Иностранная литература
Производитель Duckworth

Описание:
Built in the twilight of the Tsarist state, Moscow's Metropole Hotel is a poignant reminder of the decadence of the last regime. But today its corridors are musty, its rooms are dank, and now its restaurant is the scene of a quadruple murder. To keep the killings under wraps, the Kremlin hands the investigationover to famously discreet police investigator Porfiry Rostnikov. A terrorist is targeting foreigners to embarrass the Soviet state, and the killer will happily sacrifice any Russian who gets in the way.

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Upper-middle-class suburbanites Agnes and Tobias and their accidental lodger, Agnes alcoholic sister Claire, are shocked when lifelong friends Harry and Edna show up in fear for their lives. Then Agnes and Tobias indignant daughter, Julia, returns to her parents after the collapse of her fourth marriage... For almost 50 years, A Delicate Balance has shone on both screen and stage. It first appeared in 1966, followed by a film adaptation starring Katharine Hepburn in 1973, and a revival in 2011. A classic play about madness and the desperation to escape from reality, this is a fine example of why Albees work stands the test of time.

Описание:
Rosemary Paul used to be a celebrated singer, but now in her sixties she is past her prime. Living an isolated life, her only companion is Carrie Markham, her live-in assistant who panders to Rosemary's every need and looks up to her older mentor. When Rosemary hears news from London that one of her albums is getting an unexpected re-release the old hunger for fame and success is reignited, and with Carrie's help she plans her big comeback to relaunch herself into the public stratosphere. But as preparations commence, long buried secrets begin to resurface and signs of strain show inRosemary and Carrie's relationship, until reaching its dramatic breaking-point... Slowly building its uneasy tension throughout until revealing its shocking twist, The Comeback is an eerie psychological thriller with strong female characters; ideal for fans of The Girl on the Train and The Ice Twins, it is perfect for book clubs, and will leave readers on the edge of their seats.

Описание:
In 1887, Elizabeth Berry, an attractive young nurse from the grim Oldham workhouse, found notoriety throughout the nation after the death of her daughter, perceived by many to be the cruellest of murders - performed with an ice-cold callousness that was almost beyond belief. There were many who protested her innocence in the affair, but there were also suspicions surrounding another death related to the nurse: that of her mother. Suddenly Elizabeth Berry's dark story began appearing darker still. Was she in fact a coldblooded serial killer? In his new book celebrated crime author Bernard Taylor investigates the disturbing life of Elizabeth Berry endured during an era of grinding poverty when Victorian England was obsessed with the exploits of murderers and forensic science was in its infancy. He takes a fresh look at the demise of Berry's husband and two other young children, deaths that for a long time were considered to be of natural causes. For the first time we discover the true story behind this infamous case of the first woman to be hanged at Liverpool's Walton Prison and one of the Victorian period's most harrowing set of homicides.

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Through a trail blazing career that spans more than seventy-five years and continues to this day, with recent creations that include a Martini glass featured in Bombay Sapphire ads and vases for Klein-Reid, Eva Zeisel stands at the forefront of modern designers. Her works are a reflection of a profoundly independent vision and are featured in the permanent collections fo museums throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. In this richly illustrated, full-colour book, the designer for the first time communicates the ideas that have guided and inspired her. Each aspect of the design process is analyzed - variety, spontaneity, line, contour, shading, and texture, among others - to show how the best works are formed through a dialogue between creator and object, the result of which is an environment that is pleasurable, comfortable, and elegant. The language in which this dialogue is conducted, the language of things, is one in which Zeisel's fluency is unparalleled. Her thoughts, read alongside the photos of her stunning creations and those that have inspired her, make this book indispensable to every enthusiast of art, design, and ceramics.

Описание:
In Nikolai and the Others Richard Nelson imagines the relationships between Balanchine and Stravinsky, their friends, lovers, wives and ex-wives, supporters and dancers, at the time of their historic collaboration on the ballet Orpheus. Later that year, Orpheus would be the spectacular inaugural production of the newly formed New York City Ballet. The play also explores the controversial ways American art and artistic institutions were funded at the outset of the Cold War.

Описание:
In The Hug, internationally renowned author David Grossman tells the moving story of the moment when Ben realises that no two living creatures are alike not his mother and father, their beautiful dog Miracle or the ants who march side by side at his feet and appear identical and the loneliness he feels knowing that there is no one else quite like him in the whole world. But just as he is feeling the most alone he has ever felt, he is soothed by his mothers loving hug. Timeless, touching and beautifully produced, The Hug is a charming and important work for parents and children encountering the feeling of being different, together.

Описание:
Physicists will tell you that four forces control the universe. Of these, gravity may the most obvious, but it is also the most mysterious. Newton managed to predict the force of gravity but couldn't explain how it worked at a distance. Then Einstein picked up on the simple premise that gravity and acceleration are interchangeable to devise his mind-bending General Relativity, showing how matter warps space and time. Not only did this explain how gravity worked - and how apparently simple gravitation has four separate components - but it predicted everything from black holes to gravity's effect on time. Whether it's the reality of anti-gravity or the unexpected discovery that a ball and a laser beam drop at the same rate, gravity is the force that fascinates.

Описание:
Moscow, 1934. As thousands of peasant farmers starve under Stalin's regime of collectivisation, Osip Mandelstam, perhaps the greatest Russian poet of the twentieth century, defies the Kremlin with a few short, audacious lines of verse - a searing indictment of Stalin secretly recited to a handful of friends and fellow artists. When a transcript of the work falls into the hands of the secret police, the poet is taken from his home to Lubyanka prison under accusations of counter-revolutionary activities that carry the highest penalty, and his fate - as well as the fates of those close to him - is cast into bleak uncertainty. A fictional portrait based on a riveting historical episode, "The Stalin Epigram" is narrated in turn by Mandelstam himself, his devoted wife, and his great friends the poets Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova, amongst other vividly imagined characters. A gripping and memorable achievement of rigorous research and extraordinary empathy, bestselling author Robert Littell's latest novel is a compelling testament to human courage and endurance.

Описание:
It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginnings of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse. Faced with a future of mindless, man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the 10-year fight-back against the horde, World War Z brings the very finest traditions of American journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of civilisation.

Описание:
Churchill was by no means a spontaneous orator, and it was claimed by one of his acolytes that for every minute of a speech he had prepared for an hour. Whether true or not, this suggests an incredibly serious approach to speech-making and it's high priority for the great statesman. Perhaps part of his success lay in his utterly self confident character and strange unconsciousness of the adverse reaction that he could and often did create among friend and foe alike. Churchill was one of only two Prime Ministers to be named a "professional" writer, and throughout his life his writing and words were not only instrumental in inspiring great loyalty and affection among a wide spectrum of people, but also a means of financing his extravagant lifestyle. What remains at the forefront of the minds of most is the energy which he afforded the prosecutions of the Second World War, and his unerring ear for what to say and how to say it.

Описание:
Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrates last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Hailed as a messenger of the gods, powerful sex symbol, gambling aid, all purpose medicine and handy research tool, the humble chicken has been also cast as the epitome of evil, and the star of the world's most famous joke. Beginning with the recent discovery, that the chicken's unlikely ancestor is the T. Rex, Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? tracks the chicken from its original domestication in the jungles of Southeast Asia some 10,000 years ago to today's Western societies, where it became the most engineered of animals, to the uncertain future of what is now humanity's single most important source of protein. In a masterful combination of historical sleuthing and journalistic exploration on four continents, Lawler reframes the way we feel and think about all domesticated animals and even nature itself.

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A unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the past several decades, told through personal stories and astute analysis that sharply illuminate the country's meteoric economic rise and social transformation. Framed by ten words or phrases common in the Chinese vernacular, China in Ten Words reveals as never before the world's most populous yet most often misunderstood nation. This is a refreshingly candid vision of the "Chinese miracle" and all it's consequences, from the singularly invaluable perspective of a leading writer living in China today.

Описание:
Moscow, March 1953: As Stalin breathes his last, four women meet in Room 408 of the luxurious hotel Metropol. They have gathered to reminisce about the great poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, whose work they once inspired. Following his mysterious suicide twenty five years earlier, he was canonised by Stalin as the most talented poet of our Soviet era - but in life he was a far more complicated man, violently torn between art and politics. As the four muses - who both loved and loathed him - piece together their conflicting memories of the poet, a portrait of the artist as a tormented young idealist emerges. Recalling Mayakovsky's early years as a leader of the Futurists, his later work as a propagandist for the Soviet state, and the censorship battles that pitted him against the government, their unabashedly frank conversation reveals him as an intense and tormented sexual obsessive caught in the eye of history's storm, struggling to hold on to his ideals in the face of a revolution betrayed. Vladimir M. tells a subversive, passionate story of free love, avant-garde art and political ideals, in an explosive, provocative cocktail of fiction and reality which brings to life the tumultuous Stalinist era - and the disaster it spelt for the artists it ensnared.

Описание:
This course book is aimed primarily at students in higher education who have some prior knowledge of Russian. It is divided into 64 lessons covering all the main areas of Russian, including the declension of nouns, the conjugation of verbs, the use of cases, the forms and use of adjectives; pronouns, numerals and verbs of motion; verbal prefixes; gerunds and participles. It provides the solid grammatical foundation which is essential for students go on to read, write and speak Russian well. The book includes many exercises and over 500 examples taken from the recent Soviet/Russian press, introducing useful contemporary vocabulary in areas such as politics, economics, social problems, ecology, medicine, and cultural and military affairs.

Описание:
The prevailing opinion of Columbus is that he was responsible for almost everything that went wrong in the New World, caused by his political and financial ambition. This book challenges this belief showing that he was driven to find a western route to the Orient not only by the promise of vast wealth for the Spanish crown but by a personal mission to fund a new crusade. Carol Delaney places him in the context of his times, detailing remarkable events that struck Europe prior to Columbuss birth and bringing the challenges of ocean navigation to life. Ultimately, she reveals a man of religious conviction and astonishing determination.

Описание:
Our Future Earth vividly describes how the decisions made about the environment in the next decades will affect the next 100,000 years of life on the planet, and shows how far today's environmental debate is overlooking crucial long-term evidence. By considering the Earth's history over millions of years, and not merely over the last couple of centuries, this book changes our understanding. It draws on geological evidence to show that the greatest immediate threat to humans will not be global warming, but global cooling. And the extent of human control over the environment now makes the direction of climate change a greater matter of choice than the public realises. This lucid book will prompt climate sceptics, activists and everyone in between to think again about our future Earth, because the real consequences of our behaviour are set to be far more dramatic than we expect.

Описание:
New tie-in cover to come for the TV series adaptation of the novel, to air in Summer 2014, starring Sean Bean and Ali Larter, from Howard Gordon, the man behind Homeland and 24 Martin Odum, disgraced CIA field agent turned private detective in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is struggling his way through a labyrinth of memories of past identities - "legends" in CIA parlance. Is he really Martin Odum? Is he Dante Pippen, IRA explosives maven turned CIA agent? Or is he another legend? These men speak different languages, like different foods and women, and have different skills, and Odum's not sure if he's suffering from multiple personality disorder, brainwashing or just plain exhaustion. When Odum is employed to solve a case for a young Russian, Stella Kastner, he is drawn back into the world he left not remembering quite why, struggling to untangle his true identity while under the strains of mortal danger and psychological disorientation. An extraordinarily intelligent thriller, taut and explosive, Legends is an unrelentingly arresting page-turner.