Stories from the past are woven together with the problems Windisch, the village miller, faces after he applies for permission to migrate to West Germany. Herta Müller (Herta Mueller) describes with poetic attention the dreams and superstitions, conflicts and oppression of a forgotten region, the Banat, in the Danube Plain. In sparse, poetic language, Muller captures the forlorn plight of a trapped people.

    Join the O'Reilly family once again as they meet around the Jack O'Lantern on Halloween night and share ghost stories that will make you shiver and have you looking over your shoulder to see if there is "a little something extra" wandering through your home tonight.

    Although they live in the same north London neighbourhood of Stamford Hill, they come from two culturally different communities that rarely interact.Miri is a sheltered but contemplative young woman from a Chassidic family. Her strict upbringing has prevented her from pursuing a career or being allowed to date. She has never even spoken to a boy other than a close relative. Soon, she will be expected to marry, but she fears being forced into an unsuitable shidduch (traditional, arranged marriage).When her more adventurous friend invites her for an evening out, she agrees on a whim. It is an experience she will never forget. There, she meets Ben. Kind, sensitive, and hiding his own secret pain, Ben is from the exiled, Middle Eastern Jewish community of Aden. Despite their differences, Ben and Miri are drawn to one another. What her friend only intended as a bit of harmless fun soon develops into something more serious, with far-reaching consequences for them all, and risks tearing Miri’s family apart.With distinct nuances from two little-known communities, Ayuni is a powerful story about forbidden love, loss, the complexities of family and community, and the bonds of friendship.

    With these, and a set of false papers, she has slipped out of the ghetto, passing as the wife of a Polish officer, until one day an informer spots her on the street and drags her off to the Gestapo. At times a dark lament, at others a sly and sardonic thriller, The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is the story of the thirty-six hours that follow Irma's arrest and the events that lead to her dramatic rescue as the last of Warsaw's Jews are about to meet their deaths in the burning ghetto.

    Unloved daughters destroy the people they love and then themselves.Berlin at the beginning of the 20th century: When the maidservant Martha gives birth to her illegitimate daughter Magda, she feels burdened with a child she didn't want. The girl grows up to become an ambitious woman, desperate for love and recognition. The Nazi propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, appears to answer her need and together they have six children. By the end of the war, Magda Goebbels is a physically and emotionally sick woman. When she takes her six children into the Fuhrer bunker, her eldest daughter, 14-year-old Helga, senses foreboding.

    Two young boys set off for the Rocky River Bridge through their war-torn North Carolina hometown, both with something to prove--an adventure that will quickly teach them the realities of the raging world around them, in this prequel to DJ Molles' newest novel: The Purge of District 89 (A Grower's War, Book 1)

    With the Nazi Party at the height of its power, the occupying army empties Poland’s towns and cities of their Jewish populations. As neighbor turns on neighbor and survival often demands unthinkable choices, Poland has become a moral quagmire—a place of shifting truths and blinding ambiguities.Blending folklore and fact, Helen Maryles Shankman shows us the people of Wlodawa, a remote Polish town: we meet a cold-blooded SS officer dedicated to rescuing the creator of his son’s favorite picture book, even as he helps exterminate the artist’s friends and family; a Messiah who appears in a little boy’s bedroom to announce that he is quitting; a young Jewish girl who is hidden by the town’s most outspoken anti-Semite—and his talking dog. And walking among these tales are two unforgettable figures: the enigmatic and silver-tongued Willy Reinhart, Commandant of the forced labor camp who has grand schemes to protect “his” Jews, and Soroka, the Jewish saddlemaker and his family, struggling to survive.

    It would be silly to lose my mind now. 'After the deportation of her husband to Auschwitz, Izolda Regenberg, alias Maria Pawlicka, has only one aim: to free her husband. Her race to beat fate might appear absurd to others, but not to her. In times of war and destruction she learns to trust herself.Why Peirene chose to publish this book:'This is a beautiful love story. A story which makes one weep for mankind. While Hanna Krall's terse prose is designed to convey the utter desperation of war, her deft touch evokes hope and a sense of homecoming.' Meike Ziervogel

    The stories range in style from the gritty noir of David Means' "Sault Ste. Marie" to the mesmerizing mythmaking of Louise Erdrich's "The Plague of Doves," while the settings include a village perched on top of an enormous whale (David Lawrence Morse's "Conceived") as well as a swank suite at the Plaza Hotel (Xu Xi's "Famine"). The three most powerful stories seem to have in common the ability to immerse readers in a character's sudden, searing moment of self-knowledge and the way that insight impacts the course of a life. In Edward P. Jones' elegiac, masterful "Old Boys, Old Girls," a hard-bitten con comes to see that redemption is within his reach. Deborah Eisenberg delicately deconstructs a young girl's attraction to an abusive man in the haunting "Windows." And, finally, the storied Alice Munro, in "Passion," conveys the complex inner world of a teenager who discovers she values risk over security.

    On every page, the glint of hope for dignity and a better life is heartbreakingly alive.’ Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite RunnerMost novels are written by professional writers using second hand material. Not this one. Peirene commissioned nine refugees to tell their ‘Shatila Stories’. The result is a piece of collaborative fiction unlike any other. If you want to understand the chaos of the Middle East – or you just want to follow the course of a beautiful love story – start here.Adam and his family flee Syria and arrive at the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut. Conditions in this overcrowded Palestinian camp are tough, and violence defines many of the relationships: a father fights to save his daughter, a gang leader plots to expand his influence, and drugs break up a family. Adam struggles to make sense of his refugee experience, but then he meets Shatha and starts to view the camp through her eyes.Why Peirene chose to commission this book:‘I want to hear their stories and see if their imaginations can open up a new path of understanding between us. Collaborative works of literature can achieve what no other literature can do. By pooling our imaginations we are able to access something totally different and new that goes beyond boundaries – that of the individual, of nations, of cultures. It connects us to our common human essence: our creativity. Let’s make stories, not more war.’ Meike Ziervogel

    Levi was a master storyteller but he did not write fairytales. These stories are an elegy to the human figures who stood out against the tragic background of Auschwitz, 'the ones in whom I had recognized the will and capacity to react, and hence a rudiment of virtue'. Each centres on an individual who - whether it be through a juggling trick, a slice of apple or a letter - discovers one of the 'bizarre, marginal moments of reprieve'.The English edition includes just one section of the three originally published in Italian under the title 'Lilít', tales from the other two sections have been published in 'A Tranquil Star'.

    The stories range from Grossman’s first success, “In the Town of Berdichev,” a piercing reckoning with the cost of war, to such haunting later works as “Mama,” based on the life of a girl who was adopted at the height of the Great Terror by the head of the NKVD and packed off to an orphanage after her father’s downfall. The girl grows up struggling with the discovery that the parents she cherishes in memory are part of a collective nightmare that everyone else wants to forget. The Road also includes the complete text of Grossman’s harrowing report from Treblinka, one of the first anatomies of the workings of a death camp; “The Sistine Madonna,” a reflection on art and atrocity; as well as two heartbreaking letters that Grossman wrote to his mother after her death at the hands of the Nazis and carried with him for the rest of his life. Meticulously edited and presented by Robert Chandler, The Road allows us to see one of the great figures of twentieth-century literature discovering his calling both as a writer and as a man.

    In Planetside and Opening Night at the Naturals Preserve, you get to look into her upcoming new world of After Earth. In Parasite, for which this edition is titled, you have the chance to read into some of the background and history of one of the brilliant characters from Sara's Millennium Potion series, of which you can find the first novel, Wings of Retribution, right here on Amazon!

    Many residents call the island home year-round, but day visitors and tourists bring plenty of excitement with them. Like other resort islands, there are quaint shops, cool restaurants, and friendly bars. There are several resorts on the island, but the queen of them all is the elegant Grand Hotel on a bluff with an ocean view. Owned by the extensive, multi-generational Phillips family, the Grand Hotel offers elegant service, five course dinners, and plenty of romance. White Pine Island Novella #1: Ned & Bethany Sometimes the heart hits a hole in one… Bethany Hinkle arrives at White Pine Island’s Grand Hotel for her sister’s wedding and to do a little environmental snooping. She snaps pictures of the hotel’s pristine golf course to ensure its compliance with EPA standards. Soon, she realizes that the course’s manager is as attractive as the course he so carefully protects. Ned Phillips feels the weight of family expectations squarely on his broad shoulders. The Phillips Family has owned and operated the Grand Hotel for three generations. For now, he manages the hotel’s golf course and makes plans for its future—plans that could be destroyed by Bethany’s spying. He gets close to the lovely environmentalist to watch for her next move until he gets too close to let her go. ***** White Pine Island Novella #2: Ellen & Pete What happens when you fall in love with your best friend just when it’s too late? All her life, Ellen Phillips has loved working for her family’s Grand Hotel on White Pine Island. Flying the hotel’s airplane and piloting the island ferryboat while knowing someday she will inherit the luxurious resort is a fairy tale existence she has no desire to change. She’s always loved Pete McCormack, too. After all, he’s her best friend, confidante, and playmate. Until she suddenly sees him in a different light just before Christmas. Pete McCormack has made sacrifices for his family’s golf cart rental business on the island, choosing to stay home and run it instead of pursuing his dream of his own career on the mainland. When his parents announce their plans to sell the business so Pete can leave the island, he has to choose between the future he thought he always wanted and his newfound love for the woman he would be leaving behind.

    This is a little story about a fateful confrontation of a very feisty rooster vs. Bert the Shirt and his chihuahua. Which side will back down? Who will come away with the neighborhood crowing rights? Who's the chicken, after all?