'The French master of noir' ObserverIt felt like the slipknot on a rope round my chest was being tightened without pityTrouble is the last thing Albert needs. Travelling back to his childhood home on Christmas Eve to mourn his mother's death, he finds the loneliness and nostalgia of his Parisian quartier unbearable... Until, that evening, he encounters a beautiful, seemingly innocent woman at a brasserie, and his spirits are lifted.Still, something ...

The Great Wall—the most imposing manifestation of Chinese frontier history—crosses a vast territory subject to political, environmental and climatic instabilities that the volume approaches as mutually conditioning, focusing on the Ordos region. This has been a central point of contact between sedentary East Asian and nomadic Inner Asian peoples throughout Chinese premodern history (500 BCE-1800). The contributors emphasize the significance of human-natural interaction affecting environmen...

There's a lot of good to be said about publishing, mainly about the food. The books, though - Robert Dubois feels as if he's read the books, but still they keep coming back to him, the same old books just by new authors. Maybe he's ready to settle into the end of his career, like it's a tipsy afternoon after a working lunch. But then he is confronted with a gift: a piece of technology, a gizmo, a reader...Dear Reader takes a wry, affectionate look at the world of publishing...

The first novel which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands.But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man. His firm muscles filled out his jacket and quickly pulled all ...

A new translation by David Bellos of the last great novel by France’s greatest novelistIn the turmoil of the French Revolution, the year 1793 represented the peak of bloody revolutionary violence. Victor Hugo plunges into this tumultuous period with a story of courage and betrayal across the political classes. As the revolution rages, three characters – a nobleman turned revolutionary, a devoted mother, and a zealous commander – find their fates intertwined in a st...

'I remember hula hoops.''I remember Hermes handbags, with their tiny padlocks.''I remember that Stendhal liked spinach.''I remember that I dreamed of one day having all 57 varieties of Heinz.'Both an affectionate portrait of mid-century Paris and a daring memoir, Georges Perec's I Remember is now available for the first time in English, with an introduction by David Bellos.In 480 numbered statements, all beginning identically with 'I remember',...

A long-suffering employee in a big corporation has summoned up the courage to ask for a raise. But as he runs through the looming encounter in his mind, his neuroses come to the surface: What is the best day to see the boss? What if he doesn't offer you a seat when you go into his office?The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise is a hilarious account of an employee losing his identity-and possibly his sanity-as he tries to put on the most acceptable face for the corporate w...

During the Second World War, a young boy witnesses his hometown in Albania fall to a series of invaders: first Italian fascists, then the Greeks, the Italians once again and finally Nazi hordes. Amid floods and bombings, he undergoes another kind of turbulence - growing up.Chronicle in Stone is an early masterpiece from the winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize and one of the most significant European writers of the last fifty years.

Copyright is everywhere. Your smartphone incorporates thousands of items of intellectual property. Someone owns the reproduction rights to photographs of your dining table. At this very moment, battles are raging over copyright in the output of artificial intelligence programs. Not only books but wallpaper, computer programs and cuddly toys are now deemed to be intellectual properties - making copyright a labyrinthine construction of laws, covering almost all products of human creativity.

Introducing Inspector Maigret, the literary character behind the major ITV drama starring Rowan AtkinsonThe first four titles from the new Penguin Inspector Maigret series: Pietr the Latvian, The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien, The Carter of La Providence and The Grand Banks Cafe.Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations.'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray'One of the grea...

In this frightening and surprising novel, the eccentric, wayward genius of Commissaire Adamsberg is pitted against the deep-rooted mysteries of one Alpine village's history and a very present problem: wolves.Disturbing things have been happening up in the French mountains; more and more sheep are being found with their throats torn out. The evidence points to a wolf of unnatural size and strength. However Suzanne Rosselin thinks it is the work of a werewolf. Then S...

'Beautiful and deep ... a sumptuous treat for any book lover' The Independent**'F**ood for short story lovers everywhere' Irish Times*A major celebration of the French short story and Spectator Book of the Year*The short story has a rich tradition in French literature. This feast of an anthology celebrates its most famous practitioners, as well as newly translated writers ...