Books published by publisher Vintage/random Uk

Isaiah Berlin's celebrated radio lectures on six formative anti-liberal thinkers were delivered on the BBC's Third Programme in 1952. They are published here for the first time, fifty years on. Freedom and its Betrayal is one of Isaiah Berlin's earliest and most convincing expositions of his views on human freedom and the history of ideas, views which later found expression in such famous works as 'Two Concepts of Liberty', and were at the heart of his lifelong work on the Enlightenment and its critics. In his lucid examinations of sometimes difficult ideas Berlin demonstrates that a balanced understanding and a resilient defence of human liberty depend on learning both from the errors of freedom's alleged defenders and from the dark insights of its avowed antagonists. This book throws light on the early development of Berlin's ideas, and supplements his already published writings with fuller treatments of Helvtius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel and Saint-Simon, with the ultra-conservative traditionalist Maistre bringing up the rear. Freedom and its Betrayal shows Berlin at his liveliest and most torrentially spontaneous, testifying to his talents as a teacher of rare brilliance and impact. Listeners tuned in expectantly each week to the broadcasts and found themselves mesmerised by Berlin's astonishingly fluent extempore style. A leading historian of ideas, who was then a schoolboy, records that the lectures 'excited me so much that I sat, for every talk, on the floor beside the wireless, taking notes'. This excitement is at last recreated here for all to share.

One of Europe’s greatest artistic treasures, the Bayeux Tapestry depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. For all its fame, its origins and story are complex and somewhat cloudy. Though many assume it was commissioned by Bishop Odo—William’s ruthless half-brother—it may also have been financed by Harold’s dynamic sister Edith, who was juggling for a place in the new court. In this intriguing study, medieval art historian Carola Hicks investigates the miracle of the tapestry’s making—including the unique stitches, dyes, and strange details in the margins—as well as its complicated past. For centuries it lay ignored in Bayeux cathedral until its discovery in the 18th century. It quickly became a symbol of power: townsfolk saved it during the French Revolution, Napoleon displayed it to promote his own conquest, and the Nazis strove to make it their own. Packed with thrilling stories, this history shows how every great work of art has a life of its own.

A unique memoir about ballet, World War II, and a peerless group of dancers, this is an irresistible read for all ballet loversGillian Lynne is one of the world's preeminent choreographers, but she started her career as a ballerina, learning to dance alongside Margot Fonteyn during World War II, and here is the story of her extraordinary childhood. From Miss Madeleine Sharp's Ballet Class for Young Ladies in Bromley to being evacuated with her theater school to a crumbling pile in rural Leicestershire, and from performing in the West End with doodlebugs falling to touring a devastated Europe to entertain the troops, the early years were hard, exciting, and dramatic. And when the call came to join Sadler's Wells—well, what ballerina hopeful could have asked for more? An irresistible mix of wartime nostalgia and the story of a leading ballerina's hard-won path to success, this is the perfect read for all ballet lovers, and is illustrated throughout with exquisitely charming black-and-white photos, programs, and keepsakes.

Read by Michael HaydenSix cassettes / approx. 10 hoursThe chilling crime fiction classic--now a major motion picture from Paramount, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, and Jude Law, written and directed by Anthony Minghella (The English Patient), and produced by Sydney Pollack.In Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith created the perfect criminal. In The Talented Mr. Ripley, circumstances and opportunities transform him from a petty perpetrator of fraud into a suave, agreeable, and totally amoral artist of crime, who will stop at nothing--certainly not a single murder--to get what he desires.

"A stunning work of art," the New York Observer wrote of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, "that bears no comparisons," and this is also true of this magnificent new novel, which is every bit as ambitious, expansive and bewitching. A tour-de-force of metaphysical reality, Kafka on the Shore is powered by two remarkable characters. At fifteen, Kafka Tamura runs away from home, either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister. And the aging Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction, finds his highly simplified life suddenly upset. Their odyssey, as mysterious to us as it is to them, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle. Yet this, like everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.

"To The North" portrays a classic romantic entanglement of a sympathetic, honest, well-meaning young woman who cannot resist becoming involved with a man who is patently caddish and predatory. In striking and richly comic contrast to the turbulence of this passion is the cool, detached atmosphere of the house in St John's Wood in which it takes its course - where the young woman's sister-in-law with her strictly unromantic preoccupations is always near by, the orphaned teenager Pauline presents herself as gawky innocence itself, and the power-loving busybody Lady Waters misses nothing.