Book picks similar to
The Decameron, Volume II by Giovanni Boccaccio
classics
short-stories
narrativa
fiction
The New York Trilogy
Paul Auster - 1987
He’s drawn into the streets of New York, onto an elusive case that’s more puzzling and more deeply-layered than anything he might have written himself. In Ghosts, Blue, a mentee of Brown, is hired by White to spy on Black from a window on Orange Street. Once Blue starts stalking Black, he finds his subject on a similar mission, as well. In The Locked Room, Fanshawe has disappeared, leaving behind his wife and baby and nothing but a cache of novels, plays, and poems.This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition includes an introduction from author and professor Luc Sante, as well as a pulp novel-inspired cover from Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic artist of Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers.
Bagheria
Dacia Maraini - 1993
She describes Sicily in sensuous detail, the town of Bagheria, and the ancestral villa to which she returned as a child after two horrific years of imprisonment with her family in a Japanese concentration camp. The Villa Valguarnera and Maraini recalls the spiritual struggles and her rebellion against the elitism of her class. She also discusses her experience of child abuse. Bagheria is also a tale of corruption: centuries of the town's past unfold alongside Maraini's family history as she details the involvement of the Mafia in the architectural decimation of Bagheria in the 1970s.
Theatre
W. Somerset Maugham - 1937
Somerset Maugham–the author of the classic novels Of Human Bondage and Up at the Villa–introduces us to Julia Lambert, a woman of breathtaking poise and talent whose looks have stood by her forty-six years. She is a star UK stage actress–-so good, in fact, that perhaps she never stops acting.It seems that noting can ruffle her satin feathers, until a quiet stranger challenges Julia's very sense of self. As a result, she will endure rejection for the first time, her capacity as a mother will be affronted, and her ability to put on whatever face she desired for her public will prove limited. In Theatre, Maugham subtly exposes the tensions and triumphs that occur when acting and reality blend together, and–for Julia–ultimately reverse.
Flowers Over the Inferno
Ilaria Tuti - 2018
When she’s called to investigate a gruesome murder near a mountainside town, she’s paired with a young male inspector she’s not sure she trusts. But she has no choice—in this remote town full of secrets, eerie folktales and primal instincts, the killer seems drawn to a group of local children, who may be in grave danger.As Teresa inches closer to the truth, she must confront the possibility that her faculties, no longer what they once were, may fail her before the chase is over.
Beneath the Mountain
Luca D'Andrea - 2016
He and his partner, Mike, made a reality show about roadies that skyrocketed them to fame. But now Salinger’s left that all behind, to move with his wife, Annelise, and young daughter, Clara, to the remote part of Italy where Annelise grew up—the Alto Adige. Nestled in the Dolomites, this breathtaking, rural region that was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire remains more Austro than Italian. Locals speak a strange, ancient dialect—Ladino—and root for Germany (against Italy) in the world cup. Annelise’s small town—Siebenhoch—is close-knit to say the least and does not take kindly to out-of-towners. When Salinger decides to make a documentary about the mountain rescue group, the mission goes horribly awry, leaving him the only survivor. He blames himself, and so—it seems—does everyone else in Siebenhoch. Spiraling into a deep depression, he begins having terrible, recurrent nightmares. Only his little girl Clara can put a smile on his face. But when he takes Clara to the Bletterbach Gorge—a canyon rich in fossil remains—he accidentally overhears a conversation that gives his life renewed focus. In 1985, three students were murdered there, their bodies savaged, limbs severed and strewn by a killer who was never found. Although Salinger knows this is a tightlipped community, one where he is definitely persona non grata, he becomes obsessed with solving this mystery and is convinced it is all that can keep him sane. And as Salinger unearths the long kept secrets of this small town, one by one, the terrifying truth is eventually revealed about the horrifying crime that marked an entire village.
Plain Pleasures
Jane Bowles - 1966
In this collection of short fiction, ranging from North Africa to South America, Bowles explores her fascination with the hidden lives of apparently ordinary middle-aged women.
First Snow on Fuji
Yasunari Kawabata - 1958
Like his later works, First Snow on Fuji is concerned with forms of presence and absence, with being, with memory and loss of memory, with not-knowing. Kawabata lets us slide into the lives of people who have been shattered by war, loss, and longing. These stories are beautiful and melancholy, filled with Kawabata’s unerring vision of human psychology. First Snow on Fuji was originally published in Japan in 1958, ten years before Kawabata received the Nobel Prize. Kawabata selected the stories for this collection himself, and the result is a stunning assembly of disparate moods and genres. This new edition is the first to be published in English.
To the Wedding
John Berger - 1995
As the book cinematically moves from one character's perspective to another, events and characters move toward the convergence of the wedding--and a haunting dance of love and death.
Rob Roy, Volume 01
Walter Scott - 1817
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.