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On the Water
H.M. van den Brink - 1998
Anton stands on the banks of his beloved river years later, on the wintry eve of Holland's liberation, and mourns a lost world. David, his Jewish teammate and quiet obsession from that magical summer, has disappeared, and the boathouse is now derelict and deserted. Spare, lyrical, and nuanced, On the Water is quietly enormous, capturing a moment so precise and exact it is as if caught in amber -- a rowing club in Amsterdam and two of its competitors from very different backgrounds, set against the backdrop of the oncoming war. The menace of tragedy to come is subtly woven into the story of the two boys whose only concerns are practices, races, and themselves. In the end, all that is left for Anton is the memory of his supreme happiness that summer.
CoDex 1962: A Trilogy
Sjón - 2016
But what the world has never been able to read is his great trilogy of novels, known collectively as CoDex 1962—now finally complete.Josef Löwe, the narrator, was born in 1962—the same year, the same moment even, as Sjón. Josef's story, however, stretches back decades in the form of Leo Löwe—a Jewish fugitive during World War II who has an affair with a maid in a German inn; together, they form a baby from a piece of clay. If the first volume is a love story, the second is a crime story: Löwe arrives in Iceland with the clay-baby inside a hatbox, only to be embroiled in a murder mystery—but by the end of the volume, his clay son has come to life. And in the final volume, set in present-day Reykjavík, Josef's story becomes science fiction as he crosses paths with the outlandish CEO of a biotech company (based closely on reality) who brings the story of genetics and genesis full circle. But the future, according to Sjón, is not so dark as it seems.In CoDex 1962, Sjón has woven ancient and modern material and folklore and cosmic myths into a singular masterpiece—encompassing genre fiction, theology, expressionist film, comic strips, fortean studies, genetics, and, of course, the rich tradition of Icelandic storytelling.
Abyssinian Chronicles
Moses Isegawa - 1998
Mugezi's hard-won observations form a cri de coeur for a people shaped by untold losses.
American Gods
Neil Gaiman - 2001
Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America. Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what - and who - it finds there...
Freddy and Fredericka
Mark Helprin - 2005
Freddy and Fredericka—a brilliantly refashioned fairy tale and a magnificently funny farce—only seems like a radical departure of form, for behind the laughter, Helprin speaks of leaps of faith and second chances, courage and the primacy of love. Helprin’s latest work, an extraordinarily funny allegory about a most peculiar British royal family, is immensely mocking of contemporary monarchy and yet deeply sympathetic to the individuals caught in its lonely absurdities.
A Naked Singularity
Sergio de la Pava - 2008
So far he’s on the winning side. He’s never lost a case. But nothing lasts forever, and pride like his has a long way to fall.Funny, smart and always surprising, A Naked Singularity speaks a language all of its own and reads like nothing else ever written. Casi’s beautiful mind and planetary intelligence make him an inimitable and unforgettable narrator.In De La Pava’s hands, the labyrinthine miseries of the New York Justice System are as layered and diabolical as Dante’s nine circles of Hell. But the Devil doesn’t hog the best lines. There are plenty here to go around.
Heroes and Villains
Angela Carter - 1969
Rational civilization rests with the Professors in their steel and concrete villages; marauding tribes of Barbarians roam the surrounding jungles; mutilated Out People inhabit the burnt scars of cities. But Marianne, a Professor's daughter, is carried away into the jungle--a grotesque vegetable paradise--where she will become the captive bride of Jewel, the proud and beautiful Barbarian. There she will witness the savage rituals of the snake worshippers, indulge her voluptuous, virginal fantasies, taste the forbidden fruit of chaos... Erotic, exotic, and bizarre, HEROES AND VILLAINS is a post-apocalyptic romance, a gripping adventure story, a colourful embroidery of religion and magic and, not least, a dispassionate vision of life beyond our brave nuclear world.
Diary
Chuck Palahniuk - 2003
Once a promising young artist, she’s now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that doesn’t stop his clients from threatening Misty with lawsuits over a series of vile messages they’ve found on the walls of houses he remodeled.Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives. What unfolds is a dark, hilarious story from America’s most inventive nihilist, and Palahniuk’s most impressive work to date.
The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov - 1967
The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.
Girl in the Dark
Marion Pauw - 2008
Just a few years ago, Iris was confident and in control. But every day since Aaron’s birth, she’s condemned herself for being a failure—a bad parent who cannot cope with a difficult child. Though she loves her son fiercely, she despairs over his intense outbursts, which are becoming increasingly harder to control.One thing that keeps Aaron calm is the large aquarium in Iris’s mother’s home. Iris has never understood why Agatha, usually so detached, would keep an oversize tank filled with exotic tropical fish, and of course, her mother won’t say—until an incident involving one of the fish leads Iris to make a shocking discovery.She has an older brother. His name is Ray.Why did her mother hide Ray’s existence from her? Did her late father know? And why does Agatha still refuse to say anything about Ray?Curious about this sibling she has never known, Iris begins to search for long-buried truths. What she learns surprises—and horrifies—her. Her older brother is autistic—and in a hospital for the criminally insane for brutally murdering his neighbor and her little girl.When she meets Ray, she meets a man who looks heartbreakingly like her own son. A man who is devoted to his tropical fish and who loves baking bread. A man whose naïveté unnerves her. There is no question that Ray is odd and obsessive, unable to communicate like the rest of us. But is he really a killer—“The Monster Next Door,” as the media dubbed him—a beast who committed a brutal murder because of a broken heart? Told in the alternating voices of Ray and Iris, Girl in the Dark is a compulsive, page-turning thriller about lies, murder, and the tenacity of a family determined to stay together, even as they are pulled apart at the most vulnerable seams.
The Sixteen Trees of the Somme: A Novel
Lars Mytting
An international bestseller and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Prize, it tells the story of Edvard and starts at his family’s tree farm in Norway, where he was raised by his grandfather. The death of Edvard’s parents when he was three has always been a mystery but he knows that the fate of his grandfather’s brother, Einar, is somehow connected. One day a coffin is delivered to the farm for his grandfather, long before the grandfather’s death––a meticulous, beautiful, and unique piece of craftsmanship with the hallmarks of a certain master craftsman––raising the thought that Einar isn’t dead after all. Edvard is now driven to unravel the mystery of his parents’ death. Following a trail of clues from Norway to the Shetland Islands to the battlefields of France and sixteen ancient walnut trees colored by poison gas in World War I, Edvard ultimately discovers a very unusual inheritance. Spanning a century and masterfully navigating themes of revenge and forgiveness, love and loneliness, The Sixteen Trees of the Somme displays the rich talents of Lars Mytting––whose novels have sold over a million copies worldwide––in a story that is utterly compelling and unforgettable.
Distant Star
Roberto Bolaño - 1996
The narrator, unable to stop himself, tries to track Ruiz-Tagle down, and sees signs of his activity over and over again. A corrosive, mocking humor sparkles within Bolaño's darkest visions of Chile under Pinochet. In Bolaño's world there's a big graveyard and there's a big graveyard laugh. (He once described his novel By Night in Chile as "a tale of terror, a situation comedy, and a combination pastoral-gothic novel.")Many Chilean authors have written about the "bloody events of the early Pinochet years, the abductions and murders," Richard Eder commented in the The New York Times: "None has done it in such a dark and glittering fashion as Roberto Bolaño."
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera - 1984
This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.
The Memory Police
Yōko Ogawa - 1994
Most of the island's inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.
A Trip to the Stars
Nicholas Christopher - 2000
A young boy and his adopted aunt become separated when the youngster is kidnapped by his wealthy, eccentric great-uncle, but mysterious ties continue to link the two unknowingly over the fifteen-year separation.