Hopscotch is the dazzling, freewheeling account of Oliveira's astonishing adventures.The book is highly influenced by Henry Miller’s reckless and relentless search for truth in post-decadent Paris and Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki’s modal teachings on Zen Buddhism.Cortázar's employment of interior monologue, punning, slang, and his use of different languages is reminiscent of Modernist writers like Joyce, although his main influences were Surrealism and the French New Novel, as well as the "riffing" aesthetic of jazz and New Wave Cinema.In 1966, Gregory Rabassa won the first National Book Award to recognize the work of a translator, for his English-language edition of Hopscotch. Julio Cortázar was so pleased with Rabassa's translation of Hopscotch that he recommended the translator to Gabriel García Márquez when García Márquez was looking for someone to translate his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude into English. "Rabassa's One Hundred Years of Solitude improved the original," according to García Márquez.

    For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to humankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh...

    Displaced from her community and her home, Ettie tries to find her place in this new life, but can't seem to get it right. She irritates the maid, hangs food outside the window because she mistrusts the fridge and, in her naivety and loneliness, invites a prostitute in for tea. Iza’s Ballad is the story of a woman who loses her life’s companion and a mother trying to get close to a daughter whom she has never truly known. It is about the meeting of the old-fashioned and the modern worlds and the beliefs we construct over a lifetime.

    Pagnol brings to his treatment of this powerful, moving story his dramatist's sense of place, ambience, and character and his keen understanding of the Provencal countryside and its people. Rich with twists and ramifications, Jean de Florette and Manon of the Springs sets an idealistic city man against two secretive and deceitful Provencal country men in a superbly realized story of a struggle for life, of crime and punishment, of betrayal and revenge, and of judgment and forgiveness. In this edition, illustrated with images from the acclaimed film adaptation by Claude Berri, North Point presents Pagnol's enduring story in W.E. van Heyningen's exact and sensitive translation.Biblical in its cadences, epic in its sweep to destiny, and old fashioned in development of character and plot, this saga charts the destruction of a Provencal family.

    Fifty years later her niece inherited the house with no knowledge of it beyond her indelible childhood memories, and no experience at all of living in the country.Mary Lindsay is a born and bred Londoner who has enjoyed her city life-a prestigious job, and friends with whom she takes in the city pleasures of theatre, art and…As a retired businesswoman living in a rural house inherited from her aunt finds consolation for a failed romance with a married blind man by learning more about her aunt and herself.

    After an impetuous American girl, Ellen Jasper, marries a young Afghan engineer, her parents hear no word from her. Although she wants freedom to do as she wishes, not even she is sure what that means. In the meantime, she is as good as lost in that wild land, perhaps forever...."An extraordinary novel....Brilliant."THE NEW YORK TIMESFrom the Paperback edition.

    Newton is an extraterrestrial who goes to Earth on a desperate mission of mercy. But instead of aid, Newton discovers loneliness and despair that ultimately ends in tragedy.

    Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

    Assuming her isolation to be the result of a military experiment gone awry, she begins the terrifying work of survival and self-renewal. This novel is at once a simple and moving tale and a disturbing meditation on humanity.

    Typical targets of Zoshchenko's satire are the Soviet bureaucracy, crowded conditions in communal apartments, marital infidelities and the rapid turnover in marriage partners, and "the petty-bourgeois mode of life, with its adulterous episodes, lying, and similar nonsense." His devices are farcical complications, satiric understatement, humorous anachronisms, and an ironic contrast between high-flown sentiments and the down-to-earth reality of mercenary instincts.Zoshchenko's sharp and original satire offers a marvelous window on Russian life in the 20s and 30s.

    This is the story of an Italian general, accompanied by his chaplain, charged with the mission of scouring Albania in search of the bones of their fallen countrymen, killed twenty years earlier during World War II.

    He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda. When he wins the pools he buys a remote Sussex house and calmly abducts Miranda, believing she will grow to love him in time.

    He is privileged, would seem to have the world at his feet, even. Then why does the sight of a few redneck teenagers disconcert him? Why is he reluctant to pick up a disheveled girl hitchhiking along the desert highway? And why is he the first person the police suspect when she is found dead in Arizona a few days later?Dorothy B. Hughes ranks with Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith as a master of mid-century noir. In books like In a Lonely Place and Ride the Pink Horse, she exposed a seething discontent underneath the veneer of twentieth-century prosperity. With The Expendable Man, first published in 1963, Hughes upends the conventions of the wrong-man narrative to deliver a story that engages readers even as it implicates them in the greatest of all American crimes.

    Suddenly, the election is concluded - with a surprise result. The new pope is the youngest cardinal of all - and a Russian. Shoes of the Fisherman slowly unravels the heartwarming and profound story of Kiril Lakota, a cardinal who reluctantly steps out from behind the Iron Curtain to lead the Catholic Church and to grapple with the many issues facing the contemporary world.

    The novel is so exciting that the reader will love to read it more than once. Feudal system of undivided India, British, Hindu & Muslims are main characters of this novel.

    She was wearing a white frock and a large straw hat with a sapphire-blue ribbon which exactly matched her eyes—a strange coincidence, as it turned out, for the blue sapphire was to have a far-reaching influence upon her life. So far, her life had been somewhat dull and circumscribed; but quite suddenly her horizons were enlarged; she began to make new friends—and enemies—and she began to discover new strength and purpose in her own nature. The development of her character led her into strange adventures, some amusing, others full of sorrow and distress... D. E. Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of civil engineers who designed many Scottish lighthouses. Her father was a first cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson. She was educated privately and travelled widely in France and Italy with her parents. She married a major in the Highland Light Infantry and moved with the regiment from place to place gaining valuable experience of life and people. Her first really successful novel, Mrs Tim, was published in 1933.

    Lord have pity on us!"With these words, Pierre Boulle hurtles the reader onto the Planet of the Apes. In this simian world, civilization is turned upside down: apes are men and men are apes; apes rule and men run wild; apes think, speak, produce, wear clothes, and men are speechless, naked, exhibited at fairs, used for biological research. On the planet of the apes, man, having reached to apotheosis of his genius, has become inert.To this planet come a journalist and a scientist. The scientist is put into a zoo, the journalist into a laboratory. Only the journalist retains the spiritual strength and creative intelligence to try to save himself, to fight the appalling scourge, to remain a man.Out of this situation, Pierre Boulle has woven a tale as harrowing, bizarre, and meaningful as any in the brilliant roster of this master storyteller. With his customary wit, irony, and disciplined intellect and style, the author of The Bridge Over the River Kwai tells a swiftly moving story dealing with man's conflicts, and takes the reader into a suspenseful and strangely fascinating orbit.

    The desertion triggers a searing re-examination of his life—the loss of his sister during the war, the demands of his millionaire father and the hypocrisies of his mother, who first fought to “save” Germany from the Jews, then worked for “reconciliation” afterwards.

    Violet eyes and a mane of golden hair win her the love of a duke and the admiration of a stupendously wealthy husband; but they cannot hold the one man whose love she needs about all…..

    Castello, a village in Epirus is not spared all the death and destruction which culminated during the Holy Week.

    First Paragraph:'P S,' they said. And 'Vanessa'. Or sometimes 'Ness'. PS. PS. PS. PS. Ness. Ness. Ness. It sounded through his half sleep like surreptitious mice foraging through tissue paper. It was as mysterious as the lateness of the hour — after nine o'clock — and only as far away as the kitchen door, ajar so as to hear him if he should call to them or have a nightmare. He turned in bed, listening to the whispering undertones, as steady and continuous as a tap left running and broken only by a cough or sometimes a chair scraping back on the linoleum; then a dish being taken from a cupboard and now and then a voice would catch on fire and break adrift from the murmurings, but always with the same word, Vanessa, said sharply like hitting a brass gong at dead of night and then someone would say, 'Shhh, was that him? Did he call out?' and tiptoeing would startle the old floorboards while a shadow grew larger and larger on his wall; bent to hear if he was stirring and so, annoyed with their secrets, he would feign sleep until whoever it was retreated to the kitchen and the whispering hissed up again like damp green eucalyptus logs burning.

    What follows is the story of two British officers whose spirits the Japanese try to break. Yet out of all the violence and misery strange bonds of love and friendship are forged between the prisoners - and their gaolers. It is a battle of survival that becomes a battle of contrasting wills and philosophies as the intensity of the men's relationship develops.

    He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.Yet, hidden behind three gaudy clown paintings in Roy's pallid hotel room, sits fifty-two thousand dollars--the money Roy makes from his short cons, his "grifting." For years, Roy has effortlessly maintained control over his house-of-cards life--until the simplest con goes wrong, and he finds himself critically injured and at the mercy of the most dangerous woman he ever met: his own mother.THE GRIFTERS, one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, is an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for Stephen Frears' and Martin Scorsese's 1990 critically-acclaimed film of the same name.

    One day he tumbles over, lands in a sort of cave, and meets' somebody with shaggy hair wearing a rabbit-skin and speaking in grunts. He names him Stig. They together raid the rubbish dump at the bottom of the pit, improve Stig's cave dwelling, and enjoy a series of adventures.

    No index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

    Bold and inventive in his account of the urban underworld of male prostitution, Rechy is equally unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling "Youngman" and his restless search for self-knowledge. As the narrator careens from El Paso to Times Square, from Pershing Square to the French Quarter, we get an unforgettable look at a neon-lit life on the edge. Said James Baldwin of the author, "Rechy is the most arresting young writer I've read in a very long time. His tone rings absolutely true, is absolutely his own; and he has the kind of discipline which allows him a rare and beautiful reckless."

    It describes their culture, crafts, and language as no other book has done. Hunters, fishers, artisans of flint and skins and basketry, tellers of traditional tales, dwellers in a region of hills and barrens, of rivers and forests, they had developed a way of life adjusted to the world around them. In presenting the lore and heritage of the Lenapes, Dr. M.R. Harrington does so through the eyes of a shipwrecked English boy who became a captive of the Indians, and was eventually adopted into the tribe. The narrative is lively reading, and the facts on which it is based are accurate. With the accompanying Clarence Ellsworth line drawings, the reader can understand and even reproduce many of the objects the author describes: the Lenape bows and arrows, muccasins and mats, baskets and bowls. This new edition is a reissue of an often asked for an unavailable New Jersey classic, first published in 1938.

    But so profound is this evening between them that when Unn inexplicably disappears, Siss's world is shattered. The Ice Palace is written in prose of a lyrical economy that ranks among the most memorable achievements of modern literature.

    Though only eighteen, Annie travels alone to the Midwestern university where Carl is studying law to marry him. Little did they know how difficult their first year of marriage would be, in a faraway place with little money and few friends. But Carl and Annie come to realize that the struggles and uncertainty of poverty and hardship can be overcome by the strength of a loving, loyal relationship. An unsentimental yet uplifting story, "Joy in the Morning" is a timeless and radiant novel of marriage and young love.

    To all appearances she is a harmless merchant vessel. But her peaceful lines conceal a merciless firepower; guns, mines and torpedoes that can be brought into play instantly. The Vulcan is a commerce raider. And under crack commander Felix von Steiger her mission is to bring chaos to the seaways.

    Scenes from the Life of a Faun recounts the dreary life of a government worker who escapes the banality of war by researching the exploits of a deserter from the Napoleonic Wars nicknamed The Faun. Brand's Heath deals with the chaos of the immediate postwar period as a writer joins a small community of "survivors" to try to forge a new life. Dark Mirrors is set in a future where civilization has been virtually destroyed; the narrator fears he may be the last man on earth, until the discovery of another creates new fears.All three novels are characterized by Schmidt's unique combination of sharply observed details, sarcastic asides, and wide erudition.

    Was it Chet Bennett, her own guardian's son? Could it be Don Holt, the fascinating visitor? Or was it Jim Trevor, the ambitious young lawyer, who had completely stolen her heart away?

    With alternating interior monologues, the author conjures up the members of the Glace family: Vera, the mother who has willed herself sightless; Erlene, the daughter, who has stopped speaking; and Edward, the husband who abandons his family to make a genealogical study of a family in a distant land. Beyond this is a mind that has burst the confines of everyday individual consciousness and invented its own tormented reality.

    An Enid Blyton classic.

    The Claytons open a branch office of their business in Vienna, the center of that incredibly varied and complex universe that was the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I. Their ensuing social and personal entanglements furnish the materials of a superbly civilized family chronicle (quite the opposite from Sun & Moon's recent von Doderer novel, The Merowingians), whose central symbol is a gigantic, thundering mass of water -- a force that may be life-giving or terribly destructive. Beneath a staunchly bourgeois surface, von Doderer's story telling is heavily tinged with ironic social commentary and suffused with acute, post-Freudian psychology.

    When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship's officer, he and his friends idealise the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard this act of disillusionment as betrayal on his part- their retribution is deliberate and horrifying.

    They regard their disappointment in him as an act of betrayal on his part, and react violently.

    His paintings are marked by a unique fusion of European sophistication, revolutionary political turmoil, and the heritage and personality of his native country. Based on extensive interviews with the artist, his four wives (including Frida Kahlo), and his friends, colleagues, and opponents, The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera captures Rivera's complex personality--sometimes delightful, frequently infuriating and always fascinating--as well as his development into one of the twentieth century's greatest artist.

    Book is in Very good condition throughout.

    A writer of world stature, Thomas Bernhard combined a searing wit and an unwavering gaze into the human condition. "Frost" follows an unnamed young Austrian who accepts an unusual assignment. Rather than continue with his medical studies, he travels to a bleak mining town in the back of beyond, in order to clinically observe the aged painter, Strauch, who happens to be the brother of this young man's surgical mentor. The catch is this: Strauch must not know the young man's true occupation or the reason for his arrival. Posing as a promising law student with a love of Henry James, the young man befriends the mad artist and is caught up among an equally extraordinary cast of local characters, from his resentful landlady to the town's mining engineers. This debut novel by Thomas Bernhard, which came out in German in 1963 and is now being published in English for the first time, marks the beginning of what was one of the twentieth century's most powerful, provocative literary careers.

    Valentine; Sashka the Christ; The song; The kiss; Zamostye; Theory and practice of the cart; The death of Dolgushov; Prishchepa; Matvei Pavlichenko's autobiography; Konkin; Troop Leader Trunov; The remount quartermaster; The widow --Afterward:Karl-Yankel; The end of the almshouse; You missed the point, Captain; Rue Dante; The trial; Oil.

    . . A city on fire! The events surrounding the burning of Rome and the subsequent Christian persecution provide the backdrop for this story of faith and friendship. A young slave from Britain finds himself in Rome at a tumultuous time. Through his acquaintance with Christians he comes to understand and love the new religion. Out of his zeal for the love of the Christ, he performs a great spiritual work of mercy that sadly goes awry. In the end, God's providence and mercy shine through

    The true story of a dog who arrived in an Italian town on a freight train and from then on centered his life on the railroad, riding the commuter trains, being fed by diner cooks, and taking longer and longer train trips from which he always returned.