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L'Elephant Terrible Bookshop
Braamfontein Werf, Johannesburg · L'Elephant Terrible Bookshop · 44 Stanley Ave, Braamfontein Werf, Johannesburg, 2092, South Africa
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Babel
R. F. Kuang · 2022
<p>Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of The Poppy War </p><p>“Absolutely phenomenal. One of the most brilliant, razor-sharp books I've had the pleasure of reading that isn't just an alternative fantastical history, but an interrogative one; one that grabs colonial history and the Industrial Revolution, turns it over, and shakes it out.” -- Shannon Chakraborty, bestselling author of The City of Brass</p><p>From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.</p><p>Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.</p><p>1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.</p><p>Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.</p><p>For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…</p><p>Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? </p>
Finished

Better Than the Movies
Lynn Painter · 2024
<b>Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Ali Hazelwood, this “sweet and funny” (Kerry Winfrey, author of <i>Waiting for Tom Hanks</i>) teen rom-com is hopelessly romantic with enemies to lovers and grumpy x sunshine energy!</b><br> <br><b>Liz hates her annoyingly attractive neighbour but he’s the only in with her long-term crush…</b><br><br> Perpetual daydreamer and hopeless romantic Liz Buxbaum gave her heart to Michael a long time ago. But her cool, aloof forever crush never really saw her before he moved away. Now that he’s back in town, Liz will do whatever it takes to get on his radar—and maybe snag him as a prom date—even befriend Wes Bennet.<br><br> The annoyingly attractive next-door neighbour might seem like a prime candidate for romantic comedy fantasies, but Wes has only been a pain in Liz’s butt since they were kids. Pranks involving frogs and decapitated lawn gnomes do not a potential boyfriend make. Yet, somehow, Wes and Michael are hitting it off, which means Wes is Liz’s in.<br><br> But as Liz and Wes scheme to get Liz noticed by Michael so she can have her magical prom moment, she’s shocked to discover that she likes being around Wes. And as they continue to grow closer, she must re-examine everything she thought she knew about love—and rethink her own ideas of what Happily Ever After should look like.<br> <br><b><i>Better Than the Movies</i></b><b> features quotes from the best-loved rom-coms of cinema and takes you on a rollercoaster of romance that isn’t movie-perfect but jaw-dropping and heart-stopping in unexpected ways.</b><br> <br><b><b>Pre-order </b><i>Nothing Like the Movies, </i><b>the swoony sequel to </b><i>Better than the Movies </i><b>and don't miss out on </b><i>The Do-Over</i><b> and <i>Betting On You </i>from Lynn Painter!</b></b>

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen · 1918
Austen’s most celebrated novel tells the story of Elizabeth Bennet, a bright, lively young woman with four sisters, and a mother determined to marry them to wealthy men. At a party near the Bennets’ home in the English countryside, Elizabeth meets the wealthy, proud Fitzwilliam Darcy. Elizabeth initially finds Darcy haughty and intolerable, but circumstances continue to unite the pair. Mr. Darcy finds himself captivated by Elizabeth’s wit and candor, while her reservations about his character slowly vanish. The story is as much a social critique as it is a love story, and the prose crackles with Austen’s wry wit.

Beach Read
Emily Henry · 2020

Beautiful World, Where Are You
Sally Rooney · 2021
<p><b>AN INSTANT #1 <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER</b><br><b><i><br>Beautiful World, Where Are You</i> is a new novel by Sally Rooney, the bestselling author of <i>Normal People </i>and <i>Conversations with Friends</i>.</b><br><br>Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.<br><br>Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young—but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?</p>

The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald · 2003

Conversations with Friends
Sally Rooney · 2017
<b>NOW A HULU ORIGINAL SERIES • From the <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Normal People</i> . . . “[A] cult-hit . . . [a] sharply realistic comedy of adultery and friendship.”—<i>Entertainment Weekly</i><br> <br>SALLY ROONEY NAMED TO THE <i>TIME</i> 100 NEXT LIST • WINNER OF THE <i>SUNDAY TIMES</i> (UK) YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD • ONE OF <i>BUZZFEED</i>’S BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: <i>Vogue, Slate</i> • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: <i>Elle</i></b><br><br>Frances is a coolheaded and darkly observant young woman, vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. Her best friend is the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi. At a local poetry performance one night, they meet a well-known photographer, and as the girls are then gradually drawn into her world, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman’s sophisticated home and handsome husband, Nick. But however amusing Frances and Nick’s flirtation seems at first, it begins to give way to a strange—and then painful—intimacy.<br><br>Written with gemlike precision and marked by a sly sense of humor, <i>Conversations with Friends</i> is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth, and the messy edges of female friendship.<br><br><b>SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD</b><br><br>“Sharp, funny, thought-provoking . . . a really great portrait of two young women as they’re figuring out how to be adults.”<b>—Celeste Ng, <i>Late Night with Seth Meyers Podcast</i></b><br><br>“The dialogue is superb, as are the insights about communicating in the age of electronic devices. Rooney has a magical ability to write scenes of such verisimilitude that even when little happens they’re suspenseful.”<b>—Curtis Sittenfeld, <i>The Week</i></b><br><br>“Rooney has the gift of imbuing everyday life with a sense of high stakes . . . a novel of delicious frictions.”<b>—<i>New York</i></b><br><br>“A writer of rare confidence, with a lucid, exacting style . . . One wonderful aspect of Rooney’s consistently wonderful novel is the fierce clarity with which she examines the self-delusion that so often festers alongside presumed self-knowledge. . . . But Rooney’s natural power is as a psychological portraitist. She is acute and sophisticated about the workings of innocence; the protagonist of this novel about growing up has no idea just how much of it she has left to do.”<b>—Alexandra Schwartz,</b> <b><i>The New Yorker</i></b><br><br>“This book. This book. I read it in one day. I hear I’m not alone.”<b>—Sarah Jessica Parker (Instagram)</b>

The Crucible
Arthur Miller · 2003

A Curse For True Love
Stephanie Garber · 2023

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde

Fourth Wing
Rebecca Yaros

Lessons in Chemistry
Bonnie Garmus

Hello Beautiful
Ann Napolitano

The Housemaid
Freida McFadden

Blue Sisters: A Read with Jenna Pick
Coco Mellors · 2024
Reading

Normal People
Sally Rooney · 2019
<b>NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED HULU ORIGINAL SERIES • <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • “A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships” (<i>People</i>) from the author of <i>Conversations with Friends,</i> “a master of the literary page-turner” (J. Courtney Sullivan).</b><br> <br><b>“[A] novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting.”—<i>The Washington Post</i></b><br><br><b>ONE OF <i>ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY</i>’S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE</b><br><br><b>TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: <i>People, Slate,</i> The New York Public Library, <i>Harvard Crimson</i></b><br><br>Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life changing begins.<br><br>A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.<br><br><i>Normal People</i> is the story of mutual fascination, friendship, and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t.<br> <br><b>WINNER: The British Book Award, The Costa Book Award, The An Post Irish Novel of the Year, <i>Sunday Times </i>Young Writer of the Year Award</b><br><br><b>BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: <i>The New York Times</i>, <i>The New York Times Book Review, Oprah Daily, Time,</i> NPR, <i>The Washington Post, Vogue, Esquire, Glamour, Elle, Marie Claire, Vox, The Paris Review, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country</i></b>




