Dupont University—the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition . . . Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a freshman from Sparta, North Carolina (pop. 900), who has come here on full scholarship in full flight from her tobacco-chewing, beer-swilling high school classmates. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that Dupont is closer in spirit to Sodom than to Athens, and that sex, crank, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.As Charlotte encounters Dupont's privileged elite—her roommate, Beverly, a fleshy, Groton-educated ...
Chosen by Glamour magazine as a Woman of the Year in 2008, Nujood of Yemen has become an international hero for her astonishingly brave resistance to child marriage. Sold off by her impoverished family at the age of 10, continually raped by her husband before she even reached puberty, Nujood found the courage to run away, and with the help of an activist lawyer, sympathetic judges, and the international press, she divorced her husband and returned home. Her clear, first-person narrative, translated from the French and written with Minoui, is spellbinding: the horror of her parents’ betrayal and her mother-in-law’s ...
A deeply moving debut novel set amid the perilous world of Nigerian email scams, I Do Not Come to You by Chance tells the story of one young man and the family who loves him.Being the opera of the family, Kingsley Ibe is entitled to certain privileges-a piece of meat in his egusi soup, a party to celebrate his graduation from university. As first son, he has responsibilities, too. But times are bad in Nigeria, and life is hard. Unable to find work, Kingsley cannot take on the duty of training his younger siblings, nor can he ...
A victim of time famine, thirty-five-year-old Kate counts seconds like other women count calories. As she runs between appointments, through her head spools the crazy tape-loop of every high-flying mother's life: client reports, bouncy castles, Bob The Builder, transatlantic phone calls, dental appointments, pelvic floor exercises, flights to New York, sex (too knackered), and stress-busting massages she always has to cancel (too busy). Factor in a controlling nanny, a chauvinist Australian boss, a long-suffering husband, two demanding children and an e-mail lover, and you have a woman juggling so many balls that some day soon something's going to hit ...
In her bewitching 30th novel, I'll Take You There, Joyce Carol Oates returns again to neurotic female post-adolescence. The unnamed narrator attends an upstate New York university in the early 1960s. In those times of tightly prescribed femininity, she joins a sorority in a bald attempt to become part of the sisterhood of normalcy. It doesn't work. She reads philosophy, she works for a living, she's asexual, she's an orphan, she's a Jew: "I was a freak in the midst of their stunning, stampeding, blazing female normality." Booted from the sorority, she falls hard for a thirtyish black philosophy ...
Though her friends think Maggie has the perfect life, she's actually perfectly miserable. The former Miss Alabama is worried about how her life has turned out-she's given up on her dream of living in a beautiful home like Crestview, and instead is a real estate agent in Birmingham. But just when Maggie begins to wonder if there's much point in going on, her life takes a wild turn, and she finds herself catapulted into one surprising discovery after the next. As Maggie learns valuable lessons about the nature of friendship, the challenges of modern life, and the dangers of impossible dreams, she starts to see how much more there is to life than what can be listed in a Miss Alabama bio. Bestselling author Fannie Flagg's trademark comic flair is out in full force in this fabulous new novel about the unpredictability of life.
A science fiction metaphysical thriller by a writer who has been garnering cult status was chosen by Brian Aldiss as the best science fiction work of 1967.A brilliant and memorable novel, the narrator and a man known as the warden search for an elusive girl in a surreal landscape of ice and snow, the result of a nuclear disaster. The country has been invaded; it is being run by a secret government and is under imminent threat of total nuclear destruction. With the narrator, the reader is swept into a hallucinatory quest through the interminable and encroaching walls of ice.Written while Kavan was addicted to heroin, it was the last of her novels to be published before she died in 1968.
«Если я останусь» рассказывает о 17-летней девушке по имени Мия, чья жизнь полностью изменилась после того, как в автокатастрофе погибает вся её семья. У неё была такая красивая, безоблачная и полная жизнь, музыкальный талант, прекрасный любящий парень Адам, эта трагедия во время Рождественских праздников становится для неё страшным ударом. Весь рассказ — это интуитивное чувство Мии, которая видит, как её собственное тело вытащили из под обломков на месте аварии, а её присутствие оборачивается каким-то внетелесным опытом. В то время, как Мия выжила в этой аварии, все её близкие погибли, а она оказалась в каком-то месте между мирами, где её тело, разум и душа пытаются решить, куда пойти. Пока её тело в коме, Мия пытается осознать, что произошло и что ей нужно сделать: вернуться к жизни без своей семьи или покинуть этот мир и объединиться с ними. Everybody has to make choices. Some might break you. For seventeen-year-old Mia, surrounded by a wonderful family, friends and a gorgeous boyfriend decisions might seem tough, but they’re all about a future full of music and love, a future that’s brimming with hope. But life can change in an instant. A cold February morning . . . a snowy road . . . and suddenly all of Mia’s choices are gone. Except one. As alone as she’ll ever be, Mia must make the most difficult choice of all. Gripping, heartrending and ultimately life-affirming, If I Stay will ...
Best known today for his exciting blockbuster novels, Sidney Sheldon is the author of The Best Laid Plans, Nothing Lasts Forever, The Stars Shine Down, The Doomsday Conspiracy, Memories of Midnight, The Sands of Time, Windmills of the Gods, If Tomorrow Comes, Master of the Game, Rage of Angels, Bloodline, A Stranger in the Mirror, and The Other Side of Midnight. Almost all have been number-one international bestsellers. His first book, The Naked Face, was acclaimed by the New York Times as "the best first mystery of the year" and received an Edgar Award. Most of his novels have ...
Told in the uproariously entertaining voice readers have come to expect from Jen Lancaster, follows Amish-zombie-teen- romance author Mia and her husband Mac (and their pets) through the alternately frustrating, exciting, terrifying-but always funny-process of buying and renovating their first home in the Chicago suburbs that John hughes's movies made famous. Along their harrowing renovation journey, Mia and Mac get caught up in various wars with the homeowners' association, meet some less-than-friendly neighbors, and are joined by a hilarious cast of supporting characters, including a celebutard ex- landlady. As they struggle to adapt to their new surroundings- with Mac taking on the renovations himself- Mia and Mac will discover if their marriage is strong enough to survive months of DIY renovations.
Вторая часть тетралогии «Дороги свободы» «Отсрочка» повествует о начале войны в Европе. Чехословакия предана. Война неминуема. Герои Сартра оказываются перед лицом смерти. Жизнь как бы сравнялась со смертью по своей «неестественности». И на глазах читателя совершается стремительная метаморфоза: от неприятия смерти герои приходят к неприятию жизни.
A vederlo da lontano, Belcolle sembra un paese da cartolina, una barca arenata su una montagna verde, e sullo sfondo il mare di Cefal?. Ma da vicino ? ben altra cosa: d’inverno ? gelido e nevoso, e per tutto l’anno ? abitato da persone taciturne e diffidenti, «genti di montagna». Son cinque anni che il maresciallo Antonio Brancato, «un omo preciso al quale piaciva che tutto stava al posto indovi doviva stare», ? a capo della Stazione dei Carabinieri di questo isolato paesino siciliano. Cinque anni non facili, ma durante i quali il maresciallo Brancato ? riuscito a guadagnarsi la confidenza e ...
"Illywhacker is such an astonishing novel, of such major proportions, that before saying anything else one must record gratitude for its existence." – Geoffrey Dutton, Bulletin"The finest and funniest picaresque novel yet written in Australia" – Peter Pierce National Times"A great tottering tower of a novel which stands up astonishingly against all the odds." – Victoria Glendinning, London Sunday Times"It is impossible to convey in a review the cumulative brilliance and accelerating hilarity of the prose." – Nicholas Spice, London Review of Books"Awesome breadth, ambition and downright narrative joy…Illywhacker is a triumph." – Curt Suplee, ...
Tr?dler, ein junger M?userich, verl??t seine angestammte Hecke. Auf abenteuerlichen Wegen gelangt er zum »Haus«, in dem bereits eine bunte M?usegesellschaft lebt - auf Kosten der »Nacktlinge«, der Menschen, deren Speisekammer sie nur zu gern bestiehlt. Um aber so recht aus dem vollen sch?pfen zu k?nnen, beschlie?en die Tiere, unter denen Tr?dler eine immer bedeutendere Rolle spielt, die »Nacktlinge« zu vertreiben ...»Ein wunderbares, witziges Buch. Lesen Sie es, und Sie werden niemals mehr eine Mausefalle kaufen.« Im Leben einer jeden Maus kommt die Zeit, in der sie ihren ...
Michael Pinson – jeden z tanatonaut?w – w wyniku katastrofy samolotowej zmienia si? w… anio?a str??a. Musi odt?d zajmowa? si? trzema „klientami”, jednocze?niej staraj?c si? zg??bi? zagadk? istot i raj?w pozaziemskich. Jego nowe zaj?cie to praca na pe?ny etat.Miejsce zatrudnienia: Raj. Gdy mija pierwszy szok, Michael u?wiadamia sobie, ?e bycie anio?em to nie tylko przyjemno?ci, tym bardziej ?e odpowiada za trzech do?? upartych ?miertelnik?w: Venus, ameryka?sk? aktork? cierpi?c? na uporczywe migreny; Igora, rosyjskiego ?o?nierza i kr?la pokera; oraz wiecznie zatrwo?onego Jacques’a. Co wi?cej, jego mentor, Edmond Wells, wyra?nie daje mu do zrozumienia, ?e jego anielskim obowi?zkiem jest spe?nianie wszystkich, nawet najbardziej bezsensownych ?ycze? podopiecznych.
Faktem jest, ?e cywilizacja mr?wek jest niedo?cigniona, je?li chodzi o budow? i organizacj? miast. Nie wszyscy zdajemy sobie jednak spraw?, jak pot??ne kr?lestwa zdo?a?a przez wieki stworzy?, jak zadziwiaj?ce technologie opracowa? i jak? sztuk? wojenn? posi???. Bernard Werber swoj? bestsellerow? powie?ci? otwiera przed nami drzwi do alternatywnej rzeczywisto?ci pe?nej niezg??bionych do tej pory tajemnic i zagadek. To zaproszenie do ?wiata, po kt?rym co dzie? st?pamy, a kt?rego zdajemy si? nie dostrzega?. Pozwala spojrze? na cz?owieka spojrzeniem nie-cz?owieczym, z perspektywy stworze? du?o ...
Na prze?omie wiek?w, w odleg?ym zak?tku Indii, angielski urz?dnik s?u?by cywilnej poznaje m?od? hindusk? podczas wyj?tkowo ci??kiej ulewy. Dziewi?? miesi?cy p??niej, rodzi si? dziecko. Jego przysz?o?? jawi si? niepewnie. Jasny kolor sk?ry Prana Natha jest odbierany jako symbol szlachetnego urodzenia, jednak?e, gdy jego prawdziwe pochodzenie wychodzi na jaw zostaje wyrzucony z domu ojca. Sprzedany parze eunuch?w, trafia do za?ciankowego Pend?abu i staje si? przyn?t? w dynastycznych intrygach rozwi?z?ego dworu hinduskiego. W ko?cu ucieka do Bombaju, gdzie odnajduje ...
Winner of 1971 Booker Prize«V. S. Naipaul tells stories which show us ourselves and the reality we live in. His use of language is as precise as it is beautiful.» – The London Times«A Tolstoyan spirit…The so-called Third World has produced no more brilliant literary artist.» – John Updike, The New Yorker«The coolest literary eye and the most lucid prose we have.» – The New York Review
When they sent Garnet Montrose to Vietnam they told him he’d go out a boy and come back a man. But he comes back a freak, so hideously scarred that no one can stand to look at his face. The explosion which destroyed his company has skinned him alive.Living as a recluse on a storm-battered Virginia farm, he dreams of the days when he was eighteen and king of the local dance hall, kept alive by his obsession with the untouchable Georgina Rance. It seems this half-life will never end – until the arrival of Daventry, offering him total love or total destruction…‘A marvellous tour-de-force. A novel that engages as it entertains, draws the reader in as it draws something out of him. In other words, a very impressive book’ – Publishers Weekly.‘Mr Purdy writes like an angel, with accuracy, wit and freshness, but a fallen angel, versed in the sinful ways of men’ – The Times.
The second collection of short stories.Call them transcripts of dreams or deadly accurate maps of the tremor zones of the psyche, the seven stories in this collection engage and implicate us in the most fearful ways imaginable. A two-timing pornographer becomes an unwilling object in the fantasies of one of his victims. A jaded millionaire buys himself the perfect mistress and plunges into a hell of jealousy and despair. And in the course of a weekend with his teenage daughter, a guilt-ridden father discovers the depths of his own blundering innocence.At once chilling and beguiling, and written in prose of lacerating beauty, is a tour de force by one of England’s most acclaimed practitioners of literary unease.Review
A compelling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a “sexual suspect,” a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 in his landmark novel of “terminal cases,” The World According to Garp.His most political novel since and , John Irving’s is a poignant tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers—a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”* * *
