When the boy was almost eight, a woman stepped out of the elevator into the apartment on East Sixty-second Street and he recognized her straightaway. No one had told him to expect it. That was pretty typical of growing up with Grandma Selkirk… No one would dream of saying, Here is your mother returned to you.His Illegal Self is the story of Che-raised in isolated privilege by his New York grandmother, he is the precocious son of radical student activists at Harvard in the late sixties. Yearning for his famous outlaw parents, denied all access to television and the news, he takes hope from his long-haired teenage neighbor, who predicts, They will come for you, man. They'll break you out of here.Soon Che too is an outlaw: fleeing down subways, abandoning seedy motels at night, he is pitched into a journey that leads him to a hippie commune in the jungle of tropical Queensland. Here he slowly, bravely confronts his life, learning that nothing is what it seems. Who is his real mother? Was that his real father? If all he suspects is true, what should he do?Never sentimental, His Illegal Self is an achingly beautiful story of the love between a young woman and a little boy. It may make you cry more than once before it lifts your spirit in the most lovely, artful, unexpected way.

Stephen Dixon, one of America’s great literary treasures, has completed his first novel in five years — His Wife Leaves Him, a long, intimate exploration of the interior life of a husband who has lost his wife. His Wife Leaves Him is as achingly simple as its title: A man, Martin, thinks about the loss of his wife, Gwen. In Dixon’s hands, however, this straightforward premise becomes a work of such complexity that it no longer appears to be words on pages so much as life itself. Dixon, like all great writers, captures consciousness. Stories matter here, and the writer understands how people tell them and why they go on retelling them, for stories, finally, may be all that Martin has of Gwen. Reminders of their shared past, some painful, some hilarious, others blissful and sensual, appear and reappear in the present. Stories made from memories merge with dreams of an impossible future they’ll never get to share. Memories and details grow fuzzy, get corrected, and then wriggle away, out of reach again. Martin holds all these stories dear. They leaven grief so that he may again experience some joy. Story by story then, he accounts for himself, good and bad, moments of grace, occasions for disappointment, promises and arguments. From these things are their lives made. In His Wife Leaves Him, Stephen Dixon has achieved nothing short of the resurrection of a life through words. When asked to describe his latest work, the author said that “it’s about a bunch of nouns: love, guilt, sickness, death, remorse, loss, family, matrimony, sex, children, parenting, aging, mistakes, incidents, minutiae, birth, music, writing, jobs, affairs, memory, remembering, reminiscences, forgetting, repression, dreams, reverie, nightmares, meeting, dating, conceiving, imagining, delaying, loving.” His Wife Leaves Him is Dixon’s most important and ambitious novel, his tenderest and funniest writing to date, and the stylistic and thematic summation of his writing life.

« Jusqu'où irons-nous ? Jusqu'à quand serons-nous vivants ? Quelles raisons donnerons-nous à notre histoire ? Parce qu'il faudra bien un jour trouver une raison, donner une raison, nous ne pourrons pas accréditer notre innocence. Où que nous soyons, quelle que soit notre destination finale (si une telle chose existe), il nous faudra rendre compte, rendre des comptes.J'ai été, j'ai fait, j'ai possédé. Et un jour je ne serai plus rien. Pareil à ce wagon lancé à une vitesse inimaginable, incalculable, sans doute voisine de l'absolu, entre deux mondes, entre deux états. Et pas question qu'aucun d'entre nous retourne jamais à ses états, je veux dire à son passé, à ce qu'il, à ce qu'elle a aimé. Pour cela les visages sont figés, immobiles, parfois terreux, on dirait des masques de carton bouilli ou de vieux cuir, avec deux fentes par où bouge le regard, une étoile de vie accrochée au noir des prunelles. »

Historia de una maestra es un relato en el que la protagonista rememora con serena lucidez la historia de su vida. Entregada a una profesión que la lleva de pueblo en pueblo, en condiciones casi siempre miserables, Gabriela vive su historia personal sobre el telón de fondo de un periodo decisivo en la historia de España: desde los años veinte hasta el comienzo de la guerra civil.El advenimiento de la República, con sus promesas de grandes cambios y su exaltación del papel de los maestros en la transformación de la sociedad española, la lucha contra la ignorancia y el caciquismo, la revolución de Octubre vivida en un pueblo minero, la violencia y el brutal desgarramiento familiar, la nostalgia recurrente de la única aventura de su vida, su primera escuela en Guinea… todo ello va conformando la vida de una mujer testigo y protagonista de unos hechos que explican en gran parte los sucesos que vinieron después.El sueño individual y colectivo, la lucha y las renuncias de los que entregaron su vida para conseguir despertar a un pueblo adormecido transcurren por las páginas de esta excelente novela, que se convierte así en un homenaje a unos personajes olvidadas y sin embargo clave en la historia de España: los maestros de la República.

Raimundo Silva, corrector de pruebas de una editorial, introduce en el texto que está revisando -un libro de historia titulado Historia del cerco de Lisboa- un error voluntario, una partícula pequeñísima, un «no»: los cruzados no ayudaron a los portugueses a conquistar Lisboa.Es un no que subvierte la Historia, que la niega como conjunto de hechos objetivos, al mismo tiempo que exalta el papel del escritor, demiurgo capaz de modificar lo que ha sido fijado y consagrado. El acto de insubordinación del corrector significa la rebelión contra lo que se define como verdad absoluta y no censurable. No es la Lisboa mora la que está cercada, sino la propia Historia.El no de Raimundo Silva genera una propuesta de reflexión y un texto nuevo porque, como ha escrito el propio Saramago, «todo puede ser contado de otra manera», o «todo lo que no sea vida es literatura». Historia del cerco de Lisboa es también una hermosa historia de amor entre Raimundo Silva y María Sara, personajes contemporáneos sitiados y sitiadores, que acaban derribando los muros que los separan en el proceso de humanización de la historia oficial.Es, en definitiva, una novela apasionante de un escritor que al novelar busca respuesta para las grandes cuestiones que atañen a los seres humanos. Y de la rebeldía de Saramago surgen obras maestras. Como esta Historia del cerco de Lisboa, definida por la crítica internacional como el más acabado ejemplo de posmodernismo literario.

Słowo nie wstawione przez redaktora w miejscu, gdzie nie umieścił go autor HISTORII OBLĘŻENIA LIZBONY, nie ma żadnego wpływu na dzieje miasta i jego mieszkańców, nie odwróci biegu historii, może jednak całkowicie odmienić życie pojedynczego człowieka. Raimundo Silva, redaktor pracujący w domu, którego życie ubogie było dotąd w drobne choćby sukcesy i niespodzianki, napisze alternatywną HISTORIĘ OBLĘŻENIA LIZBONY, w wazonie w jego kawalerskim mieszkaniu pojawi się biała róża, a w sercu nieznane mu dotąd uczucie. Czytelnik zaś przeniesie się w czasy, gdy w mieście otoczonym przez wojska Alfonsa Henriquesa – późniejszego pierwszego króla Portugalii – po raz ostatni rozbrzmiał śpiew almuadema z wieży głównego meczetu. Napisana z dużą dozą ironii i autoironii HISTORIA OBLĘŻENIA LIZBONY, w której podwójny wątek miłosny splata się z historycznym i metapowieściowym, to książka godna plecenia nie tylko miłośnikom prozy José Saramago. José Saramago, laureat literackiej Nagrody Nobla i najpopularniejszy na świecie prozaik portugalski, sławę zdobył dopiero w sześćdziesiątym roku życia swoją trzecią powieścią BALTAZAR I BLIMUNDA, nagrodzoną prestiżową nagrodą portugalskiego PEN Clubu oraz Nagrodą Literacką Miasta Lizbona.

Ensayo en el cual cuenta la historia real que inspiró la historia de su novela La Casa Verde. De una conferencia dada en una universidad.Hace unos años, en la Feria de Frankfurt, centro mundial del chisme editorial, cuando La Casa Verde estaba a punto de publicarse en España, corría el rumor de que el autor era, además de buen escritor, un aventurero que se dejaba caer en paracaídas en medio de la selva para mejor observar las costumbres de los nativosEn La historia secreta de una novela, Mario Vargas Llosa se despoja de esta leyenda. Realiza, como él dice, un strip-tease. Pero, no como el novelista «que al comienzo está desnudo y al final (de la novela) vestido» sino un strip-tease de verdad, «como la muchacha que, bajo impúdicos reflectores, se libera de sus ropas y muestra, uno a uno, sus encantos secretos.» Esta es la historia secreta del escritor Vargas Llosa y del proceso de creación de La Casa Verde, una de sus obras más complejas y creativas. Como, en 1958, en una pensión de Madrid, «quedó perpetrado el acto de locura: `voy a tratar de ser un escritor`», cómo, en 1962, «en un apartamento crujiente» de París, empezó la batalla contra los fantasmas reales de Piura («la casa verde», la Mangachería) y de la selva (la Misión de Santa María de Nieva, Jum, Tushía) que, poco a poco, fueron ordenándose para convertirse en esta maquiavélica «mentira» (Ezra Pound dixit) que es la novela.Quizá porque los editores deseamos siempre mitificar a nuestros autores creímos en la imagen tentadora de un Vargas Llosa paracaidista. Pero, aunque después quedáramos ligeramente defraudados, no deja de ser muy atractivo imaginar a un señor normalmente endomingado, con el cabello bien planchado, profesor en varias universidades, recorriendo en hidroavión, carros, canoas y lo que se diera, la selva, las misiones, «las casas verdes» de Perú. (Tusquets)

No es fácil pasar impunemente de la novela al cuento. Se trata de un género abierto a todos los géneros, versus una cápsula verbal que debe concentrarse en un sólo objetivo de interés. En estos cuentos, Aguilar Camín ha sido fiel a su mundo imaginario: trasponer la realidad real, testimonial, a un plano de ficción, pero sin dejar de ser o apuntar permanentemente hacia el testimonio, hacia la realidad de cada día. De manera que, en estas Historias conversadas, sin pretender crear un mundo de pura ficción por el costante guiño que le hace a la realidad, nos atrapa igualmente en su madeja anecdótica como si fuera un mundo de pura ficción, sin relación inmediata o reconocible

From the acclaimed author of The Drowning People (“A literary sensation” —The New York Times Book Review) and Natural Elements (“A magnum opus” —The New Yorker), an opulent, romantic coming-of-age drama set at the height of Europe’s belle époque, written in the grand tradition with a lightness of touch that is wholly modern and original.The novel opens in Amsterdam at the turn of the last century. It moves to New York at the time of the 1907 financial crisis and proceeds onboard a luxury liner headed for Cape Town.It is about a young man — Piet Barol — with an instinctive appreciation for pleasure and a gift for finding it. Piet’s father is an austere administrator at Holland’s oldest university. His mother, a singing teacher, has died — but not before giving him a thorough grounding in the arts of charm.Piet applies for a job as tutor to the troubled son of Europe’s leading hotelier: a child who refuses to leave his family’s mansion on Amsterdam’s grandest canal. As the young man enters this glittering world, he learns its secrets — and soon, quietly, steadily, finds his life transformed as he in turn transforms the lives of those around him.History of a Pleasure Seeker is a brilliantly written portrait of the senses, a novel about pleasure and those who are in search of it; those who embrace it, luxuriate in it, need it; and those who deprive themselves of it as they do those they love. It is a book that will beguile and transport you — to another world, another time, another state of being.

Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, in the margin between this world and the next, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him, enfolded in the mystery of ancestors, Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to grandfather Abraham, to her father, Virgil — via pole-vaulting, leaping salmon, poetry and the three thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight books piled high beneath the two skylights in her room, beneath the rain.The stories — of her golden twin brother Aeney, their closeness even as he slips away; of their dogged pursuit of the Swains’ Impossible Standard and forever falling just short; of the wild, rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland — pour forth in Ruthie’s still, small, strong, hopeful voice. A celebration of books, love and the healing power of the imagination, this is an exquisite, funny, moving novel in which every sentence sings.

From the author of Timequake, this "irresistible" novel (Cleveland Plain Dealer) tells the story of Eugene Debs Hartke-Vietnam veteran, jazz pianist, college professor, and prognosticator of the apocalypse. It's "Vonnegut's best novel in years-funny and prophetic...something special." (The Nation)

Эта книга — рассказы о веселых перепитиях чисто конкретного провинциала в Стране Чудес — Союзе Советских Социалистических Республик. В книге жизнеутверждается главный авторский принцип: только законченный пессимист с оптимизмом смотрит в будущее.

When Achilles Conroy and his brother Troy return from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, their white mother presents them with the key to their past: envelopes containing details about their respective birth parents. After Troy disappears, Achilles — always his brother’s keeper — embarks on a harrowing journey in search of Troy, an experience that will change him forever.Heartbreaking, intimate, and at times disturbing, Hold It ’Til It Hurts is a modern-day odyssey through war, adventure, disaster, and love, and explores how people who do not define themselves by race make sense of a world that does.

Maya Taylor, an intense, gifted English professor, has a tendency to retreat when she is needed most, escaping on long morning runs or finding comfort in the well-thumbed novels in her library. But when she sends her daughter Ellie to Florida to care for a friend’s child, it’s with the best of intentions. Twenty and spiraling, Ellie is lost in a fog of drugs and men — desperately in need of a fresh start. Her life with this attractive new family in Florida begins well, but Ellie is crippled by the fear that she’ll only disappoint those around her. . again. And in the sprawling hours of one humid afternoon, she finally makes a mistake she cannot take back.The accident hangs over both mother and daughter as they try to repair their fractured relationship and find a way to transcend not only their differences but also their more startling similarities. In Maya’s and Ellie’s echoing narratives, Lynn Steger Strong creates a searing, unforgettable portrait of familial love and the tender heartache of motherhood — from the sweltering Florida heat to the bone-cold of New York in January. Churning toward one fateful day in two separate timelines, Hold Still is a story of before and after and the impossible distance in between.Heralding the arrival of a profoundly moving new talent, this novel marks a taut and propulsive debut that “builds to a perfect crescendo, an ending that is both surprising and true” (Marcy Dermansky). Hold Still explores the weight of culpability and the depths and limits of a mother’s love.“Hold Still is an unblinking examination of family, the mother-child bond, and the storms it must withstand. Lynn Strong pulls no punches in considering not just how deep, but also how misguided a mother’s love can be.”—Elisa Albert, author of After Birth

The world of Jeffery Renard Allen’s stunning short-story collection is a place like no other. A recognizable city, certainly, but one in which a man might sprout wings or copper pennies might fall from the skies onto your head. Yet these are no fairy tales. The hostility, the hurt, is all too human.The protagonists circle each other with steely determination: a grandson taunts his grandmother, determined to expose her secret past; for years, a sister tries to keep a menacing neighbor away from her brother; and in the local police station, an officer and prisoner try to break each other’s resolve.In all the stories, Allen calibrates the mounting tension with exquisite timing, in mesmerizing prose that has won him comparisons with Joyce and Faulkner. Holding Pattern is a captivating collection by a prodigiously talented writer.

“Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” was the surprise best seller of 2011—an unprecedented mix of YA fantasy and vintage photography that enthralled readers and critics alike. Publishers Weekly called it “an enjoyable, eccentric read, distinguished by well-developed characters, a believable Welsh setting, and some very creepy monsters.”This second novel begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine's island by the skin of their teeth, Jacob and his new friends must journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. Along the way, they encounter new allies, a menagerie of peculiar animals, and other unexpected surprises.Complete with dozens of newly discovered (and thoroughly mesmerizing) vintage photographs, this new adventure will delight readers of all ages.

Charles Bukowski, amerykański pisarz niemieckiego pochodzenia pozostawił po sobie bogaty dorobek w postaci ponad 30 książek, tomów prozy i poezji. Otaczająca go atmosfera skandalu i prowokacji, emanująca z jego prozy postawa niepokornego buntownika, obalanie obyczajowych tabu, dosadny, często wulgarny język sprawiły, że stał się kultowym pisarzem undergroundu, idolem mas i pokolenia bitników. W powieści "Hollywood", będącej znakomitym literackim wizerunkiem słynnej "fabryki snów", Bukowski obnażył kabotyństwo filmowego świadka, drwiąc bezlitośnie z obowiązujących w nim konwencji i reguł gry, które obudziły jego odrazę.

A phantasmagoric dream of a novel, exploring the mind of a housewife enamored of historical personages, twisted love stories, and strange conspiracies.Mrs. Hollingsworth sits at her kitchen table, compiling her grocery list. The subject of the list is not foodstuffs, but memories that never happened, inventions of loves, and strange conspiracies peopled by men who appear in the lonely housewife’s head — men infinitely more real to her than her own husband. Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest gallops into her story, courtesy of media giant Ted Turner and two shady criminal types named Bundy and Oswald who are engaged in a secret experiment to create “the New Southerner.”Her prying daughters believe Mrs. Hollingsworth is losing her mind. But in truth, their mother is simply looking for love via hand-to-hand combat on the surreal battlefield inside her head.Originally published as Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men, Padgett Powell’s Hologram is a stunning literary achievement. Strikingly unique, it is a poignant, funny, and unconventional fever dream brought to lyrical life.