New Releases by Russell Hoban

It is 1097 and a traveller arrives in the great, walled city of Antioch with a vision of a beautiful and mysterious geometric design that will change the lives of all those who see it. Pilgermann is a mesmerising recreation of the world of the Crusades, following its unlikely hero and those he meets on a journey of picaresque horror across a Europe of hatreds, visions and a desperate wish for salvation.

''A piece of invention as original as any of Tolkien''s or C.S. Lewis''s'' New Statesman ''I have gone to look for a lion.'' In a world where lions have become extinct, the map-maker Jachin-Boaz nevertheless abandons his wife and son to find one, leaving just this note. But his decision has unexpected consequences. He will be pursued by his son, Boaz-Jachin, and by something else: a tawny-skinned, amber-eyed beast from another place and time, a bringer of life and death. ''Magic at work ... Funny as well as beautiful'' Irish Times ''Hoban is unclassifiable, thank goodness. His narrative is so minutely and compellingly realistic that after a time you cease to notice that he has stood reality on its head'' Sunday Times

Celebrate Christmas with the inspiration for the beloved Jim Henson film. In 1977, when Jim Henson debuted the now-classic film Emmet Otter''s Jug-Band Christmas, few knew it was based on a story written and illustrated by Russell and Lillian Hoban, creators of Bread and Jam for Frances and other treasured children''s books. With an enduring score by the great Paul Williams, the movie remains a holiday tradition in homes across North America. Here is the book that started it all, a beautiful gift edition that will thrill Muppets fans young and old. Inspired by the classic tale "The Gift of the Magi," the story begins in a poor country cottage, as Emmet Otter dreams of buying Ma a piano for Christmas, while Ma dreams of buying Emmet a guitar. When a village talent contest is announced, both imagine their dreams coming true. But what they don''t imagine finding is their real reward — the power of love, family, and hope in hard times. It is a story that reaches into a reader''s heart and reminds us all that fortune favors the brave. A Bank Street College of Education Best Children''s Book of the Year "[A] welcome reissue of the Hobans'' 1971 story . . . Colorful illustrations of the close-knit animal community contain plenty of warmth." —The Horn Book

''This table,'' said the man. ''What about the table?'' said the woman. ''It''s wearing me out,'' said the man. What to do? The man makes a decision. He finds a tablewood tree, cuts it down, saws it up and makes a new table. There''s nothing like a new table. This one is strong enough for elephants to dance on! But. ''Where would we get the elephants?'' said the woman. ''Advertise in the Classified Section,'' said the man. ''Elephants wanted for table work. Must be agile.'' It looks as if the man and the woman might need some more tables! ''We could open a restaurant,'' said the man. A restaurant with dancing elephants - where will it all lead?

When Kleinzeit, an advertising copywriter whose name means either ''hero'' or ''smalltime'', depending on who you ask, picks up a sheet of yellow paper in the London Underground, he doesn''t suspect that it will cause him to be fired from his job and admitted to hospital with geometrical pain in his hypotenuse. In Hospital Ward A4, Kleinzeit discovers he is not alone: his fellow patients also suffer from nonsensical but possibly deadly ailments which all have something strange in common. With the help of the beautiful night nurse and armed with a glockenspiel and a paperback of Thucydides, Kleinzeit escapes from hospital and finds himself plunged headlong into a wild and flickering netherworld of mystery involving the Underground, an enigmatic red-bearded man, a key, sheets of yellow paper, and Death himself ... A hilarious, surreal and completely unpredictable novel about one man''s search for reality, "Kleinzeit" (1974) is one of Russell Hoban''s best-loved works. ''Hoban is as funny and unusual as any writer around ... "Kleinzeit" is a sort of holy fool, a fierce, lonely intelligence desperately trying to make sense of a hopeless world. A tour de force.'' - "Evening Standard" ''Hoban is an extraordinarily talented novelist, an original mind in the era of mass-produced philosophers.'' - "Irish Times" ''Delightful ... "Kleinzeit"''s language is forever astonishing.'' - "Boston Globe"

Featuring Frog and Toad and seven other beloved I Can Read characters together, this collection of favorite easy-to-read I Can Read stories is full of familiar faces and comes with a free poster starring our most popular characters! This Level Two slipcase is perfect for children who read on their own but still need a little help. The collection includes the following eight new and classic Level Two I Can Read books: Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower Best Seat in Second Grade Bread and Jam for Frances Flat Stanley and the Firehouse Frog and Toad All Year Marley’s Big Adventure Mouse Soup Pony Scouts: Pony Crazy

Russell Hoban’s moving, unflinching tale of a boy who finds bravery during illness is reimagined in graphic-novel format with art by Alexis Deacon. Asleep in his hospital bed, Jim dreams of a great lion with white teeth and amber eyes. This lion is Jim’s finder. According to Nurse Bami, everyone has a finder, a creature who comes looking for us when we are lost. But when the time comes for Jim’s operation, will his lion be able to find him and bring him safely home? Dramatically reimagined as a graphic novel by award-winning illustrator Alexis Deacon, with the inclusion of powerful dream sequences, Russell Hoban’s tale of a boy’s search for strength and courage will resonate with any child dealing with adversity.

What happens if you wake up thirsty in the middle of the night? How do you trick the most insufferable boy in the village? What would you do on your birthday if you were a lobster? Find out in this short story collection. Chucklers is a collection of books that make reading a pleasure.

Brilliant and hilarious, full of monsters and disbelieving grown-ups - this is an irresistible Hoban and Blake classic, back in print at last.From the inimitable duo of Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake, the pair behind the hilarious tales of Captain Najork, this is the story of John, who likes to draw monsters. Lots of them. Red monsters, yellow monsters, scaly monsters, furry monsters, even invisible monsters. Nothing but monsters! His mum and dad are beginning to worry. Then one day John starts a monster drawing that fills up a whole sheet of wrapping paper - and that''s just the tip of the tail! Will this be his biggest monster ever? Or even ... how long will it remain just a drawing?

When eighty-three-year-old Irving Goodman falls in love with actress Justine Trimble she''s been dead for forty-seven years. Irving may not know how he''s going to attain his heart''s desire but he knows a man who does. Istvan Fallok, a wizard of high technology, sees her on Irving''s TV screen and hi-techs Justine out of the video tape and into present-day Soho - in black-and-white. As any reader of Bram Stoker will know, blood is the (full-colour) life and in order for Justine to retain her colour she has to be topped up now and then - by Irving and his friends and the odd passer-by. Things become a little complicated when Grace Kowalski brings a Justine Two into the picture and not surprisingly the curiosity of the police is soon aroused ...

On a day like any other, Kleinzeit gets fired. Hours later he finds himself in hospital with a pair of adventurous pyjamas and a recurring geometrical pain. Here he falls instantly in love with a beautiful night nurse called Sister. And together they are pitched headlong into a wild and flickering world of mystery ... Kleinzeit. In German that means ''hero''. Or ''smalltime''. It depends on whom you ask. ''Russell Hoban is our Ur-novelist, a maverick voice that is like no other'' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Since the age of thirteen, Christabel Alderton has been troubled by a sort of second sight that works sometimes, but not always. Death is much on her mind because the men in her life tend to die before their time and she''s come to think she''s bad luck. Fascinated by Christabel, diabetologist Elias Newman is keen to know her better but she''s afraid of what might happen. Taking the reader from the River Lea via a haunted woodland bog, out to the crash of the Pacific surf on Kahakuloa Head in the Hawaiian Islands, this is Russell Hoban at his engrossing, inimitable best.

In the aquarium at the London Zoo, three sea turtles swim endlessly in ''their little bedsitter of ocean''. Two lonely people, William G and Neaera H, become obsessed with the turtles'' captivity, and resolve to rescue them and release them in to the sea. William''s and Neaera''s diaries tell the story of how they achieve the turtles'' freedom, and in the process re-define their own lives.

Recently widowed and increasingly lonely, Roswell Clark''s life had arrived at the point when he felt he needed a tattoo. His ideal image was that of a bat featured on an eighteenth-century bowl in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but strangely, on a visit to the museum, he encountered a woman called Sarah Varley, who was clearly compelled by the same bat. What did it mean? Sarah dealt in antiques and Roswell soon ran into her stalls in Chelsea and Covent Garden. His calling, which grew out of an obsession with crash-test dummies, was a bit harder to explain. It led from the invention of a popular children''s toy to lucrative commissions from a Parisian sybarite for wooden working models with very adult moving parts. Both Roswell and Sarah had lost their spouses and were still grieving in their different ways. And then Christ started putting a hand in - literally - when a fragment of an ancient crucifix fetched up in one of Sarah''s antique lots. Between some compulsion conveyed by this hand and Sarah''s natural urge to make improvements in people, Roswell''s work took a surprising new turn... Russell Hoban''s delicious new novel combines much about art - traditional and conceptual - with new angles on Christ, crash-test dummies, antiques, pornography and a charming tale of romance.

The first time Peter Diggs saw Amaryllis she was at a bus stop where the street sign said "Balsamic" although there was nothing vinegary about the place. The bus was unthinkably tall, made of yellow, orange and pink rice paper. That was a dream, but this romance soon intersects with reality.

Recently separated Phil Ockerman falls hard for Bertha Strunk at a tango lesson in Clerkenwell. Bertha also bears a strong resemblance to the seventeenth-century Venetian singer and composer Barbara Strozzi (with whom Phil happens to be obsessed), to the point where Phil is no longer sure which is which... Navigating several London Underground lines and considerable planetary activity, Russell Hoban''s intriguing romance tangos its way through a world of infidelity, artificial eyeballs, baseball bats and music - never missing a daring, seductive step.

Angelica''s Grotto is a pornographic website into which seventy-two-year-old art historian Harold Klein wanders one evening. Klein, a walking catalogue of infirmities, known to medical consultants as ''he who declines to hop the twig'', may not be up to much physically but there''s a lot of sex going on in his head. ''You''re a tiger from the neck up, Professor,'' says Melissa, the brains behind the website, when at last Klein faces the object of his desire. Harold first visits Angelica''s Grotto after losing his ''inner voice'', that censoring mechanism that keeps us from blurting out the first thing that pops into our heads and finding ourselves in Casualty as a result of it. Harold consults a therapist about this new lack of mental privacy and also has one-to-one onscreen dialogue in the Grotto. ''If I had an inner voice I wouldn''t be telling you all this,'' he explains to the as-yet-unmet Melissa. But when the flesh-and-blood Melissa and her large and well-hung colleague Leslie enter his life he finds it''s good to keep the angina medicine at the ready. Harold Klein''s odyssey takes him not only through erogenous zones but into various corners of the London art world, down the underground and up the buses.

An inexplicable message flashed onto the screen of his Apple II computer at 3 a.m. heralds the beginning of a startling quest for frustrated author Herman Orff. Taking up the offer of a cure for writer''s block leads him ''to those places in your head that you can''t get to on your own'' - and plunges him into a semi-dreamland inhabited by a bizarre combination of characters from myth and reality: the talking head of Orpheus; a lost love; the young girl of Vermeer''s famous portrait - and a frequency of Medusas.

‘Walker is my name and I am the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever theyve took me and walking them now on this paper the same. There aint that many sir prizes in life if you take noatis of every thing. Every time will have its happenings out and every place the same. Thats why I finely come to writing all this down. Thinking on what the idear of us myt be. Thinking on that thing whats in us lorn and loan and oansome.’ Composed in an English which has never been spoken and laced with a storytelling tradition that predates the written word, RIDDLEY WALKER is the world waiting for us at the bitter end of the nuclear road. It is desolate, dangerous and harrowing, and a modern masterpiece.

A story that could only have come from the imagination of Russell Hoban! Brought vividly to life by picture book great, Quentin Blake.This story begins with an ice-lolly stick. Its sweetness gone, it lies discarded and lonely ... until a little girl called Rosie comes along. She places it carefully in her cigar box, full of other sticks. "Without our ice-lollies we are nothing," says an old stick. But new stick wants to BE something and into the minds of all the old sticks, he plants dreams ... maybe they can be something, too. What about Rosie and her dreams that night? She dreams of helping her parents pay the bills. And so, at the stroke of midnight, magic and dreams collide and a HORSE gallops out of the cigar box! His name is Stickerino. "Where to?" he asks Rosie. "Anywhere with treasure!" she answers and hops on its back. Then begins an adventure like no other ... ice-lolly mountains by the sea, caskets of gold, and pirates foiled by a stickling ice-cream van...

Four stories featuring Frances the badger. Presented in abridged easy to read form.

Re-issued to coincide with the centenary of Messiaen''s birth, The Messiaen Companion was the first major study to appear after the composer''s death in April 1992. It was the first book to offer both a complete survey of Messiaen''s extraordinary achievements and a comprehensive guide to his music, also examining in detail the enduring inspiration which Messiaen derived from his religious faith and from his lifelong passion for ornithology and the natural world. The contributors, all of whom have made a special study of the composer, include two biographers of Messiaen and a number of the foremost interpreters of his music. Messiaen''s influential teaching is recalled in essays by three of his pupils (Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, and Peter Hill), and the composer is also remembered in a remarkable and moving contribution from his widow and devoted musical companion, the pianist Yvonne Loriod.

With a new addition to the family, Frances is feeling left out. So Frances decides to run away—but not too far! This new edition of Russell and Lillian Hoban’s beloved classic is perfect for beginning readers.

Father has had a long hard day at work. A sorely trying day indeed. He wants to sit down and put his feet up and rest. But what does he find when he arrives home? Commotion, consternation, confusion, chaos rule! How to get to the bottom of it? How to restore some semblance of proper order? The investigation, reluctantly begun, expands in widening circles to take in the whole family, as finger points to pointing finger. Perhaps everyone is to blame? Perhaps to set things straight everyone just needs to sit down, say sorry, and start over again? That family life is just that simple and never quite that simple is the message Russell and Lillian Hoban, the creators of such classics as Bread and Jam for Frances, A Little Sister for Frances, and The Little Brute Family, bring alive in this cleverly fashioned and heartwarmingly illustrated tale of a house in uproar.

Frances doesn''t think her little sister, Gloria, can be her friend. But when Frances''s friend Albert has a no-girls baseball game, Frances shows him a thing or two about friendship—and a thing or two about what girls can do. Along the way, Frances discovers that sisters can indeed be friends . . . maybe even best friends.

Francisca ha estado ahorrando para poder comprar un juego de vajilla para el té. Pero Telma la ha engañado con una ganga y ahora Francisca tiene el juego de té equivocado y nada de dinero. ¿Podrá Francisca recuperar su dinero?

Falling head over heels for the spirited Lola, who shares his musical tastes and complements him on every level, Max nevertheless pursues a secret second relationship when the unattainable high-school homecoming queen he loved years earlier reenters his life.

A Russell Hoban Omnibus presents four of Hoban''s novels: the haunting The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz; the popular Turtle Diary (which was made into a movie starring Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley); Pilgermann; and his newest work, Mr Rinyo-Clacton''s Offer, a brilliant Faustian comedy published here for the first time in the United States. Book jacket.