From the Booker Prize-winning, bestselling author of Remains ofthe Day" "comes this stunning work of soaring imagination. Born inearly-twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age ofnine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, morethan twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in Londonsociety; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him famehas done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents'alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthinecity of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own,painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyondrecognition-and that his own recollections are proving as difficultto trust as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful andpsychologically acute, When We Were Orphans" "offers a profoundmeditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibilityof avenging one's past.

In this bestselling compilation of essays, written in theclear-eyed, uncompromising language for which he is famous, Orwelldiscusses with vigor such diverse subjects as his boyhoodschooling, the Spanish Civil War, Henry Miller, Britishimperialism, and the profession of writing.

In 1962, Florence and Edward celebrate their wedding in a hotelon the Dorset coast. Yet as they dine, the expectation of theirmarital duties weighs over them. And unbeknownst to both, thedecisions they make this night will resonate throughout theirlives. With exquisite prose, Ian McEwan creates in On Chesil Beacha story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word notspoken.

For this novel of French bourgeois life in all its ingloriousbanality, Flaubert invented a paradoxically original and whollymodern style. His heroine, Emma Bovary, a bored provincialhousewife, abandons her husband to pursue the libertine Rodolphe ina desperate love affair. A succA]s de scandale in its day, "MadameBovary" remains a powerful and arousing novel. Translated with anIntroduction by Geoffrey Wall New Preface by MichA]le Roberts

The story of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living alone inEngland, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. In a storywhere past and present confuse, she relives scenes of Japan'sdevastation in the wake of World War II.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Now joining Everyman'sLibrary--the most extensive and distinguished collectible libraryof the world's greatest works--is an appealing new collection in asmall Pocket Classics format, perfect for gift giving and readingpleasure. "Christmas Stories" is a treasury of short fiction bygreat writers of the past two centuries--from Dickens and Tolstoyto John Updike and Alice Munro. As a literary subject, Christmashas inspired everything from intimate domestic dramas to fancifulflights of the imagination, and the full range of its expression isrepresented in this wonderfully engaging anthology. Goblins frolicin the graveyard of an early Dickens tale and a love-struck ghostdisrupts a country estate in Elizabeth Bowen's "Green Holly." Theplight of the less fortunate haunts Chekhov's "Vanka" and WillaCather's "The Burglar's Christmas" but takes a boisterously comicturn in Damon Runyon's "Dancing Dan's Christmas" and in JohnCheever's "Christmas Is a Sad Season for the Poor." From VladimirN

Twenty-two-year-old Karla is thrilled to be hired as anentertainer on the Sound of Music cruise ship where the rum punchis 80 percent Kool-Aid, the ice sculp- tures are plastic, and her"fake it till you make it" M.O. seems adventuresome. Karla is lessthrilled when her new boyfriend, Jack, suggests that they form asinging duo on land, but by now faking enthusiasm has become a wayof life. She and Jack buy backing tracks, crib lyrics from theradio, and embark on a not-as-glamorous-as-it-should-be careerperforming in the luxury hotel bars of the Middle East and China.But after a thousand and one nights on the road, Karla and Jackfind themselves struggling to keep their act both personal andprofessional together. Funny, fast-paced, and incisive, A Thousandand One Nights captures the performances, large and small, we useto make it through life.

In this collection of essays and addresses delivered over thecourse of his illustrious career, Umberto Eco seeks "to understandthe chemistry of his] passion" for the word. From musings onPtolemy and "the force of the false" to reflections on theexperimental writing of Borges and Joyce, Eco's luminousintelligence and encyclopedic knowledge are on dazzling displaythroughout. And when he reveals his own ambitions andsuperstitions, his authorial anxieties and fears, one feels like asecret sharer in the garden of literature to which he so oftenalludes. Remarkably accessibleand unfailingly stimulating, this collection exhibits the diversityof interests and the depth of knowledge that have made Eco one ofthe world's leading writers.

Jailbird takes us into a fractured and comic, pure Vonnegut world of high crimes and misdemeanors in government and in the heart. This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate s least known co-conspirator. But the humor turns dark when Vonnegut shines his spotlight on the cold hearts and calculated greed of the mighty, giving a razor-sharp edge to an unforgettable portrait of power and politics in our times.

Robert Prentice has spent all his life attempting to escape hismother's stifling presence. His mother, Alice, for her part,struggles with her own demons as she attempts to realize her dreamsof prosperity and success as a sculptor. As Robert goes off tofight in Europe, hoping to become his own man, Richard Yatesportrays a soldier in the depths of war striving to live up to hisheroic ideals. With haunting clarity, Yates crafts an unforgettableportrait of two people who cannot help but hope for more even aslife challenges them both.

" A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say 'Slum ' because he could see no more." But to its residents thisderelict corner of Trinidad' s capital is a complete world, whereeverybody is quite different from everybody else. There' s Popo thecarpenter, who neglects his livelihood to build " the thing withouta name." There' s Man-man, who goes from running for public officeto staging his own crucifixion, and the dreaded Big Foot, the bullywith glass tear ducts. There' s the lovely Mrs. Hereira, in thrallto her monstrous husband. In this tender, funny early novel, V. S.Naipaul renders their lives (and the legends their neighborsconstruct around them) with Dickensian verve and Chekhoviancompassion.Set during World War II and narrated by an unnamed- butprecociously observant- neighborhood boy, Miguel Street is a workof mercurial mood shifts, by turns sweetly melancholy andanarchically funny. It overflows with life on every page.

The bestselling tale of Romanov intrigue from the author of"The Kitchen Boy" Book groups and historical fiction buffs havemade Robert Alexanderas two previous novels word-of-mouth favoritesand national bestsellers. Set against a backdrop of ImperialRussiaas twilight, "The Romanov Bride" has the same enduringappeal. The Grand Duchess Elisavyetaas story begins like a fairytaleaa German princess renowned for her beauty and kind heartmarries the Grand Duke Sergei of Russia and enters the Romanovaslavish court. Her husband, however, rules his wife as he doesMoscowawith a cold, hard fist. And, after a peaceful demonstrationbecomes a bloodbath, the fires of the revolution link Elisavyetaasdestiny to that of Pavelaa young Bolshevikaforever.

The hero of Charlotte Bronte's first novel escapes a drearyclerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher inBelgium. There, however, his entanglement with the sensuous butmanipulative Zoraide Reuter, complicates his affections for apenniless girl who is both teacher and pupil in Reuter's school.Also included in this edition is Emma, Charlotte Bronte's last,unfinished novel. Both works are drawn from the original Clarendontexts. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable editionof this title.

First published in Arabic in 1983, this brief but powerfulparable is presented as the journal of a traveler known as IbnFattouma. A mystical, lyrical Pilgrim's Progress set in a mythical,timeless Middle East, by the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize forLiterature.

Anchor proudly presents a new omnibus volume of threenovels--previously published separately by Anchor--by NaguibMahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Assembled here isa collection of Mahfouz's artful meditations on the vicissitudes ofpost-Revolution Egypt. Diverse in style and narrative technique,together they render a rich, nuanced, and universally resonantvision of modern life in the Middle East. The Beggar is a complex tale of alienation and despair. In theaftermath of Nasser's revolution, a man sacrifices his work andfamily to a series of illicit love affairs. Released from jail inpost-Revolutionary times, the hero ofThe Thief and the Dogs blamesan unjust society for his ill fortune, eventually bringing himselfto destruction. Autumn Quail is a tale of moral responsibility,isolation, and political downfall about a corrupt bureaucrat who isone of the early victims of the purge after the 1952 revolution inEgypt.

This is a film tie-in edition of the massive word-of-mouth hit novel, first published by Fig Tree in 2009 - to accompany the major new film starring Sissy Spacek, Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard and Emma Stone. Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver...There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and, white Miss Skeeter, home from College, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared. Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell...

Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies avision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dreamcountry, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death bybeheading for andquot; gnostical turpitude.andquot; an imaginarycrime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days inan absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers. anexecutioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by hisin-laws. who lug their furniture with them into his cell. WhenCincinnatus is led out to be executed. he simply wills hisexecutioners out of existence: they disappear, along with the wholeworld they inhabit.

When Meaulnes first arrives at the local school in Sologne,everyone is captivated by his good looks, daring and charisma. Butwhen Meaulnes disappears for several days, and returns with talesof a strange party at a mysterious house and a beautiful girlhidden within it, he has been changed forever. In his restlesssearch for his Lost Estate and the happiness he found there,Meaulnes, observed by his loyal friend Francois, may risk losingeverything he ever had. Poised between youthful admiration andadult resignation, Alain-Fournier's compelling narrator carries thereader through this evocative and unbearably poignant portrayal ofdesperate friendship and vanished adolescence.

From the author of "Chatterton" and "Shakespeare: A Biography"comes a gripping novel set in London that re-imagines an infamous19th-century Shakespeare forgery. Charles and Mary Lamb, who willin time achieve lasting fame as the authors of "Tales fromShakespeare for Children," are still living at home, caring fortheir dotty and maddening parents. Reading Shakespeare is thesiblings' favorite reprieve, and they are delighted when anambitious young bookseller comes into their lives claiming topossess a 'lost' Shakespearea play. Soon all of London is eagerlyanticipating opening night of a star-studded production of the playnot knowing that they have all been duped by charlatan and afraud.

A dying man cautiously unravels the mysteries of memory and creation. Vadim is a Russian emigre who, like Nabokov, is a novelist, poet and critic. There are threads linking the fictional hero with his creator as he reconstructs the images of his past from young love to his serious illness.

Recounts the enchanted career of the con man extraordinaireFelix Krull--a man unhampered by the moral precepts that govern theconduct of ordinary people.

They meet by chance on Copacabana Beach:Tristao Raposo, a poor black teen from the Rio slums, surviving dayto day on street smarts and the hustle, and Isabel Leme, anupper-class white girl, treated like a pampered slave by her absentthough very powerful father. Convinced that fate brought themtogether, betrayed by families who threaten to tear them apart,Tristao and Isabel flee to the farthest reaches of Brazil's wildwest -- unaware of the astonishing destiny that awaits them . . .Spanning twenty-two years, from the mid-sixties to the lateeighties, BRAZIL surprises and embraces the reader with itscelebration of passion, loyalty, and New World innocence. "A tourde force . . . Spectacular." -- Time "Updike's novel, as tender asit is erotic, becomes a magnificently wrought love story . . . .Beautifully written." -- Detroit Free Press "From the Paperbackedition."