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20,000 leagues under the sea (Books of wonder)
By Jules Verne, Leo and Diane Dillon. 2000
Classic of nineteenth-century speculative fiction relates the adventures of a French professor and his two companions as they sail beneath…
the world's oceans as prisoners of the fabulous electric submarine Nautilus under the command of the deranged Captain Nemo. 1869Chicken soup with rice: a book of months
By Maurice Sendak. 1962
The Five: A Novel of Jewish Life in Turn-of-the-Century Odessa
By Michael R. Katz, Michael Stanislawski, Vladimir Jabotinsky. 2005
"The beginning of this tale of bygone days in Odessa dates to the dawn of the twentieth century. At that…
time we used to refer to the first years of this period as the 'springtime,' meaning a social and political awakening. For my generation, these years also coincided with our own personal springtime, in the sense that we were all in our youthful twenties. And both of these springtimes, as well as the image of our carefree Black Sea capital with acacias growing along its steep banks, are interwoven in my memory with the story of one family in which there were five children: Marusya, Marko, Lika, Serezha, and Torik."--from The Five The Five is an captivating novel of the decadent fin-de-siècle written by Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), a controversial leader in the Zionist movement whose literary talents, until now, have largely gone unrecognized by Western readers. The author deftly paints a picture of Russia's decay and decline--a world permeated with sexuality, mystery, and intrigue. Michael R. Katz has crafted the first English-language translation of this important novel, which was written in Russian in 1935 and published a year later in Paris under the title Pyatero.The book is Jabotinsky's elegaic paean to the Odessa of his youth, a place that no longer exists. It tells the story of an upper-middle-class Jewish family, the Milgroms, at the turn of the century. It follows five siblings as they change, mature, and come to accept their places in a rapidly evolving world. With flashes of humor, Jabotinsky captures the ferment of the time as reflected in political, social, artistic, and spiritual developments. He depicts with nostalgia the excitement of life in old Odessa and comments poignantly on the failure of the dream of Jewish assimilation within the Russian empire.The Five: A Novel of Jewish Life in Turn-of-the-Century Odessa
By Michael R. Katz, Michael Stanislawski, Vladimir Jabotinsky. 2005
"The beginning of this tale of bygone days in Odessa dates to the dawn of the twentieth century. At that…
time we used to refer to the first years of this period as the 'springtime,' meaning a social and political awakening. For my generation, these years also coincided with our own personal springtime, in the sense that we were all in our youthful twenties. And both of these springtimes, as well as the image of our carefree Black Sea capital with acacias growing along its steep banks, are interwoven in my memory with the story of one family in which there were five children: Marusya, Marko, Lika, Serezha, and Torik."--from The Five The Five is an captivating novel of the decadent fin-de-siècle written by Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940), a controversial leader in the Zionist movement whose literary talents, until now, have largely gone unrecognized by Western readers. The author deftly paints a picture of Russia's decay and decline--a world permeated with sexuality, mystery, and intrigue. Michael R. Katz has crafted the first English-language translation of this important novel, which was written in Russian in 1935 and published a year later in Paris under the title Pyatero.The book is Jabotinsky's elegaic paean to the Odessa of his youth, a place that no longer exists. It tells the story of an upper-middle-class Jewish family, the Milgroms, at the turn of the century. It follows five siblings as they change, mature, and come to accept their places in a rapidly evolving world. With flashes of humor, Jabotinsky captures the ferment of the time as reflected in political, social, artistic, and spiritual developments. He depicts with nostalgia the excitement of life in old Odessa and comments poignantly on the failure of the dream of Jewish assimilation within the Russian empire.Memoirs of Montparnasse
By John Glassco. 2007
Memoirs of Montparnasse is a delicious book about being young, restless, reckless, and without cares. It is also the best…
and liveliest of the many chronicles of 1920s Paris and the exploits of the lost generation. In 1928, nineteen-year-old John Glassco escaped Montreal and his overbearing father for the wilder shores of Montparnasse. He remained there until his money ran out and his health collapsed, and he enjoyed every minute of his stay. Remarkable for their candor and humor, Glassco's memoirs have the daft logic of a wild but utterly absorbing adventure, a tale of desire set free that is only faintly shadowed by sadness at the inevitable passage of time.He: Shorter Writings of Franz Kafka (riverrun editions)
By Franz Kafka. 2020
'Being asked to write about Kafka is like being asked to describe the Great Wall of China by someone who's…
standing just next to it. The only honest thing to do is point.' Joshua Cohen, from his preface to He: Shorter Writings of Franz KafkaThis is a Kafka emergency kit, a congregation of the brief, the minor works that are actually major. Joshua Cohen has produced a frame that refuses distinctions between what is a story, a letter, a workplace memo and a diary entry, also including popular favourites like The Bucket Rider, The Penal Colony and The Burrow. Here we see Kafka's preoccupations in writing about animals, messiah variations, food and exercise, each in his signature style.Cohen's selection emphasises the stately structure of utterly coherent logic, within an utterly incoherent illogical world, showing how Kafka harnessed the humblest grammar to metamorphic power until the predominant effect ceases to be the presence of an unreliable narrator, but the absence of the universe's only reliable narrator. Who is God.84 Charing Cross Road (Virago Modern Classics #776)
By Helene Hanff. 1970
INCLUDES AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE READERS'Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print…
books. The phrase 'antiquarian book-sellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive. I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes & Noble's grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies.'So begins the delightfully reticent love affair between Miss Helene Hanff of New York and Messrs Marks and Co, sellers of rare and secondhand books, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London. For 20 years, this outspoken New York writer and Frank Doel, a rather more restrained London bookseller carry on an increasingly touching correspondence. No doubt their letters would have continued, but in 1969, a letter informed Helene that Frank Doel had died. In the collection's penultimate entry, Helene Hanff urges a tourist friend, ''If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. I owe it so much.'Roy & Me: This Is Not a Memoir
By Maurice Yacowar. 2010
Maurice Yacowar challenges genre and form in Roy & Me, a cross between memoir and fiction, truth and distortion. It…
is the exploration of Yacowar’s relationship with Roy Farran—soldier, politician, author, mentor—and his conflict with Farran’s anti-Semitic past.Best known for his service with the British Special Air Service during World War II, Roy Farran served as a politician in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for Premier Peter Lougheed. During his time in Israel as a soldier, Farran allegedly kidnapped and murdered a sixteen-year-old member of the Lehi group, also known as the Stern Gang.Roy & Me is a memoir that edges toward fiction by venturing into Roy Farran’s thoughts, drawing simultaneously on his writings and Yacowar’s own imagination.Walden: Selections from the American Classic (Shambhala Library)
By Henry David Thoreau, Terry Tempest Williams. 2008
Selections from one of the great classics of literature--now part of the Shambhala Pocket Library.In July 1845, Henry David Thoreau…
built a small cottage in the woods near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and began to write Walden, a chronicle of his communion with nature. Since its first publication in 1854, the work has become a classic, beloved for its message of living simply and in harmony with nature. This abridged edition of Walden features exquisite wood engravings by Michael McCurdy and a foreword by noted author and environmentalist Terry Tempest Williams, who reflects upon Thoreau’s message that as we explore our world and ourselves, we draw closer to the truth of our connectedness.This book is part of the Shambhala Pocket Library series.The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts. The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman. The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compact format that is collectible, reader-friendly, and applicable to everyday life.The Beautiful Mrs Seidenman: With an introduction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (W&N Essentials)
By Andrzej Szczypiorski. 1988
'Magnificent. Complex, wise, unsentimental and very moving' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie'Dense, lyrical and deeply unsettling' New York Times'A fine balance between…
poetic tenderness and an unflinching account of the brutal realities of the day' Guardian'Extraordinarily original' Los Angeles Times'The prose is stunning, thanks to a masterful translation by Klara Glowczewska, and the characters are so fully fleshed that they seem to step off the page' NPR'Grips the reader with the power of a high-class thriller' Frankfurter Rundschau 'All at once she thought that a life is only that which has passed. There is no life other than memory' In the Nazi-occupied Warsaw of 1943, Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow, possesses two attributes that can spell the difference between life and death: blue eyes and blond hair. Paired with false papers, she passes as the wife of a Polish officer, until one day an informer spots her on the street.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.The Diary of a Nobody
By George Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith. 1999
'The funniest book in the world' Evelyn Waugh'The jewel at the heart of English comic literature' William Trevor Mr Pooter…
is a man of modest ambitions, content with his ordinary life. Yet he always seems to be troubled by disagreeable tradesmen, impertinent young office clerks and wayward friends, not to mention his devil-may-care son Lupin with his unsuitable choice of bride. In the bumbling, absurd, yet ultimately endearing character of Pooter, the Grossmith brothers created a wonderful portrait of the class system and the inherent snobbishness of the suburban middle-class suburbia - one which sends up the late Victorian crazes for Aestheticism, spiritualism and bicycling, as well as the fashion for publishing diaries by anybody and everybody. This edition contains the original illustrations by Weedon Grossmith and an introduction by Ed Glinert, author of The London Compendium, discussing the novel's serialisation in Punch, the growth of the suburbs and the figure of Mrs Pooter.George Grossmith (1847-1912) initially worked as a journalist, reporting Police Court proceedings for The Times. In 1870 he began his career as a singer and entertainer, creating some of the most memorable characters in Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas. Weedon Grossmith (1854-1919) brother of George, was educated at the Slade and the Royal Academy with a view to following a career as a painter, and exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and the Royal Academy. Joining a theatre company in 1885, he toured the provinces and America. The best-known of his many plays, The Night of the Party, was published in 1901.'True humour ... with its mixture of absurdity, irony and affection ... a masterpiece, immortal' J.B. Priestley