A wonderful and witty book, part folk fable, part philosophical tale, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature and the greatest Portuguese writer of his time. "A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me a boat. The king's house had many other doors, but this was the door for petitions. Since the king spent all his time sitting by the door for favours (favours being offered to the king, you understand), whenever he heard someone knocking on the door for petitions, he would pretend not to hear..." Why the petitioner required a boat, where he was bound for, and who volunteered to crew for him and what cargo it was found to be carrying the reader will discover as this short narrative unfolds. And at the end it will be clear that what night appear to be a children's fable is in fact a wry, witty Philosophical Tale that would not have displeased Voltaire or Swift.

A majestic tale, rich in allegory, wit and philosophy; another masterpiece from the Nobel prize-winning novelist Jose Saramago. What if, one day, Europe was to crack along the length of the Pyrenees, separating Spain and Portugal from the rest of Europe? In Saramago's fable, a new island is sent spinning through the ocean like a great stone raft. While the authorities panic and tourists flee, three men, two women and a dog are drawn together by omens that burden them with a peculiar responsibility. In this magical realist tale, the six take to the road, finding themselves adrift in a world now unfamiliar and forced to reckon with their relationships, human psychology and the shakiness of belief itself.

Jose Saramago takes us on a thrilling literary journey through the land, history and culture of his native country.From the misty mountains of the north to the southern seascape of the Algarve, the travels of Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago are a passionate rediscovery of his own land. Embarking in the autumn of 1979, Saramago resolves to travel to Portugal, as well as through it. As his country emerges from an authoritarian dictatorship, he traverses his beloved homeland, neglecting its grand 'sights' in favour of Romanesque churches and cobweb-ridden chapels, determined to find belonging in the landscape which went on to inform his greatest works of fiction. .

Jose Saramago takes us on a thrilling literary journey through the land, history and culture of his native country. From the misty mountains of the north to the southern seascape of the Algarve, the travels of Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago are a passionate rediscovery of his own land. Embarking in the autumn of 1979, Saramago resolves to travel to Portugal, as well as through it. As his country emerges from an authoritarian dictatorship, he traverses his beloved homeland, neglecting its grand 'sights' in favour of Romanesque churches and cobweb-ridden chapels, determined to find belonging in the landscape which went on to inform his greatest works of fiction.

Jose Saramago takes us on a thrilling literary journey through the land, history and culture of his native country.From the misty mountains of the north to the southern seascape of the Algarve, the travels of Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago are a passionate rediscovery of his own land. Embarking in the autumn of 1979, Saramago resolves to travel to Portugal, as well as through it. As his country emerges from an authoritarian dictatorship, he traverses his beloved homeland, neglecting its grand 'sights' in favour of Romanesque churches and cobweb-ridden chapels, determined to find belonging in the landscape which went on to inform his greatest works of fiction. .

A subtle and insightful story about boredom, passion, curiosity and memory from the Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago A subtle and insightful story about boredom, passion, curiosity and memory from the Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago Senhor Jose is a lonely civil servant who spends his days labouring in the labyrinthine stacks of Lisbon's central registry. Among the file-cards for the living and the dead, one - of an apparently ordinary woman - will transform his life. Breaking away from his strict routine, Jose resolves to track the woman down, obsessively following a thread of clues in a bid to rescue her from an oblivion deeper than the grave. 'When a very good book finds us at just the right moment in life, it can become stitched into our own identity. All the Names - a novel about identity and connection - has become stitched into mine' Samantha Harvey, Independent

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 3 collects three pivotal stories of Hellboy's journey, as he leaves behind the world of men and journeys into the unknown: the award-winning Conqueror Worm, which brings back some of Hellboy's earliest foes, in the story that ends his career with the B.P.R.D., and marks his first run-in with the fan-favorite masked hero Lobster Johnson; the haunting fairy tale The Third Wish; and The Island, a dark and surreal glimpse into the true origin of the Right Hand of Doom and Hellboy's own destiny; along with a new, expanded sketchbook of never-before-seen Mignola artwork.

Hellboy Library Edition Volume 3 collects three pivotal stories of Hellboy's journey, as he leaves behind the world of men and journeys into the unknown: the award-winning Conqueror Worm, which brings back some of Hellboy's earliest foes, in the story that ends his career with the B.P.R.D., and marks his first run-in with the fan-favorite masked hero Lobster Johnson; the haunting fairy tale The Third Wish; and The Island, a dark and surreal glimpse into the true origin of the Right Hand of Doom and Hellboy's own destiny; along with a new, expanded sketchbook of never-before-seen Mignola artwork.

A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art, and earthly desire. At the centre of this story, is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 12th and 13th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer to local merchants and lowly stonecutters, everyone, even the town’s Jewish denizens, is implicated and affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s Cathedral, which in no way enforces morality or charity. Around this narrative core, Ben Hopkins has constructed his own monumental edifice, a choral novel that is rich with the vicissitudes of mercantilism, politics, religion, and human enterprise. Ambitious, immersive, a remarkable feat of imagination, Cathedral deftly combines historical fiction, the literary novel of ideas, and a tale of adventure and intrigue. Fans of authors like Umberto Eco, Elif Shafak, Hilary Mantel, Ken Follett and Jose Saramago will delight at the atmosphere, the beautiful prose, and the vivid characters of Ben Hopkins’s Cathedral.

The tale of a party of shipwrecked schoolboys, marooned on a coral island, who at first enjoy the freedom of the situation but soon divide into fearsome gangs which turn the paradise island into a nightmare of panic and death. .

The tale of a party of shipwrecked schoolboys, marooned on a coral island, who at first enjoy the freedom of the situation but soon divide into fearsome gangs which turn the paradise island into a nightmare of panic and death. .

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues, and it's more than a year before the man is identified. And that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still...? No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world's great storytellers presents a moving and surprising tale whose subject is nothing less than the nature of mystery itself...

A delightful insight into the formation of an artist who would become one of the world's most respected writers.Born in 1922 in the tiny Portuguese village of Azinhaga, Jose Saramago was only a baby when his family moved to a series of cramped lodgings in a working-class neighbourhood of Lisbon. Nevertheless, he would return to the village throughout his early life, its river and olive groves seeping deep into his memory.Shifting between Azinhaga and Lisbon, this touching book is a mosaic of memories. Written with characteristic wit and honesty, Small Memories traces the formation of an artist always fascinated by language and who emerged, against all odds, as one of the world's most respected writers. .

A delightful insight into the formation of an artist who would become one of the world's most respected writers.Born in 1922 in the tiny Portuguese village of Azinhaga, Jose Saramago was only a baby when his family moved to a series of cramped lodgings in a working-class neighbourhood of Lisbon. Nevertheless, he would return to the village throughout his early life, its river and olive groves seeping deep into his memory.Shifting between Azinhaga and Lisbon, this touching book is a mosaic of memories. Written with characteristic wit and honesty, Small Memories traces the formation of an artist always fascinated by language and who emerged, against all odds, as one of the world's most respected writers. .

A proofreader tinkering with a historical text opens up a world of ambiguity and invention What happens when the facts of history are replaced by the mysteries of love? When Raimundo Silva, a lowly proofreader for a Lisbon publishing house, inserts a negative into a sentence of a historical text, he alters the whole course of the 1147 Siege of Lisbon. Fearing censure he is met instead with admiration: Dr Maria Sara, his voluptuous new editor, encourages him to pen his own alternative history. As his retelling draws on all his imaginative powers, Silva finds - to his nervous delight - that if the facts of the past can be rewritten as a romance then so can the details of his own dusty bachelor present.

Howard Lovecraft was an American writer who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction. Despite the fact that he was virtually unknown before he died, today he is known as the most influential author in his genre. "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" is a novella, which combines elements of horror and fantasy into an epic tale that illustrates the scope and wonder of humankind's ability to dream.