Now though, a quarter century after The Joke was first published, and several years after the collapse of the Soviet-imposed Czechoslovak regime, it becomes easier to put such implications into perspective in favor of valuing the book (and all Kundera 's work) as what it truly is: great, stirring literature, that sheds new light on the eternal themes of human existence.The present edition provides English-language readers an important further means toward revaluation of The Joke. For reasons he describes in his Author's Note, Milan Kundera devoted much time to creating (with the assistance of his American publisher-editor) a completely revised translation that reflects his original as closely as any translation possibly can: reflects it in its fidelity not only to the words and syntax but also to the characteristic dictions and tonalities of the novel's narrators. The result is nothing less than the restoration of a classic.

    Torn away from the girl he wants to marry, he spends many bitter years in the grim island prison of the Chateau d'If. A fellow prisoner, the Abbe Faria, tells him the secret of the treasure hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. Now, if only he can escape from the fortress, he can become rich - and be revenged on the people who betrayed him all those years ago...The Count of Monte Cristo has been abridged and simplified by Beatrice Conway

    Dell and Elinor Glyn up a tree. Following the death of their grandfather - in whose enormous Warwickshire house they live - their mother relinquishes drink (to which she had taken in a big way) for the joys of frantic housework. Naturally the girls long to escape.Blanche trains as a mannequin at a dubious institution in London, and Vicky flees to Holland and a purgatorial life as an au pair to a lot of dogs. But this is only the beginning and other adventures await them, including the poverty and cabbage smells of one-room living, the charcoaled fingers of art school, drunkenness and cheap restaurants of Soho bohemia, and varying degrees of excitement with several husbands and lovers.First published in 1967, A Touch of Mistletoe shows Barbara Comyns' original voice at its best, mixing a characteristic simplicity with a quiet but cunning wit.

    First published in 1967, In the Middle of the Fields explores lives that are multi-layered and secretive, peculiar and intimate, and offers a window into the quiet tragedies and joys of human life. This collection is a profound example of Lavin’s unique control, insight and subtlety.

    By 1964, he has become the captain and goalie of the German champion soccer team—but he remains infamous throughout France, despite his insistence that he alone defied orders to slaughter the villagers when the Allied Forces arrived. When the German team must face the French champions in Rouen, the very city where Hans was sentenced twenty years earlier, the stage is set for a grudge match—and revenge.