As the world around it marches forward, the bucolic English village of Notwithstanding remains unchanged. It is, as it always has been, a place of pubs and cricket pitches, where local eccentrics—a retired colonel who has eschewed clothes, a spiritualist living with the ghost of her husband, and a dog named Archibald Scott-Moncrieff—almost fit in. In this delightfully evocative collection of stories, in which a young couple falls in and out of love by letter alone, an eleven-year-old boy battles a monstrous fish, and a man of the cloth has a premonition of death, Louis de Bernières conjures up a rural idyll long since forgotten. Funny, bittersweet, and deeply felt, Notwithstanding is the bestselling author of Corelli’s Mandolin at his most enchanting.
Set in North London during the Winter of Discontent, A Partisan’s Daughter features the relationship between Chris, an unhappily married, middle-aged Englishman and Roza, a young Serbian woman who has recently moved to London. While driving through Archway in the course of his job as a medical rep, Chris is captivated by a young woman on a street corner. Clumsily, he engages her in conversation, and he secures an invitation to return one day for a coffee. His visits become more frequent and Roza starts to tell him the story of her life, drawing him increasingly into her world – from her childhood as a daughter of one of Tito’s Partisans through her journey to England and on to her more recent colourful and dangerous past in London. A Partisan’s Daughter is about the power of storytelling. It is also a beautifully wrought and unlikely love story which is both compelling and moving to read. Here is another wonderful novel from the author of the bestselling Birds Without Wings and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
A tragicomedy on a Greek island during World War II. The hero is Antonio Corelli, a mandolin-playing captain of the occupying Italian army, the heroine is Pelagia Iannis, daughter of a local doctor, who is engaged to a Greek resistance leader, Corelli's enemy. The novel follows their adventures as Italy switches sides, the Germans invade and the war turns into a free for all.
Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in southwest Turkey (Anatolia) in the early part of the last century—a quirky community in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have co-existed peacefully over the centuries and where friendship, even love, has transcended religious differences. But with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the onset of the Great War, the sweep of history has a cataclysmic effect on this peaceful place: The great love of Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty, and Ibrahim, a Muslim shepherd who courts her from near infancy, culminates in tragedy and madness; Two inseparable childhood friends who grow up playing in the hills above the town suddenly find themselves on opposite sides of the bloody struggle; and Rustem Bey, a wealthy landlord, who has an enchanting mistress who is not what she seems. Far away from these small lives, a man of destiny who will come to be known as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is emerging to create a country from the ruins of an empire. Victory at Gallipoli fails to save the Ottomans from ultimate defeat and, as a new conflict arises, Muslims and Christians struggle to survive, let alone understand, their part in the great tragedy that will reshape the whole region forever.
The narrator of this story travels to a small mining town in Western Australia to host a literary dinner. Whilst there, he comes across a statue to Red Dog. He is intrigued, and resolves to find out as much as he can about this splendid dog.
Transporting us to all corners of the globe, the tales in Louis de Bernières’ worldly and entertaining collection Labels and Other Stories feature a cast of unlikely and unforgettable heroes who can be found collecting luxury tinned cat-food labels, posting fish to the President, falling in love with dolphin deities and dining with Brazilian street thieves. And in ‘Gunter Weber's Confession’, we return once more to the Greek island of Captain Corelli's Mandolin and its much-loved characters. Full of wit, charm and warmth, Labels and Other Stories shows the imaginative range and unique storytelling power of one of our msot treasured writers.
As the world around it marches forward, the bucolic English village of Notwithstanding remains unchanged. It is, as it always has been, a place of pubs and cricket pitches, where local eccentrics—a retired colonel who has eschewed clothes, a spiritualist living with the ghost of her husband, and a dog named Archibald Scott-Moncrieff—almost fit in. In this delightfully evocative collection of stories, in which a young couple falls in and out of love by letter alone, an eleven-year-old boy battles a monstrous fish, and a man of the cloth has a premonition of death, Louis de Bernières conjures up a rural idyll long since forgotten. Funny, bittersweet, and deeply felt, Notwithstanding is the bestselling author of Corelli’s Mandolin at his most enchanting.
A beautiful collection of poems from bestselling author Louis de Bernières. From the very start of his writing career Louis de Bernières has loved poetry. Here the author of the much-loved Captain Corelli’s Mandolin returns to this first love with his third collection. The Cat in the Treble Clef focuses on family and the connections we make, and break, with other people. There are moving poems to and about his family: his great grandmother, his mother and father and his children. There are poems about places near and far, about the passing of time, music and about love in its various forms. In this collection, de Bernières shares his passion with his readers, in a beautifully illustrated gift edition.
Poetry was Louis de Bernières’ first literary love and Imagining Alexandria is his debut poetry collection. Here the author of the much-loved Captain Corelli’s Mandolin returns us to the vivid Mediterranean landscape of his fiction. De Bernières was introduced to Greek poetry while in Corfu in 1983, and since then he has always travelled with a book of Cavafy's poetry in his pocket. Not surprisingly, his own poems about the distant past, the erotic and the philosophical owe much to the influence of the great Alexandrian poet. Beautifully illustrated with line drawings by Donald Sammut, this is a collection rich in sensuality, nostalgia, and music.
With the same ebullient storytelling, luxuriant prose, and irrepressible eroticism he brought to The War of Don Emmanuel s Nether Parts and Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, Louis de Bernières continues his chronicle of Cochadebajo, the Andean village where macho philosophers, defrocked priests, and reformed (though hardly inactive) prostitutes cohabit in cheerful anarchy. But this unruly utopia is imperiled when the demon-harried Cardinal Guzman decides to inaugurate a new Inquisition, with Cochadebajo as its ultimate target. On his side, the Cardinal has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. The Cochadebajeros have precious little ammunition, unless you count chef Dolores's incendiary Chicken of a True Man, and a civil defense that deems nothing more crucial than the act of love. Part epic, part farce, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman confirms de Bernières's reputation as England's answer to Gabriel García Márquez.
De Bernieres is a singular, cherishable voice' Mail on Sunday From the master of historical fiction, this book follows an unforgettable family after the Second World War. Some bonds are hard to break... Daniel Pitt was an RAF fighter in the First World War and an espionage agent for the SOE in the Second. Now the conflicts he faces are closer to home. Daniel's marriage has fractured beyond repair and Daniel's relationship with his son, Bertie, has been a failure since Bertie was a small boy. But after his brother Archie's death, Daniel is keen for new perspectives. He first travels to Peshawar to bury Archie in the place he loved best, and then finds himself in Canada, avoiding his family and friends back in England. Daniel and Bertie's different experiences of war, although devastating, also bring with them the opportunity for the two to reconnect. If only they can find a way to move on from the past...
In 1998, Louis de Bernieres—acclaimed author of Corelli’s Mandolin—came upon a bronze statue in a town on Australia’s northwestern coast and was immediately compelled to know more about “Red Dog.” He did not have to go far: everyone for hundreds of miles in every direction seemed to have a story about Red Dog. He was a Red Cloud Kelpie, a breed of sheepdog known for its energy and cleverness. But Red Dog was a kind of ultra-Kelpie, energetic and clever enough for an entire breed in himself. Dubbed a “professional traveler” rather than a stray, Red Dog established his own transportation system, hitchhiking between far-flung towns and female dogs in cars whose engine noises he’d memorized and whose drivers he’d charmed. The call of the wild was matched by the call of the supper dish; Red Dog’s appetite was as legendary as his exploits. Everyone wanted to adopt him (one group of workers made him a member of their union), but Red Dog would be adopted by—or, more precisely, he would adopt—only one man: a bus driver whose love life quickly began to suffer and who never quite recovered from Red Dog’s relentlessly affectionate presence. Independent, clever, sly, stubborn, courageous and foolhardy, impatient with boredom and the boring, Red Dog endeared himself to (almost) everyone who crossed his path. These funny, surprising, and touching stories of his life are certain to endear him to every reader.
They were an inseparable tribe of childhood friends whose world was torn apart by the First World War. Some were lost in battle, and those who survived have had their lives unimaginably upended, scattered to Ceylon and India, France and Germany, and, inevitably, back to Britain. Now, at the dawn of the 1920s, all are trying to pick up the pieces. At the center of Louis de Bernières’s riveting novel are Daniel, an RAF flying ace, and Rosie, a wartime nurse. As their marriage is slowly revealed to be built on lies, Daniel finds solace—and, sometimes, family—with other women, and Rosie draws her religion around herself like a carapace. Here too are Rosie’s sisters—a bohemian, a minister’s wife, and a spinster, each seeking purpose and happiness in her own unconventional way; and Daniel’s military brother, unable to find his footing in a peaceful world. Told in brief, dramatic chapters, So Much Life Left Over follows the stories of these old friends over the decades as their paths re-cross or their ties fray, as they test loyalties and love, face survivor’s grief and guilt, and adjust to a new world.
A present contains a monstrous secret. An uninvited guest haunts a Christmas party. A shadow slips across the floor by firelight. A festive entertainment ends in darkness and screams. Who knows what haunts the night at the dark point of the year? This collection of seasonal chillers looks beneath Christmas cheer to a world of ghosts and horrors, mixing terrifying modern fiction with classic stories by masters of the macabre. From Neil Gaiman and M. R. James to Muriel Spark and E. Nesbit, there are stories here to make the hardiest soul quail - so find a comfy chair, lock the door, ignore the cold breath on your neck and get ready to welcome in the real spirits of Christmas.
De Bernieres is a singular, cherishable voice' Mail on Sunday From the master of historical fiction, this book follows an unforgettable family after the Second World War. Some bonds are hard to break... Daniel Pitt was an RAF fighter in the First World War and an espionage agent for the SOE in the Second. Now the conflicts he faces are closer to home. Daniel's marriage has fractured beyond repair and Daniel's relationship with his son, Bertie, has been a failure since Bertie was a small boy. But after his brother Archie's death, Daniel is keen for new perspectives. He first travels to Peshawar to bury Archie in the place he loved best, and then finds himself in Canada, avoiding his family and friends back in England. Daniel and Bertie's different experiences of war, although devastating, also bring with them the opportunity for the two to reconnect. If only they can find a way to move on from the past...
Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in southwest Turkey (Anatolia) in the early part of the last century—a quirky community in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have co-existed peacefully over the centuries and where friendship, even love, has transcended religious differences. But with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the onset of the Great War, the sweep of history has a cataclysmic effect on this peaceful place: The great love of Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty, and Ibrahim, a Muslim shepherd who courts her from near infancy, culminates in tragedy and madness; Two inseparable childhood friends who grow up playing in the hills above the town suddenly find themselves on opposite sides of the bloody struggle; and Rustem Bey, a wealthy landlord, who has an enchanting mistress who is not what she seems. Far away from these small lives, a man of destiny who will come to be known as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is emerging to create a country from the ruins of an empire. Victory at Gallipoli fails to save the Ottomans from ultimate defeat and, as a new conflict arises, Muslims and Christians struggle to survive, let alone understand, their part in the great tragedy that will reshape the whole region forever.
They were an inseparable tribe of childhood friends whose world was torn apart by the First World War. Some were lost in battle, and those who survived have had their lives unimaginably upended, scattered to Ceylon and India, France and Germany, and, inevitably, back to Britain. Now, at the dawn of the 1920s, all are trying to pick up the pieces. At the center of Louis de Bernières’s riveting novel are Daniel, an RAF flying ace, and Rosie, a wartime nurse. As their marriage is slowly revealed to be built on lies, Daniel finds solace—and, sometimes, family—with other women, and Rosie draws her religion around herself like a carapace. Here too are Rosie’s sisters—a bohemian, a minister’s wife, and a spinster, each seeking purpose and happiness in her own unconventional way; and Daniel’s military brother, unable to find his footing in a peaceful world. Told in brief, dramatic chapters, So Much Life Left Over follows the stories of these old friends over the decades as their paths re-cross or their ties fray, as they test loyalties and love, face survivor’s grief and guilt, and adjust to a new world.
This rambunctious first novel by the author of the bestselling Corelli's Mandolin is set in an impoverished, violent, yet ravishingly beautiful country somewhere in South America. When the haughty Dona Constanza decides to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, the consequences are at once tragic, heroic, and outrageously funny. "Walks a precarious edge between slapstick and pathos, never once losing its balance."--Washington Post Book World.
The acclaimed story of a timeless place that one day wakes up to find itself in the jaws of history: "An exuberant mixture of history and romance, written with a wit that is incandescent" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). The place is the Greek island of Cephallonia, where gods once dabbled in the affairs of men and the local saint periodically rises from his sarcophagus to cure the mad. Then the tide of World War II rolls onto the island's shores in the form of the conquering Italian army. Caught in the occupation are Pelagia, a willful, beautiful young woman, and the two suitors vying for her love: Mandras, a gentle fisherman turned ruthless guerilla, and the charming, mandolin-playing Captain Corelli, a reluctant officer of the Italian garrison on the island. Rich with loyalties and betrayals, and set against a landscape where the factual blends seamlessly with the fantastic, Corelli's Mandolin is a passionate novel as rich in ideas as it is genuinely moving.
The acclaimed story of a timeless place that one day wakes up to find itself in the jaws of history: "An exuberant mixture of history and romance, written with a wit that is incandescent" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). The place is the Greek island of Cephallonia, where gods once dabbled in the affairs of men and the local saint periodically rises from his sarcophagus to cure the mad. Then the tide of World War II rolls onto the island's shores in the form of the conquering Italian army. Caught in the occupation are Pelagia, a willful, beautiful young woman, and the two suitors vying for her love: Mandras, a gentle fisherman turned ruthless guerilla, and the charming, mandolin-playing Captain Corelli, a reluctant officer of the Italian garrison on the island. Rich with loyalties and betrayals, and set against a landscape where the factual blends seamlessly with the fantastic, Corelli's Mandolin is a passionate novel as rich in ideas as it is genuinely moving.
A tragicomedy on a Greek island during World War II. The hero is Antonio Corelli, a mandolin-playing captain of the occupying Italian army, the heroine is Pelagia Iannis, daughter of a local doctor, who is engaged to a Greek resistance leader, Corelli's enemy. The novel follows their adventures as Italy switches sides, the Germans invade and the war turns into a free for all.
From the acclaimed author of Corelli’s Mandolin, here is a sumptuous, sweeping, powerfully moving new novel about a British family whose lives and loves are indelibly shaped by the horrors of World War I and the hopes for its aftermath. In the brief golden years of the Edwardian era the McCosh sisters—Christabel, Ottilie, Rosie and Sophie—grow up in an idyllic household in the countryside south of London. On one side, their neighbors are the proper Pendennis family, recently arrived from Baltimore, whose close-in-age boys—Sidney, Albert and Ashbridge—shake their father’s hand at breakfast and address him as “sir.” On the other side is the Pitt family: a “resolutely French” mother, a former navy captain father, and two brothers, Archie and Daniel, who are clearly “going to grow up into a pair of daredevils and adventurers.” In childhood this band is inseparable, but the days of careless camaraderie are brought to an abrupt halt by the outbreak of The Great War, in which everyone will play a part. All three Pendennis brothers fight in the hellish trenches at the front; Daniel Pitt becomes an ace fighter pilot with his daredevil tendencies intact; Rosie and Ottilie McCosh volunteer in the hospitals, where women serve with as much passion and nearly as much hardship as the men at the front; Christabel McCosh becomes one of the squad of photographers sending “snaps” of their loved ones at home to the soldiers; and Sophie McCosh drives for the RAF in France. In the aftermath of the war, as “the universal joy and relief were beginning to be tempered by . . . an atmosphere of uncertainty,” everyone must contend with the modern world that is slowly emerging from the ashes of the old. A wholly immersive novel about a particular time and place, The Dust That Falls from Dreams also illuminates the timeless ways in which men and women carry profound loss alongside indelible hope.
Dionisio Vivo, a young South American lecturer in philosophy, is puzzled by the hideously mutilated corpses that keep turning up outside his front door. To his friend, Ramon, one of the few honest policemen in town, the message is all too clear: Dionisio’s letters to the press, exposing the drug barons, must stop; and although Dionisio manages to escape the hit-men sent to get him, he soon realizes that others are more vulnerable, and his love for them leads him to take a colossal revenge. Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord is the second novel in a trilogy set in South America. It won a Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1992.
From the acclaimed author of Corelli’s Mandolin, here is a sumptuous, sweeping, powerfully moving new novel about a British family whose lives and loves are indelibly shaped by the horrors of World War I and the hopes for its aftermath. In the brief golden years of the Edwardian era the McCosh sisters—Christabel, Ottilie, Rosie and Sophie—grow up in an idyllic household in the countryside south of London. On one side, their neighbors are the proper Pendennis family, recently arrived from Baltimore, whose close-in-age boys—Sidney, Albert and Ashbridge—shake their father’s hand at breakfast and address him as “sir.” On the other side is the Pitt family: a “resolutely French” mother, a former navy captain father, and two brothers, Archie and Daniel, who are clearly “going to grow up into a pair of daredevils and adventurers.” In childhood this band is inseparable, but the days of careless camaraderie are brought to an abrupt halt by the outbreak of The Great War, in which everyone will play a part. All three Pendennis brothers fight in the hellish trenches at the front; Daniel Pitt becomes an ace fighter pilot with his daredevil tendencies intact; Rosie and Ottilie McCosh volunteer in the hospitals, where women serve with as much passion and nearly as much hardship as the men at the front; Christabel McCosh becomes one of the squad of photographers sending “snaps” of their loved ones at home to the soldiers; and Sophie McCosh drives for the RAF in France. In the aftermath of the war, as “the universal joy and relief were beginning to be tempered by . . . an atmosphere of uncertainty,” everyone must contend with the modern world that is slowly emerging from the ashes of the old. A wholly immersive novel about a particular time and place, The Dust That Falls from Dreams also illuminates the timeless ways in which men and women carry profound loss alongside indelible hope.
A beautiful collection of poems from bestselling author Louis de Bernières. From the very start of his writing career Louis de Bernières has loved poetry. Here the author of the much-loved Captain Corelli’s Mandolin returns to this first love with his third collection. The Cat in the Treble Clef focuses on family and the connections we make, and break, with other people. There are moving poems to and about his family: his great grandmother, his mother and father and his children. There are poems about places near and far, about the passing of time, music and about love in its various forms. In this collection, de Bernières shares his passion with his readers, in a beautifully illustrated gift edition.
Sometimes we must look to the past to survive the future. A novel about what really matters in life from the bestselling author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin Q wants a simpler and safer life. His work as a quantum cryptographer for the government has led him to believe a crisis is imminent for civilisation and he's looking for somewhere to ride out what's ahead. He buys a ruined farmhouse in Cornwall and begins to build his own self-sufficient haven. Over the course of this quest he meets the eccentric characters who already live on the moors nearby - including the park ranger in charge of the reintroduced lynxes and aurochs that roam the area; a holy man waiting for the second coming on top of a nearby hill; an Arthurian knight on horseback and the amorous ghost of an Edwardian woman who haunts the farmhouse. As life in the cities gets more complicated, and our systems of electronic control begin to fall apart, Q flourishes in the wild Cornish countryside. His new way of life brings him back in tune with his teenage children, his ex-wife, and his own sense of who he is. He also grows close to Eva, energetic and enchanting, who is committed to her own quest for love and meaning. In this entertaining and heart-warming novel Louis de Bernières pokes fun at modern mores, and makes us reconsider what is really precious in our short and precarious lives. *SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE*
Set in North London during the Winter of Discontent, A Partisan’s Daughter features the relationship between Chris, an unhappily married, middle-aged Englishman and Roza, a young Serbian woman who has recently moved to London. While driving through Archway in the course of his job as a medical rep, Chris is captivated by a young woman on a street corner. Clumsily, he engages her in conversation, and he secures an invitation to return one day for a coffee. His visits become more frequent and Roza starts to tell him the story of her life, drawing him increasingly into her world – from her childhood as a daughter of one of Tito’s Partisans through her journey to England and on to her more recent colourful and dangerous past in London. A Partisan’s Daughter is about the power of storytelling. It is also a beautifully wrought and unlikely love story which is both compelling and moving to read. Here is another wonderful novel from the author of the bestselling Birds Without Wings and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
Suffering in an unjust world is the theme of this book. God punishes Job, a wealthy and pious man, after giving an assertion to Satan that his subject will never curse him. It goes on to explain why Job has suffered, raising ethical questions about the nature of divinity. The text is introduced by author Louis de Bernieres
Poetry was Louis de Bernières’ first literary love and Imagining Alexandria is his debut poetry collection. Here the author of the much-loved Captain Corelli’s Mandolin returns us to the vivid Mediterranean landscape of his fiction. De Bernières was introduced to Greek poetry while in Corfu in 1983, and since then he has always travelled with a book of Cavafy's poetry in his pocket. Not surprisingly, his own poems about the distant past, the erotic and the philosophical owe much to the influence of the great Alexandrian poet. Beautifully illustrated with line drawings by Donald Sammut, this is a collection rich in sensuality, nostalgia, and music.
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