As Octavio Paz writes in the afterword, “Eliot Weinberger’s commentary on the successive translations of Wang Wei’s little poem illustrates, with succinct clarity, not only the evolution of the art of translation in the modern period but at the same time the changes in poetic sensibility.”

    This collection focuses upon the land he knew and loved so well—Normandy. Its people and its countryside are portrayed here in vivid colour and with great warmth. Amusing, saucy, and sometimes even farcical they may be, but they are also capable of great pathos, often branching off to end tragically. It is this skilful and affecting blend of tragedy and comedy, of tears and laughter, which make Maupassant's Normandy Stories the enduring favourites they are today.11 stories:Disc 1. In the country - Pierrot - A Normandy joke - A cock crowed - Old Boniface's crime - The confession - Disc 2. An apparition - The little cask - The castaway - Bombard - Master Belhomme's beast.

    

    Set in the rural China in which Xiao grew up, these two masterpieces expand on many themes, including the plight of peasants and the role of women in society. With a realistic style that has been said to rival "Tolstoy's sweep, FlaubertÂ�s detachment and Ba JinÂ�s compassion," Xiao gives us an unflinching, surprisingly lyrical, and often wryly humorous account of the difficult lives of these characters. This is an updated and extensively revised new edition.

    Five other tales describe folk in Britain's lowest professional class between the late-1950s and 60s.

    Quarrels are made in an apartment flat, baijiu is served in a state of surveillance, chow mein alternates with autonomous cars, and a girl has to choose between romance and money. It’s poignant how Beijing is divided into three segments that decides life for its 80 million citizens, and separates them — even physically — into the working, professional, and ruling class, in which ones birth determines ones future. This alone is an eerie parallel to today, where people are increasingly divided, and inhabiting different worlds within the same space — a parallel in which education, fresh air and nutritious food — and even sunlight — become luxuries, just like designer clothing and jewellery. Hao Jingfang’s writing, translated by Ken Liu, is poetic and clean, and carries a political message. It’s science-fictional, but it is the timelessness that gives this story its elegance.

    Rather than enjoy some drinks in front of a warm fire with her friends, contracted Slayer Clementine Johanssen has her horse saddled and weapons packed to head out into the hills and hunt down some deadly scallywags—alone. When her friends catch wind of her intentions, they set out to waylay her long enough to change her way of thinking … in spite of her mule-headedness.Reminiscent of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, this catawampus tale will add a heartening dose of fun and camaraderie to your holiday!Note: This is book 3.5 of the Deadwood Undertaker Series*(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

    The stories range from the tragic to the comic, though Mo Yan's humor is always tinged with a shade of black. They embody, too, the author's deep and abiding love of his fellow man, equaled only by his intense disdain of bureaucracy and repression--despite which his fiction is never didactic. Satire, fantasy, the supernatural, mystery: all are present in this remarkable and intensely enjoyable volume.- The release of award-winning director Zhang Yimou's major film adaptation of the title story (Happy Times) in summer 2002 heightened the visibility of both the author and this collection.- This paperback is being published simultaneously with the author's mangum opus, Big Breasts and Wide Hips--a return to the sweep and ambition of his bestelling Red Sorghum--which will receive major critical acclaim and further raise Mo Yan's profile in the States.- One of the stories in the volume serves as a companion piece to the author's hugely popular Red Sorghum.- Hardcover ISBN: 1-55970-565-5

    In seventeenth-century China, three women become emotionally involved with The Peony Pavilion, a famed opera rumored to cause lovesickness and even death, including Peony, the cloistered daughter of a wealthy scholar, who succumbs to its spell only to return after her death as a "hungry ghost" to haunt her former fiancé, who has married another.

    Two lovers ruminate on the power of their photo booth stickers to keep them together. Peach-pocket Girl reads stolen love letters at a café. Pui Pui knows a Portuguese egg tart is authentic if she dreams of riding a boat-like egg tart. Each character inhabits a different corner of Hong Kong’s dreamscape; together they bring to life Dung Kai-cheung’s imaginative vision of the city.

    To find each work in the anthology, you must go to the "Go To" section of your Nook, and then select "Chapter." It might get a blank screen--if it does, then hit the page forward button and the work will appear. Nikolai Gogol is considered the fathern of modern Russian realism; collected here are his best known works.Works include:Dead SoulsThe Inspector-GeneralTaras Bulba, et. al

    Re-publication of the essays by the author whose criticism of Taiwan¡'s political culture became the seed of an essay wild fire for motivating the people of Taiwan.

    The walking wounded. These are the stories of ordinary people.

    It is considered second only to the Tao Te Ching, but the two books coundn't be more different. Where the Tao Te Ching is distant and proverbial in style, the Chuang Tze buzzes with life and with insights, often with considerable humour behind them.

    Coronado Prep student Maria Ochoa, 16, is near death after crashing her car on an isolated stretch of New Mexico Highway 14 during a blizzard. When the only person to show up to help her is a teen gangbanger named Demetrio Vigil, Maria fears she’s doomed, until the young man manages, miraculously, to heal her nearly fatal wounds with nothing but the warm energy radiating from his hands. Maria is grateful for the help, and seeks to thank Demetrio by returning to the tiny ghost town of Golden, where he said he lives, to find him and give him a gift. What she discovers out about Demetrio along the way, however, not only defies logic and belief, but puts Maria’s very life in terrible danger.