Books published by Vintage Publishing

Malaisea, the unhealthiest town in the whole of Zamonia, is home to Echo the Crat, a multitalented creature resembling a cat in appearance but capable of speaking any language under the sun, human or animal. When his mistress dies, Echo finds himself out on the street.

Talking to John McEnroe, his friends and his rivals, and drawing on a range of references, Tim Adams presents a book that is both a fan's-eye portrait of one of the most vivid players to pick up a tennis racket and a study of the idea of sporting obsession.

What is it, that makes a man willing to sit on top of an enormous Roman Candle and wait for someone to light the fuse? Ask a few of the astronauts and find out. They had it. The first Americans in space, battling the Russians for control of the heavens, putting their lives on the line. This book is about the quality beyond bravery, beyond courage.

In addition to being a great composer, Igor Stravinsky was one of the most fascinating personalities of his time. The first volume of this definitive biography covers Stravinsky's life and work from his birth in 1882 through to 1934, with special focus on his Russian roots and his struggles to make his way in Switzerland and France.

Returning to Manchester, her broken home, Esther moves back to the flat she used to share with her best friend Donna. Surrounded by empty gin bottles, with her past life safely taped up in stacked cardboard boxes, she proceeds to turn her back on a 'real world' that seems meaningless and absurd.

A perceptive observation about the human race cleverly constructed and told with Desai's opulent vocabulary.

A richly imaginative novel of love, loss, time and the rise and fall of a great maritime empire, that sends two thwarted lovers spiralling through the chaos of history. Esperanca an illiterate peasant, a rich girl in Faro and a clever, bookish recluse who confronts a murderer in nineteenth-century Lisbon.

Cider with Rosie is a wonderfully vivid memoir of childhood in a remote Cotswold village, a village before electricity or cars, a timeless place on the verge of change. Growing up amongst the fields and woods and characters of the place, Laurie Lee depicts a world that is both immediate and real and belongs to a now-distant past.

Far more than a fine horse portraitist, George Stubbs was a painter and a printmaker of the great importance. This book uncovers Stubbs's origins and some of the secrets of his youth. By tracing the network of patronage and friendship through which George Stubbs operated, it describes the succession of animals, people, and ideas that inspired him.

Pierrot, a 15-year-old boy, stumbles across the murdered body of a local resistance hero one morning in 1945. He discovers a letter in the dead man's wallet, the contents of which unearth a series of dramatic events that in turn lead to Pierrot's association with Madame Henry.

Howard Marks was released after serving seven years of a twenty-five year sentence for marijuana smuggling. It was time for a change of career. So he wrote two best-selling books, stood as a parliamentary candidate, applied to become the country's Drug Czar, and embarked on a long-running sell-out series of one man shows.

Ursula Wong is the only child of a poor family and referred to by one member of the TV audience as 'half-breed trailer trash', not worth all the expense. But Ursula is the last of her family line and her story explodes into a gorgeous saga of culture, history and heredity.

There aren't many scientists famous enough in their lifetime to be canonized by the US Congress as one of America's 'living legends'. This book selects from across the full range of Gould's writing, including some of the most famous of his essays and extracts from his major books. The introduction sets both the essays and Gould's life in context.

At the age of six, Mary Ward, the child of a poor farming family in Suffolk, has a revelation: she isn't Mary, she's a boy. So begins Mary's heroic struggle to change gender, while around her others also strive to find a place of safety and fulfilment in a savage and confusing world.

From the three-time winner of the Swedish Crime Writers' Award. A couple are found murdered in their flat in Gothenburg, their bodies symbolically arranged in a mysterious and grotesque fashion.

Lord Loveall, heretofore heirless lord of the sprawling Love Hall, is the richest man in England. He arrives home one morning with a most unusual package - a baby that he presents as the inheritor to the family name and fortune. In honor of his beloved sister, who died young, Loveall names the baby Rose.

Features a tale of love and war, of intrigue and obsession, of politics and faith, and high adventure. Against a detailed historical backcloth, this work tells of a small band of intrepid men and women who defy the madness of Holy War to realize their own vision of God and Eternity.

When Therese Raquin is forced to marry the sickly Camille, she sees a bare life stretching out before her, leading every evening to the same cold bed and every morning to the same empty day. Escape comes in the form of her husband's friend, Laurent, and Therese throws herself headlong into an affair.

Emile Pencenat is in a cemetery, designing his own ornate tomb. In a disused postbox by the gate he discovers an envelope addressed to a Mlle Veronique Champourcieux. He is puzzled but dutifully posts the letter. This is a story of dark vengeance and avarice, linking the peasant community of Upper Provence to nineteenth-century South Africa.

Born into a wealthy New England family, Edie Sedgwick became, in the 1960s, both an emblem of, and a memorial to, the doomed world spawned by Andy Warhol. Edie is an American fable on an epic scale - the story of a short, crowded and vivid life which is also the story of the decade.

When British troops entered Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, they confronted a terrible challenge, inside the camp were people, who would die unless they received immediate medical attention. This is the story of the men and women who faced that challenge to save the inmates of Belsen.

Ismail Agha treats the adopted orphan boy Salman as his own son and heir until his wife gives him a son of his own. Then jealousy enters their household and nobody's life is safe. The knives are drawn, and yet even the village gossips can not predict who will be the victim.

In response, one group of supporters took a drastic step: rather than meekly fall into line and - through rocketing ticket prices - help fund the Glazers' aims of cashing in on Manchester United's history and traditions, they took the plunge and formed a new club that started life in the tenth tier of English football.

As a small child in a wintry Bremen, Hanna dreams about the other side of silence, the place where the wind comes from and palm trees wave in the sun.

Sophia's husband Cornelis is one of the lucky ones who grew rich dealing with the Tulip flower. To celebrate, he commissions a young artist to paint him with his beautiful young bride. But as the portrait grows, so does the passion between Sophia and the painter; and ambitions, desires and dreams breed an intricate deception and a reckless gamble.

In 2001 Andrew Anthony occupied a comfortable position within the liberal left media. In rejecting that analysis, Anthony set out on the painful process of unpicking the prejudices that had come to shape progressive, liberal and wider public opinion.

Throws light on the dominant literary form of two centuries, in its twin aspects as work of art and commodity. The first part of this book traces the history of the author's novel about Henry James. The essays in the second part pursue the themes of genesis, composition and reception in the work of other novelists.

After the scandalous theft of of GBP27,000 from a local pub, a homeless drifter pursues his eccentric uncle, 'The Man Who Walks', up into the Highlands to recover the money. And as the sinister, unstable nephew gains on The Man Who Walks, can it be that it will all end in a field and that this field is Culloden Moor?

A packet of letters, found in an attic, leads a young girl into the world of love. The attic is in Montefort, a corroding country house in County Cork, which harbours a group of people held together by odd ties of kinship or habit, and haunted by the memory of its former owner who was killed in France as a young man.

The story of Christian Lang is one of obsession, both physical and emotional. A famous novelist and chat-show host, Lang wants to keep his affair with the enchanting Sarita a secret, but she has her own reasons for keeping it quiet too.