Captain Jack Aubrey, RN, arrives in the Dutch East Indies to find himself appointed to the command of the fastest and best-armed frigate in the Navy. He and his friend Stephen Maturin take passage for England in a despatch vessel. But the war of 1812 breaks out while they are en route.
With peace finally declared, Casting Off follows the challenges of the Cazalet
family emerging from war-torn Britain. This is the fourth book in the landmark
Cazalet Chronicles, adapted into a BBC radio and TV series.
This tale begins with Jack Aubrey arriving home from his exploits in the Mediterranean to find England at peace following the Treaty of Amiens. He and his friend Stephen Maturin, surgeon and secret agent, begin to live the lives of country gentlemen, hunting, entertaining and enjoying more amorous adventures. Their comfortable existence, however, is cut short when Jack is overnight reduced to a pauper with enough debts to keep him in prison for life. He flees to the continent to seek refuge: instead he finds himself a hunted fugitive as Napoleon has ordered the internment of all Englishmen in France. Aubrey's adventures in escaping from France and the debtors' prison will grip the reader as fast as his unequalled actions at sea.
"Irfan Orga was born into a prosperous family of the old Turkey under the Sultans. His mother was a beauty, married at thirteen, and lived in the total seclusion befitting her class. His grandmother, who also lived in their home, was an eccentric autocrat, determined at all costs to maintain her traditional habits. The 1914 War, however, brought ruin to the family and a transformation to Turkey. The red fez was ousted by the cloth cap, and the family was forced to adapt to an unimaginably impoverished life. In 1941 Irfan Orga arrived in London where, seven years later, he wrote his extraordinary story of his family's survival."--Back cover
From Indonesia comes a record-breaking bestseller and modern fairy tale. Published in 2005, this autobiographical debut novel sold over five million copies and is now set to enchant global audiences. Ikal is a student at the poorest village school on Belitong Island, where graduating sixth grade is a significant achievement. His school faces constant threats of closure, and Ikal, along with his friends known as the Rainbow Troops, confronts numerous challenges: skeptical officials, greedy corporations, deepening poverty, and their own self-doubt. Yet, hope shines through in the form of two extraordinary teachers, making Ikal's educational journey uplifting. We root for him as he stands up to the island's tin mine officials and experience his first love for a girl selling chalk behind a shop screen. We cheer for Lintang, the class's barefoot math genius, as he triumphs over students from the mining corporation's school in an academic competition. Above all, we gain insight into the customs and people of the world's largest Muslim society. This narrative, reminiscent of Khaled Hosseini's work, offers a captivating glimpse into a unique milieu, filled with charm and vitality.
Patricia Highsmith's story of sexual obsession may be one of the most important, but still largely unrecognized, novels of the twentieth century. First published in 1952 under the pseudonym Claire Morgan and touted as "the novel of a love society forbids," the book soon became a cult classic. Yet it was always relegated to a mystery subgenre and never before given the literary recognition that it is now receiving. Based on a true story plucked from Highsmith's own life, The Price of Salt tells the riveting story of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department store day job, whose routine is forever shattered by an erotic epiphany - the appearance of Carol Aird, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy. Therese begins to stalk the alluring suburban housewife, who is trapped in a marriage as stultifying as Therese's job. They fall in love and set out across the United States, pursued by a private investigator who eventually blackmails Carol in a choice between her daughter and her lover.
And isn't growing up for everyone a more or less successful attempt to
overcome their conditioning and see clearly, with their own eyes?' Matt
Rowland Hill grew up the son of a minister in an evangelical Christian church
in south Wales and then south-east England.
"Born in 1923 and raised in the austere yet close embrace of a large Edwardian family, privately educated at home, unsure of herself, of her worth and of her intelligence, Elizabeth Jane Howard's story reflects that of a generation of English women. The War and short-lived careers as an actress, model, and publishing editor gave her a degree of independence and experience that had been closed to her forebears, and brought her into contact with the artistic community that was to encompass her professional and private life. Her first novel was published in 1950 and her most recent in 1999." "Her circle of friends has included some of the most interesting writers and thinkers of the day - Laurie Lee, Arthur Koestler, Olivia Manning, Cyril Connolly, Ken Tynan and Cecil Day-Lewis, among many others. She has been married three times - firstly to Peter Scott, the naturalist and son of Captain Scott, and most famously and tempestously to Kingsley Amis."--Jacket
With an introduction by Joanna Lumley The Light Years is the first novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard's bestselling five-part series, 'The Cazalet Chronicles'.Home Place, Sussex, 1937.For two unforgettable summers the Cazalets gathered together, safe from the advancing storm clouds of the Second World War. In the heart of the Sussex countryside these were still sunlit days of childish games, lavish family meals and picnics on the beach.This is the beginning.Howard's beautiful saga is the story of three generations of the Cazalet family. Their relatives, their children and their servants - and the fascinating triangle of their affairs . . .
'I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silence...'To the authorities in pursuit of him, outlaw Ned Kelly is a horse thief, bank robber and police-killer. But to his fellow ordinary Australians, Kelly is their own Robin Hood. In a dazzling act of ventriloquism, Peter Carey brings the famous bushranger wildly and passionately to life.
'Investigating Other People S Tragedies And Cock-Ups And Misfortunes Was All He Knew. He Was Used To Being A Voyeur, The Outsider Looking In, And Nothing, But Nothing, That Anyone Did Surprised Him Any More. Yet Despite Everything He D Seen And Done, Inside Jackson There Remained A Belief A Small, Battered And Bruised Belief That His Job Was To Help People Be Good Rather Than Punish Them For Being Bad.'Cambridge Is Sweltering, During An Unusually Hot Summer. To Jackson Brodie, Former Police Inspector Turned Private Investigator, The World Consists Of One Accounting Sheet Lost On The Left, Found On The Right And The Two Never Seem To Balance. Jackson Has Never Felt At Home In Cambridge, And Has A Failed Marriage To Prove It. He Is Forty-Five But Feels Much, Much Older. He Is At That Dangerous Age When Men Suddenly Notice That They Re Going To Die Eventually, Inevitably, And There Isn T A Damn Thing They Can Do About It. Surrounded By Death, Intrigue And Misfortune, His Own Life Is Brought Sharply Into Focus.Ingeniously Plotted, Full Of Suspense And Heartbreak,&Nbsp;Case Histories&Nbsp;Is A Feat Of Bravura Storytelling That Conveys The Mysteries Of Life, Its Inanities And Its Hilarities. It Is A Life-Affirming Work Of Profound Insight And Intelligence.
Trawler Describes the author's three-week trip on an Orkney trawler as it journeys far into the north Atlantic in search of its catch. Combining humour with erudition, this title provides an account of this journey. Full description
Once part of a vast expanse where a wealthy Elizabethan family settled and built Fairfax Manor, by the mid-1960s the village of Lythe has become a disintegrated forest where the destroyed, dysfunctional Fairfax family continues to crumble.
A perceptive, achingly funny first novel featuring a middle-class Midwestern teenager trying to fit in at an elite East Coast boarding school, "Prep" is also a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.
After a separation of many years, Emily 'Fido' Faithfull bumps into her old friend Helen Codrington on the streets of Victorian London. Much has changed since then. But, for all her independence of mind, Fido is too trusting of her once-dear companion and finds herself drawn into aiding Helen's obsessive affair with a young army officer.
In de loop van het onderzoek naar de moord op de echtgenote van een plaatselijke projectontwikkelaar krijgt de politie toch twijfels over de identiteit van de mogelijke dader.