Λογοτεχνία

'A monument to crazy love. Magic' New York Times 'The actress arrived in his village the only way one could come directly . . .'In spring 1962 American actress Dee Moray's boat motors into an Italian bay and the life of hotelier Pasquale Tursi. Dee - fleeing a film set, claiming to be dying and desperately awaiting her lover - throws herself on Pasquale's generous mercy. Fifty years later Pasquale lands in Hollywood, sporting a fedora and seeking a long-forgotten actress. Why he's come, what happened to Dee in Italy and, later, LA, are questions that Beautiful Ruins answers in the most surprising and wonderfully entertaining manner. 'Exhilarating. Very, very funny' The Times

'A perfectly formed set of stories about alienation in modern times' Independent'Mesmerizing - almost ecstatic' The New York TimesMary Gaitskill's coolly compelling, quietly devastating stories explore the messy complexity of relationships between lovers, families and friends. An unsettling encounter on a plane; a tentative affair between an older woman and a younger man; the chasm between a father and his daughter: each expresses our longing for, and our fear of, human connection.

From the author of the bestselling Darwin: A Life in Poems, Ruth Padel's new collection follows in the footsteps of one of the world's greatest composers, Beethoven, and investigates what his life and music might mean to us todayTwo hundred and fifty years since Beethoven was born, Ruth Padel goes on a personal search for him, retracing his steps through war-torn Europe of the early nineteenth century, delving into his music, letters, diaries and the conversation books he used when deaf, to uncover the man behind the legend. Her quest, exploring the life of one of the most creative artists who ever lived, turns more personal than she expects, taking her into the sources of her own creativity and musicality. From a deeply musical family herself, Padel's parents met through music, and she grew up playing chamber music on viola - Beethoven's instrument as a child. Her father's grandfather, a concert pianist born on the German-Danish border, studied in Leipzig with a friend of Beethoven before immigrating to the UK. The poems in this illuminating biography in verse conjure not only Beethoven's life and personality, but her own music-making and love both of the European music-making tradition to which her father's family belongs, and to the continent itself Europe.

Set in Fresno, the Sierra Nevadas and Greece, the poems in Before Kodachrome look back unflinchingly at a fractured California childhood in the 1950s and ‘60s. In the process they lay out in stark contrast the dimensions of a life where parents, real and surrogate, are at once loving and violent, attentive and neglectful, righteous and morally bankrupt. From his adopted homeland, the cradle of Western civilization, the poet weaves stories from classical mythology, the Old Testament, fairy tales and popular American culture that show how a balanced adult self can be formed, not by avoiding childhood trauma and insistently “moving on,” but by using language and narrative to delve deep into one’s past and bring back artifacts that provide meaning, stability and, yes, at times, transcendence.

'Fiercely independent, all of Evans's characters struggle for a place in a world intent of fencing them out.' - New York Times Book ReviewThe extraordinary debut short story collection from Danielle Evans, one of the United States' foremost literary talents, is published in the UK for the first time. A college student's unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront her feelings of resentment toward her more privileged classmates. A father's misguided attempt to rescue a gift for his adult daughter magnifies all he doesn't know about her.

And two teenage girls' flirt with adulthood leads to disastrous consequences. Based in a world where inequality is reality, but where the shifting terrain of adolescence and family are the most complicating forces, Evans' characters are wry, wise and utterly original. Striking in their emotional immediacy, the electrifying, prize-winning stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self offer a fresh perspective on race and class in contemporary America.

'Danielle Evans is funny as hell' - Victor LaValle, author of Big Machine'Knife-sharp wit and tender but unflinching eye' - V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage

The million-copy bestselling series. Toshikazu Kawaguchi's touching Before Your Memory Fades, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?On the hillside of Mount Hakodate in northern Japan, Cafe Donna Donna is fabled for its dazzling views of Hakodate port. But that's not all. Like the charming Tokyo cafe Funiculi Funicula, Cafe Donna Donna offers its customers the extraordinary experience of travelling through time. From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafe comes another heartfelt story of lost souls hoping to take advantage of the cafe's time-travelling offer. Among some familiar faces, readers will also be introduced to:The daughter who begrudges her deceased parents for leaving her orphanedThe comedian who aches for his beloved and their shared dreamsThe younger sister whose grief has become all-consumingThe young man who realizes his love for his childhood friend too late . . . Featuring Kawaguchi's signature wistful storytelling, Before Your Memory Fades is full of heart and emotion.

An immediate best-seller on publication, Ben Hur remains a dazzling achievement by any standards. A thoroughly exhilarating tale of betrayal, revenge and salvation, it is the only novel that ranks with Uncle Tom's Cabin as a genuine American folk possession. This was the book that finally overcame the inherent suspicion of fiction that still prevailed in much of america in the late nineteenth century. Wallace writes with a freshness and immediacy that brings every action-packed scene to life and illuminates the geography, ethnology and customs of the ancient world.

This extraordinary collection of short stories reminds us how great a talent Dreiser was. A giant among American writers, he fought throughout his career to capture life in realistic terms. In his stories as well as his celebrated novels, he sought to uncover the problems of common Americans at the turn of the century their struggles with society and their dreams of power and wealth against a backdrop of threatening poverty. "Dreiser has no peer in the American short story. As fine as his novels are, they do not attain the artistic wholeness of his short tales. Among the moderns, there is almost no one capable of writing tales like these. The best of today is pallid and non-human when compared with Dreiser s compassionate searchings." from the Introduction by Howard Fast."

The first book in a brand new series charting the extraordinary rise to power of Irini of Athens, Empress of the Byzantine Empire. Seventeen-year-old Thekla needs her quick wits and knife to track down her betrothed, a soldier who has left her at the altar for the third time. Elias the monk travels with her to Constantinople where she meets Irini of Athens, an extraordinarily beautiful orphan who has been brought by powerful Emperor Constantine to marry his son, Co-Emperor Leon. The two women join forces to survive this vigorous, glittering capital of the East, rocked by division and strife. But will Thekla help the ambitious and ruthless Irini of Athens find the power that she craves? More from the Empress Irini SeriesPoison is a Woman's WeaponSeizing Power