The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is the complete collection of short fiction from the world-renowned Lydia Davis. It is the winner of the Man Booker international prize 2013. Big rejoicing: Lydia Davis has won the Man Booker International prize. Never did a book award deliver such a true match-winning punch. Best of all a new audience will read her now & find her wit her vigour & rigour her funniness her thoughtfulness & the precision of form which mark Davis out as unique. Daring excitingly intelligent & often wildly comic [she] reminds you in a world that likes to bandy its words about what words such as economy precision & originality really mean. This is a writer as mighty as Kafka as subtle as Flaubert & as epoch-making in her own way as Proust. A two-liner from Davis or a seemingly throwaway paragraph will haunt. What looks like a game will open to deep seriousness; what looks like philosophy will reveal playfulness tragicomedy ordinariness; what looks like ordinariness will ask you to look again at Davis' writing. In its acuteness it always asks attentiveness & it repays this by opening up to its reader like possibility or like a bush covered in flowerheads. She's a joy. There's no writer quite like her". (Ali Smith). " What stories. Precise & piercing extremely funny. Nearly all are unlike anything you've ever read". (Metro). "I loved these stories. They are so well-written with such clarity of thought & precision of language. Excellent". (William Leith Evening Standard). " Remarkable. Some of the most moving fiction
- on death marriage children
- of recent years. To read Collected Stories is to be reminded of the grand echoing mind-chambers created by Sebald or recent Coetzee. A writer of vast intelligence & originality". (Independent on Sunday). "A body of work probably unique in American writing in its combination of lucidity aphoristic brevity formal originality sly comedy metaphysical bleakness philosophical pressure & human wisdom". (New Yorker). " Davis is a high priestess of the startling telling detail. She can make the most ordinary things such as couples talking or someone watching television bizarre almost mythical. I felt I had encountered a most original & daring mind". (Colm Toibin Daily Telegraph). Lydia Davis is the author of one novel & seven story collections the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the recipient of a Mac Arthur Fellowship & was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts & Letters by the French government for her fiction & her translations of modern writers including Maurice Blanchot Michel Leiris & Marcel Proust."

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Collected here are Gogols finest tales
- from the demon-haunted St Johns Eve to the strange surrealism of The Nose from the heart-rending
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Once upon a time there was a huge family of children; & they were terribly terribly naughty." So begins " Nurse Matilda" the first of three books about the no-nonsense nanny who uses magic to rein in the mischievous children in her charge
- & changes their lives for ever."
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Poet artist & mystic Kahlil Gibran was born in 1883 to a poor Christian family in Lebanon & emigrated to the United States as an adolescent. His masterpiece The Prophet" a book of poetic essays written in his youth has sold over eight million copies in more than twenty languages since its first publication in 1923. But all Gibran's works
- essays stories parables prose poems
- are imbued with equally powerful simplicity & wisdom whether meditating upon love marriage friendship work pleasure time or grief. Perhaps no other twentieth-century writer has touched the hearts & minds of so remarkably varied & widespread a readership. Included in this volume are " The Madman" " The Forerunner" " The Prophet" " Sand & Foam" " Jesus the Son of Man" " Earth Gods" " The Wanderer" " The Garden of the Prophet" " Prose Poems" " Spirits Rebellious" " Nymphs of the Valley" & "A Tear & a Smile"."

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The four novels gathered here constitute the complete longer works of one the most brilliant & original American writers. Wests vision of American modernity is terrifyingly comical & diagnoses the tawdriness & meretriciousness of much of American popular culture. His greatest work Miss Lonelyhearts which begins this collection is unique in modern literature. It describes New York in the early years of the Great Depression through the point of view of an agony aunt who corresponds with his suffering readers in the guise of Miss Lonelyhearts: (Are you in trouble?
- Do you need advice?). A Cool Million is as its subtitle suggests the dismantling of a myth here a caustic satire of the rags to riches story. Wests final novel The Day of the Locust is a comic yet apocalyptic account of the fantasies of 1930s Hollywood. This volume concludes with Wests parodic & surreal first venture into fiction The Dream Life of Balso Snell. Henry Claridges introduction to this new edition of Wests fictional writings contextualises his work in the United States of the Great Depression in his evocation of 1930s Hollywood (where he worked as a writer of screenplays) & in the larger context of his Eastern European Jewish background & particularly his reading of Dostoyesvky. The text comes with extensive annotations a note on the textual history of Wests writings & a guide to further reading for both the student & the general reader.
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James Opies highly popular Collecting Toy Soldiers (1987) was an inspirational book for anyone involved in the hobby. Nearly a quarter of a century on this is a completely new companion updating the experience for the twenty-first century collector. James now gives the reader the benefit of over thirty years participation as one of the worlds leading authorities on toy soldiers figures & models & a lifetime as a collector himself. Collecting Toy Soldiers in the 21st Century contains comprehensive advice on all aspects of collecting fully illustrated with new pictures. The main menu is an exposition of the thousands of different possibilities for pursuing individual fulfilment. Guidance for every budget

Includes:: price trends & pitfalls to avoid when buying or selling at auction shows on-line or privately. The informative & often-amusing anecdotes are provided from James own involvement andillustrate just how satisfying it can be to explore this blend of history tradition nostalgia & play whether on the most grandiose scale or with the most limited of funds.

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Withdrawn uneducated & unloved Frederick collects butterflies & takes photographs. He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger the art student Miranda. When he wins the pools he buys a remote Sussex house & calmly abducts Miranda believing she will grow to love him in time. Alone & desperate Miranda must struggle to overcome her own prejudices & contempt if she is understand her captor & so gain her freedom. ...

Annabelle is a beautiful stranger with a mysterious past planning the heist of the century -- two short cons to fund a long con then a life of unashamed luxury incognito in a foreign l&. Jonathan De Haven the shy head of the Rare Books Division at the Library of Congress is planning nothing more than an uneventful day amongst his cherished collection. But when Jonathan is found dead by Caleb Shaw a member of the Camel Club two conspiracies are destined to meet as the Club determines to track down the dead man's long-lost wife -- & Annabelle decides to avenge the death of her beloved ex-husb&. Unfortunately the victim of Annabelle's long con has sworn eternal revenge & Jonathan's killers will stop at nothing to keep the truth about his death & the code they have perfected over the years from surfacing.. . ...

The 2012/13 Collectors' Coins Great Britain" (or "CCGB2013" for short) contains comprehensive listings of all British pre-decimal coins from 1797 to 1970 with their varieties listed values in up to five states of preservation & yearly mintage numbers. It

Includes:: the usual wealth of information about the coin weights sizes & designers. The publisher believes this to be the most detailed coverage of the subject matter available."

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This is not just another book about Cambridge but a unique publication that brings together all thirty-one colleges that comprise the world-famous University of Cambridge. Following a brief introduction & history of each college there follows details of that colleges unique features including buildings libraries famous people & gardens many of which are chosen to encompass through some lateral thinking a very wide range of topics associated with the University as a whole. Thoroughly researched & fully illustrated by the author with a wealth of stunning photographs this book gives a unique insight into the workings both past & present of Cambridge University & all its colleges. The Colleges of Cambridge University is a must-have for anyone interested in this historic institution & its courtyards quads & characters. ...