 'Don't Fire' buttons... It's hard enough, trying to save Mankind from the Galactic Hordes. It's even harder trying to save the Galactic Hordes from Mankind. But it's only a game, isn't it?
Название: A Painted House
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2001
Рейтинг:
Описание:
The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with two weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist high to my father, almost over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a «good crop». Thus begins the new novel from John Grisham, a story inspired by his own childhood in rural Arkansas. The narrator is a farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, who lives in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the cotton is ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it. For six weeks, they pick cotton, battling the heat, the rain, the fatigue, and sometimes, each other. As the weeks pass Luke sees and hears things no seven year old could possibly be prepared for, and finds himself keeping secrets that not only threaten the crop but will change the lives of the Chandlers forever. «A Painted House» is a moving story of one boy's journey from innocence to experience.
Название: The Painted Veil (movie tie-in)
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2007
Рейтинг:
Описание:
'She did not know what to say. She was undecided whether indignantly to assert her innocence or to break out into angry reproaches. He seemed to read her thoughts. «I've got all the proof necessary» '. Kitty Fane is the beautiful but shallow wife of Walter, a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong. Unsatisfied by her marriage, she starts an affair with Charles Townsend, a man whom she finds charming, attractive and exciting. But when Walter discovers her deception, he exacts a strange but terrible vengeance: Kitty must accompany him to his new posting in remote mainland China, where a cholera epidemic rages. First published to a storm of protest, «The Painted Veil» is a classic story of a woman's spiritual awakening.
Название: Pandora
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 1999
Рейтинг:
Описание:
In this first of a series, David Talbot, vampire survivor of «Memnoch the Devil», calls forth Pandora, last seen in «Queen of the Damned», to tell her own extraordinary tale. Once a mortal girl in ancient Rome, she was given immortality by Marius, her lover and the dark genius of the Lestat novels.
Название: The Penis Book
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2006
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Ah, the trusty penis. The cock, knob, widgie, pink python, groin bollard — call it what you will, this is one part of the male anatomy that never ceases to provide endless fascination, and frequently mirth. Half the population have one, and the other half, so Freud would have us believe, would like to. And yet still our flaccid friend is so often misunderstood. The «Penis Book» seeks to redress the balance, exposing all (quite literally) there is to know about the honourable member. Throbbing with facts, figures, photos and illustrations, the book leaves no foreskin unturned in its quest to bring you the low-down on its subject. Told with wit, vim and lashings of wicked humour, even the most prudish won't be able to resist raising a smile (and perhaps something else). The «Penis Book» is a celebration of the male member in all its purple-helmeted glory. So whether you're male or female, straight or gay, you'll find something in here to titilate and stimulate.
Название: Pete Doherty
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2007
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Pete Doherty, erstwhile singer with The Libertines, is a British icon. Whether he is playing impromptu gigs in his front room or performing at Live 8, he possesses a sense of drama and expectation not seen in a performer since Sid Vicious. He is enigmatic, charismatic and thoroughly entertaining. Since leaving The Libertines, his life has become something of a rock 'n' roll soap opera where rumours of crack addiction abound, gossip about his relationship with Kate Moss is rife, and predictions for his future vary wildly. Written by Alex Hannaford, former rock and pop editor on the «London Evening Standard», and with a brand new foreword by Pete's mum, Jackie Doherty, this is the definitive biography of Pete Doherty.
Название: Pompeii
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2004
Рейтинг:
Описание:
A sweltering week in late August. Where better to enjoy the last days of summer than on the beautiful Bay of Naples? But even as Rome's richest citizens relax in their villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum, there are ominous warnings that something is going wrong. Wells and springs are failing, a man has disappeared, and now the greatest aqueduct in the world — the mighty Aqua Augusta — has suddenly ceased to flow...Through the eyes of four characters — a young engineer, an adolescent girl, a corrupt millionaire and an elderly scientist — Robert Harris brilliantly recreates a luxurious world on the brink of destruction.
Название: Porno
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2008
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Ten years on from Trainspotting, Simon 'Sick Boy' Williamson is back in Edinburgh after a long spell in London. Having failed spectacularly as a hustler, pimp, husband, father and businessman, Sick Boy taps into an opportunity, which to him represents one last throw of the dice. However, to realize his dream of directing and producing a pornographic movie, Sick Boy must team up with old pal and fellow exile Mark Renton and a motley crew that includes the city's favourite ex-aerated-water-salesman, 'Juice' Terry Lawson. In the world of Porno, however, nothing is straightforward, as Sick Boy and Renton find out that they have unresolved issues to address, concerning the increasingly unhinged Frank Begbie, the troubled, drug-addled Spud, but, most of all, with each other.
Название: Putin's Russia
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2004
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Former KGB spy Vladimir Putin, named Prime Minister of Russia in 1999 and, one year later, President, has been something of a media darling in the West, having successfully marketed himself as an enlightened leader with both feet planted firmly on the Eastern borders of Europe. Anti-establishment journalist and human-rights activist Anna Politkovskaya disagrees strenuously with this point of view. In her new book, she trains her steely gaze on, as she puts at, Putin «without the rapture». From her privileged vantage-point at the heart of Russian current affairs, Politkovskaya reports from behind the scenes, dismantling both Putin the man and Putin the brand name, arguing that he is a power-hungry product of his own history in the security forces and so unable to prevent himself from stifling dissent and other civil liberties at every turn. After centuries of living under tyrants, Politkovskaya argues, this is not what contemporary Russians want. The book is, however, not simply a biography or an analysis of Putin's presidency. Politkovskaya's writing is known for its humanity and its passion, and her focus is on individual human beings and their stories. As she puts it, «my book is jottings made on the margins of life in Russia. For the time being, I cannot analyse that existence. I'm just living and noting what I see». So her readers are treated to expos-s of mafia dealings and scandals in the provinces, of corruption in the military and the judiciary, of the decline of the dissident intelligentsia and concomitant rise of street traders, and of the truth behind the Moscow theatre siege. Other shocking stories fill out an intimate portrait of nascent civil institutions being subverted under the unquestioning eyes of the West.
Название: Q
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2004
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Set in Reformation Europe, Q begins with Luther's nailing of his 95 theses on the door of the cathedral church in Wittenberg and traces the adventures and conflicts of two central characters, an Anabaptist, a member of the most radical of the Protestant sects, the anarchists of the Reformation, and a Catholic spy and informer, as they travel across Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The four young writers who shelter behind the pseudonym Luther Blissett have created a world of intrigue, violence and intense political and religious passion. Far from the traditional historical novel, Q is the stuff of which cults are made.
Название: The Quiet American
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2007
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Into the intrigue and violence of Indo-China comes Pyle, a young idealistic American sent to promote democracy through a mysterious 'Third Force'. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as he intervenes he wonders why: for the sake of politics, or for love?
Название: Reading Between The Lines
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2003
Рейтинг:
Описание:
When she chucked in her safe job to read English at Oxford, Julia Cole didn't give a thought to the future. But now she's thirty, newly graduated and it's pay-back time — at least as far as the bank is concerned. With a cat providing her only male company, Blind Date her only Saturday night engagement and her last relationship further in the past than a pay cheque, she can't help wondering if she's missing the point. Until the tall, handsome Rob strides into the class she teaches. And then his alarming brother Leo, a barrister with a penchant for cross-examining, strides into her friend Maggie's party and puts Julia in the stand. Suddenly, Julia's life is hotting up. But is she taking both brothers at face value? And is she overlooking the obvious? Perhaps Julia should try reading between the lines...
Название: Red Dragon
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 1993
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Sexual hunger; demonic violence; sinister logic — the lethal components of a deadly formula driving a psychopath in the grip of an unimaginable delusion; a boastful killer who sends the police tormenting notes; a tortured, torturing monster who finds ultimate pleasure in viciously murdering happy families, and calls himself... The Red Dragon. Special agent Will Graham has been assigned to similar cases before, cases where he was able to see and feel WITH the madmen, anticipate their moves and, most terrifying of all, be vulnerable to their horrifying brutality. Now Graham is reluctantly lured out of retirement, to find an opening to the evil mind of the Red Dragon. Red Dragon is quite probably the most suspenseful, utterly compelling thriller ever
Название: Red Dust
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2006
Рейтинг:
Описание:
'My painter friends think I am a die-hard conservative, my writer friends think I am a man of loose morals. In Jushlin Temple I am a quiet disciple, in the Propaganda Department I am a decadent youth. Women call me a cynical artist, the police call me a hooligan. Well, they can think what they like. I only have 20,000 days left to live'. In 1983, Ma Jian turned 30 and was overwhelmed by the desire to escape the confines of his life in Beijing. All around him, China was changing. Deng Xiaoping was introducing economic reform but clamping down on 'Spiritual Pollution'; and young people were rebelling. With his long hair, denim jeans and artistic friends, Ma Jian was under surveillance from his work unit and the police. His ex-wife was seeking custody of their daughter; his girlfriend was sleeping with another man; and he could no longer find the inspiration to write or paint. One day he bought a train ticket to the westernmost border of China and set off in search of himself. Ma Jian's journey would last three years and take him to deserts and overpopulated cities, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquillity and beauty. The result is an utterly unique book: an insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both an insider and an outsider in his own country could have written.
Название: Ripley Under Ground
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 1999
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Tom Ripley is a man who wants money, success, the good life — and is willing to kill for it. To avoid charges of forgery, the Buckmaster Gallery must produce the British painter, Derwatt. But he is dead. Tom Ripley is called in to work miracles, and will stop at nothing to protect himself.
Название: Ripley's Game
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 1999
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Tom Ripley detests murder — unless it is absolutely necessary. If possible he prefers someone else to do the dirty work; in this case, a victim of a fatal disease, with no criminal record, who will murder for a reward, in order to provide for his young widow and child.
Название: Rising Sun
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 1995
Рейтинг:
Описание:
On the 45th floor of the Matsumoto Tower in LA, the headquarters of the Japanese Electronics Corporation, celebrities from the film and music world mix with the captains of industry and politics. On the 46th floor, the dead body of a young woman is discovered. By the author of «Jurassic Park».
Название: A Russian Diary
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2007
Рейтинг:
Описание:
A devastating account of contemporary Russia by a great and brave writer. A Russian Diary is the book that Anna Politkovskaya had recently completed when she was murdered in a contract killing in Moscow. It covers the period from the Russian elections of December 2003 to the tragic aftermath of the Beslan school siege in late 2005. The book is an unflinching record of the plight of millions of Russians and a pitiless report on the cynicism and corruption of Vladimir Putin's presidency. She interviews people whose lives have been devastated by Putin's policies, including the mothers of children who died in the Beslan siege, those of Russian soldiers maimed in Chechnya then abandoned by the State, and of «disappeared» young men and women. Elsewhere she meets traumatized and dangerous veterans of the Chechen wars, and a notorious Chechen warlord in his fortified lair. Putin is re-elected as President in farcically undemocratic circumstances and yet Western leaders, reliant on Russia's oil and gas reserves, continue to pay him homage. Politkovskaya offers a chilling account of his dismantling of the democratic reforms made in the 1990s. She also criticizes the inability of liberals and democrats to provide a united, effective opposition and a population slow to protest against government legislative outrages. A Russian Diary is clear-sighted, passionate and marked with the humanity that made Anna Politkovskaya known to many as «Russia's lost moral conscience» and a heroine to readers throughout the world.
Название: Russian Disco
Жанр: Random House Inc.
Год: 2002
Рейтинг:
Описание:
Greeks living in Germany who speak Italian because they run a pizzeria; Katka, whose mescalin cactus enables her to separate body and mind, with the result that they check in a psychiatric clinic together; Klaus who tries to broaden his vocabulary with the help of a radio programme, Russian for Children, and promptly ends up in jail on his first visit to Moscow; contract killers on the trams; bodies in the basement; lunatics on the road: welcome to the wonderfully absurd world of Wladimir Kaminer. Kaminer moved from Moscow to Berlin ten years ago in a lucky wave of emigration, hoping for a better life and an apartment of his own. But, he found much more: a country adrift in the extraordinary flux of reunification and a city that was casting a spell on artists, drifters, losers and hopeless idealists. Of his encounters with these people, Kaminer makes unforgettable tales of compassion and humour. And in relating the singulary offbeat encounters of his own life, he manages to capture something universal about our disjointed times.
