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Omoo
By Herman Melville. 2007
Melvilles continuing adventures in the South Seasnow for the first time in Penguin Classics Following the commercial and critical success…
of Typee, Herman Melville continued his series of South Sea adventure-romances with Omoo. Named after the Polynesian term for a rover, or someone who roams from island to island, Omoo chronicles the tumultuous events aboard a South Sea whaling vessel and is based on Melvilles personal experiences as a crew member on a ship sailing the Pacific. From recruiting among the natives for sailors to handling deserters and even mutiny, Melville gives a first-person account of life as a sailor during the nineteenth century filled with colorful characters and vivid descriptions of the far-flung locales of Polynesia. .Off the Beaten Tracks: Stories by Russian Hitchhikers
By Irina Bogatyreva, Igor Savelyev, Tatiana Mazepina. 2011
These stories take the reader along the endless roads of central Russia, the Urals, the Altai, Siberia, and beyond. In…
energetic and vivid prose they depict all sorts of curious Russian types: exotic adventures in far-flung places, the complex psychological relationships that develop on the road, and these hitchhikers' inexplicable passion for tramping. "In via veritas" is their motto. The authors are all winners of the Debut Prize, and will present the book at BEA in 2012 in New York.Irina Bogatyreva lives in Moscow. She has won several prizes, including the Debut, for her novel AUTO-STOP. She has several published books to her credit.Tatiana Mazepina is the latest Debut Prize winner. She is a member of the Society of Free Travellers. She works as a journalist and writes on religious matters.Igor Savelyev lives in Ufa (Bashkiria) where he works as a crime reporter. He is the winner of the Debut Prize and several other prizes.A Jewish God in Paris
By Mikhail Levitin. 2012
"The picture resembles a Chagall painting. . . . Or perhaps this anti-autobiography is meant to satirize the old Russian…
question 'Who is to blame?' with the Jewish answer: Me."--The Times Literary Supplement In the title novella the hero, after a marital infidelity, takes his family to Paris hoping to win his beautiful wife's forgiveness.10 Years of the Caine Prize for African Writing
By The Caine Prize for African Writing. 2009
Celebrating ten years of the leading literary prize for African fiction (dubbed "The African Booker"), 10 Years of the Caine…
Prize brings together the ten winning stories along with a story each from the four African winners of the Booker Prize: Chinua Achebe, J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, and Ben Okri. The ten winners: Leila Aboulela for The Museum Helon Habila for Love Poems Binyavanga Wainaina for Discovering Home Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor for Weight of Whispers Brian Chikwava for Seventh Street Alchemy S.A. Afolabi for Monday Morning Mary Watson for Jungfrau Monica Arac de Nyeko for Jambula Tree Henrietta Rose-Innes for Poison E.C. Osondu for WaitingThe Caine Prize for African Writing 2014
By Caine Prize. 2014
The Caine Prize for African Writing is Africa's leading literary prize. For fifteen years it has supported and promoted contemporary…
African writing. Keeping true to its motto, "Africa will always bring something new," the prize has helped launch the literary careers of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Segun Afolabi, Leila Aboulela, Brian Chikwava, EC Osondu Henrietta Rose-Innes, Binyavanga Wainaina, and many others.The 2014 collection includes the five shortlisted stories and the stories written at the Caine Prize Writers' Workshop. It will be published to coincide with the announcement of the award in July 2014.Alexandrian Summer
By André Aciman, Yardenne Greenspan, Yitzhak Gormezano Goren. 2015
"A powerful novel of tensions-sexual, familial, religious, and political-and an affecting but unsparing portrait of the petit bourgeois world of…
Egyptian Jews standing obliviously on the edge of a precipice. Alexandria--sensual and enchanting--shimmers in these pages." -Dalia Sofer, author of The Septembers of Shiraz"A fine work of art . . . riveting from the first page to the last."-Zo Haderekh"A reason to rejoice. . . . You can't help but keep on smiling with great pleasure."-Maariv"A profound literary experience."-AhshavAlexandrian Summer is the story of two Jewish families living their frenzied last days in the doomed cosmopolitan social whirl of Alexandria just before fleeing Egypt for Israel in 1951. The conventions of the Egyptian upper-middle class are laid bare in this dazzling novel, which exposes startling sexual hypocrisies and portrays a now vanished polyglot world of horse-racing, seaside promenades, and elegant night clubs. Hamdi-Ali senior is an old-time patriarch with more than a dash of strong Turkish blood. His handsome elder son, a promising horse jockey, can't afford sexual frustration, as it leads him to overeat and imperil his career, but the woman he lusts after won't let him get beyond undoing a few buttons. Victor, the younger son, takes his pleasure with other boys. But the true heroine of the story-richly evoked in a pungent upstairs/downstairs mix-is the raucous, seductive city of Alexandria itself. Published in Hebrew in 1978, Alexandrian Summer appears now in translation for the first time.Yitzhak Gormezano Goren was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1941 and immigrated to Israel as a child. A playwright and novelist, Goren studied English and French literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University. In 1982, he cofounded the Bimat Kedem Theater.Once a Runner: A Novel
By John L. Parker Jr.. 1990
Originally self-published in 1978, Once a Runner captures the essence of competitive running—and of athletic competition in general—and has become…
one of the most beloved sports novels ever published.Inspired by the author’s experience as a collegiate champion, the story focuses on Quenton Cassidy, a competitive runner at fictional Southeastern University whose lifelong dream is to run a four-minute mile. He is less than a second away when the turmoil of the Vietnam War era intrudes into the staid recesses of his school’s athletic department. After he becomes involved in an athletes’ protest, Cassidy is suspended from his track team. Under the tutelage of his friend and mentor, Bruce Denton, a graduate student and former Olympic gold medalist, Cassidy gives up his scholarship, his girlfriend, and possibly his future to withdraw to a monastic retreat in the countryside and begin training for the race of his life against the greatest miler in history. A rare insider’s account of the incredibly intense lives of elite distance runners, Once a Runner is an inspiring, funny, and spot-on tale of one man’s quest to become a champion.How to be Nowhere
By Tim MacGabhann. 2020
Life is finally on the right track for reporter and recovering addict Andrew: he is slowly coming to terms with…
the murder of his photographer boyfriend Carlos, pursuing sobriety and building a new home with a new partner. Andrew has almost forgotten about the story that ruined his life - but that story hasn't forgotten about him, and a series of deadly threats forces him into helping the very man whose gang murdered his boyfriend and left him homeless.A literary take on the classic chase movie, HOW TO BE NOWHERE is the sequel to Tim MacGabhann's genre-busting and critically-acclaimed debut CALL HIM MINE, and a blistering thrill-ride deep into the fog of Central America's murky present and tragic future.The King's Fool
By Mahi Binebine. 2017
Sidi is dying.In the last days of this all-powerful tyrant, his faithful court fool takes stock of the decades he…
has spent in the king's service. For the many years have left certain indelible wounds.During his service, the fool has been the king's closest counsel, his most trusted companion and adviser, privy to the king's deepest secrets and most intimate thoughts. It is an honoured position for which many other courtiers would pay a hefty price. Something the fool understands only too well, for this closeness has indeed come at a terrible cost.What price the confidence of a great king? Is it stories, jokes, witty repartee? Or does the debt fall closer to home? Perhaps it must be paid far from the magnificent palaces, feasting and festivities of the royal court. Perhaps it must be paid in the death jails of a formidable prison fortress far out in the desert; a place so feared that few dare to speak its name . . .The King's Fool
By Mahi Binebine. 2017
Sidi is dying.In the last days of this all-powerful tyrant, his faithful court fool takes stock of the decades he…
has spent in the king's service. For the many years have left certain indelible wounds.During his service, the fool has been the king's closest counsel, his most trusted companion and adviser, privy to the king's deepest secrets and most intimate thoughts. It is an honoured position for which many other courtiers would pay a hefty price. Something the fool understands only too well, for this closeness has indeed come at a terrible cost.What price the confidence of a great king? Is it stories, jokes, witty repartee? Or does the debt fall closer to home? Perhaps it must be paid far from the magnificent palaces, feasting and festivities of the royal court. Perhaps it must be paid in the death jails of a formidable prison fortress far out in the desert; a place so feared that few dare to speak its name . . .The Last Days of El Comandante
By Alberto Barrera Tyszka. 2015
Venezuela 2012: The President's illness casts a shadow over the lives of his citizens - he divides opinion, but life…
without him is almost unimaginable. Miguel Sanabria is a retired oncologist, ambivalent towards the President but caught between a virulently anti-Chávez wife and a equally vehement pro-Chávez brother. He is asked by his nephew to hide a mobile phone carrying secret footage that could shed new light on the President's condition.His neighbour Fredy has found a fresh angle for a new book about Chávez, but to take advantage he must agree to a "green-card" marriage and leave his girlfriend and their son for two months, even as their landlady plots to repossess their home.In another apartment live nine-year-old María and her neurotic, near-agoraphobic mother. Taken out of school to be educated at home, María turns to internet chat rooms for company, while her mother's fears about the city's endemic violence are proved tragically prescient.The fates and fortunes of these neighbours will prove inextricably entwined as the hour of the President's death draws ever closer.REVIEWS FOR THE SICKNESS"A great book" Michael Morpurgo"Powerful themes and powerful writing" Susan HillTranslated from the Spanish by Rosalind HarveyThe Lido: The uplifting, feel-good bestseller you need to read in 2021
By Libby Page. 2018
Dive into the uplifting, feel-good bestseller about the joy of friendship and the power of community - the perfect read…
for 2021!Meet Rosemary, 86, and Kate, 26: dreamers, campaigners, outdoor swimmers...Rosemary has lived in Brixton all her life, but everything she knows is changing. Only the local lido, where she swims every day, remains a constant reminder of the past and her beloved husband George. Kate has just moved and feels adrift in a city that is too big for her. She's on the bottom rung of her career as a local journalist, and is determined to make something of it. So when the lido is threatened with closure, Kate knows this story could be her chance to shine. But for Rosemary, it could be the end of everything. Together they are determined to make a stand, and to prove that the pool is more than just a place to swim - it is the heart of the community.PRAISE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER 'Feel-good and uplifting, this charming novel is full of heart' LUCY DIAMOND'A joyous and uplifting debut' SARAH WINMAN'The Lido has a heart that shines from every page' A J PEARCE'Brimming with charm and compassion' DAILY EXPRESS _________________________________________________Libby Page's uplifting new novel about community and finding where you belong, THE ISLAND HOME, is available to pre-order now!Lost Empress
By Sergio De La Pava. 2018
"Ambitious, affecting, intelligent, plangent, comic, kooky and impassioned. I've read a lot of novels this year, between judging the Man…
Booker prize and the Granta Best of Young British Novelists, and I've yearned for this kind of exuberant, precise fiction" Stuart Kelly, Guardian on A Naked SingularityIt would take something huge to put Paterson, New Jersey on the map.But Nina Gill is determined to do just that. She is the daughter of the ageing owner of the Dallas Cowboys and the well-kept secret to their success. Shocked when her brother inherits the team, leaving her with the Paterson Pork, New Jersey's only Indoor Football League franchise, she vows to take on the N.F.L. and make her new team the pigskin kings of America.Meanwhile, Nuno DeAngeles - a brilliant criminal mastermind - contrives to be thrown into Rikers Island prison to commit one of the most audacious crimes of all time. Now he's on the inside, he has two good reasons to get out. But how does a person of culture go about breaking out of the penal system when the whole of the land of the free is addicted to keeping him in it?Without knowing it, or ever having met, Nina and Nuno have already had a profound effect on each other's lives. As his bid for freedom and her bid for sporting immortality reach crisis point, their stories converge in the countdown to an epic conclusion. Thrilling, touching, insightful and shockingly hilarious, De La Pava's extraordinary novel gets under the skin and into the minds of a vast cast of characters from the fringes of society - immigrants, exiles and outsiders.No Blood, No Foul: A Novel
By Charley Rosen. 2008
Jason Lewis is a star college basketball player just back from World War II. He's a hero, missing two fingers…
on his shooting hand. He can't play any longer, so he makes the ultimate ballplayer's sacrifice: he becomes a referee. Set in postwar New York during the founding of what will eventually be the NBA, No Blood, No Foul is the story of a man who must come to terms with a debilitating injury and chase after dreams of perfection in a decidedly imperfect world. Charley Rosen gives us not only a lovingly faithful insider's look at the game of basketball, but a passionate story about what it meant to face life in an America that had lost its innocence.Crimes
By Alberto Barrera Tyszka. 2015
Unexplained blood stains appear in a young couple's apartment; a disembodied hand is found in a rubbish dump; political prisoners…
resort to horrific measures in order to make a point.In this brilliant new collection of stories, Alberto Barrera Tyszka casts an eye on the violence that afflicts Latin America, and in particular its intimate effects on the individuals who suffer and inflict it.Mixing the surreal with the quotidian, the banal with the unspeakable, Tyszka has created a fragmentary panorama of man's misdeeds against his own kind. These windingly elliptical stories are ceaselessly surprising, and will bury themselves into your subconscious long after the final page is turned.Winter Dreams: A Novel
By Don J. Snyder. 2004
A moving novel about love, loss, and an extraordinary lifelong passion for golf, by the acclaimed author of The Cliff…
Walk and Fallen Angel.Ross Lansdale never knew his mother and father and grew up at St. Luke's Orphanage for Boys in the 1950s. The one person who took an interest in him was Father Martin, a Benedictine monk who understood the loneliness of an orphan's life. He instilled in Ross an enduring love of two solitary, reliable pursuits: golf and books. Over the years, and through the loss of his beloved mentor, Ross comes to rely on these trustworthy tools, sure that they will never abandon him.As an adult and a college professor of literature, Ross encounters two people who will challenge and forever change his life: Julia, the student who opens his heart only to make him feel more vulnerable than ever, and Johnny Durocher, a spit-fire new professor-and terrifically talented golfer-who becomes Ross's first true friend. Durocher's one serious dream is to play the amateur tournament on the Old Course at Saint Andrews, but when an unforeseen tragedy keeps Johnny from playing, Ross must make the boldest decision of his life. As he travels to Scotland to confront his failures and fears, Ross embraces his wonder of the ancient game and plays a round of golf in honor of his friend, and the boy he used to be.With characteristic poignancy and style that have earned Don J. Snyder critical acclaim for his novels and screenplays, WINTER DREAMS is a remarkable new work filled with compassion, heartache, and the grace that comes from the triumph of personal courage.Brief Loves That Live Forever
By Andreï Makine, Andrei Makine. 2013
In Soviet Russia the desire for freedom is also a desire for the freedom to love. Lovers live as outlaws,…
traitors to the collective spirit, and love is more intense when it feels like an act of resistance. Now entering middle age, an orphan recalls the fleeting moments that have never left him - a scorching day in a blossoming orchard with a woman who loves another; a furtive, desperate affair in a Black Sea resort; the bunch of snowdrops a crippled childhood friend gave him to give to his lover. As the dreary Brezhnev era gives way to Perestroika and the fall of Communism, the orphan uncovers the truth behind the life of Dmitri Ress, whose tragic fate embodies the unbreakable bond between love and freedom.Black Sky, Black Sea
By Izzet Celasin. 2007
1977. Poised between the secular values of socialism and the conservatism of a tenuously balanced government, Istanbul is a fractured…
city haunted by demons of its own making. Along with thousands of other left-wing activists, Oak's interest in politics leads him to join the annual May Day rallies. There he encounters Zuhal, a fearless girl with a gun. As battles rage between nationalists and socialists, Oak witnesses the violent suppression of dissident minorities by his fellow citizens. The bewitching Zuhal begins to shape his ideals, bringing him face to face with disillusionment, and death.White Masks
By Elias Khoury. 1981
Why was the corpse of Khalil Ahmad Jaber found in a mound of rubbish? Why did he disappear weeks before…
his horrific death? And who was he? A journalist begins to piece the truth together by speaking with his widow, a local engineer, a nightwatchman, the garbage man who discovered him, the doctor who performed the autopsy, and a young militiaman. Their stories underline the horrors of Lebanon's bloody civil war and its ravaging effects on the psyches of the survivors. With empathy and candour, Elias Khoury reveals the havoc the war wreaked on Beirut and its inhabitants, as well as their dogged resilience.The Last Days of El Comandante (Latin American Literature In Translation Ser.)
By Alberto Barrera Tyszka. 2020
Venezuela 2012: The President's illness casts a shadow over the lives of his citizens - he divides opinion, but life…
without him is almost unimaginable. Miguel Sanabria is a retired oncologist, ambivalent towards the President but caught between a virulently anti-Chávez wife and a equally vehement pro-Chávez brother. He is asked by his nephew to hide a mobile phone carrying secret footage that could shed new light on the President's condition.His neighbour Fredy has found a fresh angle for a new book about Chávez, but to take advantage he must agree to a "green-card" marriage and leave his girlfriend and their son for two months, even as their landlady plots to repossess their home.In another apartment live nine-year-old María and her neurotic, near-agoraphobic mother. Taken out of school to be educated at home, María turns to internet chat rooms for company, while her mother's fears about the city's endemic violence are proved tragically prescient.The fates and fortunes of these neighbours will prove inextricably entwined as the hour of the President's death draws ever closer.REVIEWS FOR THE SICKNESS"A great book" Michael Morpurgo"Powerful themes and powerful writing" Susan HillTranslated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey