Before long, it becomes apparent that hers is a prodigious talent, and as she progresses to the top of the US chess rankings she is able to forge a new life for herself. But she can never quite overcome her urge to self-destruct. For Beth, there’s more at stake than merely winning and losing.

    Leaving behind a madcap, fishing-obsessed family, Gus decides to strike out on his own, taking refuge in a secluded cabin on a remote riverbank to pursue his own fly-fishing passion with unrelenting zeal. But instead of finding fishing bliss, Gus becomes increasingly troubled by the degradation of the natural world around him and by the spiritual barrenness of his own life. His desolation drives him on a reluctant quest for self-discovery and meaning, ultimately fruitful beyond his wildest dreams. Here, then, is a funny, sensitive, unforgettable story about the relationships among men, women, the environment, and the human soul.

    Johannes Verne was soon to be rescued by outlaws, but no one could save him from the lasting memory of his grandfather’s eyes, full of impenetrable hatred. Raised in part by Indians, then befriended by a mysterious woman, Johannes grew up to become a rugged adventurer and an educated man. But even now, strengthened by the love of a golden-haired girl and well on his way to making a fortune in bustling early-day Los Angeles, the past may rise up to threaten his future once more. And this time only the ancient gods of the desert can save him.

    Survivors are being relocated to a new society known as the Alliance. It seems like a dream come true for many of the new citizens. Crime, as well as harmful emotions, such as anger and prejudice have been eliminated, because the Alliance has computerized control over it's citizens from a computer chip that has been implanted in everyone. Eric Lloyd discovers the Alliance's corrupt power structure and vows to destroy it. But can one person change the world?

    Written in two versions, male and female (both available in Vintage International), which are identical save for seventeen crucial lines, Dictionary is the imaginary book of knowledge of the Khazars, a people who flourished somewhere beyond Transylvania between the seventh and ninth centuries. Eschewing conventional narrative and plot, this lexicon novel combines the dictionaries of the world's three major religions with entries that leap between past and future, featuring three unruly wise men, a book printed in poison ink, suicide by mirrors, a chimerical princess, a sect of priests who can infiltrate one's dreams, romances between the living and the dead, and much more.

    The prospect of a summer job as a tour guide at the Pushkin Hills Preserve offers him hope of regaining some balance in life as his wife makes plans to emigrate to the West with their daughter Masha, but during Alikhanov’s stay in the rural estate of Mikhaylovskoye, his life continues to unravel.Populated with unforgettable characters—including Alikhanov’s fellow guides Mitrofanov and Pototsky, and the KGB officer Belyaev—Pushkin Hills ranks among Dovlatov’s renowned works The Suitcase and The Zone as his most personal and poignant portrayal of the Russian attitude towards life and art.

    Two feature the supremely popular Bertie Wooster and his butler, Jeeves. Includes The Return of Jeeves, Bertle Wooster Sees It Through, Spring Fever, The Butler Did It, and The Old Reliable.

    His formal innovation ranks with Beckett and Kafka, his outrageously cantankerous voice recalls Dostoevsky, but his gift for lacerating, lyrical, provocative prose is incomparably his own.One of Bernhard's most acclaimed novels, The Loser centers on a fictional relationship between piano virtuoso Glenn Gould and two of his fellow students who feel compelled to renounce their musical ambitions in the face of Gould's incomparable genius. One commits suicide, while the other—the obsessive, witty, and self-mocking narrator—has retreated into obscurity. Written as a monologue in one remarkable unbroken paragraph, The Loser is a brilliant meditation on success, failure, genius, and fame.

    Agnes falls in love with this man, a local stonecutter, but the hero is also a betrayer, the apex of a triangle that eventually leads Agnes to commit murder.

    Scott Fitzgerald was famous in the 1920s and 1930s as a short-story writer.  The nineteen stories in this volume were so popular that hardcover collections—Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age—came out almost immediately after the stories had appeared in magazines. With stories like “The Ice Palace,” “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” and “The Jelly Bean,” he portrayed the emotional depth of a society devoted to excess and racing heedlessly towards catastrophe that was only a few years ahead.

    When Jennifer, a college student, returns to her childhood home of Hoot Owl Holler with a tape recorder, the tales of murder and suicide, incest and blood ties, bring to life a vibrant story of a doomed family that still refuses to give up....

    In the sweeping span of eight tumultuous centuries, three Polish families live out their destinies and the drama of a nation—in the grand tradition of a great James Michener saga.

    And Larry Astell, heir to a champagne fortune, knows their passion is the most important part of his life. Until war places in jeopardy all they held dear - love, family and country.From the Left Bank of the 1930s to Nazi-occupied Paris, A FAREWELL TO FRANCE is a magnificent epic, played out against the tumultuous background of the time: a decadent French government, the life of a foreign correspondent, the grandeur of the champagne regions and the glory of the French Resistance.

    In these fourteen stories, Hemingway begins to examine the themes that would occupy his later works: the casualties of war, the often uneasy relationship between men and women, sport and sportsmanship. In "Banal Story," Hemingway offers a lasting tribute to the famed matador Maera. "In Another Country" tells of an Italian major recovering from war wounds as he mourns the untimely death of his wife. "The Killers" is the hard-edged story about two Chicago gunmen and their potential victim. Nick Adams makes an appearance in "Ten Indians," in which he is presumably betrayed by his Indian girlfriend, Prudence. And "Hills Like White Elephants" is a young couple's subtle, heartwrenching discussion of abortion. Pared down, gritty, and subtly expressive, these stories show the young Hemingway emerging as America's finest short story writer.

    Written in a richly suggestive style that seems remarkably contemporary, they are permeated by his own history as well as America’s.In The House of the Seven Gables, for example, Hawthorne alludes to his ancestor’s involvement in the Salem witch trials, as he follows the fortunes of two rival families, the Maules and the Pyncheons. The novel moves across 150 years of American history, from an ancestral crime condoned by Puritan theocracy to reconciliation and a new beginning in the bustling Jacksonian era.Considered Hawthorne’s greatest work, The Scarlet Letter is a dramatic allegory of the social consequences of adultery and the subversive force of personal desire in a community of laws. The transgression of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, the innate lawlessness of their bastard child Pearl, and the torturous jealousy of the husband Roger Chillingworth eventually erupt through the stern reserve of Puritan Boston. The Scarlet Letter engages the moral and romantic imagination of readers who ponder the question of sexual freedom and its place in the social world.Fanshawe is an engrossing apprentice work that Hawthorne published anonymously and later sought to suppress. Written during his undergraduate years at Bowdoin College, it is a tragic romance of an ascetic scholar’s love for a merchant’s daughter.The Blithedale Romance is a novel about the perils, which Hawthorne knew first-hand, of living in a utopian community. The utilitarian reformer Hollingsworth, the reticent narrator Miles Coverdale, the unearthly Priscilla, and the sensuous Zenobia (purportedly modeled on Margaret Fuller) act out a drama of love and rejection, idealism and chicanery, millennial hope and suicidal despair on an experimental commune in rural Massachusetts.The Marble Faun, Hawthorne’s last finished novel, uses Italian landscapes where sunlight gives way to mythological shadings as a background for mysteries of identity and murder. Its two young Americans, Kenyon and Hilda, become caught up in the disastrous passion of Donatello, an ingenuous nobleman, for the beautiful, mysterious Miriam, a woman trying to escape her past.

    

    - The Witches- George's Marvelous Medicine- The Twits- Esio Trot- Matilda- The BFG

    

    It is a dark time for the world. Humanity is just crawling out from under three hundred years of domination by the race of vampires known as the Nobility. The war against the vampires has taken its toll; cities lie in ruin, the countryside is fragmented into small villages and fiefdoms that still struggle against nightly raids by the fallen vampires-and the remnants of their genetically manufactured demons and werewolves.Every village wants a Hunter-one of the warriors who have pledged their laser guns and their swords to the eradication of the Nobility. But some Hunters are better than others, and some bring their own kind of danger with them...From creator Hideyuki Kikuchi, one of Japan's leading horror authors with illustrations by renowned Japanese artist, Yoshitaka Amano, best known for his illustrations in Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Dream Hunters and the Final Fantasy games.

    The irresistible Katharine Tempest's rise from unknown actress to Hollywood legend is marked by dazzling performances and a relentless determination.

    . . may be the most compelling and suspenseful work of fiction [Dubus] has written."--Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book ReviewStories of men and women attempting to live together, to tell the truth as they see it (or don't see it), and to survive the crises, and sometimes the violence, of domestic life. Now included in Andre Dubus's Collected Short Stories & Novellas ) this original edition includes A Father's Story, as well as the novella The Pretty Girl. Upon its publication in 1991, Tobias Wolff wrote, "'It is a world of secrets, ' says the narrator of A Father's Story. Andre Dubus's fine new collection is made of those secrets, observed with an art that is luminous with honesty and generosity. Dubus is interested in essential things--in the shadowy powers that circle our lives and the slender resources of faith and love with which we try to keep them at bay."

    Its success had gone far beyond Italy, as the book has been translated into Spanish, French, Japanese and three other languages. This epic historical novel about World War II and after, written from the author's own personal experiences as an Italian Freedom Fighter, is a profoundly moving account of the war, those who fought in it on both sides, and the effects the war had on families in the author's hometown in Italy. On a wider scale, it is a faithful witness to the actual events of the war - including the role of historical personages who appear, the Russian campaign, the Nazi barbarism, the Communist gulag, the North Italian resistance, and political life in the two decades following the war. This world, filled with powerful personalities, drama and clashing armies, bathes in the light of the truth. What makes this truly historical novel, with its epic scope, a masterpiece is the underlying spiritual dimensions of the protagonist, his family and friends, which illuminates the ongoing tragedy of the war and its aftermath. In the end, it is a story of faith and hope in a world reduced to barbarism and cruelty. Born in 1921 in Lombardy, Eugenio Corti joined the Italian Freedom Fighters. From his experiences of the tragic retreat from Russia, Corti wrote a fascinating chronicle, Most Did Not Return, and a book about the Italian Freedom Fighters, The Last Soldiers of the King.

    In a small whitewashed cottage on the grounds of a great estate, a baby boy is born. His name is Tom Dalton. He is the son of an Irish peasant and her aristocratic lover. And so begins the story of a family whose past is deeply rooted in the turbulence of Irish history but who thrive and flourish in the America of the twentieth century. From the poverty of the Irish immigrant to the wealth of the self-made man; from the sorrows of a young boy, deserted by fortune and family, to the triumph of a patriarch capable of outwitting Fate itself -- this is the story of Thomas Dalton and the women who touch his life. Driven from his ancestral home in Westmeath by his father's vindictive family, young Tom Dalton leaves Ireland and makes his way to America. Befriended by the founders of the Longshoremen's Union, groomed by one of Tammany's most powerful political bosses, Tom fights his way to a place in the glittering mansions of New York's Fifth Avenue. In a landscape filled with the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, the victors and the victims, So Many Partings tells a story about love and betrayal, about a man and the women who shape him: the bewildered mother who abandoned him to save herself... the gentle wife who had defied her father to marry the man she loves... the shrewd madam who pledges her loyal friendship as well as her love... and finally, the high-spirited granddaughter who inherits a greater legacy than wealth. Set against the richness of Irish-American history, So Many Partings is about a passionate family and the triumphs and tragedies that make them unforgettable.

    In this award-winning novel, an informer’s body is found on the estate of a wealthy Irish family shortly after the First World War, and an appalling cycle of revenge is set in motion. Led by a zealous sergeant, the Black and Tans set fire to the family home, and only young Willie and his mother escape alive. Fatherless, Willie grows into manhood while his alcoholic mother’s bitter resentment festers. And though he finds love, Willie is unable to leave the terrible injuries of the past behind.First time in Penguin ClassicsWinner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award

    Pamela did extensive research into her writings to give an accurate portrayal of life in 17th century England during the civil war. Her fictional family, the Herons, live in Suffolk England in 'Goldhayes' manor. The family is caught up in the war, and they fight for the King, against Parliament. The book richly describes the battles in which the Herons are involved. Many of the characters that interact with the family are real, as are the events in which the family takes part in. There is a romance between two of the main characters, Thomazine and Francis Heron, who are cousins. Thomazine, however, was betrothed to another cousin, Dominic Drakelon, when she was 10, and the resulting conflict gives this story much suspense, and appeal.

    The screenplay of the 1987 movie, as written by Charles Bukowski.From the title page: "An Original Screenplay By Charles Bukowski For A Film By Barbet Schroeder"

    Originally published in 1983, Curse features all of the zany, hallucinogenic wordplay and feral artwork for which the Hunter S. Thompson/Ralph Steadman duo became known and loved. This curious book, considered an oddity among Hunter's oeuvre, was long out of print, prompting collectors to search high and low for an original copy. TASCHEN's signed, limited edition sold out before the book even hit the stores, but this unlimited version, in a different, smaller format, makes The Curse of Lono accessible to everyone.

    A lonely art historian absorbed in her research seizes the opportunity to share in the joys and pleasures of the lives of a glittering couple, only to find her hopes of companionship and happiness shattered.

    Written as a result of the author's Greek travels and studies, Cassandra speaks to us in a pressing monologue whose inner focal points are patriarchy and war. In the four accompanying pieces, which take the form of travel reports, journal entries, and a letter, Wolf describes the novel's genesis. Incisive and intelligent, the entire volume represents an urgent call to examine the past in order to insure a future.

    It is a kaleidoscopic collage that whirls about an indelible array of images and characters: perverted Winky, who opted for the army to stay off of welfare; eccentric Payne, who’s obsessed with the film he’s making of the war; bucolic Claypool, who’s irrevocably doomed to a fate worse than death. Just to mention a few. And floating at the center of this psychedelic spin is Spec. 4 James Griffin. In country, Griffin studies the jungle of carpet bomb photos as he fights desperately to keep his grip on reality. And battling addiction stateside after his tour, he studies the green of household plants as he struggles mightily to get his sanity back. With mesmerizing action and Joycean interior monologues, Stephen Wright has created a book that is as much an homage to the darkness of war as it is a testament to the transcendence of art.

    What Caroline Logan doesn't know is that her search for truth will lead her into love, blackmail, Indian raids, buffalo stampedes, and a deadly early winter storm on the Continental Divide in Wyoming.

    S. Geological Survey," according to USA Today. His "greatest gift," says the Washington Post, is "his talent for creating lively, living characters." One of his most vivid and memorable characters is Marie Blythe.At the dawn of the twentieth century, a young girl with a felicitous name immigrates to Vermont from French Canada. She grows up confronting the grim realities of life with an indomitable spirit--nursing victims of a tuberculosis epidemic, enduring a miscarriage alone in the wilderness, and coping with the uncertainties of love. In Marie Blythe, Mosher has created a strong-minded, passionate, and truly memorable heroine.

    Set in the bleak Fen Country of East Anglia, and spanning some 240 years in the lives of its haunted narrator and his ancestors, Waterland is a book that takes in eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the heartless sweep of history and a family romance as tormented as any in Greek tragedy.

    Alone on the cobblestones, he cries out to Israel, to the Lord his God, to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He is answered instead by Jesus Christ.

    In Stick, an ex-con trying to go straight finds himself tempted by a high stakes, sweet-revenge scam...and targeted by a psycho killer with a score to settle.

    Jesse James, at the age of 34, is at the height of his fame and powers as a singularly successful outlaw. Robert Ford is the skittish younger brother of one of the James gang: he has made himself an expert on the gang, but his particular interest - his obsession - is Jesse James himself. Both drawn to him and frightened of him, the nineteen-year-old is uncertain whether he wants to serve James or destroy him or, somehow, become him.Never have these two men been portrayed and their saga explored with such poetry, such grim precision and such raw-boned feeling as Ron Hansen has brought to this masterful retelling.'Wonderful. This is great storytelling, not undermined by our knowin how it turns out. The reader is driven - by story and by language and by history... the best blend of fiction and history I've read in a long while!' -- John Irving, author of The World According to Garp

    

    He is simply seeking knowledge; 'it is only after you have come to know the surface of things that you can venture to seek what is underneath'. Whether contemplating a fine cheese, a hungry gecko, a woman sunbathing topless or a flight of migrant starlings, Mr Palomar's observations render the world afresh.

    The governor himself, Arthur Fenstemaker, a master politician, infinitely canny and seductive, remains the dominant figure throughout.Billy Lee Brammer—who served on Lyndon Johnson's staff—gives us here "the excitement of a political carnival: the sideshows, the freaks, and the ghoulish comedy atmosphere" (Saturday Review).Originally published in 1961, The Gay Place is at once a cult classic and a major American novel.

    Trapped into a miserable circus career as 'Raja the magnificent', he is then sold into films (co-starring with a beefy Tarzan in a leopard skin) until, finding the human world too brutish and bewildering, he makes a dramatic bid for freedom. R.K. Narayan's story combines Hindu mysticism with ripe Malgudi comedy, viewing human absurdities through the eyes of a wild animal and revealing how, quite unexpectedly, Raja finds sweet companionship and peace.

    The film, which has been scheduled for release in April, will star James Caan, Anjelica Huston and James Earl Jones. (Entertainment)

    "Others have observed the natural man in the American condition before, but nobody has done it with such good humor. Ed McClanahan's good humor both sharpens his eye and gentles his vision. I don't know where else, now, you would find workmanship that is at once so meticulous and so exuberant" - Wendell Berry.

    Squeaky, off on an increasingly fantastic series of encounters and incidents in a dreary Boston...

    This novel was first published in 1983. The story of Hallaj is both fascinating and sad. Hallaj an anxious and curious spirit had questions unanswered, he was seeking some answers and wanted to get those like Hazrat Musa(Moses) got at Kohe Tur (Mount of Sanai). He wanted to reach to God like where there is no Hijab (veil) left, so he indulges himself into such prayers and meditation that were tough and beyond the capacity of normal human beings and they bring to him such awareness which he could not muster and in mystification said something that took him to the woods and was crucified. But that was not the only reason for his crucifixion, there is lot in between, a relations of hate and love. Love not only with the immortal and pristine but also with a mortal and beautiful princess. Which Love finally takes him to gallows is an interesting tale narrated in this novel.

    Set between 1938 and 1968 in a land where gruelling poverty rubs shoulders with remarkable opulence, and moving from the Cape to London and the West Coast of America, Summer Harvest is a family saga in the finest tradition.At the heart of the story is Anna, a woman as strong and passionate as she is ambitious, who fights her way up from near destitution to become one of the Cape’s most prominent and powerful businesswomen.Simon — a poor farmer when they marry — has too much masculine pride to stand on the sidelines while Anna plunders her way to a success that threatens tragedy and loss.

    To Lisa Veta, Cesar remained as much of an enigma after two years of their nomadic exile together as he had that first day in Clapham when he took up his peculiar vigial in her mother's kitchen and showed no signs of shifting out of her life, ever.

    Chapman provides the first comprehensive examination of Farmer's major themes and fiction, from his earliest writings to his bestseller, The Gods of Riverworld.

     Miller was a career soldier — one of the best. He had twenty years and more of active service behind him — from the trenches of World War 1, to a riot-torn India, and from the Spanish Civil War to a heroic rearguard action at Dunkirk. His tactical brilliance and unquestioned courage played their part in those victories. But there were other battles he had to fight — with the old guard who despised his unorthodox methods, with brother officers who could never accept a shopkeeper's son as one of their own, and with the women whose love he jeopardised in his determination to succeed. This is Miller's story — a vivid, unforgettable portrait of a soldier. And this too is John Masters' epitaph — the novel that only he, with his first-hand knowledge of military life, could write. `A splendid storyteller and a master at describing battles and campaigns' - Daily Telegraph. Lieutenant Colonel John Masters, DSO (1914–1983) was an English officer in the Indian Army who fought in World War Two, and later a novelist. His works are noted for their descriptions of the British Empire in India. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.

    A unique witness to a vanishing way of life, Chosen becomes one of the Comanche and suffers with them as the white man destroys their ranks. Previous publisher: Tor.

    He's batting below .200 at the plate, and even worse in bed with his wife; and he secretly fears he's inherited his mother's insanity. Ordered to take a midseason rest, Suder instead takes his record of Charlie Parker's "Ornithology," his record player, and his new saxophone and flees, negotiating his way through madcap adventures and flashbacks to childhood ("If you folks believed more strongly in God, maybe you wouldn't be colored"). Pursued by a raging dope dealer, saddled with a mishandled elephant and an abused little white girl, he manages in the end to fly free, both transcending and inspired by the pull of so much life.

    Moira's destiny waited in a wild new land. She had already lost one brother to the "gold fever" sweeping America, and when her younger brother also left for California, Moira did what no "Lady" would ever do-she stowed away on a clipper ship and followed!What she found was passion and adventure beyond her wildest dreams...in the burning touch of the seaman, Random Hawthorne, who kindles a new flame within her...in the terror of a High Sierra cabin as claim-jumpers threaten her brothers' lives...in the arms of the man who takes her beyond ecstasy to discover the greatest treasure of all!

    The gifts that Eykis, an alien traveling from a distant, Earth-like planet, brings to the people of Earth help them see themselves in a new light, and compel them to rethink their negative actions. Her insightful offerings will move you to new emotions, new behaviors, and a new understanding of humankind's limitless possibilities.

    Her screams would echo in the darkness. Her face would contort in the throes of horror and pain. But once taken, each became a mother of an unholy child, a link in the chain of madness and evil, a spawn to carry on the devil's name!

    

    Nelson and Angela Armstrong are wealthy, successful, determined, and stubborn. The freshness of their love has gradually turned to the staleness of noncommunicating separateness. And Angela wants the separateness to be permanent. Nelson acquiesces, for he knows no way to recapture the glow which Angela seems so determined to snuff out entirely. But there is someone else who is concerned - one who died in 1848, yet his presence is uncannily real. And because of his own mistakes, he is determined to teach the Armstrongs what he learned about life, love, and survival.

    Their adventures include rape by a walrus, murder by crossbow, and a tennis tournament played at gunpoint. Hannah's inventiveness sparkles and his prose shines.

    Lost for over three-and-a-half centuries, the stone was said to hold ancient supernatural power. When the relic was taken to the offices of the magazine, an old Victorian house in the English town of Wolverhampton, inexplicable events, witnessed by dozens of observers, began to occur. •An unexplained dense, incense-smelling smoke filled the entire building each night as darkness fell.•The mysterious sound of footsteps, eerie noises and unearthly voices drove terrified visitors away.•Objects began to move and be thrown around, seemingly of their own volition, and an odious blue, gelatinous substance oozed from the walls.•An ominous, dark, faceless figure appeared and disappeared before the very eyes of those involved.•The sleeping bag of a member of the team spontaneously combusted as he slept in the building overnight.•Ultimately, nine people stood witness to hellish, unearthly cries, and bright balls of fiery light exploding over a nearby wood, when the awesome power of the stone was finally unleashed. The Green Stone is not only a spellbinding real-life historical detective story, but one of the most extraordinary true tales of the paranormal ever told. Augmented with four dozen additional, previously unpublished illustrations and photographs, this special 40th anniversary edition has been revised and updated and includes a new introduction by Graham Phillips.

    But as he looks around Serendipity searching for his home, he finds out that he belongs to himself.

     In The Rounders, two stove-up cowboys, Dusty Jones and Wrangler Lewis, set out to break a wild roan named Old Fooler - part horse - part devil - if he doesn't break them first!

    As always, Snyder kept extensive journals of his travels and, in this particular case, also wrote the whole account in one long letter to his sister. It was an amazing trip, and one that eventually took on legendary status as an iconic Beat Voyage. Complete with slides and photographs, Passage Through India takes us on a journey that transcends time.

    It is the holidays, but this homecoming goes awry from the start. For years the elderly parents have hardly spoken to each other, and the sister, Laura, who always before has come home at this time of year, is inexplicably absent. And yet, as parents and the visiting daughter assume their positions around the Christmas dinner table and its centerpiece of white roses, Laura's absence is transformed into a palpably overwhelming presence. Thus, the stage is set for an explosive confrontation as the family's story unfolds in what Marianne Hauser has called "a superb achievement, highly readable, profound and unrivaled."

    But the Ni-lach were no more, killed off by humans who feared their strange powers. Yet legends of a great Ni-lach treasure lived on. Eventually, men's search for Ni-lach gold led them to a great forest called the Deep--and to an orphan named Dhalvad, a carefree young man who played with alien fur children and..cured the sick without medicine. Soon Dhalvad and his friends--human, alien and otherwise--are running for their lives before relentless pursuers who do not know the true value of the wealth they seek.

    1 • Farthest Star • (1975)p. 201 • Wall Around a Star • (1983)

    First Love is introduced by David Cecil. A Fire at Sea is lesser known work, dictated by Turgenev in French at the end of his life in 1883, recalling an incident while he never forgot. It is introduced by Isaiah Berlin. This beautifully packaged series of classic novellas includes the works of masterful writers. Inexpensive and collectible, they are the first single-volume publications of these classic tales, offering a closer look at this underappreciated literary form and providing a fresh take on the world's most celebrated authors.

    Luke confronts his father, Darth Vader, as the Rebel fleet attempts to destroy the Death Star.

    Taking personal experience as his core, McConkey builds upon it to reveal connections and create an encompassing "court of memory." We come to know him, his family, his friends, and in the process we recognize elements of our own lives as well. The nexus through which these words pass is the writer's memory. His opening quotation from St. Augustine tells much about both the man and his vision: "All this I do inside me, in the huge court of my memory. There I have by me the sky, the earth, the sea, and all the things in them which I have been able to perceive... There too I encounter myself."

    

    Before long Marie will be devastated by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, even as the news of the Prague Spring has awakened Gesine’s long-dashed hopes that socialism could be a humanism. Meanwhile, her boss at the bank has his own ideas about Czechoslovakia, and Gesine faces the prospect of having to move there for work. Continuing the story of her past from Anniversaries, Volume 1, Gesine describes the Soviet occupation of her hometown, Jerichow, where her father was installed as mayor and ended up in a brutal prison camp. Gesine herself charts a rebellious course through school, ever more bitterly conscious of the moral ugliness of life behind the Iron Curtain. As the year of the novel comes to its end, past and present converge and the novel circles back to its beginnings.

    

    

    Composed by Jimenez between the years 1917 to 1920, the works in this grouping vanished mysteriously, only to be rediscovered a half-century later among the author's private papers. Published in Spain for the first time in 1983, they appear now at last in a bilingual edition, the English lovingly rendered by the scholar and poet Antonio T. de Nicolas, and introduced by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louis Simpson. This is a book of verse for the poet in all of us -- it sings of the invisible realities which we carry in our hearts and which carry us through a life filled with symbols, toil and beauty.