Scottish World

Jenny Diski was a fearless writer, for whom no subject was too difficult, even her own cancer diagnosis. Her columns in the London Review of Books - selected here by her editor and friend Mary-Kay Wilmers, on subjects as various as death, motherhood, sexual politics and the joys of solitude - have been described as ‘virtuoso performances’ and ‘small masterpieces'. Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? is a collective interrogation of the universal experience from a very particular psyche.

Un lieu, quatre siècles, une odyssée audacieuse et irrésistible au cœur de l'histoire de la civilisation occidentale. Entre permanence de la nature, rêve et folie des hommes. Comment une petite dizaine d'individus du monde entier se sont-ils retrouvés à l'intérieur d'un minibus aux confins du Mexique, sur des routes brinquebalantes et en compagnie d'un chaman ?

The brilliant conclusion to the Palliser novels, this touching story follows the elderly Duke of Omnium, the former prime minister of England, as he struggles to overcome his grief at the loss of his beloved wife, Lady Glencora. To complicate matters, he must also deal with the willfulness of his three adult children as he tries to guide and support them - his plans for them are quite different from their own. While his two sons, sent down from university in disgrace, rack up gambling debts, the duke’s only daughter yearns to marry the poor son of a country squire.

It tells the tale of Frank Gresham and Mary Thorne, a couple intent on marriage despite their conflicting social backgrounds. Frank is engaged in a fierce battle with his family as his mother vehemently opposes the marriage and pushes him to marry a wealthy heiress; however, Frank shuns her attempts and is determined to accept Mary on her own terms.

His beloved wife having died in childbirth, Phineas Finn finds Irish society and his job as a poorhouse inspector dull and unsatisfying, particularly after the excitement of his former career as a Member of Parliament. Back in England, the Whigs are determined to overturn the Tory majority in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Since Finn had once been considered the most promising of the younger set, he is encouraged to run for office again. Bribery, romance, and murder are peppered throughout this Trollope novel.

Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell's last novel, is regarded by many as her masterpiece. Molly Gibson is the daughter of the doctor in the small provincial town of Hollingford. Her widowed father marries a second time to give Molly the woman's presence he feels she lacks, but until the arrival of Cynthia, her dazzling stepsister, Molly finds her situation hard to accept. Intertwined with the story of the Gibsons is that of Squire Hamley and his two sons.

In this beautiful collection, 20 outstanding writers set out with old memories and new adventures. ‘I’ve always hated walking,’ Harland Miller offers as his precis, while Ingrid Persaud and Agnes Poirier consider the rituals of pilgrimage and protest march. ‘It isn’t a walking city,’ Kamila Shamsie writes of Karachi, though she strides across it regardless. On the shores of Foulness Island, Will Self hopes to avoid landmines. In a forest north of Berlin, Jessica J. Lee gets soaked, then lost.

Now, Bram Stoker's Dracula - the pinnacle of Gothic horror for generations - rises again. When young English lawyer Jonathan Harker arrives in Transylvania on the eve of Saint George's Day, he cannot shake a strange feeling of uneasiness. The air grows colder as he arrives at his destination: the castle of Count Dracula. Jonathan has been summoned by the count for business, and while he finds his new host obliging and polite, he can't help but notice the man's pallid skin, odd lack of appetite, and long daytime absences.

First love. First heartbreak. First snow. First Snow is a stand-alone single mum reverse harem romance from international best-selling author, Hanleigh Bradley. Three brothers. One childhood sweetheart. There's only two things the Stedman brothers have in common; Lexie O'Neill and their pact to avoid her. It's been almost 10 years since Kendall, Fletcher and Bailey last spoke to Lexie and a lot of things have changed in that time. But this Christmas, the pact might just get broken, but can the Stedman brothers reignite Lexie's belief in the magic of the first snow.

Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move from Transylvania to England so he may find new blood and spread the undead curse. It then relates the epic battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

Zahvatyvayushchaya istoriya o Maugli, mal'chike, vospitannom volkami i prochimi obitatelyami dzhungley, ego blizost' k miru zhivotnyh, a takzhe dramaticheskie otnosheniya s lyud'mi, k kotorym on vse-taki vynuzhden vernut'sya; udivit'sya hrabrosti malen'kogo otvazhnogo mangusta Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, vstupivshego v edinoborstvo s kobrami; ocenit' muzhestvo i uporstvo belogo kotika, reshivshego obespechit' svoim sobrat'yam bezopasnuyu zhizn'.

AVA : 22 ans, mal dans sa peau, récemment installée à Hong Kong. Enseigne la grammaire anglaise à de riches écoliers pour un salaire de misère, a un fort accent irlandais et déteste ses colocataires. JULIAN : Banquier. Anglais. Cynique. Aime plutôt bien Ava, la couvre de cadeaux et lui propose très vite de s'installer dans la chambre d'amis de son luxueux appartement de fonction. EDITH : Ambitieuse et brillante. Avocate. Rencontre Ava alors que Julian est à l'étranger. Et c'est là que tout devient plus excitant.

Робинзон Крузо - это даже не книга и не персонаж, а нечто большее: человек-миф, от века к веку он существует, обрастая легендами. Перед нами жизнь сильного человека; пример человеческих возможностей, концентрации духовных и физических сил.

In May 1987, Jackie Benton received a heartbreaking phone call from her boyfriend, Sean Hardy, bringing an end to their five-year relationship. He’d fallen for a fellow student at Exeter University. Sean and Jackie would never see each other again. Thirty-three years later, Sean returns to his home town. There, he inadvertently discovers what became of Jackie Benton.

Увлекательная история о приключениях человека, чудом выжившего после кораблекрушения и волею судьбы оказавшегося на острове, который он посчитал необитаемым, появилась на свет в 1719 году. Эта книга стала первым романом шестидесятилетнего публициста и коммерсанта Даниэля Дефо.

En Angleterre, de nos jours. Meg et Grace Nichols, ce sont peu les pierres angulaires qui cimentent le petit village de pêcheurs d'Ashford, dans les Cornouailles. Tout le monde aime et aide cette mère célibataire qui a tout sacrifié pour prendre soin, seule, de sa fille Grace, une ado lourdement handicapée et totalement dépendante. Jusqu'à ce matin d'été : Meg est découverte assassinée dans son lit ; de Grace, il ne reste que le fauteuil roulant, abandonné dans le jardin.

Andy Bellows is in a right state. Plagued with insomnia, anxiety and neckache, he’s convinced there’s something seriously wrong with him. And the worst thing is that his doctor agrees. The diagnosis: Andy is in the grip of a self-destructive addiction to technology - he just cannot put that bloody mobile phone down. Texting, tweeting, gaming and online dating - technology rules Andy’s life. His phone even monitors his bowel movements. So how will he cope when he’s forced to follow doctor’s orders and step away from all of his beloved screens?

La liberté est une chose précieuse... Un roman campé à Londres, en pleine époque victorienne, où il est question d'amour, d'art, d'obsession et de possession. Londres, 1850. L'Exposition universelle va bientôt ouvrir ses portes dans le tout nouveau Crystal Palace, et les badauds se pressent déjà dans Hyde Park pour venir admirer cette merveille. Parmi eux, Iris, une modeste employée dans un magasin de poupées, à la beauté mâtinée de difformité, qui rêve de devenir artiste peintre.

Zuleika Dobson, internationally famous prestidigitator visits her grandfather, the Warden of Judas College, Oxford. But Zuleika, "though not strictly beautiful" is a devastatingly attractive young woman, and proves utterly irresistible among the all-male undergraduate body - including the snobbish and trend-setting young Duke of Dorset. Thus begins a chain of events that culminates in a very watery end to the Eights Week boat races...

Between the years of 1762 and 1763, James Boswell kept a journal of his time in London. During his time, he met the renowned writer, moralist, and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, with whom Boswell would form a close relationship. This account, told with much detail and candor, was one of the various journals written by Boswell, but it is the journal that has undergone the least amount of censorship, leading it, and the racy material within, to be deemed a best seller upon publication.