vintage publishing london (Over 17,000 results)

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. South Wales, the 1960s - life is hard. Especially for Liam Bennett, ten years old, surrounded by Communists, and with a father who is losing his mind. Then the glamorous Marek Sikorski arrives, and turns Liam's life upside down. Marek's family has fled Communist Poland only to find a red flag flying over the town hall in Crindau. But Marek is determined that Wales should not suffer Poland's fate. Together, he and Liam form the Crindau resistance, and begin attacking trains they believe are bringing a wave of Communists into Wales. Drinking Polish vodka, selling looted cigarettes and making Molotov cocktails, Liam becomes a rebel with a cause. But while he wages his war against international Communism, his parents battle with each other, as his father frantically stockpiles food in fear of the imminent Russian invasion. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 'Fever Pitch with testosterone and eight pints of lager. Like Fever Pitch, it is not exclusively a novel about football. This is a chronicle of a lost tribe - the white, Anglo-Saxon, heterosexual who is fed up with being told he is crap. It is the story of a flight from fear by a group of Londoners who have seen the present and know it does not work-King writes powerfully with a raw realism and clear grasp of a culture which has been denied but cannot be ignored' Glasgow Herald. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A collection of classic recipes in the form of simple, expertly drawn graphic illustrations. Each recipe is broken down into easy-to-follow steps, all cleverly displayed on one graphic table top, a bit like a comic strip recipe for grown-ups. . includes incredible hand-drawn, easy-to-follow recipes showing every slice, sizzle and stir . the comfort food you grew up with (think gooey cauliflower cheese, warming sausage and bean casserole and fresh, crumbly flapjacks) . thrifty, hearty home cooking with sensational soups, mouth-watering mains and puddings, plus biscuits and cakes made for sharing . perfect for first-timers and seasoned cooks alike. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. How does a writer compose a suicide note? This was not a question that the prize-winning novelist William Styron had ever contemplated before. In this true account of his depression, Styron describes an illness that reduced him from a successful writer to a man arranging his own destruction. He lived to give us this gripping description of his descent into mental anguish, and his eventual success in overcoming a little-understood yet very common condition. The unabridged text of Darkness Visible by William Styron VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series: Swimming by Roger Deakin Babies by Anne Enright Calm by Tim Parks Work by Joseph Heller. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Fifteen-year-old Hanka Kaudersova has ginger hair and clear, green eyes. When her family is deported to Auschwitz, her mother, father and younger brother are sent to the gas chamber. By a twist of fate, Hanka is faced with a simple alternative: follow her family, or work in an SS brothel behind the eastern front. She chooses to live, her Aryan looks allowing her to disguise the fact that she is Jewish. As the German army retreats from the Russian front, Hanka battles cold, hunger, fear and shame, sustained by her hatred for the men she entertains, her friendship with the mysterious Estelle, and her fierce, burning desire for life. Lovely Green Eyes explores the compromises and sacrifices that an individual may make in order to survive, the way a woman can retain her identity in the face of appalling trauma, and the value of human life itself. This is a remarkable novel, which soars beyond nightmare, leaving the reader with a transcendent sense of hope. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. *THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* Keep calm - but do not carry on. There is nothing remotely inevitable about Brexit - except that it will be deeply damaging if it happens. Extricating Britain from Europe will be the greatest challenge this country has faced since the Second World War. And as negotiations with the EU expose the promises of the Brexit campaign to have been hollow, even some Brexit-voters now wish to exercise their democratic right to change their mind, seeing that the most pragmatic option is to . stop. It would certainly be the best thing for Britain. But how can it be done? Haven't the people spoken? No. In this indispensable handbook, Nick Clegg categorically debunks the various myths that have been used to force Brexit on Britain, not by 'the people' but by a small, extremely rich, self-serving elite, and explains precisely how this historic mistake can be reversed - and what you can do to make sure that it is. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Lee Langley's bewitching story of lost hope and thwarted love opens where Puccini's opera ends; with Madame Butterfly - Cho-Cho-San - handing over her beloved son to his American father before killing herself. In America Joey grows up torn between two cultures, haunted, like his parents, by their memories of what really happened on that fateful day. But just as Joey's fate is inextricably linked with the country of his birth, so too is the fate of America, and both of their paths will ultimately lead to Nagasaki. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. A study of metropolitan mating manners by the author of Postcards from the Edge. Dinah Kaufman is attracted to unsuitable men, including her ex-husband, a successful playwright with whom she continues to be obsessed. And she has a tendency to merge real life and the soap opera scripts she writes. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Ruben Oliver's life is coming adrift from its moorings. He has been obliged to take early retirement from his job as a librarian due to 'rationalisation' and the new political realities of South Africa. His wife has died. One of his sons has settled in Australia, the other is about to emigrate to Canada while trying to persuade Ruben that it is too dangerous to remain. The only constants are his old family home, haunted by the ghost of a young slave woman; and his housekeeper, Magrieta, with whom he has a shared history that goes back more than half his life. When Tessa Butler comes out of the rain one night in response to an advertisement for a lodger, Ruben is captivated by her. She restores passion to his life, but brings with her a turbulent past. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Bill Bryson shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet and heads for Europe. He retraces his travels as a student twenty years earlier with caustic hilarity and his own unique brand of humour. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson lived in North Yorkshire for many years. First published in 1991 by Secker & Warburg. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. In a corner of south-western France, a young rose grower nurtures a private passion to breed an exotic new flower. But the year is 1789, and the world is about to change. The Rose Grower throws a subtle, slanting light on the underside of history, as a young woman and her family are caught up in the bloodthirsty years of the French Revolution. Her private passion is to create a repeat-flowering crimson rose, the first of its kind in Europe. But, as public events in Paris are duplicated in Gascony, her world turns upside down. An American balloonist falls out of the sky and into her life; while Joseph, a young working-class doctor, is also drawn into her orbit, and finds himself fatally torn between reason and desire, revolutionary zeal and unrequited love. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. One of the greatest literary achievements of the twentieth century. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE is Virginia Woolf's most popular novel. This definitive edition introduced by Quentin Bell contains the original Hogarth Press text as overseen by the author, and a list of the textual variants that appeared during her lifetime. The serene and maternal Mrs Ramsay, the tragic yet absurd Mr Ramsay together with their children and assorted guests are holidaying on the Isle of Skye. From the seemingly trivial postponement of a visit to a nearby lighthouse Virginia Woolf constructs a remarkable and moving examination of the complex tensions and allegiances of family life, and the conflict between male and female principles. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. In 1994, Xinran met a woman whose story was so extraordinary, it came to obsess her. Of all the Chinese women that Xinran had interviewed for her radio programme (famous in China for its discussion of women's lives), Shu Wen had endured things far beyond the imagination of most people. For over thirty years, she had wandered the empty, silent mountains of north Tibet in search of her husband, a Chinese soldier who was missing in action. She had gone there in the 1950s as a young woman in her prime; she had returned to China grey-haired and utterly changed by her experiences. Shu Wen's life story, brilliantly recreated by Xinran, gives a unique, moving and unforgettable insight into the landscape, religion and nomads of Tibet. At the same time it illuminates the complex and emotional relationship between the Tibetans and Chinese, uncovering the history that lies behind it. But, above all, this is an epic love story - the tale of a woman who adored her husband so much, she gave up everything she knew to travel thousands of miles to one of the most intimidating countries in the world. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. On February 1, 2003, ten astronauts were orbiting the planet. Seven headed back to Earth on the space shuttle Columbia. They never made it. And the three men left behind found themselves too far from home. Chris Jones chronicles the efforts of the beleaguered Mission Control in Houston and Moscow as they work frantically against the clock to bring their men safely back to Earth, ultimately settling on a plan that felt, at best, like a long shot. Yet even amid the danger, the call of space is a siren song, and Too Far From Home details beautifully the majesty and mystique of space travel, while reminding us all how perilous it is to soar beyond the sky. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. What links Margaret Thatcher, Rupert Murdoch, Prince Charles and Mick Jagger? Each have illuminated our Elizabethan age in their own, inimitable, way. Margaret Thatcher - the first female Prime Minister, who dedicated herself with messianic zeal to breaking the mould of post-war British politics Rupert Murdoch - the billionaire media mogul whose empire, built on an ethical void, has polluted the channels of communication from London to Sydney, from New York to New Guinea Prince Charles - the royal dilettante whose erratic exploits shook the throne and put his own succession to it at risk Mick Jagger - lead singer of the Rolling Stones, who embodied the sixties counter-culture of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll yet aspired to be a gentleman and accepted a knighthood at the behest of Tony Blair. The sequel to Brendon's bestselling Eminent Edwardians, Eminent Elizabethans is written in the same witty, ironic and irreverent style and reveals how each one played out a major theme in the new Elizabethan medley. Each portrait vividly and vitally captured through pungent anecdote, piquant quotation and mordant commentary. In short, these brilliant miniatures are as entertaining as they are illuminating. 'Excellent' Guardian 'Entirely refreshing' Daily Mail 'A delight' Daily Express. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. If life is pilgrimage, Walking Papers are the pages - the notes on the journey, news of the world, letters of introduction and dismissal - found in one's breast-pocket amongst one's effects. And Thomas Lynch, the celebrated poet-undertaker is our guide through a world that's painfully aware of its own mortality; as he says in the powerfully moving title poem: 'Listen - /something's going to get you in the end./The numbers are fairly convincing on this,/hovering, as they do, around a hundred/percent. We die. And more's the pity.' In this, his fourth collection of poems - his first in the new century - Lynch attends to the flora and fauna and fellow pilgrims: dead poets and living masters, a former president and his factotums, a sin-eater and inseminator. Faux-bardic and mock-epic, deft at lament and lampoon, accusation and dispensation, fete and feint, Lynch's poems are powerful medicines, tonics for the long haul and home-going. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Good. With these eleven short stories, Irina Denezkhina announces herself as the fresh voice of Russian literature. Mining the themes of teenage sex, drugs, violence and music, she tells it like it is for Russia's new generation, brought up in a complex post-Communist world where the ideological influences are more MTV than Marx. A young soldier on leave from the Chechen war laments the meaninglessness of civvie life - 'all that goddamned self-expression' - whilst his girlfriend ponders the elegant arch of her best friend's eyebrows; a teacher at a summer camp is appalled, disgusted and frightened in turn by her out-of-control charges, and the punishment she could receive at the hands of their powerful parents; a suicidal teenager finds salvation in the unlikely duo of a beefy security guard and his Rottweiler, and Death visits an internet chat room, politely accepting the offer of a cup of tea. Full of energy, controversy, cruelty and humour, this extraordinary debut toys with the possibilities of language and perception to give a snapshot of Russia's youth and its' struggles to grow up, connect, and, ultimately, love. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. In the blaze of a Carolina summer, among the poison ivy and loblolly pines, eight Marines are killed almost casually by misfired mortar shells. Deciding that his battalion has been 'doping off', Colonel Templeton calls for a 36-mile forced march to inculcate discipline. The Long March is a searing account of this ferocious ordeal - and of the two officers who resist. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Harry MacDonald had seen plenty of skulls - arsing about with some poor sod or other's skull is what pays Harry's rent - but until the day of his official thirty-ninth birthday (actually, Harry was knocking on forty), which was also the day he met Shnade again, he had never noticed the shape of his own skull-to-be; and until the night of that same day, he had never seen a living skull being crunched deliberately, wetly inwards. Perhaps it all happened because Harry had got lost in his work for too long. Or perhaps because Shnade had got lost doing nothing for too long. Or perhaps because all of us, Harry and Shnade included, are lost full stop. She's not really Shnade, of course. Shnade was what we heard, and is what we called her, and is what she will be, to me any rate, for as long as I have. When Shnade swung round, I saw her dress flick along with the movement of her hips and brush Harry's thigh. It was a light, small, flimsy dress of reddish cotton; she wore it over some kind of black, shiny, strappy, swimsuitish thing. You could see this big tattoo of a lizard that ran right from her shoulder to her wrist. And you could tell that when her dress swished across the thigh of Harry's jeans, it felt to him like it was made of chain-mail. And I think, looking back, we all knew, right then, that Harry was fucked. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. 24-year old Ahleme (her name means 'dream' in Arabic) lives with her father, The Boss. He is half the man he was, since an accident on his building site stopped him working. Then there's Ahleme's brother, 16-year-old Foued, excluded from school and getting drawn into the world of drug-dealing on Uprising Estate. Ahleme battles with her family, the struggles and queues that come with being an immigrant, and the guilt-trips of distant relatives 'back home'. But when she returns - after a ten-year absence - to the country where her mother was massacred at a village wedding, she brokers a kind of truce, both with her homeland, and with the need to forge a future.Along the way, she stamps on that mythical version of Metropolitan France, a desperate fabrication put out by economic and political migrants and readily bought into by those left behind in Algeria. Dreams from the Endz is an extraordinary achievement: outspoken and sobering but - crucially - laced with the author's hallmark wit. Faiza Guene illuminates the impact of politics on everyday lives, acting as the nation's eyes and ears in places many would never dare to go, weaving unforgettable tales across barriers. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Fair. Bryan Gould maps out the course he believes will lead the Labour Party to success in the 1990s. He takes as his starting point Anthony Crosland's The Future of Socialism 1956 and analyzes the reasons for failure to foresee the right-wing triumphs of the 1980s. The author identifies the major challenges that face a Labour Party wishing to bring itself up to date, pointing to the internationalization of capital and its escape from political control, as one of the most intractable problems confronting modern socialists. While stressing traditional socialist virtues, he advocates a positive attitude to wealth creation, a readiness to use the market, provided it is regulated, and forms of common ownership which diffuse power to give both employees and consumers more control over their lives. Bryan Gould offers a vision of a socialism which fulfils the individual's desire for greater choice, prosperity and autonomy which is decentralized, pluralist, flexible and above all workable. A readable copy of the book which may include some defects such as highlighting and notes. Cover and pages may be creased and show discolouration.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Joel, aka 'The Rink' (because his bald patch is shiny enough to skate on), the unpopular owner of the only bar in town has been murdered. There are so many suspects, it's not so much a question of who did kill him as who didn't. There's Magalie, the temperamental teenager obsessed with Paris Hilton; her troublemaker boyfriend, Tani; Tani's mother, Madame Levi; her unemployed, daytime-TV addicted husband; Yeznig, their younger son, who has learning difficulties but perfect memory recall; and newcomers Ali and Nadia, the Muslim twins struggling to fit in. As the tension mounts and we're still none the wiser, the ending is as tragic as it is unexpected. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Good. This Bolivian diary tells of the last, doomed, 11 months of the most courageous and dedicated revolutionary of the 20th century - Che Guevara (1928-67). In simple prose, it gives a unique account of the guerilla's lonely fight against armies, mountains, jungles, hunger, disease and death. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine.

Paperback. Condition: Good. Building work in an expanding Reykjavik uncovers a shallow grave. Years before, this part of the city was all open hills, and Erlendur and his team hope this is a typical Icelandic missing person scenario; perhaps someone once lost in the snow, who has lain peacefully buried for decades. Things are never that simple. Whilst Erlendur struggles to hold together the crumbling fragments of his own family, his case unearths many other tales of family pain. The hills have more than one tragic story to tell: tales of failed relationships and heartbreak; of anger, domestic violence and fear; of family loyalty and family shame. Few people are still alive who can tell the story, but even secrets taken to the grave cannot remain hidden forever. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This third novel in the trilogy that began with The Football Factory looks at notions of what it means to be English abroad. King explores stereotypes of language and nationalism, as he writes about sex and violence abroad, under the Union Jack. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This text looks at the military history of a battle scene by examining the experiences of individuals at the point of maximum danger. The author has attempted to write the definitive model for military historians by reassessing the three battles of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. He attempts to convey, to the reader, the reality of the battles as they were experienced by the participants. John Keegan is the author of World Armies, Six Armies in Normandy, The Mask of Command, The Price of Admiralty and The Second World War. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The MacCaskills have been nurturing foxes for many years. This book fits together a number of fox encounters into one continuous story and describes the creatures with which they share the wild glens and hills, namely the golden eagle, the pine martin and a very special wild cat. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. When a part-time worker in a mental hospital meets his old girlfriend inside he is not sure at first is she is a patient. Their reunion is haunted and haunting, and from the memory of their past affair there unfolds a labyrinth which darkens from romantic obsession to feelings deeper and more disturbing. Colin Thubron creates a world of passion, delusion, and reality mingling with unreality, pervaded by an all-consuming sense of longing and of loss. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Adam O'Riordan's remarkable first collection traces the hidden paths from past to present, from the lost to the living, seeking familiarity in a world of 'false trails and disappearing acts'. Here relatives, friends and other absences are coaxed into life and urgently pressed on the reader as they surface, in the flesh. Journeys begin with indelible detail and open into new and astonishing landscapes of the head and the heart. Whether in graceful elegies for the dead or the charged lyrics of love and desire, poems cross space as well as time, from the 'blackened lung' of Victorian Manchester and the fateful events of the 1913 Derby, to enter a modern era of satellites and late night searches for lost lovers. At the heart of the collection lies the sonnet sequence 'Home', a slant look at the lives of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, intersected by more recent, sometimes unsettling, personal portraits. Clear-eyed and sensuous, these are poems linked by a strong sense of place and presence, longing and loss; of history captured in an irrevocable moment. In the Flesh is a startling debut from one of our finest young British poets. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Keanu Reeves: actor, musician, dog lover. He's the internet's boyfriend. The poetic petrolhead. The guru on a surfboard. Part samurai, part samaritan. He is, very simply, 'The One'. 'James has been my movie guru for years and now he's my spiritual guru too! From now on I'm going to ask myself: 'What would Keanu do?' Jo Whiley In this hilarious book of pocket philosophy, film critic and Keanu fan James King reveals what makes Mr Reeves so special. He unpacks iconic films from the Bill & Teds to the John Wicks, as well as the star's own free-spirited life, showing us why the great man with the great hair has all the answers. And how everyone can #bemorekeanu. 'A handsome, cool, enigmatic Gen X'er who never seems to age, James King is the perfect man to write about Keanu Reeves.' Stephen Merchant. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.