Although they have met only a few times, Voss and Laura are joined by overwhelming, obsessive feelings for each other. Voss sets out to cross the continent, and as hardships, mutiny and betrayal whittle away his power to endure and to lead, his attachment to Laura gradually increases.
A novel about a failed dancer turned computer-graphics designer who's been around the block but these days doesn't leave her house. At heart, though, it's a meditation on how and whether you can ever know other people, what is evil, what is reality, what is humanity - and can you fake them? Or is there a litmus test for the real thing?
In 1845, the author went to live in the woods near his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts. In this book, he documents his passion for the landscape and wildlife of Walden Pond, and his philosophical and political motivations for rejecting the materialism.
Parks are such a familiar part of everyday life. You might be forgiven for thinking they have always been there - and that they always will. In fact, the roots of even the most humble neighbourhood park lie in age-old battles over land and liberty. This celebration of parks is filled with history, and anecdotes.
Tolstoy's epic depicts Russia's war with Napoleon and its effects on the lives of those caught up in the conflict. In this book, he creates some of the most vital and involving characters in literature as he follows the rise and fall of families in St Petersburg and Moscow who are linked by their personal and political relationships.
When the spoilt and haughty Dona Constanza tries to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, she starts a running battle with the locals. The skirmishes are so severe that the Government dispatches a squadron of soldiers led by the fat, brutal and stupid Figueras to deal with them.
Selected from the books Birdsong, A Possible Life and A Week in December by Sebastian FaulksVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS.A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us humanAlso in the Vintage Minis series:Home by Salman RushdieFatherhood by Karl Ove KnausgaardWork by Joseph HellerDreams by Sigmund Freud