You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he lovesyou ...'. Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for heruntil she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, andfinds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes areopened by the unconventional characters she meets at the PensionBertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the CockneySignora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate sonGeorge. Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life inItaly and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified inher terminally dull fiance Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn tofollow her own heart? "A Room with a View" is a sunny, brilliantlywitty comedy of manners.

Jack Welch knows how to win. During his forty-year career at General Electric, he led the company to year-after-year success around the globe, in multiple 1markets, against brutal competition. His honest, be-the-best style of management became the gold standard in business, with his relentless focus on people, teamwork,and profits. Since Welch retired in 2001 as chairman and chief executive officer of GE, he has traveled the world,speaking to more than 250,000 people and answering their questions on dozens of wide-ranging topics. Inspired by his audiences and their hunger for straightforward guidance, Welch has written both a philosophical and pragmatic book, which is destined to become the bible of business for generations to come. It clearly lays out the answers to the most difficult questions people face both on and offthe job. Welch's objective is to speak to people at every level of an organization, in companies large and small. His audience is everyone from line workers to MBAs, from pro

This selection of Lawrence's work underlines the intensity and innovation that made him one of the most distinctive and important of twentieth-century writers. Sons and Lovers - semi-autobiographical, is a powerful exploration of family, class, sexuality and the suffocating relationships of a man with a demanding mother and two very different lovers. Women in Love - perhaps Lawrence's most mature novel, was met with disgust by the critics, seeing only a sorry tale of sexual depravity in the love of the sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, for Rupert and Gerald. Lady Chatterley's Lover - Lawrence's novel, written in poetic and sexually explicit language, deals with the passionate relationship between Lady Constance Chatterley and Oliver Mellors, her emotionally and physically crippled husband's forthright and powerfully masculine gamekeeper. A watershed in twentieth-century literary fiction, its sensational content has earned the novel an enduring readership and notoriety. Other stories featured in this volume in

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which sparesno one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital,but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealingfood rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to thisnightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with nomother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barrenstreets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundingsare harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation anda vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century,Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayalof man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimatelyexhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will tosurvive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize forLiterature

' This is the most astonishing piece of writing, lyrical in itsemotion and spare in its construction ...Toibin has crafted anunmissable read' - "Sunday Herald". In Blackwater in the early1990s, three women - Dora Devereux, her daughter Lily and hergranddaughter Helen - have come together after years of strife andreached an uneasy truce. Helen's adored brother Declan is dying.Two friends join him and the women in a crumbling old house by thesea, where the six of them, from different generations and withdifferent beliefs, must listen and come to terms with oneanother.'It is in his emotional choreography that Toibin showshimself to be an exceptional writer. Helen is estranged from bothher mother and grandmother ...Toibin helps them make peace - and hedoes it beautifully' - "Sunday Telegraph". 'He writes in spare,powerful prose and he is truly perceptive about familyrelationships which, at times, makes reading his stories incrediblypainful. But this is a beautiful novel' - "Belfast News". 'We shallbe readin

Nine strokes from an old country church toll out the death ofan unknown man and call Lord Peter Wimsey to one of his mostbaffling cases. Set in the strange, flat fen-country of EastAnglia, this is a classic tale of suspense by a master ofmystery.

In the hopeful 1950s, Frank and April Wheeler appear to be a model couple: bright, beautiful, talented, with two young children and a starter home in the suburbs. Perhaps they married too young and started a family too early. Maybe Frank's job is dull. And April never saw herself as a housewife. Yet they have always lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. But now that certainty is about to crumble.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of The Shipping News and Accordion Crimes comes one of the most celebrated short-story collections of our time. Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in these breathtaking tales of loneliness, quick violence, and the wrong kinds of love. Each of the stunning portraits in Close Range reveals characters fiercely wrought with precision and grace. These are stories of desperation and unlikely elation, set in a landscape both stark and magnificent -- by an author writing at the peak of her craft.

"Whether Alice Munro's The Beggar Maid is a collection of stories or a new kind of novel I'm not quite sure, but whatever it is, it's wonderful. The psychological precision...is a delight, and the startling twists -- the unexpected leaps in time, the transformation of familiar characters -- they make the book what books ought to be, a little wild, a little mysterious." -- John Gardner In this exhilarating series of interweaving stories, Alice Munro re-creates the evolving bond -- one that is both constricting and empowering -- between two women in the coupe of almost forty years. One is Flo, practical, suspicious of other people's airs, at times dismayingly vulgar. The other is Rose, Flo's stepdaughter, a clumsy, shy girl who somehow-in spite of Flo's ridicule and ghastly warnings -- leaves the small town she grew up in to achieve her own equivocal success in the larger world. "The stories are absolutely wonderful-every word she writes is interesting." -- Alice Adams "The best stories of the year." -- The

When a mysterious young Woman named Katie appears in the small Americantown of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautifulyet unassuming, Katie is determined to avoid forming personal ties until a seriesof c'vents draws her into two reluctant relationships. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard, puttingdown roots in the close-knit community. But even as Katie begins to fall in love,she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts her... Eventually, though, Katie realizes that a choice must be made between a life oftransient safety and one of riskier rewards.., and that in the darkest hour,love is the only true safe haven.

Mais qui est donc Merlin ? Enchanteur, diabolique, prophète etmagicien, il se cache sous des dehors inattendus et ne révèle savraie nature qu'aux hommes de bien. Il nous entra?ne à sa suitedans l'univers celtique du Moyen Age, monde merveilleux peuplé debelles dames et de dragons, où l'on croise le roi Arthur et leschevaliers de la Table ronde. --Ce texte fait référence à uneédition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Salander is plotting her revenge - against the man who tried to kill her, and against the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. But it is not going to be a straightforward campaign. After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in Intensive Care, and is set to face trial for three murders and one attempted murder on her eventual release. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his researchers at Millennium magazine, Salander must not only prove her innocence, but identify and denounce the corrupt politicians that have allowed the vulnerable to become victims of abuse and violence. Once a victim herself, Salander is now ready to fight back .

Since the series' inception in 1915, the annual volumes of TheBest American Short Stories have launched literary careers,showcased the most compelling stories of each year, and confirmedfor all time the significance of the short story in our nationalliterature. Now THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURYbrings together the best -- fifty-six extraordinary stories thatrepresent a century's worth of unsurpassed achievements in thisquintessentially American literary genre. This expanded editionincludes a new story from The Best American Short Stories 1999 toround out the century, as well as an index including every storypublished in the series. Of all the writers whose work has appearedin the series, only John Updike has been represented in each of thelast five decades, from his first appearance, in 1959, to his mostrecent, in 1998. Updike worked with coeditor Katrina Kenison tochoose the finest stories from the years since 1915. The result is"extraordinary . . . A one-volume literary history of thi

Myths Legends retells the stories central toevery culture that have been passed down from generation togeneration for thousands of years. Coverage extends from thewell-known tales of the Ancient Greeks, which hold the key to theorigin of such phrases as "Achille's heel," to the lesser-known,but richly colorful, myths of the Americas and the East. Topicspreads explore characters and stories in terms of their cultural,psychological, and religious meanings and show their power,purpose, and influence both in their own time and in today's world.Feature spreads visit the sacred sites that can still be seentoday, and underline the importance of themes that appear acrosscultures and through the centuries. In looking at such universalthemes as creation, heroic trials, tricksters' lessons, and deathand the afterlife, Myths Legends investigates howdifferent cultures have addressed questions such as How was theworld created? How did man learn to use fire? and Why do we growold?

Published in 1934, Tender Is the Night was one of the mosttalked-about books of the year. "It's amazing how excellent much ofit is," Ernest Hemingway said to Maxwell Perkins. "I will say now,"John O'Hara wrote Fitzgerald, "Tender Is the Night is in the earlystages of being my favorite book, even more than This Side ofParadise." And Archibald MacLeish exclaimed: "Great God,Scott...You are a fine writer. Believe it -- not me." Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Nightis the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and thestylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant youngpsychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband anddoctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not hisown, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise.A profound study of the romantic concept of character -- lyrical,expansive, and hauntingly evocative -- Tender Is the Night, MabelDodge Luhan remarked, raised F. Scott Fitzgerald to the heights of"a mode

I.The deliciously witty and delightfully dishy novel about life at a glamorous fashion magazine is now a major motion picture from 20th Century Fox, starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, set to open in theaters on June 30. II.The Devil Wears Prada The Devil Wears Prada is a 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger about a young woman who, fresh from college, gets a job working as a personal assistant to a powerful fashion magazine editor that turns increasingly hellish as she struggles to keep up with her boss's capricious and demeaning requests. The book was hugely successful, spending six months on the New York Times bestseller list. A prime example of "chick lit," the novel was widely seen as a roman à clef about Vogue magazine and its iconic editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, since Weisberger worked there as an intern. Although she denies the story's editor is modeled on Wintour, many readers believed otherwise, which helped propel the book to the bestseller list. A film based on the novel,

Set in Romania at the height of Ceauescu's reign of terror, The Land of Green Plums tells the story of a group of young people who leave the impoverished province for the city in search of better prospects and camaraderie. But their hopes are ravaged, because the city, no less than the countryside, bears everywhere the mark of the dictatorship's corrosive touch. All the narrator's friends—teachers and students of vaguely dissident allegiance—betray her, do away with themselves, or both. As they do so, we see the way the totalitarian state comes to inhabit every human realm and how everyone, even the strongest, must either bend to the oppressors or resist them and thereby perish. Herta Müller, herself a survivor of Ceausescu's police state, speaks from intimate experience. Scene by scene, in language at once harsh and poetic, she constructs a devastating picture of a society and a generation ruined by fear. In simple images of hieroglyphic power—policeman filling their pockets and mouths with green pl

The timeless tale continues... The most popular and belovedAmerican historical novel ever written, Margaret Mitchell's GoneWith the Wind is unparalleled in its portrayal of men and womenat once larger than life but as real as ourselves. Now bestsellingwriter Alexandra Ripley brings us back to Tara and reintroduces usto the characters we remember so well: Rhett, Ashley, Mammy,Suellen, Aunt Pittypat, and, of course, Scarlett. As the classicstory, first told over half a century ago, moves forward, thegreatest love affair in all fiction is reignited; amidst heartbreakand joy, the endless, consuming passion between Scarlett O'Hara andRhett Butler reaches its startling culmination. Rich with surprisesat every turn and new emotional, breathtaking adventures, Scarlett satisfies our longing to reenter the world of Gone With the Wind , and like its predecessor, Scarlett will find an eternal place in our hearts.