Matsuo Basho is een van ’s werelds grootste dichters. Zijn schijnbaar eenvoudige poëzie is doordrongen van natuurbesef en vergankelijkheid, maar ook van het tragische verloop van de Japanse geschiedenis. Het zijn daarnaast aangrijpende getuigenissen van een reiziger zonder thuis.

Meet Don Tillman. Don is getting married. He just doesnt know who to yet. But he has designed a very detailed questionnaire to help him find the perfect woman. One thing he already knows, though, is that its not Rosie. Absolutely, completely, definitely not. Love isnt an exact science - but no one told Don Tillman. A thirty-nine-year-old geneticist, Dons never had a second date. So he devises the Wife Project, a scientific test to find the perfect partner. Enter Rosie - the worlds most incompatible woman - throwing Dons safe, ordered life into chaos. But what is this unsettling, alien emotion hes feeling? 

Meet Don Tillman. Don is getting married. He just doesnt know who to yet. But he has designed a very detailed questionnaire to help him find the perfect woman. One thing he already knows, though, is that its not Rosie. Absolutely, completely, definitely not. Love isnt an exact science - but no one told Don Tillman. A thirty-nine-year-old geneticist, Dons never had a second date. So he devises the Wife Project, a scientific test to find the perfect partner. Enter Rosie - the worlds most incompatible woman - throwing Dons safe, ordered life into chaos. But what is this unsettling, alien emotion hes feeling? Bekijk de Nederlandstalige editie.

The International Bestselling Sensation


he Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules is an incredibly quirky, humorous and warm-hearted story about growing old disgracefully - and breaking all the rules along the way!

79-year-old Martha Andersson dreams of escaping her care home and robbing a bank.

She has no intention of spending the rest of her days in an armchair and is determined to fund her way to a much more exciting lifestyle. Along with her four oldest friends - otherwise known as the League of Pensioners - Martha decides to rebel against all of the rules imposed upon them. Together, they cause uproar with their antics protesting against early bedtimes and plasticky meals.

As the elderly friends become more daring, they hatch a cunning plan to break out of the dreary care home and land themselves in a far more attractive Stockholm establishment. With the aid of their Zimmer frames, they resolve to stand up for old aged pensioners everywhere - Robin Hood style. And that's when the adventure really takes off . . .

Meet Mo Battle, about to turn 50 and mum to two helpless, hormonal teenagers. There's 17-year-old daughter Dora who blames Mo for, like, everything and Peter who believes he's quite simply as darling and marvellous as his hero Oscar Wilde. Somewhere, keeping quiet, is Dad... who's just, well... Dad. However, Mo is having a crisis.

Brilliant, idealistic Esme Garland moves to Manhattan armed with a pres­tigious scholarship at Columbia University. When Mitchell van Leuven— a New Yorker with the bluest of blue New York blood—captures her heart with his stunning good looks and a penchant for all things erotic, life seems truly glorious . . . until a thin blue line signals a wrinkle in Esme's tidy plan. Before she has a chance to tell Mitchell about her pregnancy, he suddenly declares their sex life is as exciting as a cup of tea, and ends it all.

Determined to master everything from Degas to diapers, Esme starts work at a small West Side bookstore, finding solace in George, the laconic owner addicted to spirulina, and Luke, the taciturn, guitar-playing night manager. The oddball customers are a welcome relief from Columbia's high-pressure halls, but the store is struggling to survive in this city where nothing seems to last.

When Mitchell recants his criticism, his passion and promises are hard to resist. But if Esme gives him a second chance, will she, like her beloved book­store, lose more than she can handle? A sharply observed and evocative tale of learning to face reality without giv­ing up on your dreams, The Bookstore is sheer enchantment from start to finish.

As every schoolboy knows, you can fit the whole of England on the Isle of Wight. Grotesque, visionary tycoon Sir Jack Pitman takes the saying literally and does exactly that. He constructs on the island 'The Project', a vast heritage centre containing everything 'English', from Big Ben to Stonehenge, from Manchester United to the white Cliffs of Dover. The project is monstrous, risky, and vastly successful. In fact, it gradually begins to rival 'Old' England and even threatens to supersede it...
 

Berlijn, 1940. De stad is verlamd door angst. Arbeiderskoppel Otto en Anna Quangel leven in een vervallen appartmentenblok en proberen, net als hun omgeving, niet op te vallen terwijl de Nazis heersen. Maar wanneer hun enige kind aan het front sterft, leidt hun verlies hen naar een uitzonderlijke vorm van verzet. Ze beginnen met het door de hele stad achterlaten van anonieme ansichtkaarten waarop ze Hitler en zijn regime aanvallen. Een daad waar de doodstraf op staat. Al snel wordt hun stille strijd opgemerkt door de Gestapo-inpecteur Escherich, waarmee een moorddadig kat- en muisspel begint dat het nut van Otto en Anna’s daden en hernieuwde liefde voor elkaar alleen maar versterkt. Hun kleurloze leven en huwelijk transformeert door hun vredige maar intensieve verzet. Meer dan zestig jaar na de eerste publicatie vlak na WOII werd Hans Fallada’s roman een wereldwijde bestseller. Gebaseerd op een waargebeurd verhaal, werd de indrukwekkende en bevrijdende vertelling door de Italiaanse schrijver en Auschwitz-overlever Primo Levi omschreven als "het beste boek over het Duitse verzet tegen de nazi’s ooit geschreven".

With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contemptible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, in THE PERIODIC TABLE and THE WRENCH, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him. He was himself a magically endearing man, the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known - PHILIP ROTH

A series of short, fantastic narratives inspired by fifteenth-century tarot cards and their archetypical images. Full-color and black-and-white reproductions of tarot cards.

A young man accompanies his cousin to the hospital to check an unusual hearing complaint and recalls a story of a woman put to sleep by tiny flies crawling inside her ear; a mirror appears out of nowhere and a nightwatchman is unnerved as his reflection tries to take control of him; a couple's relationship is unbalanced after dining exclusively on exquisite crab while on holiday; a man follows instructions on the back of a postcard to apply for a job, but an unknown password stands between him and his mysterious employer. In each one of these stories Murakami sidesteps the real and sprints for the surreal. Everyday events are transcended, leaving the reader dazzled by this master of his craft. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is Murakami's most eclectic collection of stories to date, spanning five years of his writing. An introduction explains the diversity of the author's choice.

The sixth collection of short stories by the award-winning author of World's End displays his remarkable gift for storytelling as well as his wide-ranging interests in everything from abortion doctors to air rage. 25,000 first printing.

plaats die wij mensen innemen in de enorme kosmos kan soms ronduit onbeduidend aanvoelen. Daarom proberen we er iets van te begrijpen en onze plaats daarin te duiden.

De afstand van de planeten en de sterren tot de aarde is moeilijk voor te stellen. De oude Chinezen bouwden stenen torens om de sterren van dichterbij te kunnen bekijken. Een natuurlijke reactie als je bedenkt dat wij geen ervaring hebben met de enorme afstanden in de ruimte.
Inmiddels hebben we door mathematische en technologische kennis een enorme schat aan informatie over het heelal, maar wat weten we nu echt? Waar komt het universum vandaan en gaat het ergens heen? Wat is de aard van het begrip tijd? En kunnen we ook terug in de tijd?

In Een korte geschiedenis van de tijd, een geactualiseerde en uitgebreide versie van het zeer succesvolle Het heelal, maakt Hawking het ontstaan van het heelal voor niet-wetenschappers op een aansprekende manier aanschouwelijk.