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Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling
By Wendy Doniger, Vinay Dharwadker, Carole Satyamurti. 2014
"Astonishing. . . . [Satyamurti's Mahabharata] brings [the] past alive . . . as though it were a novel in…
finely crafted verse."--Vinay Dharwadker Originally composed approximately two thousand years ago, the Mahabharata tells the story of a royal dynasty, descended from gods, whose feud over their kingdom results in a devastating war. But it contains much more than conflict. An epic masterpiece of huge sweep and magisterial power, "a hundred times more interesting" than the Iliad and the Odyssey, writes Wendy Doniger in the introduction, the Mahabharata is a timeless work that evokes a world of myth, passion, and warfare while exploring eternal questions of duty, love, and spiritual freedom. A seminal Hindu text, which includes the Bhagavad Gita, it is also one of the most important and influential works in the history of world civilization. Innovatively composed in blank verse rather than prose, Carole Satyamurti's English retelling covers all eighteen books of the Mahabharata. This new version masterfully captures the beauty, excitement, and profundity of the original Sanskrit poem as well as its magnificent architecture and extraordinary scope.The Alchemist
By Paulo Coelho, Alan R. Clarke. 1993
"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked…
up at the moonless sky." Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams." Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. The Alchemist is such a book. With over a million and a half copies sold around the world, The Alchemist has already established itself as a modern classic, universally admired. Paulo Coelho's charming fable, now available in English for the first time, will enchant and inspire an even wider audience of readers for generations to come. The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist. The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories have done, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, above all, following our dreams.The Prophet (A Penguin Classics Hardcover)
By Rupi Kaur, Kahlil Gibran. 2017
A stunning new hardcover edition--with a full linen case, copper stamping, gilded edges, and colored endpapers--of one of the world's…
most beloved and popular spiritual classics, featuring a new foreword by Rupi Kaur, the multimillion-copy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Milk and Honey and The Sun and Her Flowers"This book cracked my heart wide open. And I think it's going to do the same to yours." --Rupi Kaur, from the ForewordThe most famous work of spiritual fiction of the twentieth century, The Prophet is rooted in Kahlil Gibran's own experience as an immigrant and provides inspiration to anyone feeling adrift in a world in flux. As a prophet named Almustafa is about to board a ship to travel back to his homeland after twelve years in exile, he is stopped by a group of people who ask him to share his wisdom before he leaves. In twenty-eight poetic essays, he does so, offering profound and timeless insights on many aspects of life, including love, pain, friendship, family, beauty, religion, joy, sorrow, and death. An immediate success when first published in 1923, The Prophet is a modern classic, having been translated into more than forty languages and sold more than ten million copies in the United States alone. The message it imparts, of finding divinity through love, made it the bible of 1960s culture and continues to touch hearts and minds across generations and national borders. This edition is illustrated with twelve of Gibran's famous visionary paintings and features a foreword by Rupi Kaur.In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.The Unstable Boys: A Novel
By Nick Kent. 2021
London 1968:The Unstable Boys are the name on every music insider''s lips and tipped to follow in the footsteps of…
the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. This is their chance to hit the bigtime. They don''t know they''re about to be obliterated by a series of tragedies and a chaotic breakup that puts paid to the band''s starry-eyed dreams of stratospheric success. One day you''re the dog''s bollocks; the next day you''re a nobody - fame is a fickle friend.London 2016:Bestselling crime writer Michael Martindale has reached breaking point. Estranged from his wife and children following the very public fallout of his disastrous affair, he is alone, with only his self-pity to keep him warm at night. Until he makes the mistake of publicly declaring his admiration for his teenage musical obsession, the Unstable Boys. When the band''s twisted and feral frontman, the Boy, turns up on his doorstep, Martindale quickly learns that sometimes you should be careful what you wish for.Razor-sharp and laced with a caustic wit, The Unstable Boys is a dark comic caper with an unmistakeable musicality from legendary music journalist Nick Kent.The Unstable Boys: A Novel
By Nick Kent. 2020
London 1968:The Unstable Boys are the name on every music insider's lips and tipped to follow in the footsteps of…
the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. This is their chance to hit the bigtime. They don't know they're about to be obliterated by a series of tragedies and a chaotic breakup that puts paid to the band's starry-eyed dreams of stratospheric success. One day you're the dog's bollocks; the next day you're a nobody - fame is a fickle friend.London 2016:Bestselling crime writer Michael Martindale has reached breaking point. Estranged from his wife and children following the very public fallout of his disastrous affair, he is alone, with only his self-pity to keep him warm at night. Until he makes the mistake of publicly declaring his admiration for his teenage musical obsession, the Unstable Boys. When the band's twisted and feral frontman, the Boy, turns up on his doorstep, Martindale quickly learns that sometimes you should be careful what you wish for.Razor-sharp and laced with a caustic wit, The Unstable Boys is a dark comic caper with an unmistakeable musicality from legendary music journalist Nick Kent.An Unofficial Marriage: A Novel about Pauline Viardot and Ivan Turgenev
By Joie Davidow. 2021
For Fans of Alexander Chee's best-selling novel, The Queen of the Night and opera fans everywhere. Set against the backdrop of the…
tumultuous events of 19th century Europe, An Unofficial Marriage dramatizes the equally tumultuous real-life love affair of two great artists—the famous Russian author, Ivan Turgenev, and the celebrated French opera singer, Pauline Viardot. From the moment he encounters her on the St. Petersburg stage, Ivan falls completely for Pauline. Though Pauline returns his feelings, she is bound by her singular passion for her art and her devotion to her gentle, older husband, Louis. Nevertheless, Ivan pursues Pauline across countries and continents—from Russia to France to Germany to Prussia—and in the decades that follow their fateful meeting, the lives of Pauline, Ivan, and Louis remain permanently intertwined as the lovers face jealousy, separation, the French Revolution of 1848, the cholera epidemic of 1849, the Franco-Prussian War, Turgenev&’s arrest in Russia, Louis&’s heartbreak and resignation, and the highs and lows of their artistic careers. &“You know those unofficial marriages,&” Turgenev would write almost thirty years after meeting Pauline, &“They sometimes turn out more poisonous than the accepted form.&” With beautiful and compelling prose and employing multiple perspectives, Joie Davidow (who herself has a background in opera) illuminates not only the interior lives of these two intensely passionate artists, but also the grand historic moments that Pauline and Ivan experienced and the celebrated figures who moved in their circles—including George Sand, Leo Tolstoy, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Ary Scheffer—providing insight into the dynamic worlds of 19th century opera, literature, art, and politics. Epic in the tradition of the Russian writers whom we encounter, and as romantic and tragic as the operas that Pauline Viardot performs in, An Unofficial Marriage brings to life with great scope and great humanity this captivating story from the past and explores timeless questions about the relationship between art and passion and the complex workings of the human heart.The Unstable Boys: A Novel
By Nick Kent. 2020
London 1968:The Unstable Boys are the name on every music insider's lips and tipped to follow in the footsteps of…
the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. This is their chance to hit the bigtime. They don't know they're about to be obliterated by a series of tragedies and a chaotic breakup that puts paid to the band's starry-eyed dreams of stratospheric success. One day you're the dog's bollocks; the next day you're a nobody - fame is a fickle friend.London 2016:Bestselling crime writer Michael Martindale has reached breaking point. Estranged from his wife and children following the very public fallout of his disastrous affair, he is alone, with only his self-pity to keep him warm at night. Until he makes the mistake of publicly declaring his admiration for his teenage musical obsession, the Unstable Boys. When the band's twisted and feral frontman, the Boy, turns up on his doorstep, Martindale quickly learns that sometimes you should be careful what you wish for.Razor-sharp and laced with a caustic wit, The Unstable Boys is a dark comic caper with an unmistakeable musicality from legendary music journalist Nick Kent.Nina X
By Ewan Morrison. 2019
Winner of the Saltire Literary Award Fiction Book of the Year'Literary gold . . . Morrison has published his masterpiece'…
Sunday Times'Sensational. Like nothing I've ever read. A tour de force' Ian RankinNina X has never been outside. She has never met another child.Nina X has no books, no toys and no privacy.Nina X has no idea what the outside world is like.Nina X has a lot to learn.Nina X has no mother and no father; she has Comrade Chen, and Comrades Uma, Jeni and Ruth. Her closest emotional connection is with the birds she sees when she removes the plasterboard that covers her bedroom window. Comrade Chen has named her The Project; she is being raised entirely separated from the false gods of capitalism and the cult of the self. He has her record everything in her journal, to track her thoughts. To keep her ideology pure, her words are erased, over and over again. But that was before. Now Nina is in Freedom, and all the rules have changed. She has to remember that everything is opposite to what she was told, and yet Freedom seems to be a very confusing and dangerous place'This moving tale of growing up in a Maoist cult, and the traumatic aftermath, explores ideas of freedom, control and identity with warmth and humour' Alex Preston, Observer'Amazing . . . There are few writers left in Britain who have his ambition, vision and empathy. Nina is marvellous creation and this is an important novel' Irvine Welsh'Compelling. Chilling' Lionel ShriverDiary Of A Body
By Daniel Pennac. 2012
From a particularly humiliating accident at scout camp, to the final stages of terminal illness, Daniel Pennac's warm, witty and…
heart-breaking novel shows the rise and fall of an ordinary man, told through his observations of his own body.It is with damp eyes (not to mention underpants) that our narrator begins his diary, seeking through it to come to terms with the demoralising quirks of his fleshy confines. Through the joys and horrors of puberty to the triumphs of adolescence, we grow to love him through every growth, leak and wound, as he finds himself developing muscles, falling in love, and then leaving school to join the French Resistance.Yet, as ever, this is only half the story. As years pass and hairs grey, everything he took for granted begins to turn against him. Tackling taboo topics with honesty and charm, Pennac's wit remains sharp even as everything else begins to sag. This is a hugely original story of the most relatable of unlikely love stories: a human, and the body that defines him.Translated from the French by Alyson WatersYoung Man with a Horn
By Gary Giddins, Dorothy Baker. 1938
Rick Martin loved music and the music loved him. He could pick up a tune so quickly that it didn't…
matter to the Cotton Club boss that he was underage, or to the guys in the band that he was just a white kid. He started out in the slums of LA with nothing, and he ended up on top of the game in the speakeasies and nightclubs of New York. But while talent and drive are all you need to make it in music, they aren't enough to make it through a life. Dorothy Baker's Young Man with a Horn is widely regarded as the first jazz novel, and it pulses with the music that defined an era. Baker took her inspiration from the artistry--though not the life--of legendary horn player Bix Beiderbecke, and the novel went on to be adapted into a successful movie starring Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, and Doris Day.Mesmerized
By Alissa Walser. 2010
Mozart's Vienna. A crucible for scientific experimentation and courtly intrigue, as Europe's finest minds vie for imperial favour. In a…
colourful, chaotic private hospital that echoes with the shrieks of hysterical patients, Franz Anton Mesmer is developing a series of controversial cure-alls for body and mind. When he is asked to help restore the sight of a blind musical prodigy favoured by the Empress herself, he senses that fame, and even immortality, is within his grasp. Mesmer knows that he will have to gain her trust if he is to open her eyes. But at what cost to her fragile talent? And will their intimacy result in scandal?The Voyage
By Murray Bail. 2012
Frank Delage, a middle-aged Australian, arrives in Vienna with the most daring of propositions. He has invented a revolutionary piano…
and means to market it to the grand old world of classical music. A chance meeting with one Amalia von Schalla brings new possibilities - a soirée, an introduction to her daughter Elisabeth, dinner with an avant-garde composer. But when the sheer audacity of his campaign dawns on him, he takes a slow boat home to the southern hemisphere. As it meanders through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, he is afforded ample time to reflect on tensions between the old world and the new. And, for all his travails, he is not going home empty-handed...Liberty (The Africa Trilogy)
By Jakob Ejersbo. 2009
The novel behind the new Danish TV series starring The Killing's Sofie Gråbøl, available on All 4 / Walter PresentsTwo…
young men from very different backgrounds. Christian is the son of Danish ex-pats; Marcus works as a house boy for a Swedish family, hoping they will eventually take him back to Europe with them. Their friendship defines a divided continent. When they decide to go into business together - a teenage dream of playing at discos - they unwittingly set a collision course. But will it be love or money that tears the two apart? Spanning a decade from the dawn of the 1980s, the story of Marcus and Christian's dissolving friendship plays out amid a vast cast of characters, all fighting to make their way in a country defined by corruption. As the Tanzanian authorities and European aid agencies compete to line their own pockets, the rise of 'the disease' threatens to lay waste to an already stricken continent.A Life Apart
By Mariapia Veladiano. 2011
Rebecca's parents were born to very different families. One wealthy, one all but destitute, they were united only by their…
striking mutual beauty. But the sole child to bless their great romantic fairy tale is a daughter of startling ugliness. The shock of having given birth to such a monster leads the mother to withdraw both herself and her daughter from the world. Only by keeping her child indoors, away from strangers' eyes, can she protect her from their disgust. But against all odds, with a little help from some remarkable friends, Rebecca discovers a talent for music that proves that inner beauty can outshine any other. A Life Apart is an irresistible modern fable that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt that they don't belong.Vernon Subutex Three
By Virginie Despentes. 2017
Although it means leaving behind the community of disciples who have followed him on his travels and assembled at his…
raves and gatherings, Vernon Subutex is compelled to return to Paris to visit the dentist.Once back in the city, he learns that Charles, his old friend from his days on the Paris streets, has died and left him half of a lottery win. But when Vernon returns to his disciples with news of this windfall, it does not take long before his followers start to turn on each other, and his good fortune provokes ruptures in his once harmonious community.Meanwhile, storm clouds are gathering for Aïcha and Céleste: Laurent Dopalet is determined to make them pay for their attack on him, whatever it takes and whoever gets hurt. And before long, the whole of Paris will be reeling in the wake of the terrorist atrocities of 2015 and 2016, and all the characters in this kaleidoscopic portrait of a city will be forced to a reckoning with each other.The Weekend: The international bestseller, shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2020
By Charlotte Wood. 2020
A #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER One of The Times books of the year: 'Ripples with wit, insight and vitality' 'The Weekend…
is so great I am struggling to find the words to do it justice... Wood is an agonisingly gifted writer: I am now going to read all her other books!'Marian Keyes'It was refreshing to encounter a novel that so profoundly sympathises with women on the forbidding cusp of being classified as "elderly". Wood ably conveys that older women didn't used to be old, and that the experience of ageing is universally bewildering'Lionel Shriver (Observer, Books of the year) 'Riveting' Elizabeth Day 'A perfect, funny, insightful, novel about women, friendship, and ageing. I loved it'Nina Stibbe 'Authentic, funny, brutally well-observed... As with the novels of Elizabeth Strout or Anne Tyler, these are characters not written to please, but to feel true'The Sunday Times 'Glorious... Charlotte Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout' Guardian'The Weekend triumphantly brings to life the honest, inner lives of women' Independent'A lovely, lively, intelligent, funny book' Tessa Hadley 'One sharp, funny, heartbreaking and gorgeously-written package. I loved it' Paula Hawkins'One of those deceptively compact novels that continues to open doors in your mind long after the last page' Patrick GaleSylvie, Jude, Wendy and Adele have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three.These women couldn't be more different: Jude, a once-famous restaurateur with a spotless life and a long-standing affair with a married man; Wendy, an acclaimed feminist intellectual; Adele, a former star of the stage, now practically homeless. Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for one last weekend at Sylvie's old beach house. But fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface - a storm that will either remind them of the bond they share, or sweep away their friendship for good.Rolling Fields
By David Trueba. 2020
WINNER OF AN ENGLISH PEN AWARD'Effortlessly readable and fizzing with energy, this novel is by turns quirky, funny and thoughtful'Mail…
on Sunday Dani Mosca is 40 and his father has just died. Fulfilling his father's last wishes, Dani embarks on a road trip back to his childhood village, a three-hour hearse journey from Madrid. Leaving behind the busy streets of the city for the deserted, archaic heart of Spain, Dani revisits the key junctions of his life: his conflicted relationship with a pragmatic and authoritarian father; the mystery of his birth; his school years in the repressed atmosphere of Catholic Spain; the origin of his band and its early successes; the emptiness left by a tragically lost friendship; his great loves. Laugh-out-loud funny, deeply moving and featuring an unforgettable cast of characters - from Ecuadorian drivers to Spanish Bowie lookalikes - Rolling Fields is a novel full of the grace and messiness of life: brave, exciting and completely irresistible.Translated from Spanish by Rahul BeryThe Age of Anxiety: A Novel - The Times Bestseller
By Pete Townshend. 2019
The Age of Anxiety is a great rock novel, but that is one of the less important things about it.…
The narrator is a brilliant creation - cultured, witty and unreliable. The novel captures the craziness of the music business and displays Pete Townshend's sly sense of humour and sharp ear for dialogue. First conceived as an opera, The Age of Anxiety deals with mythic and operatic themes including a maze, divine madness and long-lost children. Hallucinations and soundscapes haunt this novel, which on one level is an extended meditation on manic genius and the dark art of creativity.The Voyage
By Murray Bail. 2012
Frank Delage, a middle-aged Australian, arrives in Vienna with the most daring of propositions. He has invented a revolutionary piano…
and means to market it to the grand old world of classical music. A chance meeting with one Amalia von Schalla brings new possibilities - a soirée, an introduction to her daughter Elisabeth, dinner with an avant-garde composer. But when the sheer audacity of his campaign dawns on him, he takes a slow boat home to the southern hemisphere. As it meanders through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, he is afforded ample time to reflect on tensions between the old world and the new. And, for all his travails, he is not going home empty-handed...Mesmerized
By Alissa Walser. 2010
Mozart's Vienna. A crucible for scientific experimentation and courtly intrigue, as Europe's finest minds vie for imperial favour. In a…
colourful, chaotic private hospital that echoes with the shrieks of hysterical patients, Franz Anton Mesmer is developing a series of controversial cure-alls for body and mind. When he is asked to help restore the sight of a blind musical prodigy favoured by the Empress herself, he senses that fame, and even immortality, is within his grasp. Mesmer knows that he will have to gain her trust if he is to open her eyes. But at what cost to her fragile talent? And will their intimacy result in scandal?