Number 9 tells the story of Enjil, a boy mathematician who is challenged by a spirit to solve the riddle, What is the fixed point of the wind? As Enjil searches for the answer, he and the reader embark on a journey through myth, legend, and religion. Enjil s adventures lead readers to an appreciation of symmetry within asymmetry, classical ideas, and modern impulses. Along the way Balmond redefines arithmetic for the lay person and opens the gateway to further discoveries.
By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize “A novel as accomplished as anything being written.”—Newsweek Number9Dream is the international literary sensation from a writer with astonishing range and imaginative energy—an intoxicating ride through Tokyo’s dark underworlds and the even more mysterious landscapes of our collective dreams. David Mitchell follows his eerily precocious, globe-striding first novel, Ghostwritten, with a work that is in its way even more ambitious. In outward form, Number9Dream is a Dickensian coming-of-age journey: Young dreamer Eiji Miyake, from remote rural Japan, thrust out on his own by his sister’s death and his mother’s breakdown, comes to Tokyo in pursuit of the father who abandoned him. Stumbling around this strange, awesome city, he trips over and crosses—through a hidden destiny or just monstrously bad luck—a number of its secret power centers. Suddenly, the riddle of his father’s identity becomes just one of the increasingly urgent questions Eiji must answer. Why is the line between the world of his experiences and the world of his dreams so blurry? Why do so many horrible things keep happening to him? What is it about the number 9? To answer these questions, and ultimately to come to terms with his inheritance, Eiji must somehow acquire an insight into the workings of history and fate that would be rare in anyone, much less in a boy from out of town with a price on his head and less than the cost of a Beatles disc to his name. Praise for Number9Dream “Delirious—a grand blur of overwhelming sensation.”—Entertainment Weekly “To call Mitchell’s book a simple quest novel . . is like calling Don DeLillo’s Underworld the story of a missing baseball.”—The New York Times Book Review “Number9Dream, with its propulsive energy, its Joycean eruption of language and playfulness, represents further confirmation that David Mitchell should be counted among the top young novelists working today.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Mitchell’s new novel has been described as a cross between Don DeLillo and William Gibson, and although that’s a perfectly serviceable cocktail-party formula, it doesn’t do justice to this odd, fitfully compelling work.”—The New Yorker “Leaping with ease from surrealist fables to a teenage coming-of-age story and then spinning back to Yakuza gangster battles and World War II–era kamikaze diaries, Mitchell is an aerial freestyle ski-jumper of fiction. Somehow, after performing feats of literary gymnastics, he manages to stick the landing.”—The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Mr. Small does it all (and now he does it in board books)! In this adventure, Fireman Small rushes to battle a fire in town. When the alarm bell rings, Fireman Small suits up and roars down the road in his shiny red fire engine. When he helps extinguish the fire and rescues a young girl, Fireman Small becomes a hero in Tinytown.
The first book of the #1 New York Times bestselling series and the inspiration for the hit movie from Dreamworks! John Smith seems like an ordinary teenager, living a normal life with his guardian Henri in Paradise, Ohio. But for John, keeping a low profile is essential, because he is not an ordinary teenager. He’s an alien from the planet Lorien, and he’s on the run. A group of evil aliens from the planet Mogadore, who destroyed his world, are hunting anyone who escaped. Nine Loric children were sent to Earth to live in hiding until they grew up and developed their Legacies, powers that would help them fight back—and help them save us. Three of them are now dead. John is Number Four, and he knows he’s next…. Michael Bay, director of Transformers, raved: “Number Four is a hero for this generation.” This epic story is perfect for fans of action-packed science fiction like The 5th Wave series by Rick Yancey, The Maze Runner series by James Dashner, and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. The battle for Earth’s survival wages on. Read all of the books: #2: The Power of Six, #3: The Rise of Nine, #4: The Fall of Five, #5: The Revenge of Seven, #6: The Fate of Ten, and #7: United as One. Don’t miss the first book in the brand-new I Am Number Four spin-off series: Generation One.
Since man was created, he realised that his fingers were his best tools. He built his counting system on those fingers with which he learned to develop writing, writing the numbers and the alphabet. Our concept of numbers is born with us before that of speech and writing. The brain is conscious of numbers from the very early stages of development. This concept progresses with education, practice, and applications, i.e., through life experiences. Our life journeys, from beginning to end, go through a path totally surrounded by numbers. We adapt ourselves through this journey to make some sense of it. Hence, numbers are a major and essential part of our existence. This book highlights the history and development of numbers and delves into the mystery of number 9 in a wide variety of mathematical excursions. The famous Fibonacci numbers, as well as other numbers and sequences, fall under the mystique of number 9.
A novel with a strong female lead character who’s flawed but who readers will take to their hearts. A story about grief, family conflicts and first love, with a dramatic background of sport and the Olympics. What do you do when your amazing, beautiful, beloved sister dies? Hide in your room for two years. Sleep with a very, very wrong man. Leave home and start a new life, lying to everyone you meet including your kind employer, your curious friends and the man you love? Pip Mitchell’s an expert at making seriously bad decisions. But when her past, present and future collide at the Sydney Olympic Games, she’s going to have to decide whose side she’s on – or she’ll lose everyone she loves. No Number Nine is a coming-of-age story about an 18-year-old girl who has put her life on hold for two years after the death of her sister. Pip leaves her home in England and tries to move forward with her life, taking a job in Germany as an au pair to the von Feldsteins, a family which is full of surprises - and not good ones. Set in Munich, the story follows Pip for a year as she crashes from one embarrassing, awkward mistake to the next. Finally, as she starts to emerge from her fog of grief, she travels with the von Feldsteins to Sydney where, amid the drama of the 2000 Olympic Games, everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. Can Pip protect herself and the people she loves? Does she have the courage to tell the truth, even if it destroys her?
The Admiral’s dedication could not be questioned – but it was a bit much expecting him to give up his ancestral home for the psychological testing of Civil Service candidates. Assisted by his son, he embarks upon a battle of wits against the political hopefuls. The result is a hilarious tale of double-crossing, eavesdropping – and total mayhem.
This fascinating and affectionate book takes an in-depth look at the phenomenon that is 'El Nino', including his secret wedding to girlfriend Olalla and the recent birth of his daughter.
Meet the new neighbours. Whose side are you on? ‘An exciting, dark novel about friendship; brutally truthful and raw’ Adele Parks, Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling author
