Literature

Pearson English Readers bring language learning to life through the joy of reading. Well-written stories entertain us, make us think, and keep our interest page after page. Pearson English Readers offer teenage and adult learners a huge range of titles, all featuring carefully graded language to make them accessible to learners of all abilities. Through the imagination of some of the world's greatest authors, the English language comes to life in pages of our Readers. Students have the pleasure and satisfaction of reading these stories in English, and at the same time develop a broader vocabulary, greater comprehension and reading fluency, improved grammar, and greater confidence and ability to express themselves. Find out more at english.com/readers

One boy, one boat, one tiger . . .

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan - and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction in recent years.

The proverbial phrase 'life's little ironies' was coined by Hardy for his third volume of short stories. These tales and sketches possess all the power of his novels: the wealth of description, the realistic portrayal of the quaint lore of Wessex, the 'Chaucerian' humour and characterisation, the shrewd and critical psychology, the poignant estimate of human nature and the brooding sense of wonder at the essential mystery of life. The tales which make up Life's Little Ironies tenderly re-create a rapidly vanishing rural world and scrutinise the repressions of fin-de-siecle bourgeois life. They share the many concerns of Hardy's last great novels, such as the failure of modern marriage and the insidious effects of social ambition on the family and community life. Ranging widely in length and complexity, they are unified by Hardy's quintessential irony, which embraces both the farcical and the tragic aspects of human existence.

Listed by the Guardian as one of the top 100 science fiction books of the 21st century. On the barren surface of an asteroid, located deep in the galaxy beneath the unbearable light of the Kefahuchi Tract, lie three objects: an abandoned spacecraft, a pair of bone dice covered with strange symbols, and a human skeleton. What they are and what they mean are the mysteries explored and unwrapped in LIGHT, M. John Harrison's triumphant novel.

A landmark in American fiction, Light in August explores Faulkner's central theme: the nature of evil. Joe Christmas - a man doomed, deracinated and alone - wanders the Deep South in search of an identity, and a place in society. After killing his perverted God-fearing lover, it becomes inevitable that he is pursued by a lynch-hungry mob. Yet after the sacrifice, there is new life, a determined ray of light in Faulkner's complex and tragic world.

Pacy and propulsive . . . Crackling with energy, violence and stirring speeches' DAILY MAIL'Iggulden draws the Greek world convincingly and he is strongest writing battle scenes' THE TIMES'The master historical storyteller. This swords-and-sandals epic brings the ancient world to life' DAILY EXPRESSTHE FIRST BOOK IN CONN IGGULDEN'S EPIC NEW SERIES THE GOLDEN AGE_______Pericles stands in the shadow of his father: a man who once saved Athens. To make his own name he must prove himself in the liar's den of Athenian politics: pitting wits against friends, sceptics, enemies. But words alone do not make a leader. A force of Persians threatens the city and Pericles must find courage on the battlefield. In its time of need, Athens' warriors must be lions . . . _______PRAISE FOR CONN IGGULDEN:'Brings war in the ancient world to vivid, gritty and bloody life' ANTHONY RICHES'Another masterpiece from Iggulden' 5***** Reader Review'It's like being on the battlefield' 5***** Reader Review 'An epic piece of historical fiction, full of political intrigue and vivid action' ROBERT FABBRI

In exhilarating and lucid prose, Grossman gives us a provocative new take on the story of Samson: his battle with the lion, the three hundred burning foxes, the women he bedded, the one he loved and who betrayed him and the destruction of the temple. It reveals the journey of a lonely and tortured soul, whose search for a true home echoes our own private struggles.

Anais Nin's Little Birds is published in Penguin Modern Classics. Anais Nin's second volume of erotic short stories after Delta of Venus, Little Birds is broader in scope, encompassing the entire breadth of human sensuality. Each of the 13 stories captures a moment of pure desire, in all its complexity and paradoxical simplicity.

Anais Nin (1903-77), born in Paris, was the daughter of a Franco-Danish singer and a Cuban pianist. Her first book - a defence of D. H.

Lawrence - was published in the 1930s. Her prose poem, House of Incest (1936) was followed by the collection of three novellas, collected as Winter of Artifice (1939). In the 1940s she began to write erotica for an anonymous client, and these pieces are collected in Delta of Venus and Little Birds (both published posthumously).

During her later years Anais Nin lectured frequently at universities throughout the USA, in 1974 and was elected to the United States National Institute of Arts and Letters. If you enjoyed Little Birds, you might like Nin's Delta of Venus, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'One of the most extraordinary and unconventional writers of this century'The New York Times Book Review

'Because of his baldness and hairiness, he announced it was a capital offence for anyone either to look down on him as he passed or to mention goats in any context.' The biography of the brutal, crazed and incestuous Roman Emperor Caligula, who tried to appoint his own horse consul. I

We are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards, and the support of rogues ...' Spy, traveller and pioneering female writer Aphra Benn's story of an African prince sold into slavery is considered one of the earliest English novels.