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'Powerful and poetic ... For anyone interested in the myth of Che Guevara ... this book is essential reading' Colm T ib n, Observer'We were an army of shadows, of ghosts, walking as if to the beat of some dark psychic mechanism...'The Cuban Revolution changed the course of the twentieth century. Following years of brutal tyranny and poverty, a band of idealistic young people fought against immense odds to overthrow a dictator and emerged victorious. This is the story of how they did it. Che Guevara's classic eyewitness account chronicles the transformation of a country, and of Che himself, from troop doctor to revolutionary icon.'Che's life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom' Nelson Mandela

'Stylish and stimulating' The TimesAgeing Hollywood star Marshall Stone is scared. Scared that the parts are drying up. Scared of being forgotten. So when he hears an eminent author is writing his biography, Stone siezes the chance of immortality. But painful memories and suppressed scandals soon threaten to destroy the carefully-constructed fiction of his life. Inspired by Len Deighton's own experiences of the film industry, Close-Up is a brilliant expos of the sleaze, venality and betrayals of the studio machine.'The richness, the sardonic humour, the wheeling and dealing ... the power of the book is undoubted' Evening Standard

'For sheer readability he has no peer' Evening StandardParis in the 1960's caters for every taste, and nowhere more than at the private 'clinic' run by the enigmatic Monsieur Datt on Avenue Foch, which supplies psychedelic drugs and sexual favours to the city's elite - all the while secretly filming guests in order to blackmail them. Into this decadent underworld steps a bespectacled British spy. Sent on what seems like a simple mission, he soon finds himself playing a game where the rules are unknown - and even victory could be fatal.'Take this excellent thriller at a single gulp' Sunday TimesA PATRICK ARMSTRONG NOVEL

'The sheer charge of the writing swept me into another world' The TimesDecember 1943. A group of US fighter pilots is camped at a windswept air base in Norfolk. Their job is to escort bombers over Germany, and each mission could be their last. Among them are cocky Lieutenant Mickey Morse (nicknamed 'Mickey Mouse'), who is almost on his way to becoming a Flying Ace, and reserved Captain Jamie Farebrother, who is starting to fall in love with an English woman. All they have in common is their courage - until the day their lives converge in ways they could never have imagined.'Truly astonishing in its recreation of a time and place ... it is a novel of memory, satisfying on every imaginable level' Washington Post

'Len Deighton's spy novels are so good they make me sad the Cold War is over' Malcolm GladwellAfter six weeks in a nuclear submarine gathering computer data on Soviet activity, the mysterious, bespectacled spy known as Patrick Armstrong is desperate to return home. But when he arrives at his London flat, it appears to be occupied by someone who looks just like him - and he finds himself propelled into the heart of a conspiracy stretching from the remote Scottish highlands to the Arctic ice. Revisiting some of the characters from The IPCRESS File, Spy Story shows military games played out for real, and the Cold War turning dangerously hot. 'Menacing, beguiling ... a vintage Len Deighton thriller' The Times Literary SupplementA PATRICK ARMSTRONG NOVEL

'The master at his peak' Daily TelegraphA Russian scientist is defecting to the West, in order to realize his dreams of contacting extra-terrestrial life among the stars. But when an insubordinate British agent and a top CIA operative are sent to the Sahara desert to bring him in, things don't go to plan. The result is a violent chase stretching across three continents, where loyalties - between spies, partners, nations and lovers - become fatally divided.'Classic, world-ranging, marvellously knowledgeable ... in a word, quality' The Times'Tightly and complicatedly plotted, so credible in detail' Financial TimesA PATRICK ARMSTRONG NOVEL

'A stunning spy story ... incomparable' GuardianIt is the most dangerous secret of the Second World War, one that could destroy Britain's reputation forever. In 1940, a clandestine meeting took place between Churchill and Adolf Hitler. All records of it have been hidden, and anyone who discovers the truth dies - their file stamped XPD; Expedient Demise. But now what was buried is threatening to come to light, and SIS agent Boyd Stuart must stop it falling into the wrong hands, no matter how high the price.'Deliciously sharp and flawlessly accurate dialogue, breathtakingly clever plotting ... a splendidly strongly told story' The Times

'Deighton at his best' Evening StandardSteve Champion - flamboyant businessman, former leader of an anti-Nazi network in the Second World War - is a man surrounded by mysteries. There are rumours he is still in the spying business. And suspicions that his fortune may be built on something nefarious; something he'd rather stayed secret. The Department are nervous, so Champion's oldest wartime ally is sent to the South of France to investigate. It's time to re-open the file on yesterday's spy, whatever the consequences. 'Tough, well-written and extremely readable' Daily MailA PATRICK ARMSTRONG NOVEL

'A book full of marvels' New YorkerThe American Deep South, in the 1970s. Velma Henry, once a formidable political activist, has grown weary and disillusioned with the fight for civil rights. She wants to end it all. But then she finds herself in the hands of a Black faith community, and the fabled healer Minnie Ransom. As she works through the rage and fear of her traumatic past, Velma finds herself changing, becoming whole and, maybe, free. The Salt Eaters is a boldly optimistic, profound exploration of memory, the self, power and Black health as liberation.'A hymn to individual courage' The Times Literary Supplement'Her characters inhabit the nonlinear, sacred space and sacred time of traditional African religion' The New York Times Book Review

'Fresh, timeless ... a lively work of art' Observer'Buchi Emecheta was the foremother of black British women's writing . . . powerful fictions written from and about our lives' Bernardine Evaristo 'Most dreams, as all dreamers know quite well, do have setbacks. Adah's dream was no exception, for hers had many'They nicknamed Adah 'the Igbo tigress' at school in Nigeria, she was so fearless. Now she has moved to London to join her husband, and is determined to succeed. But her welcome from 1960's England - and the man she married - is a cold one. Providing for her growing family, struggling to survive and negotiating everyday injustices along the way, Adah still resolves that she will never give up her dream of becoming a writer.'Bold, brave, defiant ... its exploration of blackness, the white gaze, and the development of the main character Adah's sense of self is extremely powerful' Gal-dem

A newly married woman longs, irrationally, for a silk umbrella; a husband chases away his wife's beloved cat; a betrayed mother impulsively sacks her housekeeper. Underneath the surface of these precisely observed tales of love, marriage and family life in mid-century Copenhagen pulse currents of desire, violence and despair, as women and men dream of escaping their conventional roles and finding freedom and happiness - without ever truly understanding what that might mean.

Machen's weird tales of the creepy and fantastic finally come to Penguin Classics. With an introduction from S.T. Joshi, editor of American Supernatural Tales, The White People and Other Weird Stories is the perfect introduction to the father of weird fiction. The title story "e;The White People"e; is an exercise in the bizarre leaving the reader disoriented and on edge. From the first page, Machen turns even fundamental truths upside-down, as his character Ambrose explains, "e;there have been those who have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done an 'ill deed'"e; setting the stage for a tale entirely without logic.

'Cracking another country's cipher is an undercover fight to the death...'Hidden deep in the mountains, the recruits at 'Unit 701', China's secret services, operate in a dark, shadowy world. There is the 'wind-listener', a blind surveillance officer who can hear sounds from miles away; the beautiful, unstable maths genius who meets a violent end; the old man who deciphers codes in his dreams; the spy who recounts a dangerous mission from beyond the grave.In this story of conspiracies, geniuses, revolutionaries and terrible moral choices, people sacrifice everything for a world of secrets - until, ultimately, it destroys them.

Decoded tells the story of Rong Jinzhwen, one of the great code-breakers in the world. A semi-autistic mathematical genius, Jinzhen is recruited to the cryptography department of China's secret services, Unit 701, where he is assigned the task of breaking the elusive 'Code Purple'. Jinzhen rises through the ranks to eventually become China's greatest and most celebrated code-breaker; until he makes a mistake. Then begins his descent through the unfathomable darkness of the world of cryptology into madness. Decoded was an immediate success when it was published in 2002 in China and has become an international bestseller. With the pacing of a literary crime thriller, Mai Jia's masterpiece also combines elements of historical fiction and state espionage. Taking place in the shadowy world of Chinese secret security, where Mai Jia worked for decades, it introduces us to a place that is unfamiliar, intriguing and authentic. And with Rong Jinzhen, it introduces us to a character who is deeply flawed and fragile, yet possessing exceptional intelligence. Decoded is an unforgettable and gripping story of genius, brilliance, insanity and human frailty.Mai Jia (the pseudonym of Jiang Benhu) is arguably the most successful writer in China today. His books are constant bestsellers, with total sales over three million copies. He became the highest paid author in China last year with his new book, Wind Talk. He has achieved unprecedented success with film adaptation: all of his novels are made - or are being made - into major films or TV series, the screenplays of which are often written by Mai Jia himself. He is hailed as the forerunner of Chinese espionage fiction, and has created a unique genre that combines spycraft, code-breaking, crime, human drama, historical fiction, and metafiction. He has won almost every major award in China, including the highest literary honor - the Mao Dun Award.

Part of the fabulous new hardback library of 24 Evelyn Waugh books, publishing in chronological order over the coming year. The books have an elegant new jacket and text design. Rossetti was Evelyn Waugh's first published book. It details the life and works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Waugh naturally offers his own critique of this magnanimous Victorian pre-raphelite.

'It's often said that books are compulsory reading, but this book really is compulsory. You cannot understand slavery, or British Empire, without it' Sathnam Sanghera Arguing that the slave trade was at the heart of Britain's economic progress, Eric Williams's landmark 1944 study revealed the connections between capitalism and racism, and has influenced generations of historians ever since.Williams traces the rise and fall of the Atlantic slave trade through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to show how it laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution, and how racism arose as a means of rationalising an economic decision. Most significantly, he showed how slavery was only abolished when it ceased to become financially viable, exploding the myth of emancipation as a mark of Britain's moral progress.'Its thesis is a starting point for a new generation of scholarship' New Yorker

'One of the greatest avant-garde Japanese writers of the twentieth century' - New YorkerBeautiful Star is a 1962 tale of family, love, nuclear war and UFOs, and was the novel Mishima considered to be his masterpiece. Translated into English for the first time, this atmospheric black comedy tells the story of the Osugi family, who come to the sudden realization that each of them hails from a different planet: Father from Mars, mother from Jupiter, son from Mercury and daughter from Venus. This extra-terrestrial knowledge brings them closer together, and convinces them that they have a mission: to find others of their kind, and save humanity from the imminent threat of the atomic bomb...

'Deighton really is something special' Sunday TimesLen Deighton's only collection of short stories explores the devastating experiences of ordinary soldiers across over two thousand years of war. From Hannibal's march on Rome to the American Civil War, and from a British Hurricane pilot in the Second World War to a modern conflict played out in the Mexican borderlands, each of these stories shows the effects of war on the human character, and how it can lead to extraordinary deeds, both great and terrible. 'Len Deighton is a fearless observer of the deceptive human world' John Gray

'Dazzling ingenuity and cleverness' IndependentThree con artists are on the make, and making millions. There's Silas, the leader, slick and self-assured; Liz, his glamorous lover; and Bob, the young cockney upstart (who's also falling for Liz). As this uneasy trio's swindles take them from New York high-rises to sixties London, corrupt governments to, finally, the ultimate con in the Middle East, will their luck start to run out?'For sheer readability he has no peer' Evening Standard

'Superbly edgy. Entertaining, full of good one-liners' Sunday TimesDowntown LA. Streetwise lawyer Mickey Murphy has a shabby office in a low-rent district, an ex who bleeds him dry and the kind of clients who would plead the Fifth if they could count that high. He's also been bought out by millionaire tycoon Zach Petrovitch - who just happens to be married to the love of Mickey's life. When she asks him for help, Mickey finds himself thrown into a world of Hollywood stars, shady schemes, riots - and murder.'Crime at its most entertaining, filled with lively dialogue' Sunday Telegraph'Deighton's ear for dialogue and eye for lunatic California are perfect' Sunday Express

One of the earliest warnings about climate change and one of environmentalism's lodestars'Nature, we believe, takes forever. It moves with infinite slowness,' begins the first book to bring climate change to public attention.Interweaving lyrical observations from his life in the Adirondack Mountains with insights from the emerging science, Bill McKibben sets out the central developments not only of the environmental crisis now facing us but also the terms of our response, from policy to the fundamental, philosophical shift in our relationship with the natural world which, he argues, could save us. A moving elegy to nature in its pristine, pre-human wildness, The End of Nature is both a milestone in environmental thought, indispensable to understanding how we arrived here.