After deciding to take a semester off their studies to think about future plans, long-time friends Maya, Sirma, and Spartacus decide to hitchhike to the sea. Boril Krustev, former rock star and middle-aged widower who is driving aimlessly to outrun his grief, picks them up and accompanies them on their journey. It doesn’t take them long to figure out they’re connected to each other by more than their need to travel — specifically through Boril’s daughter, whose actions damaged each of the characters in this novel.Co-winner of the Contemporary Bulgarian Writers Contest, A Short Tale of Shame marks the arrival of a new talent in Bulgarian literature with a novel about the need to come to terms with the shame and guilt we all harbor.

Christopher Isherwood was born in Cheshire in 1904. He began to write at university and later moved to Berlin, where he gave English lessons to support himself. He witnessed first hand the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany and some of his best works, such as Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, draw on these experiences. He created the character of Sally Bowles, later made famous as the heroine of the musical Cabaret. Isherwood travelled with W.H. Auden to China in the late 1930s before going with him to America, which became his home for the rest of his life. He died on 4 January 1986.‘The best prose writer in English’Gore VidalCelebrated as a masterpiece from its first publication, A Single Man is the story of George Falconer, an English professor in suburban California left heartbroken after the sudden death of his lover, Jim. With devastating clarity and humour, Christopher Isherwood shows George’s determination to carry on, evoking the unexpected pleasures of life, as well as the soul’s ability to triumph over loss and alienation.‘A virtuoso piece of work…courageous… powerful’The Sunday Times

What will happen to George Smith? Mysteriously rich and desperately lonely, George appears to be under attack from all quarters: his former wife and four horrible children are suing to get his money; his dipsomaniacal housekeeper is trying to arouse his carnal interest; his secretary, the beautiful, blond Miss Thomson, will barely give him the time of day. Making matters even worse are the threatening letters: Dear Sir: Only for the moment are we saying nothing. Yours, etc., Present Associates.Despite such precautions as a two-inch-thick surgical steel door and a bullet-proof limousine, Smith remains worried. So he undertakes to build a giant mausoleum, complete with plumbing, in which to live. Hunter S. Thompson called reading this book “like sitting down to an evening of good whisky and mad laughter in a rare conversation somewhere on the edge of reality.”

Donal Ryan's short stories pick up where his acclaimed novels The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December left off, dealing with dramas set in motion by loneliness and displacement and revealing stories of passion and desire where less astute observers might fail to detect the humanity that roils beneath the surface. Sometimes these dramas are found in ordinary, mundane situations; sometimes they are triggered by a fateful encounter or a tragic decision. At the heart of these stories, crucially, is how people are drawn to each other and cling to love when and where it can be found. In a number of the these stories, emotional bonds are forged by traumatic events caused by one of the characters - between an old man and the frightened young burglar left to guard him while his brother is beaten; between another young man and the mother of a girl whose death he caused when he crashed his car; between a lonely middle-aged shopkeeper and her assistant. Disconnection and new discoveries pervade stories involving emigration (an Irish priest in war-torn Syria) or immigration (an African refugee in Ireland). Some of the stories are set in the same small town in rural Ireland as the novels, with names that will be familiar to Ryan's readers.In haunting prose, Donal Ryan has captured the brutal beauty of the human heart in all its failings, hopes and quiet triumphs.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Anne Tyler's The Beginner's Goodbye."Without Anne Tyler, American fiction would be an immeasurably bleaker place."— NEWSDAYEvie Decker is a shy, slightly plump teenager, lonely and silent. But her quiet life is shattered when she hears the voice of Drumstrings Casey on the radio and becomes instantly attracted to him. She manages to meet him, bursting out of her lonely shell-and into the attentive gaze of the intangible man who becomes all too real….

Set in contemporary New Orleans but working its way back in time, A Small Hotel chronicles the relationship between Michael and Kelly Hays, who have decided to separate after twenty-four years of marriage. The book begins on the day that the Hays are to finalize their divorce. Kelly is due to be in court, but instead she drives from her home in Pensacola, Florida, across the panhandle to New Orleans and checks into Room 303 at the Olivier House in the city’s French Quarter — the hotel where she and Michael fell in love some twenty-five years earlier and where she now finds herself about to make a decision that will forever affect her, Michael, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Samantha. An intelligent, deeply moving, and remarkably written portrait of a relationship that reads as a cross between a romance novel and a literary page turner, A Small Hotel is a masterful story that will remind readers once again why Robert Olen Butler has been called the “best living American writer” (Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

Set in contemporary New Orleans but working its way back in time, A Small Hotel chronicles the relationship between Michael and Kelly Hays, who have decided to separate after twenty-four years of marriage. The book begins on the day that the Hays are to finalize their divorce. Kelly is due to be in court, but instead she drives from her home in Pensacola, Florida, across the panhandle to New Orleans and checks into Room 303 at the Olivier House in the city’s French Quarter — the hotel where she and Michael fell in love some twenty-five years earlier and where she now finds herself about to make a decision that will forever affect her, Michael, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Samantha. An intelligent, deeply moving, and remarkably written portrait of a relationship that reads as a cross between a romance novel and a literary page turner, A Small Hotel is a masterful story that will remind readers once again why Robert Olen Butler has been called the “best living American writer” (Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

A Hindi film star… an American missionary… twins separated at birth… a dwarf chauffeur… a serial killer… all are on a collision course. In the tradition of A Prayer for Owen Meany, Irving’s characters transcend nationality. They are misfits—coming from everywhere, belonging nowhere. Set almost entirely in India, this is John Irving’s most ambitious novel and a major publishing event.

In a fragile world on the brink of World War II, lovely young Englishwoman Ellen Carr takes a job as a housemother at an unorthodox boarding school in Vienna that specializes in music, drama, and dance. Ellen simply wants to cook beautiful food in the homeland of her surrogate grandmother, who had enchanted her with stories of growing up in the countryside of Austria.What she finds when she reaches the Hallendorf School in Vienna is a world that is magically unconventional-and completely out of control. The children are delightful, but wild; the teachers are beleaguered and at their wits’ end; and the buildings are a shambles. In short, the whole place is in desperate need of Ellen’s attention.Ellen seems to have been born to nurture all of Hallendorf; soon everyone from Leon the lonely young musical prodigy to harassed headmaster Mr. Bennet to Marek the mysterious groundsman depends on Ellen for-well, everything. And in providing all of them with whatever they need, especially Marek, for whom she develops a special attachment, Ellen is happier than she’s ever been.But what happens when the menace of Hitler’s reign reaches the idyllic world of the Hallendorf School gives this romantic, intelligent tale a combination of charm and power that only the very best storytellers can achieve.Eva Ibbotson was born into a literary family in Vienna and came to England as a small child before World War II. She has written numerous award-winning novels for both children and adults, including A Countess Below Stairs and The Morning Gift. She currently lives in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England.PRAISE FOR EVA IBBOTSON“Eva Ibbotson is such a good writer that her characters break the bonds of the romantic novel.”— The Washington Post Book World

The war is ending, but for the occupants of the castle, their troubles are just beginning. Armed gangs roam a lawless land, and the castle becomes the focus of a dangerous game of desire, deceit and death to one particular outlawed captain. From the author of WHIT, THE CROW ROAD and COMPLICITY.

Douglas Kennedy's new novel bears his trademark ability to write serious popular fiction. A true page turner about a woman whose entire life is turned upside down in a very foreign place where they speak her language. 'About an hour after I met Tony Thompson, he changed my life. I know that sounds just a little melodramatic, but it's the truth. Or, at least, as true as anything a journalist will tell you'. Sally Goodchild is a thirty-seven year old American who, after nearly two decades as a highly independent journalist, finds herself pregnant and in London... married to an English foreign correspondent, Tony Thompson, whom she met while they were both on assignment in Cairo. From the outset Sally's relationship with both Tony and London is an uneasy one - especially as she finds her husband and his city to be far more foreign than imagined. But her adjustment problems soon turn to nightmare - as she discovers that everything can be taken down and used against you... especially by a spouse who now considers you an unfit mother and wants to bar you from ever seeing your child again.

Publisher's WeeklyThis sequel to Liss's Edgar Award-winning A Conspiracy of Paper (2000) brings back ex-pugilist Benjamin Weaver and his 18th-century London environs in all their squalid glory. Benjamin has become a "thieftaker," a sort of bounty hunter/private eye, and is investigating the simple case of a threatening letter when he is caught up in a riot, accused of murder and sentenced to hang. After a gutsy escape, he sets about unraveling the mystery of who framed him and why. Donning the disguise of a wealthy coffee planter from Jamaica, Benjamin infiltrates the upper classes, where he encounters a plot centering on a hotly contested House of Commons election. There is much explanation (perhaps too much) of the history and philosophies of the Whig, Tory and Jacobite parties, but this is nicely balanced with Benjamin's forays into London's underbelly, where he has his way with the ladies and dodges dangerous louts looking to kill him. The real fun is the re-creation of the streets of London ("He fell into the alley's filth-the kennel of emptied chamber pots, bits of dead dogs gnawed on by hungry rats, apple cores and oyster shells") and the colorful denizens thereof. Many hours are spent in innumerable coffeehouses, with Benjamin and company imbibing coffee, chocolate, ale, wine and that great destroyer of the poor, rotgut gin, and employing such useful swear words as "shitten stick," "arse pot" and "bum firking." Mystery and mainstream readers with a taste for gritty historical fiction will relish Liss's glorious dialogue, lively rogues, fascinating setting and indomitable hero. (Mar.) Forecast: The many readers who loved Liss's first book have been eagerly awaiting a sequel. Booksellers can recommend both of the Benjamin Weaver books to those who enjoy Bruce Alexander's Sir John Fielding mystery series. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.Library JournalHaving survived the dangerous intrigues and nefarious plots surrounding his father's death and the business of the South Sea Company (A Conspiracy of Paper), Benjamin Weaver, former pugilist and thief taker extraordinaire, is once again plunged into the world of electioneering and political corruption in Georgian London. This time, he seeks to clear his name and save his own life after being wrongly accused of killing a dock worker. Forced to assume the disguise of a Jamaican tobacco plantation owner, he moves from the drawing rooms of Westminster to the hovels of Wapping in search of the true murderer, uncovering corruption at all levels, from perjured witnesses to bribed judges to treasonous Jacobites. While it does not resonate as richly as A Conspiracy of Paper, this novel will still delight readers with its picture of a London familiar to fans of Boswell and Defoe. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/03.]-Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.Kirkus ReviewsWith eloquent wit, Liss manipulates the concepts of misdirection and probability theory in his serpentine third novel (after The Coffee Trader, 2003). Once again, we meet the unconventional protagonist of the author's Edgar-winning debut A Conspiracy of Paper (2000). "Thief-taker," retired prizefighter, and Jew Benjamin Weaver, as resourceful a former rogue as ever, is in peril again-falsely convicted and sentenced to hang for the murder of a dockworker and labor leader whom he barely knew. The year is 1722, and London is abuzz over England's first General Election, vigorously contested by conservative Tories who support Hanoverian King George I and antiroyalist Whigs, who may or may not be in league with Jacobites plotting the restoration of deposed "Pretender" James II of Scotland. Weaver escapes from Newgate Prison (in a marvelously detailed sequence), and, while laboring to clear his name, assumes multiple disguises and forms affiliations with several members of London's political, ecclesiastical, and criminal elites. These include the woman he loves unrequitedly, his cousin's widow Miriam, and her husband, Whig Parliamentary candidate Griffin Melbury; duplicitous parish priest Christopher Ufford (in whose service suspicion for murder had fallen on Weaver); brutal tobacco merchant Dennis Dogsmill and his fetching sister Grace, and numerous other power brokers and ruffians whose allegiances and very identities are seldom what they seem. The dazzling plot, which grows steadily more intricate and circuitous, turns on the allegation that "there [is] a Tory spy among the Whigs," and the likelihood that Weaver's victimization is connected to the election that the charismatic Melburyblithely characterizes as "a spectacle of corruption." Liss's impressive research provides a wealth of information about 18th-century politics, emergent labor organizations, and gradations of etiquette and malfeasance among contrasting social levels. And Weaver's somber, wry, knowing narrator's voice is a deadpan delight. Furthermore, it all ends with yet another twist that seems to promise we'll hear more from-and of-the indefatigable Benjamin Weaver. Let's hope so.

Summoned home to Egypt after a long European debauch (disguised as “study”), our hero Teymour — in the opening line of A Splendid Conspiracy—is feeling “as unlucky as a flea on a bald man’s head.” Poor Teymour sits forlorn in a provincial café, a far cry from his beloved Paris. Two old friends, however, rescue him. They applaud his phony diploma as perfect in “a world where everything is false” and they draw him into their hedonistic rounds as gentlemen of leisure. Life, they explain, “while essentially pointless is extremely interesting.” The small city may seem tedious, but there are women to seduce, powerful men to tease, and also strange events: rich notables are disappearing.Eyeing the machinations of our three pleasure seekers and nervous about the missing rich men, the authorities soon see — in complex schemes to bed young girls — signs of political conspiracies. The three young men, although mistaken for terrorists, enjoy freedom, wit, and romance. After all, though “not every man is capable of appreciating what is around him,” the conspirators in pleasure certainly do.

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family-their two daughters and two sons, their grandchildren, even their faithful old dog-is on the porch, listening contentedly as Abby tells the tale they have heard so many times before. And yet this gathering is different too: Abby and Red are growing older, and decisions must be made about how best to look after them, and the fate of the house so lovingly built by Red's father. Brimming with the luminous insight, humor, and compassion that are Anne Tyler's hallmarks, this capacious novel takes us across three generations of the Whitshanks, their shared stories and long-held secrets, all the unguarded and richly lived moments that combine to define who and what they are as a family.

After being abandoned by her mother, Hillela was pushed onto relatives where she was taught social graces. But when she betrayed her position as surrogate daughter, she was cast adrift. Later she fell into a heroic role in the overthrow of apartheid.

As he demonstrated in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a canine murder mystery from the point of view of an autistic boy, former children's book author and illustrator Mark Haddon has a gift for reaching inside the inner world of characters whose minds should prove difficult to penetrate.A Spot of Bother is Haddon's second novel aimed at adults, and again he writes his characters with great affection despite the fact that they're deeply flawed. Or, in the case of Bother's protagonist, George Hall, deeply insane.The Halls are a family of people preoccupied with their own problems, largely centred around preparations for a backyard wedding. His daughter, Katie, is marrying a man no one, including Katie, thinks is good enough for her. Wife Jean is having an affair with one of George's former colleagues and struggling to plan the on-again, off-again wedding of her stubborn daughter. Son Jamie's reluctance to invite his boyfriend to Katie's wedding destroys that seemingly stable relationship.Poor George finds his family falling apart and lacks the emotional tools to deal with the chaos head on. "Talking was, in George's opinion, overrated… The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely."Newly retired George's own issues are an extreme example of the fretting the rest of his family – in fact, the rest of the world – exhibits. When he discovers a lesion on his hip, he leaps to the conclusion of cancer, and contemplates suicide. He gets caught up in the details of the how, discarding each method, including getting blind drunk and crashing the car – because what if he encountered another car?"What if he killed them, paralyzed himself, and died of cancer in a wheelchair in prison?" George wonders.The whimsical humour of the escalating hyperbole reveals a man who ponders the worst case scenario to an amusingly absurd degree. As the novel progresses, however, it becomes clear that this is no momentary flight of imagination or coping mechanism. George's insanity often escalates his worries beyond the point of reason.The novel follows George's almost-logical reasoning. The spot could be more than eczema. The doctor didn't express himself with perfect certainty. He'd misdiagnosed Katie once. But George takes it several steps beyond reason.Haddon doesn't inflict George with the cute insanity some fiction falls into, but the true-to-life confusion of being and dealing with someone who can seem no more odd than the average person on occasion, then lapses into genuine, over-the-top insanity.A Spot of Bother is an often sweet, often heartbreaking story of a family falling apart and coming together. It's a deceptively funny, easy read with genuine poignancy. These compelling characters fumble their way through mental illness in the family the same way they fumble through their romantic relationships – sincerely, humorously, and ineptly.

A Collection of Short Stories from the Twisted Mind of Matt Shaw, based upon the fears of some of his readers.Stories included:A Mother's LovePlane CrazyThe Last Will & Testament of Norman FieldingLost LoveRoad Rage

“Sorrentino [is] a writer like no other. He’s learned, companionable, ribald, brave, mathematical, at once virtuosic and somehow without ego. Sorrentino’s books break free of the routine that inevitably accompanies traditional narrative and through a passionate renunciation shine with an unforgiving, yet cleansing, light.”—Jeffrey Eugenides“For decades, Gilbert Sorrentino has remained a unique figure in our literature. He reminds us that fiction lives because artists make it. …To the novel — everyone’s novel — Sorrentino brings honor, tradition, and relentless passion.”—Don DeLilloBorrowing its title from a William Carlos Williams poem, A Strange Commonplace lays bare the secrets and dreams of characters whose lives are intertwined by coincidence and necessity, possessions and experience. Ensnared in a jungle of city streets and suburban bedroom communities from the boozy 1950s to the culturally vacuous present, lines blur between families and acquaintances, violence and love, hope and despair. As fathers try to connect with their children, as writers struggle for credibility, as wives walk out, and an old man plays Russian roulette with a deck of cards, their stories resonate with poignancy and savage humor — familiar, tragic, and cathartic.Gilbert Sorrentino is the author of more than 30 books, including Little Casino, finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. A critical and influential figure in postmodern American literature, he is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and a Lannan Literary Award. His frequent appearances on Michael Silverblatt’s Bookworm can be heard at www.kcrw.org. Once an editor at Grove Press, Sorrentino is professor emeritus at Stanford University and lives in Brooklyn.

From the Nobel Prize winner and best-selling author of Snow and My Name Is Red: a soaring, panoramic new novel-his first since The Museum of Innocence-telling the unforgettable tale of an Istanbul street vendor and the love of his life.Since his boyhood in a poor village in Central Anatolia, Mevlut Karataş has fantasized about what his life would become. Not getting as far in school as he'd hoped, at the age of twelve, he comes to Istanbul-"the center of the world"-and is immediately enthralled both by the city being demolished and the new one that is fast being built. He follows his father's trade, selling boza (a traditional Turkish drink) on the street, and hoping to become rich, like other villagers who have settled the desolate hills outside the booming metropolis. But chance seems to conspire against him. He spends three years writing love letters to a girl he saw just once at a wedding, only to elope by mistake with her sister. And though he grows to cherish his wife and the family they have, his relations all make their fortunes while his own years are spent in a series of jobs leading nowhere; he is sometimes attracted to the politics of his friends and intermittently to the lodge of a religious guide. But every evening, without fail, he still wanders the streets of Istanbul, selling boza and wondering at the "strangeness" in his mind, the sensation that makes him feel different from everyone else, until fortune conspires once more to let him understand at last what it is he has always yearned for.Told from the perspectives of many beguiling characters, A Strangeness in My Mind is a modern epic of coming of age in a great city, and a mesmerizing narrative sure to take its place among Pamuk's finest achievements.

When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet.Yet James couldn’t resist helping the strikingly intelligent tom cat, whom he quickly christened Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent the cat on his way, imagining he would never see him again. But Bob had other ideas.Soon the two were inseparable and their diverse, comic and occasionally dangerous adventures would transform both their lives, slowly healing the scars of each other’s troubled pasts.A Street Cat Named Bob is a moving and uplifting story that will touch the heart of anyone who reads it. Bob has entranced London like no feline since the days of Dick Whittington.London Evening Standard