Shantaram is a novel based on the life of the author, Gregory David Roberts. In 1978 Roberts was sentenced to nineteen years imprisonment as punishment for a series of robberies of building-society branches, credit unions, and shops he had committed while addicted to heroin.
In July 1980 he escaped from Victoria's maximum-security prison in broad daylight, thereby becoming one of Australia's most wanted men for what turned out to be the next ten years.
For most of this period he lived in Bombay. He set up a free health clinic in the slums, acted in Bollywood movies, worked for the Bombay mafia as a forger, counterfeiter, and smuggler and, as a gun-runner, resupplied a unit of mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan. This is the setting of Shantaram.
Apart from having this highly unusual personal background, Greg Roberts is a very gifted writer. His book is a blend of vivid dialogue, unforgettable characters, amazing adventures, and superb evocations of Indian life. It can be read as a vast, extended thriller, as well as a superbly written meditation on the nature of good and evil.
It is a compelling tale of a hunted man who had lost everything - his home, his family, and his soul - and came to find his humanity while living at the wildest edge of experience.
The first book in the Divergent series that has swept the globe selling millions of copies world-wide. In the world of Divergent, society is divided into five factions Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, Amity and Erudite. Every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives.
For Beatrice Prior, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is. Her choice shocks everyone, including herself. During the initiation that follows, Tris and her fellow initiates undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them, Tris must determine who her friends really are and whether she can trust the man who both threatens and protects her. Because Tris has a deadly secret.
And as growing conflict threatens to unravel their seemingly perfect society, this secret might save those she loves… or it might destroy her.
Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the scene with the first book in the Divergent trilogy dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences and unexpected romance.
My Brilliant Friend is the gripping first volume in Elena Ferrante's widely acclaimed Neapolitan Novels. This exquisitely written quartet creates an unsentimental portrait of female experience, rivalry and friendship never before seen in literature.
The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. They learn to rely on each other and discover that their destinies are bound up in the intensity of their relationship.
Elena Ferrante’s piercingly honest portrait of two girls’ path into womanhood is also the story of a nation and a meditation on the nature of friendship itself.
My Brilliant Friend is a modern masterpiece, the work of one of Italy’s great storytellers.
Translated by Ann Goldstein.
Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you?
Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying of ALS - or motor neurone disease - Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final 'class': lessons in how to live.
TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house.
Watching her too is Robbie Turner who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever, as Briony commits a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.
Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver... There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from college, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared.
Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell.
When Joe, Beth and Frannie move to a new home, an Enchanted Wood is on their doorstep. And when they discover the Faraway Tree, it proves to be the beginning of many magical adventures! Join them and their friends Moonface, Saucepan Man and Silky the fairy as they discover which new land is at the top of the Faraway Tree.
Will it be the Land of Spells, the Land of Treats, or the Land of Do-As-You-Please? Come on an amazing adventure - there'll be adventures waiting whatever happens.
Enid Blyton's funny, magical adventure stories have become true classics, loved by millions and still selling thousands of copies every year. She is arguably the most famous children's author of all time, thanks to series such as The Wishing-Chair, The Faraway Tree, The Mysteries, The Famous Five and The Secret Seven.
But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love. John Green is the best-selling author of Looking for Alaska; An Abundance of Katherines; Paper Towns; Will Grayson.
'A novel of life and death and the people caught in between, The Fault in Our Stars is John Green at his best. You laugh, you cry, and then you come back for more.' - Markus Zusak, bestselling and Printz Honor-winning author of The Book Thief
'An electric portrait of young people who learn to live life with one foot in the grave. Filled with staccato bursts of humor and tragedy, The Fault in Our Stars takes a spin on universal themes-Will I be loved? Will I be remembered? Will I leave a mark on this world?-by dramatically raising the stakes for the characters who are asking.' - Jodi Picoult, bestselling author of My Sister's Keeper and Sing You Home
'John Green writes incredible, honest truths about the secret, weird hearts of human beings. He makes me laugh and gasp at the beauty of a sentence or the twist of a tale. He is one of the best writers alive and I am seething with envy of his talent.' - E. Lockhart, National Book Award Finalist and Printz Honor-winning author of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks and The Boyfriend List
Melange, or 'spice', is the most valuable - and rarest - element in the universe; a drug that does everything from increasing a person's life-span to making intersteller travel possible. And it can only be found on a single planet: the inhospitable desert world Arrakis.
Whoever controls Arrakis controls the spice. And whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
When the Emperor transfers stewardship of Arrakis from the noble House Harkonnen to House Atreides, the Harkonnens fight back, murdering Duke Leto Atreides. Paul, his son, and Lady Jessica, his concubine, flee into the desert. On the point of death, they are rescued by a band for Fremen, the native people of Arrakis, who control Arrakis' second great resource: the giant worms that burrow beneath the burning desert sands.
In order to avenge his father and retake Arrakis from the Harkonnens, Paul must earn the trust of the Fremen and lead a tiny army against the innumerable forces aligned against them. And his journey will change the universe.
A novel of the cruelty of war, tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love. August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife two years earlier.
Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever. This savagely beautiful novel is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.
'The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a big, magnificent novel of passion and horror and tragic irony. Its scope, its themes and its people all seem to grow richer and deeper in significance with the progress of the story, as it moves to its extraordinary resolution. It's by far the best new novel I've read in ages.' - Patrick McGrath
The saga stands alone in its vast scope and minute detail, its immense diversity and final unity. Set in the years leading up to and culminating in Napoleon's disastrous Russian invasion, the novel focuses on an entire society torn by conflict and change.
Here is humanity in all its innocence and corruption, wisdom and folly, painful defeats and enduring triumphs. Here is the seemingly effortless artistry of a master capable of portraying with equal power the clash of armies and the solitary anguish of the heart.
Here, finally, is a view of history and personal destiny that is perpetually modern.
'Of authors my favorite is Tolstoy.' Anton Chekhov
'I marvelled at the strength of his huge talent . . . It sends a cold shudder even down my back . . . He is a master, a master.' Ivan Turgenev
Complete and Unabridged
A NEW TRANSLATION BY RICHARD PEVEAR AND LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY
And that's the way it was. I would often go into the bush and watch the birds and think in some ways they were like me – they had to fend for themselves as soon as the mother bird thought that they were old enough...
Born in 1894, Facey lived the rough frontier life of a sheep farmer, survived the gore of Gallipoli, raised a family through the Depression and spent sixty years with his beloved wife, Evelyn. Despite enduring hardships we can barely imagine today, Facey always saw his life as a 'fortunate' one. A true classic of Australian literature, his simply written autobiography is an inspiration. It is the story of a life lived to the full - the extraordinary journey of an ordinary man.
Every so often, there comes a story so brilliant and lively and moving that it cannot be left in the past. Rediscover the magic of our country's most memorable children's books in the Penguin Australia Children's Classics series of stories too precious to leave behind.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Drunken Mr Jones of Manor Farm has neglected his livestock for too long. In a burst of insurgent fervour they rise up and he is deposed, with the pigs taking charge of the newly named Animal Farm. Everything runs smoothly, productivity soars, and all animals are well-fed and happy.
But the further away the memory of the revolution, the more distant seem its ideals - and when Boxer the workhorse is betrayed, the horrifying extent of the pigs' corruption is revealed.
Orwell's 'fairy story', a scathing satire of Soviet communism, is as potent now as it was in 1945. Animal Farm is one of literature's most electrifying examinations of power and corruption.
By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate, a life and a role that she has never questioned until now.
Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister - and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.
Told from multiple points of view, My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life ...even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? What happens when emotion catches up to scientific advances?
It was the children who saw - and felt - what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. Sometimes IT reached up, seizing, tearing, killing...
The adults, knowing better, knew nothing. Time passed and the children grew up, moved away. The horror of IT was deep-buried, wrapped in forgetfulness. Until they were called back, once more to confront IT as IT stirred and coiled in the sullen depths of their memories, reaching up again to make their past nightmares a terrible present reality.
All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way...
Anna Karenina is a novel of unparalleled richness and complexity, set against the backdrop of Russian high society.
Tolstoy charts the course of the doomed love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer who pursues Anna after becoming infatuated with her at a ball. Although she initially resists his charms Anna eventually succumbs, falling passionately in love and setting in motion a chain of events that lead to her downfall.
In this extraordinary novel Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together the lives of dozens of characters, while evoking a love so strong that those who experience it are prepared to die for it.
First of 6 collectable editions of the New York Times No. 1 bestselling Shadowhunter series that has swept the globe.
City of Bones is now a major movie. Irresistibly drawn towards a group of demon hunters, Clary encounters the dark side of New York City - and the dangers of forbidden love. Gorgeous cover illustration by Mila Furstova, the artist who created the album art for Coldplay's Ghost Stories.
Read all the sensational books in The Shadowhunter Chronicles: The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, The Bane Chronicles and The Shadowhunter's Codex.
A young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Her memoirs conjure up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the land's most powerful men.
This story is a rare and utterly engaging experience, summoning up a quarter century of Japan's dramatic history, and opening a window into a half-hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation.
12th June, 1942: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.
In the summer of 1942, fleeing the horrors of the Nazi occupation, Anne Frank and her family were forced into hiding in the back of an Amsterdam warehouse. Aged thirteen when she went into the secret annexe, Anne kept a diary in which she confided her innermost thoughts and feelings, movingly revealing how the eight people living under these extraordinary conditions coped with the daily threat of discovery and death, being cut off from the outside world, petty misunderstandings and the unbearable strain of living like prisoners.
An intimate record of tension and struggle, adolescence and confinement, anger and heartbreak, this is the definitive edition of the diary of Anne Frank.
"One of the greatest books of the century". (Guardian).
"A modern classic". (The Times).
"Rings down the decades as the most moving testament to the persecution of innocence". (Daily Mail).
"Astonishing and excruciating. Its gnaws at us still". (New York Times Book Review).
"A monument to the human spirit". (Mail on Sunday).
Anne Frank was born on 12 June 1929. She died in Bergen-Belsen, three months short of her sixteenth birthday.
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope... I have loved none but you...
Eight years ago, Anne rejected the man she loved because her friends and family persuaded her that he wasn't rich or important enough.
In all that time, she's never found anyone to match Captain Wentworth.With her snobbish father and spoiled sister always ready to embarrass her in polite society, Anne wonders if she'll ever find the courage to follow her heart again.
And if she does, what can she do to regain the affections of her Captain?
