Moderní

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were pupils at Hailsham - an idyllic establishment situated deep in the English countryside. The children there were tenderly sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe they were special, and that their personal welfare was crucial. But for what reason were they really there? It is only years later that Kathy, now aged 31, finally allows herself to yield to the pull of memory and try to make sense of the past. What unfolds is an extraordinarily powerful story in which Kathy, Ruth and Tommy slowly come to realise that it is their seemingly happy childhood that has haunted them ever since, even tainting their adult lives. Part love story, part mystery, "Never Let Me Go" is a uniquely beautiful and troubling novel, charged throughout with a profound emot

This is a modern-day adventure story featuring Paulo's supernatural encounter with angels -- who appear as warrior women and travel through the Mojave desert on their motorbikes. Haunted by a devastating curse, Paulo is instructed by his mysterious spiritual master to embark upon a journey -- to find and speak to his guardian angel in an attempt to confront and overcome his dark past. The Valkyries is a compelling account of this forty day quest into the searing heat of the Mojave Desert, where Paulo and his wife, Chris, encounter the Valkyries -- warrior women who travel the desert on motorcycles, spreading the word of angels. This exotic spiritual odyssey is a rare combination of truth, myth, imagination and inspiration. Ultimately it is a story about being able to forgive our past a

The million-copy bestseller Ex-philosophy teacher Jostein Gaarder & Albert Knos stimulate 15 year old Sophieto ask those fundamental questions which have exercised the imaginations of Children Phiolosophers since the dawn of civilisation.

This is a narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, "Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" is the tour de force that expanced Haruki Murakami's international following, tracking one man's descent into the kafkaesque underworld farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy. The result is a wildly inventive fantasy and a meditation on the many uses of the mind.

"Kafka on the Shore" follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghostlike pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. Murakami's new novel is at once a classic tale of quest, but it is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary ta

'Whenever I resolve to write less and do something healthful instead, like ice dancing - some honey-tongued editor is sure to call me up and make me an offer I can't refuse. So in some ways this book is simply the result of an under-developed ability to say no' Collected and published in the UK for the first time, here are essays and journalism from the brilliant novelist and poet. Ranging from book reviews of John Updike and Toni Morrison to an appreciation of Dashiell Hammet; an account of a journey in Afghanistan that sowed the seeds of The Handmaid's Tale; passionate ecological writings; funny stories of 'my most embarrassing moments'; obituaries of some of her great friends and fellow writers: Angela Carter, Mordecai Richler, Carol Shields. This is an insightful, thoughtful and re

High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami's idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance. It is an assault on the sense, part murder mystery, part metaphysical speculation; a fable for our times as catchy as a rock song blasting from the window of a sports car.

This is the story of the actor Jack Burns, the bastard son of Alice, a tattoo-artist. Alice and Jack travel through the Baltic’s port cities in search of William Burns, Jack’s absconding father and ‘ink addict’. But William, a church organist and profligate womaniser, is always one step ahead – always departing in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local ‘scratcher’. William can't be found and Jack must grow up without a father. His childhood and education shaped by sexual experiences with older women. Later, as a young man with a beautiful face, Jack moves to Hollywood where international fame and stardom await. But with the shadow of his absent father always looming, Jack sets off again in search of the truth. An absorbing and moving book

In this enviable gathering, Haruki Murakami has chosen for his party some of the very best short story writers of recent years, each with their own birthday experiences, each story a snapshot of life on a single day. Including stories by Russell Banks, Ethan Canin, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Denis Johnson, Claire Keegan, Andrea Lee, Daniel Lyons, Lynda Sexson, Paul Theroux, William Trevor and Haruki Murakami, this anthology captures a range of emotions evoked by advancing age and the passing of time, from events fondly recalled to the impact of appalling tragedy. Previously published in a Japanese translation by Haruki Murakami, this English edition contains a specially written introduction.

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.