Rahimi (Earth and Ashes) won the 2008 Prix Goncourt for this brief, melodramatic novel set amid factional violence somewhere in Afghanistan or elsewhere. It follows the circumscribed movements of a Muslim woman largely confined to the house where she nurses her comatose husband, who's been shot by a fellow jihadist. A humorless, inflammatory mullah pays the woman unwelcome visits, and sexually menacing soldiers break into her house. Though such events generate tension and drama, the novel's cultural and historical milieu lacks specificity, and Rahimi may have erred in sketching the story's political context vaguely. For some readers, his intimate attention ...
Рассказ вошёл в сборники:The Golden Apples of the Sun (Золотые яблоки солнца)S Is For Space (К значит Космос)Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (Сборник ста лучших рассказов)
Those who know little to nothing about Chinese culture will receive an eye-opening experience of how China was and how China is now through Annie Wang’s novel The People’s Republic of Desire.Wang takes readers on a journey with four cosmopolitan women learning to live life in the new China. Niuniu, the book’s narrator, is a Chinese American woman, who spent seven years living in the States obtaining her degree in journalism. In the book, Niuniu is now considered a “returnee” when she goes back to China to get over a broken heart. What she ...
For more than a year, Sebastian Costas has been trying to unravel the truth behind the murder of his ex-wife and son. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he's convinced that her second husband – a cop – committed both murders, then faked his own death. Now Sebastian has followed the slimmest of leads to Sacramento.and that's where he finally gets the break he needs. Jane Burke, an investigator with The Last Stand, calls him in connection with a separate crime – a crime that could lead him straight to the man he's been looking for.Once married to a serial killer, Jane has spent the past five years rebuilding her life. And with Sebastian she finally has a chance at happiness. But the man they're after is after them, too. For him this has become a personal battle, one he's determined to win. Whatever it takes.
Standing on the fringes of life… offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction.This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world ...
Sent from the Well-Built City to a barren mining town, physiognomist Cley is directed to find the thief who has stolen a supernatural and legendary white fruit that grew in the Earthly Paradise.
Former Elle editor Lee delivers a standout debut dealing with the rigors of love and survival during a time of war, and the consequences of choices made under duress. Claire Pendleton, newly married and arrived in Hong Kong in 1952, finds work giving piano lessons to the daughter of Melody and Victor Chen, a wealthy Chinese couple. While the girl is less than interested in music, the Chens' flinty British expat driver, Will Truesdale, is certainly interested in Claire, and vice versa. Their fast-blossoming affair is juxtaposed against a plot line beginning in 1941 when Will gets swept up by the ...
This is a story of moral corruption. A gothic melodrama, it is full of subtle impression and epigram. It touches on many of Wilde's recurring themes, such as the nature and spirit of art, aestheticism and the dangers inherent in it.
A story of passion and idealism, which describes a group of men and women in the Middle Ages whose destinies are fatefully linked with the building of a cathedral. In a country torn by civil war, two generations struggle to rise above their primitive circumstances and create something beautiful.***“KEN FOLLETT TAKES A GIANT STEP!” – San Francisco Chronicle“With this book Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner… a historical novel of gripping readability, authentic atmosphere and memorable characterization… Beginning with a mystery that casts its shadow… the narrative is a seesaw of tension… ...
An exquisitely written historical epic, Anne Enright's third novel is based on the true story of the beautiful Irishwoman Eliza Lynch, who, in the 1860s, became, briefly, the richest woman in the world. The book opens in Paris, with Eliza in bed with Francisco Solano Lopez – heir to the untold wealth of Paraguay. The fruit of their congress will be extraordinary, and will send her across the Atlantic: leading a caravan of servants, clothes, jewellery and champagne on the regal voyage down the River Parana to claim her glorious future in Asuncion.What she finds is a narrow, ...
In a recent interview with Steve Martin on NPR's Fresh Air, host Terri Gross asked her guest: "Do you remember the point in your career, when people started to realize that you are smart?" The host was referring, of course, to Martin's zany comedic roles that qualify him as a loveable nut. After all, it is tough to equate "King Tut" from Saturday Night Live, as an author of fairly serious repute. Martin, in reality, is an immensely talented writer; his "Shouts and Murmurs" and other brief pieces in the New Yorker were enjoyable and set his writing reputation ...
When the renowned aviation hero and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh defeated Franklin Roosevelt by a landslide in the 1940 presidential election, fear invaded every Jewish household in America. Not only had Lindbergh, in a nationwide radio address, publicly blamed the Jews for selfishly pushing America towards a pointless war with Nazi Germany, but, upon taking office as the 33rd president of the United States, he negotiated a cordial 'understanding' with Adolf Hitler, whose conquest of Europe and whose virulent anti-Semitic policies he appeared to accept without difficulty. What then followed in America is the historical setting for this startling new novel by Pulitzer-prize winner Philip Roth, who recounts what it was like for his Newark family – and for a million such families all over the country – during the menacing years of the Lindbergh presidency, when American citizens who happened to be Jews had every reason to expect the worst.
Being an account of another adventure of Prof. George E. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Prof. Summerlee, and Mr. E. D. Malone,the discoverers of "The Lost World"
Amazon.com ReviewOprah Book Club® Selection, June 2000: As any reader of The Mosquito Coast knows, men who drag their families to far-off climes in pursuit of an Idea seldom come to any good, while those familiar with At Play in the Fields of the Lord or Kalimantaan understand that the minute a missionary sets foot on the fictional stage, all hell is about to break loose. So when Barbara Kingsolver sends missionary Nathan Price along with his wife and four daughters off to Africa in The Poisonwood Bible, you can be sure that salvation is the one ...
“The greatest political saga, the one that has it all, that gets to the real heart of American politics, is the John Edwards story… This isn’t just politics, it’s literature. It’s the great American novel, the kind that isn’t written anymore.” -Michael Wolff on John Edwards's trajectory, on VanityFair.comThe underside of modern American politics – raw ambition, manipulation, and deception – are revealed in detail by Andrew Young’s riveting account of a presidential hopeful’s meteoric rise and scandalous fall. Like a non-fiction version of All the King’s Men, The Politician offers ...
The Post-War Dream is the eighth book by American author Mitch Cullin and was published by Random House in March 2008.Initial reviews of the novel were mixed, with Kirkus calling it "a misstep in Cullin's unpredictable, adventurous and, alas, frustratingly uneven oeuvre," and Publishers Weekly dismissing the work as "sterile." But subsequent pre-publication reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and The Denver Post were positive.In the March 16 edition of the Los Angeles Times Book Review and, simultaneously published, the Chicago Tribune, critic Donna Seaman praised the book, stating: "In this exacting, suspenseful, elegiac yet life-embracing novel, Cullin reminds us that no boundaries separate the personal and communal, the past and present, the false and true."
This crime-laden novel is full of deceitful characters, illegal monies and lots of booze. Bryce Courtenay’s The Potato Factory concerns the notorious criminal Ikey Solomon who is the undisputed king rat. While he is on top of the underworld, he is only fearful of his ambitious and resentful wife Hannah. Together they share a safe with plenty of money in it, yet they each only have half the combination. So when Hannah and Mary, Ikey’s razor sharp mistress, are deported to the penal colony in Van…
The modern classic. No stranger to the injustice of racial hatred, five-year-old Peekay learns the hard way the first secret of survival and self-preservation - the power of one. An encounter with amateur boxer Hoppie Groenewald inspires in Peekay a fiery ambition — to be welterweight champion of the world. The book is made to movie with the same name.
The modern classic. No stranger to the injustice of racial hatred, five-year-old Peekay learns the hard way the first secret of survival and self-preservation - the power of one. An encounter with amateur boxer Hoppie Groenewald inspires in Peekay a fiery ambition — to be welterweight champion of the world. The book is made to movie with the same name.
In quest of the unpublished manuscript of a martyred Yiddish writer, the American novelist Nathan Zuckerman travels to Soviet-occupied Prague in the mid-1970s. There, in a nation straightjacketed by totalitarian Communism, he discovers a literary predicament, marked by institutionalized oppression, that is rather different from his own. He also discovers, among the oppressed writers with whom he quickly becomes embroiled in a series of bizarre and poignant adventures, an appealingly perverse kind of heroism.The Prague Orgy, consisting of entries from protagonist Nathan Zuckerman's notebooks recording his sojourn among these outcast artists, completes the trilogy and epilogue . It provides a startling ending to Roth's intricately designed magnum opus on the unforeseen consequences of art.This Vintage edition is the first paperback publication of the epilogue.
Flyleaf:After ten years of quietude, author Christopher Priest (nominated one of the Best of Young British Novelists in 1983) returns with a triumphant tale of dueling prestidigitators and impossible acts.In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in a darkened salon during the course of a fraudulent sйance. From this moment, their lives spin webs of deceit and exposure as they feud to outwit each other. Their rivalry takes them both to the peak of their careers, but with terrible consequences. It is not enough that blood will be spilt — their legacy is one that will pass on for generations. is a chimerical triumph of storytelling magic, a fiercely compelling tale of revenge and illusion. Awarded Britain's prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize and nominated also for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, is a masterpiece of imaginative storytelling.
