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The Emperor Hadrian writes a valedictory letter to Marcus Aurelius, his future successor. The Emperor meditates on his past, describing his accession, military triumphs, love of poetry and music, and the philosophy that informed his powerful and far-flung rule. This work recreates the life and death of one of the great rulers of the ancient world.

How do we see the world around us? The Penguin on Design series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever. Bruno Munari was among the most inspirational designers of all time, described by Picasso as the new Leonardo . Munari insisted that design be beautiful, functional and accessible, and this enlightening and highly entertaining book sets out his ideas about visual, graphic and industrial design and the role it plays in the objects we use everyday. Lamps, road signs, typography, posters, children s books, advertising, cars and chairs these are just some of the subjects to which he turns his illuminating gaze.

Steinbeck's first major critical and commercial success, TORTILLA FLAT is also his funniest novel. Danny is a paisano, descended from the original Spanish settlers who arrived in Monterey, California, centuries before. He values friendship abovemoney and possessions, so that when he suddently inherits two houses, Danny is quick to offer shelter to his fellow gentlemen of the road. Their love of freedom and scorn for material things draw them into daring and often hilarious adventures. Until Danny, tiring of his new reponsibilities, suddenly disappears...

The electrifying first novel from James Baldwin, whose life and words are immortalized in the Oscar-nominated film I Am Not Your Negro'I had to deal with what hurt me most. I had to deal with my father.'Drawing on James Baldwin's own boyhood in a religious community in 1930s Harlem, his first novel tells the story of young Johnny Grimes. Johnny is destined to become a preacher like his father, Gabriel, at the Temple of the Fire Baptized, where the church swells with song and it is as if 'the Holy Ghost were riding on the air'. But he feels only scalding hatred for Gabriel, whose fear and fanaticism lead him to abuse his family. Johnny vows that, for him, things will be different. This blazing tale is full of passion and guilt, of secret sinners and prayers singing on the wind. 'A beautiful, enduring, spirtual song of a novel' Andrew O'Hagan'With vivid imagery, with lavish attention to details, Mr. Baldwin has told his feverish story' The New York Times

Arthur Miller's classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692 - 'one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history' - and the McCarthyism which gripped America in the 1950s. The story of how the small community of Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia and malice, culminating in a violent climax, is a savage attack on the evils of mindless persecution and the terrifying power of false accusations.

All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others. Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organized to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges . . . Animal Farm the history of a rebellion that went wrong is George Orwell s brilliant satire on the corrupting influence of power.

A story of the troubled life of an introspective historian, Antoine Roquentin, and an exposition of one of the most influential and significant philosophical attitudes of modern times - existentialism. It chronicles Antoine's struggle with the realisation that he is an entirely free agent in a world devoid of meaning.

In this profound and moving philosophical statement, Camus poses the fundamental question: Is life worth living? If human existence holds no significance, what can keep us from suicide?As Camus argues, if there is no God to give meaning to our lives, humans must take on that purpose themselves. This is our 'absurd' task, like Sisyphus forever rolling his rock up a hill, as the inevitability of death constantly overshadows us. Written during the bleakest days of the Second World War, The Myth of Sisyphus argues for an acceptance of reality that encompasses revolt, passion and, above all, liberty.This volume contains several other essays, including lyrical evocations of the sunlit cities of Algiers and Oran, the settings of his great novels The Outsider and The Plague.Albert Camus is the author of a number of best-selling and highly influential works, all of which are published by Penguin. They include The Fall, The Outsider and The First Man. He is remembered as one of the few writers to have shaped the intellectual climate of post-war France, but beyond that, his fame has been international.Translated by Justin O'BrienWith an Introduction by James Wood

'Lolita is comedy, subversive yet divine ... You read Lolita sprawling limply in your chair, ravished, overcome, nodding scandalized assent' Martin Amis, ObserverPoet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love, 'to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets'. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these? Humbert Humbert's seduction is one of many dimensions in Nabokov's dizzying masterpiece, which is suffused with a savage humour and rich, elaborate verbal textures. Filmed by Stanley Kubrick in 1962 starring James Mason and Peter Sellers, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne starring Jeremy Irons and Melanie Griffith, Lolita has lost none of its power to shock and awe.

Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book and only Aureliano Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny.

Drifters in search of work, George and his childlike friend Lennie, have nothing in the world except the clothes on their back - and a dream that one day they will have some land of their own. Eventually they find work on a ranch in California's Salinas Valley, but their hopes are dashed as Lennie - struggling against extreme cruelty, misunderstanding and feelings of jealousy - becomes a victim of his own strength. Tackling universal themes of friendship and shared vision, and giving a voice to America's lonely and dispossessed, Of Mice and Men remains Steinbeck's most popular work, achieving success as a novel, Broadway play and three acclaimed films.

The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr Rieux, resist the terror.An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'Baldwin's ground-breaking second novel, which established him as one of the great American writers of his timeDavid, a young American in 1950s Paris, is waiting for his fianc e to return from vacation in Spain. But when he meets Giovanni, a handsome Italian barman, the two men are drawn into an intense affair. After three months David's fianc e returns and, denying his true nature, he rejects Giovanni for a 'safe' future as a married man. His decision eventually brings tragedy. Filled with passion, regret and longing, this story of a fated love triangle has become a landmark of gay writing. James Baldwin caused outrage as a black author writing about white homosexuals, yet for him the issues of race, sexuality and personal freedom were eternally intertwined.'Exquisite... a feat of fire-breathing, imaginative daring' Guardian'Excruciating beauty' San Francisco Chronicle 'Audacious... remarkable... elegant and courageous' Caryl Phillips

Presents a story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex. This novel presents a panorama of human life - from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction to the philosopher who becomes a pirate.

Exposes the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides. This book aims to creates public awareness of the environment.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Matilda by Roald Dahl, read by Kate Winslet. Matilda Wormwood is an extraordinary genius with really stupid parents. Miss Trunchbull is her terrifying headmistress who thinks all her pupils are rotten little stinkers. But Matilda will show these horrible grown-ups that even though shes only small, shes got some very powerful tricks up her sleeve . . . Kate Winslets award-winning and varied career has included standout roles in Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Finding Neverland, Revolutionary Road and The Reader, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Also a highly acclaimed voice artist, she received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for Listen to the Storyteller.

'A groundbreaking work . . . Federici has become a crucial figure for . . . a new generation of feminists' Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars RoomA cult classic since its publication in the early years of this century, Caliban and the Witch is Silvia Federici's history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages through the European witch-hunts, the rise of scientific rationalism and the colonisation of the Americas, it gives a panoramic account of the often horrific violence with which the unruly human material of pre-capitalist societies was transformed into a set of predictable and controllable mechanisms. It Is a study of indigenous traditions crushed, of the enclosure of women's reproductive powers within the nuclear family, and of how our modern world was forged in blood.'Rewarding . . . allows us to better understand the intimate relationship between modern patriarchy, the rise of the nation state and the transition from feudalism to capitalism' Guardian

'A fantasia of history and myth ... a strange and original work of art' The New York Times Book ReviewDescribed by John Steinbeck as 'the story of my country and the story of me', East of Eden is an epic, engrossing family saga.'There is only one book to a man' Steinbeck wrote of East of Eden. Set in the rich farmland of the Salinas Valley, California, this powerful, often brutal novel, follows the interwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations hopelessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of indentity; the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence.

A novel constructed around the last great poem of a fictional American poet, John Shade, and an account of his death. The poem appears in full and the narrative develops through the lengthy, and increasingly eccentric, notes by his posthumous editor.

Foucault shows the development of the Western system of prisons, police organizations, administrative and legal hierarchies for social control - and the growth of disciplinary society as a whole.

'How could such a book speak so powerfully to our present moment? The short answer is that we, too, live in dark times' Washington PostHannah Arendt's chilling analysis of the conditions that led to the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes is a warning from history about the fragility of freedom, exploring how propaganda, scapegoats, terror and political isolation all aided the slide towards total domination. 'A non-fiction bookend to Nineteen Eighty-Four' The New York Times'The political theorist who wrote about the Nazis and the 'banality of evil' has become a surprise bestseller' Guardian

Dr Felix Hoenikker is the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to mankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh.

Reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. In this title, the author's study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved.

One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World''Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past' Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps the most pervasively influential book of the twentieth century.

Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach ... Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby - young, handsome, fabulously rich - always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, though no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel.Contains explanatory notes and an introduction written by Tony Tanner.

The best-known of Shirley Jackson's novels and a major inspiration for writers like Neil Gaiman and Stephen King as well as the hit Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House is a chilling story of the power of fear'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna TarttAlone in the world, Eleanor is delighted to take up Dr Montague's invitation to spend a summer in the mysterious Hill House. Joining them are Theodora, an artistic 'sensitive', and Luke, heir to the house. But what begins as a light-hearted experiment is swiftly proven to be a trip into their darkest nightmares, and an investigation that one of their number may not survive. Twice filmed as The Haunting, and the inspiration for a 10-part Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House is a powerful work of slow-burning psychological horror.'An amazing writer ... If you haven't read her you have missed out on something marvellous' Neil Gaiman 'As nearly perfect a haunted-house tale as I have ever read' Stephen King'The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable' A. M. Homes 'Shirley Jackson is one of those highly idiosyncratic, inimitable writers...whose work exerts an enduring spell' Joyce Carol Oates