Razor-sharp, pugnacious and blackly funny, Wang Xiaobo’s essays established him as one of China’s most popular – and subversive – writers. From the political power of silence to the irrepressible spirit of a pig he met while working in a commune, these reflections on life and literature in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution provide a rare glimpse of a fearless satirical genius.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name
Nuns, maidens, adventurers – with electricity, The Story of an Hour collects stories of female freedom, as Kate Chopin asks the question: what will emancipation feel like for her, looking at the horizon and the future, to the frontier?
All moonlight is moving, wherever it may be…
Japanese gentlewoman Sei Shonagon invites us to look behind the painted screens in the Emperor’s palace and discover a lost world, in which games of poetry are the highest form of wit, lovers send each other elegant morning-after letters, and appreciation of the natural world – wild geese in autumn, the pure white frost of winter – is one of life’s most exquisite pleasures.
In one of the great English war memoirs, we learn what it is to cross the Pyrenees through freezing snow to fight fascism in Spain; to narrowly escape execution by your own side; to kill a man with a borrowed rifle and feel nothing but shame. Moving and shrapnel-sharp, A Moment of War recalls the defeat of idealism; ‘that flush of youth which never doubts self-survival, that idiot belief in luck’.
I am not a man, I am dynamite
Weeks before his final mental breakdown, Nietzsche set out to compose his autobiography, and Ecce Homo is the result. A summary of his life’s work as a philosopher, with chapter headings including ‘Why I Am So Wise’ and ‘Why I Write Such Good Books’, it is part mocking self-judgement and part battle cry, and remains one of the most singular, strange examples of the genre ever written.
On a military base in 1930s Georgia, Private Ellgee Williams catches sight of his captain’s wife in the nude and becomes obsessed with her. But Captain Penderton – unhappily married to the unfaithful Leonora – in turn erotically fixates on Williams. Spare, muscular and sensual, with the dramatic vision of a Greek myth, Carson McCullers’ novella is a timeless work about the alienation of forbidden desire.
And this is fantasy, the flutter, the rapture of fantasy!’
A bashful dragon, a lost wood-sprite, the prophet Elijah and the Devil disguised as a middle-aged woman appear in these playful, exuberant stories by Vladimir Nabokov. So do a vengeful husband, a barber confronting his torturer and the author himself, as he recalls his first love. Each of the thirteen tales here enchants and enraptures us, only to gleefully confound our expectations.
The whole town got involved with the hunger-artist; from day to day of his starving, people’s participation grew; everyone wanted to see the hunger-artist at least once a day; on the later days there were season-ticket holders who sat for days on end in front of his little cage
Reading these stories by the master of the absurd is like entering a dreamworld in which nothing, and yet somehow everything, makes sense.
Why should I bother to invent things? My life has been far more exciting and wonderful than any fairy-tale’
In the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by irritatingly polite relatives and hopeless sycophants, Lady L. is celebrating her eightieth birthday. But as the guests disperse, she feels the undeniable pull of a mysterious pavilion in the lush grounds, and the terrible secret she buried there many years ago . . .
On the fields of Troy, war is raging. At its centre is Achilles: godlike, swift-footed, the greatest champion of the Greeks. But when his pride is wounded and he refuses to fight, the thread of fate begins to spin . . . From frenzied rampages to intimate moments of grief, this selection from Homer’s Iliad traces the tale of a warrior whose name echoes through the ages, and whose story remains as powerful as ever.
“All art,” Oscar Wilde once announced, “is quite useless.” Selected here are some of his finest prose works on the subject of art – useless, illuminating, artificial, uplifting, radical, gorgeous, boring, sublime – and his most brilliant aphorisms on the creative life. Whether lamenting the crass urge to hold art to realist or natural standards or arguing against morality as a guiding principle, Wilde defends the artist while delighting the audience.
Fabien tonight was wandering over the vast splendour of a sea of clouds, but below him lay eternity.
Inspired by his career as an aviator, Saint-Exupéry’s soaring novel follows the journeys of three pilots delivering mail overnight. The author’s beautiful, weightless prose is as haunting as his own disappearance in flight, eerily foreshadowed by his protagonist Fabien, who becomes lost in otherworldly darkness. Letter to a Hostage, Saint-Exupéry’s meditation on displacement and friendship, also explores solitude and questions the human condition.
‘I walked in a daze of illusions toward my future.’
Deeply felt and told with an intrepid spirit, Tales from the Heart are the intimate, formative stories from the childhood of the legendary Caribbean writer, Maryse Condé.
These affecting vignettes follow Condé’s early encounters with love, grief, friendship, as she navigates the pernicious legacy of slavery and colonialism in her home of Guadeloupe and as a student in Paris.
It is 1837 and a brilliant German artist sets out to cross the mountains between Chile and Argentina. Perhaps nobody before him has been able to paint the sights that unfold: vast chasms, surreal plants and animals… But then something goes appallingly wrong.
This is one of Aira’s great works, filled with his baffling ability to veer between grandeur and absurdity. Each page fails to provide clues as to what lies in wait for the reader on the next.
Arrested in Cologne for remarking that the Fuhrer looked sweaty, nineteen-year-old Sanna has fled to Frankfurt. But her troubles are far from over. Her best friend Gerti has fallen for a Jewish boy, her brother writes books that have been blacklisted, and her own aunt could turn her in to the authorities at any moment. Darkly humorous and utterly heart rending, this gripping novel vividly captures the terror and hysteria of pre-war Nazi Germany.
In October Nights, Gerard de Nerval takes us on a gentle meander through nighttime Paris – a dreamlike journey towards getting lost. Also included in this volume is Sylvie, his haunting novella of love and memory, the ‘masterpiece’ that inspired Proust to write In Search of Lost Time. Together, these works by the French poet, visionary and pioneering modernist are a testament to the power of jewelled thinking, and an inspiration for flaneurs and romantics everywhere.
In a remote castle perched atop a windswept island, a long-awaited royal heir is born. In accordance with ancient custom, a blessing ceremony takes place to bestow the princess with magical gifts – along with a terrible curse.
Except this is not the love story you may think you know. There is no enchanted sleep for the princess, and no handsome prince to save the day. Just three women, who together concoct a desperate plan of misdirect that changes the course of all their lives.
But dark magic cannot be tricked, and as the end of the curse edges closer, each of the women has a choice to make. They can wait to find out if the worst will happen, or they can turn to face the coming storm . . .
An atmospheric, feminist retelling of a classic fairy tale that asks, What if Beauty never went to sleep?
Ancient Assyria, 9th century BC. An orphan is raised on the outskirts of a brutal empire. Heir to a tragic prophecy, Semiramis dreams of wielding power and escaping her destiny.
Far away, a reluctant prince walks the corridors of his gilded palace in a city built by the gods. Ninus would rather spend his days in books and poetry than conquering the world of men. But when he meets Onnes, a broken, beautiful warrior, something awakens in them both.
That is until Semiramis arrives. A savage love soon erupts between them all. And before long, all three will be forced to learn the lesson of the gods - in Babylonia, you must bend the world to your will. What doesn't bend, you break.
When two teenage gangs are arrested after clashing violently in one of Venice's campi, the son of a local hero is implicated. But when Commissario Guido Brunetti is asked by a wealthy foreigner to vet this man, Monforte, for a job, he discovers that Monforte might not be such a hero after all.
This seeming contradiction, and a brutal attack on one of Brunetti's colleagues by a possible gang member, concentrate Brunetti's attentions. Soon, he discovers the sordid hypocrisy surrounding Monforte's past, culminating in a fiery meeting of two gangs and a final opportunity for redemption.
A Refiner's Fire is Donna Leon at her very best: an elegant, sophisticated storyteller whose indelible characters become richer with each book, and who constantly interrogates the ambiguity between moral and legal justice.
It started as a dare…
Best friends Lexie and Scarlet are attending their ninth – or is it tenth? – wedding this summer. To keep things fresh, they've upped their game. With bingo. To win, all Lexie must do is complete her scorecard first.
A tipsy bridesmaid? Tick!
An awkward best man's speech? Tick!
A terrible DJ? Tick!
And finally: Kiss a groomsman…
But Lexie hasn't gambled on finding not one but two gorgeous groomsmen. Chris, tall, dark and handsome – and leaving for New York tonight – and charmingly rugged farmer Josh.
True love could be on the cards. If Lexie can make the right choice, right now…
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