(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
Franz Kafka’s imagination so far outstripped the forms and conventions of the literary tradition he inherited that he was forced to turn that tradition inside out in order to tell his splendid, mysterious tales. Scrupulously naturalistic on the surface, uncanny in their depths, these stories represent the achieved art of a modern master who had the gift of making our problematic spiritual life palpable and real.This edition of his stories includes all his available shorter fiction in a collection edited, arranged, and introduced by Gabriel Josipovici in ways that bring out the writer’s extraordinary range and intensity of vision.
--randomhouse.com
Children on a country road --
Unmasking a confidence trickster --
The sudden walk --
Resolutions --
Excursion into the mountains --
Bachelor's ill luck --
The tradesman --
Absent-minded window-gazing --
The way home --
Passers-by --
On the tram --
Clothes --
Rejection --
Reflections for gentlemen-jockeys --
The street window --
The wish to be a red Indian --
The trees --
Unhappiness --
The judgment --
The stoker --
The metamorphosis --
In the penal colony --
A country doctor: The new advocate --
A country doctor --
Up in the gallery --
An old manuscript --
Before the law --
Jackals and Arabs --
A visit to a mine --
The next village --
An imperial message --
The cares of a family man --
Eleven sons --
A fratricide --
A dream --
A report to an academy --
The bucket rider --
A hunger artist: First sorrow --
A little woman --
A hunger artist --
Josephine the singer, or the mouse folk --
Descriptions of a struggle --
Wedding preparations in the country --
The student --
The angel --
The village schoolmaster (The giant mole) --
Blumfeld, an elderly bachelor --
The hunter Gracchus --
The proclamation --
The bridge --
The Great Wall of China --
The knock at the manor gate --
An ancient sword --
New lamps --
My neighbor --
A crossbreed (A sport) --
A splendid beast --
The watchman --
A common confusion --
The truth about Sancho Panza --
The silence of the siren --
Prometheus --
The city coat of arms --
Poseidon --
Fellowship --
At night --
The problem of our laws --
The conscription of troops --
The test --
The vulture --
The helmsman --
The top --
Hands --
A little fable --
Isabella --
Home-coming --
A Chinese puzzle --
The departure --
Advocates --
Investigations of a dog --
The married couple --
Give it up! --
On parables --
The burrow. Views: 370
One of 2019's most anticipated novels in THE TIMES, IRISH TIMES and GUARDIAN. 'Where fiction's master of enchantments stares down a real horror, and without blinking or flinching, produces a work of beauty, grace and uncommon power' MARLON JAMES, winner of the Man Booker Prize 2015. An impassioned plea for freedom and justice, set in a world uncomfortably like our own, by the Man Booker-winner Ben Okri. In a world uncomfortably like our own, a young woman called Amalantis is arrested for asking a question. Her question is this: Who is the Prisoner? When Amalantis disappears, her lover Karnak goes looking for her. He searches desperately at first, then with a growing realization. To find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question. Karnak's search leads him into a terrifying world of lies, oppression and fear at the heart of which lies the Prison. Then... Views: 370
The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. Views: 369
To enter the world of Ben Okri's stories is to surrender to a new reality. Set in the chaotic streets of Lagos and the jungle heart of Nigeria, all the laws of cause and effect, fact and fiction, are suspended. It is a world where the lives of the powerless veer terrifyingly close to nightmare. In rich, lyrical, almost hallucinatory prose Ben Okri guides us through the fabulous and the mundane, the serene and the randomly violent. The unrelenting Nigerian heat and the implacable darkness of the black-out and the military curfew are the backdrops for his characters each finding their own ways to survive. We witness their dogged resistance to impotence, their unquenchable humour and their insistence on the possibility of love in the face of terror. Written with the lucid clarity and logic of dream, Stars of the New Curfew is a book of visionary imagination. Views: 369
"If Lily Norris isn\'t just the most provoking child that ever lived!" said Maggie Bradford, indignantly."Yes, I b\'lieve she just is," assented Bessie."Why," said Mrs. Rush, who was that day making a visit to Maggie\'s and Bessie\'s mamma, "how is this? Lily the most provoking child that ever lived! I thought Lily was one of your best friends, and that you were so fond of her.""Yes, Aunt May, so we are," said Maggie. "We\'re very fond of Lily indeed; she\'s one of[10] our dearly beloveds, and we like to have her with us; but for all that, she\'s very trying to our patience.""Yes," sighed Bessie, "I think she\'s tryinger than any child we know; and yet she\'s hardly ever naughty,—really naughty, I mean.""How does she try you?" asked Mrs. Rush, though she believed she could herself have answered as to the cause of complaint."She puts off so," said Bessie. "Aunt May, I think she\'s the greatest put-offer we ever saw; and sometimes it makes things so hard to bear. We try not to be provoked \'cause we love her so; but sometimes we can\'t help being a little. I b\'lieve it troubles people as much as if she was real naughty in some way.""Yes, procrastination is a very troublesome fault," said Mrs. Rush."Not a fault, is it, Aunt May?" asked Maggie. "I thought it was only a habit of Lily\'s."[11]"And Lily is a pretty good child," said Belle Powers. "She is mischievous, and makes us laugh in school sometimes; but I b\'lieve that is about all the naughty things she does, and I think that is a pretty good account for one child.""Putting off is not being naughty, is it, Aunt May?" pleaded Bessie, unwilling, even amid her vexation, to have one of her favorite playmates thus blamed."Well, darling," answered Mrs. Rush, "I fear that procrastination and a want of punctuality must be considered as rather serious faults. I see you are vexed and troubled now; why, I cannot tell, more than that Lily has caused it in some way; and I think that any habit which needlessly tries and irritates other people can be called nothing less than a fault, and a bad one, too. What is the matter now?""Why," said Bessie, "you see we are all going to the party at Miss Ashton\'s this afternoon, and Lily was to be here at four o\'clock to go with us; and when grandmamma was going home just now, she said she would take[12] us all around in her carriage; but Lily was not here, and we did not like to go without her, and grandmamma could not wait. But grandmamma said the carriage should come back for us, and it has; and mamma says it is twenty minutes past four, and there Lily has not come yet, and we don\'t know what to do, and we can\'t help being provoked." Views: 369
After toiling in obscurity for years, Charles Bukowski suddenly found fame in 1967 with his autobiographical newspaper column, "Notes of a Dirty Old Man," and a book of that name in 1969. He continued writing this column, in one form or another, through the mid-1980s. "More Notes of a Dirty Old Man" gathers many uncollected gems from the column's twenty-year run. Drawn from ephemeral underground publications, these stories and essays haven't been seen in decades, making "More" a valuable addition to Bukowski's oeuvre. Filled with his usual obsessions--sex, booze, gambling--"More" features Bukowski's offbeat insights into politics and literature, his tortured, violent relationships with women, and his lurid escapades on the poetry reading circuit. Highlighting his versatility, the book ranges from thinly veiled autobiography to purely fictional tales of dysfunctional suburbanites, disgraced politicians, and down-and-out sports promoters, climaxing with a long, hilarious adventure among French filmmakers, "My Friend the Gambler," based on his experiences making the movie "Barfly." From his lowly days at the post office through his later literary fame, "More" follows the entire arc of Bukowski's colorful career.
Edited by Bukowski scholar David Stephen Calonne, "More Notes of a Dirty Old Man" features an afterword outlining the history of the column and its effect on the author's creative development.
Born in Andernach, Germany in 1920, Charles Bukowski came to California at age three and spent most of his life in Los Angeles. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994. Views: 369
He's known as Father Anton to his teammates—the brooding, sexy captain of the NHL's Chicago Blaze has a reputation for...not having a reputation. Just like his diet and sleep routines, celibacy is part of Anton Petrov's on-ice mojo. Or so they say. Anton stays mum on the subject. If the world thinks he chooses to abstain from sex, so be it. Better that than the truth getting out: there is a woman he burns for, but he can never have her. She's his teammate's wife, after all. Mia Marceau is finally on her own. Now that she and her husband are living apart, she's finding the peace she was desperate for. She spends her days in classes and late nights bartending, making her own way in the world at last. After what she's been through, as long as her husband leaves her alone, she doesn't plan to rock the boat. He still has the power to hurt those dearest to her, and she can't demand a divorce with such a high cost. A chance encounter with Mia has Anton hoping for a... Views: 369
A protege of Flaubert, Maupassant's stories are characterized by their economy of style and efficient, effortless denouements. Many of the stories are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s and several describe the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught in the conflict, emerge changed. He authored some 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. The story "Boule de Suif" ("Ball of Fat," 1880) is often accounted his masterpiece. His most unsettling horror story, "Le Horla" (1887), was about madness and suicide. Views: 369
He has a secure job, an expensive house, an ideal family, and everything else he had dreamt of. He is a successful man. Or is he? A short story.Jeannie Gray and Ted Wroth were having a conversation about their upcoming marriage. Jeannie asked, "What will annoy me about you if we wed?" Ted was surprised by the questions but he did admit to faults like splashing water over the floor, making a mess while cooking, and being all thumbs in making repairs. They got on the topic of sports. What Ted said caused Jeannine to make a crucial decision. This story tells what it was. Views: 368
Printz Award-winning author Meg Rosoff's latest novel is a gorgeous and unforgettable page-turner about the relationship between parents and children, love and loss.
Mila has an exceptional talent for reading a room—sensing hidden facts and unspoken emotions from clues that others overlook. So when her father’s best friend, Matthew, goes missing from his upstate New York home, Mila and her beloved father travel from London to find him. She collects information about Matthew from his belongings, from his wife and baby, from the dog he left behind and from the ghosts of his past—slowly piecing together the story everyone else has missed. But just when she’s closest to solving the mystery, a shocking betrayal calls into question her trust in the one person she thought she could read best.
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Life is way too short to sit around worrying and wondering what might have been. Sometimes you've just got to take control. This is a story of a man who did just that.Long, long ago, deep in the Burmese jungle—on the long eastern shore of what was to be called Lake Indawgyi but which was then named for Ei-vu, the spirit of long, sweet water—there lived two tribes:The Mera, and the Lasi.Their lands, as large as any among the scattered jungle peoples of their time, with the long lake as their western borders, also bordered each other, Lasi’s to Mera’s north and Mera’s to Lasi’s south.The Lasi and the Mera, for as far back as legend could reach, had always been mortal enemies, and so they remained.When Ea-pe created Thanai, the first man, this first man founded the Mera tribe. When Ea-pe created E-u, the first woman, she joined Thanai as his Mera bride and wife. This is what all Mera children were taught by their Yaj-Hate and his helpers.The Lasi children, on the other hand, were taught that all Lasi stem from Thanai and E-u who were the very first Lasis and who would ever be the father and mother of their tribe. This was so because Ea-pe himself was Lasi. So preached the Lasi Yaj-Hate and his helpers.The Mera children were also taught, over and over, that anyone who said that Thanai and E-u were not of the Mari tribe, or that they were not the founders of the Mari tribe—always referring to the Lasi, though not saying so openly—were evil and in the grim power of Bilu, the hungry ghost who cast no shadow and who ate children. It was a long-established and well-known fact among the Mera that all Lasi were under Bilu’s spell, and that many Lasi children were eaten by Bilu each year.Yes, so the Mera children were taught, and they were taught to be grateful that they were born Mera children and not Lasi children, or they might be dead and eaten by now.Were the Lasi to lay down their weapons and acknowledge the Mera as their betters, and were they to pay tribute to Mera’s excellence and superiority in all endeavors, then, perhaps, Bilu would stop eating Lasi children, but not before then.This is what the Mera children were taught.The Lasi children, however, all knew that all Meras were really nothing but Ngoyamas disguised as humans, cannibal demons that wished for nothing more than a sumptuous meal of Lasi child. And if they did not behave, the Meras would sneak into their village at night and carry them away for dinner.And so, back and forth, generation after generation, went the tribal teaching of their children.These children, whether Mera or Lasi, unless bitten and killed by vipers or other poisonous creatures, eventually grew up, all with both fear and hatred in their hearts, along with an unease at living so close to such evil enemies.And all male children, once grown—unless selected as Yaj-Hate helper, a great honor—took up weapons and protected their borders and maimed and killed their enemy as needed, and all female children grew up to have children of their own to whom they passed on these eternal lessons about the Lasi or the Mera.There was another tale, one whispered among those whose will to fight had begun to fade, a tale frowned upon by the Yaj-Hates of both tribes, a tale that told that when Ea-pe created the world and all beings in it, Thanai and E-u were neither Lasi nor Mera, but of another tribe so ancient that no one can remember its name. But these were just ramblings of the too-old-to-fight. Or so said the both the Lasi and the Mera Yaj-Hates. Don’t listen to these fools. They know nothing. And they will soon walk the path, anyway. Views: 368
