Klasika

Hemingway's men are bullfighters and boxers, hired hands and hard drinkers, gangsters and gunmen. Each of their stories deals with masculine toughness unsoftened by woman's hand. Incisive, hard-edged, pared down to the bare minimum, they are classic Hemingway territory.

Paris in the twenties: Pernod, parties and expatriate Americans, loose-living on money from home. Jake is wildly in love with Brett Ashley, aristocratic and irresistibly beautiful, but with an abandoned, sensuous nature that she cannot change. When the couple drifts to Spain to the dazzle of the fiesta and the heady atmosphere of the bullfight, their affair is strained by new passions, new jealousies, and Jake must finally learn that he will never possess the woman he loves.

The book opens on the day Hemingway's close friend Pop, a legendary hunter, leaves him in charge of the camp. Meanwhile, tensions are heightening among the various tribes and news arrives of a potential attack. Hemingway must take on his new role of leader and, of equal importance, assist his wife Mary to pursue the great lion she is determined to kill before Christmas. Passionately detailing the African landscape, the thrill of the hunt, and the heartfelt relationships with his African neighbours, Hemingway, a master of dramatic fiction, weaves a tale that is rich in laughter, beauty and insight.

In 1831 Nat Turner awaits death in a Virginia jail cell. He is a slave, a preacher, and the leader of the only effective slave revolt in the history of 'that peculiar institution'. William Styron's ambitious and stunningly accomplished novel is Turner's confession, made to his jailers under the duress of his God. Encompasses the betrayals, cruelties and humiliations that made up slavery - and that still sear the collective psyches of both races.

Set in Brooklyn in 1947, this novel tells the story of Sophie, a Polish Catholic immigrant who is haunted by her memories of the concentration camp in wartime Europe and the terrible choice she was forced to make.

Henry Chinaski is a low-life loser with a hand-to-mouth existence. His menial Post Office day job supports a life of beer, one-night stands and race tracks. First published in 1971, this was Charles Bukowski's debut novel.

Low-life writer and alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. Now, at the age of 50, he is living the life of a rock star, running 300 hangovers a year and a sex life that would cripple Casanova. This follow-up to "Post Office" and "Factotum" is an uncompromising account of life on the edge.

Hyman Kaplan, the irrepressible student at the American Night Preparatory School for Adults, has captivated readers ever since he appeared in the pages of The New Yorker. Few immigrants have prepared themselves for the responsibilities of citizenship with such ebullience as Hyman Kaplan, and few have played such havoc with the English language. As he tackles his assignments in speech, recitation, and composition, Mr. Kaplan convulses his classmates and sorely tempts his teacher to promote him prematurely. But by final examination time it becomes clear that in the case of Hyman Kaplan, good will can triumph over grammar.

The story of Milos Hrma, a gauche young Candide of the occupied countries, apprentice in a small railway station in Bohemia who, before meeting his heroic death, loses his burdensome innocence, masters the social complexities of the small world he inhabits, and discovers his manhood.

The story of K and his arrival in a village where he is never accepted, and his relentless, unavailing struggle with authority in order to gain entrance to the castle that seems to rule it. K's isolation and perplexity, his begging for the approval of elusive and anonymous powers, epitomises Kafka's vision of twentieth-century alienation and anxiety.

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these?

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. Kim is Rudyard Kipling's finest work. Now controversial, this novel is a memorably vivid evocation of the life and landscapes of India in the late nineteenth century. Kim himself is a resourceful lad who befriends a lama, an ageing priest; and both embark on a combined quest. Whereas Kim has an insatiable interest in the varied activities around him, the lama seeks redemption from the 'Wheel of Life'. Kim becomes involved in the 'Great Game&rsquo:, undertaking espionage for the British rulers. This engrossing and moving novel, with its diversity of memorable characters, offers many insights into political, religious and social tensions.