Showing titles in Political

Bruce Chatwin's best-selling novel traces the fortunes of the enigmatic and unconventional hero, Kaspar Utz. Despite the restrictions of Cold War Czechoslovakia, Utz asserts his individuality through his devotion to his precious collection of Meissen porcelain. Although Utz is permitted to leave the country each year, and considers defecting each time, he is not allowed to take his porcelain with him and so he always returns to his Czech home, a prisoner both of the Communist state and of his collection.

From the shattered empire, five kingdoms are emerging. Seleukos, triumphant in the capture of Babylon, now faces the challenge of holding onto his hard-won prize. One-eyed Antigonos and his son are newly reconciled and both hungry for revenge. But Antigonos has foes of his own. Driven by vengeance, widowed Artonis sides with Ptolemy, planning to thwart the one-eyed brute. The key to their success is Herakles, the sixteen-year-old illegitimate son of Alexander. To see him crowned, they will not only need an army but also to eliminate Kassandros, a powerful rival.

Just a generation ago this place was called America. Now, after the worldwide implementation of UN-lead program called Agenda 21, it's simply known as the 'Republic'. There is no president. No congress. No Supreme Court. No freedom. There are only the Authorities. Citizens have two primary goals in the new Republic: to create clean energy and to create new human life. Those who cannot do either are of no use to society. This bleak and barren existence is all that 18-year-old Emmeline has ever known.

The three main characters in the novel are swept up in the violence during these turbulent years. One is a young boy from a poor village who is employed at a university lecturer's house. The other is a young middle-class woman, Olanna, who has to confront the reality of the massacre of her relatives. And the third is a white man, a writer who lives in Nigeria for no clear reason, and who falls in love with Olanna's twin sister, a remote and enigmatic character.

Telluria is set in the future, when a devastating holy war between Europe and Islam has succeeded in returning the world to the torpor and disorganization of the Middle Ages. Europe, China, and Russia have all broken up. The people of the world now live in an array of little nations that are like puzzle pieces, each cultivating its own ideology or identity, a neo-feudal world of fads and feuds, in which no one power dominates.

The long-awaited sequel to Exit Unicorns opens in the autumn of 1969. Casey and Pamela Riordan have fled the erupting violence of Belfast, Northern Ireland, only to find themselves tangled in the web of political corruption that permeates South Boston. Here, a man's life can hang upon the whim of another, and neighborhood politics and organized crime are one and the same.

A queen of punk before her time. A duo on the brink of stardom. A night that will define their story for ever. Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, a Black punk artist before her time. Despite her unconventional looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her one night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of On the Bright Side by Hendrik Groen, read by Patrick Ryecart. Everyone's favourite octogenarian is back and - together with the Old-But-Not-Dead Club - is more determined than ever to wreak havoc. After a year mourning the death of his beloved friend Eefje, Hendrik picks up his pen once again to chronicle the goings on both inside his care home and in the increasingly confusing world outside.

The theme that unites these stories in this dazzling first collection by Curtis Sittenfeld is how even the cleverest people tend to misread others and how much we all deceive ourselves. Sharp and tender, funny and wise, this collection shows Sittenfeld’s knack for creating real, believable characters while also skewering contemporary mores with brilliant dry wit.

Four gripping historical dramas centred around key figures who shaped America in the 20th century. Award-winning writer Mike Walker has created many acclaimed docudramas and historical dramas for Radio 4, including The Stuarts, Tsar, Caesar! and Plantagenet. This collection includes four nuanced dramas featuring a trio of controversial men who stamped their mark on American history: J Edgar Hoover, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Baines Nixon. Among the casts are William Hootkins, Bob Sherman, Lorelei King, Nathan Osgood and Alex Lanipekun.

La última novela de Almudena Grandes. En un mundo perfecto de felicidad obligatoria, denunciar la mentira puede costarte la vida. España en un futuro próximo. Un nuevo partido político llamado Movimiento Ciudadano ¡Soluciones Ya! ha arrasado en las elecciones. Quien lo dirige en la sombra es un empresario de éxito que propugna que el Consejo de Ministros funcione como un consejo de administración, y que tiene proyectos ambiciosos para arreglar el país.

RESUяяECTION is a diary from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson starting in July 2020, three months after the nurses (whose name he forgets) saved his life. With a daily entry over these months of rehabilitation for himself and the country, the diary is an explosive, addicting, imagined exposé of what is really happening at the height of power as Boris, the UK, and the world recover from COVID-19. And events quickly send Boris down a murky and dangerous pathway in search of eternal life.

Focussing on three of the best-known Republican presidents of the 20th century, Jonathan Myerson’s riveting drama series looks at how their triumphs and disasters drove the party's electoral fortunes. Closely based on accounts by those who were there, this political trilogy reimagines the pivotal moments that changed history, and the part played by these famous and controversial leaders.

The long years of near-utopia have come to an abrupt end. Peace and order are now figments of the past. Corruption, deception, and insurgency humwithin the once steadfast leadership of the Hives, nations without fixed location.

Jonathan Abernathy is a loser. Unemployed and behind on his student loan repayments, the only thing Abernathy has in abundance is debt. When a secretive government loan forgiveness programme offers him a job he can literally do in his sleep, Abernathy thinks he’s found his big break. Hired as a dream auditor, he finds himself entering the dreams of white-collar workers to flag their anxieties for removal at night so they'll be more productive in the day. If Abernathy can at least appear competent, might he have a chance at a new life?

A community of Black faith healers witness an event that will change their lives forever in this novel set in a fictional city in the American South. Though they all united in their search for the healing properties of salt, some of them are centered, some are off-balance; some are frightened, and some are daring. From the men who live off welfare women to the mud mothers who carry their children in their hides, the novel brilliantly explores the narcissistic aspect of despair and the tremendous responsibility that comes with physical, spiritual, and mental well-being.

In a future of near-instantaneous global travel, of abundant provision for the needs of all, a future in which no one living can remember an actual war, a long era of stability threatens to come to an abrupt end. For known only to a few, the leaders of the great Hives, nations without fixed location, have long conspired to keep the world stable, at the cost of just a little blood. A few secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction can ever dominate, and the balance holds. And yet the balance is beginning to give way.

Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, Southern India, The God of Small Things tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Amongst the vats of banana jam and heaps of peppercorns in their grandmother’s factory, they try to craft a childhood for themselves amidst what constitutes their family: their lonely, lovely mother; their beloved Uncle Chacko (pickle baron, radical Marxist, and bottom-pincher); and their avowed enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grand-aunt).

As the decisions made in the corridors of power bring the world to the brink of oblivion, five families from across the globe are brought together in an unforgettable tale of passion and conflict during the Cold War. When Rebecca Hoffmann, a teacher in East Germany, finds herself pursued by the secret police, she discovers that she has been living a lie. Her younger brother, Walli, longs to escape across the Berlin Wall to Britain to become part of the burgeoning music scene.

For months, Mitch Rapp has been steadily working his way through a list of men, bullet by bullet. With each kill, the tangled network of monsters responsible for the slaughter of 270 civilians becomes increasingly clear. He is given his next target: a plump Libyan diplomat who is prone to drink and is currently in Paris without a single bodyguard. Rapp finds him completely unprotected and asleep in his bed. With confidence in his well-honed skills and conviction of the man’s guilt, he easily sends a bullet into the man’s skull. But in the split second it takes the bullet to leave the silenced pistol, everything changes.