Education by Stone


João Cabral de Melo Neto - 1996
    Such was the ambition of João Cabral de Melo Neto. Though a great admirer of the thing-rich poetries of Francis Ponge and of Marianne Moore, what interested him even more, as he remarked in his acceptance speech for the 1992 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, was "the exploration of the materiality of words," the "rigorous construction of (. . .) lucid objects of language." His poetry, hard as stone and light as air, is like no other.

Brida


Paulo Coelho - 1990
    She has long been interested in various aspects of magic but is searching for something more. Her search leads her to people of great wisdom, who begin to teach Brida about the spiritual world. She meets a wise man who dwells in a forest, who teaches her about overcoming her fears and trusting in the goodness of the world; and a woman who teaches her how to dance to the music of the world, and how to pray to the moon. As Brida seeks her destiny, she struggles to find a balance between her relationships and her desire to become a witch. This enthralling novel incorporates themes that fans of Paulo Coelho will recognize and treasure—it is a tale of love, passion, mystery, and spirituality from the master storyteller.

The Shelf Life of Happiness


David Machado - 2013
    His wife and children move out to live with family hours away, but Daniel believes against all odds that he will find a job and everything will return to normal.Even as he loses his home, suffers severe damage to his car, and finds himself living in his old, abandoned office building, Daniel fights the realization that things have changed. He’s unable to see what remains among the rubble—friendship, his family’s love, and people’s deep desire to connect. If Daniel can let go of the past and find his true self, he just might save not only himself but also everyone that really matters to him.

The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures


Malba Tahan - 1938
    He turned out to be a born storyteller.The adventures of Beremiz Samir, The Man Who Counted, take the reader on an exotic journey in which, time and again, he summons his extraordinary mathematical powers to settle disputes, give wise advice, overcome dangerous enemies, and win for himself fame and fortune. as we accompany him, we learn much of the history of famous mathematicisns who preceded him; we undergo a series of trials at the hands of the wise men of the day; and we come to admire the warm wisdom and patience that earn him the respect and affection of those whose problems he resolves so astutely. In the grace of their telling, these stories hold unusual delights for the reader.

Irène


Pierre Lemaitre - 2006
    Worse still, the press seem to have it in for him – his every move is headline news. When he discovers that the killer has killed before – that each murder is a homage to a classic crime novel – the fourth estate are quick to coin a nickname… The Novelist…With both men in the public eye, the case develops into a personal duel, each hell-bent on outsmarting the other. There can only be one winner – whoever has the least to lose…

The Ice Princess


Camilla Läckberg - 2003
    The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life.Erica conceives a book about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their own shared past. While her interest grows into an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past.

The Ice Cream Girls


Dorothy Koomson - 2010
    Amid heated public debate, the two seemingly glamorous teens were dubbed ‘The Ice Cream Girls’ by the press and were dealt with by the courts.Years later, having led very different lives, Poppy is keen to set the record straight about what really happened, while married mother-of-two Serena wants no one in her present to find out about her past. But some secrets will not stay buried – and if theirs is revealed, everything will become a living hell all over again...

Detour


James Siegel - 2005
    The Washington Post called it "spectacularly inventive," and James Patterson raved, "James Siegel has arrived in high style." Now this acclaimed new master of suspense returns with the explosive story of a mother's love, a father's devotion-and an adopted daughter who turns their lives upside down. They want what every young couple wants: a child of their own. But Paul and Joanna Breidbart have been trying to conceive for five long years-a torturous process of failed medical procedures that nearly tore their marriage apart. When they finally decide to adopt, American agencies tell them they will have to wait years for their dream to come true. The couple agrees to fly to war-torn Colombia to adopt a baby girl. Paul knows all about risks. As an insurance executive, he routinely calculates the odds of dying in a plane crash or being hit by a bus. Yet all the accident statistics in the world can't prepare him for what is about to happen. Paul and Joanna receive the baby girl of their dreams and their world seems perfect. Then one afternoon they briefly leave their baby daughter alone with their new nanny. When they return, something is disturbingly different about their child...and suddenly everything Paul values is in jeopardy. Again, James Siegel gives us a tale of ordinary men and women thrust into extraordinary circumstances-and a novel that confirms him as one of today's most powerful writers of psychological suspense.

The Blind Man of Seville


Robert Wilson - 2003
    When confronted by this horrific scene the normally dispassionate homicide detective Javier Falcon is inexplicably afraid. What could be so terrible?"

The Double


José Saramago - 2002
    He is divorced, involved in a rather one-sided relationship with a bank clerk, and he is depressed. To lift his depression, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film and is unimpressed. During the night, noises in his apartment wake him. He goes into the living room to find that the VCR is replaying the video, and as he watches in astonishment, he sees an actor who looks exactly like him - or, more specifically, exactly like the man he was five years before, moustachioed and fuller in the face. He sleeps badly.Against his own better judgement, Tertuliano decides to pursue his double. As he establishes the man's identity, what begins as a whimsical story becomes a dark meditation on identity and, perhaps, on the crass assumptions behind cloning - that we are merely our outward appearance rather than the sum of our experiences.

Poems of Fernando Pessoa


Fernando Pessoa - 1930
    I think I have under control the reluctance I feel in having to share Pessoa with the public he should have had all along in America: until now, only the poets, so far as I can tell, have even heard of him, and delighted and exulted in him. He is, in some ways, the poet of modernism, the only one willing to fracture himself into the parcels of action, anguish, and nostalgia which are the grounds of our actual situation." —C. K. Williams"Pessoa is one of the great originals (a fact rendered more striking by his writing as several distinct personalities) of the European poetry of the first part of this century, and has been one of the last poets of comparable stature, in the European languages, to become known in English. Edwin Honig's translations of Spanish and Portuguese poetry have been known to anyone who cares about either, since his work on Lorca in the forties, and his Selected Poems of Pessoa (1971) was a welcome step toward a long-awaited larger colection." — W. S. Merwin"Fernando Pessoa is the least known of the masters of the twentieth-century poetry. From his heteronymic passion he produced, if that is the word, two of our greatest poets, Alberto Caeiro and Álvaro de Campos, and a third, Ricardo Reis, who isn't bad. Pessoa is the exemplary poet of the self as other, of the poem as testament to unreality, proclamation of nothingness, occasion for expectancy. In Edwin Honig's and Susan Brown's superb translations, Pessoa and his "others" live with miraculous style and vitality." —Mark StrandFernando Pessoa is Portugal’s most important contemporary poet. He wrote under several identities, which he called heteronyms: Albet Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, and Bernardo Soares. He wrote sublime poetry under his own name as well, and each of his “voices” is completely different in subject, temperament, and style. This volume brings back into print the comprehensive collection of his work published by Ecco Press in 1986.

Nowhere People


Paulo Scott - 2011
    The indigenous girl stands in the heavy rain, as if waiting for something. Paulo gives her a lift to her family’s roadside camp.With sudden shifts in the characters’ lives, this novel takes in the whole story: telling of love, loss and family, it spans the worlds of São Paulo’s rich kids and dispossessed Guarani Indians along Brazil’s highways. One man escapes into an immigrant squatter’s life in London, while another’s performance activism leads to unexpected fame on Youtube.Written from the gut, it is a raw and passionate classic in the making, about our need for a home.

O Cobrador


Rubem Fonseca - 1979
    Rubem Fonseca's Rio is a city at war, a city whose vast disparities- in wealth, social standing, and prestige- are untenable. In the stories of The Taker, rich and poor live in an uneasy equilibrium, where only overwhelming force can maintain order, and violence and deception are essential tools of survival.

The Queen of the South


Arturo Pérez-Reverte - 2002
    Teresa Mendoza is his girlfriend, a typical narco's morra-- quiet, doting, submissive. But then Guero's caught playing both sides, and in Sinaloa, that means death. Teresa finds herself alone, terrified, friendless and running to save her life, carrying nothing but a gym bag containing a pistol and a notebook that she has been forbidden to read. Forced to leave Mexico, she flees to the Spanish city of Melilla, where she meets Santiago Fisterra, a Galician involved in trafficking hashish across the Strait of Gibraltar. When Santiago's partner is captured, it is Teresa who steps in to take his place. Now Teresa has plunged into the dark and ugly world that once claimed Guero's life-- and she's about to get in deeper...

The Good German


Joseph Kanon - 2001
    His assignment: a series of articles on the Allied occupation. His personal agenda: to find Lena, the German mistress he left behind at the outbreak of the war. When Jake stumbles on a murder -- an American soldier washes up on the conference grounds -- he thinks he has found the key that will unlock his Berlin story. What Jake finds instead is a larger story of corruption and intrigue reaching deep into the heart of the occupation. Berlin in July 1945 is like nowhere else -- a tragedy, and a feverish party after the end of the world. As Jake searches the ruins for Lena, he discovers that years of war have led to unimaginable displacement and degradation. As he hunts for the soldier's killer, he learns that Berlin has become a city of secrets, a lunar landscape that seethes with social and political tension. When the two searches become entangled, Jake comes to understand that the American Military Government is already fighting a new enemy in the east, busily identifying the "good Germans" who can help win the next war. And hanging over everything is the larger crime, a crime so huge that it seems -- the worst irony -- beyond punishment. At once a murder mystery, a moving love story, and a riveting portrait of a unique time and place, The Good German is a historical thriller of the first rank.