WINNER of the 2022 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WORKING WOMEN AWARD for BEST FICTION OF THE YEAR!LONGLISTED for 2022 DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD!She rose from commoner to become the last reigning queen of India's Sikh Empire. In this dazzling novel, based on true-life events, bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni presents the unforgettable story of Jindan, who transformed herself from daughter of the royal kennel keeper to powerful monarch. Sharp-eyed, stubborn, and passionate, Jindan was known for her beauty. When she caught the eye of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, she was elevated to royalty, becoming his youngest and last queen—and his favorite. And when her son, barely six years old, unexpectedly inherited the throne, Jindan assumed the regency. She transformed herself from pampered wife to warrior ruler, determined to protect her people and her son's birthright from the encroaching British... Views: 616
Gripping and poignant tale of psychic possession concerns Arthur Lawford, who appears to have been possessed by the spirit of a long-dead 18th-century pirate. One of de la Mare's finest occult stories, the novel also deals with domestic trauma, unrequited love and philosophical reflection. New introduction by S. T. Joshi. Views: 616
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife comes an atmospheric novel of intertwined destinies and heart-wrenching suspense: A detective hiding away from the world. A series of disappearances that reach into her past. Can solving them help her heal?
“[An] absolutely incredible literary thriller.”— Good Morning America online
“A powerhouse of a novel that is guaranteed to keep the reader up all night.”—Kristin Hannah, author of The Four Winds
Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing.
The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna’s childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with saving the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in.
Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives—and our faith in one another. Views: 615
"The most remarkable and affecting book of poetry I encountered this year."—James Wood, The New YorkerIn this daring new work, the poet Alice Oswald strips away the narrative of the Iliad—the anger of Achilles, the story of Helen—in favor of attending to its atmospheres: the extended similes that bring so much of the natural order into the poem and the corresponding litany of the war-dead, most of whom are little more than names but each of whom lives and dies unforgettably and unforgotten in the copious retrospect of Homer's glance. The resulting poem is a war memorial and a profoundly responsive work that gives new voice to Homer's level-voiced version of the world. Through a mix of narrative and musical repetition, the sequence becomes a meditation on the loss of human life. Views: 614
A selection of the best of the hilarious free-verse poems by the irreverent cockroach poet Archy and his alley-cat pal Mehitabel.
Don Marquis’s famous fictional insect appeared in his newspaper columns from 1916 into the 1930s, and he has delighted generations of readers ever since. A poet in a former life, Archy was reincarnated as a bug who expresses himself by diving headfirst onto a typewriter. His sidekick Mehitabel is a streetwise feline who claims to have been Cleopatra in a previous life. As E. B. White wrote in his now-classic introduction, the Archy poems “contain cosmic reverberations along with high comedy” and have “the jewel-like perfection of poetry.”
Adorned with George Herriman’s whimsical illustrations and including White’s introduction, our Pocket Poets selection—the only hardcover Archy and Mehitabel in print—is a beautiful volume, and perfectly sized for its tiny hero. Views: 613
Readers of all ages will find fresh enchantment in familiar fables with this charming storybook. Famed children's writer E. Nesbit, author of Five Children and It and Shakespeare's Stories for Young Readers, offers captivating retellings of nine famous fairy tales.
This treasury of folklore begins with "Cinderella," "Beauty and the Beast," "Jack the Giant-Killer," and "Puss in Boots." Other timeless tales include "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Dick Whittington and His Cat," "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood," "The White Cat," and "Hop-o'-my-Thumb." Views: 613
Sara Davis has been waiting a long time for her sixteen-year-old niece to come to Parkerville; and tired of the elders reminding her that time is short. On the other side of town a couple wait for their friends daughter to come to the town as well. The two girls arrive, and now it's time to introduce them to their new lives with bracelets in place, they are ready.It’s tough being a teenage girl in any generation; however, in 1965 it’s even tougher living in a seemingly eccentric town with cameras following you everywhere, along with teenage boys. Two sixteen-year-old girls, from different walks of life, meet in Parkerville for the first time. Cassie Evans recently lost her parents in an accident, and was sent to live with her father’s best friend and his family in Parkerville. Skye Mackenna had been living with her sister and family on their farm; however, the neighbor’s son started getting a little too serious about Skye, so her sister decided it was time for her to visit their Aunt Sara in Parkerville. The girls settle into their new lives with strange rules, including the wearing of bracelets that all girls of sixteen or older must wear. Also, the alarms that warn of safe or unsafe hours must be obeyed. They also discover picnics, parties, and romance around every corner. For them, it seems like the perfect place to make new friends and fall in love, but the truth is far from what it seems. The town clock, with it's bright red face, looms over the residents. Can the girls outsmart the town?Harriet Trevathan and Nancy C. Wilson are co-authors in this series. They were friends in their teen years in the 60's and decided to write a fictional story of those years with some of their memories. I'm not saying that they lived in a town like Parkerville, that's another story altogether, but the adventures and fun are a part of these books. Harriet writes for her character Cassie and for Cassie's friends and family. Nancy writes for Skye and Skye's friends and family. Views: 613
Three macabre and confounding mysteries for the first and greatest of detectives, Auguste DupinAn apartment on the rue Morgue turned into a charnel house; the corpse of a shopgirl dragged from the Seine; a high-stakes game of political blackmail - three mysteries that have enthralled the whole of Paris, and baffled the city's police. The brilliant Chevalier Auguste Dupin investigates - can he find the solution where so many others before him have failed?These three stories from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe are some of the most influential ever written, widely praised and credited with inventing the detective genre. This edition contains: 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', 'The Mystery of Marie Rogêt' and 'The Purloined Letter'. Views: 612
Goethe’s masterpiece and perhaps the greatest work in German literature, Faust has made the legendary German alchemist one of the central myths of the Western world. Here indeed is a monumental Faust, an audacious man boldly wagering with the devil, Mephistopheles, that no magic, sensuality, experience, or knowledge can lead him to a moment he would wish to last forever. Here, in Faust, Part I, the tremendous versatility of Goethe’s genius creates some of the most beautiful passages in literature. Here too we experience Goethe’s characteristic humor, the excitement and eroticism of the witches’ Walpurgis Night, and the moving emotion of Gretchen’s tragic fate.
This authoritative edition, which offers Peter Salm’s wonderfully readable translation as well as the original German on facing pages, brings us Faust in a vital, rhythmic American idiom that carefully preserves the grandeur, integrity, and poetic immediacy of Goethe’s words. Views: 612
How would you feel about sleeping in a tree house with a six-metre carpet python? Does being lost in a maze of pitch black tunnels give you the creeps? Find out how twin brothers cope when a dull holiday on a farm with no electricity gets interesting in ways they never expected.Luke and James are nine-year-old twin brothers. Being lost in the dark is not on their list of things to do. They would prefer not to share their sleeping bags with a snake. And they don’t want to spend their school holidays with their eccentric Aunt Lucy, in the middle of nowhere. The boys face daunting and exciting challenges when they find themselves lost and alone in pitch-black tunnels and caves inhabited by spiders, lizards, bats and glow worms. They will need to face their deepest fears and draw strength and courage from places deep within themselves. This is an adventure story about being bad-mannered, self-centred and scared, and also about being friendly, considerate and courageous. It’s about finding the best part of yourself and liking who you discover yourself to be. This story is a page turner for young people getting into their first novels. Views: 612
“Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing in a simpler way.”—Charles Bukowski
In The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way, Charles Bukowski considers the art of writing, and the art of living as writer. Bringing together a variety of previously uncollected stories, columns, reviews, introductions, and interviews, this book finds him approaching the dynamics of his chosen profession with cynical aplomb, deflating pretentions and tearing down idols armed with only a typewriter and a bottle of beer. Beginning with the title piece—a serious manifesto disguised as off-handed remarks en route to the racetrack—The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way runs through numerous tales following the author’s adventures at poetry readings, parties, film sets, and bars, and also features an unprecedented gathering of Bukowski’s singular literary criticism. From classic authors like Hemingway to underground legends like d.a. levy to his own stable of obscure favorites, Bukowski uses each occasion to expound on the larger issues around literary production. The book closes with a handful of interviews in which he discusses his writing practices and his influences, making this a perfect guide to the man behind the myth and the disciplined artist behind the boozing brawler.
Born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) is the author of over forty-five books of poetry and prose.
David Stephen Calonne has written several books and edited four previous volumes of uncollected Bukowski for City Lights. Views: 612
One more journey to the literary universe of Roberto Bolaño, an essential voice of contemporary Latin American literatureRoberto Bolaño's boundless imagination and seemingly inexhaustible gift for shaping the chaos of his reality into enduring fiction is unmistakable in these three exhilarating novellas. In "Cowboy Graves," Arturo Belano—Bolaño's alter ego—returns to Chile after the coup to fight with his comrades for socialism. "French Comedy of Horrors," takes the reader to French Guiana on the night after an eclipse where a seventeen year old answers a pay phone and finds himself recruited into the Clandestine Surrealist Group, a secret society of artists based in the sewers of Paris. And in "Fatherland," a young poet reckons with the fascist overthrow of his country, as the woman he is obsessed with disappears in the ensuing violence and a Third Reich fighter plane mysteriously writes her poetry in the sky overhead.Cowboy... Views: 611
With the release of Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives in 1998, journalist Monica Maristain discovered a writer “capable of befriending his readers.” After exchanging several letters with Bolaño, Maristain formed a friendship of her own, culminating in an extensive interview with the novelist about truth and consequences, an interview that turned out to be Bolaño’s last.
Appearing for the first time in English, Bolaño’s final interview is accompanied by a collection of conversations with reporters stationed throughout Latin America, providing a rich context for the work of the writer who, according to essayist Marcela Valdes, is “a T.S. Eliot or Virginia Woolf of Latin American letters.” As in all of Bolaño’s work, there is also wide-ranging discussion of the author’s many literary influences. (Explanatory notes on authors and titles that may be unfamiliar to English-language readers are included here.)
The interviews, all of which were completed during the writing of the gigantic 2666, also address Bolaño’s deepest personal concerns, from his domestic life and two young children to the realities of a fatal disease. Views: 611
This Book which has 26 differently titled Poems , is actually Part 16 of the Book titled – You die; I die – Love Poems ( 1600 pages ) .Poems symbolizing the immortality of love and at times its fickleness. Parekh takes the reader through a paradise naturally embellished with the ingredients of eternal romance and its sporadic failures. As they say life and death are two sides of the coin, similarly with every true anecdote of love there also comes fretful divorce—a thing which has been most sensitively described throughout this great collection of poems for the heart. Written and dipped in each ingredient of his passionate blood, Parekh comes out with startling revelations about the truest of love stories and their failures. Each verse has been delicately intertwined with a boundless aspects of relationships, romance, cheating, betrayal and goes on to prove that Immortal Love towers over every shattered heart. A start to finish with some of the most heart-rendering love poems ever, this makes a great collection for ever true lover breathing and desiring to be loved on earth and beyond. This collection of poems aims at perpetually uniting every heart on this Universe in the spirit of Immortal love and friendship. Because these are the two quintessential ingredients to lead life till its last breath. Irrespective of whatever color, faith or religion, it is only the rainbow of love which can transform the ghastliest monsters and perpetrators of humanity into peaceful lovers. Therefore this book inexhaustibly endeavors to speak and preach the language of love even after its last embossed alphabet. Views: 611
Parallel German text and English translation.
The influence and popularity of Rilke’s poetry in America have never been greater than they are today, more than fifty years after his death. Rilke is unquestionably the most significant and compelling poet of romantic transformation, of spiritual quest, that the twentieth century has known. His poems of ecstatic identification with the world exert a seemingly endless fascination for contemporary readers.
In Stephen Mitchell’s versions, many readers feel that they have discovered an English rendering that captures the lyric intensity, fluency, and reach of Rilke’s poetry more accurately and convincingly than has ever been done before.
Mr. Mitchell is impeccable in his adherence to Rilke’s text, to his formal music, and to the complexity of his thought; at the same time, his work has authority and power as poetry in its own right. Few translators of any poet have arrived at the delicate balance of fidelity and originality that Mr. Mitchell has brought off with seeming effortlessness.
Originally published: New York : Random House, 1982. Views: 611
