Evelyn Waughs acidly funny & formally daring satire Vile Bodies" reveals the darkness & vulnerability that lurks beneath the glittering surface of the high life. This " Penguin Modern Classics" edition is edited with an introduction & notes by Richard Jacobs. In the years following the First World War a new generation emerges wistful & vulnerable beneath the glitter. " The Bright Young Things" of twenties Mayfair with their paradoxical mix of innocence & sophistication exercise their inventive minds & vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade
- whether promiscuity dancing cocktail parties or sports cars. In a quest for treasure a favourite party occupation a vivid assortment of characters among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes & the glamorous aristocratic Nina Blount hunt fast & furiously for ever greater sensations & the fulfilment of unconscious desires. Evelyn Waugh (1903-66) was born in Hampstead second son of Arthur Waugh publisher & literary critic & brother of Alec Waugh the popular novelist. In 1928 he published his first work a life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti & his first novel " Decline & Fall" which was soon followed by " Vile Bodies" (1930) "A Handful of Dust" (1934) & " Scoop" (1938). In 1942 he published " Put Out More Flags" & then in 1945 " Brideshead Revisited". " Men at Arms" (1952) was the first volume of " The Sword of Honour" trilogy & won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; the other volumes " Officers & Gentlemen" & " Unconditional Surrender" followed in 1955 & 1961. If you enjoyed " Vile Bodies" you might like Waughs "A Handful of Dust" also available in " Penguin Modern Classics". " The high point of the experimental original Waugh". (Malcolm Bradbury " Sunday Times"). " This brilliantly funny anxious & resonant novel.. .the difficult edgy guide to the turn of the decade". (Richard Jacobs). " Its Britains Great Gatsby". (Stephen Fry director of " Vile Bodies" film adaptation " Bright Young Things")."
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They may have looked all prim & proper but the Victorians were a jolly naughty bunch who could be vicious & violent & villinous. Readers can discover the murderers who wouldnt hang when the first public loo was flushed & about stag hunting in Paddngton Station. History with the nasty bits left in! 2013 is HORRIBLE HISTORIES twentieth anniversary. ...

There is nothing to be found in the pages of these books but misery & despair. You still have time to choose something else to read. But if you must know what unpleasantries befall the charming & clever Baudelaire children read on... The Vile Village": Why would anyone want to open a book containing such unpleasant matters as migrating crows an angry mob a newspaper headline the arrest of innocent people the Deluxe cell & some very strange hats." ...

Nora Roberts
- the Worlds Greatest Storyteller Sophia is the pride of the Giambelli clan & a vital player in the familys celebrated
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When Tess Angel receives a solicitor's letter inviting her to claim her inheritance
- the Villa Sirena perched on a clifftop in
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When a young woman turns up dead in a peat bog near the banks of the River Tiber Teresa a maverick pathologist thinks shes got the victim of an ancient Roman ritual on her hands. Shes wrong. Leo Falcone the chief inspector knows this case is recent history & the horror is still very much alive. So begins an investigation that will take the police deep into the dark underworld of modern day Romes most disturbing & sinister secrets. Nic Costa is trying to stay off the drink. Gianni Peroni used to work vice until he was caught in one of his own departments stings. Emilio Neri the local mafia boss cant trust his own son & Vergil Wallis the American mobster is refusing to talk. Meanwhile someone is trying very hard to kill the pathologist. & now another beautiful young woman has gone missing.. . ...

Florence 1943. Two sisters Isabella & Caterina Cammaccio find themselves surrounded by terror & death; & with Italy trapped under the heel of a brutal Nazi occupation bands of Partisans rise up. Soon Isabella & Caterina will test their wits & deepest beliefs as never before. As the winter grinds on they will be forced to make the most important decisions of their lives. Their choices will reverberate for decades. In the present day Alessandro Pallioti a senior policeman agrees to oversee a murder investigation after it emerges the victim was once a Partisan hero. When the case begins to unravel Pallioti finds himself working to uncover a crime lost in the twilight of war the consequences of which are as deadly today as they were over sixty years ago. ' Grindle vividly evokes Florence as few tourists see it.. . Here is the perfect summer holiday read' Literary Review ' Grindle saves her best story-weaving to the thrilling denouement that creates a surprise as unexpected & delicious as the finest Florentine cuisine' Daily Express ...

The Village" by Nikita Lalwani the prize-winning author of " Gifted" is a disturbing & utterly gripping modern morality tale set in contemporary India & will appeal to readers of Kiran Desai's " The Inheritance of Loss" & Jhumpa Lahiri's " The Namesake". Ray a young British-Asian woman arrives in the afternoon heat of a small village in India. She has come to live there for several months to make a documentary about the place. For this is no ordinary Indian village
- the women collecting water at the well the men chopping wood in the early morning light have all been found guilty of murder. The village is an open prison. Ray is accompanied by two British colleagues & as the days pass they begin to get closer to the lives of the inhabitants of the village. & then it feels too close. As the British visitors become desperate for a story the distinction between innocence & guilt between good intentions & horrifying results becomes horribly blurred. Set in a village modelled on a real-life open prison in India " The Village" is a gripping story about manipulation & personal morality about how truly frail our moral judgement can be. Nikita Lalwani has written a dazzling heartfelt & disturbing novel which delivers on all the promise of her first. "A sparkling funny & poignant study of a young maths prodigy struggling with her gift & a difficult family". (Gerard Woodward " Books of the Year" (" Gifted") " Observer). Nikita Lalwani was born in Rajasthan & raised in Cardiff. Her first novel " Gifted" was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize & shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award & won the Desmond Elliott Prize. She lives in London."
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The Grey House was the answer to everything in Alice Jordan's life
- her perfect life. The beautiful eighteenth-century building
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' People in Fairacre simply won't stand for their children being uprooted & carted away in buses like so many
- er so many-' '
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