Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start — she’s a lesbian, he’s gay — but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.Worried that Lee will have her committed for her erratic behavior, Peggy goes underground, adopting an African American persona for her and her daughter. They squat in a house in an African American settlement, eventually moving to a housing project where no one questions their true racial identities. As Peggy and Lee’s children grow up, they must contend with diverse emotional issues: Byrdie must deal with his father’s compulsive honesty; while Karen struggles with her mother’s lies — she knows neither her real age, nor that she is “white,” nor that she has any other family.Years later, a minority scholarship lands Karen at the University of Virginia, where Byrdie is in his senior year. Eventually the long lost siblings will meet, setting off a series of misunderstandings and culminating in a comedic finale worthy of Shakespeare.

Astonishing prose brings to life a forgotten woman and a lost world in a strange and bittersweet Southern pastoral.Since his award-winning debut collection of stories, Last Days of the Dog- Men, Brad Watson has been expanding the literary traditions of the South, in work as melancholy, witty, strange, and lovely as any in America. Inspired by the true story of his own great-aunt, he explores the life of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural, early-twentieth-century Mississippi with a genital birth defect that would stand in the way of the central “uses” for a woman in that time and place — namely, sex and marriage.From the country doctor who adopts Jane to the hard tactile labor of farm life, from the highly erotic world of nature around her to the boy who loved but was forced to leave her, the world of Miss Jane Chisolm is anything but barren. Free to satisfy only herself, she mesmerizes those around her, exerting an unearthly fascination that lives beyond her still.

Anjali Bose is 'Miss New India.' Born into a traditional lower-middle-class family and living in a backwater town with an arranged marriage on the horizon, Anjali's prospects don't look great. But her ambition and fluency in language do not go unnoticed by her expat teacher, Peter Champion. And champion her he does, both to other powerful people who can help her along the way and to Anjali herself, stirring in her a desire to take charge of her own destiny.So she sets off to Bangalore, India's fastest-growing major metropolis, and quickly falls in with an audacious and ambitious crowd of young people, who have learned how to sound American by watching shows like Seinfeld in order to get jobs as call-center service agents, where they are quickly able to out-earn their parents. And it is in this high-tech city where Anjali – suddenly free from the traditional confines of class, caste, gender, and more – is able to confront her past and reinvent herself. Of course, the seductive pull of modernity does not come without a dark side…

The eponymous heroine of Miss Wyoming is one Susan Colgate, a teen beauty queen and low-rent soap actress. Dragooned into show business by her demonically pushy, hillbilly mother, Susan has hit rock bottom by the time Douglas Coupland's seventh book begins. But when she finds herself the sole survivor of an airplane crash, this "low-grade onboard celebrity" takes the opportunity to start all over again:She felt like a ghost. She tried to find her bodily remains there in the wreckage and was unable to do so.... Then she was lost in a crowd of local onlookers and trucks, parping sirens and ambulances. She picked her way out of the melee and found a newly paved suburban road that she followed away from the wreck into the folds of a housing development. She had survived, and now she needed sanctuary and silence. She's not, of course, the only Hollywood burnout who'd like to vanish into thin air. Her opposite number, a producer of big-budget, no-brainer action flicks named John Johnson, stages a similar disappearing act. After a near-death experience, in the course of which he is treated to a vision of Susan's face, he roams the western badlands. And even after his return to L.A., Johnson is determined to unravel the mystery of this woman's fate.Throughout, Coupland displays his usual gift for capturing the absurdities of modern existence. The distinctive minutiae of our age--junk mail and fast food, sitcoms and Singapore slings, and the "shop fronts bigger and brighter and more powerful than they needed to be"--come to vivid, funny life in this author's hands. And while Susan and John occupy center stage, Coupland is just as generous with his peripheral characters. A scriptwriter and his supernaturally intelligent girlfriend, a recluse who spends his evening generating Internet rumours--all manage to be blessed and cursed, numbed by their pointless existences but full of humanity when put to the test. Picture Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut collaborating on a Tinseltown version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and you come halfway to grasping Coupland's brand of thoughtful, supremely funny storytelling.

Perhaps the most important work in modern Iranian literature, this starkly beautiful novel examines the trials of an impoverished woman and her children living in a remote village in Iran, after the unexplained disappearance of her husband, Soluch.Lyrical yet unsparing, the novel examines her life as she contends with the political corruption, authoritarianism, and poverty of the village. It follows her vacillations between love for Soluch and anger at his absence, and her struggle to raise her children without their father.The novel critically evokes the unfulfilled aspirations of modern Iran, portraying a society caught between a past and a future that seem equally weighed down by injustice.This landmark novel — the first ever written in the everyday language of the Iranian people — revolutionized Persian literature in its beautiful and daring portrayal of the life of a marginal woman and her struggle to survive.

The new Bulgarian ambassador to London is determined to satisfy the whims of his bosses at all costs. Putting himself at the mercy of a shady PR-agency, he is promised direct access to the very highest social circles. Meanwhile, on the lower levels of the embassy, things are not as they should be…Combining the themes of corruption, confusion and outright incompetence, Popov masterly brings together the multiple plot lines in a sumptuous carnival of frenzy and futile vanity, allowing the illusions and delusions of the post-communist society to be reflected in their glorious absurdity!

Йозеф Бирбихлер (род. 1948) – немецкий актер театра и кино, писатель, журналист. Снимался у Вернера Херцога («Стеклянное сердце»), Михаэля Ханеке («Белая лента»), Тома Тыквера. Бирбихлер часто работает в жанре аудиоспектакля. Он озвучил, среди прочего, произведения Генриха фон Клейста, Хуго Балля, Роберта Музиля, Джеймса Джойса.Роман «Mittelreich» (2013) – семейная сага в лучших традициях жанра. История семьи, управляющей усадьбой на озере в Баварии, неразрывно связана с историей Германии XX века. Эпическое повествование о судьбах трех поколений оборачивается рассуждением о судьбе страны, о войне и разрушении, старой власти и новых хозяевах жизни.

«…– Кот пришел, – раздалось неподалеку.– А кто тебя просил приходить? – машинально ответил Иван Матвеевич.– Никто. Я сам пришел.За спиной Ивана Матвеевича произошло какое-то движение. Он оглянулся. На жесткой скамье сидел белоснежный кот. Массивная голова на длинной шее, тело сильное и худое, хвост же – полосато-серый, будто с чужого плеча. Иван Матвеевич пригляделся. Сомнений не было – кот был настоящий и звуки он издавал вполне человеческие…»

The inspired, insightful and intensely absorbing new novel from one of the most important literary writers working today.Her boyfriend said she was quirky but it was more than that. Some things were important in life. You had to fight for them. Helen was prepared for that. Only she wasn't as strong as people thought. She tried to be but didn't always succeed. Nobody does, not all the time.Trust, love, friendship; the lives of others, relationships; parents, children, lovers; and death, and the rich, and poor; safety, security; home and homelessness. The ordinary stuff of life but extraordinary too when you think about it. As Helen did, each waking hour, as day follows dawn, till that strangest of moments on the way home from work this tall, skinny down-at-heel guy crossed the road in front of her taxi. Brian? Her long-lost brother? How could it be? But it was his shape, his way of moving, his very presence. Could it be?So begins this twenty-four hours in the life of this ordinary young woman, as ordinary, as unique, as each and every one of us.

The inspired, insightful and intensely absorbing new novel from one of the most important literary writers working today.Her boyfriend said she was quirky but it was more than that. Some things were important in life. You had to fight for them. Helen was prepared for that. Only she wasn't as strong as people thought. She tried to be but didn't always succeed. Nobody does, not all the time.Trust, love, friendship; the lives of others, relationships; parents, children, lovers; and death, and the rich, and poor; safety, security; home and homelessness. The ordinary stuff of life but extraordinary too when you think about it. As Helen did, each waking hour, as day follows dawn, till that strangest of moments on the way home from work this tall, skinny down-at-heel guy crossed the road in front of her taxi. Brian? Her long-lost brother? How could it be? But it was his shape, his way of moving, his very presence. Could it be?So begins this twenty-four hours in the life of this ordinary young woman, as ordinary, as unique, as each and every one of us.

In Caitlin’s world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad. Anything in between is confusing. That’s the stuff Caitlin’s older brother, Devon, has always explained. But now Devon’s dead and Dad is no help at all. Caitlin wants to get over it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Asperger’s, she doesn’t know how. When she reads the definition of closure, she realizes that is what she needs. In her search for it, Caitlin discovers that not everything is black and white — the world is full of colors — messy and beautiful.Kathryn Erskine has written a must-read gem, one of the most moving novels of the year.Praise for MOCKINGBIRD"Erskine works in powerful imagery throughout."Publishers Weekly, starred review"[A] fine addition to the recent group of books with autistic narrators."Booklist, starred review"A strong and complex character study."Horn Book"This heartbreaking story is delivered in the straightforward, often funny voice of a fifth-grade girl with Asperger's Syndrome."Kirkus, starred review"This is…a valuable book."School Library Journal"Fascinating characters."Los Angeles Times

Warren Ziller moved his family to Southern California in search of a charmed life, and to all appearances, he found it: a gated community not far from the beach, amid the affluent splendor of the 1980s. But the Zillers’ American dream is about to be rudely interrupted. Warren has squandered their savings on a bad real estate investment, which he conceals from his wife, Camille, who misreads his secrecy as a sign of an affair. Their children, Dustin, Lyle, and Jonas, have grown as distant as satellites, too busy with their own betrayals and rebellions to notice their parents’ distress. When tragedy strikes, the Zillers are forced to move to Warren’s abandoned housing development in the desert. In this comically bleak new home, each must reckon with what’s led them there and who’s to blame — and whether they can summon the forgiveness needed to hold the family together.With penetrating insights into modern life and an uncanny eye for everyday absurdities, Eric Puchner delivers a wildly funny, heartbreaking, and thoroughly original portrait of an American family.

Como insinúa el propio título, Modelos de mujer, estos siete relatos están todos protagonizados por mujeres que, en distintas edades y circunstancias, se enfrentan todas ellas, en algún momento, a hechos extraordinarios. Todos, menos el que da título al libro, están de un modo u otro ligados a la infancia, a la capacidad de desear como motor de la voluntad, de los actos de voluntad que las protagonistas deberán asumir para impedir que la vida las avasalle. En los tres primeros cuentos -«Los ojos rotos», «Malena, una vida hervida» y «Bárbara contra la muerte»-, los personajes femeninos vencen, cada uno a su manera, a la muerte: la pequeña Miguela, la mujer mongólica que se enamora de un fantasma, Malena, que se pasa la vida haciendo régimen por amor, y Bárbara, que acompaña a su abuelo a pescar. En los cuatro últimos -«El vocabulario de los balcones», «Amor de madre», «Modelos de mujer» y «La buena hija»-, las protagonistas tuercen el destino a su favor recurriendo unas al poder de seducción y otras a la fuerza de la razón, y todas con la voluntad que les otorga el firme deseo de no tolerar que la vida se les escape de las manos.

From the New York Times‒bestselling author of The Vacationers, a smart, highly entertaining novel about a tight-knit group of friends from college — their own kids now going to college — and what it means to finally grow up well after adulthood has set in.Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch (of sexuality, independence, and the ineffable alchemy of cool) to their own offspring.Back in the band's heyday, Elizabeth put on a snarl over her Midwestern smile, Andrew let his unwashed hair grow past his chin, and Zoe was the lesbian all the straight women wanted to sleep with. Now nearing fifty, they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn, and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease. But the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adults' lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose — about themselves, and about the famous fourth band member who soared and fell without them — can never be reclaimed.Straub packs wisdom and insight and humor together in a satisfying book about neighbors and nosiness, ambition and pleasure, the excitement of youth, the shock of middle age, and the fact that our passions — be they food, or friendship, or music — never go away, they just evolve and grow along with us.

Dark and mordantly funny… a real machine-gun narrative — the man can tell a story, oh, yes, indeed.

— T. C. Boyle

What could cause Bob to give up his job at the Los Angeles pathology lab that demands so little of him, where he can play Tetris and Web surf whenever he wants? What could lead him to walk out on his beautiful girlfriend, who makes her living as a masturbation coach? What could make him risk everything and ultimately transform him into Roberto, a kingpin in the Los Angeles Mexican mafia? An erotic tattoo. But not just any naughty skin ink, the Mona Lisa of erotic tattoos, painted on a severed arm, which lands on Bob’s desk one morning.

Bob may have fallen for the woman in the tattoo, but he’s not the only one who wants the arm. There’s the telenovela-addicted mobster who lost it, the jefe who needs to keep it out of the clutches of the police, a backstabbing cannabis aficionado/Wharton MBA, and a wine snob LAPD…

Molekuły Emocji to pełen refleksji, przenikliwości i intymności zbiór opowiadań o lękach, pragnieniach, tęsknotach i codziennych dramatach… Czasem wydaje nam się, że otaczająca nas rzeczywistość zmusza do podejmowania trudnych decyzji, że ludzie napotykają te same problemy, żyją tym samym „ustabilizowanym” życiem.Czy właściwie znamy całą prawdę o dzisiejszym człowieku? Czy dokładnie wiemy czego pragnie, czego się boi, o czym myśli i do czego dąży? Trzeba wiele subtelności i empatii by dotrzeć do głębi, do magii, która ukryta jest w każdym z nas, nie poddawać ocenie tego co powierzchowne. Nie lada to wyzwanie nawet dla autora, obserwatora i kronikarza codzienności, który opowiada te historie w „swoim” niepowtarzalnym stylu, z nauką, erotyką i emocjami w tle.