Books

All the Bright Places

Jennifer Niven · 2016

All the Things We Never Said

Yasmin Rahman · 2019

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon · 2004

It''s Kind of a Funny Story

Ned Vizzini · 2007

<br>Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan’s Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life—which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job—Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam, and does.  That’s when things start to get crazy.<br><br>At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he’s just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away. The stress becomes unbearable and Craig stops eating and sleeping—until, one night, he nearly kills himself. <br><br>Craig’s suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio.  There, isolated from the crushing pressures of school and friends, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety.<br><br>Ned Vizzini, who himself spent time in a psychiatric hospital, has created a remarkably moving tale about the sometimes unexpected road to happiness. For a novel about depression, it’s definitely a funny story.<br>

Teen Angst? Naaah . . .

Ned Vizzini · 2012

La soledad de los numeros primos

Paolo Giordano · 2011

La novela que convirtió a Paolo Giordano en el fenómeno editorial más relevante de los últimos tiempos en Italia.<br/><br/>Entre los números primos hay algunos aún más especiales. Son aquellos que los matemáticos llaman primos gemelos, pues, aunque permanecen próximos, entre ellos se interpone siempre un número par.<br/>Esta verdad matemática es la hermosa metáfora que el autor ha escogido para narrar la historia de Alice y Mattia, dos personas cuyas vidas han quedado condicionadas por las consecuencias de sendos episodios ocurridos en su niñez. Pese a la fuerte atracción que los une, la vida erigirá entre ellos barreras invisibles que pondrán a prueba la solidez de su relación.<br/><br/>La sutileza de los rasgos psicológicos de los personajes, así como la hondura y complejidad de una historia que suscita en los lectores las reacciones más variadas, resaltan la admirable madurez literaria de este joven autor a la hora de asomarse, nada más y nada menos, a la esencia de la soledad.<br/><br/>La crítica ha dicho...<br/><br/>«Un libro perfecto, construido con la sabiduría de un narrador experto [...] Todo el mundo reconocerá algo de sí mismo en el libro de Giordano, pues el verdadero protagonista de esta maravillosa historia es la soledad.» -Il Giornale<br/><br/>«Giordano narra con mano firme y gran madurez estilística una materia candente, con densas ramificaciones emocionales.» -Corriere della Sera<br/><br/>«Nada escapa a la atención de Giordano, que observa a sus personajes con la delicadeza feroz de quien sabe que la vida se compone de fragmentos, todos preciosos.» -La Repubblica<br/><br/>ENGLISH DESCRIPTION<br/><br/>"Mesmerizing...an exquisite rendering of what one might call feelings at the subatomic level." -The New York Times<br/><br/>From the author of Heaven and Earth, a sensational novel about whether a "prime number" can ever truly connect with someone else<br/><br/>A prime number is a lonely thing. It can only be divided by itself or by one, and it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia are both "primes"-misfits haunted by early tragedies. When the two meet as teenagers, they recognize in each other a kindred, damaged spirit. Years later, a chance encounter reunites them and forces a lifetime of concealed emotion to the surface. But can two prime numbers ever find a way to be together? A brilliantly conceived and elegantly written debut novel, The Solitude of Prime Numbers is a stunning meditation on loneliness, love, and what it means to be human.

Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories

Ghassan Kanafani · 1999

Text: English (translation)<br/>Original Language: Arabic

Star

Yukio Mishima · 2019

For the first time in English, a glittering novella about stardom from “one of the greatest avant-garde Japanese writers of the twentieth century” (Judith Thurman, The New Yorker)   Winner of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature All eyes are on Rikio. And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer, screaming and yelling to attract his attention—they would kill for a moment alone with him. Finally the director sets up the shot, the camera begins to roll, someone yells “action”; Rikio, for a moment, transforms into another being, a hardened young yakuza, but as soon as the shot is finished, he slumps back into his own anxieties and obsessions. Being a star, constantly performing, being watched and scrutinized as if under a microscope, is often a drag. But so is life. Written shortly after Yukio Mishima himself had acted in the film “Afraid to Die,” this novella is a rich and unflinching psychological portrait of a celebrity coming apart at the seams. With exquisite, vivid prose, Star begs the question: is there any escape from how we are seen by others?

The Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka · 2009

"The Metamorphosis" (original German title: "Die Verwandlung") is a short novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into an insect.

White Nights

Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 2016

'My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?' A poignant tale of love and loneliness from Russia's foremost writer. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

The Idiot (Vintage Classics)

Fyodor Dostoevsky · 2003

<p>Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky’s masterful translation of <b>The Idiot</b> is destined to stand with their versions of <b>Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov</b><i>, </i>and <b>Demons</b> as the definitive Dostoevsky in English.<br><br>After his great portrayal of a guilty man in <b>Crime and Punishment</b><i>,</i> Dostoevsky set out in <b>The Idiot</b> to portray a man of pure innocence. The twenty-six-year-old Prince Myshkin, following a stay of several years in a Swiss sanatorium, returns to Russia to collect an inheritance and “be among people.” Even before he reaches home he meets the dark Rogozhin, a rich merchant’s son whose obsession with the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna eventually draws all three of them into a tragic denouement. In Petersburg the prince finds himself a stranger in a society obsessed with money, power, and manipulation. Scandal escalates to murder as Dostoevsky traces the surprising effect of this “positively beautiful man” on the people around him, leading to a final scene that is one of the most powerful in all of world literature.</p>

La paciente silenciosa / The Silent Patient (Spanish Edition)

Alex Michaelides · 2020

«El thriller perfecto» (según A.J. Finn, autor de La mujer en la ventana) que está conmocionando a treinta y siete países y cuyos derechos han sido comprados para una adaptación cinematográfica producida por Brad Pitt.<br/><br/>SOLO ELLA SABE LO QUE SUCEDIÓ.<br/><br/>SOLO YO PUEDO HACERLA HABLAR.<br/><br/>Alicia Berenson, una pintora de éxito, dispara cinco tiros en la cabeza de su marido, y no vuelve a hablar nunca más. Su negativa a emitir palabra alguna convierte una tragedia doméstica en un misterio que atrapa la imaginación de toda Inglaterra.<br/><br/>Theo Faber, un ambicioso psicoterapeuta forense obsesionado con el caso, está empeñado en desentrañar el misterio de lo que ocurrió aquella noche fatal y consigue una plaza en The Grove, la unidad de seguridad en el norte de Londres a la que Alicia fue enviada hace seis años y en la que sigue obstinada en su silencio. Pronto descubre que el mutismo de la paciente está mucho más enraizado de lo que pensaba. Pero, si al final hablara, ¿estaría dispuesto a escuchar la verdad?<br/><br/>ENGLISH DESCRIPTION<br/><br/>On the list of the Best 2019 Mystery / Thrillers Books of Publishers Weekly<br/><br/>The instant #1 New York Times bestseller<br/><br/>"An unforgettable―and Hollywood-bound―new thriller... A mix of Hitchcockian suspense, Agatha Christie plotting, and Greek tragedy.". ―Entertainment Weekly<br/><br/>The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband―and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.<br/><br/>Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.<br/><br/>Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.<br/><br/>Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations―a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

La casa de los espiritus / The House of the Spirits (Spanish Edition)

Isabel Allende · 2017

La primera novela de Isabel Allende, La casa de los espíritus narra la saga de una poderosa familia de terratenientes latinoamericanos.<br/>El despótico patriarca Esteban Trueba ha construido con mano de hierro un imperio privado que empieza a tambalearse con el paso del tiempo y un entorno social explosivo. Finalmente, la decadencia personal del patriarca arrastrará a los Trueba a una dolorosa desintegración. Atrapados en unas dramáticas relaciones familiares, los personajes de esta poderosa novela encarnan las tensiones sociales y espirituales de una época que abarca gran parte del siglo XX.<br/>Con impecable pulso narrativo y gran lucidez histórica, Isabel Allende ha creado un fresco en el que conviven lo cotidiano con lo maravilloso, el amor con la revolución y los ideales personales con la dura realidad política.<br/><br/>La crítica ha dicho:<br/>«Un logro único, a la vez testimonio personal y posible alegoría del pasado, el presente y el futuro de América Latina.»<br/>The New York Times Book Review<br/>«Una crónica fuerte y absorbente de una familia chilena, con detalles opulentos y con un trasfondo místico... Un refinada combinación de escenarios.»<br/>Kirkus Review<br/>«Hay muy pocos viajes más emocionantes que los realizados en la imaginación de una novelista genial. Esa experiencia está disponible en La Casa de los Espíritus de Isabel Allende...»<br/>Cosmopolitan<br/><br/>ENGLISH DESCRIPTION<br/><br/>“Spectacular...An absorbing and distinguished work...The House of the Spirits with its all-informing, generous, and humane sensibility, is a unique achievement, both personal witness and possible allegory of the past, present, and future of Latin America.” —The New York Times Book Review<br/><br/>The House of the Spirits, the unforgettable first novel that established Isabel Allende as one of the world’s most gifted storytellers, brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter Blanca embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban: his adored granddaughter Alba, a beautiful and strong-willed child who will lead her family and her country into a revolutionary future.<br/>One of the most important novels of the twentieth century, The House of the Spirits is an enthralling epic that spans decades and lives, weaving the personal and the political into a universal story of love, magic, and fate.

Como agua para chocolate

Laura Esquivel · 2016

«Y así como un poeta juega con las palabras, así ella jugaba a su antojo con los ingredientes y con las cantidades, obteniendo resultados fenomenales.»<br/>No siempre tenemos a mano los ingredientes de la felicidad. Tita lo había aprendido desde pequeña, cuando crecía en la cocina con Nacha y se le negaba toda posibilidad de vida propia desde su nacimiento. Pero lo que también aprendió Tita es que los ingredientes no son lo más importante para cocinar un buen plato, sino todo el amor con que seas capaz de hacerlo.<br/>Pero Tita se dio cuenta de que sus platos no solo tenían el poder de deslumbrar por sus sabores y texturas. Su tristeza, su alegría, su deseo o su dolor a la hora de prepararlos se contagiaban irremediablemente a todo aquel que los probaba.<br/>A través de esta alegoría que vincula con maestría los sentimientos y los elementos culinarios, Laura Esquivel conquistó el parnaso de la literatura, construyendo un relato que se asienta en la tradición del realismo mágico, se recrea en la cultura mexicana y que traspasa todo lo anterior para convertirse en una novela universal, una parte del imaginario colectivo, un clásico.