One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us hisfirst cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched,interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essentialcharacter. A once-popular singer, desperate to make a comeback, turningfrom the one certainty in his life . . . A man whose unerring tastein music is the only thing his closest friends value in him . . . Astruggling singer-songwriter unwittingly involved in the failingmarriage of a couple he’s only just met . . . A gifted,underappreciated jazz musician who lets himself believe thatplastic surgery will help his career . . . A young cellist whosetutor promises to “unwrap” his talent . . . Passion or necessity—or the often uneasy combination of thetwo—determines the place of music in each of these lives. And, inone way or another, music delivers each of them to a moment ofreckoning: sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes justeluding their grasp. An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable fo
Edited with an Introduction by David Galloway.
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.
'Cesar Montero was dreaming about elephants. He'd seen them atthe movies on Sunday...' Only moments later, Cesar is led away bypolice as they clear the crowds away from the man he has justkilled. But Cesar is not the only man to be riled by the rumoursbeing spread in his Colombian hometown - under the cover ofdarkness, someone creeps through the streets sticking maliciousposters to walls and doors. Each night the respectable townsfolkretire to their beds fearful that they will be the subject of thefollowing morning's lampoons. As paranoia seeps through the townand the delicate veil of tranquility begins to slip, can theperpetrator be uncovered before accusation and violence leave theinhabitants' sanity in tatters?
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) Introduction by JohnBayley
The Gift is the last of the novels Nabokov wrote in his nativeRussian and the crowning achievement of that period in his literarycareer. It is also his ode to Russian literature, evoking the worksof Pushkin, Gogol, and others in the course of its narrative: thestory of Fyodor Godunov-Cherdyntsev, an impoverished e migre poetliving in Berlin, who dreams of the book he will someday write--abook very much like The Gift itself.
Portnoy's Complaint "n." after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] Adisorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses areperpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of aperverse nature. Spielvogel says: 'Acts of exhibitionism,voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful;as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neitherfantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but ratherin overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution,particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. "ThePuzzled Penis," "Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psychoanalyse,"Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of thesymptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-childrelationship. With a new Afterword by the author for the 25thAnniversary edition.
Mild, harmless and ugly to behold, the impoverished Pons is anageing musician whose brief fame has fallen to nothing. Living aplacid Parisian life as a bachelor in a shared apartment with hisfriend Schmucke, he maintains only two passions: a devotion to finedining in the company of wealthy but disdainful relatives, and adedication to the collection of antiques. When these relativesbecome aware of the true value of his art collection, however,their sneering contempt for the parasitic Pons rapidly falls awayas they struggle to obtain a piece of the weakening man'sinheritance. Taking its place in the Human Comedy as a companion toCousin Bette, the darkly humorous "Cousin Pons" is among of thelast and greatest of Balzac's novels concerning French urbansociety: a cynical, pessimistic but never despairing considerationof human nature.
Adorno's frank and open challenge to directness, and the avoidance of language that 'gives itself over either to the market, to balderdash, or to the predominating vulgarity', is as timely today as it ever has been.
'At 28 years old, I found myself living at home, with my 73-year-old father. As a child, my father never minced words, and when I screwed up, he had a way of cutting right through the bullshit and pointing out exactly why I was being an idiot. When I moved back in I was still, for the most part, an idiot. But this time, I was smart enough to write down all the things he said to me'. Meet Justin Halpern and his dad. Almost one million people follow Mr Halpern's philosophical musings every day on Twitter, and in this book, his son weaves a brilliantly funny, touching coming-of-age memoir around the best of his sayings. What emerges is a chaotic, hilarious, true portrait of a father and son relationship from a major new comic voice. As Justin says at one point, his dad is 'like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair'; and this is the sort of shit he says...'You know, sometimes it's nice having you around. But now ain't one of those times. Now gimme the remote, we're not watching this bullshit'. 'Happy Birthd
WHEN ALEXANDRA RAFFERTY was a girl,something unspeakably cruel happened to her on a summer afternoon.Only her father knew about it-or so she thought.Now a forensic photographer for the Miami P.D.,Alexandra remains haunted by that horrible day,and it colors all of her relationships.Stan,her emotionally estranged and loutish husband,drives a Brinks armored car and has his own mind-bending agenda.Her now-aging,not-altogether-there father is growing mire dependent and less dependable.And her work photographing crime scenes has become a life-consuming obsession. Now Alexandra is about to get caught up in a gruesome series of rape-muredrs that seem to speak to her long-hidden past.But before she can understand the killer's mes-sage,her life spins out of control,sending her on the run-from her husband,from the crooks after him,from a surprisingly persistent boyfriend,and from a killer who's bent on making sure Alexandra won't live long enough to translate his words.
The Unconsoled is at once a gripping psychological mystery, awicked satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study ofa man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control. Thesetting is a nameless Central European city where Ryder, a renownedpianist, has come to give the most important performance of hislife. Instead, he finds himself diverted on a series of cryptic andinfuriating errands that nevertheless provide him with vital cluesto his own past. In The Unconsoled Ishiguro creates a work that isitself a virtuoso performance, strange, haunting, and resonant withhumanity and wit. "A work of great interest and originality....Ishiguro has mapped out an aesthetic territory that is all hisown...frankly fantastic and] fiercer and funnier thanbefore."--"The New Yorker"
Osama bin Laden pretends to be a selfless freedom fighter seeking to rid the Islamic world of Western dominanceóand the de facto leader of the Muslim faithful. This biography tells the story of a different man, one whose troubled childhood and adolescent excesses in sex, money, and alcohol, fractures his assumed moral superiority, and renders him more human than icon. Based on information provided by the bin Laden family, extensive independent research, and an insiderís view developed during his current and longtime residence in the Middle East, the author brings a thorough knowledge of the regionís politics and society to the story, and underscores the contradictions that make up the real Osama bin Laden. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
From one of the 20th century's great writers comes one of thefinest autobiographies of our time. Speak, Memory was firstpublished by Vladimir Nabokov in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence andthen assiduously revised and republished in 1966. The Everyman'sLibrary edition includes, for the first time, the previouslyunpublished "Chapter 16"--the most significant unpublished piece ofwriting by the master, newly released by the Nabokov estate--whichprovided an extraordinary insight into Speak, Memory. Nabokov's memoir is a moving account of a loving, civilizedfamily, of adolescent awakenings, flight from Bolshevik terror,education in England, and émigré life in Paris and Berlin. TheNabokovs were eccentric, liberal aristocrats, who lived a lifeimmersed in politics and literature on splendid country estatesuntil their world was swept away by the Russian revolution when theauthor was eighteen years old. Speak, Memory vividly evokes avanished past in the inimitable prose of Nabokov at his best.
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.
This is a fully annotated edition of all the poems which are nowgenerally regarded as Shakespeare's, excluding the Sonnets. Itcontains Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and theTurtle, The Passionate Pilgrim, and A Lover's Complaint. Theintroduction to the two long narrative poems examines their placewithin the classical and Renaissance European traditions, an issuewhich also applies to The Phoenix and the Turtle. John Roe analysesthe conditions in which the collection was produced, and weighs theevidence for and against Shakespeare's authorship of A Lover'sComplaint and the much-debated question of its genre. Hedemonstrates how in his management of formal tropes Shakespeare,like the best Elizabethans, fashions a living language out ofhandbook oratory. This updated edition contains a new introductorysection on recent critical interpretations and an updated readinglist.
In this funny and chilling novel, the setting is a small town inthe 1940s Midwest, and the subject is the heart of a wounded andferociously moralistic young woman, one of those implacableAmerican moralists whose andquot; goodnessandquot; is a terribledisease. When she was still a child, Lucy Nelson had her alcoholicfailure of a father thrown in jail. Ever since then she has beentrying to reform the men around her, even if that ultimately meansdestroying herself in the process. With his unerring portraits ofLucy and her hapless, childlike husband, Roy, Roth has created anuncompromising work of fictional realism, a vision of provincialAmerican piety, yearning, and discontent that is at once pitilessand compassionate.
"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760), also known by the title of"The Dream of the Red Chamber", is the great novel of manners inChinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which "The Debtof Tears" is the fourth, it charts the glory and decline of theillustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with thefortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters,Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour,realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects theritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and abovethe novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another planeof existence a theme, which affirms the Buddhist belief in asupernatural scheme of things.
Pitting scientific terrorists against the cardinals of Vatican City, this well-plotted if over-the-top thriller is crammed with Vatican intrigue and high-tech drama. Robert Langdon, a Harvard specialist on religious symbolism, is called in by a Swiss research lab when Dr. Vetra, the scientist who discovered antimatter, is found murdered with the cryptic word "Illuminati" branded on his chest. These Iluminati were a group of Renaissance scientists, including Galileo, who met secretly in Rome to discuss new ideas in safety from papal threat; what the long-defunct association has to do with Dr. Vetra's death is far from clear. Vetra's daughter, Vittoria, makes a frightening discovery: a lethal amount of antimatter, sealed in a vacuum flask that will explode in six hours unless its batteries are recharged, is missing. Almost immediately, the Swiss Guard discover that the flask is hidden beneath Vatican City, where the conclave to elect a new pope has just begun. Vittoria and Langdon rush to recover the canister,
With his first groundbreaki'ng book, Soul Prints, Marc Gafni taught readers how to tread a lifelong path of meaning by realizing their true, unique selves. Now, in The Mystery of Love, the profound philosopher and beloved spiritual teacher invites readers to the next step on the journey, addressing with passion, wisdom, and genuine humility the all-important issues of love, creativity, and our erotic connection to the universe. In the tradition of M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled and Gary Zukov's The Seat of the Soul, The Mystery of Love speaks pene-tratingly to the age-old desire to move beyond emptiness and alienation and touch the full eros of living. Gafni, with clarity, bril- liance, and great compassion, re-frames our understandings of the erotic and the sensual in a way that invites us to live with passion and love in all facets of our lives. While drawn from the ancient wisdom texts of the Kabbalist tradi-tion, The Mystery of Love speaks to all readers who seek a passionate, joyful, yet
A stunning novel by the widest-read Arab writer currentlypublished in the U.S. The age of Nasser has ushered in enormoussocial change, and most of the middle-aged and middle-class sonsand daughters of the old bourgeoisie find themselves trying torecreate the cozy, enchanted world they so dearly miss. One night,however, art and reality collide--with unforeseencircumstances.
Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has alwaystried to make the best books ever written available to the greatestnumber of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorialfeatures that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from thecrowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introductionto the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or hislife and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a conciseplot summary. All books published since 1993 have also beencompletely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarityand ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; avibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great textswith beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature mustbe Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers theseextensive materials at a price that competes with the mostinexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks havedurable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial an
This is the story of an artist as an aging man, strugglingthrough the wreckage of Japan's World War II experience. Ishiguro'sfirst novel.
