Literature

'Probably more people have shed tears over the last page of A Town Like Alice than about any other novel in the English language... remarkable' Guardian Jean Paget is just twenty years old and working in Malaya when the Japanese invasion begins. When she is captured she joins a group of other European women and children whom the Japanese force to march for miles through the jungle - an experience that leads to the deaths of many. Due to her courageous spirit and ability to speak Malay, Jean takes on the role of leader of the sorry gaggle of prisoners and many end up owing their lives to her indomitable spirit. While on the march, the group run into some Australian prisoners, one of whom, Joe Harman, helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished by the Japanese as a result. After the war, Jean tracks Joe down in Australia and together they begin to dream of surmounting the past and transforming his one-horse outback town into a thriving community like Alice Springs... With an introduction by Eric Lomax, author of The Railway Man

Twain's account of travelling in Europe, A TRAMP ABROAD (1880), sparkles with the author's shrewd observations and highly opinionated comments on Old World culture, and showcases his unparalleled ability to integrate humorous sketches, autobiographical tidbits, and historical anecdotes in a consistently entertaining narrative. Cast in the form of a walking tour through Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy, A TRAMP ABROAD includes among its adventures a voyage by raft down the Neckar and an ascent of Mount Blanc by telescope, as well as the author's attempts to study art - a wholly imagined activity Twain 'authenticated' with his own wonderfully primitive pictures included in this volume.

Selected and Introduced by Booker-Prize winner Julian Barnes'Reading Cheever is a restless pleasure, the work never settles: these brilliant stories make me get up and walk around the room' Anne Enright John Cheever - the 'Chekhov of the suburbs' - forever altered the landscape of contemporary literature. In a career that spanned nearly fifty years, his short stories, often published in the New Yorker, gave voice to the repressed desires and smouldering disappointments of 1950s America as it teetered on the edge of spiritual awakening and sexual liberation in the ensuing decades. Selected for the first time, these satirical, fantastical, sad and transcendent stories show Cheever in all his brilliance and continue to speak directly to the heart of human experience. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

"Ο δρόμος για το καλοκαίρι " του Άγγελου Κούρου είναι μια περιπλανώμενη ποιητική
αφήγηση του καλοκαιριού στα ελληνικά νησιά του Αιγαίου, σαν ένα απαλό μελτεμάκι… 
Αθήνα, λιμάνι του Πειραιά και μετά ξεκινά κανονικά το ταξίδι, Σαντορίνη,
Αμοργός, Ρόδος, Μήλος... και το ποιητικό ταξίδι στα νησιά συνεχίζεται! Προορισμοί που
διατηρούνται ανέπαφα στις αναμνήσεις μας για μια μελλοντική επιστροφή ...
Αλλά τι συμβαίνει εκεί; Ο λυρισμός του δεν είναι άκρατος, υπερβολικός, είναι ελεγχόμενος,  είναι γλυκός, δεν έχει χαρακτήρα καρτ ποστάλ και επίσης έχει και χιούμορ. Αυτό είναι πολύ σημαντικό, καθώς είναι σπάνιο στην ποίησή μας να βρούμε χιούμορ, να βλέπουμε τον αναγνώστη να χαμογελά με ένα διακριτικό αλλά και ανακουφιστικό τρόπο.
Και πάνω από αυτό το χαμόγελο, πάνω από το ελληνικό καλοκαίρι, ο Κούρος χτίζει τον δικό του κόσμο
όπου ζει η αυθεντική ποίηση. Είναι ένας κόσμος που έχει το ιδανικό μέγεθος των ονείρων μας.
Ποιήματα που διαβάζεις και χαίρεσαι γιατί νιώθεις το θεϊκό φως του καλοκαιριού να σε λυτρώνει.
Ο Κούρος περιγράφει το καλοκαίρι ως έναν ερωτικό τροφοδότη λογαριασμό που μας κάνει πλουσιότερους και πλουσιότερους ...

 «Διασκεδαστικός (τολμώ να πω) ο Κούρος, όχι υπό μία έννοια φθηνής ψυχαγωγίας, αλλά σε μια σφριγηλή και δροσάτη εκτύλιξη ενός καλοκαιριού κάτω από το άγρυπνο βλέμμα ενός ουσιώδους συμβολισμού, μιας ειρωνείας λεπτής κι ενός διάχυτου συναισθηματισμού. Η αφήγηση είναι σε όλο το μήκος της απολαυστική». Περιοδικό Ποιείν.

Can an island in the sun provide the second chance Sara needs? A warm and uplifting novel about love, friendship and new beginnings on the beautiful Greek island of Santaniki. Sara Loveday flees home and crisis to the beautiful island of Santaniki. Here, amid olive groves and whitewashed stone villas, where dark cypress trees step down to a cobalt blue sea, Sara vows to change her life. Spotting a gap in the local tourist market, she sets up a wedding plan business, specialising in 'second time around' couples. For her first big wedding, she borrows the olive garden of a local artists' retreat, but almost at once things begin to go wrong. To make matters worse, a stranger from Sara's past arrives on the island, spreading vicious lies. Can her business survive? And what will happen with the gorgeous new man who she's begun to love? This is a gorgeous, warm-hearted and uplifting novel conjuring the local colour, traditions and close bonds of island life.

Their revolution would ignite a continent... An epic novel set during one of the most savage and dramatic moments in European history. Greece, 1824In the wild south, the people of the Mani have risen up against four hundred years of Ottoman rule. But initial triumph leads to bitter feuding among the Greek victors and the Sultan sends his vassal, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, to invade. Burning everything in his path, he is on the point of victory. Only the intervention of the Great Powers of France, Russia and Britain can save Greece. Hara, young daughter of a Maniot chief, is the fearless symbol of her people's spirit. When she rescues Greek Prince Tzanis from a shipwreck, on his way to deliver secret gold for the revolution, they fall in love but are forced apart by events. Yet a shared resolve to wreak vengeance on Turkish rule unites them again, and their heroism and sacrifice will ultimately inspire an unlikely band of men and women to join them in rescuing Greece. Will their plan to involve the Great Powers succeed before Greece is destroyed by fire?'Wonderful history, adventure and a heart-breaking love story are brought thrillingly to life' - Kate Mosse

Madeleine L'Engle's ground-breaking science fiction and fantasy classic, now a major motion picture. It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger. "Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract." A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem. A Wrinkle in Time is the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal. It is the first book in The Time Quintet, which consists of A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. A Wrinkle in Time is now a movie from Disney, directed by Ava DuVernay, starring Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling. This title has Common Core connections.

From 1892, when he was eighteen, until 1949, when this book was first published, Somerset Maugham kept a notebook. It is without doubt one of his most important works. Part autobiographical, part confessional, packed with observations, confidences, experiments and jottings it is a rich and exhilarating admission into this great writer's workshop.

Jan Jacob Slauerhoff (1898-1936) was a ship's doctor serving in south-east Asia, and is one of the most important twentieth-century Dutch-language writers. His 1934 novel Adrift in the Middle Kingdom (Het leven op aarde), is an epic sweep of narrative that takes the reader from 1920s Shanghai to a forgotten city beyond the Great Wall of China. Slauerhoff's narrator is a Belfast ship's radio operator, desperate to escape the sea, who travels inland on a gun-runner's mission. He moves through extraordinary settings of opium salons, the house of a Cantonese watch-mender, the siege of Shanghai, the great flood on the western plains, and the discovery of oil by the uncomprehending overlord in the hidden city of Chungking. The fantasy ending transforms the novel from travelogue and adventure to existential meditation. But running like a thread of darkness through the story is opium, from poppy head harvesting to death through addiction. This translation by David McKay, winner of the 2018 Vondel Prize, is the first English edition of Slauerhoff's most accessible and enthralling novel. The Introduction is by Slauerhoff expert Arie Pos and Wendy Gan of the University of Hong Kong.