Literature

With an introduction by Jonathan LethemIt is 1913, and Viennese high society is determined to find an appropriate way of celebrating the seventieth jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef. But as the aristocracy tries to salvage something illustrious out of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the ordinary Viennese world is beginning to show signs of more serious rebellion. Caught in the middle of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: youngish, rich, an ex-soldier, seducer and scientist. Unable to deceive himself that the jumble of attributes and values that his world has bestowed on him amounts to anything so innate as a 'character', he is effectively a man 'without qualities', a brilliant, detached observer of the spinning, racing society around him. Part satire, part visionary epic, part intellectual tour de force, The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil is a work of immeasurable importance.

Artist Jed Martin emerges from a ten-year hiatus with good news. It has nothing to do with his broken boiler, the approach of another lamentably awkward Christmas dinner with his father or the memory of his doomed love affair with the beautiful Olga. It is that, for his new exhibition, he has secured the involvement of none other than celebrated novelist Michel Houellebecq.

The exhibition brings Jed new levels of global fame. But, his boiler is still broken, his ailing father flirts with oblivion and, worst of all, he is contacted by an inspector requiring his help in solving an unspeakable, atrocious and gruesome crime, involving none other than celebrated novelist Michel Houellebecq...

Nicolaos, Classical Athens's favorite sleuth, and his partner in investigation, the clever priestess Diotima, have taken time off to come home and get married. But hoping to get hitched without a hitch proves overly optimistic: A skull discovered in a cave near the Sanctuary of Artemis, the ancient world's most famous school for girls, is revealed to be the remains of the Hippias, the reviled last tyrant to rule Athens. The Athenians fought the Battle of Marathon to keep this man out of power; he was supposed to have died thirty years ago, in faraway Persia. What are his remains doing outside the city walls? Nico's boss, the great Athenian statesman Pericles, wants answers, and he orders Nico to find them. Worst of all, one of the two Sanctuary students who discovered the skull has been killed, and the other is missing. Can the sleuths solve the interlocked crimes before their wedding?

'any narrative of human action and adventure - whether we call it history or Romance - is certain to be a fragile handiwork, more easily rent than mended'The fragility - and the durability - of human life and art dominate this story of American expatriates in Italy in the mid-nineteenth century. Befriended by Donatello, a young Italian with the classical grace of the 'Marble Faun', Miriam, Hilda, and Kenyon find their pursuit of art taking a sinister turn as Miriam's unhappy past precipitates the present into tragedy. Hawthorne's 'International Novel' dramatizes the confrontation of the Old World and the New and the uncertain relationship between the 'authentic' and the 'fake', in life as in art.

"Vassa Solomou Xanthaki's novella The Marriage is considered to be a small classic of Greek literature, a work that is distinguished by the immediacy and freshness of its language while retaining a deep sensibility to traditional life in rural Greece. First published in 1975, it has been reprinted in Greek numerous times and is included in the esteemed Apostolidis Anthology, a collection of the best Greek narrative writing from the 19th century until the present day. In 1994 it was staged as a play with enormous success by the Thessalian Theatre Company, and went on to be performed throughout Greece, with a two-year run in Athens and tours to Cyprus and in the Balkans. The Marriage has also been published in German, Spanish, and Polish, and shortly will appear in French. The author writes: 'The subject of this book is simple: the wedding customs and songs of the village of Ambelakia in Thessaly as lived and experienced in one particular marriage, that of Lenaki and Nikolas. But after the weeklong wedding ceremonies are over the magical bridal veil of those days is slowly drawn back and, in unadorned contrast to those customs and celebrations, the realities of life begin to impose themselves. This fading away of enchantment together with the role played by the nuptial mystery in the subsequent course of the couple's lives was my ultimate theme. Within the restraints imposed by the bonds of marriage I wanted to search again for the mystical veins of tradition, especially in the figure of the woman of the countryside, that ""deep-set rock"", the pillar of the race. Show more Show less "

In the gripping third volume of Christelle Dabos's best-selling saga, Ophelia, the mirror-travelling heroine, finds herself in the magical city of Babel, guarding a secret that may provide a key both to the past and the future. After two years and seven months biding her time on Anima, her home ark, it is finally time to act, to put what she has discovered in the Book of Faruk to good use. Under an assumed identity she travels to Babel, a cosmopolitan and thoroughly modern ark that is the jewel of the universe, and where automata have taken over the most humble jobs from humans. But under the surface of this pacific and orderly ark social unrest stirs, fed by the memories of a fateful purge long ago, and the inhabitants' growing fear of being replaced altogether. Will Ophelia's talent as a reader suffice to avoid her being lured into a deadly trap by her ever more fearful adversaries? Will she ever see Thorn, her betrothed, again?

Drawing on an astonishing cache of letters unearthed centuries after Datini's death, it reveals to us a shrewd, enterprising, anxious man, as he makes deals, furnishes his sumptuous house, buys silks for his outspoken young wife and broods on his legacy. It is an unequalled source of knowledge about the texture of daily life in the small, earthy, violent, striving world of fourteenth-century Tuscany.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. 'The quality of mercy is not strain'd,It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven’ Bassiano, a noble Venetian, hopes to woo the beautiful heiress Portia. However, he requires financial assistance from his friend Antonio. Antonio agrees, but he, in turn, must borrow from the Jewish moneylender Shylock. As recourse for past ills, Shylock stipulates that the forfeit on the loan must be a pound of Antonio’s flesh. In the most renowned onstage law scene of all time, Portia proves herself one of Shakespeare’s most cunning heroines, disguising herself as a lawyer and vanquishing Shylock’s claims; meanwhile, Shylock triumphs on a humanitarian level with his plea for tolerance: ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’ Viewed paradoxically as anti-Semitic, while at the same time powerfully liberal for its time, The Merchant of Venice is at its core a bittersweet drama, exploring the noble themes of prejudice, justice and honour.