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The Snow Queen
The Snow Queen
Michael Cunningham
¥66.22
‘Luminously written … page-turningly enjoyable, this is a profound novel about love from a highly regarded, Pulitzer-winning novelist’ Sunday Times Walking through Central Park, Barrett Meeks sees a translucent light in the sky that regards him in a distinctly godlike way. Barrett doesn’t believe in visions – or in God – but he can’t deny what he’s seen. In nearby Brooklyn, Tyler, Barrett’s older brother, is trying – and failing – to write a wedding song for Beth, his wife-to-be, who is seriously ill. Barrett turns unexpectedly to religion, while Tyler grows convinced that only drugs can release his creative powers. The Snow Queen, beautiful and heartbreaking, comic and tragic, proves again that Cunningham is one of the great novelists of his generation.
The Twisted Citadel: Book Two of the Darkglass Mountain Trilogy
The Twisted Citadel: Book Two of the Darkglass Mountain Trilogy
Sara Douglass
¥66.22
Sara Douglass has won legions of fans around the world for her epic tales of sorcery, forbidden love, and heart-pounding action. Now, with the DarkGlass Mountain saga, she reveals her biggest adventure yet. Tencendor is no more. The land is gone. But a few Sunsoars still remain, and a new foe walks the world. Three new heroes have stepped forward: Ishbel Brunelle, priestess of the Serpent Coil; Isaiah, the Tyrant of Isembaard; and Maximillian, the Lord of Elcho Falling. Yet despite their best efforts, the dark god Kanubai has risen. And worse yet, war approaches, as the Darkglass Mountain has raised a vaste horde to ravage the land. As the trio struggle to keep their supporters and alliances alive, the Sunsoars have their own challenges…including the chance to finally rejoin the magical Star Dance, and the appearance of the Lealfast, long-lost kin to the Icarii who may be friends…or deadly enemies. As tensions rise between the two races, Axis Sunsoar revives his elite Strike Force in a desperate bid to stop the darkness.
Concrete Island
Concrete Island
J. G. Ballard,Neil Gaiman
¥66.22
A chilling novel that pays twisted homage to Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. Newly reissued with an introduction from Neil Gaiman. Robert Maitland, a 35 year-old architect, is driving home from his London offices when a blow-out sends his speeding Jaguar hurtling out of control. Smashing through a temporary barrier he finds himself, dazed and disorientated, on a traffic island below three converging motorways. But when he tries to climb the embankment or flag-down a passing car for help it proves impossible - and he finds himself imprisoned on the concrete island. Maitland must survive using only what he can find in his crashed car. As in all Ballard’s best work ‘Concrete Island’ provides an unnerving study of our modern lives and world. With his alienating, ‘Ballardian’ view of normal events, this is a unique novel from one of the twentieth century’s finest writers. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Zadie Smith, Adam Philips, Adam Thirlwell and Robert Macfarlane) and brand-new cover designs from the artist Stanley Donwood.
The Loss of Leon Meed
The Loss of Leon Meed
Josh Emmons
¥66.22
‘Josh Emmons is the real deal: a major league prose writer who has fun in every sentence; you want to keep reading him for the pure pleasure of his company’ Jonathan Franzen Over the course of one December, ten residents of Eureka, California, are brought together by a mysterious man, Leon Meed, who repeatedly and inexplicably appears – in the ocean, at a local music club, clinging to the roof of a barrelling truck, standing in the middle of Main Street’s oncoming traffic – and then, as if by magic, disappears. Each witness to these bewildering events – young and old, married and single, punk and evangelical, black, white and Korean – interprets them differently, yet all of their lives are irrevocably changed. Over time, these ten characters, previously only tenuously connected, form a strange community of shared experience. Highly original and brilliantly written, Josh Emmons’s award-winning debut is a mystery, a love story and something else entirely.
Hero Born (Seeds of Destiny, Book 1)
Hero Born (Seeds of Destiny, Book 1)
Andy Livingstone
¥66.22
It’s in the darkest hour, when all hope is lost, that heroes are born. After witnessing the deaths of everyone he holds dear, Brann is wrenched from his family home and thrust into a life of slavery. Now he must do everything he can to survive. Miles away, word is spreading of a growing evil; a deposed and forgotten Emperor is seeking a weapon to use in his bid to rise once again to power. Ruthless and determined, nothing and no one can stand in his way. Especially not a galley slave like Brann. But heroes can be forged in the most unlikely of ways, and Brann’s journey has only just begun.
An Act of Mercy
An Act of Mercy
J. J. Durham
¥66.22
A thrilling tale of murder and intrigue in Victorian London, featuring Detective Harry Pilgrim. Perfect for fans of Ripper Street and The Mangle Street Murders. London 1850. A city of contrasts. Of scientific marvels, poverty, disease and death. When Detective Sergeant Harry Pilgrim (one of London’s first police detectives) discovers the corpse of a woman in a Hackney cab, the case seems straightforward – until the only suspect is found murdered in his cell. Pilgrim is hindered in his investigation by his own dark past – a dead son and a missing wife – and also by the well-meaning interference of Charles Dickens, who is serialising Pilgrim's adventures in his journal 'Household Words'. The case turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse. But who is the cat and who the mouse?
Darkhaven (The Darkhaven Novels, Book 1)
Darkhaven (The Darkhaven Novels, Book 1)
A. F. E. Smith
¥66.22
Ayla Nightshade never wanted to rule Darkhaven. Yet her half-brother Myrren hasn’t inherited the family’s ability to shapeshift, so their father, Florentyn, forces Ayla to take over as heir to the throne. When Ayla is accused of Florentyn’s brutal murder only Myrren believes her innocent and aids her escape. A fugitive from her own guard, Ayla must now fight to clear her name if she is ever to wear the crown she never wanted and be allowed to return to the home she has always loved. But does something more sinister than the power to shapeshift lie at the heart of the Nightshade family line?
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell
J. R. R. Tolkien,Christopher Tolkien
¥66.22
The translation of Beowulf by J.R.R. Tolkien was an early work, very distinctive in its mode, completed in 1926: he returned to it later to make hasty corrections, but seems never to have considered its publication. This edition is twofold, for there exists an illuminating commentary on the text of the poem by the translator himself, in the written form of a series of lectures given at Oxford in the 1930s; and from these lectures a substantial selection has been made, to form also a commentary on the translation in this book. From his creative attention to detail in these lectures there arises a sense of the immediacy and clarity of his vision. It is as if he entered into the imagined past: standing beside Beowulf and his men shaking out their mail-shirts as they beached their ship on the coast of Denmark, listening to the rising anger of Beowulf at the taunting of Unferth, or looking up in amazement at Grendel’s terrible hand set under the roof of Heorot. But the commentary in this book includes also much from those lectures in which, while always anchored in the text, he expressed his wider perceptions. He looks closely at the dragon that would slay Beowulf ‘snuffling in baffled rage and injured greed when he discovers the theft of the cup’; but he rebuts the notion that this is ‘a mere treasure story’, ‘just another dragon tale’. He turns to the lines that tell of the burying of the golden things long ago, and observes that it is ‘the feeling for the treasure itself, this sad history’ that raises it to another level. ‘The whole thing is sombre, tragic, sinister, curiously real. The “treasure” is not just some lucky wealth that will enable the finder to have a good time, or marry the princess. It is laden with history, leading back into the dark heathen ages beyond the memory of song, but not beyond the reach of imagination.’ Sellic Spell, a ‘marvellous tale’, is a story written by Tolkien suggesting what might have been the form and style of an Old English folk-tale of Beowulf, in which there was no association with the ‘historical legends’ of the Northern kingdoms.
Green Glowing Skull
Green Glowing Skull
Gavin Corbett
¥66.22
A breathtakingly original, darkly comic, surprisingly contemporary and deeply surreal tale from the author of THIS IS THE WAY, Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year. After fleeing his dying parents and the drudgery of work in Dublin for the Manhattan of his imagination – a place of romance and opulence, dark old concert halls and mellow front parlours quieted by the hiss of the phonograph cylinder – Rickard Velily hopes to be reborn as an Irish tenor, and to one day be reunited with the love of his life. At the very peculiar Cha Bum Kun Club, a masonic-style refuge for immigrants who can’t quite cut it in New York City, he meets Denny Kennedy-Logan and Clive Sullis, and a plan is enacted: to revive the art songs and ballads of another time for a hip young city in thrall to technology and money. But that is without reckoning on meddlesome sprites, the phantoms of the past – and more malign forces who plot to subjugate the human race. Green Glowing Skull is a half-crazed brain-shunt of a trip around the spirit world, the cyber world and a woozily recognisable real world – a darkly comic tale of mythologies, machines and the metaphysical swirl.
Graynelore
Graynelore
Stephen Moore
¥66.22
Rogrig Wishard is a killer, a liar and a thief. Rogrig is the last person the fey would turn to for help. But they know something he doesn’t. In a world without government or law, where a man’s loyalty is to his family and faerie tales are strictly for children, Rogrig is not happy to discover that he’s carrying faerie blood. Especially when he starts to see them wherever he goes. To get his life back, he’s going to have to journey further from home than he’s ever been before and find out what the fey could possibly want from him. But that’s easier said than done when the punishment for abandoning your family is death.
Grim Tidings (Wolves of Llisé, Book 2)
Grim Tidings (Wolves of Llisé, Book 2)
Nancy K. Wallace
¥66.22
Book two in the sumptuous Wolves of Llisé trilogy. As the son of Llisé’s ruler, Devin Roché knows its laws only too well. It’s a land where keeping historical records is forbidden. To do so would mean imprisonment – or death. Only bards may share the histories of their provinces, but Devin’s quest to learn from them ended in tragedy. His best friend Gaspard has been kidnapped, Master Bards are being murdered and whole communities are disappearing. Clearly someone doesn’t want Devin to know the true history of Llisé. With his guard Marcus and a wolf pack for protection, Devin sets out to discover the truth. But as terrible secrets come to light, Devin realizes that some knowledge can be deadly.
Unexpected Rain (The Dome Trilogy, Book 1)
Unexpected Rain (The Dome Trilogy, Book 1)
Jason LaPier
¥66.22
In a domed city on a planet orbiting Barnard's Star, a recently hired maintenance man named Kane has just committed murder. Minutes later, the airlocks on the neighbourhood block are opened and the murderer is asphyxiated along with thirty-one innocent residents. Jax, the lowly dome operator on duty at the time, is accused of mass homicide and faced with a mound of impossible evidence against him. His only ally is Runstom, the rogue police officer charged with transporting him to a secure off-world facility. The pair must risk everything to prove Jax didn’t commit the atrocity and uncover the truth before they both wind up dead.
Beasts Royal: Twelve Tales of Adventure
Beasts Royal: Twelve Tales of Adventure
Patrick O’Brian
¥66.22
Beasts Royal is the second book written by Patrick O’Brian – made available, at last, for the first time since the 1930s and elegantly repackaged. On the indigo waters of the South Sea, the crew of a schooner are attacked by a man-eating tiger-shark. In the humid depths of the African jungle, a thirty-foot python plots to rid himself of his rival, a wily old crocodile. Amid the heat and dust of the Punjab, the snake-charmer Hussein escapes into the forest on the elephant that he trained when a mahout in his youth. With the dry wit and unsentimental precision O’Brian would come to be loved for, we see the drama and tragedies of the natural world unfold for these, as well as other birds and beasts, in these twelve tales of animal adventure that would appear together in 1934 as the author’s second book. O’Brian’s debut, Caesar, had been published in 1930 and became an instant success, seeing him hailed as the ‘boy-Thoreau’. His second novel, Hussein, would expand upon one of the stories included in this collection and has been praised by Martin Booth of The Daily Telegraph as being ‘…as fresh today as when it was written.…so rich in detail, it is breathtaking.’ As with Caesar and Hussein, Beasts Royal sheds fascinating light on the formation of the literary genius behind the Aubrey-Maturin series of historical adventure tales, for which he is deservedly famous.
Supervision
Supervision
Alison Stine
¥66.22
Something is wrong with Esmé. Kicked out of school in New York, her sister sends her to live with their grandmother in the small town she hasn’t visited since she was a child. But something is wrong with the grandmother Ez hasn’t seen for years; she leaves the house at midnight, carrying a big black bag. Something is wrong with her grandmother’s house, a decrepit mansion full of stray cats, stairs that lead to nowhere and beds that unmake themselves. Something is wrong in the town where a child disappears every year, where a whistle sounds at night but no train arrives. And something is definitely wrong with her cute and friendly neighbour with black curls and ice-blue eyes: he’s dead.
Ignite the Shadows (Ignite the Shadows, Book 1)
Ignite the Shadows (Ignite the Shadows, Book 1)
Ingrid Seymour
¥66.22
Sixteen-year-old Marci Guerrero is one of the best teen hackers in Seattle. However, she’d give up all her talents to know she isn’t crazy. Marci feels possessed by shadowy spectres that take control of her body and make her do crazy things. While spying on the clandestine group known as IgNiTe, she is confronted by their mysterious leader, James McCray. His presence stirs the spectres inside her brain into a maddening frenzy. Her symptoms and ability to control them don’t go unnoticed by James, who soon recruits her. As IgNiTe reveals its secrets, Marci starts to realise that half the world’s population is infected with sentient parasites, which are attacking and eventually supplanting the human brain. Now Marci wishes she was crazy, because this truth is far worse . . .
A Wild Swan: And Other Tales
A Wild Swan: And Other Tales
Michael Cunningham,Yuko Shimizu
¥66.22
A poisoned apple and a monkey’s paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan’s wing; and a house constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away―the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder―are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. Reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.
The Tree Climber’s Guide
The Tree Climber’s Guide
Jack Cooke
¥66.22
`After I finished this book I alarmed my family by going into the garden and climbing the apple tree.' - Damian Whitworth, The Times`One of the publishing sensations of the year ... For anyone who has ever felt a little overwhelmed in a big city, or wanted to step out of the rat race for an hour or two, Jack Cooke will be something of an inspiration.' - Robert Hardman, Daily MailA wonderful cocktail of engaging writing, beautiful illustration and heartfelt appreciation for the natural world. An essential oddity for any book collection.In this charming, witty and exquisitely illustrated companion, Jack Cooke explores the city through its canopy; teetering on the edge of an oak's branches, scurrying up a Scots pine, spying views from the treetops that few have ever had the chance to see. He takes us through the parks, over the canals and rivers and into secret gardens on his journey sometimes only ten foot above the street.Part guidebook, part meditation on the consolations of nature, The Tree Climber's Guide is as uniquely odd, alluring and motley as the trees themselves. It is a journey into the tangle of bark and branches that surround us all and a welcome reminder that the best things in life are free - they just sometimes require a step in the right direction.
Behold the Dreamers
Behold the Dreamers
Imbolo Mbue
¥66.22
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty-and Jende is eager to please. Clark's wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses' summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future. However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers' fa?ades. When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende's job-even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.
Shadow (The Romany Outcasts Series, Book 2)
Shadow (The Romany Outcasts Series, Book 2)
Christi J. Whitney
¥66.22
The second volume in this incredible YA trilogy. When stone hearts break they shatter. Sebastian Grey used to be a normal teenager. Now he’s a creature whose sole purpose is to be a guardian for secretive gypsy clans. When the Romany gypsies need his help, Sebastian is given a second chance to protect Josephine Romany – the girl he loves. But this is no easy task when some of them think he’s as bad as the shadow creatures attacking their camp. Yet to keep Josephine safe, Sebastian might have to embrace his darker side. Even if that means choosing between his humanity and becoming the monster everyone believes him to be.
Dangerous Women Part 2
Dangerous Women Part 2
George R.R. Martin,Gardner Dozois
¥66.22
Dangerous Women Vol. 2, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, includes stories by Lev Grossman, Sharon Kay Penman, S. M. Stirling, Sam Sykes, Caroline Spector, and Nancy Kress, and features an entirely new 28,000-word "Outlander" novella by New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon.
Death of an Effendi (Mamur Zapt, Book 12)
Death of an Effendi (Mamur Zapt, Book 12)
Michael Pearce
¥66.22
Shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Award for best historical crime novel, this is an engrossing murder mystery set in the Egypt of the 1900s, featuring the inimitable Mamur Zapt. It’s 1909, and Cairo is the murder capital of the world. But the death of an effendi is something different. Effendis – the Egyptian elite – are important. Especially if they happen to be foreign. When effendi Tvardovsky is shot in Crocodilopolis, the ancient City of the Crocodiles, Mamur Zapt – Chief of Cairo’s Secret Police – is called in to investigate. But sometimes it’s best not to ask any questions. And there are powerful people who might prefer Tvardovsky dead…