Contemporary Fiction

Much maligned in pre-war Germany, the short story enjoyed a creative rebirth in 1945. Initially imported by the Allies, the form also matched perfectly the prevailing mood of irony, objectivity and mistrust of the didactic. With the original German text running alongside English translations, this collection features stories from eight outstanding post-war authors including Heinrich Böll, Ilse Aichinger and Reinhard Lettau which students will find both educational and engrossing. Böll’s opening story 'Pale Anna' follows a soldier returning home, his situation comparable to that of the writer in the first months of peace: he knows no-one and has few words not linked to painful memories. This poignant narrative is followed by a variety of tales representing the diversity of the time and including satires, explorations of private obsessions and experiments in form and language.

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"STUNNING." —Susan Power, author of The Grass DancerA moving and deeply engaging debut novel about a young Native American man finding strength in his familial identity, from a stellar new voice in fiction. Oscar Hokeah’s electric debut takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle, whose family—part Mexican, part Native American—is determined to hold onto their community despite obstacles everywhere they turn. Ever’s father is injured at the hands of corrupt police on the border when he goes to visit family in Mexico, while his mother struggles both to keep her job and care for her husband. And young Ever is lost and angry at all that he doesn’t understand, at this world that seems to undermine his sense of safety. Ever’s relatives all have ideas about who he is and who he should be. His Cherokee grandmother, knowing the importance of proximity, urges the family to move across Oklahoma to be near her, while his grandfather, watching their traditions slip away, tries to reunite Ever with his heritage through traditional gourd dances. Through it all, every relative wants the same: to remind Ever of the rich and supportive communities that surround him, there to hold him tight, and for Ever to learn to take the strength given to him to save not only himself but also the next generation. How will this young man visualize a place for himself when the world hasn’t made room for him to start with? Honest, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting, Calling for a Blanket Dance is the story of how Ever Geimausaddle finds his way home.

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Too much sex in the city: a young woman goes into a self-destructive spiral after becoming obsessed with a downtown Montreal hipster.Reality, that speedy bitch, is catching up to me.In downtown Montreal, everyone is in a band or making a movie. Philomena Flynn and her best friend, Tania, are living fast and hard. There is sex when and where they want it, as well as drugs of all kinds. Not enough work, but lots of parties. Cute boys or nice boys, but rarely both at once. Philomena has no idea how to protect herself from her roaring feelings and goes into a spiral of self-destruction when her heart is broken. Too bad for Tania. Too bad for Philomena’s dad. Too bad for boys who are too nice to her, and too bad, above all, for Philomena.Like Animals is a glimpse into the raucous, sex-filled lives — infused with self-doubt and euphoria — of young, creative people who are far more sensitive than their cool facades will admit.A RARE MACHINES BOOK

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Set in an unnamed African country, V. S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River is narrated by Salim, a young man from an Indian family of traders long resident on the coast. He believes The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it. So he has taken the initiative; left the coast; acquired his own shop in a small, growing city in the continent’s remote interior and is selling sundries – little more than this and that, really – to the natives. This spot, this ‘bend in the river’, is a microcosm of post-colonial Africa at the time of Independence: a scene of chaos, violent change, warring tribes, ignorance, isolation and poverty. And from this rich landscape emerges one of the author’s most potent works – a truly moving story of historical upheaval and social breakdown.

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A House for Mr Biswas is Nobel Prize in Literature winner V. S. Naipaul's unforgettable masterpiece. Heart-rending and darkly comic, it has been hailed as one of the twentieth century's finest novels, a classic that evokes a man's quest for autonomy against the backdrop of post-colonial Trinidad.He was struck again and again by the wonder of being in his own house, the audacity of it: to walk in through his own front gate, to bar entry to whoever he wished, to close his doors and windows every night.Mr. Biswas has been told since the day of his birth that misfortune will follow him – and so it has. Meaning only to avoid punishment, he causes the death of his father and the dissolution of his family. Wanting simply to flirt with a beautiful woman, he ends up marrying her, and reluctantly relying on her domineering family for support. But in spite of endless setbacks, Mr. Biswas is determined to achieve independence, and so he begins his gruelling struggle to buy a home of his own. 'A work of great comic power qualified with firm and unsentimental compassion.' - Anthony Burgess'A marvellous prose epic that matches the best nineteenth-century novels.' - Newsweek

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V. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession.His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now.In 1990, V. S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 20

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In February 1959, Switzerland held a referendum on women's suffrage. The men voted 'no'. In this powerful novella, Clare O'Dea explores that day through the eyes of four very different Swiss women. Vreni is a busy farmer's wife, longing for a break from family life. Her grown-up daughter Margrit is carving out an independent life in Bern, but finds herself trapped in an alarming situation. Esther, a cleaner, is desperate to recover her son who has been taken into care. Beatrice, a hospital administrator, has been throwing herself into the 'yes' campaign. The four women's paths intersect on a day that will leave its mark on all their lives.

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'I have heard no end of tales of his strength, his audacity, his fidelity...incorruptible! It is indeed a name of honour for the Capataz of the Cargadores of Sulaco.' One of the greatest political novels in any language, Nostromo enacts the establishment of modern capitalism in a remote South American province locked between the Andes and the Pacific. In the harbourtown of Sulaco, a vivid cast of characters is caught up in a civil war to decide whether its fabulously wealthy silver mine, funded by American money but owned by a third-generation English immigrant, can be preserved from the hands of venal politicians. Greed and corruption seep into the lives of everyone, and Nostromo, the principled Capataz, is tested to the limit. Conrad's evocation of the great Latin-American landscapes, the ferocity of its politics, and individuals swept up in imperial ambitions has never been bettered. This edition offers new insights into Conrad's masterpiece. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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'Impeccable ... The most impressive of her novels' Atlantic MonthlyIn this thoughtful and moving novel, four men find themselves inextricably bound together by their past histories. The aged Judge Clane dreams of resurrecting the confederacy, while his grandson, Jester, is involuntarily drawn to Sherman, a volatile black orphan who feels the sharp sting of racial injustice, especially when he finds out the truth about his parentage. Through the eyes of these individuals Carson McCullers explores the roots of racial prejudice and the dual moralities of the town's leading whites.

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Asher Lev is the artist who painted the sensational 'Brooklyn Crucifixion.' Into it her poured all the anguish and torment a Jew can feel when torn between the faith of his fathers and the calling of his art. Here Asher Lev plunges back into his childhood and recounts the story of love and conflict which dragged him to this crossroads.

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In Mansi Shah’s stunning debut novel, a family tragedy beckons a first-generation immigrant to the city of her birth, where she grapples with her family’s past in search of where she truly belongs. After her parents moved her and her brother to America, Preeti Desai never meant to tear her family apart. All she did was fall in love with a white Christian carnivore instead of a conventional Indian boy. Years later, with her parents not speaking to her and her controversial relationship in tatters, all Preeti has left is her career at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm. But when Preeti receives word of a terrible accident in the city where she was born, she returns to India, where she’ll have to face her estranged parents…and the complicated past they left behind. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of her heritage, Preeti catches a startling glimpse of her family’s battles with class, tradition, and sacrifice. Torn between two beautifully flawed cultures, Preeti must now untangle what home truly means to her.

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"Terrific . . . Easily the most purely entertaining novel I have read so far this year" David Mills, The Sunday Times"A really excellent suspense novelist" Stephen KingThe second volume of Pierre Lemaitre's enthralling, award-winning between-the-wars trilogyIn 1927, the great and the good of Paris gather at the funeral of the wealthy banker, Marcel Péricourt. His daughter, Madeleine, is poised to take over his financial empire (although, unfortunately, she knows next to nothing about banking). More unfortunately still, when Madeleine's seven-year-old son, Paul, tumbles from a second floor window of the Péricourt mansion on the day of his grandfather's funeral, and suffers life-changing injuries, his fall sets off a chain of events that will reduce Madeleine to destitution and ruin in a matter of months.Using all her reserves of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and a burning desire for retribution, Madeleine sets about rebuilding her life. She will be helped by an ex-Communist fixer, a Polish nurse who doesn't speak a word of French, a brainless petty criminal with a talent for sabotage, an exiled German Jewish chemist, a very expensive forger, an opera singer with a handy flair for theatrics, and her own son with ideas for a creative new business to take Paris by storm.A brilliant, imaginative, free-falling caper through between-the-wars Paris, and a portrait of Europe on the edge of disaster.Translated from the French by Frank WynneFrank Wynne is an award-winning writer and translator. His previous translations include works by Virginie Despentes, Javier Cercas and Michel Houellebecq. His translation of Vernon Subutex I was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.With the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European UnionFrom the reviews for The Great Swindle"The most purely enjoyable book I've read this year" Jake Kerridge, Sunday Telegraph"The vast sweep of the novel and its array of extraordinary secondary characters have attracted comparisons with the works of Balzac. Moving, angry, intelligent - and compulsive" Marcel Berlins, The Times

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'A match for end-of-the-world classics like Stephen King's The Stand' - New York Times Review of Books 'Breathtaking' - Heat Thirteen years ago, a catastrophic pandemic known as The Doom killed billions. For those left behind, it is a chance to build a new world. But The Doom was no ordinary virus. In some survivors, it awoke strange powers - to heal, to harm, even to predict the future. Fallon Swift has no memories of the old world - but she is destined to shape this new one. Growing up with her three brothers on a quiet farm, she has been protected from danger by her mother and stepfather. Now she must leave them, and learn to fight. Because Fallon is not only a powerful 'Uncanny' - she also has a pivotal role to play in the bloody battles ahead. A war between good and evil is brewing, and Fallon - young, tough, headstrong - must be ready. A sequel to the number one bestselling Year One, this breathtaking novel of love, war, family and magic is a gripping and deeply satisfying continuation of an extraordinary new trilogy.

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A Bend in the River is V. S. Naipaul’s vivid exploration of post-colonial Africa at the time of Independence. With an introduction by Yiyun Li, author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.Salim has spent most of his life on the east coast of Africa, living and working with his family. When he sets out to build a new life for himself, moving to an unnamed country in the heart of the continent he believes he is doing so to fulfil his duty as a man. He buys a small shop in a sleepy town, at a bend in the river, where he sells sundries to the locals. First published in 1979, A Bend in the River is V.S. Naipaul's vivid exploration of post-colonial Africa at the time of Independence. Serving as a microcosm of this changing world, his bend in the river is a scene of chaos, violent change, warring tribes, ignorance, isolation and poverty. And from this rich landscape emerges one of the author's most potent works – a truly moving story of historical upheaval and social breakdown.

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‘One of the masters of modern Chinese literature’ Jung ChangThis gripping dystopia contrasts the reality of life in China today with the sunny optimism of the ‘Chinese dream’.One dusk in early June, in a town deep in the Balou mountains, fourteen-year-old Li Niannian notices that something strange is going on. As the residents would usually be settling down for the night, instead they start appearing in the streets and fields. There are people everywhere. Li Niannian watches, mystified. Until he realises the people are dreamwalking, carrying on with their daily business as if the sun hadn’t already gone down. And before too long, as more and more people succumb, in the black of night all hell breaks loose. Set over the course of one night, The Day the Sun Died pits chaos and darkness against the bright ‘Chinese dream’ promoted by President Xi Jinping. We are thrown into the middle of an increasingly strange and troubling waking nightmare as Li Niannian and his father struggle to save the town, and persuade the beneficent sun to rise again. Praise for Yan Lianke's books: ‘Nothing short of a masterpiece’ Guardian‘A hyper-real tour de force, a blistering condemnation of political corruption and excess’ Financial Times‘Mordant satire from a brave fabulist’ Daily Mail ‘Exuberant and imaginative’ Sunday Times ‘I can think of few better novelists than Yan, with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth’ New York Times Book Review

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"There are people who break open and make a new, bigger, self. But some of us are brittle."When stress causes an old trauma to surface, Lucy, a longtime community organizer, teacher and anti-poverty activist, loses control of her life. On probation and living on the streets of Halifax's North End, all she has left is friends. Faithful friends like Judith, her lawyer, who is helping her take back her life.Lucy begins to regularly sneak into Judith's basement to take refuge from the cold, but Lucy's presence in the house betrays their friendship, and she uncovers mysteries from Judith's past. As events draw their lives closer, Lucy and Judith are forced to face the toll taken by their secrets. Each of them must choose between confronting past pain or remaining broken.

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'Brilliant . . . Hall has shaped a richly imagined, tremendously moving fictional work. Its genius is not to explain but to embody the science and politics that shaped Oppenheimer's life . . .The resulting quantum portrait feels both true and dazzlingly unfamiliar' New York Times J. Robert Oppenheimer - the father of the atomic bomb - was a brilliant scientist, a champion of liberal causes, and a complex and often contradictory character. In Louisa Hall's kaleidoscopic novel, seven fictional characters bear witness to his life. From a secret service agent who tailed him in San Francisco, to the young lover of a colleague in Los Alamos, to a woman fleeing McCarthyism who knew him on St. John, as these men and women fall into the orbit of a brilliant but mercurial mind at work, all consider his complicated legacy while also uncovering deep and often unsettling truths about their own lives.In Trinity, Louisa Hall has crafted an explosive story about what it means to truly know someone, and about the secrets we keep from the world and from ourselves.

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'Reading this book is like sitting in the pub listening to a good friend tell you stories. It does what only the best retellings can and makes you see the myth anew' Daisy JohnsonThat was the start of it. A terrible business altogether. Oh, it was all kept off the news, for the sake of the talks and the ceasefire. But them that were around that part of the country remember every bit. Wait now till you hear the rest.Northern Ireland, 1996.After twenty-five years of conflict, the IRA and the British have agreed an uneasy ceasefire, as a first step towards lasting peace. But if decades of savage violence are leading only to smiles and handshakes, those on the ground in the border country will start to question what exactly they have been fighting for.When an IRA man's wife turns informer, he and his brother gather their old comrades for an assault on the local army base. But the squad's feared sniper suddenly refuses to fight, and the SAS are sent in to crush this rogue terror cell before it can wreck the fragile truce, and drag the whole region back to the darkest days of the Troubles. Inspired by the oldest war story of them all, this powerful new Irish novel explores the brutal glory of armed conflict, and the bitter tragedy of those on both sides who offer their lives to defend the honour of their country.

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1959, Seoul. Divided from his family by the violent tumult of the Korean civil war, Yunho arrives in South Korea's capital searching for his oldest friend. He finds him in the arms of Eve Moon, a dancer with many names who may be a refugee fleeing the communist North, or an American spy. Beguiled, Yunho falls desperately in love. But nothing in Seoul is what it seems. The city is crowded with double agents and soldiers, and wracked by protests and poverty, while across the border, Pyongyang grows more prosperous by the day. When a series of betrayals and a brutal crime drive the three friends into exile, Yunho finds himself caught in the riptide of history. Might a homecoming to North Korea be his only hope for salvation?

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A multi-award-winning tale of love and courage, picked by the Independent as one of the 30 Best Debut Novels of 2019. Inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, Ahmad Danny Ramadan’s innovative and poetic debut novel tells the story of two lovers anchored to the memory of a dying Syria. One is Hakawati, the storyteller, keeping life in forward motion by relaying remembered fables and incidents from their youth to his dying partner. Each night he spins stories of a Damascus childhood, of leaving home, of persecution and hardship, and of his fated meeting with his lover. Meanwhile, Death himself, in his dark cloak, shares the house with the two men, eavesdropping on their secrets as he awaits their final undoing.

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'A startling novel of ferocious psychological acumen, which, to my mind, deserves a large, international readership... very much a book for our times' Siri Hustvedt, from the introduction'A literary giant in Sweden, Dagerman conjures a Strindbergian atmosphere of shadowy menace in his brief, intense novel, A Moth to a Flame... This moody, death-haunted novel is well worth reading' Evening StandardIn 1940s Stockholm, a young man named Bengt falls into deep, private turmoil with the unexpected death of his mother. As he struggles to cope with her loss, his despair slowly transforms to rage when he discovers that his father had a mistress. Bengt swears revenge on behalf of his mother's memory, but he soon finds himself drawn into a fevered and forbidden affair with the very woman he set out to destroy . . .Written in a taut, restrained style, A Moth to a Flame is an intense exploration of heartache and fury, desperation and illicit passion. Set against a backdrop of the moody streets of Stockholm and the Hitchcockian shadows in the woods and waters of Sweden's remote islands, this is a psychological masterpiece by one of Sweden's greatest writers.'Dagerman wrote with beautiful objectivity. Instead of emotive phrases, he uses a choice of facts, like bricks, to construct an emotion' Graham Greene'Dagerman can evoke such emotion in a single sentence' Colm Tóibín 'There are some writers (Kafka and Lorca immediately spring to mind) who come to enjoy the status of saint; their lives and deaths constitute statements about existence and its proper priorities. A saint of this type is the Swedish writer Stig Dagerman' Times Literary Supplement'This searing tale of bereavement and loathing feels all too relevant today' Guardian

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'Are we making a bomb?' 'This is a trust exercise, like in drama,' she says. 'Are we making a bomb as a trust exercise?'Fifteen-year-old Oliver Tate is terrified that his family is falling apart. He fears for his depressed father and is convinced that his mother is having an affair with her capoeira teacher. Deciding that it is down to him alone to save his parents' marriage, Oliver sets out on a campaign to rescue it while also embarking on an even more ambitious goal: to lose his virginity before he's sixteen to the seductive but slightly pyromaniacal Jordana . . .'The sharpest, funniest, rudest account of a troubled teenager's coming of age since The Catcher in the Rye' Independent 'A brilliant first novel by a young man of ferocious comic talent' The Times

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Everything can be exhibited: trinkets from the Second French Empire, a collection of photographs, a boudoir from beyond the grave, a heroine famous for her beauty, her extravagance and her pitiful end. Everything can be exposed: a woman for another woman... , the fear of one's own body, a way of entering a scene, the thrill of seduction, abandonment, the reassurance of objects, a ruin. Over the course of four decades, the Countess Virginia Oldoini returned to the same Paris studio to be photographed, posing in different tableaux to mark the moments of her life, real and imagined. A fascination with 'La Castiglione' led Nathalie Leger to weave together this imaginative proto-biography. Mysterious yet over-exposed, adored and despised for her beauty in equal measure, Castiglione was a flamboyant aristocrat, mistress of Napoleon III and a rumoured spy. Examining the myths around icons past and present, Leger meditates on the half-truths of portrait photography, reframing her own family history in the process.

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The hand of friendship can span a thousand miles… PakistanAmong the almond orchards of the Swat Valley, Zamir tends goats with his son, Raza. He must make a heartbreaking decision if he is to protect his youngest child from the Taliban. AfghanistanOn a military base in Lashkar Gah, Ben lives on edge, wondering if his family will be the next to receive life-changing news from the front line. CornwallAnd in a ramshackle house on the Cornish coast, Ben’s mother Delphi, an artist, offers a refuge to her grandson Finn, as he retreats from the changes he senses in his family. When Raza and Finn, two boys from impossibly different worlds, meet, they are united by their loneliness. But will their unexpected bond be enough to save not just each other, but also their families, just as all their lives are about to change forever? ’At once heartbreaking and uplifting, and its focus on the themes of war and loss, love and friendship across cultures is both topical and timeless: a powerful story from a writer operating at the height of her powers’ JANE JOHNSON, The Tenth Gift ‘Interweave[ing] the devastation exacted by war on the lives of two boys… [this] blistering story shows how no one is remote, connecting rural Cornwall with the Swat Valley of Pakistan’ GEORGIA KAUFMANN, The Dressmaker of Paris ‘Sara MacDonald writes with a lyrical quality that captivated me from the start’ AMANDA JENNINGS, The Storm

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'One of those rare novels that leave us different people at the end than we were at the beginning.' GLORIA STEINEM'She is a serious writer who deserves the sort of considered attention which, too often, she does not get...' MARGARET ATWOOD_______________________________________Often compared to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Naomi Alderman's The Power - Woman on the Edge of Time has been hailed as a classic of speculative science fiction. Disturbing and forward thinking, Marge Piercy's remarkable novel will speak to a new generation of readers.Connie Ramos has been unjustly incarcerated in a mental institution with no hope of release. The authorities view her as a danger to herself and to others. Her family has given up on her.But Connie has a secret - a way to escape the confines of her cell. She can see the future. . .For fans of THE HANDMAID'S TALE and THE POWER, this is a reissue of a much loved feminist classic.

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OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD The cult classic that defined a generation - first UK publication in 47 years 'An extraordinary novel ... women will like it and men should read it for the good of their immortal souls' Los Angeles Times Sasha Davis has everything a girl in 1950s suburbia could want: beauty, intelligence and an all-star sports captain boyfriend. All she needs to succeed is to keep her skin clear and her intelligence hidden under her Prom Queen tiara. But when she drops out of college to marry, Sasha soon realises her life has become a fearful countdown to her thirtieth birthday - the year when her beauty will have faded, and life as she knows it will end. As Sasha rebels against her fate, she finds herself experiencing an intellectual and sexual awakening that might be her only chance of outrunning the aging process. First published in 1972, Alix Kates Shulman's landmark novel follows Sasha's coming of age through the sexual double standards, job discrimination and harassment of the 1950s and 60s. Five decades later, it remains a funny and heartbreaking story of a young woman in a man's world.

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A Times Best Book of 2019. 'Paver is one of Britain's modern greats. This sinister, gothic chiller shows why' BIG ISSUE, Books of the Year 2019. "Something has been let loose..." In Edwardian Suffolk, a manor house stands alone in a lost corner of the Fens: a glinting wilderness of water whose whispering reeds guard ancient secrets. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother, ruled by her repressive father. When he finds a painted medieval devil in a graveyard, unhallowed forces are awakened. Maud's battle has begun. She must survive a world haunted by witchcraft, the age-old legends of her beloved fen – and the even more nightmarish demons of her father's past. Spanning five centuries, Wakenhyrst is a darkly gothic thriller about murderous obsession and one girl's longing to fly free by the bestselling author of Dark Matter and Thin Air. Wakenhyrst is an outstanding new piece of story-telling, a tale of mystery and imagination laced with terror. It is a masterwork in the modern gothic tradition that ranges from Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker to Neil Gaiman and Sarah Perry.

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Leni crossed her arms, said nothing, and watched the fight unfold. She was like a bored onlooker at a boxing trial, wasting no energy on the undercard, saving her passion for the moment when the real champions would step into the ring. And yet, at some point, she began to cry. Just tears, without any sound. Water falling from her eyes as water was falling from the sky. Rain disappearing into rain.The Wind That Lays Waste begins in the great pause before a storm. Reverend Pearson is an evangelist preaching the word of God across northern Argentina with Leni, his teenage daughter, in tow. When their car breaks down, fate leads them to the workshop of an ageing mechanic, Gringo Brauer, and his assistant, a boy called Tapioca. Over the course of a long day, curiosity and a sense of new opportunities develop into an unexpected intimacy. Yet this encounter between a man convinced of his righteousness and one mired in cynicism and apathy will become a battle for the very souls of the young pair: the quietly earnest and idealistic mechanic’s assistant, and the restless, sceptical preacher’s daughter. As tensions among the four ebb and flow, beliefs are questioned and allegiances tested, until finally the growing storm breaks over the plains.Selva Almada’s exquisitely crafted debut, with its limpid and confident prose, is profound and poetic, a near-tangible experience of the landscape amid the hot winds, wrecked cars, sweat-stained shirts and damaged lives, told with the cinematic precision of a static road movie, like a Paris, Texas of the south. With echoes of Carson McCullers, The Wind That Lays Waste is a contemplative and powerfully distinctive novel that marks the arrival in English of an author whose talent and poise are undeniable.

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LRB BOOKSHOP'S AUTHOR OF THE MONTH ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY BEN LERNER, AUTHOR OF THE TOPEKA SCHOOL'If you haven't read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce ... My advice: dive in.' Lucy Ellmann'I absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers ... A must read for everybody.' Karl Ove KnausgaardIt is 1967. Two men lie bedridden in separate wings of a Viennese hospital. The narrator, Thomas Bernhard, is stricken with a lung ailment; his friend Paul, nephew of Ludwig Wittgenstein, is suffering from one of his periodic bouts of madness. As their friendship quickens, these two eccentric men discover in each other an antidote to their feelings of despair on the unexpected strength of what they share - a spiritual symmetry forged by their love of music, black humour, disgust for bourgeois Vienna, and fear of mortality. A restless blend of fiction and memoir, Wittgenstein's Nephew is not only a haunting meditation on the artist's struggle to maintain a foothold on reality, but an impassioned eulogy to a real-life friendship - newly illuminated by Ben Lerner's afterword.

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Includes a sparkling new introduction to this deliciously wicked novel from Veronica Henry, talking about what this book and Jackie means to her. ‘Jackie bought a bit of glitter, sparkle and sunshine into our humdrum existence’ VERONICA HENRY'Jackie Collins’s daring, unapologetic stroke of the pen, combined with her glorious wit, has single-handedly given creative license to new generations of authors and storytellers.' COLLEEN HOOVER There have been many imitators, but only ever one Jackie Collins. With millions of her books sold around the world, and thirty-one New York Times bestsellers, she is one of the world’s top-selling novelists. From glamorous Beverly Hills bedrooms to Hollywood movie studios; from glittering rock concerts to the yachts of billionaires, Jackie chronicled the scandalous lives of the rich, famous, and infamous from the inside looking out. 'A true inspiration, a trail blazer for women's fiction' JILLY COOPER ‘Jackie shows us all what being a strong, successful woman means at any age’ MILLY JOHNSON ‘Jackie will never be forgotten, she’ll always inspire me to #BeMoreJackie’ JILL MANSELL ‘Jackie’s heroines don’t take off their clothes to please a man, but to please themselves’ CLARE MACKINTOSH ‘Legend is a word used too lightly for so many undeserving people, but Jackie is the very definition of the word’ ALEX KHAN ‘What Jackie knew how to do so well, is to tell a thumping good story’ ROWAN COLEMAN 'Jackie wrote with shameless ambition, ruthless passion and pure diamond-dusted sparkle’ CATHERINE STEADMAN ‘Here is a woman who not only wanted to entertain her readers, but also to teach them something; about the world and about themselves’ ISABELLE BROOM ‘There’s a lot a drag queen can learn from Jackie’ TOM RASMUSSEN ‘Lessons galore on every page… about feminism, equality, tolerance and love’ CARMEL HARRINGTON ‘Jackie is the queen of cliff-hangers’ SAMANTHA TONGE ‘For all her trademark sass, there is a moralist at work here’ LOUISE CANDLISH ‘Nobody does it quite like Jackie and nobody ever will’ SARRA MANNING ‘Collins was saying that women didn’t have to centre round men, either in books or in life’ JESSIE BURTON ‘Jackie lived the Hollywood dream, but, she looked sideways at it, and then shared the dirt with her readers’ JULIET ASHTON ‘What radiates from her novels, is a sense that women are capable of great things’ ALEXANDRA HEMINSLEY

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The hilarious and feel-good novel about escaping the rat race, friendship and new beginningsWhen Nicola's husband, Dominic, retires they decide not to spend their days finding hobbies to fill the time until Countdown is on channel 4. Instead, they fulfil their life-long fantasy of buying a house in the French countryside and filling it with their dearest friends. Reliving their youth and spending their children's inheritance.Joined by seven of their friends they club together to invest in a château in Normandy. Group dinners, fine wine, beautiful scenery - they're living the dream!But la vie en rose is harder than it first appears. Is there a reason why only teenagers take gap years?The perfect read for fans of Jo Thomas, Cathy Bramley and Veronica Henry!

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In an unnamed, dead-end town in the heart of the outback, a young writer arrives to research small settlements that have vanished into oblivion. He finds the town's hotel empty of guests, the train station without trains, and the local bus circling its route without picking up any passengers. The townsfolk themselves have collective amnesia and show an aggressive distrust towards outsiders. The town is in decline, but the writer didn't expect it to be literally disappearing before his eyes: an epidemic of mysterious holes is threatening the town's very existence, plunging him into an abyss of weirdness from which he may never return.

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Celebrated bestselling author Sun-mi Hwang is back with a heartwarming new novel about renewal and friendship. This is the story of a man named Kang Dae-su. His whole life is a miracle, rising from poverty to running a successful construction company. In his twilight years, Kang is diagnosed with a brain tumour. He returns to his childhood home of Cherry Hill. He acquires a crumbling old house in which to retreat from the world, yet the residents of the town have other plans. They seem hell-bent on intruding on Kang's private property. But who does the house, and Cherry Hill, really belong to? Is it owned by the construction company who is trying to rejuvenate the neighbourhood? Or does it belong to the residents who have used the land to play, think, walk, love and explore for generations? And how is the bitter and despondent Kang's childhood tied to this magical place? Miracle on Cherry Hill is a redemptive story of a damaged man regaining his trust in humanity. It explores the fragility of nature and human lives and is much-loved classic in South Korea. Includes beautiful illustrations inside. Praise for The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly:'I was completely sucked into this story . . . bursting with originality . . . an instant classic' Guardian 'Bewitching . . . will make grown men and women cry' Independent

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The first ever story collection from the inimitable Lionel Shriver ‘Genius’ Stylist ‘Phenomenal’ Observer ‘Brilliant’ The Times In her first ever story collection, Lionel Shriver illuminates one of the modern age’s most enduring obsessions: property. A woman creates a deeply personal wedding present for her best friend; a thirty-something son refuses to leave home; a middle-aged man subjugated by service to his elderly father discovers that the last place you should finally assert yourself is airport security. This landmark publication explores the idea of "property" in both senses of the word: real estate, and stuff. Immensely readable, it showcases the biting insight that has made Lionel Shriver one of the most acclaimed authors of our time.

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From one of the world's best loved storytellers, Paulo Coelho, comes a riveting novel tracing the mysterious life and disappearance of Athena dubbed ‘the Witch of Portobello’. This is the story of Athena, or Sherine, to give her the name she was baptised with. Her life is pieced together through a series of recorded interviews with those people who knew her well or hardly at all – parents, colleagues, teachers, friends, acquaintances, her ex-husband. The novel unravels Athena's mysterious beginnings, via an orphanage in Romania, to a childhood in Beirut. When war breaks out, her adoptive family move with her to London, where a dramatic turn of events occurs… Athena, who has been dubbed 'the Witch of Portobello' for her seeming powers of prophecy, disappears dramatically, leaving those who knew her to solve the mystery of her life and abrupt departure. Like The Alchemist, The Witch of Portobello is the kind of story that will transform the way readers think about love, passion, joy and sacrifice.

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For fans of The Tea-Planter’s Wife and Victoria Hislop comes a gripping story of doomed love and secrets in 1940s Kashmir. Within one exotic land lie the secrets of a lifetime… In 1938, young bride Nerys Watkins accompanies her missionary husband on a posting to India. Up in Srinagar, the British live on beautiful wooden houseboats and dance and gossip as if there is no war. But when the men are sent away to fight Nerys is caught up in a dangerous friendship. Years later, when Mair Ellis clears out her father’s house, she finds an antique shawl with a lock of child’s hair wrapped up in its folds. Tracing her grandparents’ roots back to Kashmir, Mair uncovers a story of great love and great sacrifice.

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The Sunday Times No. 1 paperback bestseller, warm and moving - another gem from the much-loved Cathy Kelly. Keep a secret too long and it will creep out when you least expect it… Behind the shining windows and rose-decked gardens of Summer Street, single mother Faye, hides a secret from her teenage daughter Amber. Whilst thirty-year-old Maggie, hides one from herself. When fiery Amber decides to throw away her future for love, and Maggie finds herself back home looking after her sick mother, secrets begin to bubble over. The only person on Summer Street who appears to know all the answers is their friend Christie Devlin. Wise and kind, she can see into other people's hearts to solve their problems. Except that this time, she has secrets of her own to face…

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In the dark narratives that make up When I Was Mortal by Javier Marías, winner of the Dublin IMPAC prize and author of the bestselling A Heart So White, a dapper Paris doctor dispenses a treatment for dissatisfied wives. A mother auditions for her first porn movie. A writer working on a study of pain makes himself the subject of his experiments. A voyeur mistakes a murderer for a fellow peeping tom ... these are some of the characters observed by the narrator of these chilling stories. Ironic, unsettling, imbued with dread and with droll humour, Javier Marías' short tales cast a shrewd, sardonic eye on humanity.Javier Marías was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published ten novels, two collections of short stories and several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into thirty-two languages and won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for A Heart So White. He is also a highly practised translator into Spanish of English authors, including Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Thomas Browne and Laurence Sterne. He has held academic posts in Spain, the United States and in Britain, as Lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University.

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A kiss, a touch. A smile and a beating heart. Love and sex and dreams, art and drugs and the madness of youth. Betrayal and heartbreak, regret and pain, the melancholy of age. Katerina, James Frey's explosive new novel, is a sweeping love story alternating between 1992 Paris and Los Angeles in 2017.At its centre are a young writer and a young model on the verge of fame, both reckless, impulsive, and deeply in love. Twenty-five years later, the writer is rich, famous and numb, and he wants to drive his car into a tree, when he receives an anonymous message that draws him back to the life, and possibly the love, he abandoned years prior. Written in the same percussive, propulsive, dazzling, breathtaking style as A Million Little Pieces, Katerina echoes and complements that most controversial of memoirs, and plays with the same issues of fiction and reality that created, nearly destroyed, and then recreated James Frey in the global imagination.

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A sensational international bestseller, and winner of Frances’ coveted Prix Goncourt, ‘The Lover’ is an unforgettable portrayal of the incandescent relationship between two lovers, and of the hate that slowly tears the girl’s family apart. Saigon, 1930s: a poor young French girl meets the elegant son of a wealthy Chinese family. Soon they are lovers, locked into a private world of passion and intensity that defies all the conventions of their society. A sensational international bestseller, 'The Lover' is disturbing, erotic, masterly and simply unforgettable.

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THE FINAL NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING RAVENSCAR TRILOGY Elizabeth Turner, scion of the fabled Deravenel family, carries the red-gold hair and beautiful English complexion of her ancestors. And it is not just her colouring that she has inherited from Edward Deravenel. Astute and charismatic, she is also bold, daring and fiercely ambitious, with the same ruthless streak. Now, aged just twenty-five, she stands in the position she has dreamed of - inheriting the family business, Deravenels. Over eight hundred years old, the company is a bastion of male chauvinism and the challenge that lies ahead of Elizabeth is immense. Cecil Williams acts as Elizabeth's mentor while navigating the treacherous corridors of power with her. But her greatest ally is her childhood friend, handsome, charming Robert Dunley. Highly intelligent, he is her match in every way – and there is a spark between them that is impossible to resist. Yet Robert is already married. When they begin an affair it scandalises those around them. But far worse is to come… From the family seat perched high on the Yorkshire moors to the glamour of London as the twentieth century draws to a close, Elizabeth fights for her birthright and her inheritance. Passion, drama, betrayal and death stalk the pages of this gripping new blockbuster from the author of A Woman of Substance.

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