The protagonist of Orhan Pamuk's fiendishly engaging novel islaunched into a world of hypnotic texts and (literally) Byzantineconspiracies that whirl across the steppes and forlorn frontiertowns of Turkey. And with The New Life, Pamuk himself vaults fromthe forefront of his country's writers into the arena of worldliterature. Through the single act of reading a book, a youngstudent is uprooted from his old life and identity. Within days hehas fallen in love with the luminous and elusive Janan; witnessedthe attempted assassination of a rival suitor; and forsaken hisfamily to travel aimlessly through a nocturnal landscape oftraveler's cafes and apocalyptic bus wrecks. As imagined by Pamuk,the result is a wondrous marriage of the intellectual thriller andhigh romance. Translated from the Turkish by Guneli Gun.

Almayer’s Folly, Joseph Conrad’s first novel, is a tale ofpersonal tragedy as well as a broader meditation on the evils ofcolonialism. Set in the lush jungle of Borneo in the late 1800s, ittells of the Dutch merchant Kaspar Almayer, whose dreams of richesfor his beloved daughter, Nina, collapse under the weight of hisown greed and prejudice. Nadine Gordimer writes in herIntroduction, “Conrad’s writing is lifelong questioning . . . Whatwas ‘Almayer’s Folly’? The pretentious house never lived in? Hisobsession with gold? His obsessive love for his daughter, whoseprogenitors, the Malay race, he despised? All three?” Conradestablished in Almayer’s Folly the themes of betrayal, isolation,and colonialism that he would explore throughout the rest of hislife and work.

From a Turkish writer who has been compared with Borges,Nabokov, and DeLillo comes a dazzling novel that is at once acaptivating work of historical fiction and a sinuous treatise onthe enigma of identity and the relations between East and West. Inthe 17th century, a young Italian scholar sailing from Venice toNaples is taken prisoner and delivered to Constantinople There hefalls into the custody of a scholar known as Hoja--"master"--a manwho is his exact double. In the years that follow, the slaveinstructs his master in Western science and technology, frommedicine to pyrotechnics. But Hoja wants to know more: why he andhis captive are the persons they are and whether, given knowledgeof each other's most intimate secrets, they could actually exchangeidentities. Set in a world of magnificent scholarship andterrifying savagery, The White Castle is a colorful and intricatelypatterned triumph of the imagination. Translated from the Turkishby Victoria Holbrook.

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In the 1680s the slave trade in the Americas is still in itsinfancy. Jacob Vaark is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, witha small holding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste fordealing in “flesh,” he takes a small slave girl in part payment fora bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This isFlorens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm.Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, anolder servant woman at her new master's house, and later from thehandsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes ridinginto their lives.

Returning to Russia from a sanitarium in Switzerland, theChrist-like epileptic Prince Myshkin finds himself enmeshed in atangle of love, torn between two women—the notorious kept womanNastasya and the pure Aglaia—both involved, in turn, with thecorrupt, money-hungry Ganya. In the end, Myshkin’s honesty,goodness, and integrity are shown to be unequal to the moralemptiness of those around him. In her revision of the Garnetttranslation, Anna Brailovsky has corrected inaccuracies wrought byGarnett’s drastic anglicization of the novel, restoring as much aspossible the syntactical structure of the original.

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.

The dramatic concluding months of The Wars of the Rosesprovide the setting for Shakespeare’s incomparable saga of powerand intrigue. Under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and EricRasmussen, two of today’s most accomplished Shakespearean scholars,this Modern Library series incorporates definitive texts andauthoritative notes from William Shakespeare: CompleteWorks. Each play includes an Introduction as well as anoverview of Shakespeare’s theatrical career; commentary on past andcurrent productions based on interviews with leading directors,actors, and designers; scene-by-scene analysis; key facts about thework; a chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times; andblack-and-white illustrations. Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers,these modern and accessible editions set a new standard inShakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.

A tragic, spiritual portrait of a perfect English butler andhis reaction to his fading insular world in post-war England. Awonderful, wonderful book.

Hailed as one of Joseph Conrad's finest literary achievements,this is the story of a young man unwittingly caught in thepolitical turmoil of pre-Revolutionary czarist Russia. A grippingnovel that ultimately questions our capacity for moral strength andthe depths of human integrity. This new edition includes commentaryand a reading group guide.

As a student in college, David Kepesh styles himself " a rakeamong scholars, a scholar among rakes." Little does he realize howprophetic this motto will be-- or how damning. For as Philip Rothfollows Kepesh from the domesticity of childhood into the vastwilderness of erotic possibility, from a me nage a trois in Londonto the throes of loneliness in New York, he creates a supremelyintelligent, affecting, and often hilarious novel about the dilemmaof pleasure: where we seek it; why we flee it; and how we struggleto make a truce between dignity and desire.

Shakespeare became famous as a dazzling poet before most peopleeven knew that he wrote plays. His sonnets are the Englishlanguage's most extraordinary anatomy of love in all itsdimensions-desire and despair, longing and loss, adoration anddisgust. To read them is to confront morality and eternity in thesame breath. Produced under the editorial supervision of JonathanBate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today's most accomplishedShakespearean scholars, The Sonnets and Other Poems includes all ofShakespeare's sonnets, the long narrative poems "Venus and Adonis"and "The Rape of Lucrece," and several other shorter works.Incorporating definitive texts and authoritative notes from WilliamShakespeare: Complete Works, this unique volume also includes anexpanded Introduction by Jonathan Bate that places the poems inliterary and historical context and illuminates their relationshipto Shakespeare's dramatic writing. Also featured are key factsabout the individual selections; an index of the first lines of thesonnets; a chron

Hesse's novel of two medieval men, one quietly content with hisreligion and monastic life, the other in fervent search of moreworldly salvation. This conflict between flesh and spirit, betweenemotional and contemplative man, was a life study for Hesse. It isa theme that transcends all time. The Hesse Phenomenon "has turnedinto a vogue, the vogue into a torrent. . .He has appealed both to.. . an underground and to an establishment. . .and to thedisenchanted young sharing his contempt for our industrialcivilization."--"The New York Times Book Review"

High school senior Tyler Miller used to be the kind of guy who faded into the background—average student, average looks, average dysfunctional family. But since he got busted for doing graffiti on the school, and spent the summer doing outdoor work to pay for it, he stands out like you wouldn’t believe. His new physique attracts the attention of queen bee Bethany Milbury, who just so happens to be his father’s boss’s daughter, the sister of his biggest enemy—and Tyler’s secret crush. And that sets off a string of events and changes that have Tyler questioning his place in the school, in his family, and in the world. In Twisted, the acclaimed Laurie Halse Anderson tackles a very controversial subject: what it means to be a man today. Fans and new readers alike will be captured by Tyler’s pitchperfect, funny voice, the surprising narrative arc, and the thoughtful moral dilemmas that are at the heart of all of the author’s award-winning, widely read work.

Stories that trace the decline and fall of a marriage, ahistory made up of the happiness of growing children and sharedlife, and the sadness of growing estrangement and themisunderstandings of love.

A vibrant, new complete Shakespeare that brings readers closerthan ever before possible top Shakespeare's plays as they werefirst acted. The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Editioninvites readers to rediscover Shakespeare-the working man of thetheater, not the universal bard-and to rediscover his plays as*s to be performed, not works to be immortalized. Combiningthe freshly edited texts of the Oxford Edition with livelyintroductions by Stephen Greenblatt and his co-editors, glossariesand annotations, and an elegant single-column page (that of theNorton Anthologies), this complete Shakespeare invites contemporaryreaders to see and read Shakespeare afresh. Greenblatt's fullintroduction creates a window into Shakespeare world-the culture,demographics, commerce, politics, and religion of early-modernEngland-Shakespeare's family background and professional life, theElizabethan industries of theater and printing, and the subsequentcenturies of Shakespeare textual editing.

Joyce Carol Oates’s Wonderland Quartet comprises fourremarkable novels that explore social class in America and theinner lives of young Americans. As powerful and relevant today asit on its initial publication, them chronicles the tumultuous livesof a family living on the edge of ruin in the Detroit slums, fromthe 1930s to the 1967 race riots. Praised by The Nation for her“potent, life-gripping imagination,” Oates traces the aspirationsand struggles of Loretta Wendall, a dreamy young mother who isfilled with regret by the age of sixteen, and the subsequentdestinies of her children, Maureen and Jules, who must fight tosurvive in a world of violence and danger. Winner of the National Book Award, them is an enthralling novelabout love, class, race, and the inhumanity of urban life. It is,raves The New York Times, “a superbly accomplished vision.” Them is the third novel in the Wonderland Quartet. The books thatcomplete this acclaimed series, A Garden of Earthly Delights,Expensive Peo

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romanticexpressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and redroses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful incommunicating mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in thefoster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and heronly connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings.Now eighteen and emancipated from the system with nowhere to go,Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through theflowers she chooses for them. But an unexpected encounter with amysterious stranger has her questioning what’s been missing in herlife. And when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from herpast, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for asecond chance at happiness.

In his widely acclaimed new collection of stories, JulianBarnes addresses what is perhaps the most poignant aspect of thehuman condition: growing old. The characters in The Lemon Table are facing the ends of theirlives–some with bitter regret, others with resignation, and othersstill with defiant rage. Their circumstances are just as varied astheir responses. In 19th-century Sweden, three brief conversationsprovide the basis for a lifetime of longing. In today’s England, aretired army major heads into the city for his regimentaldinner–and his annual appointment with a professional lady namedBabs. Somewhere nearby, a devoted wife calms (or perhaps torments)her ailing husband by reading him recipes. In stories brimming with life and our desire to hang on to it oneway or another, Barnes proves himself by turns wise, funny, clever,and profound–a writer of astonishing powers of empathy andinvention.

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.