Klasika

A fascinating look at the history and grandeur of bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon is also a deeper contemplation on the nature of cowardice and bravery, sport and tragedy, and is enlivened throughout by Hemingway's pungent commentary on life and literature. Seen through his eyes, bullfighting becomes an art, a richly choreographed ballet, with performers who range from awkward amateurs to masters of great grace and cunning.

The Essential Hemingway is the perfect introduction to the astonishing, wide-ranging body of work by the Nobel Prize-winning author. This impressive collection includes: the full text of Fiesta, Hemingway's first major novel; long extracts from three of his greatest works of fiction, A Farewell to Arms, To Have and Have Not and For Whom the Bell Tolls; twenty-five complete short stories; and the breathtaking Epilogue to Death in the Afternoon.

1812 and the fate of Europe lies in the hands of newly appointed Commodore Hornblower. Dispatched to northern waters to protect Britain's Baltic interests, Horatio Hornblower must halt the advance of Napoleon's empire into Sweden and Russia. But first, he must battle the terrible Baltic weather: fog, snow and icebound waterways; overcome Russian political and commercial intrigues; avoid the seductive charms of royalty, as well as the deadly reach of assassins in the imperial palace; and contend with hostile armies and French privateers. With the fate of Europe balanced on a knife edge, the responsibility lies heavy on a Commodore's shoulders. This is the eighth of eleven books chronicling the adventures of C. S. Forester's inimitable nautical hero, Horatio Hornblower.

‘He should have seen it coming. His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one...’

Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they’ve never quite lost touch with each other – or with their former teacher, Libor Sevcik, a Czech always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results.

>Now, both Libor and Finkler are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor’s grand, central London apartment.
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Charles Bukowski’s brilliant, fantastical pastiche of a detective story. Packed with wit, invention and Bukowski’s trademark lowlife adventures, it is the final novel of one of the most enjoyable and influential cult writers of the last century. Nicky Belane, private detective and career alcoholic, is a troubled man. He is plagued not just by broads, booze, lack of cash and a raging ego, but also by the surreal jobs he’s been hired to do. Not only has been hired to track down French classical author Celine – who’s meant to be dead – but he’s also supposed to find the elusive Red Sparrow – which may or may not be real.

Jane Austen teased readers with the idea of a 'heroine whom no one but myself will much like', but Emma is irresistible. 'Handsome, clever, and rich', Emma is also an 'imaginist', 'on fire with speculation and foresight'. She sees the signs of romance all around her, but thinks she will never be married. Her matchmaking maps out relationships that Jane Austen ironically tweaks into a clearer perspective. Judgement and imagination are matched in games the reader too can enjoy, and the end is a triumph of understanding.

With an Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury. Tender is the Night is a story set in the hedonistic high society of Europe during the 'Roaring Twenties'. A wealthy schizophrenic, Nicole Warren, falls in love with Dick Diver - her psychiatrist. The resulting saga of the Divers' troubled marriage, and their circle of friends, includes a cast of aristocratic and beautiful people, unhappy love affairs, a duel, incest, and the problems inherent in the possession of great wealth. Despite cataloguing a maelstrom of interpersonal conflict, Tender is the Night has a poignancy and warmth that springs from the quality of Fitzgerald's writing and the tragic personal experiences on which the novel is based. Six years separate

Jane Austen's novel tells the story of Marianne Dashwood, who wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened loss - the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

One of the great imaginative novels of the century, a fierce political satire, filled with the most dazzling surreal humour. One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by two demons, a beautiful naked witch and a huge black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. When the visitors leave, the asylums are full and the forces of law and order in disarray. Only the Master, a man devoted to truth, and Margarita, the woman he loves, remain undiminished. An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature.

Joyce's first major work, written when he was only twenty-five, brought his city to the world for the first time. His stories are rooted in the rich detail of Dublin life, portraying ordinary, often defeated lives with unflinching realism. He writes of social decline, sexual desire and exploitation, corruption and personal failure, yet creates a brilliantly compelling, unique vision of the world and of human experience.

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism as I understand it'. Thus wrote Orwell following his experiences as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil War, chronicled in Homage to Catalonia. Here he brings to bear all the force of his humanity, passion and clarity, describing with bitter intensity the bright hopes and cynical betrayals of that chaotic episode.
Pages: 272