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By Annie Kirby. 2022
THE ISLANDERS SAY IT'S CURSED. BUT THAT'S ONLY ONE SIDE OF THE STORY . . .'A bold, magical story' JO…
BROWNING WROE, Sunday Times bestselling author of A Terrible Kindness'A majestic work of the imagination . . . I woke up thinking about it' ROSIE ANDREWS, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Leviathan'An atmospheric tale, shot through with folklore. The writing shimmers' KATE SAWYER, Costa shortlisted author of The Stranding_______They say the Hollow Sea is cursed. A wild expanse separating the remote islands of St Hía, not even the locals brave its treacherous waters.But new arrival Scottie feels a pull she can't ignore. Because behind the curse is the legend of Thordis: a woman whose story feels eerily familiar. No one knows what became of her, but Scottie believes Thordis's fate may answer questions about her own past.Despite the islanders' warnings, Scottie sets out to discover the truth. But as she dares to cross the Hollow Sea, will its secrets give her the answers she needs?Or will the past drag her under?_______'A heart-rending atmospheric novel of finding what makes one whole' Melissa Fu, author of Peach Blossom Spring'Mesmerising' Good Housekeeping'A poetic tale' PrimaBy Lu Xun. 2001
Call to Arms is a collection of revolutionary Chinese writer Lu Xun’s most famous and most important short stories. Featuring…
“A Madman’s Diary,” a scathing attack of traditional Confucian civilization and “The True Story of Ah Q,” a poignant satire about the hypocrisy of Chinese national character and the first work written entirely in the Chinese vernacular. Together this collection exposes a contradictory legacy of cosmopolitan independence, polemical fractiousness, and anxious patriotism that continues to resonate in Chinese intellectual life today.By Clare Chambers. 2020
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021'A WORD-OF-MOUTH HIT' Evening Standard 'A very fine book... It's witty and sharp…
and reads like something by Barbara Pym or Anita Brookner, without ever feeling like a pastiche'David Nicholls'Perfect'India Knight 'Beautiful' Jessie Burton'Wonderful'Richard Osman 'Miraculous'Tracy Chevalier 'A wonderful novel. I loved it'Nina Stibbe 'Effortless to read, but every sentence lingers in the mind' Lissa Evans 'This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I honestly don't want you to be without it'Lucy Mangan'Gorgeous... If you're looking for something escapist and bittersweet, I could not recommend more' Pandora Sykes'Remarkable... Small Pleasures is no small pleasure'The Times'An irresistible novel - wry, perceptive and quietly devastating'Mail on Sunday'Chambers' eye for undemonstrative details achieves a Larkin-esque lucidity' Guardian'An almost flawlessly written tale of genuine, grown-up romantic anguish' The Sunday Times 1957, the suburbs of South East London. Jean Swinney is a journalist on a local paper, trapped in a life of duty and disappointment from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. As the investigation turns her quiet life inside out, Jean is suddenly given an unexpected chance at friendship, love and - possibly - happiness. But there will, inevitably, be a price to pay.Book of the Year for: The Times, Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, Daily Express, Metro, Spectator, Red Magazine and Good HousekeepingBy Lu Xun. 2001
Call to Arms is a collection of revolutionary Chinese writer Lu Xun’s most famous and most important short stories. Featuring…
“A Madman’s Diary,” a scathing attack of traditional Confucian civilization and “The True Story of Ah Q,” a poignant satire about the hypocrisy of Chinese national character and the first work written entirely in the Chinese vernacular. Together this collection exposes a contradictory legacy of cosmopolitan independence, polemical fractiousness, and anxious patriotism that continues to resonate in Chinese intellectual life today.By Antonia Arslan. 2006
"[...] En racontant l'histoire de son grand-oncle Sempad et de sa famille pendant le génocide arménien, Antonia Arslan écrit la…
chronique passionnante d'une des plus grandes tragédies du XXe siècle. Porté par une langue chatoyante qui rend hommage à la littérature populaire arménienne, un livre pudique, intense et émouvant. -- 4e de couvBy Avner Mandelman. 2005
Nine stories about the Israeli experience. In "Terror" a father beats the son who fails to stand up for his…
five-year-old brother, thus instilling the precept that, right or wrong, family comes first, even before justice or fear. Strong language and some violence. Sophie Brody Medal. 2005By Tahira Naqvi, Ismat Chughtai. 1995
In India's colonial past, in a time of political and social revolution, Ismat Chughtai masterfully unfolds her magna opus, The…
Crooked Line: the semi-autobiographical tale of a fiery-spirited, middle-class Muslim girl bent on exploring the shape and nature of consuming desire. Writing with the same honesty and passion as her scandalous short-story, "The Quilt," Chughtai exposes the complex relationships developed between women living and working in relative seclusion, and the intellectual and emotional contradictions lying in the heart of a rebellious country on the brink of independence from the British Raj and ultimately Partition.By Joe Meno. 2015
"Evoking William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, Meno's suspenseful, mordantly incisive, many-layered tale can also be read as an equine Moby-Dick.…
As he tracks the bewildering seismic shifts under way in America, Meno celebrates everyday marvels, including the hard-proven love between grandfather and grandson."--Booklist, Starred review"Faulkner-ian epic for the contemporary age....[Meno] draws on the grave themes and austere styles of writers like Cormac McCarthy and Daniel Woodrell to offer a mix of biblical allegories, tinder-dry prose, and noble characters trying to survive in a wretched world....The novel's prose is marvelous is its spare, convincing grit while the story's themes of family, redemption, sacrifice, and faith echo the plays of Sam Shepard at times....A grandiose, atmospheric portrait of Middle America in all its damaged glory."--Kirkus Reviews"The latest by Meno is a compelling mash-up of magic and the absurd with the grittiness of a world inhabited by punks, thieves, and losers, as a grandfather and his grandson take a road trip through 1990s rural America in search of their stolen horse....This is a provocative reflection on the lives of the disenfranchised in the waning days of the 20th century, with a bittersweet resolution that will resonate with readers."--Publishers Weekly"Winner of the Discover Great New Writers Award and the Nelson Algren Award, among other honors, Meno can be entertainingly outré. This story of a man and his grandfather hunting for their stolen horse is also affecting."--Library Journal, Barbara Hoffert's Prepub Alert"Marvel and a Wonder is such a tender love story. The love of an irascible grandfather for his baffling grandson; the love for a mysterious horse; the love for a country that no longer seems to love us back. Joe Meno writes with poise and wit and stunning amounts of empathy. What a beautiful story. What a lovely book."--Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver"Both sprawling and intimate, Marvel and a Wonder is a vivid portrait of Heartland America, and infuses its array of characters with humor, empathy, and insight. I've long been an admirer of Joe Meno's work, and this is his most ambitious book yet."--Dan Chaon, author of Await Your ReplyPraise for Joe Meno:"A beguiling and slyly disquieting storyteller...Meno transforms wintery Chicago into a wondrous crystallization of countless dreams and tragedies, while telling the stories of two derailed young artists...poignant and funny."--Kansas City Star on Office Girl"The wisest, most humane and transcendent novel on the contemporary family since The Corrections...A marvelous book."--Irvine Welsh on The Great PerhapsMarvel and a Wonder is a darkly mesmerizing epic and literary page-turner set at the end of the twentieth century. In summer 1995, Jim Falls, a Korean War vet, struggles to raise his sixteen-year-old grandson, Quentin, on a farm in southern Indiana. In July, they receive a mysterious gift--a beautiful quarter horse--which upends the balance of their difficult lives. The horse's appearance catches the attention of a pair of troubled, meth-dealing brothers and, after a violent altercation, the horse is stolen and sold. Grandfather and grandson must travel the landscape of the bleak heartland to reclaim the animal and to confront the ruthless party that has taken possession of it. Along the way, both will be forced to face the misperceptions and tragedies of their past.Evoking the writing of William Faulkner and Denis Johnson, this brilliant, deeply moving work explores the harrowing, often beautiful marvels of a nation challenged by its own beliefs. Ambitious, expansive, and laden with suspense, Marvel and a Wonder presents an unforgettable pair of protagonists at the beginning of one America and the end of another.By Salar Abdoh. 2014
"Abdoh paints a gripping portrait of a nation awash in violence and crippled by corruption....Captivating."--Publishers WeeklyIncluded Library Journal's "Books That…
Buzzed at BEA" Roundup, the first word on titles and trends from Barbara Hoffert, EditorIncluded in Publishers Weekly's Fall Preview (Literary Fiction)"Abdoh deftly captures the uneasy atmosphere of 2008 Tehran, swirling with betrayal and corruption."--Library Journal, Books for the Masses/Editors' Picks BEA 2014"Tehran at Twilight is a remarkable meditation on violence, and on all the ways one bears witness to pain...At the center lies the story of two friends whose paths have diverged, and of love restored between a mother and a son. A smart, eloquent novel."--Dalia Sofer, author of The Septembers of Shiraz"Connecting the dots of the shadow lives of Iranian, American, and Iranian American double and triple agents, and their double and triple stories in Iran and Manhattan, Baghdad and Berkeley, Abdoh also tells a tale of mothers and sons, using espionage for infrared insight into concealed identities. The startling truth embedded in this tight novel: We Are All Iranians."--Brad Gooch, author of City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara"Tehran--bloated, capricious, corrupt, and with its various secret police agencies competing against one another--becomes a ripe setting for this roman noir...Move over Scandinavia: there's a new kid on the noir block."--Hooman Majd, author of The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay"A smart political thriller for our modern times."--Laila Lalami, author of Secret SonThe year is 2008. Reza Malek's life is modest but manageable--he lives in a small apartment in Harlem, teaches "creative reportage" at a local university, and is relieved to be far from the blood and turmoil of Iraq and Afghanistan where he worked as a reporter, interpreter, and sometime lover for a superstar journalist who has long since moved on to more remarkable men.After a terse phone call from his best friend in Iran, Sina Vafa, Reza reluctantly returns to Tehran. Once there, he finds far more than he bargained for: the city is on the edge of revolution; his friend Sina is embroiled with Shia militants; his missing mother, who was alleged to have run off with a lover before the revolution, is alive and well--while his own life is in danger.Against a backdrop of corrupt clerics, shady fixers, political repression, and the ever-present threat of violence, Abdoh offers a telling glimpse into contemporary Tehran, and spins a compelling morality tale of identity and exile, the bonds of friendship, and the limits of loyalty.By Kaylie Jones. 2015
"Kaylie Jones's striking novel...quivers with tension from the opening page...[A] lovely, finely plotted novel, which highlights colorful San Miguel and…
the complexities of family, loyalty and honesty. The Anger Meridian is at once a suspenseful mystery and a superlatively gripping story of self-discovery."--Shelf Awareness, Starred review"Jones...has written a compulsively readable novel about a woman who manages to come into her own. With engaging characters, a compelling story, and a seductive sense of place, this is a literary treat."--Booklist"Jones creates a seething portrait of a narcissistic mother in this story of an adult daughter's attempt to reconcile the appearance of her prosperous and successful family with the harsh reality of a life built on a series of lies....Jones keeps the action churning...but perhaps the novel's greatest feat is Bibi, an all-too-real toxic monster of a mother."--Publishers Weekly"A fast-paced story of a woman who only stops lying to others once she stops lying to herself."--Kirkus Reviews"The plot twists in this latest from Jones are intriguing....For readers looking for a lightweight novel for the beach...this book is the prescription."--Library Journal"The Anger Meridian opens with high drama...The novel...maintains a lovely sense of place and character. There is a psychological depth to the story, especially in regards to a keen focus on mother and daughter relationships. Underlying this is a compelling mystery and a sense of tension that will keep readers moving fast through the story."--KQED, "Beach Reads for Rebels: 5 Alternatives to the Average Summer Thriller""There's more to the story at every level here, however, and that is the brilliance of Kaylie Jones's writing....This fascinating novel bases its mystery not so much on unfolding events, although these are well paced, but instead on how a person can live a life parallel to the truth, based on an ever-shifting set of lies and misrepresentations. There's real danger is remaking the truth to avoid conflict, and that is never more apparent than in this well crafted book."--Reviewing the Evidence"Must-read....Intriguing characters, complex twists, and a definite page turner."--Chicago Now, Top 5 Books of 2015Merryn Huntley is rudely awakened to the many bad decisions she has made in her life when she is told by two Dallas police officers that her wealthy husband Beau has been killed in a car accident, along with a local waitress. Merryn's first instinct is to flee in order to protect her nine-year-old daughter, and the only place that feels safe enough is her mother's beautiful, isolated home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.Merryn's mother, the redoubtable Bibi, always said to her as a child, When you tell a lie, make sure you keep it as close to the truth as possible, because it will be easier to remember. Ironically, from the moment Merryn arrives, she is forced into twisting the truth--about how much she knew of her husband and his shady business affairs; about her own secret lovers; and most importantly, that she is beginning to doubt the one person who has always been the greatest influence in her life: her mother.The situation worsens when two FBI agents show up and begin to ask Merryn questions about her husband's business, which only intensifies her need to continue lying. While Merryn's perfect life begins to crumble around her, she must decide whether or not she can face the most painful reality of all--that she has been lying to herself her entire life.By Hazel Barkworth. 2020
DO YOU REMEMBER THE SUMMER THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING? 'A thrilling look at mothers and daughters, adolescence, sex, suburbia and secrets'…
NELL FRIZZELL 'Unsettling, challenging and utterly immersive' CLARE MACKINTOSH'A sultry, stifling debut exploring power, consent and womanhood' COSMOPOLITAN --- Rachel and her daughter have never had secrets. Until now.Lily is somewhere she shouldn't be. With someone she shouldn't be with.Mia misses her best friend. But she let her down.In the middle of a stifling heatwave, Rachel, Lily and Mia stand on the edge of irrevocable change. Soon, just one burning question will remain... how could they let things go this far?A provocative debut novel for fans of My Dark Vanessa, The Push by Ashley Audrain and Megan Nolan's Acts of Desperation.--- 'Barkworth is excruciatingly good' OBSERVER'I am addicted... dark and twisty with beautiful, poetic writing' EMMA GANNON 'Gripping and intensely atmospheric... you won't want to put this down' HEAT magazine's READ OF THE WEEK 'Stylish and sensual' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE 'Twists, turns and revelations in all the right places' EVENING STANDARD'A stunning new voice... I couldn't tear myself away' ERIN KELLY 'Sexy and provocative' LAURA JANE WILLIAMS 'Pulls you into its sweaty interior and keeps you gripped' RENEE KNIGHT 'Compulsive, sticky and full of gorgeous writing' KIRSTIN INNES 'Read next if you loved Three Women by Lisa Taddeo' WHISTLESnewsletterBy Hazel Barkworth. 2020
DO YOU REMEMBER THE SUMMER THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING? 'A thrilling look at mothers and daughters, adolescence, sex, suburbia and secrets'…
NELL FRIZZELL 'Unsettling, challenging and utterly immersive' CLARE MACKINTOSH'A sultry, stifling debut exploring power, consent and womanhood' COSMOPOLITAN --- Rachel and her daughter have never had secrets. Until now.Lily is somewhere she shouldn't be. With someone she shouldn't be with.Mia misses her best friend. But she let her down.In the middle of a stifling heatwave, Rachel, Lily and Mia stand on the edge of irrevocable change. Soon, just one burning question will remain... how could they let things go this far? A provocative debut novel for fans of My Dark Vanessa, The Push by Ashley Audrain and Megan Nolan's Acts of Desperation. --- 'Barkworth is excruciatingly good' OBSERVER'I am addicted... dark and twisty with beautiful, poetic writing' EMMA GANNON 'Gripping and intensely atmospheric... you won't want to put this down' HEAT magazine's READ OF THE WEEK 'Stylish and sensual' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE 'Twists, turns and revelations in all the right places' EVENING STANDARD'A stunning new voice... I couldn't tear myself away' ERIN KELLY 'Sexy and provocative' LAURA JANE WILLIAMS 'Pulls you into its sweaty interior and keeps you gripped' RENEE KNIGHT 'Compulsive, sticky and full of gorgeous writing' KIRSTIN INNES 'Read next if you loved Three Women by Lisa Taddeo' WHISTLES newsletterBy Max Porter. 2015
Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar--a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden,…
accidental death. And there are his two sons who like him struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness, while the boys wander, savage and unsupervised.In this moment of violent despair they are visited by Crow--antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and babysitter. This self-described "sentimental bird," at once wild and tender, who "finds humans dull except in grief," threatens to stay with the wounded family until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss lessens with the balm of memories, Crow's efforts are rewarded and the little unit of three begins to recover: Dad resumes his book about the poet Ted Hughes; the boys get on with it, grow up.Part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's extraordinary debut combines compassion and bravura style to dazzling effect. Full of angular wit and profound truths, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is a startlingly original and haunting debut by a significant new talent.By Ali Bachtyar. 2022
An extraordinary chronicle of war and an occult story of love between a father and his son from one of…
Iraq&’s most celebrated contemporary writers&“Whenever he told lies, the birds would fly away. It had been that way since he was a child. Whenever he told a lie, something strange would happen.&” So begins Bachtyar Ali&’s The Last Pomegranate, a phantasmagoric warren of fact, fabrication, and mystical allegory, set in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein&’s rule and Iraq&’s Kurdish conflict. Muzafar-i Subhdam, a peshmerga fighter, has spent the last twenty-one years imprisoned in a desert yearning for his son, Saryas, who was only a few days old when Muzafar was captured. Upon his release, Muzafar begins a frantic search, only to learn that Saryas was one of three identical boys who became enmeshed in each other&’s lives as war mutilated the region. An inlet to the recesses of a terrifying historical moment, and a philosophical journey of formidable depths, The Last Pomegranate interrogates the origins and reverberations of atrocity. It also probes, with a graceful intelligence, unforgettable acts of mercy.By Sarah Jio.
A haunting story of love, family and the secrets that can destroy us... 1933. Vera Ray kisses her young son…
goodnight and leaves to work the night-shift at a local hotel. The next morning, she discovers an sudden snowfall has blanketed the city, and her son has vanished, the snow covering up any trace of his tracks, or the perpetrator's.2010. Journalist Claire Aldridge has been burying herself in work to avoid her own pain. When she is assigned to cover the 'blackberry winter' storm she learns of the disappearance of a three-year-old boy. He was never found. Claire vows to find the truth, but as she immerses herself in the mysteries of the past, Claire discovers that not all secrets should be revealed.By Tiffany McDaniel.
'NOT A STORY YOU WILL SOON FORGET' Karen Joy Fowler, author of Man Booker Prize finalist We Are All Completely…
Beside Ourselves'A girl comes of age against the knife.' So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence - both from outside the family and also, devastatingly, from within. When her family's darkest secrets are brought to light, Betty has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.Despite the hardship she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all she bears witness to, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write.A heartbreaking yet magical story, Betty is a punch-in-the-gut of a novel - full of the crushing cruelty of human nature and the redemptive power of words.By Marianne Fredriksson. 2001
Katarina Elg is young and free. She adores falling in love, but lasting closeness frightens her and she cannot accept…
being tied down. Independence is more precious than anything else. Then she becomes pregnant and decides, surprisingly perhaps, to keep the baby. Her mother, Elisabeth, is supportive, but her lover reacts violently, believing that the pregnancy is no accident. Is violence inherited, Katarina wonders, and if so, can it be inherited among victims as well as perpetrators? These thoughts lead her to approach her mother, and the two women open up to each other as the past is confronted and explored.By Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, Avril Pyman. 1991
Classic nineteenth-century Russian novel portraying the conflicting points of view of two generations. The protagonist, Bazarov, is a young, radical…
intellectual who tries in vain to convert his aristocratic father and his friend's uncle to his theories of a new social orderBy Hazel Barkworth. 2020
'Barkworth is excruciatingly good... An impressive first book' OBSERVER'A sultry, stifling debut exploring power, consent and womanhood' COSMOPOLITAN'The evocative one'…
HEAT magazine's READ OF THE WEEK'Read next if you loved Three Women by Lisa Taddeo' WHISTLES newsletter---Do you remember the summer that changed everything?Rachel and her daughter never had secrets. Until now.Lily is somewhere she shouldn't be. With someone she shouldn't be with.Mia misses her best friend. But she let her down.In the middle of a stifling heatwave, the three of them stand on the edge of irrevocable change. By the end, one burning question will remain... how could she let things go this far?FOR FANS OF ZOE HELLER, EMMA CLINE, EXPECTATION AND MY DARK VANESSA.---'I wanted to stay within its pages forever' CLARE MACKINTOSH'Stylish and sensual' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE'A thrilling look at mothers and daughters, adolescence, sex, suburbia and secrets' NELL FRIZZELL'I am addicted... dark and twisty with beautiful, poetic writing' EMMA GANNON'Sexy and provocative' LAURA JANE WILLIAMS'Pulls you into its sweaty interior and keeps you gripped' RENEE KNIGHT'I couldn't tear myself away' ERIN KELLY'Compulsive, sticky and full of gorgeous writing' KIRSTIN INNES'Gripping and intensely atmospheric... you won't want to put this down' HEAT'A summer sizzler... with twists, turns and revelations in all the right places' EVENING STANDARD(P)2020 Headline Publishing Group LtdBy Shubhangi Swarup. 2020
* The phenomenal Indian bestseller * Winner of the Tata Lit Live Best First Book of the Year Award *'Intense,…
lyrical, and powerful. This is a remarkable debut' Jeet Thayil, author of Narcopolis and The Book of Chocolate SaintsIn the feverish tropics of the Andaman Islands, a young botanist tends to a fragile rose he has imported to welcome his bride. Hoping their marriage will bloom in this strange life, hundreds of miles from the east coast of India, he is entranced by Chanda Devi's fierce nature and unusual gifts; speaking to trees and the ghosts of former colonialists. These islands, she tells her adoring husband, rest on a faultline, cracked so deep into the earth that spirits cross the boundary freely. But it is not this fracture that takes a tragic bite out of their happiness.With the family riven by heartbreak, their maid takes the chance to resolve her own past mistakes. Having abandoned her son many years before, she now traces him to Myanmar, only to find him in prison - the enemy of a brutal regime. The faultline she followed over the Indian Ocean now cuts north into Nepal, where the prisoner's ally, an itinerant drug dealer, tries to rescue a young woman from the dancing bars of Kathmandu. It shadows his footsteps into the Karakorum mountains, where a scientist looks deep into the abyss between India and Pakistan. It rises all the way to the snow deserts, beyond the reach of nation or war, where an elder of the village waits for the return of his true love, bringing all their journeys full circle.A breathtaking epic, Latitudes of Longing possesses the reader with a blazing sense of wonder. Shubhangi Swarup's vision goes deeper than the human stories of the subcontinent to reveal the conscious history of the earth itself. Tender in every detail, touched with humour and profound, this is a novel brimming with life, an original masterpiece.(P)2020 Quercus Editions Limited