Nina Bonita


Ana Maria Machado - 1995
    "Black is beautiful" to a little white rabbit and while trying to discover the secret that will make him black, readers get a funny, yet educational introduction to genetics. Full color.

The Implacable Order of Things


José Luís Peixoto - 2000
    José, a taciturn shepherd, sees his happiness crumble when “the devil” tells him he is being cuckolded. Old Gabriel offers wise counsel, while a different kind of love story develops concerning Moisés and Elias, conjoined twins attached at the tips of their little fingers. Unable to live without each other, they find their tender communion shattered when Moisés falls in love with the local cook. And, of course, there is the Devil himself. Love may be a luxury, but there are moments of the greatest tenderness among even the most unlikely lovers.Written with subtle prose and powerful imagery, The Implacable Order of Things draws us into this unique and richly textured world. It is a novel of haunting beauty and heralds the arrival of an astoundingly gifted and poetic writer.

Crow Blue


Adriana Lisboa - 2010
    Being thirteen is like being in the middle of nowhere. Which was accentuated by the fact that I was in the middle of nowhere. In a house that wasn’t mine. in a city that wasn’t mine, in a country that wasn’t mine, with a one-man family that, in spite of the intersections and intentions (all very good), wasn’t mine.When her mother dies, thirteen-year-old Vanja is left with no family and no sense of who she is, where she belongs, and what she should do. Determined to find her biological father to fill the void that has so suddenly appeared in her life, Vanja decides to leave Rio de Janeiro to live in Colorado with her stepfather, a former guerrilla notorious for his violent past. From there she goes in search of her biological father, tracing her mother’s footsteps and gradually discovering the truth about herself.Rendered in lyrical and passionate prose, Crow Blue is a literary road trip through Brazil and America, and through dark decades of family and political history.

Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector


Benjamin Moser - 2009
    Now, after years of research on three continents, drawing on previously unknown manuscripts and dozens of interviews, Benjamin Moser demonstrates how Lispector's development as a writer was directly connected to the story of her turbulent life. Born in the nightmarish landscape of post-World War I Ukraine, Clarice became, virtually from adolescence, a person whose beauty, genius, and eccentricity intrigued Brazil. Why This World tells how this precocious girl, through long exile abroad and difficult personal struggles, matured into a great writer. It also asserts, for the first time, the deep roots in the Jewish mystical tradition that make her the true heir to Kafka as well as the unlikely author of "perhaps the greatest spiritual autobiography of the twentieth century." From Chechelnik to Recife, from Naples and Berne to Washington and Rio de Janeiro, Why This World strips away the mythology surrounding this extraordinary figure and shows how Clarice Lispector transformed one woman's struggles into a universally resonant art.

Todos los fuegos el fuego


Julio Cortázar - 1966
    From the exasperated metaphor of human relationships that is "La autopista del sur" through the masterpiece that is "El otro cielo," Cortazar once again paves the way to stories that are a must-read for lovers of the story genre in general. "La salud de los enfermos," "Reunión," "La señorita Cora," "La isla a mediodía," "Instrucciones para John Howell," and "Todos los fuegos el fuego" are a celebration of intelligence, passion, and genius.

Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage


Paulo Freire - 1996
    This book displays the striking creativity and profound insight that characterized Freire's work to the very end of his life-an uplifting and provocative exploration not only for educators, but also for all that learn and live.

The Jewels of Manhattan


Carmen Reid - 2011
    when you are a few Cosmopolitans down!The three very different Jewel sisters, Amber, Sapphire and Em, all came to New York looking for a new life. But things aren't working out as well as they hoped. Em has had enough. She wants fame and fortune, and she's got it all mapped out.

Rare and Commonplace Flowers: The Story of Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares


Carmen L. Oliveira - 1995
    Elizabeth Bishop, the Pulitzer Prize–winning American poet, sought artistic inspiration in Brazil. There she met and fell in love with Lota de Macedo Soares, a self-trained Brazilian architect. This dual biography—brilliantly researched, and written in a lively, novelistic style—follows their relationship from 1951 to 1967, the time when the two lived together in Brazil. The fact that these two women had an intimate relationship caused an uproar when it first came to public notice.The relationship started out happily, yet ended tragically. In 1961, Soares became increasingly obsessed with building and administering Flamengo Park, Rio de Janeiro’s equivalent to New York City’s Central Park. Though she had been the driving force behind the park’s inception, the ultimate credit that was due her was stripped away because of petty politics and chicanery. As Soares’s career declined and Bishop’s flourished, their relationship crumbled.Rare and Commonplace Flowers is a tale of two artists and two cultures, offering unique perspectives on both women and their work. Carmen L. Oliveira provides an unparalleled level of detail and insight, due to both her familiarity with Brazil as well as her access to the country’s artistic elite, many of whom had a direct connection with Bishop and Soares. Rare pictures of the two artists and their home bring this unique story to life.

Brida


Paulo Coelho - 1990
    She has long been interested in various aspects of magic but is searching for something more. Her search leads her to people of great wisdom, who begin to teach Brida about the spiritual world. She meets a wise man who dwells in a forest, who teaches her about overcoming her fears and trusting in the goodness of the world; and a woman who teaches her how to dance to the music of the world, and how to pray to the moon. As Brida seeks her destiny, she struggles to find a balance between her relationships and her desire to become a witch. This enthralling novel incorporates themes that fans of Paulo Coelho will recognize and treasure—it is a tale of love, passion, mystery, and spirituality from the master storyteller.

The Mammoth Hunters, Part 1 of 2


Jean M. Auel - 1985
    With her is Jondalar, tall, handsome and yellow-haired, the man she nursed back to health and came to love. Together they meet the Manutoi -- the Mammoth Hunters -- people like Ayla. Among them is Ranec, an artistic, magnetic master carver of ivory. Ayla finds herself torn between Ranec and Jondalar, the latter a powerful lover but insecure and wildly jealous. It is not until the great mammoth hunt, when Ayla's life is threatened, that a fateful decision is made.

The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy


Paulina Chiziane - 2002
    Tony, a senior police officer in Maputo, has apparently been supporting four other families for many years. Rami remains calm in the face of her husband's duplicity and plots to make an honest man out of him. After Tony is forced to marry the four other women--as well as an additional lover--according to polygamist custom, the rival lovers join together to declare their voices and demand their rights. In this brilliantly funny and feverishly scathing critique, a major work from Mozambique's first published female novelist, Paulina Chiziane explores her country's traditional culture, its values and hypocrisy, and the subjection of women the world over.

The Devil's Library (Longstaff, #1)


Tom Pugh - 2016
    I couldn't put it down."Eve Harris, Booker longlisted author of 'The Marrying of Chani Kaufman'"Pugh's first novel is a magnificent achievement. Let us hope he returns to enthral us with another very soon."David Dickinson, author of the Powerscourt seriesThe Otiosi? As far as Mathew Longstaff knows, they’re just a group of harmless scholars with an eccentric interest in the works of antiquity. When they ask him to travel east, to recover a lost text from Ivan the Terrible’s private library, he can’t think of anything but the reward - home. A return to England and an end to the long years of exile and warfare.But the Otiosi are on the trail of a greater prize than Longstaff realises - the legendary ‘Devil’s Library’. And they are not alone. Gregorio Spina, the Pope’s spymaster and Chief Censor, is obsessed with finding the Library. It’s not the accumulated wisdom of centuries he’s after - a swamp of lies and heresy in his opinion - but among the filth, like a diamond at the centre of the Devil’s black heart, Spina believes that God has placed a treasure, a weapon to defeat the Antichrist and pitch his hordes back into hell.Only Longstaff, together with the unpredictable physician, Gaetan Durant, can stop Spina using the Library to plunge Europe into a second Dark Ages. The two adventurers fight their way south, from the snowfields of Muscovy to the sun-baked plains of Italy, where an ageing scholar and his beautiful, young protégé hold the final piece of the puzzle. But is it already too late? Can the four of them take on the might of the Roman Church and hope to win?

Of Men and Crabs


Josué de Castro - 1967
    

The Shelf Life of Happiness


David Machado - 2013
    His wife and children move out to live with family hours away, but Daniel believes against all odds that he will find a job and everything will return to normal.Even as he loses his home, suffers severe damage to his car, and finds himself living in his old, abandoned office building, Daniel fights the realization that things have changed. He’s unable to see what remains among the rubble—friendship, his family’s love, and people’s deep desire to connect. If Daniel can let go of the past and find his true self, he just might save not only himself but also everyone that really matters to him.

What a Carve Up!


Jonathan Coe - 1994
    A tour de force of menace, malicious comedy, and torrential social bile, this book marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer.