- Table View
- List View
The Echoing Grove: A Novel
by Rosamond LehmannTwo sisters: Madeleine and Dinah. One husband: Rickie Masters. For many years now, Dinah, exotic and sensual, has conducted a clandestine affair with Rickie. Madeleine, calm and resolute, has accepted that her marriage has been of limited success. Rickie's sudden death makes widows of both sisters in this highly imaginative novel that explores with extraordinary insight the sublimity, the rivalry and the pain of personal relationships.'She makes a mood, an atmosphere, which is never forgotten . . . The inner voice of women talking to themselves about their love affairs, knowing that it is hopeless, having to go ahead anyway, expecting the end as soon as it begins. That, of course, is what Rosamond Lehmann does best' Sunday Times
The Echoing Grove: A Novel (Virago Modern Classics #248)
by Rosamond LehmannTwo sisters: Madeleine and Dinah. One husband: Rickie Masters. For many years now, Dinah, exotic and sensual, has conducted a clandestine affair with Rickie. Madeleine, calm and resolute, has accepted that her marriage has been of limited success. Rickie's sudden death makes widows of both sisters in this highly imaginative novel that explores with extraordinary insight the sublimity, the rivalry and the pain of personal relationships.'She makes a mood, an atmosphere, which is never forgotten . . . The inner voice of women talking to themselves about their love affairs, knowing that it is hopeless, having to go ahead anyway, expecting the end as soon as it begins. That, of course, is what Rosamond Lehmann does best' Sunday Times
Dusty Answer: A Novel
by Rosamond LehmannMamma was fast asleep at home, her spirit lapped in unconsciousness. Her dreams would not divine that her daughter had stolen out to meet a lover.And next door also they slept unawares, while one of them broke from the circle and came alone to clasp a stranger . . .'Judith Earle, over-earnest and inexperienced, has always been a little in love with each of the four cousins who come to stay next door and, on her return from Cambridge, becomes madly in love with one of them - Roddy, the 'sensation-hunter'. DUSTY ANSWER traces with delicate nostalgia childhood friendships and the pangs of thwarted young love.
Dusty Answer: A Novel (Virago Modern Classics #245)
by Rosamond LehmannMamma was fast asleep at home, her spirit lapped in unconsciousness. Her dreams would not divine that her daughter had stolen out to meet a lover.And next door also they slept unawares, while one of them broke from the circle and came alone to clasp a stranger . . .'Judith Earle, over-earnest and inexperienced, has always been a little in love with each of the four cousins who come to stay next door and, on her return from Cambridge, becomes madly in love with one of them - Roddy, the 'sensation-hunter'. DUSTY ANSWER traces with delicate nostalgia childhood friendships and the pangs of thwarted young love.
Christmas at High Rising: A Virago Modern Classic (Vmc Ser. #705)
by Angela ThirkellOriginally published in the 1930s and 1940s and never before collected, these stories by the incomparable Angela Thirkell relate merry scenes of a trip to the pantomime, escapades on ice, a Christmas Day gone awry, and an electrifying afternoon for Laura Morland and friends at Low Rising, not to mention the chatter of the arty set at a London private view. Charming, irreverent and full of mischievous humour, they offer the utmost entertainment in any season of the year.
Christmas at High Rising: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics #368)
by Angela ThirkellOriginally published in the 1930s and 1940s and never before collected, these stories by the incomparable Angela Thirkell relate merry scenes of a trip to the pantomime, escapades on ice, a Christmas Day gone awry, and an electrifying afternoon for Laura Morland and friends at Low Rising, not to mention the chatter of the arty set at a London private view. Charming, irreverent and full of mischievous humour, they offer the utmost entertainment in any season of the year.
Wounding the World: How Military Violence and War-Play Invade our Lives
by Joanna BourkeWars are frequently justified 'in our name'. Militarist values and practices co-opt us, permeating our language, invading our dream space, entertaining us at the movies or in front of game consoles. Our taxes pay for those war machines. Our loved ones are killed and maimed.With killing now an integral part of the entertainment industry in video games and Hollywood films, war has become mainstream.With the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the First World War, has come a deluge of books, documentaries, feature films and radio programmes. We will hear a great deal about the horror of the battlefield. Bourke acknowledges wider truths: war is unending and violence is deeply entrenched in our society. But it doesn't have to be this way. This book equips readers with an understanding of the history, culture and politics of warfare in order to interrogate and resist an increasingly violent world.
Wounding the World: How Military Violence and War-Play Invade our Lives
by Professor Joanna BourkeWars are frequently justified 'in our name'. Militarist values and practices co-opt us, permeating our language, invading our dream space, entertaining us at the movies or in front of game consoles. Our taxes pay for those war machines. Our loved ones are killed and maimed.With killing now an integral part of the entertainment industry in video games and Hollywood films, war has become mainstream.With the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the First World War, has come a deluge of books, documentaries, feature films and radio programmes. We will hear a great deal about the horror of the battlefield. Bourke acknowledges wider truths: war is unending and violence is deeply entrenched in our society. But it doesn't have to be this way. This book equips readers with an understanding of the history, culture and politics of warfare in order to interrogate and resist an increasingly violent world.
The Girl in the Road
by Monica ByrneA young woman called Meena wakes up one morning covered in blood. There are mysterious snakebites across her chest. She knows she's in danger but something has happened to her memory. All she can do is run - but why? And from whom?As Meena plots her escape she hears of the Trail - an extraordinary, forbidden bridge that spans the Arabian sea, connecting India to Africa like a silver ribbon. Its purpose is to harness the power of the ocean - Blue Energy - but it also offers a subculture of travellers a chance for sanctuary and adventure.Convinced the Trail is her salvation, Meena gathers supplies - GPS, a scroll reader, a sealable waterproof pod. And so begins her extraordinary journey - both physical and spiritual - from India to Ethiopia, the home of her birth. But as she runs away from the threat of violence she is also running towards a shocking revelation about her past and her family.'It's transfixing to watch Monica Byrne become a major player in science fiction with her debut novel . . . Beautifully drawn people in a future that feels so close you can touch it, blended with lush language and concerns of myth. It builds a bridge from past to future, from East to West. Glorious stuff' - Neil Gaiman
Friendship
by Emily GouldBev and Amy are best friends but, at thirty, they have reached a crossroads. Bev is stuck in circumstances that would barely have passed muster in her twenties: temping, living in a shared house, drowning in debt. Amy is a fiercely charismatic media darling still riding the tailwinds of early success, but reality is catching up with her. And now Bev is unexpectedly pregnant. As the two friends are dragged into genuine adulthood, they are forced to contemplate the possibility that growing up might mean growing apart.
And the Heart Says Whatever
by Emily GouldIn her searing collection of essays, Emily Gould - writer, journalist and former editor at Gawker.com - tells the truth about becoming an adult in New York City in the twenty-first century, surrounded by bartenders, bloggers, socialites and bankers. Touching on failure, success, love, lust, work, and what it's like to leave one life behind to begin another one, these essays are for everyone who ever had a job she wished she didn't, felt inchoate ambition sour into resentment, ended a relationship, regretted a decision, or told a secret to exactly the wrong person. In piercing, candid, witty prose, Gould decodes the new challenges of our post-private lives and the age-old intricacies of the human heart.
Jane of Lantern Hill: A Virago Modern Classic (Vmc Ser. #707)
by L. M. MontgomeryJane and her mother live in a gloomy old mansion, where their lives are ruled by her ovebearing grandmother. For most of her life Jane has believed that her father is dead. Then, one dull April morning, a letter comes. Not only is her father alive and well, but he wants Jane to spend the summer with him on Prince Edward Island. For a blissful summer she lives at her father's cottage on Lantern Hill, making friends, having adventures and discovering that life can be wonderful after all. And she dares to dream that there could be such a house where she, Mother and Father could live together without Grandmother's disapproval - a house that could be called home.
Rilla of Ingleside: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics #708)
by L. M. MontgomeryAnne Shirley's children are almost all grown up - except for pretty, high-spirited Rilla, who is now almost fifteen years old. No one can resist Rilla's bright hazel eyes and dazzling smile, and Rilla herself can think no further ahead than going to her very first dance at the Four Winds lighthouse - and getting her first kiss from handsome Kenneth Ford! But at the dance, news is brought that England has declared war on Germany. At first, this means little to Rilla, on the threshold of so many new excitements. But as her brothers go off to fight in the Great War and Rilla brings home an orphaned newborn baby in a soup tureen, she is swept into a drama that tests her courage and will leave her changed for ever...
The Blunderer: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics #197)
by Patricia HighsmithBy the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol and Strangers on a Train'My suspicion is that when the dust has settled and when the chronicle of 20th-century American literature comes to be written, history will place Highsmith at the top of the pyramid, as we should place Dostoevsky at the top of the Russian hierarchy of novelists' A. N. Wilson, Daily TelegraphThe Blunderer was written by Highsmith in between Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley. The novel follows the young, successful and handsome, Walter Stackhouse who seems to have it all, that is, until the day his wife's body is found at the bottom of a cliff. Under the intense scrutiny of the investigation he commits one mistake, then another, until - in true Highsmithian fashion - Walter finds his perfect life derailed. Now Walter is running from the obsessions of the murderer, and the suspicions of the lead cop, not to mention his own increasingly life-threatening blunders.
Edith's Diary: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics #183)
by Patricia HighsmithBy the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol and Strangers on a TrainINTRODUCED BY DENISE MINA'Highsmith probes to the very core of her heroine with a controlled ferocity and single-mindedness that illuminates every page of her novel. It is a masterly book, a haunting book, a book that lingers long in the memory and constantly disturbs and delights' The Times'A work of extraordinary force and feeling . . . her strongest, her most imaginative and by far her most substantial novel' New YorkerEdith Howland's diary is her most precious possession, and as she is moving house she is making sure it's safe. A suburban housewife in fifties America, she is moving to Brunswick with her husband Brett and her beloved son, Cliffie, to start a new life for them all. She is optimistic, but most of all she has high hopes for her new venture with Brett, a local newspaper, the Brunswick Corner Bugle.Life seems full of promise, and indeed, to read her diary, filled with her most intimate feelings and revelations, you would never think otherwise. Strange, then, that reality is so dangerously different . . .'Edith's Diary is certainly one of the saddest novels I ever read, but it is also one of the mere twenty or so that I would say were perfect, unimprovable masterpieces' A. N. Wilson, Telegraph
A Suspension of Mercy: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics #180)
by Patricia HighsmithBy the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol and Strangers on a Train'Highsmith's novels are peerlessly disturbing . . . bad dreams that keep us thrashing for the rest of the night' New YorkerSydney Bartleby has killed his wife. At least, he has thought about it, compulsively, repeatedly, plotting schemes, designing escapes, forging alibis. Of course he has; he's a thriller writer. He even knows how to dispose of her body. But when Alicia takes a long, unannounced holiday, Sydney descends into the treacherous world of his own fantasy.A masterpiece of noir fantasy in which Highsmith revels in eliciting the unsettling psychological forces that lurk beneath the surface of everyday life.
The Paying Guests: shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction
by Sarah Waters'A page-turning melodrama and a fascinating portrait of London on the verge of great change' GuardianIt is 1922, and in a hushed south London villa life is about to be transformed, as genteel widow Mrs Wray and her discontented daughter Frances are obliged to take in lodgers. Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the 'clerk class', bring with them gramophone music, colour, fun - and dangerous desires. The most ordinary of lives, it seems, can explode into passion and drama... A love story that is also a crime story, this is vintage Sarah Waters.'Another wild ride of a novel... magnetic storytelling' Tracy Chevalier, Observer'You will be hooked within a page' Charlotte Mendelson, Financial Times'Sumptuous... the writing is impeccable. A joy in every respect' New Statesman'An unsurpassed fictional recorder of vanished eras and hidden lives' Sunday Times
The Talented Mr Ripley: Now a major Netflix series (Ripley Series #1)
by Patricia HighsmithNOW A MAJOR NETLIX SERIES STARRING ANDREW SCOTTOne of the BBC's 100 Novels that shaped our world. 'An outstanding thriller which has deservedly become a classic' THE TIMES 'Ripley - amoral, hedonistic and charming - is a genuinely original creation' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'I'm a huge Highsmith fan. If there's one book I wish I'd written, it's The Talented Mr Ripley' SARAH WATERSTom Ripley travels to Italy with a commission to coax a prodigal young American back to his wealthy father. But Ripley finds himself very fond of Dickie Greenleaf. He wants to be like him - exactly like him. Suave, agreeable and utterly amoral, Ripley will stop at nothing to accomplish his goal. The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confident man, whose talent for murder and self-invention is chronicled in four subsequent Ripley novels.
The Boy Who Followed Ripley: A Virago Modern Classic (Ripley Series #4)
by Patricia HighsmithBy the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol and Strangers on a TrainThe continuing adventures of Ripley, played by Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley.When a troubled young runaway arrives on Tom Ripley's French estate, he is drawn into a world he thought he'd left behind: the seedy underworld of Berlin, involving kidnapping plots, lies and deception. Ripley becomes the boy's protector as friendship develops between the young man with a guilty conscience and the older one with no conscience at all.The Boy Who Followed Ripley is followed by Ripley Under Water.
Ripley's Game: A Virago Modern Classic (Ripley Series #3)
by Patricia HighsmithBy the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol and Strangers on a TrainThis is the third novel in Highsmith's hugely influential, groundbreaking Ripley series, which began with The Talented Mr Ripley.Living on his French estate with his elegant heiress wife, Tom Ripley, on the cusp of middle age, is no longer the striving chancer of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Having accrued considerable wealth through a long career of crime, he tires of his idyllic retirement. Highsmith's chameleon longs to get back in the game, so when a friend needs a favour, he relishes the opportunity. Tom Ripley detests murder. Unless it is absolutely necessary. Wherever possible, he prefers someone else to do the dirty work. In this case, someone with no criminal record who can be manipulated to commit 'two simple murders' for a very generous fee.Ripley's Game is followed by The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water'The No. 1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times
Ripley Under Ground: A Virago Modern Classic (Ripley Series #2)
by Patricia HighsmithBY THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY, CAROL AND STRANGERS ON A TRAIN The second novel in Highsmith's hugely influential, groundbreaking Ripley series.'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' THE TIMES 'Ripley, amoral, hedonistic and charming, is a genuinely original creation' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'The sequence of novels allows Highsmith to create a frightening sense of momentum' GUARDIAN Tom Ripley is now the owner of a beautiful estate in France, a wealthy art collector and married to an heiress. The Buckmaster Gallery is staging an exhibition by the celebrated artist, Derwatt, but an American collector claims that the expensive masterpiece he bought three years ago is a fake. It is, of course, and he wants to talk to Derwatt - but Derwatt, inconveniently, is dead.Ripley needs the perfect solution to keep his role in the fraud a secret and his reputation clean, but not everyone's nerves are as steady as his. Especially when it comes to murder.Ripley Under Ground is an ingenious novel of masks and identity, illusion and reality, and is followed by Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water.
Ripley Under Water: A Virago Modern Classic (Ripley Series #5)
by Patricia HighsmithRipley Under Water is a psychological thriller by Patricia Highsmith, the last in her series of five books known as the 'Ripliad'.'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The TimesTom Ripley is quietly living in luxury at his chateau at Villeperce. He has a past, however, that would not bear too much close scrutiny.He is certain that he has covered his tracks where murder and forgery are concerned. But when a certain American couple move in next door, he soon realises his every move is being shadowed.Ripley fears his secrets may be discovered and he will stop at nothing to prevent that from happening . . .'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times
Strangers on a Train: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics #192)
by Patricia HighsmithThe classic thriller behind the Hitchcock film, and Highsmith's first novel - soon to be remade by David Fincher, director of Gone Girl, with a screenplay by Gillian Flynn.By the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley and Carol The psychologists would call it folie a deux . . .'Bruno slammed his palms together. "Hey! Cheeses, what an idea! I kill your wife and you kill my father! We meet on a train, see, and nobody knows we know each other! Perfect alibis! Catch?'''From this moment, almost against his conscious will, Guy Haines is trapped in a nightmare of shared guilt and an insidious merging of personalities.'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times
Carol: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics #181)
by Patricia HighsmithSome books change lives. This is one of them . . . It has the drive of a thriller but the imagery of a romance . . . This is a book that is hard to set aside; it demands to be read late into the night with eyes burning and heart racing - Val McDermid Now a hugely acclaimed, six-times Oscar-nominated film by Todd Haynes, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.Therese is just an ordinary sales assistant working in a New York department store when an alluring woman in her thirties walks up to her counter. Standing there, Therese is wholly unprepared for the first shock of love. She is an awkward nineteen-year-old with a job she hates and a boyfriend she doesn't love; Carol is a sophisticated, bored suburban housewife in the throes of a divorce and a custody battle for her only daughter. As Therese becomes irresistibly drawn into Carol's world, she soon realises how much they both stand to lose . . .First published pseudonymously in 1952 as The Price of Salt, Carol is a hauntingly atmospheric love story set against the backdrop of fifties New York.
The Cry of the Owl: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics #198)
by Patricia HighsmithBy the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley, Carol and Strangers on a TrainRobert Forester, depressed after a painful divorce, begins to spy on Jenny, his pretty young neighbour. Watching her, bright and seemingly carefree, alleviates his loneliness and helps him escape the discontent of his life. Caught in the act, he is surprised when Jenny invites him in, but all is not what it seems. With striking clarity and horrible inevitability, Forester becomes caught up in a series of deaths in which he, although the innocent bystander, is presumed guilty.'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times