From one of America’s most acclaimed literary figures (“an important as well as brilliant novelist”—The New York Times Book Review) a major new novel that hilariously takes the pulse of our times.The unforgettable voyager of this dark comic journey is I. B. “Berl” Pickett, M.D., the die of whose uncharmed life was probably cast as soon as his mother got the bright idea to name him after Irving Berlin. The boyhood insults to any chance of normalcy piled on apace thereafter: the traumatizing, spasmodic spectacle of Pentecostalist Sunday worship; the socially inhibitory accompaniment of his parents on their itinerant rug-shampooing business; the undue technical advancement and emotional retardation that ensued from his erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. What would have become of this soul had he not gone to medical school, thanks to the surrogate parenting of a local physician and solitary bird hunter?But there is meaning to life beyond professional accreditation, even in the noblest of callings. Berl’s been on a mission to find it these past few years, though with scant equipment or basis for hope. Hard to say (for the moment anyway) whether his mission has been aided or set back by his having fallen under suspicion of negligent homicide in the death of his former lover. All the same, being ostracized by virtually all his colleagues at the clinic gives him something to chew on: the reality of small-town living as total surveillance more than any semblance of fellowship, even among folks you’ve known your whole life.Fortunately, for Berl, it doesn’t take a village. And he will find his deliverance in continuing to practice medicine one way or another, as well as in the few human connections he has made, wittingly or not, over the years. The landscape, too, will furnish a hint in what might yet prove, if not a certifiable epiphany, a semi-spiritual awakening in I. B. Pickett, M.D., the inglorious but sole hero of Thomas McGuane’s uproarious and profound exploration of the threads by which we all are hanging.

Przerażająca postapokaliptyczna wizja przyszłości Ameryki w powieści uznanej za największe arcydzieło Cormaca McCarthy’ego.Spalona Ameryka, ciemność, proch i kurz przesłaniające niebo. Kamienie pękają od mrozu, a śnieg, który pada, jest szary. Ani jednego ptaka, ani jednego zwierzęcia, gdzieniegdzie tylko zdziczałe bandy kanibali. Jakiś straszliwy a nienazwany kataklizm zniszczył naszą cywilizację i większość życia na ziemi. Na tle martwego pejzażu po katastrofie dwie ruchome figurki – to ojciec i syn przemierzają zniszczoną planetę. Zmierzają ku wybrzeżu lecz co tam zastaną? Przed nimi długa i pełna niebezpieczeństw droga w nieznane. Wokół nich – świat, w którym nawet nadzieja już umarła, lecz nadal – dzięki łączącej ich więzi – trwa miłość…„Droga” Cormaca McCarthy’ego to połączenie powieści drogi, powieści przygodowej oraz gotyckiego horroru. To przypowieść o świecie apokalipsy spełnionej, ponura odpowiedź na niepokojące pytanie jak świat wyglądałby bez człowieka. Krytyka literacka zalicza tę powieść do nurtu prozy amerykańskiego minimalizmu, w latach 80-tych nazywanego „brudnym realizmem”.

Un jeune cadre dynamique bloqué dans une sanisette: un souvenir d'enfance au bord de la mer: un acteur de théâtre reconverti dans les sitcoms; deux filles saoules à cent soixante à l'heure sur l'autoroute; les conversations d'une vache et d'un Parisien… D'aventure en mésaventure, un personnage se métamorphose: la bizarrerie involontaire des situations d'époque et des décors quotidiens provoque le rire avant de glisser, parfois, vers le cauchemar. Entre humour, poésie et fiction, le livre singulier d'un écrivain de trente-cinq ans, salué par Milan Kundera pour son "sens aigu du réel".

A passionate and original new voice of the African-American literary tradition.Chris Jones has a gift for creating desire-a result of his own passionate desire to be anywhere but where he is, to be anyone but himself. Sick of the constraints of his black working-class town, he uses his knack for creating effective ad campaigns to land a dream job in London. But life soon takes a turn for the worse, and unexpectedly Chris finds himself back where he started, forced to return to Philadelphia where his only job prospect is answering phones at the electrical company and helping the poor pay their heating and lighting bills. Surrounded by his brethren, the down and out, the indigent, the hopeless, Chris hits bottom. Only a stroke of inspiration and faith can get him back on his feet.The funny and moving tale of a young black man who, in the process of trying to break free from the city he despises, is forced to come to terms with himself.

T.C. Boyle has proven himself to be a master storyteller who can do just about anything. But even his most ardent admirers may be caught off guard by his ninth novel, for Boyle has delivered something completely unexpected: a serious and richly rewarding character study that is his most accomplished and deeply satisfying work to date.It is 1970, and a down-at-the-heels California commune has decided to relocate to the last frontier-the unforgiving landscape of interior Alaska-in the ultimate expression of going back to the land. The novel opposes two groups of characters: Sess Harder, his wife Pamela, and other young Alaskans who are already homesteading in the wilderness and the brothers and sisters of Drop City, who, despite their devotion to peace, free love, and the simple life, find their commune riven by tensions. As these two communities collide, their alliances shift and unexpected friendships and dangerous enmities are born as everyone struggles with the bare essentials of life: love, nourishment, and a roof over one's head.Drop City is not a satire or a nostalgic look at the sixties, though its evocation of the period is presented with a truth and clarity that no book on that era has achieved. This is a surprising book, a rich, allusive, and nonsentimental look at the ideals of a generation and their impact on today's radically transformed world. Above all, it is a novel infused with the lyricism and take-no-prisoners storytelling for which T.C. Boyle is justly famous.

"This stunning collection of stories offers an unsentimental glimpse of life among the immigrants from the Dominican Republic-and other front-line reports on the ambivalent promise of the American dream-by an eloquent and original writer who describes more than physical dislocation in conveying the price that is paid for leaving culture and homeland behind." — San Francisco Chronicle.Junot Diaz's stories are as vibrant, tough, unexotic, and beautiful as their settings — Santa Domingo, Dominican Neuva York, the immigrant neighborhoods of industrial New Jersey with their gorgeously polluted skyscapes. Places and voices new to our literature yet classically American: coming-of-age stories full of wild humor, intelligence, rage, and piercing tenderness. And this is just the beginning. Diaz is going to be a giant of American prose. -Francisco GoldmanEver since Diaz began publishing short stories in venues as prestigious as The New Yorker, he has been touted as a major new talent, and his debut collection affirms this claim. Born and raised in Santo Domingo, Diaz uses the contrast between his island homeland and life in New York City and New Jersey as a fulcrum for his trenchant tales. His young male narrators are teetering into precarious adolescence. For these sons of harsh or absent fathers and bone-weary, stoic mothers, life is an unrelenting hustle. In Santo Domingo, they are sent to stay with relatives when the food runs out at home; in the States, shoplifting and drugdealing supply material necessities and a bit of a thrill in an otherwise exhausting and frustrating existence. There is little affection, sex is destructive, conversation strained, and even the brilliant beauty of a sunset is tainted, its colors the product of pollutants. Keep your eye on Diaz; his first novel is on the way. -Booklist

It’s 1992, and the world is caught up in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the Balkan Wars, but for fifteen-year-old Julie Winter, the news is noise. In Portland, Oregon, Julie moves through her days in a series of negatives: the skaters she doesn’t think are cute, the trinkets she doesn’t buy at the craft fair, the umbrella she refuses to carry despite the incessant rain. Her family life is routine and restrained, and no one talks about Julie’s older brother, a one-time Olympic-hopeful swimmer who now lives in self-imposed exile in Berlin. Julie has never considered swimming herself, until Alexis, the girls’ swim team captain, tries to recruit her. It’s a dare, and a flirtation — and a chance for Julie to find her brother, or to finally let him go. Anything could happen when her body hits water.

Vom Hirnschlag erwacht — die Geschichte einer Heilung.Helene Wesendahl weiß nicht, wie ihr geschieht: Sie findet sich im Krankenhaus wieder, ohne Kontrolle über ihren Körper, sprachlos, mit Erinnerungslücken. Ihr Weg zurück ins Leben konfrontiert sie mit einer fremden Frau, die doch einmal sie selbst war.Kathrin Schmidt packt ihre Leser diesmal durch die Beschränkung, und zwar im wörtlichen Sinne. Mit den Augen ihrer erwachenden Heldin blicken wir in ein Krankenzimmer, auf andere Patienten, das Pflegepersonal und den eigenen Körper, der plötzlich ein Eigenleben zu führen scheint. Und wir erleben die mühsamen Reha-Maßnahmen mit, die Reaktionen der Familie, den aufopferungsvollen Einsatz ihres Mannes — und die bruchstückhafte Wiederkehr ihrer Erinnerung.Was da zutage tritt, konfrontiert Helene mit einem Leben, in dem sie sich kaum wiedererkennt, und das vieles in Frage stellt, was in der neuen Situation so selbstverständlich scheint. Sie entdeckt frühe Brüche in ihrer Biographie, verdrängte Leidenschaften und aus der Not geborene Verpflichtungen. Als ihr bewusst wird, dass ihr Herz sich bereits auf Abwege begeben hatte und sie den Mann, der sie jetzt so eifrig pflegt, eigentlich verlassen wollte, droht sie den Boden unter den Füßen zu verlieren.Kathrin Schmidt gelingt das Erstaunliche: Sie macht den Orientierungs- und Sprachverlust nach einer Hirnverletzung erfahrbar und zeigt einen Weg der Genesung, der in zwei Richtungen führt, zurück und nach vorn. Dabei entsteht ein Entwicklungsroman ganz eigener Art, der durch seine innere Dynamik fesselt und durch die Rückhaltlosigkeit, mit der seine Heldin sich mit ihrer Vergangenheit und Gegenwart konfrontiert, fasziniert. Er überzeugt vor allem durch die bewegende Schilderung eines sprachlichen Neubeginns.

In this novel, Enrique Vila-Matas traces a journey connecting the worlds of Joyce and Beckett, and all they symbolize.One night, a renowned and now retired literary publisher has a vivid dream that takes place in Dublin, a city he’s never visited. The central scene of the dream is a funeral in the era of Ulysses. The publisher would give anything to know if an unidentified character in his dream is the great author he always wanted to meet, or the ghostly angel who abandoned him during childhood. As the days go by, he will come to understand that his vision of the end of an era was prophetic.Enrique Vila-Matas traces a journey that connects the worlds of Joyce and Beckett, revealing the difficulties faced by literary authors, publishers, and good readers in a society where literature is losing influence. A robust work, Dublinesque is a masterwork of irony, humor, and erudition by one of Spain’s most celebrated living authors.

Searching, Escaping, and Longing for True Love.Set in Dunhuang, China, a city on the ancient Silk Road and home to thousands of painted cave murals, Dunhuang Dream magically blends the stories of three protagonists: Xiao Xingxing, a talented young female artist; Zhang Shu, a laboratory technician from a Beijing research institute who recently quit his job; and Xiang Wuye, a medical student. These three seek refuge in Dunhuang from their troubled lives, but soon find themselves in a strange entanglement of love. During their visit to the world-renowned Mogao Caves, they are attracted by the marvelous murals but are unaware that they will soon become involved in scandal.

Mary and Eddie are meant for each other — but love is no guarantee, not in these suburbs. Like all children, they exist in an eternal present; time is imminent, and the adults of the street live in their assorted houses like numbers on a clock. Meanwhile, ominous rumors circulate, and the increasing agitation of the neighbors points to a future in which all will be lost. Soon a sorcerer’s car will speed down Mary’s street, and as past and future fold into each other, the resonant parenthesis of her girlhood will close forever. Beyond is adulthood, a world of robots and sorcerers, slaves and masters, bodies without souls. In Duplex, Kathryn Davis, whom the Chicago Tribune has called “one of the most inventive novelists at work today,” has created a coming-of-age story like no other. Once you enter the duplex — that magical hinge between past and future, human and robot, space and time — there’s no telling where you might come out.

With Dusk (originally published in the Philippines as Po-on), F. Sionil Jose begins his five-novel Rosales Saga, which the poet and critic Ricaredo Demetillo called "the first great Filipino novels written in English." Set in the 1880s, Dusk records the exile of a tenant family from its village and the new life it attempts to make in the small town of Rosales. Here commences the epic tale of a family unwillingly thrown into the turmoil of history. But this is more than a historical novel; it is also the eternal story of man's tortured search for true faith and the larger meaning of existence. Jose has achieved a fiction of extraordinary scope and passion, a book as meaningful to Philippine literature as One Hundred Years of Solitude is to Latin American literature."The foremost Filipino novelist in English, his novels deserve a much wider readership than the Philippines can offer."-Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books"Tolstoy himself, not to mention Italo Svevo, would envy the author of this story."-Chicago Tribune

First published nearly a quarter-century ago and one of the very few short-story collections to win the PEN/Faulkner Award, this is American fiction at its most vital—each narrative a masterpiece of sustained power and seemingly effortless literary grace. Two New York attorneys newly flush with wealth embark on a dissolute tour of Italy; an ambitious young screenwriter unexpectedly discovers the true meaning of art and glory; a rider, far off in the fields, is involved in an horrific accident—night is falling, and she must face her destiny alone. These stories confirm James Salter as one of the finest writers of our time.

From a breathtaking new voice, a novel about a splintered family in Kenya — a story of power and deceit, unrequited love, survival and sacrifice.Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands, seeking some comfort and peace. But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany’s mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas’ house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge. In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation.Here is a spellbinding novel about a brother and sister who have lost their way; about how myths come to pass, history is written, and war stains us forever.

Чи існує в літературознавстві поняття «роман-нарис»? У кожному разі в літературі такий роман уже є. Як то в романах, читач знайде тут любовну історію, кілька розгалужених сюжетних ліній та всілякі подорожні пригоди. Але, як то в нарисах, важливішими за події в цьому тексті є самі герої, а важливішими за героїв — атмосфера і середовище. Зокрема — українська атмосфера дев’яностих-нульових і середовище більш-менш мистецького Львова, пропущені через «очуднену» призму свідомості американського напівукраїнця Елайджи. Наскільки болісними чи, навпаки, комічними виявляться його прозріння від зіткнення уявної України з реальною? Як то з найсмачнішими товарами в duty free, відповідь на це запитання призначена винятково для дорослої аудиторії.

Jane Austen's Emma, transported to the outrageous social melee of 21st-century Lahore.Our plucky heroine's cousin, Jonkers, has been dumped by his low-class, slutty secretary, and our heroine has been charged with finding him a suitable wife — a rich, fair, beautiful, old-family type. Quickly. But, between you, me and the four walls, who wants to marry poor, plain, hapless Jonkers?As our heroine social-climbs her way through weddings-sheddings, GTs (get togethers, of course) and ladies' lunches trying to find a suitable girl from the right bagground, she discovers to her dismay that her cousin has his own ideas about his perfect mate. And secretly, she may even agree.Full of wit and wickedness and as clever as its heroine is clueless, Duty Free is a delightful romp through Pakistani high society — though, even as it makes you cry with laughter, it makes you wince at the gulf between our heroine's glitteringly shallow life and the country that is…

Чи існує в літературознавстві поняття «роман-нарис»? У кожному разі в літературі такий роман уже є. Як то в романах, читач знайде тут любовну історію, кілька розгалужених сюжетних ліній та всілякі подорожні пригоди. Але, як то в нарисах, важливішими за події в цьому тексті є самі герої, а важливішими за героїв — атмосфера і середовище. Зокрема – українська атмосфера дев’яностих-нульових і середовище більш-менш мистецького Львова, пропущені через «очуднену» призму свідомості американського напівукраїнця Елайджи. Наскільки болісними чи, навпаки, комічними виявляться його прозріння від зіткнення уявної України з реальною? Як то з найсмачнішими товарами в duty free, відповідь на це запитання призначена винятково для дорослої аудиторії.

The staff of “The Capital Register and Press,” a staid, midwestern newspaper, is alarmed by the new owner’s attempts to sensationalize the paper’s format, but even more alarming are the management’s covert plans for blackmail, kidnapping, and murder.

This book made available by the Internet Archive.

Дебютное произведение Сергея Минаева, в середине нулевых получившее культовый статус. Главный герой — циник, наполненный самоотрицанием, принадлежит к новому поколению, которое должно было изменить мир. Но, кажется, мир изменил их. Топ-менеджер крупной компании прожигает свою жизнь и не может остановиться. Одна его часть хочет вырваться из порочного круга, другая — готова остаться в нем навсегда. Но жизнь сама расставит все точки и заставит каждого сделать выбор. Найдет ли главный герой свое место в обществе? Сможет ли стать настоящим человеком и не испортить себе жизнь? Роман Сергея Минаева невероятно точно уловил дух гламурных и сытых «нефтяных» годов и разошелся миллионным тиражом..

18+

Prowadziła go zła gwiazda… Stał na rozstaju dróg, poza społeczeństwem, ponad prawem, ponad moralnością. Niekochany, niechciany. Mordował, przekroczył próg zła, odkrył w sobie bestię. Lester Ballard w peruce z wyschłego skalpu ludzkiego, ubrany w bieliznę należącą do swych ofiar. Lester Ballard, „dziecię boże, stworzone na wzór i podobieństwo twoje”. Powieść dla osób o mocnych nerwach. Tylko dla dorosłych.