In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortunetelling position with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-President of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact. In these twelve masterful short stories about the lives of Latin Americans in Europe, García Márquez conveys the peculiar amalgam of melancholy, tenacity, sorrow, and aspiration that is the émigré experience.

    Set in the mid-19th century on New York City's Wall Street, it was also, perhaps, Herman Melville's most prescient story: what if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce finally just said, "I would prefer not to"?The tale is one of the final works of fiction published by Melville before, slipping into despair over the continuing critical dismissal of his work after Moby-Dick, he abandoned publishing fiction. The work is presented here exactly as it was originally published in Putnam's magazine—to, sadly, critical disdain.

    Lloyd, our permanently pilled-up protagonist, pushes his weekends to breaking point and beyond in this frazzled trip through Scottish clubland. He experiences the vertiginous uppers and downers of the Second Summer of Love, dabbles in a spot of disc jockeying and closes in, gradually, on some kind of redemption…Selected from Irvine Welsh's novel Ecstasy.VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us humanAlso in the Vintage Minis series:Home by Salman RushdieDreams by Sigmund FreudEating by Nigella LawsonWork by Joseph Heller

    Neither Poe nor Verne had actually visited the remote Kerguelen Islands, located in the south Indian Ocean, but their works are some of the few literary (as opposed to exploratory) references to the archipelago.

    Sade's villains will stop at nothing to satisfy their depraved passions, and they in turn suffer under the thrall of love. This is the most complete selection from the Marquis de Sade's four-volume collection of short stories, The Crimes of Love. David Coward's vibrant new translation captures the verve of the original, and his introduction and notes describe Sade's notorious career. This new selection includes An Essay on Novels, Sade's penetrating survey of the novelist's art. It also contains the preface to the collection and an important statement of Sade's concept of fiction and one of the few literary manifestoes published during the Revolution. Appendices include the denunciatory review of the collection that it received on publication, and Diderot's vigorous response. A skilled and artful story-teller, Marquis de Sade's is also an intellectual who asks questions about society, about ourselves, and about life. Psychologically astute and defiantly unconventional, these stories show Sade at his best.

     The extraordinary new novel in the #1 New York Times–bestselling series from the grand master of adventure. In October 1943, a U.S. destroyer sailed out of Philadelphia and supposedly vanished, the result of a Navy experiment with electromagnetic radiation. The story was considered a hoax—but now Juan Cabrillo and his Oregon colleagues aren’t so sure. There is talk of a new weapon soon to be auctioned, something very dangerous to America’s interests, and the rumors link it to the great inventor Nikola Tesla, who was working with the Navy when he died in 1943. Was he responsible for the experiment? Are his notes in the hands of enemies? As Cabrillo races to find the truth, he discovers there is even more at stake than he could have imagined—but by the time he realizes it, he may already be too late.

    He anxiously awaits the hand that will set him free. Level 3 ? Up to 1000 words

    Now at last, thanks to the tireless efforts of the Klingon Language Institute, this powerful drama by the legendary Klingon playwright, Wil'yam Shex'pir, can be appreciated in the elegance and glory of its original tongue. This invaluable volume contains the complete text of the play, along with an English translation for easy consultation and comparison. In addition, an incisive introduction explains the play's crucial importance in Klingon culture, while copious notes illustrate how the debased English version diverges from the original, often distorting and even reversing the actual meaning of the verses.Khamlet, the Restored Klingon Version, is a work that belongs in the library of every human who hopes truly to understand what it means to be Klingon.

    Baron Munchausen's astounding feats included riding cannonballs, traveling to the Moon, and pulling himself out of a bog by his own hair. Listeners delighted in hearing about these unlikely adventures, and in 1785, the stories were collected and published as Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. By the nineteenth century, the tales had undergone expansions and transformations by several notable authors and had been translated into many languages.A figure as colorful as the Baron naturally appeals to the artistic imagination, and he has been depicted in numerous works of art. His definitive visual image, however, belongs to Gustave Doré. Famed for his engravings of scenes from the Bible, the Divine Comedy, Don Quixote, and other literary classics, Doré created theatrical illustrations of the Baron's escapades that perfectly re-create the stories' picaresque humor.

    I could not refrain from starting when I heard him utter the name of Clarimonde, and this news of her death, in addition to the pain it caused me by reason of its coincidence with the nocturnal scenes I had witnessed, filled me with an agony and terror which my face betrayed.A terrifying tale by Gautier written in first person. It narrates the story of a young priest, Romuald, who falls in love with a mysterious woman called Clarimonde. He goes through strange experiences after meeting her and she haunts him in his dreams. The author has captured the desires, emotions and feelings of the priest brilliantly. Spine-chilling!

    If human beings are determined by their genes and their environment, how can they claim to be free to want or do anything? Where are Jacques and his Master going? Are they simply occupying space, living mechanically until they die, believing erroneously that they are in charge of their Destiny? Diderot intervenes to cheat our expectations of what fiction should be and do, and behaves like a provocative, ironic and unfailingly entertaining master of revels who finally show why Fate is not to be equated with doom. In the introduction to this brilliant new translation, David Coward explains the philosophical basis of Diderot's fascination with Fate and shows why Jacques the Fatalist pioneers techniques of fiction which, two centuries on, novelists still regard as experimental.

    An anthology of the writings of the celebrated German novelist and Nobel laureate.

    The pieces in this volume show him to be at times playful, more serious at other, but writing always with the lightest of touches. He had the keenest of eyes for the 'infra-ordinary', the things we do every day - eating, sleeping, working - and the places we do them in without giving them a moment's thought. But behind the lightness and humour, there is also the sadness of a French Jewish boy who lost his parents in the Second World War and found comfort in the material world around him, and above all in writing.This volume contains a selection of Georges Perec's non-fiction works, along with a charming short story, 'The Winter Journey'. It also includes notes and an introduction describing Perec's life and career.

    Borges sends us on a journey into a compelling, bizarre, and profoundly resonant realm; we enter the fearful sphere of Pascal's abyss, the surreal and literal labyrinth of books, and the iconography of eternal return. To enter the worlds in Ficciones is to enter the mind of Jorge Luis Borges, wherein lies Heaven, Hell, and everything else in between. Part One: The Garden of Forking Paths Prologue Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940) The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim (1936, not included in the 1941 edition) Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote (1939) The Circular Ruins (1940) The Lottery in Babylon (1941) An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain (1941) The Library of Babel (1941) The Garden of Forking Paths (1941) Part Two: Artifices Prologue Funes the Memorious (1942) The Form of the Sword (1942) Theme of the Traitor and the Hero (1944) Death and the Compass (1942) The Secret Miracle (1943) Three Versions of Judas (1944) The End (1953, 2nd edition only) The Sect of the Phoenix (1952, 2nd edition only) The South (1953, 2nd edition only)

    Read the short story, assemble the 1,000-piece puzzle, and discover the hidden clues. Then solve the mystery by putting together the pieces in the story and in the puzzle. Slick, book-like packaging and high quality artwork make these puzzles a standout. Beware: the 1,000-piece puzzle is different from the cover!