Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

$10.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Series: Oxford World's Classics | Reading Level: very good

Be irresistibly drawn into Barchester's clerical skirmishes as Archdeacon Grantly declares war on Bishop Proudie and his retinue in Trollope's most popular novel. This 1857 sequel to The Warden wryly chronicles the struggle for control of the English diocese of Barchester. It opens with the Bishop of B archester lying on his death bed; soon a battle begins over who will take over power, with key players including the rather incompetent Dr Proudie, his fiendishly unpleasant wife and his slippery curate, Slope. This is a wonderfully rich novel, in which men and women are too shy to tell each other of their love; misunderstandings abound; and Church of England officials are only too willing to undermine each other in the battle for power. One of Trollope's best-loved novels, it is a dazzlingly real portrayal of nineteenth-century provincial England peppered with humour, wisdom and extraordinary characters. ...Show more

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

$15.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes The Angel's Game -- a dazzling new page-turner about the perilous nature of obsession, in literature and in love. The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that w hen I opened those windows -- my new windows -- each evening its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets in my ear, that I could catch on paper and narrate to whomever cared to listen... In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martin, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city's underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner. Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. Close to despair, David receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. He is to write a book unlike anything that has ever existed -- a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, and perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realizes that there is a connection between his haunting book and the shadows that surround his home. Once again, Zafon takes us into a dark, gothic universe first seen in The Shadow of the Wind and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy. Through a dizzyingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story. ...Show more

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

$20.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

The Return of the Shadow - The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part One by J. R. R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien

$20.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Series: The History of Middle-Earth Volume 6 | Reading Level: very good

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout

$12.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

An extraordinary new novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Number One New York Times bestselling author of Olive Kitteridge and My Name is Lucy Barton . Olive, Again follows the blunt, contradictory yet deeply loveable Olive Kitteridge as she grows older, navigating the second half of her life as she com es to terms with the changes - sometimes welcome, sometimes not - in her own existence and in those around her. Olive adjusts to her new life with her second husband, challenges her estranged son and his family to accept him, experiences loss and loneliness, witnesses the triumphs and heartbreaks of her friends and neighbours in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine - and, finally, opens herself to new lessons about life. 'A powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships' Observer 'Writing of this quality comes from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue' Hilary Mantel  ...Show more

One Day of Life by Manlio Argueta; B. Brow (Translator)

$12.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

Awesome for the authenticity of its vernacular style and the incandescence of its lyricism, One Day of Life depicts a typical day in the life of a peasant family caught up in the terror and corruption of civil war in El Salvador. 5:30 A.M. in Chalate, a small rural town: Lupe, the grandmother of the Gua rdado family and the central figure of the novel, is up and about doing her chores. By 5:00 P.M. the plot of the novel has been resolved, with the Civil Guard's search for and interrogation of Lupe's young granddaughter, Adolfina. Told entirely from the perspective of the resilient women of the Guardado family, One Day of Life is not only a disturbing and inspiring evocation of the harsh realities of peasant life in El Salvador after fifty years of military exploitation; it is also a mercilessly accurate dramatization of the relationship of the peasants to both the state and the church. Translated from the Spanish by Bill Brow ...Show more

The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez; Edith Grossman

$15.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: good-very good

Gabriel Garc a M rquez's most political novel is the tragic story of General Sim n Bol var, the man who tried to unite a continent. Bol var, known in six Latin American countries as the Liberator, is one of the most revered heroes of the western hemisphere; in Garc a M rquez's brilliant reimagining he i s magnificently flawed as well. The novel follows Bol var as he takes his final journey in 1830 down the Magdalena River toward the sea, revisiting the scenes of his former glory and lamenting his lost dream of an alliance of American nations. Forced from power, dogged by assassins, and prematurely aged and wasted by a fatal illness, the General is still a remarkably vital and mercurial man. He seems to remain alive by the sheer force of will that led him to so many victories in the battlefields and love affairs of his past. As he wanders in the labyrinth of his failing powers-and still-powerful memories-he defies his impending death until the last. The General in His Labyrinth is an unforgettable portrait of a visionary from one of the greatest writers of our time. ...Show more

Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel García Márquez

$15.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

Strange Pilgrims is a collection of unforgettable stories about distinctive South American individuals in Europe from the Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. 'The first thing Senora Prudencia Linero noticed when she reached the p ort of Naples was that it had the same smell as the port of Riohacha' The twelve stories here tell of Latin Americans adrift in Europe- a bereaved father in Rome for an audience with the Pope carries a box shaped like a cello case; an aging streetwalker waits for death in Barcelona with a dog trained to weep at her grave; a panic-stricken husband takes his wife to a Parisian hospital to treat a cut and never sees her again. Combining terror and nostalgia, surreal comedy and the poetry of the commonplace, Strange Pilgrims is a triumph of storytelling by our most brilliant writer. 'Celebratory and full of strange relish at life's oddness, the stories draw their strength from Marquez's generous feel for character, good and bad, boorish and innocent' William Boyd 'The most important writer of fiction in any language' Bill Clinton 'Often touching, often funny, always unexpected, the experience is as enriching as travel itself' New Statesman ...Show more

A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

$14.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain; Frank T. Merrill (Illustrator); Everett H. Emerson (Afterword by)

$14.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

This book contains Mark Twain's 1881 novel, The Prince and the Pauper. It constitutes Twain's first serious attempt at historical fiction and is highly recommended for those with a love of such literature. Set in 1547, The Prince and the Pauper is the tale of two boys of uncanny physical similarity: Tom Canty, a poor son of an abusive father living on Pudding Lane in London, and Prince Edward, whose father is King Henry VIII. After discovering their physical resemblance, the boys decide to switch lives temporarily, leading to a series of life changing adventures. A masterfully-written and thoroughly entertaining novel, The Prince and The Pauper would make for a fantastic addition to any collection. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), more commonly known under the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, lecturer, publisher and entrepreneur most famous for his novels "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884). Other notable works by this author include: "The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today" (1873) and "The Innocence Abroad" (1896). Read & Co. Children's is proudly republishing this fantastic novel now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned biography of the author. ...Show more

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson

$14.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

For use in schools and libraries only. A humane scientist attempts to explore the most loathsome forces of evil behind the doors of his London laboratory.

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck; James Barkley (Illustrator)

$14.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Series: The World's Best Reading | Reading Level: very good

The timeless Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece following a humble farmer's journey through 1920s China returns with this beautifully repackaged edition that celebrates its nearly ninety years as an American classic. Travel to 1920s China, a time when the last emperor still ruled and the sweeping change s of the twentieth century were distant rumblings, with this timeless, evocative classic tale of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his family as they struggle to survive in the midst of vast political and social upheavals. Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life: its terrors, its passions, its ambitions, and rewards. "A comment upon the meaning and tragedy of life as it is lived in any age in any quarter of the globe" (The New York Times), this brilliant novel--beloved by millions--is a universal tale of an ordinary family caught in the tide of history. ...Show more