Vintage

Planet Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it. Us. We are the most advanced and most destructive animals ever to have lived.

Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all.

**FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER SAPIENS** Sapiens showed us where we came from. Homo Deus looked to the future. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century explores the present. How can we protect ourselves from nuclear war, ecological cataclysms and technological disruptions? What can we do about the epidemic of fake news or the threat of terrorism? What should we teach our children? ...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. Sapiens showed us where we came from. Homo Deus shows us where we're going. War is obsolete. You are more likely to commit suicide than be killed in conflict. Famine is disappearing. You are at more risk of obesity than starvation. Death is just a technical problem. Equality is out - but immortality is in. What does our future hold? Yuval Noah Harari, author of the bests...

The epic new novel from the internationally acclaimed and best-selling author of 1Q84. In Killing Commendatore, a thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a strange painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must comple...

The Danes are the happiest people in the world, and pay the highest taxes. 'Neutral' Sweden is one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world. Finns have the largest per capita gun ownership after the US and Yemen. 54% of Icelanders believe in elves. Norway is the richest country on earth. 5 % of Danish men have had sex with an animal.

The Chilean Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was probably the greatest and certainly the most prolific of twentieth-century Latin American poets. He brought out his first collection at the age of seventeen, and quickly developed an assured and distinctive poetic voice. His third book, Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Cancion Desesperada - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair- was published in 1924 and attracted inter...

In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he'd completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and on his writing. Equal parts travelogue, training log, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005...

Norwegian Wood stands with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as one of Haruki Muarakami’s best and most popular works. As usual, it deals with the world around us with a sense of melancholy, charm, loss- all weaved through with his irrepressible wit, managing to make the more whimsical aspects of his work seems normal.

The Snow Leopard was inspired by the author's 1973 journey with George Schaller, a field biologist, to Crystal Mountain in the Himalayas, to study the wild blue sheep of the region. They also hoped to see the rare snow leopard, an almost mythical creature which Schaller once glimpsed on a previous visit. As a student of Zen Buddhism, the author's search for the snow leopard evolved into a quest for the mean...

From the bestselling author of Italian Neighbours, An Italian Education and A Season with Verona In Italian Ways, bestselling writer Tim Parks brings us a fresh portrait of Italy today through a wry account of his train journeys around the country.

Winner of the Wanderlust Adventure Travel Book of the Year at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2018 In the great depths surrounding the remote Lofoten islands in Norway lives the Greenland shark. Twenty-six feet in length and weighing more than a tonne, it can live for 200 years. Its fluorescent green, parasite-covered eyes are said to hypnotise its prey, and its meat is so ridd...

The best intentions can be deadly During a white-hot summer on the idyllic Greek island of Hydra, two girls fall into one another's lives to devastating effect. When Samantha, a young, impressionable American, meets Naomi, a Brit with a taste for danger, their relationship quickly takes on a special intensity. Amid the sun, sea and high society of island life, their imaginations are sparked when one day the...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BENJAMIN MARKOVITS In 1845 Thoreau, a Harvard-educated 28-year-old, went to live by himself in the woods in Massachusetts. He stayed for over two years, living self-sufficiently in a small cabin built with his own hands. Walden is his personal account of the experience, in which he documents the beauty and fulfilment to be found in the wilderness, and his philosophical and political...

Lacking even the most basic mechanical knowhow, Tim Moore sets out to cross Trumpland USA in an original Model T Ford. Armed only with a fan belt made of cotton, wooden wheels and a trunkload of ‘wise-ass Limey liberal gumption’, his route takes him exclusively through Donald-voting counties, meeting the everyday folks who voted red along the way.

The Quiet American is Graham Greene’s fictional account of the violence and intrigue of mid twentieth century Vietnam. Pyle, a young idealistic American has been sent to promote democracy through a mysterious ‘Third Force’, but his naïve optimism starts to cause bloodshed. Fowler, a friend of Pyle, but a Brit and a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to just stand aside and watch without interv...

Lampedusa's masterpiece, one of the finest works of twentieth century fiction, is set amongst an aristocratic family, facing social and political changes in the wake of Garibaldi's invasion of Sicily in 1860. At the head of the family is the prince, Don Fabrizio. Proud and stubborn, he is accustomed to knowing his own place in the world and expects his household to run accordingly. He is aware of the change...

Tibor Fischer's hilarious first novel follows the adventures of two young Hungarian basketball players through the turbulent years between the end of World War II and the revolution of 1956. In this spirited indictment of totalitarianism, the two improbable heroes, Pataki and Gyuri, travel the length and breadth of Hungary in an epic quest for food, lodging, and female companionship.

It was a cloudless summer day in the year nineteen hundred. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three of the girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last they disappeared. They never returned. Whether "Picnic at Hanging ...