Books published by Vintage Publishing

Strands describes a year's worth of walking on the ultimate beach: inter-tidal and constantly turning up revelations: mermaid's purses, lugworms, sea potatoes, messages in bottles, buried cars, beached whales and a perfect cup from a Cunard liner.

As her hand slips from his grip, Patrick's life is shattered, forever changed... Trapped high on a high mountain face during the worst storm in living memory, a young man is forced to fight the brutal winter for his life - moments after his beloved wife is swept away forever across the ice.

Reading provides a unique kind of pleasure and no-one should live without it. This title tells us about the experience of reading, why access to books should never be taken for granted, how reading transforms our brains, and how literature can save lives.

Discover the classic Gothic horror novel of haunted cellars, opera, murder and unrequited love that inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-running west end hit. Christine is a beautiful young singer at the Paris Opera.

A travelling salesman falls in love a robot, Jenny, a refrigerator with personality. A man plays with his model trains too much until the women in his life decide to take matters into their own hands.

the removal of one English talisman - Beckham - and the irresistible instalment of another - Rooney. Throughout, award-winning journalist Patrick Barclay has been pitch-side and spoken to all those who know Ferguson best - fellow managers, former players, colleagues and commentators.

From the late 1960s, Northern Ireland has been mired in violence. Yet it has had seen more than its fair share of sporting heroes - from footballer George Best, through snooker champion Alex Higgins, to boxer Barry McGuigan. But sport - like everything else in Northern Ireland - could quickly turn nasty when politics were involved.

Malignant forces and supernatural visitors haunt this selection of superbly spooky tales selected and introduced by Ruth Rendell. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a dolls house, a lonely beach, a branch tapping on a window - ordinary things take on more than a tinge of dread in the hands of the original master of suspense.

Every morning Hakan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm.

Hans Bengler, a young entomologist, leaves Sweden for the Kalahari Desert, determined to find a previously undiscovered insect to name after himself and advance his career.

Each of them will find their lives changed forever over a story which spans decades and continents, a story that shines a spectacular light on the wounds we all bear...

Literary agent Valerie Morrell receives an email from prospective author William Mendez, containing the first chapters of a promising new novel. Mendez's book tells the story of an April night. Morrell is hooked by the scandalous tale of decadence, drugs and disasters, but as the book unfolds, a parallel story emerges.

Whether he is pursuing revenge and inspiration in Morocco, expounding on his notorious sex film on a TV chat show, or writing a hit musical based on the life and work of Shakespeare, Enderby emerges triumphant.

Monty and Ada last saw one another on the frontlines of the First World War, when Monty was a nurse and Ada an ambulance driver who drove like the devil. Now, the two friends have been reunited at crumbling Bleakly Hall, where Monty has been hired to look after the grumpy, gouty guests who have come to take the Hall's curative waters.

From the first ad in 1695 from a young gentleman who 'would willingly Match himself to some Good Young Gentlewoman, that has a Fortune of GBP3000 or thereabouts' to the GSOH, WLTM and online dating of more recent years, each ad is a snapshot of its age.

On the surface Joseph Pullman seems to have left his unhappy childhood far behind: as the town undertaker and a council member, he is now a respected citizen of Henderson, Maryland. But Joe's father is in jail for the brutal murder of a young boy and despite his wife's questions, Joe can't - or won't - talk about his past.

Elsewhere an out-of-towner meets a crab at a taco stand who seems to know more than any crab has a right to know. The 'sound mirrors of Denge' reflect more than noise for one day-tripper. And on Johnston Island a man struggles to hold onto his fading memories as his house slowly fills with pollen.

From an abandoned rowing boat in Estonia full of wild flowers to a swimming pool in the Congo full of drowned insects, Adam Thorpe's new collection takes us on a wide-ranging journey through states of gain and loss, alienation and belonging.

John Julius Norwich expertly examines the history of the oldest continuing institution in the world, tracing the papal line down the centuries from St Peter to the presentOf the 280-odd holders of the supreme office, some have unquestionably been saints;

Provides an account of War Poets of 1914-1918, written through a series of actual encounters, or near-encounters, from Siegfried Sassoon's first, blushing meeting with Rupert Brooke over kidneys and bacon at Eddie Marsh's breakfasts before the war, through famous moments like Sassoon's encouragement of Owen when both are in hospital at same time.

'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.'Churchill had more reason than most to rue the power of democracy, having been thrown out of office after leading Britain to victory in 1945.

I Am a Chechen! offers a lyrical fusion of exotic legends, stories and memories of Chechnya: a land of wondrous beauty, site of genocides past and present, and the author's ancestral home. Haunted by memories of the land he deserted, Sadulaev tells the stories of those who stayed behind.

Records the experience of swimming in open water among hundreds of sharks, the beauties of strange seas and landscapes and the camaraderie, humour and tension of people who live in close proximity and risk their lives day by day.

You may think you know all about King Arthur, the young boy who plucked the sword from the stone. You've probably heard stories about Merlin's magic powers and the Knights of the round table. These are the stories we learn at school. But they are just the beginning.

Once upon a time there was a book, and inside the book were princes who had been turned into frogs or ferocious beasts, princesses so beautiful they astonished the sun, faithful sweethearts and evil stepmothers, giants taller than mountains and a boy no bigger than your thumb, houses made of bread and cake and birds made of gold.

It is 1792 and a group of English gentlemen is recruiting settlers for a new world. Anti-slavers, they foresee the shining vision of a free colony in Africa where all races and classes can live together in harmony. More than a hundred men, women and children set sail from London bound for Muranda, an island off the west coat of Africa.

The moving story of a brother and a sister caught in the tide of the Cold War Kathe is a Jewish sculptor living in East Berlin.

On a tiny peninsula, the Inuit of Tikigaq worshipped the whales they killed, evolving an elaborate system of myths and rituals to accompany the hunt. Lowenstein began to explore these in 1973 and recorded the complex tales of the elders, providing a classic text on the vanishing culture of the North Alaskan wilderness.

During the Great War, the Spanish town at the centre of this novel turned into a boom-town, due to the demand for coal. After that, the downhill slide began, hastened on by Anarchists and left-wingers; then the Civil War and Franco's depression. Then came the March of Progress.

Irene is 37 years old and just out of prison after serving time for terrorist activities. Deciding to return home to Bilbao, she takes a bus journey across Spain, striking up conversations with the passengers who include two plainclothes policemen. As the journey progresses, so the tension builds.