Classic fiction: literary and general

Book SynopsisDiscover Rosie Clarke's bestselling Blackberry Farm series! A story of life and survival during the war which is heart-rending and bitter-sweet, bringing you laughter and tears. Cambridgeshire – 1941 As the war rages on in Europe, it brings untold heartache to the Talbot family at Blackberry Farm. First Tom is missing in action and then his brother John. leaving the family distraught with worry. Faith finds herself in trouble and turns to Lizzie for support as fear and grief bring them closer together. But tragedy is never too far away and when it strikes, it may not be those who fight that suffer the most. Will Pam’s prayers be answered and will both her sons return home? And can the family at Blackberry Farm unite to overcome their heartache and find hope for the future?

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Book SynopsisDiscover Rosie Clarke's bestselling Blackberry Farm series! A story of life and survival during the war which is heart-rending and bitter-sweet, bringing you laughter and tears. Cambridgeshire – 1941 As the war rages on in Europe, it brings untold heartache to the Talbot family at Blackberry Farm. First Tom is missing in action and then his brother John. leaving the family distraught with worry. Faith finds herself in trouble and turns to Lizzie for support as fear and grief bring them closer together. But tragedy is never too far away and when it strikes, it may not be those who fight that suffer the most. Will Pam’s prayers be answered and will both her sons return home? And can the family at Blackberry Farm unite to overcome their heartache and find hope for the future?

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Book SynopsisGuillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) was at the forefront of the aesthetic revolution that is the European Avant-Garde of the early twentieth century. In the accompanying memoir to his English translation of 'Seated Woman', Timothy Mathews gives a wide-ranging account of the ways Apollinaire interacted in his life and art with Symbolism, Cubism, Futurism and Orphism, and the subjective as well as social experiences involved in urban modernism. In its scattered but controlled composition and the multiplicity of its tones, Seated Woman, published posthumously in 1920, is a powerful counterpoint to the multi-faceted poetry for which Apollinaire is often better known. In playing the music of violence as well as the generosity that characterised the Great War, it is a story of its time, for our time and any time. Apollinaire's writing as a whole is a living testament to the extraordinary creative energy he both witnessed and produced, but also his understanding of its vulnerability to exploitation and decay. This book in turn seeks to honour that understanding, its persistent calls to the imagination, and the wit, vision and honesty that await readers of Apollinaire's unique voice. The book includes a memoir by Timothy Mathews in which he discusses 'Seated Woman' and his translation, as well as Apollinaire’s aesthetic generally and its crucial part in the development of European modernism. The book contains further texts in which Timothy Mathews responds to Apollinaire’s writing through translation, as well as critically and creatively. "A remarkable testimony to the ‘on-the-go-ness' of Apollinaire. Having plunged into his poems for years untold, I discovered this Seated Woman (My God, she is that and more) through Timothy Mathews’s rendering, I won’t just say 'translation' – this is a kind of miracle of wit, facetious wording, and over-the-top, beyond the pale Beingness. Think upon this, Picasso!" —Mary Ann Caws, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, English, and French at the Graduate School of the City University of New York.

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Book SynopsisThe curse on the Löwensköld family comes to fruition in unexpected ways in this final volume of the Löwensköld cycle. Anna Svard is also very much a novel of women's struggle toward finding fulfillment. The Löwensköld Ring resonates with 'beggars cannot be choosers' in relation to what a poor woman can expect in life, while Charlotte Löwensköld moves toward women having some choices. In Anna Svärd the eponymous protagonist takes full and impressive control of her own life and destiny. The question of motherhood and the fates of the children with whom the characters engage is another theme. The reader goes on to follow Charlotte, Karl-Artur, Thea and their families, familiar from the previous volume, through this compact novel as it moves relentlessly toward a chilling denoument. Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940) quickly established herself as a major author of novels and short stories, and her work has been translated into close to 50 languages. Most of the translations into English were made soon after the publication of the original Swedish texts and have long been out of date. 'Lagerlöf in English' provides English-language readers with high-quality new translations of a selection of the Nobel Laureate's most important texts.

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