Book picks similar to
The Invisible Lodge by Jean Paul Friedrich Richter
steven-moore
19th-century
author-male
deutsch
A Murderous Storm
Dirk Trost - 2014
He is shocked to find the body of a young woman in his fishing net instead of the shrimp he was trawling for. The police rule the death an unfortunate result of a boating accident, but Jan and the dead woman’s sister, Eva Ehrlich, come to a different conclusion: murder.At first, Jan refrains from helping Eva in her investigation of the suspicious circumstances surrounding her sister’s death. Yet Eva’s beautiful blue-eyed charm soon convinces Jan to get involved, and when a second body is found in the harbor—a corpse marked by signs of violence—Jan starts to fear that he’s in over his head. Will he be able to stop a killer before more people meet a watery end?
Why Not?
Shari Low - 2002
The man Jess has fallen in lust with is not only married, he's her boss. He's also famous -- a high-ranking government official who is all business by day, and all-out kinky by night. And when his photo -- his naked photo -- is splashed on the front page of the supermarket tabloids, Jess has Rude Awakening #1: home-wrecking leads to nothing but heartache. How could it all have backfired so? Are her instincts in this Crazy Thing called Love really that deplorable? SHE'LL LAND ON HER FEET. Maybe her instincts aren't the problem. Relying on her colorful circle of girlfriends for unconditional love and break-up recovery via margarita infusion, Jess makes another play for domestic bliss -- only to experience Rude Awakening #2: some men are wired to behave badly. But rather than settle, Jess is finally ready to put her happiness first. And happiness, for the time being, means calling on her friends to concoct a marvelous plan to get payback from her exes that's daring, hilarious, and certain to hit the jerks where they live....
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister
Aphra Behn - 1684
She was one of the first European female playwrights. Her marriage, if it existed at all, lasted only a few years. She was known to be bisexual which played a major role in her writing. Behn used her position at court to become a spy. Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister was published in 1687. Originally published in 3 volumes, it was an epistolary work centering on the Mommouth Rebellion in 1685. James II was Roman Catholic and many people were opposed to a Catholic king. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, was the illegitimate son of Charles II. James Scott tried to disgrace James II so he could inherit the throne
Vasistha's Yoga
Venkatesananda - 1993
His two volume book is here offered between two covers. Its purpose is to provide a means to eliminate psychological conditioning and to attain liberation. Containing the instructions of the sage Vasistha to Lord Rama, this scripture is full of intricately woven tales, the kind a great teacher might tell to hold the interest of a student.
The Making of the British Army
Allan Mallinson - 2009
From the Army's birth at the battle of Edgehill in 1642 to our current conflict in Afghanistan, this is history at its most relevant -- and most dramatic.
The Devil's Church and Other Stories
Machado de Assis - 1977
Collectively, these nineteen stories are representative of Machado's unique style and world view, and this translation doubles the number of his stories previously available in English.The stories in this volume reflect Machado's post-1880 emphasis on social satire and experimentation in psychological realism. If he had continued to produce the moralistic love stories and parlor intrigues of his earlier fiction, Machado's legacy would have been an entertaining but inconsequent body of work. However, by 1880 he had begun a devastating satirical assault on society through his fiction. In spite of his ruthlessness, Machado does at times reveal an ironic sympathy for his characters. He is not indifferent to human conflict but uses humor and irony to stress the absurdity of these conflicts, acted out against the backdrop of an indifferent universe. Such a spectacle creates a sense of helplessness that can only inspire wistful amusement.In his technical mastery of the short story. Machado was decades ahead of his contemporaries and can still be considered more modern than most of the modernists themselves. That his stories elicit such strong and diverse reactions today is a tribute to their richness, complexity, and significance.
The School of Whoredom
Pietro Aretino
Determined that her daughter should not be ignorant of the ways of men and love, Nanna seeks to “educate” the naïve Pippa. She tells of women—whores, housewives, and nuns all being essentially the same; and of how to win men—discreetly and with good manners. But mostly, she reveals to Pippa the secrets of her art as a courtesan. The ensuing dialogue, laden with satiric twists and naughty puns, offers a fresh and lively example of the harlot’s world, displaying a frankness that confides in today’s reader as shrewdly as it was intended in 16th-century Rome. Italian satirist and poet Pietro Aretino was one of the most versatile writers of the 16th century; the author of plays, poetry, and letters, he is now principally remembered as the originator of European pornography.
Merlin and the Grail: The Trilogy of Arthurian Prose Romances
Robert de Boron
They give a crucial new impetus to the story of the Grail by establishing a provenance for the sacred vessel - and for the Round Table itself - in the Biblical past; and through the controlling figure of Merlin they link the story of Joseph of Arimathea with the mythical British history of Vortigern and Utherpendragon, the birth of Arthur, and the sword in the stone, and then with the knightly adventures of Perceval's Grail quest and the betrayal and death of Arthur, creating the very first Arthurian cycle. Ambitious, original and complete in its conception, this trilogy - translated here for the first time - is a finely paced, vigorous piece of storytelling that provides an outstanding example of the essentially oral nature of early prose. NIGEL BRYANT is head of drama at Marlborough College. He has also provided editions in English of the anonymous thirteenth-century romance Perlesvaus, published as The High Book of the Grail, and Chretien's Perceval: The Story of the Grail.
Sunstroke: Selected Stories
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin - 1925
But Bunin's other stories are not to be missed. In Sunstroke, Graham Hettlinger has selected the "Gentleman" and twenty-four other stories and translated them afresh—several for the first time in English. The result is a collection that is remarkable in its crystalline prose, surprising in its vibrancy. It includes, among others, "Raven," "Cold Fall," "Muza," "Styopa," "Antigone," "In Paris," and "Late Hour." Never has the last of the great "gentry" writers and the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature received a more caring and passionate translation. The lyric impulse that motivated so much of Bunin's writing is evident throughout the stories in Sunstroke. In the prose miniatures, such as "Summer Day" and "Sky Above a Wall," he seeks only to capture a momentary impression or a passing scene rather than to write a traditional narrative. And even in his longer works, Bunin displays little interest in exploring the psychology of his characters or creating detailed plots. Instead these stories are primarily shaped by an urge to express both the intense, sensual pleasure of existence and the tragic fleetingness of life. Thus, even as they depict a wide range of affairs, seductions, betrayals, and deaths, they tend to read more like poetry than potboilers, delivering their most powerful effects through the rhythms and pacing of their sentences, their highly detailed, sensuous imagery, and the connotative richness of their language.Sunstroke confirms Bunin's stature as one of the greatest—and most neglected—Russian writers of the twentieth century.
The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa
Milarepa - 1962
Milarepa was an eleventh-century Buddhist poet and saint, a cotton-clad yogi who avoided the scholarly institutions of his time and wandered from village to village, teaching enlightenment and the path to Buddhahood through his spontaneously composed songs. Wherever he went, crowds of people gathered to hear his sweet sounding voice "singing the Dharma." The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, says the book's translator, "has been read as the biography of a saint, a guide book for devotions, a manual of Buddhist yoga, a volume of songs and poems, and even a collection of Tibetan folklore, and fairy tales." With titles like "The Salvation of the Dead," "A Woman's Role in the Dharma," and "Challenge from a Wise Demoness," Milrepa's poems are filled with fascinating tales of miraculous encounters and colorful imagery, and present a valuable insight into the living quality of Tibetan Buddhism. Central as this book is to Tibetan culture, the arcane dialect and obscurity of many original passages daunted translators for centuries; this was the first complete version of the classic to appear in the West.
Linda Tressel
Anthony Trollope - 1868
However, the voice of Trollope was unmistakable in this much more somber work, and the true authorship was ultimately unveiled.The heroine, Linda Tressel, is pressured by her religious zealot aunt to marry an unpleasant man she finds repulsive. The story unfolds in some caricature and melodrama, yet remains an interesting study of Victorian social mores and relationships.
Hotel Sacher
Rodica Doehnert - 2016
Against all odds, at the height of Belle Époque splendor, Anna Sacher has taken possession of her late husband’s hotel, across the street from the famous opera house. At a time when controlling such a business was an opportunity afforded only to men, Anna is as vigilant as she is relentless. Now, under her ownership, the Hotel Sacher thrives amid the tumult of a changing continent, even as intrigue follows in the shadows. Through its opulent halls stride visitors from all walks of life, including some of the most glamorous figures of Viennese society—opera singers, princes, princesses—and the maids and manservants who wait on them. Some guests will find romance. Some will unearth secrets. And some will discover much more than they expected…
Superabundance
Heinz Helle - 2014
He loves his girlfriend but finds himself attracted to every woman he passes on the street. Totally self-aware yet unable to change his behaviour, he wonders at the ease with which everyone else seems to cope with life. Worse, his brain won't stop its whirring analysis of the world around him, and it's making any human interaction - watching football with friends, drinking with work colleagues, comforting his girlfriend - all but impossible.Superabundance's buzzing narration brings to life the philosophical struggles of everyday existence, and asks: how do we live when our relationships, our actions and even our own minds are filled with such heartbreaking mystery?
A Concise History of the French Revolution
Sylvia Neely - 2007
The profound transformations in government and society during the revolution forced the French to come up with new ways of thinking about their place in the world and led to what we know today as liberalism, conservatism, terrorism, and nationalism.