Действие романа происходит в Москве в период с 1998 по 2004 годы. На протяжении всего романа показана жизнь главного героя — Андрея с 18 до 24 лет. Роман делится на три части. Деление это условное. Однако во второй и третьей частях более подробно рассказано о событиях, связанных с общением главного героя с людьми, с которыми он познакомился по сети. В романе подробно описана как современная культура общения молодых людей по сети, их интересы, связанные с этим, так и различные способы знакомств — ICQ, chat, блоги. В романе показана трансформация личности героя от полного надежд неординарного юноши до уверенного в себе циничного молодого человека. Основная тема духовных исканий героя: есть ли любовь, и если она есть, то почему процент реально счастливых в любви, а тем более в браке людей, так ничтожно мал, а так взаимоотношение героя с потусторонним миром. Повествование романа ведется от лица главного героя.Автор этого романа выражает огромную благодарность музыкантам групп «Hobbit Shire», «Nazgul Band», «Дом Ветров», «Tintal», «Башня Rowan», «Троль Гнет Ель», «Оргия праведников», «Мельница», «Календарь», «Вересковый мед», «Выход» и «Умка и Броневичок». Без вашей музыки эта книга никогда не была бы написана.События, описанные в романе, а так же имена, фамилии и сетевые псевдонимы являются авторским вымыслом. Автор этой книги убедительно просит читателя считать любые совпадения с реальными событиями, именами и сетевыми псевдонимами случайным. И заранее просит прощения у тех, кто эти совпадения примет на свой счет.

Lucca, an actress, is rushed into hospital in a provincial Danish town after a motor accident. She is severely injured and Robert, the doctor treating her, is obliged to tell her she may never see again. Both of them are recovering from love affairs, and they relate their stories to each other.

Jonathan Lethem stretches new literary muscles in this scintillating new collection of stories. Some of these tales — such as "Pending Vegan," which wonderfully captures a parental ache and anguish during a family visit to an aquatic theme park — are, in Lethem's words, "obedient (at least outwardly) to realism." Others, like "The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear,", which deftly and hilariously captures the solipsism of blog culture, feature "the uncanny and surreal elements that still sometimes erupt in my short stories."The tension between these two approaches, and the way they inform each other, increase the reader's surprise and delight as one realizes how cleverly Lethem is playing with form. Devoted fans of Lethem will recognize familiar themes and tropes — the anxiety of influence pushed to reduction ad absurdum in "The King of Sentences"; a hapless outsider trying to summon up bravado in "The Porn Critic;" characters from the comics stranded on a desert island; the necessity and the impossibility of action against authority in "Procedure in Plain Air."As always, Lethem's work, humor, and poignancy work in harmony; people strive desperately for connection through words and often misdirect deeds; and the sentences are glorious.

"My father's wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us."Brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny, Lucky Us introduces us to Eva and Iris. Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star, and Eva, the sidekick, journey across 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris's ambitions take them from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island.With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine through a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war. Filled with gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and surprising events, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, the creation of a family, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life. From Brooklyn's beauty parlors to London's West End, a group of unforgettable people love, lie, cheat, and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species.

Lucretia’s best friend and upstairs neighbor Sunny — a sweet pitbull of a kid, even as she struggles with a mysterious illness — has gone missing. The only way to get her back is for Lucretia to climb the rickety fire escape of their Queens tenement and crawl through the window of apartment 6D, portal to a vast shadowland of missing kids ruled by a nightmarish family of mutants whose designs on the children are unknown. Her search for Sunny takes Lucretia through a dark fantasyland where she finds lush forests growing from concrete, pigeon-winged rodents, and haunted playgrounds. Her quest ultimately forces her to confront the most frightening specter of all: losing, forever, the thing you love the most.Lucretia and the Kroons is a dazzlingly imaginative adventure story and a moving exploration of the power of friendship and the terror of loss. This all-new novella serves as the perfect companion piece to The Devil in Silver, a thrillingly suspenseful work of literary horror that continues the story of Lucretia.

Analiza następstw zdrady małżeńskiej w słynnej psychologiczno-obyczajowej powieści autora Pogody dla bogaczy. Lucy i Oliver Crown są wzorowym szczęśliwym małżeństwem, dbającym o dobro trzynastoletniego jedynaka, któremu starają się zapewnić jak najlepsze warunki rekonwalescencji po ciężkiej chorobie. Podczas wakacji Lucy, zdominowana przez władczego męża, nawiązuje przelotny romans z korepetytorem syna. Następstwa tego kroku odczują wszyscy, a rodzina Crownów odtąd istnieć będzie tylko formalnie. Najboleśniej wszakże dotknie to samą Lucy…

Porównywana z „Imperium słońca” szokująca wizja naszego świata i ludzi wkraczających w wiek XXI.Mała rewolucja jest tak skromna i grzeczna, że początkowo prawie nikt jej nie zauważa. Ale już wkrótce lekarze, inżynierowie, menedżerowie podpalają swoje domy, przewracają swoje volva i bmw, a w końcu podkładają bomby. Dlaczego stateczni obywatele postanowili zniszczyć swoje dotychczasowe życie? Dlaczego sięgnęli po terror? Odpowiedzi szukamy razem z narratorem, psychologiem Davidem Markhamem, w londyńskiej dzielnicy klasy średniej. Wraz z nim ulegamy stopniowo fascynacji anarchią, uwodzi nas charyzmatyczny pediatra, fanatyczny guru buntu, i z niedowierzaniem przyjmujemy jego wyjaśnienie: przyczyną przemocy może być brak przyczyny.Nie ma silniejszej motywacji od nudy, sugeruje Ballard, terror jako protest przeciwko przyszłości, w której nic się nie będzie działo. „Ludzie millenium” to wizja absurdalna, groteskowa, ale i niepokojąca. Czy wiemy, czego naprawdę chcemy? Potrzebujemy poczucia bezpieczeństwa czy tęsknimy za napięciem, stresem, niepewnością? Przepowiadany przez autora „Imperium słońca” symboliczny scenariusz destrukcji wyrasta z wyobraźni pisarza zafascynowanego nieuchronnością katastrofy, ale jest też precyzyjną i beznamiętną analizą społeczeństwa u progu kryzysu, ludzkości u progu nowego tysiąclecia. Czy nasz bunt dla samego buntu jest rzeczywiście tylko kwestią czasu? Cóż, nie wszystkie przepowiednie się sprawdzają.

A dazzling story told for the love of story by the greatest of storytellers gives us a novel of wisdom and pleasure for all ages, in which a young boy must battle his way through a dangerous world in order to save his father.On a beautiful starry night in the city of Kahani in the land of Alifbay, a terrible thing happened: twelve-year-old Luka's storyteller father, Rashid, fell suddenly and inexplicably into a sleep so deep that nothing and no one could rouse him. To save him from slipping away entirely, Luka must embark on a journey through The Magic World, encountering a slew of phantasmagorical obstacles along the way, to steal the Fire of Life, a seemingly impossible and exceedingly dangerous task.Rushdie proved that he is one of the best contemporary writers with Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990). While Haroun was written as a gift for his first son, Luka and the Fire of Life, the story of Haroun's younger brother, is a gift for Salman's second son on the occasion of his twelfth birthday. Lyrically crafted and filled with frolicking wordplay, this is Salman Rushdie at his best.

A dazzling story told for the love of story by the greatest of storytellers gives us a novel of wisdom and pleasure for all ages, in which a young boy must battle his way through a dangerous world in order to save his father.On a beautiful starry night in the city of Kahani in the land of Alifbay, a terrible thing happened: twelve-year-old Luka's storyteller father, Rashid, fell suddenly and inexplicably into a sleep so deep that nothing and no one could rouse him. To save him from slipping away entirely, Luka must embark on a journey through The Magic World, encountering a slew of phantasmagorical obstacles along the way, to steal the Fire of Life, a seemingly impossible and exceedingly dangerous task.Rushdie proved that he is one of the best contemporary writers with Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990). While Haroun was written as a gift for his first son, Luka and the Fire of Life, the story of Haroun's younger brother, is a gift for Salman's second son on the occasion of his twelfth birthday. Lyrically crafted and filled with frolicking wordplay, this is Salman Rushdie at his best.

A decade after the publication of Haussmann, or the Distinction, his acclaimed novel about nineteenth-century Paris, Paul La Farge turns his imagination to America at the dawn of the twenty-first century.In September 2000, a young programmer comes home from a festival in the Nevada desert and learns that his grandfather has died, and that he has to return to Thebes, a town which is so isolated that its inhabitants have their own language, in order to clean out the house where his family lived for five generations. While he’s there, he runs into Yesim, a Turkish American woman whom he loved as a child, and begins a romance in which past and present are dangerously confused. At the same time, he remembers San Francisco in the wild years of the Internet boom, and mourns the loss of Swan, a madman who may have been the only person to understand what was happening to the city, and to the world.Luminous Airplanes has a singular form: the novel, complete in itself, is accompanied by an online “immersive text,” which continues the story and complements it. Nearly ten years in the making, La Farge’s ambitious new work considers large worlds and small ones, love, memory, family, flying machines, dance music, and the end of the world.

Luna caliente narra una historia de obsesión, de sexo y de crímenes situada en un contexto inusual como marco de novela negra: la Argentina de 1977, sometida a la dictadura militar, donde la lucha antisubversiva y la tortura están a la orden del día. Desde las primeras páginas, el autor nos sumerge de lleno en una atmósfera febril, con personajes dotados de una tremenda realidad y, a la par, de una dimensión casi teratológica, que se adentran por caminos de brutalidad y cinismo.

En el otoño de 1937 cientos de soldados republicanos, huyendo de la amenaza nacionalista que había derrumbado su frente de Asturias, se refugian en las escarpadas montañas de la Cordillera Cantábrica. Pretendían escapar de la represión del ejército vencedor y esperar el momento para reagruparse e iniciar una nueva lucha o para establecerse en alguna de las zonas del país que aún permanecían bajo control republicano.Algunos de ellos, cuyo origen era leonés, cruzaron estas enormes montañas para poder refugiarse en sus pueblos natales y para ver, quizá por última vez, a sus seres queridos.Esta breve novela relata la historia de cuatro de estos soldados que decidieron cruzar la Cordillera Cantábrica para refugiarse en la provincia leonesa: su hogar y su lugar natal.Estos soldados procedían de pueblos escondidos entre las escarpadas montañas leonesas y situados entre el valle del Porma y del río Curueño.La historia es narrada por uno de ellos, Ángel. Este es maestro y parece el más culto de los cuatro; su hermana y su padre viven en unos de los pueblos de esta zona llamado La Llánava.Los cuatro huidos se refugian en las montañas que rodean el valle. Primero en una mina abandonada y después en una cueva excavada por ellos mismos. Sobreviven gracias a la caza, la ayuda de sus familiares y algún que otro robo. La vida allí no es fácil para ellos debido a las continuas persecuciones y amenazas nacionalistas. Los soldados de Franco registran periódicamente las casas de los pueblos del valle buscando y matando a todos los huidos republicanos. La gente de allí está asustada, pero muchos de ellos, valientes y justos, se arman de valor para ayudar y socorrer a los que en tiempos pasados habían sido sus vecinos y amigos. Otros, por el contrario, prefieren salvar sus vidas siendo fieles al ejército franquista.Entre todos estos problemas, los protagonistas de esta novela van superando momentos difíciles, conscientes de que algún día, no muy lejano, alguno de ellos podría acabar en una cuneta con un tiro en la cabeza asesinado por los soldados nacionalistas.En la novela, podemos distinguir cuatro periodos en la vida de estos intrépidos aventureros.

“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 DeLillo“Possessing both the grace of James Joyce and the snap and crackle of Tom Wolfe, [Sorrentino] is a must-read for those who fancy fiction served on wry.”—Booklist“Far from being overly highbrow, Sorrentino manages to be thrillingly disorienting and, at the same time, quite accessible.”—BookSense.com“Sorrentino has shown himself a perfect mimic of the information age, an era when all is revealed and no one can quite remember who appeared on the cover of last week’s People.”—The Washington PostA boyhood friend of the late Hubert Selby, Jr., teacher of Jeffrey Eugenides and two-time PEN/Faulkner Award finalist, Gilbert Sorrentino is an elder statesman of American literature who continues to transgress artistic boundaries.In Lunar Follies, a bitingly satiric, imaginative tour of gallery, museum and performance art exhibitions, Sorrentino skewers the pretensions of the contemporary art world and its flailing attempts at relevance in a society whose attentions have strayed to the immediacy of pop culture. With precise comedic timing and an eye toward lascivious detail, Sorrentino is the perfect guide through this deliciously absurd world.Gilbert Sorrentino has published over 20 books of fiction and poetry, including the story collection, The Moon in Its Flight, and the recent novel, Little Casino, which was shortlisted for the 2003 PEN/Faulkner Award. After two decades on the faculty at Stanford University, he now lives in his native Brooklyn, New York.

This yarn takes place in the suburbs of a giant city, and its hero is Edison Lo. There he is, in his thirties, in the middle of things! In Chicago they're coming off their night shift, in Tokyo they're asleep — that's what's happening elsewhere in the world when Edison wakes up. Our hero has had the good education, and also the good job. Together with his wife, Candy, he lives at home with his parents. In other words, the juggernaut of meaning is very much not parked heavily on Edison's lawn. But then the lurid overtakes him and the form it chooses is Park.At school and university, Park was Edison's best friend, until Park moved out east. For a decade, they never saw each other. And now, in the manner of a myth or cartoon series, Park has returned, narcotic and neurotic — just when Edison, like everyone else, has become unemployed. This reunion begins a spritely chain of events which to Ed feels like one long slide. This quick and chancy tale is full of high jinks and low tricks, complete with one orgy, one brothel and the disposal of a body, even if its heroes still try to keep up natty crosstalk and one-liners. But meanwhile something much larger might be going on. For if you start to notice minute doubles and repeats, or wonder if what you took as a literary kink might in fact be a kink of reality, well perhaps, like maybe, that shouldn't be so much of a surprise.

An attempt to portray the horror of certain men's brutal sexual domination of women, this novel by the German author of "The Piano Teacher" tells the story of Gerti, a woman who turns in revulsion from her husband to a younger man, only to discover that he too wishes to treat her unkindly.In a quaint Austrian ski resort, things are not quite what they seem.Hermann, the manager of a paper mill, has decided that sexual gratification begins at home. Which means Gerti – his wife and property. Gerti is not asked how she feels about the use Hermann puts her to. She is a receptacle into which Hermann pours his juices, nastily, briefly, brutally.The long-suffering and battered Gerti thinks she has found her saviour and love in Michael, a student who rescues her after a day of vigorous use by her husband. But Michael is on his way up the Austrian political ladder, and he is, after all, a man.In Elfriede Jelinek's mitteleuropa, love is as distant from sex as the Alps are from the sea, and the everyday mechanics of husband, wife, and child, become a loveless horror. Both a condemnation of the myth of romantic love and an angry defence of women's sexuality, Lust is pornography for pessimists.A bestseller throughout Europe, Lust conforms Elfriede Jelinek as the most challenging writer – female or male – in Europe today. It is a dark, dazzling performance.

From Publishers Weekly"Reality's got a hole in it." That's what runs through Michael Blasco's head when he discovers that he has the uncanny ability to bring his fantasies to life in this wacky, inspired third novel by Ryman (Was). The 38-year-old gay protagonist is a government scientist experimenting on baby chicks and has a flat in London 's West End with Phil, his passionless boyfriend. While seething on a subway platform, he imagines the beefy trainer at his gym stripping naked right in front of him-and poof-it happens! Terrified at first, Michael quickly regains his composure and wills into action a series of characters like Tarzan and cartoon diva Taffy Duck; narcissistically, he also conjures a copy of himself. His reunion with a long-lost high school sweetheart nicknamed Bottles proves to be touching and funny, but his meeting with Mark, a victim of AIDS, turns sad when Mark rebuffs his plea to revive him. In an effort to inject passion into his stagnant relationship, Michael "calls up" a younger version of Phil paired with a younger version of himself. When this scheme backfires, he returns to the anonymous "speedy, functional sex" that has long sustained him. A night out with feisty Billie Holiday, passionate sex with Picasso and dalliances with Lawrence of Arabia on Viagra reinvigorate him and make for some funny, titillating reading, but as Michael's notebook of his wild adventures begins to overflow, the story's whimsical tone changes, revealing more of his true character as well as some particularly troublesome personal problems. Among them is a disturbing boyhood fixation on his father, which mutates into a wincingly unnerving incestuous sequence. Ryman's "careful-what-you-wish-for" message is artfully packaged in this quirky, offbeat, entertaining novel."Inventive… a risky, highly imaginative addition to a unique and valuable boody of work." – Kirkus"Ryman's 'careful-what-you-wish-for' message is artfully packaged in this quirkyy, off-beat, entertaining novel." – Publishers Weekly***David, a young scientist investigating what happens to the brain during the process of learning, suddenly finds himself the subject of a bizarre experiment. On the way home from the lab one night he spies Tony, a fitness instructor from his gym, on the same platform waiting for the tube. David's had an obsession with Tony for weeks, but Tony's barely noticed him at all. Until now. When David imagines the man naked, an extraordinary thing happens: Tony strips there and then on the platform and offers himself in front of all onlookers. Horrified, David flees. But back at his flat, Tony reappears, as if by magic. And disappears, when David wishes him away. And reappears when he calls him back. David can conjure up anyone, from any time, and he does: Billie Holliday, Johnny Weismuller, Daffy Duck, Picasso, Sophia Loren, even his younger self. Mad with lust and losing all scientific objectivity, he runs the gamut of his fantasies until, sated and morally bankrupt, he's forced to confront himself. It is not a pretty sight.

Czarodziejskie lustro kupione w tajemniczym sklepie pana Grymsa odbija dziwny świat, który kusi i niepokoi trzynastoletnią Agatę. Zwodnicze lustro wciąga najpierw jej ukochanego psa Kusego i tym samym zmusza Agatę, by przekroczyła granicę innego świata. Agata trafia do fantastycznej krainy Koral… Do czego czarownicy potrzebują płomiennowłosej Agaty? Jakie niebezpieczeństwa na nią czyhają? Czy będzie mogła wrócić do domu?

`Luzmila`, el relato que da título al libro, es el preferido por Alvaro Pombo. Constituye la primera formulación de un viejo asunto: la bondad de una persona. Luzmila, la protagonista, es un personaje de muy pobre desarrollo intelectual, dotado de una bondad real y profunda, pero todavía demasiado elemental.En `Tío Eduardo` el autor refleja el Santander de su niñez, expresa su fascinación por un mundo elegante y su preocupación, entonces, de moralista.Este relato expresa una cierta `justicia poética`: al final de su vida, tío Eduardo es tratado de un modo semejante a como él, sin darse cuenta, trató a su propia esposa.En `Perfume de nostalgia (Un relato corto)`, escrito por Pombo en Londres cuando trabajaba de telefonista, el autor nos presenta una acuarela de su colegio de Valladolid, tomando de su recuerdo tan solo el delicioso ambiente decimonónico del mismo, donde cursó sus tres últimos años de bachillerato. Todo lo demás es inventado, en función de la idea unificadora del libro, es decir, la sensación, la emoción imprecisa pero constante que Pombo confiesa tener cuando escribió estos relatos: la vida humana era para él una configuración de elementos inconexos, un proceso melancólico de ilusión.La tesis de `El cambio` resulta para el autor inmersa en una nebulosa cuyos detalles, según él reconoce, están bien estructurados, pero cuyo fondo no puede -o no quiere- recordar.

Lyrics Alley is the evocative story of an affluent Sudanese family shaken by the shifting powers in their country and the near-tragedy that threatens the legacy they've built for decades.Their fortune threatened by shifting powers in Sudan and their heir's debilitating accident, a powerful family under the leadership of Mahmoud Bey is torn between the traditional and modern values of Mahmoud's two wives and his son's efforts to break with cultural limits.