Love in the Big City


Sang Young Park - 2019
    A runaway bestseller, the novel hit the top five lists of all the major bookstores and went into nine printings. Both award-winning for its unique literary voice and perspective, and particularly resonant with young readers, it has been a phenomenon in Korea and is poised to capture a worldwide readership.Love in the Big City is an energetic, joyful, and moving novel that depicts both the glittering nighttime world of Seoul and the bleary-eyed morning-after. Young is a cynical yet fun-loving Korean student who pinballs from home to class to the beds of recent Tinder matches. He and Jaehee, his female best friend and roommate, frequent nearby bars where they push away their anxieties about their love lives, families, and money with rounds of soju and ice-cold Marlboro Reds that they keep in their freezer. Yet over time, even Jaehee leaves Young to settle down, leaving him alone to care for his ailing mother and to find companionship in his relationships with a series of men, including one whose handsomeness is matched by his coldness, and another who might end up being the great love of his life.A brilliantly written novel filled with powerful sensory descriptions and both humor and emotion, Love in the Big City is an exploration of millennial loneliness as well as the joys of queer life, that should appeal to readers of Sayaka Murata, Han Kang, and Cho Nam-Joo.

Le Pendentif, Easy Short Stories with English Glossary (Easy French Reader Series for Beginners t. 1)


Sylvie Lainé - 2013
    It's a pleasant way of expanding one’s vocabulary, immersing in the French language and building confidence. There is no need for a dictionnary: key words are listed under each paragraph and translated out of the context. At the end of the book, all new words are summed up in a complete vocabulary section. Simple and easy to read, the short stories use a good mix of grammar constructs, with basic and useful vocabulary. The stories are written in tenses used in normal conversation : present tense, and just a little bit of future tense, passé composé and imparfait. With the MP3, you can practice your pronunciation and your listening (40 minutes/ read by the author). These stories are now available in the past tenses passé composé and imparfait [ASIN: B00PM4SO5M] Beginners : Level A0 - A1 About the author : Sylvie Lainé lives in Normandy where she teaches French to adults and teenagers. Her work with students of various nationalities and different ages allowed her to understand their difficulties and their challenges. Having looked for enjoyable reads to occasionnaly escape grammar and exercise books, but finding nothing simple enough for her beginners, she came up with the idea to write stories herself. She is passionate about writing and now publishes short stories tailored to the needs of English speakers.

The Meaning of Liff


Douglas Adams - 1983
    This text uses place names to describe some of these meanings.

Café in Berlin


André Klein - 2013
    How does he manage the new language? Will he find work?Experience daily life in the German capital through the eyes of a newcomer, learn about the city and its people, and improve your German effortlessly and instantly.Learning German Doesn't Have To Be A ChoreJust got started learning the language of poets and thinkers? Memorized a few words but struggle with longer texts? This book is designed to help beginners make the leap from studying isolated words and phrases to reading (and enjoying!) German fiction.Using simplified sentence structures and a very basic vocabulary you can build upon, this German reader of 10 short stories for beginners is carefully crafted to allow even novice learners to fully immerse themselves in an authentic German learning experience.Each chapter comes with a complete German-English dictionary with special emphasis on collocative phrases (high frequency word combinations), short sentences and expressions designed for improved memorization.By working with these building blocks instead of just single words, learners can boost their active usage of new material instantly and make the language learning process more fluid and fun.What You'll Find In This Book 10 Berlin stories about life and culture in the capital a balance between cozy vocabulary and introduction of new words tons of phrases and expressions you will actually use in daily life fun facts about the city of Berlin, its quirks and cuisine a detailed German-English dictionary after every chapter enough support to make following along easy, without spoiling your own efforts fun short quizzes to check your text-comprehension (including answers) a relatable protagonist and other fun characters hand-drawn illustrations by the author the beginning of a grand German learning adventure ...Read, Learn & Collect Them AllYes! That's right. This is only the first episode of a whole series of exciting German short stories for beginners. Follow our protagonist to Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich, Zurich, Vienna and many other cities! Before you know it, you'll have travelled half of Europe and picked up more German than years' worth of expensive courses.Learning German has never been more fun.What You WON'T Find In This Book parallel translations that may seem convenient but don't teach you anything dull characters designed by academics and committees interspersed English sentences that take you out of the reading flow archaic German words and phrases nobody uses in real life a jumble of unrelated places, people and events wordy footnotes that only get in the way of immersion condescending storytelling that insults your intelligence a teaching approach which takes itself too seriously

What Made the Crocodile Cry?: 101 Questions about the English Language


Susie Dent - 2009
    Writing with her customary charm and erudition, Dent offers a wonderfully readable and endlessly entertaining exploration of language, answering 101 of the most intriguing questions about the English language, from word origins and spelling to grammar and usage. Dent ranges far and wide in her search for the oddities of language, pondering the ancient origin of the word tragedy (which originally meant goat song in Greek) as well as the modern meaning of the word donk in the Blackout Crew's song title Put a Donk in It. And throughout, the book brims with fascinating tales. Readers learn, for instance, that the word bankrupt comes from the Italian banca rotta or broken bench and the word broke (meaning out of funds) has the same origin. Dent explains that in the sixteenth century, money lenders conducted their business on benches outdoors and the usual Italian word for bench was banca (hence today's bank). The author also provides an entertaining account of the origin of the term white elephant (meaning a useless, burdensome possession) that dates back to ancient Siam, where rare white elephants were always given to the king. But since by law white elephants couldn't be worked (and earn money) or even be ridden, the king often re-gifted these worthless burdens to courtiers whom he didn't like. Sparkling with insight and linguistic curiosity, this delightful compendium will be irresistible to anyone fascinated with language--the perfect gift for word lovers everywhere.

Letters to Milena


Franz Kafka - 1952
    Kafka's Czech translator, she was uniquely able to recognize his complex genius and his even more complex character. For the thirty-six-year-old Kafka, she was "a living fire, such as I have never seen." It was to her that he revealed his most intimate self. It was to her that, after the end of the affair, he entrusted the safekeeping of his diaries.Newly translated, revised, and expanded, this edition contains material previously omitted because of its extreme sensitivity. Also included for the first time are letters and essays by Milena Jesenská, herself a talented writer as well as the recipient of these documents of Kafka's love, anxiety, and despair.

Tales of Japan: Traditional Stories of Monsters and Magic


Chronicle Books - 2019
    A resourceful samurai and a faithful daughter. A spirit of the moon and a dragon king.This collection of 15 traditional Japanese folktales transports readers to a time of adventure and enchantment. Drawn from the works of folklorists Lafcadio Hearn and Yei Theodora Ozaki, these tales are by turns terrifying, exhilarating, and poetic.• Striking illustrations by contemporary Japanese artist Kotaro Chiba• Special gift edition features an embossed, textured case with metallic gold ink, and a satin ribbon page marker• Part of the popular Tales series, featuring Nordic Tales, Celtic Tales, Tales of India, and Tales of East AfricaFans of Ghostly Tales, and Japanese Notebooks will love this book.This book is ideal for:• Fans of fairytales, folklore, ghost stories, Greek mythology, roman mythology, Chinese mythology, and Celtic mythology• Anyone interested in Japan's history books and culture studies• People of Japanese heritage• Collectors of illustrated classics

The Sherlock Holmes Handbook


Ransom Riggs - 2009
    It is my business to know what other people don’t know.”   This reader’s companion to the casework of Sherlock Holmes explores the methodology of the world’s most famous consulting detective. From analyzing fingerprints and decoding ciphers to creating disguises and faking one’s own death, readers will learn how Holmes solved his most celebrated cases—plus an arsenal of modern techniques available to today’s armchair sleuths. Along the way, readers will discover a host of trivia about the master detective and his universe: Why did Holmes never marry? How was the real Scotland Yard organized? Was cocaine really legal back then? And why were the British so terrified of Australia? Full of fascinating how-to skills and evocative illustrations, The Sherlock Holmes Handbook will appeal to Baker Street Irregulars of all ages.

The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories


Marina Keegan - 2014
    She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash.As her family, friends, and classmates, deep in grief, joined to create a memorial service for Marina, her unforgettable last essay for the Yale Daily News, “The Opposite of Loneliness,” went viral, receiving more than 1.4 million hits. She had struck a chord.Even though she was just twenty-two when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation. The Opposite of Loneliness is an assem­blage of Marina’s essays and stories that, like The Last Lecture, articulates the universal struggle that all of us face as we figure out what we aspire to be and how we can harness our talents to make an impact on the world.

Flowers of Mold


Ha Seong-nan - 1999
    From the title story told by a woman suffering from gaps in her memory, to one about a man seeking insight in bags of garbage, to a surreal story about a car salesman and the customer he tries to seduce, The Woman Next Door charms and provokes with an incomparable style.

At Dusk


Hwang Sok-yong - 2015
    Born into poverty in a miserable neighbourhood of Seoul, he has ridden the wave of development in a rapidly modernising society. Now the director of a large architectural firm, his hard work and ambition have brought him triumph and satisfaction. But when his company is investigated for corruption, he’s forced to reconsider his role in the transformation of his country.At the same time, he receives an unexpected message from an old friend, Cha Soona, a woman that he had once loved, and then betrayed. As memories return unbidden, Minwoo recalls a world he thought had been left behind — a world he now understands that he has helped to destroy.In At Dusk, one of Korea's most renowned and respected authors continues his gentle yet urgent project of evaluating Korea’s past, and examining the things, and the people, that have been given up in a never-ending quest to move forward.

Other Colors: Essays and A Story


Orhan Pamuk - 1999
    He opens a window on his private life, from his boyhood dislike of school to his daughter’s precocious melancholy, from his successful struggle to quit smoking to his anxiety at the prospect of testifying against some clumsy muggers who fell upon him during a visit to New York City. From ordinary obligations such as applying for a passport or sharing a holiday meal with relatives, he takes extraordinary flights of imagination; in extreme moments, such as the terrifying days following a cataclysmic earthquake in Istanbul, he lays bare our most basic hopes and fears. Again and again Pamuk declares his faith in fiction, engaging the work of such predecessors as Laurence Sterne and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, sharing fragments from his notebooks, and commenting on his own novels. He contemplates his mysterious compulsion to sit alone at a desk and dream, always returning to the rich deliverance that is reading and writing.By turns witty, moving, playful, and provocative, Other Colors glows with the energy of a master at work and gives us the world through his eyes, assigning every radiant theme and shifting mood its precise shade in the spectrum of significance.

The Almanac 2020: A Seasonal Guide to 2020


Lia Leendertz - 2019
    It gives you the tools and inspiration you need to celebrate, mark and appreciate each month of the year in your own particular way. Divided into the 12 months, a set of tables each month gives it the feel and weight of a traditional almanac, providing practical information that gives access to the outdoors and the seasons, perfect for expeditions, meteor-spotting nights and beach holidays. There are also features on each month's unique nature, such as the meteor shower of the month, beehive behaviour, folklore and stories, seasonal recipes and charts tracking moon phases and tides. You will find yourself referring to the almanac all year long, revisiting it again and again, and looking forward to the next edition as the year draws to a close.

365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne's Book of Precepts


R.J. Palacio - 2014
    Browne and his love of precepts. Simply put, precepts are principles to live by, and Mr. Browne has compiled 365 of them—one for each day of the year—drawn from popular songs to children’s books to inscriptions on Egyptian tombstones to fortune cookies. His selections celebrate kindness, hopefulness, the goodness of human beings, the strength of people’s hearts, and the power of people’s wills. Interspersed with the precepts are letters and emails from characters who appeared in Wonder. Readers hear from Summer, Jack, Charlotte, Julian, and Amos.   There’s something for everyone here, with words of wisdom from such noteworthy people as Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., Confucius, Goethe, Sappho—and over 100 readers of Wonder who sent R. J. Palacio their own precepts.

The Pleasures of the Damned


Charles Bukowski - 2007
    A hard-drinking wild man of literature and a stubborn outsider to the poetry world, he wrote unflinchingly about booze, work, and women, in raw, street-tough poems whose truth has struck a chord with generations of readers.Edited by John Martin, the legendary publisher of Black Sparrow Press and a close friend of Bukowski's, The Pleasures of the Damned is a selection of the best works from Bukowski's long poetic career, including the last of his never-before-collected poems. Celebrating the full range of the poet's extraordinary and surprising sensibility, and his uncompromising linguistic brilliance, these poems cover a rich lifetime of experiences and speak to Bukowski's “immense intelligence, the caring heart that saw through the sham of our pretenses and had pity on our human condition” (New York Quarterly). The Pleasures of the Damned is an astonishing poetic treasure trove, essential reading for both longtime fans and those just discovering this unique and legendary American voice.