Philip Hensher Bücher

New Year’s Eve, 1988. Two people are dancing an inexpert tango in no-man’s-land as snow falls. Who, what, are they waiting for? Philip Hensher’s Berlin is a city of escape and hiding, where wary obsessions form and grow. Shady Mr Picker has a dream of a rose-coloured dawn; he knows he could change history by introducing pleasure to the East – or, at any rate, large consignments of chemical bliss. And maybe he’s right; history is on the move, glimpsed through a seedy landscape of bars and bedsits, small-scale terrorism and large deceptions.

Published to accompany the exhibition held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, 15 June - 25 September 2005, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, Sunderland, 6 October - 27 November 2005, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 17 December 2005 - 12 March 2006.

'Excellent, entertaining and ingenious ... from Oscar Wilde to Arthur Conan Doyle, this fine anthology celebrates one of the richest moments in Britain's literary history' Sunday Times The quarter century or so before the outbreak of the First World War saw an extraordinary boom in the popularity and quality of short stories in Britain. Fuelled by a large new magazine readership and vigorous competition to acquire new stories and develop the careers of some of our greatest writers, these years were ones where the normal rule-of-thumb (novels sell, short stories don't) was inverted. This was the era of Sherlock Holmes, of Kipling's most famous stories, of M. R. James, Katherine Mansfield and Joyce's Dubliners. Some of the greatest writers of the period - particularly Conrad and James - found that the effort that went into their shorter works was more rewarded during their lifetimes than their now famous novels. Writers such as Mansfield, Chesterton, Beerbohm, Lawrence and Saki produced some of their greatest work. Short stories also provided a brilliant medium for experiment, and this generous and endlessly entertaining anthology includes fascinating examples of writers as varied as Rebecca West, James Joyce, H.G. Wells and Wyndham Lewis experimenting with what it was acceptable to write and how you could write it.

Ein großer Roman, dicht und voller intellektueller Spannung. "Mit höchstem, bewundernswertem Kunstverstand entworfen; der Roman läßt sich auf vielen Ebenen lesen, und auf jeder Ebene hält er seine ästhetischen Belohnungen bereit. Mehr kann man von einem heutigen Buch wohl kaum verlangen", schrieb Sigrid Löffler nach Erscheinen der Originalausgabe. Der junge Literaturwissenschaftler Roland Michell gerät in den Besitz eines bislang unbekannten Dokuments: den Entwurf eines Briefes, den der berühmte viktorianische Dichter Randolph Henry Ash an eine Dame zu schreiben beabsichtigte. Roland beginnt Nachforschungen anzustellen. Es gelingt ihm, herauszufinden, wer die geheimnisvolle Adressatin war, nämlich die Lyrikerin Christabel LaMotte, und so sieht er sich gezwungen, die Wissenschaftlerin Maud Bailey, die deren Nachlaß betreut, in sein Geheimnis einzuweihen. Gemeinsam machen sie eine aufsehenerregende Entdeckung: Im Sterbezimmer der Chris tabel LaMotte finden sie ein Bündel Liebesbriefe - Briefe, die beweisen, daß R. H. Ash, der weltgewandte Literat und vorbildliche Ehemann, und die exzentrische Dichterin, die als alte Jungfer starb, eine leidenschaftliche Beziehung unterhalten haben, aber nicht nur das ...

This is the first anthology capacious enough to celebrate the full diversity and energy of its writers, subjects and tones. The most famous authors are here, and many others, including some magnificent stories never republished since their first appearance in magazines and periodicals. The Penguin Book of the British Short Story has a permanent authority, and will be reached for year in and year out. This volume takes the story from the 1920s to the present day.

'Sometimes - not often - a book comes along that feels like Christmas. Philip Hensher's timely, but timeless, selection of the best short stories from the past 20 years is that kind of book. His introduction is as enriching as anything that has been published this year' Sunday Times A spectacular treasury of the best British short stories published in the last twenty years We are living in a particularly rich period for British short stories. Despite the relative lack of places in which they can be published, the challenge the medium represents has attracted a host of remarkable, subversive, entertaining and innovative writers. Philip Hensher, following the success of his definitive Penguin Book of British Short Stories, has scoured a vast trove of material and chosen thirty great stories for this new volume of works written between 1997 and the present day. Includes short stories by A.L. Kennedy, Tessa Hadley, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jackie Kay, Graham Swift, Jane Gardam, Ali Smith, Neil Gaiman, Martin Amis, China Miéville, Peter Hobbs, Thomas Morris, David Rose, David Szalay, Irvine Welsh, Lucy Caldwell, Rose Tremain, Helen Oyeyemi, Leone Ross, Helen Simpson, Zadie Smith, Will Self, Gerard Woodward, James Kelman, Lucy Wood, Hilary Mantel, Eley Williams, Sarah Hall, Mark Haddon and Helen Dunmore.

"An anthology of stories set in Berlin, by both German and non-German writers, from across the past century"--

A novel based on the British experience in Afghanistan in the 1830s. It has at its heart the encounter between West and East as embodied in the complex relationship between the leader of the initial British expeditionary party, and the wily, cultured Afghani ruler.

The award-winning author of "The Mulberry Empire" presents a sweeping chronicle of ordinary lives that are profoundly shaped by both the subtleties of everyday experience and the larger forces of history.

'It's the book you should give someone who thinks they don't like novels ... Here is surely a future prizewinner that is easy to read and impossible to forget' Melissa Katsoulis, The Times The things history will do at the bidding of love

‘A brilliantly conceived and audacious novel from one of our most consistently intelligent and beguiling writers’ William Boyd ‘Surefooted and emotionally generous … A serious achievement’ Guardian ‘Masterful’ Telegraph

'The wisest and wittiest argument imaginable for the preservation of handwriting. I have learnt so much, and by it have been so happily entertained, that I am compelled to recommend it to everyone.' Diana Athill The simple pleasure of picking up a pen and writing is a skill that has existed for thousands of years - but that skill is slowly dying. Where once we would have reached for a pen and paper to commit our innermost thoughts to a diary, to send a letter home or to slip a note to a loved one, instead we now stare at tiny screens, typing with our thumbs. And all that typing looks the same. The Missing Ink is a book about the characters who shaped our handwriting, and how it in turn shaped us. From Victorian idealists, preaching the moral worth of italic copperplate, to great modern educational reformists such as Marion Richardson, throughout history the style in which we write has influence the way we learn, behave and communicate. But this is also a book about the physical act itself: about the pots of ink, treasured pens and chewable Biros that we used to take for granted, and whether the style of our writing really does reveal anything about our true selves. Hugely entertaining, witty and thought-provoking, The Missing Ink is itself a love letter to the warmest of technologies, and the place it still has in our lives.

A novel with three narrative strands: 4th century Rome, Weimar Germany, and late 20th century London. In each place, a small coterie is closely connected and separated from the larger world. In each story, the larger world regards the small coterie and its passionately held beliefs and secrets with suspicion and hostility. It is the story of eccentricity, its struggle and its triumph.

The new novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of `The Northern Clemency'.

A Small Revolution in Germany is about growing up, or refusing to accept what growing up means; it's about the small dishonest pacts that people make with their own futures; and it's about the rare and joyous refusal to be disillusioned.

Podtitul: neboli Dvě ctné cesty emíra Dósta Muhammada Chána Čtivý historický román anglického autora se odehrává v 19. století v rušném období 1. anglo-afghánské války, v časovém rozmezí přibližně deseti let. V první polovině 19. století dochází k velkému britskému tažení na území Afghánistánu. Britové velmi touží podmanit si tento strategicky významný stát a učinit z něj součást svého impéria. Nový Emír není však zdaleka tak přístupný, jak Angličané doufali. Uprostřed složité válečné i politické situace se v Kábulu ocitá cestovatel a dobrodruh Henry Burnes. Přestože Britové utrpí porážku, Burnesovi se podaří získat Emírovu důvěru a aniž si to uvědomuje, působí jako posel mezi oběma národy. Život v Asii poznamená Henryho život i velmi osobně, v podobě hlubokého citového vztahu k mladé ženě. Není mu však souzeno prožít s ní spokojený život.