Moderní

Growing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.

On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

His life was like his recurring nightmare: a train to nowhere. But an ordinary life has a way of taking an extraordinary turn. Add a girl whose ears are so exquisite that, when uncovered, they improve sex a thousand-fold, a runaway friend, a right-wing politico, an ovine-obsessed professor and a manic-depressive in a sheep outfit, implicate them in a hunt for a sheep, that may or may not be running the world, and eth upshot is another singular masterpiece from Japan's finest novelist.

New York Times Toru Okada's cat has disappeared and this has unsettled his wife, who is herself growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has started receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.

Lost in space or a loser in love? Twenty-two year-old Sumire is in love for the first time - with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is a glamorous and successful older woman with a taste for classical music and fine wine, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Jack Kerouac novel. Surprised that she might, after all, be a lesbian, Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K. about the big questions in life; what is sexual desire and should she ever tell Miu how she feels about her? K., a primary school teacher, is used to answering questions, but what he most wants to say to Sumire is, "I love you." He consoles himself by having an affair with the mother of one of his pupils. But

Winter, 1975: Afghanistan, a country hidden in the corner of Asia, ruled over by a fading monarchy on the verge of an internal coup. But in Kabul, twelve-year-old Amir has his own concerns. He is desperate to win the annual kite-fighting tournament to prove to his father that he has the makings of a man. Amir?s friend Hassan is a low-caste Muslim and the son of a crippled servant but nevertheless the two boys play together and defend each other against the neighbourhood?s bullies. However, during the tournament, Amir takes advantage of Hassan?s guileless devotion and commits a terrible act of betrayal which is to shatter their lives and define their future. Amir finds that he can never escape the far-reaching consequences of his actions. Unfolding against Afghanistan?s destructive hist

Three book editors, jaded by reading far too many crackpot manuscripts on the mystic and the occult, are inspired by an extraordinary conspiracy story told to them by a strange colonel to have some fun. They start feeding random bits of information into a powerful computer capable of inventing connections between the entries, thinking they are creating nothing more than an amusing game, but then their game starts to take over, the deaths start mounting, and they are forced into a frantic search for the truth.

Tyrant, blackmailer, racketeer, murder, his influence reaches every level of American society. Meet Don Corleone, a friendly man, a just man, a reasonable man. The deadliest lord of the Cosa Nostra. The Godfather.

A modern masterpiece, The Godfather is the epic story of organised crime in the 1940s. It is also the intimate story of the Corleone family, at once drawn together and ripped apart by its unique position at the core of the American Mafia. Still shocking more than a quarter-century after it was first published, this compelling tale of blackmail, murder and family values is a true classic.

Henry Perowne is a contented man - a succ essful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind, a newspaper lawy er, and proud father of two grown-up children, one a promising poet, t he other a talented blues musician. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, d rawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a growing unease. Wh at troubles him as he looks out at the night sky is the state of the w orld - the impending war against Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/1 1, and a fear that his city, its openness and diversity, and his happy family life are under threat. Later, Perowne makes his way to his wee kly squash game through London streets filled with hundreds of thousan ds of anti-war protestors. A minor car accident brings him into a conf rontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive,