Классическая проза
Различные книги в жанре Классическая прозаHoliday in a Coma & Love Lasts Three Years: two novels by Frédéric Beigbeder
One night in a Parisian nightclub and the aftermath of a marriage provide the stories for these two novels by Frederic Beigbeder, award-winning author of ‘Windows on the World’.In ‘Holiday in a Coma’, Marc Marronnier, a shallow, superficial, rich Parisian who works as an advertising executive, is invited by his old friend to the opening of a new nightclub called The Shitter (a satirical take on the famous Paris nightclub Les Bains Douche). Taking place over a single unforgettable night, the novel documents everything from the pit-bull bouncer on the door, to the drugs, cocktails and wannabes who frequent the club, and Marc’s attempts to seduce a catwalk model – any one will do. A catalogue of degeneracy, drugs, sex and decibels, ‘Holiday in a Coma’ is written with a fury and passion that reflect the author's own relationship with a world and he both loves and loathes.In ‘Love Lasts Three Years’, Marc Marronnier has just been divorced and – shallow opportunist that he is – has decided to write a book about it. He has a theory that love lasts no more than three years, and here – recounting the highs and lows of his marriage and taking us through brash nightclubs, vainglorious offices and soulless designer apartments – he brings to bear the theoretical and the empirical to prove his point. Both frightening and funny, the book reads like a diary: sometimes tender and real, sometimes fantastical and cruel, peppered with Beigbeder’s acerbic one-liners and trademark wit.
Fame and Wuthering Heights
Tilly Bagshawe’s sumptuous new novel FAME available alongside WUTHERING HEIGHTS, the classic novel it pays homage to, in this ebook-only edition.If you are a fan of Jilly Cooper and Penny Vincenzi then Tilly Bagshawe is a must read.This is not 'celebrity.'This is the real deal.This is Fame.The raw, sexual beauty of Sabrina Leon demands the attention of all who come into contact with her. Plucked from obscurity at the age of seventeen she's the new darling of the film scene, bagging lead roles in the hottest blockbusters. But Sabrina Leon has a problem. There's a youtube sensation on the web that's set to destroy everything she's fought for…Hotshot movie producer Dorian Razmirez has struggles of his own. A bitter feud with rival producer and playboy, Harry Greene, has resulted in the plug being pulled on every project he goes near. Casting the disgraced Hollywood diva Sabrina Leon in Wuthering Heights is a risk that might cost him what remains of his career.Viorel Hudson, with his jet-black hair, high, slanting cheekbones and smooth, coffee coloured skin, was always destined for great things. Now he's scored a role that every A-lister in Hollywood auditioned for – Heathcliff in Dorian Razmirez's Wuthering Heights. He may be at the height of his career, but is he ready for his latest role? For a five million pound pay cheque, it's a risk he's willing to take.Set against a backdrop of a sumptuous crumbling English country house, the film-set of Wuthering Heights is going to be as salacious as the setting is beautiful.
Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery
Hercule Poirot returns in another brilliant murder mystery that can only be solved by the eponymous Belgian detective and his ‘little grey cells’.‘What I intend to say to you will come as a shock . . .’Lady Athelinda Playford has planned a house party at her mansion in Clonakilty, County Cork, but it is no ordinary gathering. As guests arrive, Lady Playford summons her lawyer to make an urgent change to her will – one she intends to announce at dinner that night. She has decided to cut off her two children without a penny and leave her fortune to someone who has only weeks to live . . .Among Lady Playford’s guests are two men she has never met – the famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited . . . until Poirot starts to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murderer to strike. But why does she seem so determined to provoke, in the presence of a possible killer?When the crime is committed in spite of Poirot’s best efforts to stop it, and the victim is not who he expected it to be, will he be able to find the culprit and solve the mystery?Following the phenomenal global success of The Monogram Murders, which was published to critical acclaim following a co-ordinated international launch in September 2014, international best-selling crime writer Sophie Hannah has been commissioned by Agatha Christie Limited to pen a second fully-authorised Poirot novel. The new book marks the centenary of the creation of Christie’s world-famous detective Hercule Poirot, introduced in her first book The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
The Drought
By the bestselling author of ‘Cocaine Nights’ and ‘Super-Cannes’ – the world is threatened by dramatic climate change in this highly acclaimed and influential novel.Water. Man’s most precious commodity is a luxury of the past. Radioactive waste from years of industrial dumping has caused the sea to form a protective skin strong enough to devastate the Earth it once sustained. And while the remorseless sun beats down on the dying land, civilization itself begins to crack. Violence erupts and insanity reigns as the remnants of mankind struggle for survival in a worldwide desert of despair.Remarkable for its prescience and the originality of its vision, The Drought is a work of major importance from the early career of one of Britain’s most acclaimed novelists.This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Ned Beauman, Ali Smith, Neil Gaiman and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.
Book Lover
One woman’s passion for books and search for romance lie at the heart of this touching and funny novel about literature and longing in Los Angeles.‘Women do different things when they’re depressed. Some smoke, others drink, some call their therapists, some eat…And I do what I have always done – go off on a book bender that can last for days.’Whenever she’s in crisis – her marriage ends, her career stalls, her fantasy man shows signs of human frailty – Dora (named after Eudora Welty) escapes into not one, not two, but a carefully selected stack of books, shutting the door on the outside world until she emerges from her book binge strong enough to face her problems. Books have always been her saving grace, sheltering her during a difficult childhood and arming her with lessons and epigrams that are right for nearly every situation. But life is more complicated than a-book-a-day, and people – like her ex-alcoholic mother and judgmental sister – aren’t as compliant as beloved characters in a novel…Whether she’s being seduced by a quotation-quipping Quixote, or explaining death to a child by reading from ‘Charlotte’s Web’, Dora is Every-reader, and her charming story, shot through with humour and humanity, will delight anyone who’s ever sought solace in the pages of a book.
A Daughter’s a Daughter
A classic novel of desire and jealousy.Ann Prentice falls in love with Richard Cauldfield and hopes for new happiness. Her only child, Sarah, cannot contemplate the idea of her mother marrying again and wrecks any chance of her remarriage. Resentment and jealousy corrode their relationship as each seeks relief in different directions. Are mother and daughter destined to be enemies for life or will their underlying love for each other finally win through?Famous for her ingenious crime books and plays, Agatha Christie also wrote about crimes of the heart, six bittersweet and very personal novels, as compelling and memorable as the best of her work.
The Unexpected Guest
A young man, broken down in the fog, witnesses a murder he is asked to conceal… A full-length novel adapted by Charles Osborne from Agatha Christie’s acclaimed play.When a stranger runs his car into a ditch in dense fog in South Wales and makes his way to an isolated house, he discovers a woman standing over the dead body of her wheelchair-bound husband, gun in her hand. She admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her concoct a cover story.But is it possible that Laura Warwick did not commit the murder after all? If so, who is she shielding? The victim’s young half-brother or his dying matriarchal mother? Laura’s lover? Perhaps the father of the little boy killed in an accident for which Warwick was responsible? The house seems full of possible suspects…THE UNEXPECTED GUEST is considered to be one of the finest of Christie’s plays. Hailed as ‘another Mousetrap’ when it opened on 12 August 1958 in the West End, it ran for 604 performances over the succeeding 18 months and has been staged many times around the world over the last 40 years.
Dean Spanley: The Novel
The classic humorous novel about an alcohol-loving clergyman who thinks he is the reincarnation of a dog. Complete with the screenplay and photos from the new film starring Peter O’Toole and Sam Neill.Dean Spanley is the very archetype of a bland churchman: affable, conventional, prudent without being a prig. Only his keen interest in the transmigration of souls and almost excessive enthusiasm for dogs betray any shadow of eccentricity. And then, richly primed with a few glasses of Imperial Tokay, he slips over the threshold between past and present and becomes a dog. Or are his canine memories no more than fancy? Surely no mere dean could speak so vividly, with such total conviction, of the joys of hunting, of rolling in fresh dung, of baying the moon? No human could know so much of rabbiting, the importance of buying bones, the contemptibility of pigs. My Talks With Dean Spanley, first published in 1936, is certainly Lord Dunsany’s funniest book and, in its unique way, a remarkable tour de force.Now adapted into a new comedy-drama feature film, DEAN SPANLEY follows a father and son as they encounter the eponymous eccentric in this story of reincarnation and reconciliation set in Edwardian England. Adapted by Alan Sharp (Rob Roy) and directed by New Zealand-born Toa Fraser (No.2), a truly impressive international cast is led by eight-time Academy Award nominee Peter O'Toole (Venus, Lawrence of Arabia) and also features Jeremy Northam (The Winslow Boy, Gosford Park), Bryan Brown (Cocktail, Gorillas in the Mist) and Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, My Brilliant Career).This special edition includes Lord Dunsany’s witty and inventive original novel, as well as Alan Sharp’s hilarious screenplay, which faithfully adapts and also expands upon the events in the book. Complete with colour photos and interviews with the principal film-makers, this whimsical, wintry tale about dogs, reincarnation and the effects of alcohol makes perfect Christmas reading for lovers of classic humorous storytelling.
A Book of Common Prayer
An engrossing novel about political and personal life in Central America, from the award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking.Set in the ruined Central American nation of Boca Grande, A Book of Common Prayer is the story of two American women and their conflicting experiences of wealth, politics and personal history. We follow the intriguing life of Grace Strasser-Mendana – an American expatriate and member of one of Boca Grande’s most influential families – alongside the story of Charlotte Douglas, whose daughter Medin has run off with a group of Marxist radicals. What follows is an exploration of the women’s ability to make sense of the behaviour that surrounds them, as their worlds are made hazy by the atmosphere of evil and innocence that envelops their strained and entangled lives.
A bird, half-eaten: A Story from the collection, I Am Heathcliff
A story from Nikesh Shukla to stir the heart and awaken vital conversations about love.An amateur boxer trains in the contained space of a gym. Readying themselves for a match.