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This discursive and absorbing travel-book offers, as the author says in his new Foreword, "a picture of a way of living that exists no longer." Hot Countries tells of a series of journeys in the Far East, the West Indies and the South Sea Islands when he was a young and light-hearted novelist seeking colour, romance and adven-ture, and when foreign travel was not hedged by to-day's restrictions. Tahiti provides the colour, with its idyllic scenery and its lovely girls joyously offering to keep house for visiting bachelors; Martinique recalls the devastating eruption of Mont Pelee; in Siam (now called Thailand) he amusingly describes the worship of a baby white elephant, and the problem of the white man's relations with brown women; in Ceylon occurs a ludicrous episode of native misunderstanding of the Westerner. After discussing " The Englishman in the Tropics " Mr. Waugh glances at the New Hebrides and then transports us to the Black Republic of Haiti (describing the... Views: 14
July 20, 1894. The German Military Attache in Paris. Colonel Maximillien von Schwarzkoppen received a visit from a seedy-looking middle-aged Frenchman who would not give his name. He told Schwarzkoppen that he was a French army officer serving on the General Staff; that he was in desperate need of money; and was therefore prepared to sell military secrets to the Germans.Captain Alfred Dreyfus, then aged 35, was a high-flying career artillery officer. Shy, reserved, sometimes awkward, but intelligent and ambitious, Dreyfus had everything he might have hoped for: a wife, two enchanting children, plenty of money and a post on the General Staff. However, Dreyfus' rise in the army had not made him friends. Many of them came from the impoverished Catholic aristocracy and disliked Dreyfus because he was rich, bourgeois and, above all, a Jew.On October 13, Captain Dreyfus was summoned by the General de Boisdeffre to the Ministry of War. Despite minimal evidence against... Views: 14
God Dies by the Nile is Saadawi's attempt to square religion with a society in which women are respected as equals; Searching expresses the poignancy of loss and doubt with the hypnotic intensity of a remembered dream; while in The Circling Song, Saadawi pursues the conflicts of sex, class, gender and military violence deep into the psyche. Views: 14
The most ambitious and personal account ever written about Hollywood's most gracious star-Audrey Hepburn by Barry Paris is a "moving portrayal" (The New York Times Book Review) that truly captures the woman who captured our hearts...With the insights of family and friends who never before spoke to a Hepburn biographer-and never-before-published photographs-Paris has created an in-depth portrait of the actress, from her childhood in Nazi-occupied Europe, through her legendary career, and into her UN ambassadorship. Views: 13
When portrait-painter and occasional detective, Charles Honeybath, pays a visit to his old friend Edwin Lightfoot, there are a few surprises in store. Edwin's irksome wife is packing her bags, while Edwin is indulging in an eccentric game of pretence—acting the part of a long-dead petty criminal named Flannel Foot. Days later, when Edwin disappears, Honeybath finds himself with a mystery to solve and some decisions to make about his life—will he be lured by his intended haven? Views: 13
If you enjoyed the powerful atmosphere of Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby you may just have an inkling of the smoothly professional efficacy of Alec Waugh's The Fatal Gift. His novel breathes the values and attitudes of the early decades of the 20th century. Raymond Peronne has wealth, is bright, is devastatingly attractive to women: his fatal gift. Second son of a baronet, Perronne goes to Oxford (from which he is rusticated), then to New York (in the'20s and '30s) and is in Egypt during the war (moving in circles then, as in this novel, inhabited by such as Evelyn Waugh, Claud Cockburn and Robin Maugham.). In tense anticipation we watch Peronne, for whom good fortune seems always imminent, fall at every point-until he finds the isle of Dominica and begins a love affair the like of which he has never known. Views: 13
Chess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig’s final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological.Travelers by ship from New York to Buenos Aires find that on board with them is the world champion of chess, an arrogant and unfriendly man. They come together to try their skills against him and are soundly defeated. Then a mysterious passenger steps forward to advise them and their fortunes change. How he came to possess his extraordinary grasp of the game of chess and at what cost lie at the heart of Zweig’s story. This new translation of Chess Story brings out the work’s unusual mixture of high suspense and poignant reflection.Review"[Zweig is a] writer who understands perfectly the life he is describing, and who has great analytic gifts . . . . He has achieved the very considerable feat of inventing, in his description of the game of chess, a metaphor for the terribly grim game he is playing with his Nazi tormentors . . . the case history here is no longer that of individuals; it is the case history of Europe." —Stephen Spender, The New York Review of Books "Always [Zweig] remains essentially the same, revealing in all . . . mediums his subtlety of style, his profound psychological knowledge and his inherent humaneness." —Barthold Fles, The New Republic "Zweig possesses a dogged psychological curiosity, a brutal frankness, a supreme impartiality . . . [a] concentration of talents." —Herbert Gorman, The New York Times Book Review "His writing reveals his sympathy for fellow human beings." —Ruth Franklin, London Review of BooksAbout the AuthorStefan Zweig (1881-1942), novelist, biographer, poet, and translator, was born in Vienna into a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. During the 1930s, he was one of the best-selling writers in Europe, and was among the most translated German-language writers before the Second World War. With the rise of Nazism, he moved from Salzburg to London (taking British citizenship), to New York, and finally to Brazil, where he committed suicide with his wife. New York Review Books has published Zweig’s novels The Post-Office Girl and Beware of Pity as well as the novella Chess Story. Peter Gay is Director of the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. He wrote Schnitzler’s Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture, 1815–1914. Views: 13
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When my dad dropped us off at the front gate, the first things I saw were the rose garden spreading out on either side of the main driveway and the enormous sign in iron cursive letters spelling out LAURINDA. No "Ladies College" after it, of course; the name was meant to speak for itself.Laurinda is an exclusive school for girls. At its secret core is the Cabinet, a trio of girls who wield power over their classmates - and some of their teachers.Entering this world of wealth and secrets is Lucy Lam, a scholarship girl with sharp eyes and a shaky sense of self. As she watches the Cabinet at work, and is courted by them, Lucy finds herself in a battle for her identity and integrity. Funny, feisty and moving, Laurinda explores Lucy's struggle to stay true to herself as she finds her way in a new world of privilege and opportunity."Alice Pung totally nails it with Laurinda. Funny, horrifying, and sharp as a serpent's fangs." - John... Views: 13
