Narrative theme: interior life / psychological fiction

Book SynopsisAn undisputed modernist classic, "Ulysses'" ceaseless verbal inventiveness and astonishing wide-ranging allusions confirms its standing as an imperishable monument to the human condition. This title states that "Ulysses" is 'an endlessly open book of utopian epiphanies.Trade ReviewEverybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the twentieth century -- Anthony Burgess

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Book Synopsis''He did us all an honour by electing to use, and transform, our language'' Anthony Burgess''Look at the harlequins ... Play! Invent the world! Invent reality''. This is the childhood advice given by an aunt to Russian born writer Vadim Vadimovich, who emigrates to England, then Paris, then Germany and then the US, and, now dying, reconstructs his past. He remembers Iris his first wife, Annette his long-necked typist and Bel his daughter, as well as his own bizarre ''numerical nimbus syndrome''.Trade Review'He did us all an honour by electing to use, and transform, our language'

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Book SynopsisThe Penguin English Library Edition of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne''I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of infamous writing, and cannot take a plumb-lift out of it for my soul; so must be obliged to go on writing like a Dutch commentator to the end of the chapter, unless something be done ...''Laurence Sterne''s great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate ''hero'' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

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Book SynopsisLiving in the slums of Rio and eking out a living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Cola and her philandering rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly and unloved. Yet telling her story is the narrator Rodrigo S.M., who tries to direct Macabéa''s fate but comes to realize that, for all her outward misery, she is inwardly free. Slyly subverting ideas of poverty, identity, love and the art of writing itself, Clarice Lispector''s audacious last novel is a haunting portrayal of innocence in a bad world.Trade ReviewHer last and perhaps greatest novel -- Barbara Mujica * Americas *Her finest book * The Nation *Her searing last novel ... mesmerizing * Vogue *

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Book SynopsisEndlessly digressive, boundlessly imaginative and unmatched in its absurd and timeless witLaurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first 'postmodern' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations. The text and notes of this volume are based on the acclaimed Florida Edition, with a critical introduction by Melvyn New and Christopher Ricks's introductory essay from the first Penguin Classics edition. For more than sev

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Book SynopsisWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALI SMITHKatherine Mansfield''s clear, sparkling and perceptive short stories revolutionized the genre, and this collection represents the whole range of her writing. Moving, resonant, full of light and colour, they range from short sharp studies to longer, richer tales, encompassing her three major volumes Bliss, The Garden Party and In a German Pension, and fifteen tantalizing fragments of unfinished stories published after her tragic death, including ''Honesty'', an intriguing tale of two bachelors, and ''The Doves'' Nest'', an exquisite story of a widowed mother and her daughter in the Riviera who receive a mysterious gentleman caller. Graceful, delicate and quietly devastating, they observe apparently trivial incidents to create sensitive, often painful revelations of her characters'' inner lives.

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Book SynopsisFor the centennial of its original publication, a beautiful Deluxe Edition of one of Joyce’s greatest works—featuring a foreword by Karl Ove Knausgaard, author the New York Times bestselling six-volume autobiographical novel My Struggle, which has been likened to a 21st-century Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man   The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyce’s novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays the Dublin upbringing of Stephen Dedalus, from his youthful days at Clongowes Wood College to his radical questioning of all convention. In doing so, it provides an oblique self-portrait of the young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental inTrade ReviewOne believes in Stephen Dedalus as one believes in few characters in fiction. -- H. G. Wells[Mr. Joyce is] concerned at all costs to reveal the flickerings of that innermost flame which flashes its myriad message through the brain, he disregards with complete courage whatever seems to him adventitious, though it be probability or coherence or any other of the handrails to which we cling for support when we set our imaginations free. -- Virginia Woolf[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will] remain a permanent part of English literature. -- Ezra Pound

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Book SynopsisA new English translation of one of the most important, controversial Iranian novels of the twentieth centuryWinner of the 2023 Lois Roth Persian Translation Award A Penguin ClassicWritten by one of the greatest Iranian writers of the twentieth century, Blind Owl tells a two-part story of an isolated narrator with a fragile relationship with time and reality. In first person, the narrator offers a string of hazy, dreamlike recollections fueled by opium and alcohol. He spends time painting the exact same scene on the covers of pen cases: an old man wearing a cape and turban sitting under a cypress tree, separated by a small stream from a beautiful woman in black who offers him a water lily. In a one-page transition, the reader finds the narrator covered in blood and waiting for the police to arrest him. In part two, readers glimpse the grim realities that unlock the mysteries of the first part. In a new translation that reflects Hedayat’s converTrade Review“a much-needed and clear translation”—Amir-Hussein Radjy, The New York Times“The eerie, phantasmal Blind Owl…possesses the fully dimensional oddness of a vivid dream, which one can mine for interpretations, analyze for influences or simply submit to.”—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

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Book SynopsisA must-have new edition of Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece, featuring a cover illustrated by Alison Bechdel, the New York Times bestselling author of Fun Home, and a new foreword by Patricia LockwoodA Penguin Classics Graphic Deluxe EditionEvery summer, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey and their eight children vacation on Scotland’s idyllic Isle of Skye, surrounded by artist friends. They expect these summers will go on forever, but with the arrival of World War I, they are forced to reckon with change, loss, and time’s unstoppable march, before making, years later, the long-awaited return to Skye and to its towering lighthouse. An intimate, impressionistic meditation on memory, grief, the brutalities of war, and the tensions of domestic life, revolutionary for its use of stream of consciousness and shifting points of view, and infused with a singular poetic essence, To the Lighthouse is both a landmark in modernist writing and one of the gTrade Review“I put off To the Lighthouse for a long time, in order to live in delicious anticipation of it. . . . Yet this pleasure can be drawn out for only so long; if you are a reader, the morning comes when you must greet it along with the sun. . . . There is never the sense, opening To the Lighthouse, that it could have been anything else. It opens with the weather, just like the real day. It rises to some occasion, wakes with the lark to meet the weekend―moves ‘with an indescribable air of expectation,’ because it is going to meet someone around the corner, and with the shock of encounter you sometimes feel in reading, you find that it is you.” ―Patricia Lockwood, from the Foreword “I reread this book every once in a while, and every time I do I find it more capacious and startling. It’s so revolutionary and so exquisitely wrought that it keeps evolving on its own somehow, as if it’s alive.” —Alison Bechdel “I know of no more gut-wrenching, soaring prose about shared consciousness, mortality and water. Truly a book for the cradle to the grave.” —Maggie Nelson “This novel is just astonishing in its depth and reach and beauty. There is really nothing else like it, and no matter how many times I read it I find myself shocked at what Woolf was able to do.” —Meg Wolitzer “A classic for a reason. My mind was warped into a new shape by her prose and it will never be the same again.” —Greta Gerwig “My admiration for this book is complete. It is as beautiful, poignant, and ruthless as anything I have ever read.” —Siri Hustvedt “Woolf’s groundbreaking novel is still one of the best available accounts of self-mythologizing middle-class family life and its oppressive construction of male and female identity.” —Rachel Cusk “One of the greatest elegies in the English language, a book which transcends time.” —Margaret Drabble “Without question one of the two or three finest novels of the twentieth century. Woolf comments on the most pressing dramas of our human predicament: war, mortality, family, love. If you’re like me you’ll come back to this book often, always astounded, always moved, always refreshed.” —Rick Moody “She was doing with language something like what Jimi Hendrix does with a guitar.” —Michael Cunningham “Radiant . . . I think that beyond being about the very nature of reality, it is itself a vision of reality.” —Eudora Welty “Thrillingly introspective.” —The Independent “At the head of all Virginia Woolf’s work.” —The New York Times

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Book SynopsisNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A young woman pretends to be someone she isn’t in this “spellbinding” (Vogue), “smoldering” (The Washington Post) novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls.   “Under Cline’s command, every sentence as sharp as a scalpel, a woman toeing the line between welcome and unwelcome guest becomes a fully destabilizing force.”—The New York TimesA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Vogue, Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Slate, Chicago Public Library, Electric Lit“Alex drained her wineglass, then her water glass. The ocean looked calm, a black darker than the sky. A ripple of anxiety made her palms go damp. It seemed suddenly very tenuous to believe that anything would stay hidden, that she could suc

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Book SynopsisPoor Eustace is not very well. Convalescing in bed, his world is confined to the four walls of his grand and gloomy room. His days are spent in wild imaginings, punctuated by the occasional visit from his mother and a legion of Aunties, who fuss and smother Eustace.But then his wicked uncle arrives in a cloud of pipe smoke, accompanied by a swelling cast of prostitutes, hoodlums, drunkards and assorted hangers-on. Suddenly Eustace finds himself transformed from invalid to the star of a glittering and decadent social scene, serving drinks and holding court from his enormous bed. That is, until his Uncle''s past begins to catch up with him...Eustace is blackly comic, surreal and exquisitely rendered. It marks the debut of a brilliant new graphic novelist.Trade ReviewA strong debut with a compelling style... One of the particular joys reading comics offers is the chance of synchronicity between artistic style and thematic elements, and Harris offers that in abundance. -- Alex Hern * New Statesman *Surreal and enjoyable. -- James Smart * Guardian *Shades of Tim Burton and Edward Gorey twine tantalisingly about Eustace, the blackly comic debut by Londoner S. J. Harris. Harris’ angular stylistics and feathered pencil work is outstanding. -- Larushka Ivan-Zadeh * Metro *There’s a sniff of the great Robert Aickman in the mix of brittle comedy with murky sexual threat, and the whole thing is beautifully conceived and illustrated. Disturbingly confident, too, in its refusal to quite make sense. -- Tim Martin * Daily Telegraph *The darkness in Eustace creeps up on you unexpectedly. * The Skinny *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSublime… Wild Houses is a thrillingly moreish novel with some of the sharpest dialogue I’ve read in any recent debut and characters who held me captive until the very last page * Sunday Times *A delicate and beautiful book about the lives of lonely people... Page after faultless page, Wild Houses is a sheer joy to read... Colin Barrett's the real deal, but then we knew that already * Irish Times *So consistently witty and inventive that one struggles to think of recent novels that could stand up to comparison * Guardian, *Book of the Day* *With a thrillerish intensity… Barrett expertly handles the combination of narrative-driving dialogue, exhilarating action scenes and quieter moments designed to build tension… I was unable to put Wild Houses down * Times Literary Supplement *After years of short stories, Barrett’s transition to the longer span of the novel is confidently done. Descriptive set pieces are linked and expanded, yet every paragraph is created with care * Financial Times *Barrett’s superb debut novel deepens the world of his two short-story collections… The novel has the tension of a gritty noir thriller and the comic menace of a Pinter play * New Statesman *Barrett can sustain a narrative across a novel without sacrificing the panache and precision that has made him one of the most stylish fiction writers at work today. His prose is a delight from the first page * i *Wild Houses realises life in full and without pity... A palpable sense of human eccentricity, and endurance, is always there, just beneath the surface * Daily Telegraph *Until now, Colin Barrett has made his name as an artist of the short story… Wild Houses is a delight, with a wider space for his talent to spread and for his acutely observed characters to linger * Spectator *This strange and beautiful novel brings to life an entire world. Wild Houses is a book not just to read but to live inside -- Sally Rooney, author of Normal People

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Book SynopsisONE OF BARACK OBAMA''S BEST BOOKS OF 2017From the No. 1 New York Times bestselling and Booker long-listed author of My Name is Lucy Barton Recalling Olive Kitteridge in its richness, structure, and complexity, Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. Anything is Possible tells the story of the inhabitants of rural, dusty Amgash, Illinois, the hometown of Lucy Barton, a successful New York writer who finally returns, after seventeen years of absence, to visit the siblings she left behind.Reverberating with the deep bonds of family, and the hope that comes with reconciliation, Anything Is Possible again underscores Elizabeth Strout''s place as one of America''s most respected and cherished authors.Lucy''s story continues in Oh William! and Lucy by the Sea, available to read now!***''A terrific writer'' Zadie Smith''A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own'' Hilary MantelElizabeth Strout''s new novel Tell Me Everything is out now!Trade ReviewIt's hard to believe that a year after the astonishing My Name Is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout could bring us another book that is by every measure its equal, but what Strout proves to us again and again is that where she's concerned, anything is possible. This book, this writer, are magnificent. -- Ann Patchett, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of 'Commonwealth'This is a shimmering masterpiece of a book...Strout is a brilliant chronicler of the ambiguity and delicacy of the human condition. Anything is Possible is a wise, stunning novel * Observer *The words appear on the page as if breathed there * Sunday Telegraph *Anything is Possible is wonderfully readable because Strout really can write you into a world until you feel you are there with her, in that house, that life, that little Podunk of a place * The Times *Strout's compassion for her fellow creatures, as these anguished, lean stories prove, is as keen as a whip and all the more painful for it * Guardian *The work of Elizabeth Strout suggests that she pays a similar quality of unseparate attention to life, which she - not passively, but actively - takes in, listening to, looking into it, reflecting up on and freeing it once more, remade, in beautifully placed words, onto the page to live again for us, her fortunate readers * Daily Telegraph *Anything is Possible is absolutely wonderful. Here is a writer at the peak of her powers: compassionate, profoundly observant, laser-cut diamond brilliant * Literary Review *Anything Is Possible confirms Strout as one of our most grace-filled, and graceful, writers * Boston Globe *There is immense humanity in Strout's writing....her masterful economy of prose creates a rich tapestry infused with emotional wisdom...Anything is Possible is a masterpiece * Sunday Express *A quietly gripping deception of some of the ordinary, messy, interwoven lives that Lucy and her mother discussed in the earlier book * Radio Times *Strout, always good, just keeps getting better * Vogue US *In her latest work, Strout achieves new levels of masterful storytelling. * Publisher's Weekly *[F]ull of searing insight into the darkest corners of the human spirit... 'Anything Is Possible' is both sweeping in scope and incredibly introspective. That delicate balance is what makes its content so sharp and compulsively readable... With assuredness, compassion and utmost grace, her words and characters remind us that in life anything is actually possible * San Francisco Chronicle *The epic scope within seemingly modest confines recalls Strout's Pulitzer Prize winner, Olive Kitteridge, and her ability to discern vulnerabilities buried beneath bad behavior is as acute as ever. Another powerful examination of painfully human ambiguities and ambivalences-this gifted writer just keeps getting better. * Kirkus Reviews *If you miss the charmingly eccentric and completely relatable characters from Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout's best-selling My Name is Lucy Barton, you'll be happily reunited with them in Strout's smart and soulful Anything is Possible * Elle US *Strout once again shows her talent for adroitly uncovering what makes ordinary people tick * Booklist *Strout pierces the inner worlds of these characters' most private behaviors, illuminating the emotional conflicts and pure joy of being human, of finding oneself in the search for the American dream * Nylon *Amgash, Illinois, will be familiar to Elizabeth Strout fans as the hometown of the protagonist of her 2016 novel, My Name is Lucy Barton. In Anything is Possible... Lucy's legend looms large... but no prior reading is required to enjoy Strout's powerful writing and empathy * Real Simple *We devoured Strout's last novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton, and her latest-which is loosely linked to Lucy Barton-is no different. Told from multiple points of view, it's about residents of a small town in Illinois struggling with the most relatable and quotidian problems... you'll swear you know these characters. (In fact, it reminds us a bit of another of Strout's masterpieces, the excellent Olive Kitteridge.) * PureWow *Elizabeth Strout's prose is like words doing jazz -- Rachel JoyceI am deeply impressed. Writing of this quality comes from a commitment to listening, from a perfect attunement to the human condition, from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue. -- Hilary Mantel on 'My Name is Lucy Barton'A powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships -- Observer on 'My Name is Lucy Barton'Tender, elegiac, this is the story of a single life that also manages to tell the story of many -- Independent on 'My Name is Lucy Barton'The writing is wrenchingly lovely. It almost always is with Strout, whether she's knitting metaphors or summarizing, with agonizing economy, whole episodes. * New York Times *There are not many novelists out there producing writing as good as this * Daily Mail *Down to every sentence, it's wise, touching and quietly powerful * Grazia *As always, Strout treats even the most difficult characters with rare understanding. "It made me feel much less alone," says on reader of Lucy's memoir. The same will surely be said of Anything Is Possible * People (Book of the Week) *Gorgeous... Strout is in that special company of writers like Richard Ford, Stewart O'Nan and Richard Russo, who write simply about ordinary lives and, in so doing, make us readers see the beauty of both their worn and rough surfaces and what lies beneath -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR / Fresh AirHighly enjoyable * Sunday Times *A subtle, disturbing and touching book that is a miracle of wisdom and perception * Mail on Sunday *A beautifully told story of small-town Americans dealing with big life issues * Good Housekeeping *Utterly beautiful in the way that these characters were flawed to their core yet brimful of keeping it together no matter what...I loved it, there wasn't a moment when I didn't believe it. -- Barb Jungr * BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review *In all her novels, including this one, "the kindness of strangers is a fierce sun than can pierce the cloud" * The Week *Every chapter has depth, nuances, restrained descriptions and luminous characterisation. A wonder of a book * i Newspaper *Elizabeth Strout is a novelist in whose hands anything really is possible, and if you've yet to discover her, make this holiday the one you do * Daily Mail *This glimmering, profound, beautiful novel is modern American writing at its best' -- Clare AllfreeJust as understated and as full of horrifyingly elisions and surprising epiphanies as its predecessor * TLS Books of the Year *This audacious novel is about small-town characters struggling to make sense of past family traumas * New York Times Books of the Year *Strout turns her clear, incisive gaze on the intricacies and betrayals of small town life -- Maggie O'FarrellAnything is Possible is predictably great because it's written by Elizabeth Strout, and brilliantly unpredictable - because it is written by Elizabeth Strout -- Roddy Doyle

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Book Synopsis''... a human being, an intellectual human being who constantly bends the entire force of his mind on the ridiculous task of forcing a wooden king into the corner of a wooden board, and does it without going mad!''A group of passengers on a cruise ship challenge the world chess champion to a match. At first, they crumble, until they are helped by whispered advice from a stranger in the crowd - a man who will risk everything to win. Stefan Zweig''s acclaimed novella Chess is a disturbing, intensely dramatic depiction of obsession and the price of genius.Trade ReviewA brilliant writer * New York Times *One of the joys of recent years is the translation into English of Stefan Zweig's stories -- Edmund de WaalStefan Zweig was a late and magnificent bloom from the hothouse of fin de siecle Vienna * The Wall Street Journal *Zweig is one of the masters of the short story and novella, and by 'one of the masters' I mean that he's up there with Maupassant, Chekhov, James, Poe, or indeed anyone you care to name -- Nick Lezard * Guardian *A new favourite writer of mine -- Wes AndersonPerhaps the best chess story ever written, perhaps the best about any game -- EconomistHis great achievement in short form * The Times *

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Book Synopsis''The best English novel since the war'' Philip RothMagnus Pym - ranking diplomat, consummate Englishman, loving husband, secret agent - has vanished. Has he defected? Gone to ground? As the hunt for Pym intensifies, the secrets of his life are revealed: the people he has loved and betrayed, the unreliable con-man father who made him, the two mentors who moulded and shaped him, and now wish to claim this perfect spy as their own. Described by le Carré as his most autobiographical novel, A Perfect Spy is a devastating portrayal of a man who has played different roles for so long, he no longer knows who he is. ''Le Carré understood that espionage is an extreme version of the human comedy, even the human tragedy. A Perfect Spy will very likely remain his greatest book'' New YorkerTrade ReviewOne of the finest English novels of the twentieth century -- Philip Pullman

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Book Synopsis''She always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day''On a June morning in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway is preparing for a party and remembering her past. Elsewhere in London, Septimus Smith is suffering from shell-shock and on the brink of madness. Their days interweave and their lives converge as the party reaches its glittering climax. Here, Virginia Woolf perfected the interior monologue and the novel''s lyricism and accessibility have made it one of her most popular works.The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers'' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.Trade ReviewOne of the few genuine innovations in the history of the novel—New YorkerOne of her greatest achievements, a book whose afterlife continues to inspire new generations of writers and readers—Guardian

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Book Synopsis''The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude''When ''The Awakening'' was first published in 1899, charges of sordidness and immorality seemed to consign it into obscurity and irreparably damage its author''s reputation. But a century after her death, it is widely regarded as Kate Chopin''s great achievement. Through careful, subtle changes of style, Chopin shows the transformation of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother, who - with tragic consequences - refuses to be caged by married and domestic life, and claims for herself moral and erotic freedom.The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers'' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewLeduc's short book is magnificently disproportionate to its length. A moving, beautiful and authentic classic. We must be grateful to the Penguin European Writers series, a precious venture in these dark times, for bringing it back to us. -- John BanvilleA forceful affirmation of the human spirit * Guardian *Violette Leduc's novels are works of genius and also a bit peculiar -- Deborah Levy, from the introductionShe can capture the smells of a country childhood, dazzle with the lights of the Place de la Concorde or make you feel the silky slither of her eel-grey suit * Observer *This book is as richly humane as anything else you're likely to read * Independent *What is important about Violette Leduc is the extraordinary perfection she brings to experience and the exquisite skill she uses to describe it * Daily Mail *The great French feminist writer we need to remember * Guardian *A vastly under-read author -- Lauren Elkin, author of Flaneuse

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Book SynopsisClarice Lispector''s masterly second novel, now available in English for the first time''She found the best clay that one could desire: white, supple, sticky, cold ... She would get a clear and tender material from which she could shape a world''Like the clay from which she sculpts figurines as a girl, Virginia is constantly shifting and changing. From her dreamlike childhood on Quiet Farm with her adored brother Daniel, through an adulthood where the past continues to pull her back and shape her, she moves through life, grasping for the truth of existence. Illuminating Virginia''s progress through intense flashes of image, sensation and perception, The Chandelier, Lispector''s landmark second novel, is a disorienting and exhilarating portrait of one woman''s inner life. ''Utterly original and brilliant, haunting and disturbing'' Colm TóibínTranslated by Benjamin Moser and Magdalena EdwardsTrade ReviewProlific and peerless ... a Brazilian national treasure ... Clarice sought a knowledge beyond knowledge, a wisdom that left wisdom behind ... through her texts emerges the struggle of life: how to live each day, what the painful process of loving is, why one should pick up a pen and respond to indignity in the first place -- Carlos Valladares * Gagosian Quarterly *

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Book SynopsisDescribed by Clarice Lispector as ''the best one'', this intoxicating portrayal of a man searching for his destiny is her mystical, enigmatic masterpiece''All I''ve got is hunger. And that instable way of grasping an apple in the dark-without letting it fall''Martim, believing that he has committed a murder, flees the city and escapes into the night. Wandering through the vastness of nature he arrives, in a state of fear and wonder, at a remote ranch run by two women. There Martim finds work and, as he labours in the blistering heat of the Brazilian summer, becomes transfigured; remade into something else entirely.Translated by Benjamin Moser ''The most important Brazilian woman writer of the twentieth century... The richness of The Apple in the Dark defies the explanatory power of any single interpretation'' TLSTrade ReviewLispector is the premier Latin American woman prose writer of this century * The New York Times Book Review *Clarice Lispector left behind an astounding body of work that has no real corollary inside literature or outside it -- Rachel Kushner * Bookforum *Brilliant and unclassifiable: glamorous, cultured, moody, Lispector is an emblematic twentieth-century artist who belongs in the same pantheon as Kafka and Joyce -- Edmund WhiteOne of the true originals of Latin American literature -- Terrence Rafferty * The New York Times Book Review *A genius on the level of Nabokov -- Jeff VanderMeer * Slate *Sphinx, sorceress, sacred monster. The revival of the hypnotic Clarice Lispector has been one of the true literary events of the twenty-first century -- Parul Seghal * The New York Times *

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Book Synopsis''One of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century'' Michael CunninghamClarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party and remembering those she once loved. In another part of London, Septimus Warren Smith is suffering from shell-shock and on the brink of madness. Smith''s day interweaves with that of Clarissa and her friends, their lives converging as the party reaches its glittering climax. Virginia Woolf''s masterly novel, in which she perfected the interior monologue, brings past, present and future together on one momentous day in June 1923.Edited by Stella McNichol with an Introduction and Notes by Elaine Showalter.Trade ReviewOne of the few genuine innovations in the history of the novel * New Yorker *One of her greatest achievements, a book whose afterlife continues to inspire new generations of writers and readers * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOne of the few genuine innovations in the history of the novel * New Yorker *One of her greatest achievements, a book whose afterlife continues to inspire new generations of writers and readers * Guardian *

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Book Synopsis''One of Japan''s most venerated writers'' David MitchellIn this unnerving fable from one of Japan''s greatest novelists, a recluse known as ''Mole'' retreats to a vast underground bunker, only to find that strange guests, booby traps and a giant toilet may prove even greater obstacles than nuclear disaster.''As is true of Poe and Kafka, Abe creates an unexpected impulsion. One continues reading, on and on'' New Yorker''Abe''s depiction of the deadly game of survival is hilarious but at the same time leaves us with a chilling sense of apprehension about the brave new world that awaits us'' Los Angeles TimesTrade ReviewA large, ambitious work about the lives of outcasts in modern Japan and such troubling themes as ecological destruction, old age, violence and nuclear war * The New York Times Book Review *Abe's depiction of the deadly game of survival is hilarious but at the same time leaves us with a chilling sense of apprehension about the brave new world that awaits us * Los Angeles Times *As is true of Poe and Kafka - two writers whose influence does seem apparent - Abe creates on the page an unexpected impulsion. One continues reading, on and on * New Yorker *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE''One of Europe''s great writers'' Karl Ove KnausgaardOne evening Marianne, a suburban housewife living in an identikit bungalow, is struck by the realization that her husband will leave her. Whether at that moment, or in years to come, she will be deserted. So she sends him away, knowing she must fend for herself and her young son. As she adjusts to her disorienting new life alone, what she thought was fear slowly starts to feel like freedom.''Knifelike clarity of evocation ... Handke is a kind of nature poet, a romantic whose exacerbated nerves cling like pained ivy to the landscape'' John UpdikeTranslated by Ralph ManheimTrade ReviewHandke became the enfant terrible of the European avant-garde, denouncing all social, psychological and historical categories of experience as species of linguistic fraud. But [he] has aged well and now...is regarded as one of the most important writers in German -- Richard Locke * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE''Repetition made a great and, as I have since learned, lasting impression on me'' W. G. SebaldFilip Kobal, an Austrian teenager, is on the trail of his missing older brother Gregor, who he never knew. All he has is two of Gregor''s books: a school copy book, and a dictionary in which certain words have been marked. As he enters Slovenia on his journey, Filip discovers something else entirely: the transformative power of language to describe the world, and the unnerving joy of being an outsider in a strange land.''One of the most moving evocations I have ever read of what it means to be alive, to walk upon this earth'' Gabriel JosipoviciTranslated by Ralph ManheimTrade ReviewHandke's eminence, displayed in a substantial oeuvre of plays, novels and poems, is reaffirmed brilliantly by [Repetition] -- Publisher's WeeklyKnifelike clarity of evocation ... Handke is a kind of nature poet, a romantic whose exacerbated nerves cling like pained ivy to the landscape -- John Updike

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE''Portrays the breakdown of a murderer in ways that recall Camus'' The Stranger'' The New York TimesJoseph Bloch, a once-famous goalkeeper turned construction worker, commits a random murder without thought or regret. As he wanders the streets, from hotel to bar, cinema to tram stop, experiencing strange and violent encounters on the way, he finds himself, and everything around him, disintegrating. Told in spare and icy prose, Peter Handke''s masterpiece of alienation takes apart our ideas of humanity and reality itself.''A Kafkaesque crime novel'' Los Angeles TimesTranslated by Michael RoloffTrade ReviewA seamless blend of lyricism and horror seen in the runes of a disintegrating world * Boston Sunday Globe *Handke became the enfant terrible of the European avant-garde, denouncing all social, psychological and historical categories of experience as species of linguistic fraud. But [he] has aged well and now...is regarded as one of the most important writers in German -- Richard Locke * The New York Times *One of Europe's great writers -- Karl Ove KnausgaardThe author reports and meditates upon the silent catastrophes that continuously befall the human interior -- WG Sebald

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA matchless fable of fear, courage and cowardice * Independent *Magnificent * The Times *

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Book SynopsisThe intense, caustically funny first novel from the bestselling author of Bad Behaviour''Dark, menacing and original'' Joanna Briscoe, GuardianDorothy Never - fat - lives alone in New York, eats and works the night shift as a proofreader. Justine Shade - thin - is a freelance journalist who sleeps with unsuitable men. Both are isolated. Both are damaged by their pasts. When Justine interviews Dorothy about her involvement with an infamous and charismatic philosophical guru, the two women are drawn together with an intense magnetism that throws their lives off balance. Mary Gaitskill''s first novel is an intense, darkly funny and caustic portrayal of loneliness and the search for intimacy.''What makes her scary, and what makes her exciting, is her ability to evoke the hidden life, the life unseen, the life we don''t even know we are living'' Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewRobot's technical proficiency and ontological ambitions could be compared to those of Lem at his best, and its author, like Lem, considered himself less an sf writer than a prose-writing philosopher of metaphysical inclinations. With its powerful vision of a society of slaves controlled and abused by a mysterious Mechanism and a stimulating theory of Superbeings, Robot was almost immediately recognized as an instant classic which catapulted Snerg to the rank of Poland's best sf authors * Science Fiction Encyclopedia *

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Book Synopsis''Wonderful, life-saving ... places Russell Hoban among the greatest, timeless novelists'' The TimesBorn to swim thousands of miles in the ocean, the giant sea turtles are now trapped in a tank of golden-green water at London Zoo. But not for much longer. Two lonely people, a bookseller and a children''s illustrator, have begun thinking turtle thoughts. As they come together to hatch a plan to release the turtles into the sea, their diaries reveal how they find their own lives changing in imperceptible and quite unintended ways.''Crackles with witty detail, mordant intelligence and self-deprecating irony'' Time''This lovely human fable seems to me one of the best things of its kind - a fine and touching achievement'' John FowlesTrade ReviewRussell Hoban is our Ur-novelist, a maverick voice that is like no other. * Sunday Telegraph *Worth rejoicing in ... a banquet of whimsical delights. Each Russell Hoban book is surprising ... but you also know what you're getting, which is curiosity, wonder and a world-encompassing empathy. -- John Self * The Guardian *This wonderful, life-saving fantasy places Russell Hoban where he has got to be - among the greatest, timeless novelists. * The Times *Crackles with witty detail, mordant intelligence and self-deprecating irony. * Time *[Turtle Diary] has medicinal qualities. I only need to think about it and I'm in a better mood. -- Max PorterA story about the recovery of life ... Like other cult writers - Salinger for instance, or Vonnegut - Hoban writes about ordinary people making life-affirming gestures in a world that threatens to dissolve in madness. * Newsweek *This lovely human fable seems to me one of the best things of its kind - a fine and touching achievement. -- John FowlesTragicomic pleasure ... Metaphysical speculation undercut by dry humour is the signature style of Russell Hoban. -- Richard Preston * The Times *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA unique teller of tales ... What interested Simenon was the average man losing control of his own fate * Observer *A treat. . . every bit as gripping as his detective stories. . . There's much to enjoy in the atmospheric portrayal of 1950s French life and the elegant simplicity with which Milk's story is told. Simenon enthusiasts should get a copy. They won't be disappointed -- Martin Bentham * Evening Standard *

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Book Synopsis''Quite simply a masterpiece'' John Banville''I''ve just found a stranger in my house. In a bed on the second floor. He was dying when I got there. You''re going to have to deal with it''Hector Loursat has been a drunken recluse since his wife left him eighteen years ago. Shut away in his dilapidated mansion in the small town of Moulins, he barely speaks to his daughter. But when the sound of a gunshot penetrates the padded walls of his study one night, and he discovers a body, Loursat is forced to act. No longer able to ignore the world, he determines to get to the truth of what happened, and save an innocent life.Trade ReviewQuite simply a masterpiece -- John BanvilleMore philosophically profound than any of the fiction of Camus or Sartre, and far less self-conscious. This is existentialism with a backbone of tempered steel * New Republic *

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Book SynopsisThe short story collection that launched Tabucchi to fame, reflecting on the uncertainties, memories, mistakes and mysteries of life Eleven short stories pivoting on life''s ambiguities and the central question they pose in Tabucchi''s fiction: is it choice, fate, accident, or even, occasionally, a kind of magic that plays a decisive role in the protagonists'' lives? Set in Paris, Lisbon, Madras and New York and blended with the author''s wonderfully intelligent imagination, Tabucchi reflects on the elemental aspects of the human experience, exploring grief, uncertainty, adventure, memory and love.''One of the most admired Italian writers of his generation'' The TimesTrade ReviewTabucchi writes with what Italo Calvino, who shared the same translator, called "quickness" - an agility of mind and economy of narrative that pulls the reader along * Guardian *Elegant ... amusing ... the magic of language, artfully used ... Tabucchi manages to play simultaneously in the treble and in the bass * Los Angeles Times *Meticulously crafted stories marked by wit, emotion, memory and lost grandeur * Publishers Weekly *

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Book Synopsis''So clear is Ditlevsen''s eye that it is impossible to tear yourself away'' John Self, GuardianAn unforgettable collection of stories from the author of The Copenhagen Trilogy''The most important thing is probably always precisely the thing you can''t have. That''s where all the happiness is''In these brief, acid-sharp stories of love, marriage and family from one of Denmark''s most celebrated writers, the ordinary events of everyday life - a wife anxious not to wake her husband, a little boy losing his father''s beloved knife, a woman''s obsessive longing for a yellow silk umbrella - become dark and disconcerting. Here Tove Ditlevsen explores yearning, fear and the elusiveness of that strange thing called happiness.''The purity and dazzling insight of Ditlevsen''s writing speaks for itself'' Daily Telegraph''Authentic, unforced and utterly lucid'' Sunday Times''Ditlevsen''s wonderful and devastatingly bleak short stories simmer with melancholy and despair'' Daily MailTranslated by Michael Favala GoldmanTrade ReviewSplendid short stories... the purity and dazzling insight of Ditlevsen's writing speaks for itself -- Lucy Scholes * The Telegraph *An intense reading experience... so clear is Ditlevsen's eye that it's impossible to tear yourself away from the fates of her characters, however grim -- John Self * Guardian *These short stories show off her astonishingly precise prose -- New Statesman * Ellen Peirson-Hagger *A bracingly bleak selection of stories by the celebrated Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen... These are perfectly judged pieces: authentic, unforced and utterly lucid -- Phil Baker * Sunday Times *Ditlevsen's wonderful and devastatingly bleak short stories simmer with melancholy and despair ... Her prose is clear and spare, pared back to the essential task of describing the struggle for an unwon freedom from domestic despair and unsatisfactory marriages * Daily Mail *The depths of desire and despair are Ditlevsen's subjects and illuminating them is her talent * Monocle *Ditlevsen's writing is crystal clear and vividly, painfully raw * The Paris Review *A terrifying talent * The New York Times *Her writing is incredible, so focused and clear. Not a word that doesn't need to be there -- Tracey Thorn

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewEverybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the century -- Anthony Burgess * Observer *The most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape -- T.S. EliotIntoxicating ... a towering work, in its word play surpassing even Shakespeare * Guardian *

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Book Synopsis''L-d! said my mother, what is all this story about? - A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick - And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard''One of the greatest novels ever written, now in a wonderful new clothbound edition Laurence Sterne''s great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first ''postmodern'' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate ''hero'' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations.The text and notes of this volume are based on the acclaimed Florida E

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Book Synopsis''For me life hasn''t got dreams, success and all that damn nonsense. Life is full of shadows: some of them soft and others conceal a hammer.''Galton Flood is a lonely man, restless and ill at ease with his family. He leaves his home in Guyana''s capital, Georgetown, for a remote township, and the first of a string of precarious jobs. Meeting Gemma, his landlord''s daughter, appears to offer a first chance of meaningful connection - maybe even happiness. But there is a darkness inside Galton, and soon jealousy and paranoia lead him to fatally, violently unravel.With this haunting portrait of a mind undone, celebrated Guyanese writer Roy Heath evocatively recreates the country of his youth: its rivers, townships and tenement yards, and the tensions shimmering below the surface of a community.Trade ReviewA beautiful writer and an unforgettable book. -- Salman RushdieThe Murderer, Roy Heath's masterpiece, is written with immediacy and precision. In a few sentences, Heath creates a psychological tension that is totally convincing and gripping. Slowly, as the main character grows more obsessed and distant from others, he also becomes more complex and fascinating and memorable. -- Colm TóibínA literary thriller ... The Murderer is a strange, luminous, and beguiling work by a writer with a mysterious and captivating Caribbean voice, who shied away from publicity and is now resurrected. -- Colin Grant * New York Review of Books *A character who might have been created by Dostoevsky. * Spectator *A picture of a lost soul emerges that is mysteriously authentic and unique as a work of art. * Observer *A hauntingly powerful story. * New York Times *A notable study of paranoia, remarkable for its psychological insight and the restraint of its climax. * The Guardian *Guyanese authors are a radiant constellation, and Roy Heath stands rightfully among them. His unique style stands out from others of his time, and ours. -- Lemn SissayThe prose style is graceful, old-fashioned, almost Latinate. The dialogue on the other hand, is pure Guyanese vernacular, and the gap between the two, between the sense of distance in the prose and intimacy in the dialogue, makes the novel chilling and tense and deeply original. -- Colm Tóibín and Carmen Callil, ‘200 Best Novels in English since 1950’, The Modern LibraryThis enthralling novel plunges the reader into a painting by Van Gogh, a swirl of emotion unhinged from a verifiable reality. Or is it a portrait of a mind seen through a glass darkly? Heath takes his time to distinguish fantasy from delusion, play from mental decay... The Murderer is numbered among the Caribbean's leading psychological novels, a nuanced portrait of the disintegrating individual psyche. -- Fred D’Aguiar

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Book SynopsisThe ground-breaking cult classic about a young woman''s battle with schizophreniaWith a Foreword by Esmé Weijun Wang and an Afterword by the author''She fought them with her head and her teeth while the restraints were being tied, trying, doglike, to bite herself''Sixteen-year-old Deborah''s identity is shattering, as she retreats further and further from the ''normal'' world into her imaginary kingdom of Yr, a fantastical inner refuge both lush and horrifying. Sent to a psychiatric hospital, she must, with the help of a gifted psychiatrist, try to find a way back. Joanne Greenberg''s fictionalized autobiography became a global bestseller on publication in 1964, and remains a wrenching account of mental illness.''A rare and wonderful insight into the dark kingdom of the mind'' Chicago Tribune''Marvellous ... a courage that is sometimes breathtaking'' The New York Times Book ReviewTrade ReviewMarvelous... With a courage that is sometimes breathtaking... (Greenberg) makes a faultless series of discriminations between the justifications for living in an evil and complex reality and the justifications for retreating into the security of madness * New York Times Book Review *A rare and wonderful insight into the dark kingdom of the mind * Chicago Tribune *Intensely moving * The Spectator *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewHe is the greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or such novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison to him -- Vladimir NabokovKafka described with wonderful imaginative power the future concentration camps, the future instability of the law, the future absolutism of the state, the paralysed, inadequately motivated, floundering lives of the many individual people; everything appeared as a nightmare and with the confusion and inadequacy of a nightmare -- Bertolt Brecht

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Book SynopsisLittle Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world''s greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.Dmitry Andreich Olenin, in the hope of escaping the hollowness of his privilege, joins the army and heads to the Caucasus. There among the foothills he will meet the Cossacks: a people he considers to be at one with the land. In their company he will hunt, he will drink, he will fall in love and, slowly, he will begin to understand that between people, between cultures, there is often a space that cannot be traversed...''It is the richness of Tolstoy''s genius that strikes us most in this story'' Virginia Woolf

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Book SynopsisLittle Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world''s greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.Dorothy Parker was the most talked-about woman of the decadent 1920s, notorious as a hard-drinking bad girl with a talent for endlessly quotable one-liners. In the stories collected here, she brilliantly captures the spirit of the decadent Jazz Age in New York, exposing both the dazzle and the darkness. This selection includes among others ''The Standard of Living'', ''Mr Durant'' and her masterpiece, ''Big Blonde''.''She has fascinated generations with her wit, flair and talent'' The New York Review of Books

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewScott Moncrieff's [volumes] belong to that special category of translations which are themselves literary masterpieces ... his book is one of those translations, such as the Authorized Version of the Bible itself, which can never be displaced—A. N. WilsonFor the reader wishing to tackle Proust your guide must be C K Scott Moncrieff ... There are some who believe his headily perfumed translation of À la recherche du temps perdu conjures Belle Époque France more vividly even than the original—TelegraphI was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation—Joseph Conrad to Scott Moncrieff

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewScott Moncrieff's [volumes] belong to that special category of translations which are themselves literary masterpieces ... his book is one of those translations, such as the Authorized Version of the Bible itself, which can never be displaced—A. N. WilsonFor the reader wishing to tackle Proust your guide must be C K Scott Moncrieff ... There are some who believe his headily perfumed translation of À la recherche du temps perdu conjures Belle Époque France more vividly even than the original—TelegraphI was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation—Joseph Conrad to Scott Moncrieff

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewScott Moncrieff's [volumes] belong to that special category of translations which are themselves literary masterpieces ... his book is one of those translations, such as the Authorized Version of the Bible itself, which can never be displaced—A. N. WilsonFor the reader wishing to tackle Proust your guide must be C K Scott Moncrieff ... There are some who believe his headily perfumed translation of À la recherche du temps perdu conjures Belle Époque France more vividly even than the original—TelegraphI was more interested and fascinated by your rendering than by Proust's creation—Joseph Conrad to Scott Moncrieff

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisLittle Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world''s greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-SmithThis candid portrayal of a woman who refuses to accept her allotted role as wife and mother caused an outcry when it was published in 1899.It is the story of Edna Pontellier, who spends the summer on the Gulf of Mexico with her businessman husband and her two sons. When an illicit romance awakens unfamiliar ideas and longings in Edna, she discovers a new identity for herself, but cannot hope for understanding in the stifling attitudes of Louisiana society.

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