It is one of the most memorable first lines in all of literature: "When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into some kind of monstrous vermin." So begins Kafka's famous short story, The Metamorphosis. Kafka considered publishing it with two of the stories included here in a volume to be called Punishments. The Judgment explores an enigmatic power stru…
Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something s…
When Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and their baby brother move to the countryside, they encounter ‘It’ – a grumpy, strange-looking Sand-fairy known as a Psammead. The Psammead can grant the children one wish every day – but whether they request to be beautiful or rich, to fly or live in a castle, it seems every wish is destined to lead the five children into a great deal of trouble . .…
Inspired by the bedtime stories Rudyard Kipling told his daughter that had to be recited ‘just so’, this collection includes mythical animal origin stories like ‘How the Camel got his Hump’ and ‘How the Rhinoceros got his Skin’, alongside other playful inventions, such as the reason for the ebb and flow of the tides and how the alphabet was invented. These rhythmically told, trad…
While travelling from Switzerland to Australia, William, Elizabeth and their four sons, Fritz, Ernest, Jack and Franz, are caught in a terrible storm. Shipwrecked on a desert island, they are left to fend for themselves, equipped with supplies salvaged from the wreckage and surrounded by an array of animals. Every day brings new challenges to overcome, and the family must use their wits to s…
“It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution,” Tania Branigan writes. During this decade of Maoist fanaticism between 1966 and 1976, children condemned parents, students condemned teachers, and as many as two million people died for their supposed political sins, while tens of millions were hounded, ostracized, and imprisoned. Yet in China this b…
THE GIVER is the classic award-winning novel that inspired the dystopian genre and a major motion picture adaptation for 2014 starring Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes and Taylor Swift. It is the future. There is no war, no hunger, no pain. No one in the community wants for anything. Everything needed is provided. And at twelve years old, each member of the community has their prof…
Bilbo Baggins enjoys a quiet and contented life, with no desire to travel far from the comforts of home; then one day the wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves arrive unexpectedly and enlist his services – as a burglar – on a dangerous expedition to raid the treasure-hoard of Smaug the dragon. Bilbo’s life is never to be the same again. Seldom has any book been so widely read and loved …