Set during World War I, this monumental philosophical novel about human despair inspired Albert Camus' own writing and prefigured the greater existential movement.Blood Dark tells the story of a brilliant philosopher trapped in a provincial town and of his spiraling descent into self-destruction. Cripure, as his students call him—the name a mocking contraction of Critique of Pure Reason—despises his colleagues, despairs of his charges, and is at odds with his family. The year is 1917, and the slaughter of the First World War goes on and on, with French soldiers not only dying in droves but also beginning to rise up in protest. Still haunted by the memory of the wife who left him long ago, Cripure turns his fury and scathing wit on everyone around him. Before he knows it, a trivial dispute with a complacently patriotic colleague has embroiled him in a duel. Views: 48
Diamond and Mica have been best friends since grade school, and have always watched each other's backs. After Mica moves out of their drug-infested neighborhood, they have a scandalous falling out and lose touch. It isn't until Diamond hooks up with one of North Philly's most notorious drug dealers that she's able to leave the place that she's always called home. Under extreme circumstances, Mica and Diamond meet up and are back on the map as the Laverne and Shirley of the ghetto, but unfortunately, both friends have ulterior motives for rekindling their friendship. The two plot to get rid of the dealer and hit the road with his fortune, but one of them has her own sinister plan that could leave the other staring death in the eye. Jealousy and greed create plenty of drama for Diamond. Even when she thinks she's on her way to a happily-ever-after ending, she finds herself fighting against foes she never saw coming. Will her "I rule the world" disposition keep her on top, or... Views: 47
MANNY WANTS TO BE A FOOTBALLER. OR A POP STAR. OR WRITE A BESTSELLER. HE DOESN'T WANT TO GET MARRIED...'Harry and Ranjit were waiting for me -- waiting to take me to Derby, to a wedding. My wedding. A wedding that I hadn't asked for, that I didn't want. To a girl who I didn't know... If they had bothered to open their eyes, they would have seen me: seventeen, angry, upset but determined -- determined to do my own thing, to choose my own path in life...'Set partly in the UK and partly in the Punjab region of India, this is a fresh, bitingly perceptive and totally up-to-the-minute look at one young man's fight to free himself from family expectations and to be himself, free to dance to his own tune. Views: 47
Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 Buttologist is down on his uppers. His girlfriend, Original Colour, has cleared out of their Paris studio and run off to the Congo with a vertically challenged drummer known as The Mongrel. She's taken their daughter with her. Meanwhile, a racist neighbour spies on him something wicked, accusing him of 'digging a hole in the Dole'. And his drinking buddies at Jips, the Afro-Cuban bar in Les Halles, pour scorn on Black Bazaar, the journal he keeps to log his sorrows. There are days when only the Arab in the corner shop has a kind word; while at night his dreams are stalked by the cannibal pygmies of Gabon. Then again, Buttologist wears no ordinary uppers. He has style, bags of it (suitcases of crocodile and anaconda Westons, to be precise). He's a dandy from the Bacongo district of Brazzaville - AKA a sapeur or member of the Society of Ambience-makers and People of Elegance. But is flaunting... Views: 47
All human beings, says an African legend, have an animal double. Some doubles are benign, others wicked. This legend comes to life in Alain Mabanckou's outlandish, surreal, and charmingly nonchalant Memoirs of a Porcupine.When Kibandi, a boy living in a Congolese village, reaches the age of 11, his father takes him out into the night and forces him to drink a vile liquid from a jar that has been hidden for years in the earth. This is his initiation. From now on, he and his double, a porcupine, become accomplices in murder. They attack neighbors, fellow villagers, and people who simply cross their path, for reasons so slight that it is virtually impossible to establish connection between the killings. As he grows older, Kibandi relies on his double to act out his grizzly compulsions, until one day even the porcupine balks and turns instead to literary confession.Winner of the Prix Renaudot, France's equal to the National Book Award, Alain Mabanckou is considered one... Views: 47
From the author of A Venetian Affair and Lucia comes a charming odyssey in the path of the mysterious Zen brothers, who explored parts of the New World a century before Columbus, and became both a source of scandal and a cause célèbre among geographers in the following centuries. This delightful journey begins with Andrea di Robilant's serendipitous discovery of a travel narrative published in Venice in 1558 by the Renaissance statesman Nicolò Zen: the text and its fascinating nautical map re-created the travels of two of the author's ancestors, brothers who explored the North Atlantic in the 1380s and 1390s. Di Robilant set out to discover why later, in the nineteenth century, the Zens' account came under attack as one of the greatest frauds in geographical history. Was their map--and even their journey--partially or perhaps entirely faked? In Irresistible North the author follows the Zens' route from the Faeroes to Shetland... Views: 46
The Last Heist Kiki SwinsonShannon Mitchell gambled that betraying her husband's biggest heist ever was her way out of the game for good. Losing that bet put her in lockdown--and at the top of Todd Mitchell's revenge-fueled hit list. Now she'll work every seductive move and lethal play to survive. 'Cause when it comes to wreaking her own vengeance, this devious beauty isn't taking any prisoners. . . Caked Up De'nesha DiamondHarlem Banks already has twenty-five million reasons to break out of the federal pen. But saving his desperately ill daughter is at the top of his list, even as he's racing his ex-partner-in crime to his stashed loot . . . while U.S. Marshals are hot on his trail. His only chance is the one woman he can't stop loving--even if she's the one endgame he'll never escape. . . Views: 46
