http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/ en-GB Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:02:23 GMT Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:06:55 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss vintagetrade@randomhouse.co.uk Amber 2 CMS http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/140709100x/giuseppe-tomasi-di-lampedusa/the-leopard-revised-and-with-new-material/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/140709100x/ ]]>
Containing, for the first time in any language, the full original text, Tomasi di Lampedusa's classic tale lovingly memorialises the details of a vanishing world while retaining its melancholic and ironic sense of time passing and the frailty of human emotions.]]> Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/0224089897/bruce-chatwin/under-the-sun-the-letters-of-bruce-chatwin/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/0224089897/
Bruce Chatwin is one of the most significant British novelists and travel writers of our time. His books have become modern-day classics which defy categorisation, assimilating elements of fiction, essay, reportage, history and gossip, inspired by and reflecting his incredible journeys. Tragically, Chatwin’s compelling narrative voice was cut off just as he had found it. One month before his death he lamented, ‘There are so many things I want to do.’ ‘Bruce had just begun’ said his friend, Salman Rushdie, ‘we saw only the first act’.

While we shall never know the surprise of his unwritten works, Chatwin left behind a body of writing that is striking for its freshness; an authentic conduit which allows us to return to him and to be rewarded: a wealth of letters and postcards that he wrote, from his first week at school until shortly before his death at the age of forty-eight. Whether typed on Sotheby’s notepaper or hastily scribbled, Chatwin’s correspondence reveals more about himself than he was prepared to expose in his books; his health and finances, his literary ambitions and tastes, his uneasiness about his sexual orientation; above all, his lifelong quest for where to live. Written with the verve and sharpness of expression that first marked him out as a writer, Chatwin’s letters gives a vivid synopsis of his changing interests and concerns throughout his life.

Careful and considered in drafting his published work, the letters are Chatwin’s only unedited writing, and a paean to a disappearing mode of communication: tangible proof of a life as it was lived, and possibly one of the last great collections of a writer’s letters. Comprising material collected over two decades from hundreds of contacts across five continents, Under the Sun is a valuable and illuminating record of one of the greatest and most enigmatic writers of the twentieth century.]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/0701184604/nigella-lawson/kitchen-recipes-from-the-heart-of-the-home/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/0701184604/ Kitchen brings us feel-good food for cooks and eaters, whether Express-style and exotic-easy during the week, or leisurely and luxuriating (in the spirit of How to be a Domestic Goddess and Feast) at weekends or for occasions.

Divided into two parts -- Kitchen Quandaries and Kitchen Comforts -- Nigella gives us the wherewithal to tackle any situation and satisfy all nourishment needs. But real cooking is often about leftovers, too, so here one recipe can lead to another… from ham hocks to pea soup and pasties, from chicken to Chinatown salad. This isn’t just about being thrifty but about demonstrating how recipes come about, and giving new inspiration for last-minute meals and souped-up storecupboard suppers.

As well as offering the reader a mouthwatering array of new recipes, both comforting and exciting – from clams with chorizo to Guinness gingerbread, from Asian braised beef to flourless chocolate lime cake, from Pasta alla Genovese to Venetian carrot cake – Nigella rounds up her kitchen kit must-haves (telling us, too, what equipment we don’t need) and highlights individual ingredients – both basic essentials and modern-day life-savers. But above all, she reminds the reader how much pleasure there is to be had in real food, and in reclaiming the traditional rhythms of the kitchen, as she cooks to the beat of the heart of the home, creating simple recipes to make life less complicated.]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/0224083015/william-fotheringham/cyclopedia-it-s-all-about-the-bike/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/0224083015/ Put Me Back on My Bike]]> Cyclopedia, renowned two-wheeled aficionado, William Fotheringham, delves deep to unearth some 24-carat bike booty.

This essential book is a miscellany of facts, figures, interesting snippets and quirky characters from the world of cycling. It tells you everything you could ever want to know about the bicycle from the history of the Tour de France to Chris Hoy’s dominance of the Beijing Velodrome via the origins of the ubiquitous quick release system and the diet that powered Graeme Obree to the world hour record – marmalade and cornflakes.

Cyclopedia has all the gear, the equipment, the races, the chases, the faces, the places, the drugs, the sex and the scandals to convert any amateur cyclist into a fully-fledged BMX bandit.]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/1407053426/imre-kertesz/kaddish-for-an-unborn-child/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/1407053426/
The loss, longing, and regret that haunt the years between those two ‘no’s’ give rise to one of the most eloquent meditations ever written on the Holocaust.As Kertesz’s narrator addresses the child he couldn’t bear to bring into the world, he takes readers on a mesmerising, lyrical journey through his life, from his childhood to Auschwitz to his failed marriage.]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/184595162x/richard-tarnas/the-passion-of-the-western-mind-understanding-the-ideas-that-have-shaped-our-world-view/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/184595162x/ simply but without simplifying them. Ten years in the making and already hailed as a classic, The Passion of the Western Mind is truly a complete liberal education in a single volume.]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/0099546868/geert-mak/an-island-in-time-the-biography-of-a-village/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/0099546868/
In this book Geert Mak returns to the small Frisian village of his childhood, Jorwerd (pop. 330 and falling), and meets the present-day Jorwerders: a stubborn, stoic people for whom the flat, windswept landscape has been a source of livelihood for generations, but is now rarely more than a tourist attraction. He has tea with the butcher's wife, drops in on the pub for a beer, and recounts the stirring story of Old Peet, a farmhand who was born, lived and died in Jorwerd. Such men are an extinct species in the new free-market Europe and, with his passing, the village he lived in moved a step along the road of terminal decline. Jorwerd is not an isolated case. It is a paradigm for the changing face of the countryside everywhere in Europe. It has more in common with an English village than it has with the Dutch city of Amsterdam.

Is progress always a good thing, or is modernity destroying those social values that once underpinned all our lives? Despite its travails, in Jorwerd Mak discovers a neighbourliness and sense of community that no longer exist in urban life, while ancient families struggle to preserve their long-established modus vivendi in a world obsessed with money and profit.]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/0224086685/dr-johnson/dr-johnson-s-dictionary-of-modern-life-survey-definition-justify-d-lampoonery-of-divers-contemporary-phenomena-from-top-gear-unto-twitter/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/0224086685/ Guardian calls him the 'greatest' thing on Twitter and the Telegraph dubs him its 'star'.

Our gouty man of letters finds the modern world in a parlous state. It is peopled with fools like 'Raisin-ey'd Tyrant Mister Nick GRIFFIN' and 'BABOON-SLAYER, Fop, Macaroni, Dandy & Folderol, Mister AA Gill'. His attempts to negotiate a path through the vagaries of modern life do not fare well either - for instance, on a trip to 'Mister LIBERTY'S blast'd Haberdashery', upon finding 'all else clad as Lumber-Jacks, I left thwart'd & alone… unwilling to dress as an unmanly Pastiche of Mister COBAIN.'

In his Dictionary of Modern Life, our gouty man of letters takes a wickedly funny look at all things modern. From Top Gear and the Daily Mail to Dubstep and Celebrity Big Brother, nothing escapes his sardonic gaze.]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/1407086294/john-pilger/heroes/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/1407086294/ Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://www.vintage-books.co.uk//books/0701183608/tim-butcher/chasing-the-devil-the-search-for-africa-s-fighting-spirit/ http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/books/0701183608/ Blood River ventures into Sierra Leone and Liberia in the footsteps of Graham Greene... Travelogue, history and audacious adventure.]]> Blood River – this time he pursues a trail blazed by Graham Greene in 1935 and immortalised in the travel classic Journey Without Maps. Greene took 26 bearers, a case of scotch, and hammocks in which he and his cousin Barbara were carried. Tim walks every blistering inch to gain an extraordinary ground-level view of a troubled and overlooked region.

As a journalist in Africa, Tim came to know both countries well although the wars made trips to the jungle hinterland far too risky. This is where he now heads, exploring how rebel groups thrived in the bush for so long and whether the devil of war has truly been chased away. He encounters other ‘devils’, masked figures guarding the spiritual secrets of jungle communities. Some are no more threatening than schoolmasters but others are much more sinister, relying on ritual cannibalism as a source of their magical power. Tim encounters these devils on an epic journey that demands courage, doggedness and good fortune.

Chasing the Devil is a dramatic travel book touching on one of the most fraught parts of the globe at a unique moment in its history. Weaving history and anthropology with personal narrative – as well as new discoveries about Greene – it is as exciting as it is enlightening.]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT