Mike Gayle has carved a whole new literary niche out of the male confessional novel. He's a publishing phenomenon'EVENING STANDARD 'Delightfully observant nostalgia.., will strike a chord with both sexes' SHE 'A warm, funny romantic comedy' DAILY MAIL 'Gayle's chatty style sustains a cracking pace' THE TIMES "Thirty means only going to the pub if there,s somewhere to sit down, Thiity means owning at least one classical CD, even if it's New That's What I Call Classical Vol 6. Thirty means calling off the search for the perfect partner because now, after al! thee years in the wilderness, you've finally found what you've been looking for." Unlike most people Matt Beckford is actually looking forward to turning thirty. After struggling through most of his twenties he thinks his career, finances and love life are finally sorted. But when he splits up with his girlfriend, he realises that life has different plans for him.and Matt temporarily moves back home to his parents. Within hours,his mum and dad

Shakespeare became famous as a dazzling poet before most peopleeven knew that he wrote plays. His sonnets are the Englishlanguage's most extraordinary anatomy of love in all itsdimensions-desire and despair, longing and loss, adoration anddisgust. To read them is to confront morality and eternity in thesame breath. Produced under the editorial supervision of JonathanBate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today's most accomplishedShakespearean scholars, The Sonnets and Other Poems includes all ofShakespeare's sonnets, the long narrative poems "Venus and Adonis"and "The Rape of Lucrece," and several other shorter works.Incorporating definitive texts and authoritative notes from WilliamShakespeare: Complete Works, this unique volume also includes anexpanded Introduction by Jonathan Bate that places the poems inliterary and historical context and illuminates their relationshipto Shakespeare's dramatic writing. Also featured are key factsabout the individual selections; an index of the first lines of thesonnets; a chron

One of the last plays Shakespeare penned on his own, TheWinter’s Tale is a transcendent work of death and rebirth,exploring irrational sexual jealousy, the redemptive world ofnature, and the magical power of art. Under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and EricRasmussen, two of today’s most accomplished Shakespearean scholars,this Modern Library series incorporates definitive texts andauthoritative notes from William Shakespeare: Complete Works. Eachplay includes an Introduction as well as an overview ofShakespeare’s theatrical career; commentary on past and currentproductions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, anddesigners; scene-by-scene analysis; key facts about the work; achronology of Shakespeare’s life and times; and black-and-whiteillustrations. Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers,these modern and accessible editions from the Royal ShakespeareCompany set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for thetwenty-first century

Good. Light shelving wear with minimal damage to cover andbindings. Pages show minor use. Help save a tree. Buy all your usedbooks from Green Earth Books. Read. Recycle and Reuse!

在线阅读本书 This moving and eloquent historical drama depicts the conflictbetween a willful and arrogant poet of a king, Richard II, and hispolitically pragmatic cousin, Bolingbroke. Rich with memorablescenes and speeches, this lyrical history moves from a splendidmedieval tournament to the poignant surrender of a crown; from thequeen’s heart-shattering farewell to her king to Richard’s murder—adeed “chronicled in hell” that lives forever as one of the greatmoments in theater.

An exciting new edition of the complete works of Shakespearewith these features: Illustrated with photographs from NewYork Shakespeare Festival productions, vivid readable readableintroductions for each play by noted scholar David Bevington, alively personal foreword by Joseph Papp, an insightful essay on theplay in performance, modern spelling and pronunciation, up-to-dateannotated bibliographies, and convenient listing of keypassages.

Hilarious fun, this early comedy is filled with the merryviolence of slapstick and farce. When two sets of twins, separatedand apparently lost to each other, all end up in the rowdy,rollicking city of Ephesus, the stage is set for mix-ups, mayhem,and mistaken identity—plus the timeless puns, jokes, gags, andsuspense that makes this play a wonderful theatrical frolic and abrilliant tour de force of language and laughter. From the Paperback edition.

In this striking tragedy of political conflict, Shakespeareturns to the ancient Roman world and to the famous assassination ofJulius Caesar by his republican opponents. The play is one oftumultuous rivalry, of prophetic warnings–“Beware the ides ofMarch”–and of moving public oratory, “Friends, Romans, countrymen!”Ironies abound and most of all for Brutus, whose fate it is tolearn that his idealistic motives for joining the conspiracyagainst a would-be dictator are not enough to sustain the movementonce Caesar is dead. Each Edition Includes: · Comprehensive explanatory notes · Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship · Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enablingcontemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English · Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performancehistories · An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, alongwith an extensive filmography From the Paperback edition.

在线阅读本书 An exciting new edition of the complete works of Shakespeare withthese features: Illustrated with photographs from NewYork Shakespeare Festival productions, vivid readable readableintroductions for each play by noted scholar David Bevington, alively personal foreword by Joseph Papp, an insightful essay on theplay in performance, modern spelling and pronunciation, up-to-dateannotated bibliographies, and convenient listing of keypassages.

Sharks, the deadliest killers inthe seas of our planet, have been roaming the oceans for more than 400 million years. They have easily outlived the dinosaurs and now dominate the watery blue wilderness as the apex predators of the marine world. This amazing book introduces readers to these fascinating and much misunderstood creatures. It explains how sharks evolved, describes the way in which their anatomy and physiology is supremely adapted for the task of hunting and killing prey, and profiles the most beautiful and most deadly species of shark alive today. It also boasts breathtaking action pictures of amazing sharks from the ruthless great whites of Jaws fame and 'fighter-jet-style' great hammerheads to feisty Caribbean reef sharks and the biggest fish in the world, the mighty whale shark. It also looks at the human side of the story, and we meet some of the people who have survived terrifying ordeals including the 13-year-old American surfer Bethany Hamilton whose arm was bitten off by a tiger sh

Three Early Comedies Love's Labor's Lost Farce and fun follow when ayoung king and his three friends vow to give up women for ayear—just as a pretty princess and her three ladies-in-waitingarrive—in a delightful play that ends with one of Shakespeare’sloveliest songs. The Two Gentlemen of Verona In this lyricalcomedy, two friends are infatuated with the same woman, while ajilted girl disguised as a boy and a clownish servant with araffish mutt set the scene for laughter and a timeless story oflove. The Merry Wives of Windsor Shakespeare’s famousrogue, Falstaff, woos two married women with identical loveletters—and becomes the focus of a hilarious comedy when the womenconspire to teach him a lesson.

An exciting new edition of the complete works of Shakespearewith these features: Illustrated with photographs from New YorkShakespeare Festival productions, vivid readable readableintroductions for each play by noted scholar David Bevington, alively personal foreword by Joseph Papp, an insightful essay on theplay in performance, modern spelling and pronunciation, up-to-dateannotated bibliographies, and convenient listing of keypassages.

On the eve of his ninetieth birthday a bachelor decides to give himself a wild night of love with a virgin. As is his habit he has purchased hundreds of women--he asks a madam for her assistance. The fourteen-year-old girl who is procured for him is enchanting, but exhausted as she is from caring for siblings and her job sewing buttons, she can do little but sleep. Yet with this sleeping beauty at his side, it is he who awakens to a romance he has never known. Tender, knowing, and slyly comic, Memories of My Melancholy Whores is an quisite addition to the master's work.

When Sir Francis Drake returned to England in 1580, manyquestions concerning his momentous voyage were left unanswered—hisjournals were impounded and his men were forbidden, on pain ofdeath, to divulge where they had been. Drawing on newly uncoveredevidence, geographer and maritime historian Samuel Bawlfmasterfully reconstructs Francis Drake’s historic round-the-worldexpedition, exploring the drama surrounding the voyage and offeringintriguing insights into life at sea in the sixteenth century. Butit is Bawlf’s assertion of Drake’s whereabouts in the summer of1579 that gives the book even greater originality: from anintensive study of maps of the period, Bawlf shows with certaintythat Drake sailed all the way to Alaska—much farther than anyonehas heretofore imagined—thereby rewriting the history ofexploration in North America.

Set in a courtly world of masked revels and dances, this playturns on the archetypal story of a lady falsely accused ofunfaithfulness, spurned by her bridegroom, and finally vindicatedand reunited with him. Villainy, schemes, and deceits threaten todarken the brilliant humor and sparkling wordplay–but the hilariouscounterplot of a warring couple, Beatrice and Benedick, steals thescene as the two are finally tricked into admitting their love foreach other in Shakespeare’s superb comedy of manners. Each Edition Includes: Comprehensive explanatory notes Vivid introductions and the most up-to-datescholarship Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enablingcontemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English Completely updated, detailed bibliographies andperformance histories An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play,along with an extensive filmography From the Paperback edition.

In The Tragedy of King Richard III, Shakespeare chronicles the rise and fall of one of history’s most repellent, and the theater’s most mesmerizing, figures. This Norton Critical Edition of Richard III is based on the First Quarto (1597) edition of the play with interpolations from the First Folio (1623). The play is accompanied by a preface, explanatory annotations, A Note on the Text, a list of Textual Variants, and eighteen illustrations of seminal scenes from major dramatic productions and film versions of the play. “Contexts” provides readers with the sources and analogues that informed Shakespeare’s composition of Richard III. These include excerpts from Robert Fabyan’s New Chronicles of England and France, Thomas More’s The History of King Richard III, Edward Hall’s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York, A Mirror for Magistrates, and The True Tragedy of Richard III. A selection from Colley Cibber’s eighteenth-century adaptation records the compr

EXCITEMENT AND SUSPENSE FROM THE HEART OF THE JUNGLE Archaeologist Leo Mallory is on a dig. But this is no ordinary assignment. He’s deep in the heart of the Mexican jungle uncovering another centuries-old Mayan city. Like a surgeon performing a most-intricate operation, Leo and his team skilfully remove each crumb of earth with the utmost precision. THE JAGUAR MASK In France, Declan Carberry is busy trying to solve a string of ritual serial murders. Horrific in the extreme, the questions are who and why? Declan needs to move fast, for time is running out. Delving into the history of the Conquistadors and the Maya of South America, this vertiginous tale of snaring and netting, old rituals and modern codes, blood-letting and immortality is Easterman at his dizzying best. “A master of spooky suspense and of the chapter cliffhanger”THE SCOTSMAN 'The Jaguar Mask' will satisfy anyone who appreciates an old-fashioned well plotted adventure thriller which has been given a hard moder

Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of thegreatest modern writers presented in attractive, accessiblepaperback editions. “It was Nabokov’s gift to bring paradise wherever he alighted.”—John Updike, The New York Review of Books Novelist, poet, critic, translator, and, above all, a peerlessimaginer, Vladimir Nabokov was arguably the most dazzling prosestylist of the twentieth century. In novels like Lolita, Pale Fire,and Ada, or Ardor, he turned language into an instrument ofecstasy. Vintage Nabokov includes sections 1-10 of his most famous andcontroversial novel, Lolita; the stories “The Return of Chorb,”“The Aurelian,” “A Forgotten Poet,” “Time and Ebb,” “Signs andSymbols,” “The Vane Sisters,” and “Lance”; and chapter 12 from hismemoir Speak, Memory.

Hank Morgan awakens one morning to find he has beentransported from nineteenth-century New England to sixth-centuryEngland and the reign of King Arthur and the Knights of the RoundTable. Morgan brings to King Arthur's utopian court the ingenuityof the future, resulting in a culture clash that is at oncesatiric, anarchic, and darkly comic. Critically deemed one ofTwain's finest and most caustic works, A Connecticut Yankee in KingArthur's Court is both a delightfully entertaining story and adisturbing analysis of the efficacy of government, the benefits ofprogress, and the dissolution of social mores. It remains aspowerful a work of fiction today as it was upon its firstpublication in 1889.

These controversial epic poems demonstrate Milton's genius forfusing sense and sound, classicism and innovation, narrative anddrama in profound explorations of the moral problems of God'sjustice-and what it truly means to be human.