Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast...
'I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole without the least idea what was to happen afterwards,' wrote Dodgson, describing how Alice was conjured up one 'golden afternoon' in 1862 to entertain his child-friend Alice Liddell. In the magical world of Wonderland and the back-to-front Looking-Glass kingdom, order is turned upside-down: a baby turns into a pig; time is abandoned at a tea-party; and, a chaotic game of chess makes a 7-year-old a Queen.
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback "Clothbound Classics" series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.
Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage. Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him.
Joseph Heller's bestselling novel is a hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man's efforts to survive it.
Discover where the story begins. Raymond E. Feist is an internationally best-selling author.
My name is Pug. I was once an orphaned kitchen boy, with no family and no prospects, but I am destined to become a master magician...War is coming to the Kingdom of the Isles from another world, bringing with it chaos and destruction.
Pug yearns to train as a warrior and fight for his kingdom alongside his foster-brother, Tomas, but instead he is forced to follow a different path: a path that will lead him right into the heart of the enemy. And one that will change the course of the war - and two worlds - forever. So begins the most epic series in fantasy fiction, a tale that will cross worlds and generations.
Magician is the first book in the Riftwar Saga. The trilogy continues with book two, Silverthorn.
THE HITCHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY:
One Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. For Arthur, who has just had his house demolished, this is too much. Sadly, the weekend's just begun.
THE RESTAURANT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE:
When all issues of space, time, matter and the nature of being are resolved, only one question remains: Where shall we have dinner? The Restaurant at the End of the Universe provides the ultimate gastronomic experience and, for once, there is no morning after.
LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING:
In consequence of a number of stunning catastrophes, Arthur Dent is surprised to find himself living in a hideously miserable cave on prehistoric Earth. And then, just as he thinks that things cannot possibly get any worse, they suddenly do.
SO LONG, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH:
Arthur Dent's sense of reality is in its dickiest state when he suddenly finds the girl of his dreams. They go in search of God's Final Message and, in a dramatic break with tradition, actually find it.
First of all, she's a girl, even though Marilla Cuthbert and her brother Matthew specifically asked for an orphan boy to help around the farm. And second of all, she's not just any girl: she has bright red hair, a wild imagination, and can talk a mile a minute.
But she also has a sweet disposition and quick wit, and Anne (with an "e" of course-it's so much more distinguished!) soon finds her place in Avonlea, making a friend in her neighbor Diana Barry and attending the local school, where she spurns the advances of the popular and handsome Gilbert Blythe when he commits the ultimate sin of making fun of her hair. Anne has a temper as fiery as her hair and a knack for finding trouble, and she also has a big heart and a positive attitude that affects everyone she meets.
This classic and beloved story makes a wonderful gift and keepsake.
Holden Caulfield is a seventeen- year-old dropout who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.
Written with the clarity of a boy leaving childhood behind, The Catcher in the Rye explores the world with disarming frankness and a warm, affecting charisma which has made this novel a universally loved classic of twentieth-century literature.
J. D. Salinger was born in 1919 and died in January 2010. He grew up in New York City, and wrote short stories from an early age, but his breakthrough came in 1948 with the publication in The New Yorker of A Perfect Day for Bananafish. The Catcher in the Rye was his first and only novel, published in 1951. It remains one of the most translated, taught and reprinted texts, and has sold some 65 million copies. His other works include the novellas Franny and Zooey, For Esme with Love and Squalor, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour - An Introduction".
As darkness falls, a man caught in a snowstorm is forced to shelter at the strange, grim house Wuthering Heights. It is a place he will never forget. There he will come to learn the story of Cathy: how she was forced to choose between her well-meaning husband and the dangerous man she had loved since she was young. How her choice led to betrayal and terrible revenge – and continues to torment those in the present.
The race to uncover the oldest secret has begun...
An eminent man is brutally murdered in the world's most famous museum. Around his body are a ring of codes, hastily drawn in blood.
He died to protect a long-kept secret which Professor Robert Langdon must now uncover.
It will be a race against time to decipher this final message. Can he get there before the killers do?
Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder - and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family.
He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate.
When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history.
But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.
This is the US No. 1 bestselling novel that everyone is talking about...
'What are you thinking, Amy?' The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: 'What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?'
Just how well can you ever know the person you love? This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren't his.
And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife? And what was in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war. . .
Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called The Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her younger sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence.
But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.
Set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Civil War, Margaret Mitchell's magnificent historical epic is an unforgettable tale of love and loss, of a nation mortally divided and a people forever changed. Above all, it is the story of beautiful, ruthless Scarlett O'Hara and the dashing soldier of fortune, Rhett Butler.
Since its first publication in 1936, Gone With The Wind has endured as a story for all our times.
This edition is complete with cover and interior art by the original illustrator, Pauline Baynes. Four adventurous siblings-Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie- step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change ...and a great sacrifice.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the second book in C. S. Lewis's classic fantasy series, which has been drawing readers of all ages into a magical land with unforgettable characters for over sixty years. This is a stand-alone read, but if you would like to explore more of the Narnian realm, pick up The Horse and His Boy, the third book in The Chronicles of Narnia.
In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnusdottir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men.
Agnes is sent to wait on the farm of District Officer Jon Jonsson and his family, who are horrified and avoid Agnes. Only Toti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes's spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her. As the summer months fall away to winter, Agnes's story begins to emerge. And as the days to her execution draw closer, the question burns: did she or didn't she?
Based on a true story, Burial Rites is a deeply moving novel about freedom and the ways we will risk everything for love. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland's formidable landscape, and asks: how can one woman endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?
Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby appears to have it all, yet he yearns for the one thing that will always be out of his reach, the absence of which renders his life of glittering parties and bright young things ultimately hollow.
Gatsby's tragic pursuit of his dream is often cited as the Great American Novel.
Featured in our collection - 21 Must-Read American Novels
For twenty years they roister and rankle, laugh and curse until the roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts. Tim Winton's funny, sprawling saga is an epic novel of love and acceptance.
Winner of the Miles Franklin and NBC Awards in Australia, Cloudstreet is a celebration of people, places and rhythms which has fuelled imaginations world-wide.
Featured in our Australian Classics Collection with interactive map
Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.’
For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic layers within the invaluable diamond that her father guards in the Museum of Natural History.
The walled city by the sea, where father and daughter take refuge when the Nazis invade Paris. And a future which draws her ever closer to Werner, a German orphan, destined to labour in the mines until a broken radio fills his life with possibility and brings him to the notice of the Hitler Youth.
In this magnificent, deeply moving novel, the stories of Marie-Laure and Werner illuminate the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth in what remains of a Britain ravaged by revolution. His every move is monitored by the Thought Police, who are responsible for detecting dissent against the Party and its leader, Big Brother and eliminating it. When he meets Julia, Winston thinks he might have found love, and a fellow loather of the Party. But when the pair are arrested and sent to the sinister Room 101 for re-education, their bond and commitment to their shared cause will be tested to its limits.
George Orwell’s dystopian vision of a world enslaved by doublethink and thoughtcrime is as terrifying now as it was on its initial publication in 1949. One of the great classics of the twentieth century, 1984 is a startlingly original and arresting novel about tyranny and the universal struggle of the individual against the malevolent tendencies of the modern state.
To Peekay, a seven-year-old boy who dreams of being the welterweight champion of the world, this is a piece of advice that he will carry with him throughout his life. Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, this one small boy will come to lead all the tribes of Africa. And in a final conflict with his childhood enemy, the Judge, Peekay will fight to the death for justice.
Bryce Courtenay's classic bestseller is a story of the triumph of the human spirit - a spellbinding tale for all ages.
'The ultimate international bestseller.' New York Times
