books
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All the Lovers in the Night
Mieko Kawakami · 2023
From literary sensation and International Booker Prize-shortlisted author Mieko Kawakami, the bestelling author of Breasts and Eggs and Heaven comes All the Lovers in the Night, an extraordinary, deeply moving and insightful story set in contemporary Tokyo.<br/><br/>Fuyuko Irie is a freelance proofreader in her thirties. Living alone in an overwhelming city and unable to form meaningful relationships, she has little contact with anyone other than her colleague, Hijiri. But a chance encounter with a man named Mitsutsuka awakens something new in her. Through their weekly meetings, Fuyuko starts to see the world in a different light and still, painful memories from her past begin to resurface. As Fuyuko realizes she exists in a small world of her own making she begins to push at her own boundaries. But will she find the strength to bring down the walls that surround her?<br/><br/>Pulsing and poetic, modern and shocking, this is an unforgettable novel from Japan’s most exciting writer.
First Love
Ivan Turgenev · 2020
The Penelopiad
Margaret Atwood · 2014
The Last Temptation of Christ
Nikos Kazantzakis · 2012
The internationally renowned novel about the life and death of Jesus Christ. Hailed as a masterpiece by critics worldwide, The Last Temptation of Christ is a monumental reinterpretation of the Gospels that brilliantly fleshes out Christ’s Passion. This literary rendering of the life of Jesus Christ has courted controversy since its publication by depicting a Christ far more human than the one seen in the Bible. He is a figure who is gloriously divine but earthy and human, a man like any other—subject to fear, doubt, and pain. In elegant, thoughtful prose Nikos Kazantzakis, one of the greats of modern literature, follows this Jesus as he struggles to live out God’s will for him, powerfully suggesting that it was Christ’s ultimate triumph over his flawed humanity, when he gave up the temptation to run from the cross and willingly laid down his life for mankind, that truly made him the venerable redeemer of men. “Spiritual dynamite.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A searing, soaring, shocking novel.” —Time
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation (Ray Bradbury Graphic Novels)
Tim Hamilton · 2009
Kitchen
Banana Yoshimoto · 2015
<p>The acclaimed debut of Japan's "master storyteller" ( Chicago Tribune ). With the publication of Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, the literary world realized that Banana Yoshimoto was a young writer of enduring talent whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart. In a whimsical style that recalls the early Marguerite Duras, Kitchen and its companion story, Moonlight Shadow, are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a very special writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul. "Lucid, earnest and disarming... [It] seizes hold of the reader's sympathy and refuses to let go." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times<br></p>
Schoolgirl (Modern Japanese Classics)
Osamu Dazai · 2011
Essentially the start of Dazai's career, Schoolgirl gained notoriety for its ironic and inventive use of language. Now it illuminates the prevalent social structures of a lost time, as well as the struggle of the individual against them–a theme that occupied Dazai's life both personally and professionally. This new translation preserves the playful language of the original and offers the reader a new window into the mind of one of the greatest Japanese authors of the 20th century.
The Odyssey
Homer
The Odyssey, translated by T. E. Lawrence, an epic 12,000-line poem composed over 2,700 years ago, is the first adventure story in Western literature. It describes the ten-year wanderings of Odysseus in his quest to return home after the Trojan War. Hounded by the sea-god Poseidon and championed by the goddess Athene, he encounters giants, sorceresses, and sea monsters before finally reaching his beloved Ithaca. There he must endure the taunts of the Suitors to his queen, Penelope, who have taken up residence in his palace. At once enchanting fairy tale and gripping drama, the Odyssey is eminently readable, not least for the rich complexity and magnetism of its hero. An inspiration to writers as diverse as Virgil, Swift, and Joyce, the Odyssey has proved enormously influential and continues to captivate readers of all ages.
Child of Fortune
Yuko Tsushima · 2018
'a Terrific Novel' Angela Carter Koko Won't Do What Is Expected Of Her. Defying Her Family's Wishes, She Has Brought Up Her Eleven-year-old Daughter Alone In Her Apartment. And Now, After A Casual Affair, She Is Unexpectedly Pregnant Again. What Will This Mean For Her Already Troubled Relationship With Her Daughter? As She Faces The Future, Memories Of Her Own Childhood Loss Flood Into Her Consciousness, Threatening To Overwhelm Her. Combining The Beauty And Unease Of A Dream, This Haunting Novel Is An Unflinching Portrayal Of A Woman's Innermost Fears And Desires. 'as Relevant Today As When It Was Published ... At Once Powerfully Uplifting And Achingly Sad' Japan Times
Ru
Kim Thy · 2012
The Guest Cat
Takashi Hiraide · 2014
The Emissary
Yoko Tawada · 2018
The Premonition
Banana Yoshimoto · 2024
The Hole
Hiroko Oyamada · 2020
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, The Hole is by turns reminiscent of Lewis Carroll, David Lynch, and My Neighbor Totoro, but is singularly unsettling Asa’s husband is transferring jobs, and his new office is located near his family’s home in the countryside. During an exceptionally hot summer, the young married couple move in, and Asa does her best to quickly adjust to their new rural lives, to their remoteness, to the constant presence of her in-laws and the incessant buzz of cicadas. While her husband is consumed with his job, Asa is left to explore her surroundings on her own: she makes trips to the supermarket, halfheartedly looks for work, and tries to find interesting ways of killing time.<br/>One day, while running an errand for her mother-in-law, she comes across a strange creature, follows it to the embankment of a river, and ends up falling into a hole―a hole that seems to have been made specifically for her. This is the first in a series of bizarre experiences that drive Asa deeper into the mysteries of this rural landscape filled with eccentric characters and unidentifiable creatures, leading her to question her role in this world, and eventually, her sanity.
Parade: A Folktale
Hiromi Kawakami · 2019
"A parable about memory, mythic characters, and confessional regrets . . . An ethereal, resonating literary gift" (Booklist, starred review) from the internationally bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo. "On a summer afternoon, Tsukiko and her former high school teacher have prepared and eaten somen noodles together. “Tell me a story from long ago,” Sensei says. “I wasn’t alive long ago,” Tsukiko says, “but should I tell you a story from when I was little?” “Please do,” Sensei replies, and so Tsukiko tells him that, when she was a child, she awakened one day to find something with a pale red face and something with a dark red face in her room, arguing with each other. They had human bodies, long noses, and wings. They were tengu, creatures that appear in Japanese folktales. The tengu attach themselves to Tsukiko and begin to follow her everywhere. Where did they come from and why are they here? And what other invisible and unacknowledged forces are acting upon Tsukiko’s seemingly peaceful world?"
The Flowers of Buffoonery
Osamu Dazai · 2023
For the first time in English, Osamu Dazai’s hilariously comic and deeply moving prequel to No Longer Human<br/>The Flowers of Buffoonery opens in a seaside sanitarium where Yozo Oba―the narrator of No Longer Human at a younger age―is being kept after a failed suicide attempt. While he is convalescing, his friends and family visit him, and other patients and nurses drift in and out of his room. Against this dispiriting backdrop, everyone tries to maintain a lighthearted, even clownish atmosphere: playing cards, smoking cigarettes, vying for attention, cracking jokes, and trying to make each other laugh.<br/>While No Longer Human delves into the darkest corners of human consciousness, The Flowers of Buffoonery pokes fun at these same emotions: the follies and hardships of youth, of love, and of self-hatred and depression. A glimpse into the lives of a group of outsiders in prewar Japan, The Flowers of Buffoonery is a darkly humorous and fresh addition to Osamu Dazai’s masterful and intoxicating oeuvre.
Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel (Modern Library 100 Best Novels)
Kurt Vonnegut · 1999
Slaughterhouse-Five is a satirical novel by Kurt Vonnegut about World War II experiences and journeys through time of a chaplain's assistant named Billy Pilgrim. It is generally recognized as Vonnegut's most influential and popular work. Vonnegut's use of the firebombing of Dresden as a central event makes the novel semi-autobiographical, because he was present then.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Patrick Suskind · 2001
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Set in eighteenth-century France, the classic novel that provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.<br/><br/>In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.<br/><br/>Translated from the German by John E. Woods.
Letters to a Young Poet
Rainer Maria Rilke · 2018
<p>Facsimile of 1943 Edition. Born in 1875, the great German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898 and went on to become renowned for his delicate depiction of the workings of the human heart. Drawn by some sympathetic note in his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young, would-be poet on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. Those letters, ten in all, remain a fresh source of inspiration and insight to the poetic sensibility to this day.</p>
Bonjour Tristesse: A Novel
Francoise Sagan · 2008
A sensational 1954 French novel that has become a contemporary classic<br/>Set against the translucent beauty of France in summer, Bonjour Tristesse is a bittersweet tale narrated by Cecile, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood, whose meddling in her father's love life leads to tragic consequences.<br/>Endearing, self-absorbed, seventeen-year-old Cécile is the very essence of untroubled amorality. Freed from the stifling constraints of boarding school, she joins her father—a handsome, still-young widower with a wandering eye—for a carefree, two-month summer vacation in a beautiful villa outside of Paris with his latest mistress. Cécile cherishes the free-spirited moments she and her father share, while plotting her own sexual adventures with a "tall and almost beautiful" law student. But the arrival of her late mother's best friend intrudes upon a young girl's pleasures. And when a relationship begins to develop between the adults, Cécile and her lover set in motion a plan to keep them apart...with tragic, unexpected consequences.<br/>The internationally beloved story of a precocious teenager's attempts to understand and control the world around her, Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse is a beautifully composed, wonderfully ambiguous celebration of sexual liberation, at once sympathetic and powerfully unsparing.<br/>This special Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Diane Johnson and a P.S. section with additional insights about the book and author.
Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett · 1994
Paradise Rot: A Novel
Jenny Hval · 2018
"As intriguing and impressive a novelist as she is a musician, Hval is a master of quiet horror and wonder.”<br/>—Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick<br/><br/>A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imagery<br/><br/>Jo is in a strange new country for university and having a more peculiar time than most. In a house with no walls, shared with a woman who has no boundaries, she finds her strange home coming to life in unimaginable ways. Jo’s sensitivity and all her senses become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh.This debut novel from critically acclaimed artist and musician Jenny Hval presents a heady and hyper-sensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire.
Dogs of Summer: A Novel
Andrea Abreu · 2022
"[A] firecracker of a debut."<br/>—The New York Times<br/><br/>"Andrea Abreu’s debut novel about two girls in the summer heat of Tenerife is perfect for these dog days."<br/>—Shreya Chattopadhyay, The New York Times Book Review<br/><br/>My Brilliant Friend meets Blue is the Warmest Color in this lyrical debut novel set in a working-class neighborhood of the Canary Islands—a story about two girls coming of age in the early aughts and a friendship that simmers into erotic desire over the course of one hot summer.<br/><br/>High near the volcano of northern Tenerife, an endless ceiling of cloud cover traps the working class in an abject, oppressive heat. Far away from the island’s posh resorts, two girls dream of hitching a ride down to the beach and escaping their horizonless town.<br/><br/>It’s summer, 2005, and our ten-year-old narrator is consumed by thoughts of her best friend Isora. Isora is rude and bossy, but she’s also vivacious and brave; grownups prefer her, and boys do, too. That's why sometimes she gets jealous of Isora, who already has hair on her vagina and soft, round breasts. But she's definitely not jealous that Isora’s mother is dead, nor that Isora's fat, foul-mouthed grandmother has her on a diet, so that she is constantly sticking her fingers down her throat. Besides, she would do anything for Isora: gorge herself on cakes when her friend wants to watch, follow her to the bathroom when she takes a shit, log into chat rooms to swap dirty instant messages with strangers. But increasingly, our narrator finds it hard to keep up with Isora, who seems to be growing up at full tilt without her—and as her submissiveness veers into a painful sexual awakening, desire grows indistinguishable from intimate violence.<br/><br/>Braiding prose poetry with bachata lyrics and the gritty humor of Canary dialect, Dogs of Summer is a story of exquisite yearning, a brutal picture of girlhood and a love song written for the vital community it portrays.
Gigi, and The Cat
COLETTE · 2001
Light wear to the covers. Orders received by 3pm Sent from the UK that weekday.
A Room Of Ones Own
Virginia Woolf · 2019
Heart of a Dog
Mikhail Bulgakov · 1994
I first read Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita on a balcony of the Hotel Metropole in Saigon on three summer evenings in 1971. The tropical air was heavy and full of the smells of cordite and motorcycle exhaust and rotting fish and wood-fire stoves, and the horizon flared ambiguously, perhaps from heat lightning, perhaps from bombs. Later each night, as was my custom, I would wander out into the steamy back alleys of the city, where no one ever seemed to sleep, and crouch in doorways with the people and listen to the stories of their culture and their ancestors and their ongoing lives. Bulgakov taught me to hear something in those stories that I had not yet clearly heard. One could call it, in terms that would soon thereafter gain wide currency, "magical realism". The deadpan mix of the fantastic and the realistic was at the heart of the Vietnamese mythos. It is at the heart of the present zeitgeist. And it was not invented by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as wonderful as his One Hundred Years of Solitude is. Garcia Marquez's landmark work of magical realism was predated by nearly three decades by Bulgakov's brilliant masterpiece of a novel. That summer in Saigon a vodka-swilling, talking black cat, a coven of beautiful naked witches, Pontius Pilate, and a whole cast of benighted writers of Stalinist Moscow and Satan himself all took up permanent residence in my creative unconscious. Their presence, perhaps more than anything else from the realm of literature, has helped shape the work I am most proud of. I'm often asked for a list of favorite authors. Here is my advice. Read Bulgakov. Look around you at the new century. He will show you things you need to see.
The Stranger
Albert Camus · 2012
With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The Stranger—Camus's masterpiece—gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. With an Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie; translated by Matthew Ward. Behind the subterfuge, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life. “The Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Ward’s translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camus’s stoical anti-hero and devious narrator remains one of the key expressions of a postwar Western malaise, and one of the cleverest exponents of a literature of ambiguity.” —from the Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.
Heaven: A Novel
Mieko Kawakami · 2021
“A raw, tender portrait of adolescent misery, reminiscent of Elena Ferrante’s fiction.” —NPR From the bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs, a sharp and illuminating novel about the impact of violence and the power of solidarity. Tormented by his peers because of his lazy eye, Kawakami’s protagonist suffers in silence. His only respite comes thanks to his friendship with a girl who is also the victim of relentless teasing. But what is the nature of a friendship if your shared bond is terror? Unflinching yet tender, intimate and multi-layered, Heaven is yet another dazzling testament to Kawakami’s uncontainable talent. “An argument in favor of meaning, of beauty, of life.” —The New York Times Book Review “If you enjoyed Mieko Kawakami’s brilliant Breasts and Eggs, you’re certain to be astonished by her latest novel exploring violence and bullying with fierce, feminist and damning candor.” —Ms. Magazine “This is the real magic of Heaven, which shows us how to think about morality as an ongoing, dramatic activity. It can be maddening and ruinous and isolating. But it can also be shared, enlivened . . . and momentarily redeemed through unheroic acts of solidarity.” —The New Yorker “Quietly devastating.” —TIME Magazine “Keen psychological insight, brilliant sensitivity, and compassionate understanding.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Raw and eloquent. . . . An unexpected classic.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “An incredible literary talent.” —Booklist, starred review “Kawakami writes with jagged, visceral beauty.” —Oprah Daily “Kawakami never lets us settle comfortably, which is a testament to her storytelling power.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “One of Japan’s brightest stars.” —Japan Times
Lie with Me
Philippe Besson · 2020
“I remember the movement of his hips pressing against the pinball machine. This one sentence had me in its grip until the end. Two young men find each other, always fearing that life itself might be the villain standing in their way. A stunning and heart-gripping tale.” —André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name<br/><br/>A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice<br/><br/>The critically acclaimed, internationally beloved novel by Philippe Besson—“this year’s Call Me By Your Name” (Vulture) with raves in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal,NPR, Vanity Fair, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Out—about an affair between two teenage boys in 1984 France, translated with subtle beauty and haunting lyricism by the iconic and internationally acclaimed actress and writer Molly Ringwald.<br/><br/>In this “sexy, pure, and radiant story” (Out), Philippe chances upon a young man outside a hotel in Bordeaux who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Thomas is the son of a farmer; Philippe the son of a school principal. At school, they don’t acknowledge each other. But they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.<br/><br/>Despite the intensity of their attraction, from the beginning Thomas knows how it will end: “Because you will leave and we will stay,” he says. Philippe becomes a writer and travels the world, though as this “tender, sensuous novel” (The New York Times Book Review) shows, he never lets go of the relationship that shaped him, and every story he’s ever told.<br/><br/>“Beautifully translated by Ringwald” (NPR), this is “Philippe Besson’s book of a lifetime...an elegiac tale of first, hidden love” (The New Yorker).
Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast (Penguin Little Black Classics)
Oscar Wilde · 2016
Wilde's celebrated witticisms on the dangers of sincerity, duplicitous biographers, the stupidity of the English - and his own genius.<br/><br/>'It would be unfair to expect other people to be as remarkable as oneself'.<br/>- Oscar Wilde
Battle Royale
Koushun Takami · 2017
En la República del Gran Oriente Asiático está prohibido el rock, esa música decadente. Los jóvenes crecen en un estado totalitario y controlador que promueve la competitividad. Como medida de control de rebeliones, la administración pone en marcha el Programa: cada año, 50 clases de distintos institutos son elegidas para luchar a muerte en la BATTLE ROYALE.<br/>Los alumnos elegidos son aislados en una isla. Las normas del juego son estrictas: no pueden escapar, no pueden contactar con el exterior, y solo puede quedar uno.<br/>Todo está permitido para sobrevivir.<br/>Empieza el juego.<br/>Empieza BATTLE ROYALE.<br/><br/>Todos los alumnos de los institutos de la República del Gran Oriente Asiático sabían qué era aquello del Programa. Incluso se hablaba de todo aquello en los libros de texto a partir de cuarto. En la Enciclopedia Manual de la República del Gran Oriente Asiático había una entrada detallada en la que se explicaba todo.<br/>Programa. n. m. 1. Un listado con el orden de actividades y otras informaciones relativas [...] 4. Un programa de simulación bélica establecido y dirigido por nuestras fuerzas armadas, instituido por razones de seguridad. Oficialmente tiene el nombre de Programa de experimentación<br/>Bélica núm. 68. El primer programa se desarrolló en 1947. Cincuenta clases de tercer año de instituto son seleccionadas anualmente (antes de 1950 se seleccionaba a cuarenta y siete) para desarrollar el Programa con propósitos científi cos. Los alumnos de cada promoción están obligados a luchar unos contra otros hasta que solo quede un superviviente. Los resultados de este experimento, incluido el tiempo invertido, se consignan debidamente. Al superviviente final de cada promoción (el ganador) se le concede una pensión vitalicia y una tarjeta autografiada por el Gran Dictador. Como respuesta a las protestas y algaradas causadas por los extremistas durante el primer año de esta institución, el 317.º Gran Dictador pronunció su famoso «discurso de Abril».
The Memory Police: A Novel
Yoko Ogawa · 2020
Finalist for the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award<br/><br/>A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.<br/><br/>On an unnamed island, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses. . . . Most of the inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few able to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young writer discovers that her editor is in danger, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her f loorboards, and together they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past. Powerful and provocative, The Memory Police is a stunning novel about the trauma of loss.<br/><br/>ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR<br/>THE NEW YORK TIMES * THE WASHINGTON POST * TIME * CHICAGO TRIBUNE * THE GUARDIAN * ESQUIRE * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS * FINANCIAL TIMES * LIBRARY JOURNAL * THE A.V. CLUB * KIRKUS REVIEWS * LITERARY HUB<br/><br/>American Book Award winner
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess · 2011
One of Esquire's 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time “A brilliant novel.… [A] savage satire on the distortions of the single and collective minds.”—New York Times In Anthony Burgess’s influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends’ intense reaction against their society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess’s introduction, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”
1984
George Orwell · 1961
<b>Written more than 70 years ago, <i>1984</i> was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...<br><br><b>• Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s <i>The Great American Read •</i></b><br></b><br>“<i>The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.</i>”<br><br>Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can’t escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...<br><br>A startling and haunting novel, <i>1984</i> creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the novel’s hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions—a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood · 2011
An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. In this multi-award-winning, bestselling novel, Margaret Atwood has created a stunning Orwellian vision of the near future. This is the story of Offred, one of the unfortunate “Handmaids” under the new social order who have only one purpose: to breed. In Gilead, where women are prohibited from holding jobs, reading, and forming friendships, Offred’s persistent memories of life in the “time before” and her will to survive are acts of rebellion. Provocative, startling, prophetic, and with Margaret Atwood’s devastating irony, wit, and acute perceptive powers in full force, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once a mordant satire and a dire warning.
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro · 2006
<b>NOBEL PRIZE WINNER <b>•</b> From the acclaimed, bestselling author of <i>The Remains of the Day</i> comes “a Gothic tour de force" (<i>The New York Times</i>) with an extraordinary twist—a moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic.<br><br>One of <i>The New York Times</i>’s 10 Best Books of the 21st Century • A <i>Kirkus Reviews </i>Best Fiction Book of the Century • A <i>Los Angeles Times</i> Best Fiction Book of the Last 30 Years</b><br><br>As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. <br><br>Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.
Tender Is the Flesh
Agustina Bazterrica · 2020
<b>INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER</b><br> <br><b>Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore.</b><br><br>His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.<br> <br>Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.
I Who Have Never Known Men
Jacqueline Harpman · 2019
<p><b>SISTERHOOD. SECRETS. SURVIVAL.</b><br> <br> <b>Discover the haunting, heart-breaking post-apocalyptic TikTok sensation.</b><br> <br> Deep underground, thirty-nine women are kept in isolation in a cage. Above ground, a world awaits. Has it been abandoned? Devastated by a virus?<br> <br> Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before. But, as the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone an outcast in the corner.<br> <br> Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground. The woman who will never know men.<br> <br> <b>WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SOPHIE MACKINTOSH, BOOKER PRIZE-LONGLISTED AUTHOR OF THE <i>WATER CURE</i><br> <br> **<i>Orlanda</i>, the next sensation from Jacquline Harpman, is available now**</b></p>
People From My Neighbourhood
Hiromi Kawakami · 2020
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Joanne Greenberg · 2009
Waiting Period
Hubert Selby · 2013
Animal Farm
George Orwell · 1996
<b>George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire on a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism.<br><br>SOON TO BE A NETFLIX FILM!<br><br></b><i>“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”</i><br><br>A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible. <br><br> When <i>Animal Farm</i> was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger · 2019
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.
El doble
Fiódor M. Dostoievski · 2024
El proceso
Franz Kafka · 2024
SHE AND HER CAT
Makoto Shinkai, Naruki Nagakawa · 2022
On the outskirts of Tokyo, in a neighbourhood crossed by a commuter railway, local cats weave their way through the lives and homes of their owners as they navigate difficult times.<br/><br/>A cat named Chobi sends silent messages of courage to a young woman, willing her to end a faltering relationship; a gifted artist fatally misunderstands her boss's enthusiasm for her paintings; a manga fan shuts herself away after the death of her friend, while her cat Cookie hatches a plan to persuade her outside; a woman who has dedicated her life to a distant husband learns a lesson in independence from her cat.<br/><br/>Against the urban backdrop of humming trains and private woes, SHE AND HER CAT explores the gentle magic of the everyday. Populated by both the friendly and the feral, it reveals - with heartstopping clarity and warmth - how even in our darkest moments, community and connection may lead us to a happier place.
The Woman in Me
Britney Spears · 2023
Named a Best Book of the Year by Elle, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, NPR, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, and more!<br/><br/>“In Britney Spears’s memoir, she’s stronger than ever.” —The New York Times<br/><br/>Over 2 million copies sold of the “moving” (Time), “powerful” (Los Angeles Times), “radiant” (The New York Times), “poignant” (Vogue) #1 New York Times bestseller. The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.<br/><br/>In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.<br/><br/>Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.
Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical
· 2009
The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World: A Novel
Laura Imai Messina · 2022
Laura Imai Messina’s international bestselling novel is a story about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected “wind” phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami.<br/><br/>Simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World is the signpost pointing to the healing that can come after.<br/><br/>When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the tsunami, she begins to mark the passage of time from that date onward: Everything is relative to March 11, 2011, the day the tsunami tore Japan apart and when grief took hold of her life. Yui struggles to continue on, alone with her pain.<br/><br/>Then one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone booth in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. As news of the phone booth spreads, people travel to it from miles around.<br/><br/>Soon Yui makes her own pilgrimage to the phone booth. But once there she cannot bring herself to speak into the receiver. Instead she finds Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of her mother’s death.
