Engelska

A sumptuous full-colour art book containing the complete collection of almost 200 sketches, drawings, paintings and maps created by J.R.R. Tolkien for The Lord of the Rings.

<p> <strong>Continuing the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of George R.R. Martin's landmark series, this gorgeously illustrated special edition of <em>A Clash of Kings</em> features over twenty all-new illustrations from Lauren K. Cannon, both colour and black-and-white, and a special foreword by Bernard Cornwell.</strong> </p> <p>The Iron Throne once united the Sunset Lands, but King Robert is dead, his widow is a traitor to his memory, and his surviving brothers are set on a path of war amongst themselves. At King's Landing, the head of Lord Eddard Stark rots on a spike for all to see. His daughter Sansa is betrothed still to his killer's son Joffrey - Queen Cersei's son, though not the son of her late husband Robert. Even so, Joffrey is now a boy-king, Cersei is his regent, and war is inevitable.</p> <p>In Dragonstone, Robert's brother Stannis has declared himself king, while his other brother Renly proclaims himself king at Storm's End - and Eddard Stark's fifteen year old son Robb wears the crown of the north at Winterfell.</p> <p>A comet in the night sky, red and malevolent, the colour of blood and flame, can only be an omen of murder and war. Stannis's child Princess Shireen dreams of dragons waking from stone. And a white raven has brought word from the Citadel itself, foretelling summer's end. It has been the longest summer in living memory, lasting ten years, and the smallfolk say it means an even longer winter to come...</p> <p>The first rule of war is never give the enemy his wish. But winter will be the biggest enemy. From beyond the Wall the undead and Others clamour for freedom, and from beyond the sea the long-dead Dragon King's daughter hatches her revenge. Robb Stark will be exceedingly lucky to reach adulthood.</p>

<p>ncluding brand-new paintings, this is a fully illustrated new edition of the forerunner to The Lord of the Rings. The Silmarillion fills in the background which lies behind the more popular work, and gives the earlier history of Middle-earth, introducing some of the key characters. The Silmarillion is the core of J.R.R. Tolkien's imaginative writing, a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth, through the Second Age and the rise of Sauron, to the end of the War of the Ring.</p><p>They are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth, and the Elves made war upon him in his impenetrable fortress in Angband for the recovery of the Silmarils, three jewels containing the last remaining pure light of Valinor, seized by Morgoth and set in his iron crown. Accompanying these tales are several shorter works. The Ainulindale is a myth of the Creation and in the Valaquenta the nature and powers of the gods is described. The Akallabeth recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Numenor at the end of the Second Age and Of the Rings of Power tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age, as told in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien could not publish The Silmarillion in his lifetime, as it grew with him, so he would leave it to his son, Christopher, to edit the work from many manuscripts and bring his father's great vision to publishable form, so completing the literary achievement of a lifetime. </p><p>This special edition presents anew this seminal first step towards mapping out the posthumous publishing of Middle-earth, and the beginning of an illustrious forty years and more than twenty books celebrating his father's legacy. Also included is a letter by J.R.R. Tolkien written in 1951 which provides a brilliant exposition of the earlier Ages, and almost 50 full-colour paintings by Ted Nasmith, including some which appear here for the first time.<br/></p>

<p><b>A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.<br/><br/>This is the hugely-anticipated sequel to TJ Klune's <i>The House in the Cerulean Sea</i>, a cosy-fantasy triumph and a <i>New York Times </i>bestseller.<br/><br/>International Exclusive Edition: </b>This exclusive hardback edition features gorgeous sprayed edges.<br/><br/>Arthur Parnassus has built a good life on the ashes of a bad one. He's headmaster at an orphanage for magical children, on a peculiar island, assisted by love-of-his-life Linus Baker. And together, they'll do anything to protect their extraordinary and powerful charges.<br/><br/>However, when Arthur is forced to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself fighting for those under his care. It's also a fight for the better future that all magical people deserve. Then when a new magical child joins their island home, Arthur knows they've reached breaking point. The child finds power in calling himself a monster, a name Arthur has tried so hard to banish to protect his children. Challenged from within and without, their volatile family might grow stronger. Or everything Arthur loves could fall apart.<br/><br/><b><i>Somewhere Beyond the Sea </i>is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.</b><br/><br/><b>Praise for <i>The House in the Cerulean Sea:</i></b><br/><br/>'I loved it. It is like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket. Simply perfect' - V. E. Schwab, author of <i>The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue</i><br/><br/>'It will renew your faith in humanity' - Terry Brooks, author of the Shannara series<br/><br/>'A witty, wholesome fantasy that's likely to cause heart-swelling' - <i>The Washington Post</i></p>

An exciting 2025 release by bestselling Piatkus author!

The breathtaking new novel about the boundaries between worlds and individuals, from the internationally bestselling author of 1Q84. A novel about the porous boundary between the real and shadow worlds. After losing his beloved as a teenager, the narrator finds his way to the Town, a mysterious place where he finds work as a Dream Reader in the library. Back in the real world as an adult he tries to recapture his time in the Town by taking a job as a librarian in a remote location in Fukushima province, where he takes over the job from a ghost. When a boy, M, who visits the library every day, vanishes, the boundaries between spatial and temporal realities, and between individuals, seems to have been breached. A novel about the barriers, imaginary and real, that we put up between and within ourselves.

<p>In 991 AD, vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defence-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of tenth-century England, due to it being immortalised in the poem, The Battle of Maldon. Written shortly after the battle, the poem now survives only as a 325-line fragment, but its value to today is incalculable, not just as an heroic tale but in vividly expressing the lost language of our ancestors and celebrating ideals of loyalty and friendship. J.R.R. Tolkien considered The Battle of Maldon &apos;the last surviving fragment of ancient English heroic minstrelsy&apos;. It would inspire him to compose, during the 1930s, his own dramatic verse-dialogue, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm&apos;s Son, which imagines the aftermath of the great battle when two of Beorhtnoth&apos;s retainers come to retrieve their duke&apos;s body. Leading Tolkien scholar, Peter Grybauskas, presents for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien&apos;s own prose translation of The Battle of Maldon together with the definitive treatment of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth and its accompanying essays; also included and never before published is Tolkien&apos;s bravura lecture, &apos;The Tradition of Versification in Old English&apos;, a wide-ranging essay on the nature of poetic tradition. Illuminated with insightful notes and commentary, he has produced a definitive critical edition of these works, and argues compellingly that, Beowulf excepted, The Battle of Maldon may well have been &apos;the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien&apos;s fiction&apos;, most dramatically within the pages of The Lord of the Rings.</p>