This novel is a testament of what seemed at the time a fairly ordinary childhood, in the bosom of a normal Nazi family in Landsberg.Returning to her native town in East Germany forty years later, accompanied by her inquisitive and sometimes demanding daughter, Christa Wolf attempts to recapture her past and to clarify memories of growing up in Nazi Germany

    Savitribai Indorekar, born into an orthodox Hindu family, elopes with her Muslim lover and accompanist, Ghulaam Saab, to pursue a career in music. Gentle, strong-willed Leela, on the other hand, gives her life to the Party, and to working with the factory workers of Bombay.Fifty years after these events have been set in motion, Madhu, Leela's niece, travels to Bhavanipur, Savitribai's home in her last years, to write a biography of Bai. Caught in her own despair over the loss of her only son, Aditya, Madhu tries to make sense of the lives of Bai and those around her, and in doing so, seeks to find a way out of her own grief.

    The novel deals with love in its two aspects, the self-gratifying and the impersonal; - The Nice And The Good - as they are embodied in a fascinating array of paired characters. The Nice And The Good leads through stress and terror to a joyous and compassionate Midsummer Nights Dream conclusion, in which the couples all sort themselves out neatly and omnia vincit amor.

    While their travels are fraught with complications and intrigue, Mercier and Camier at least “did not remove from home, they had that good fortune.”

    The Tolm family, for example, abandons the most difficult problem to the enormously bloated police apparatus, depending on whether the individuals are more likely to belong to the suspects or the vulnerable or even to both categories. This increases compulsively, as the signs pile up, threatening a new stop. But Fritz Tolm achieves a new clarity.

    Lovingly, poignantly, satirically and with much humor, Pym conducts us through their small lives and the facade they erect to defend themselves against the outside world. There is nevertheless an obstinate optimism in her characters, allowing them in their different ways to win through to a kind of hope. Barbara Pym’s sensitive wit and artistry are at their most sparkling in Quartet in Autumn.

    But the dead German was a deserter, and when Grischa is recaptured he is sentenced to be shot. He struggles to establish his true identity, but will it save him?

    Winner of the Egon Hostovský Prize as the best Czech book of the year, this epic novel powerfully captures the sense of dislocation that followed the Czechs’ newfound freedom in 1989. More than just the story of its young protagonist—who is part businessman, part gang member, part drifter—it is a novel that includes terrifying dream scenes, Czech and American Indian legends, a nightmarish Eastern European flea market, comic scenes about the literary world, and an oddly tender story of the love between the protagonist and his spiritual sister.

    The aftermath of Armageddon, of course, is the world's glorious opportunity to embrace Russia's New Theology, guaranteed to cure or kill. - The American Mercury, December 1936. (http://www.unz.org/Pub/AmMercury-1936...)

    He’s engaged to be married and the employment market is pretty slim in Britain in 1937. So when his fiancé points out the Spartacus Machine Tool notice, he jumps at the chance. After all, he speaks Italian and he figures he’ll be able to endure Milan for a year, long enough to save some money. Soon after he arrives, however, he learns the sinister truth of his predecessor’s death and finds himself courted by two agents with dangerously different agendas. In the process, Marlow realizes it’s not so simple to just do the job he’s paid to do in fascist Italy on the eve of a world war.

    A tragic legacy of the German occupation, illegitimate Tora is a social outcast. Worse, Tora also has to cope with the fear of her brutish stepfather and his sexual assaults. She consoles herself with lonely fantasies about her real father, with books, and with the friendship and support of a few village women. This proletarian feminist novel is about the victimization of women, but also about women's solidarity and power. Awarded a coveted Nordic prize, this is the first volume of a trilogy.

    You don't need to give Arthur more than one chance to do the Government or trick the foreman.And when the day's work is over, Arthur is off to the pubs, raring for adventure. He is a warrior of the bottle and the bedroom - his slogan is 'If it's going, it's for me' - for his aim is to cheat the world before it can cheat him. And never is the battle more fiercely joined than on Saturday night.But Sunday morning is the time of reckoning, the time for facing up to life - the time, too, you run the risk of getting hooked!Arthur is no exception.

    Although known principally as a writer, he was closely associated with the tumultuous revolutionary period of his own country. Of all Gorky's novels, The Artamonov Business ('Decadence' in the USA edition) is the most impressive & dramatic. Here in concentrated form is the tragic failure of Russia's middle classes in the decades before the Revolution, seen in the small town microcosm of a family of textile manufacturers.

    The daily routine of a man in charge of children at a state welfare organization and the demands that are made upon him are depicted in this novel set in present day Hungary.

    An assortment of sages sharpen Daniel's wide-eyed outlook until he has the concentration of a card shark Zeta master, via apprenticeships in meditation, safecracking, poker, and the art of walking through walls. Wizards are made, not born, and this unconventional education sets Daniel on the trail of mysteries ancient and modern.A strange, six-pound diamond sphere held by the U.S. government in a New Mexico vault, rumored to be the Philosopher's Stone or the Holy Grail, becomes the AMO's obsession. In time, Daniel perfects his powers and heads off to steal the magic stone, and what happens changes his life forever.Stone Junction is a bravura act of storytelling, both a free-spirited adventure and a parable about the powers within all of us.