A Russell Hoban Omnibus presents four of Hoban's novels: the haunting The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz; the popular Turtle Diary (which was made into a movie starring Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley); Pilgermann; and his newest work, Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer, a brilliant Faustian comedy published here for the first time in the United States. Book jacket.
This is a collection of stories, a libretto, essays and sketches about knife-fights, a stone sphinx in Paris, a painter in Venice, an opera libretto which re-invents Miranda and Caliban and essays that discuss, among other things, fairy tales and Russell Hoban's own childhood in America.
Falling head over heels for the spirited Lola, who shares his musical tastes and complements him on every level, Max nevertheless pursues a secret second relationship when the unattainable high-school homecoming queen he loved years earlier reenters his life.
‘Walker is my name and I am the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever theyve took me and walking them now on this paper the same. There aint that many sir prizes in life if you take noatis of every thing. Every time will have its happenings out and every place the same. Thats why I finely come to writing all this down. Thinking on what the idear of us myt be. Thinking on that thing whats in us lorn and loan and oansome.’ Composed in an English which has never been spoken and laced with a storytelling tradition that predates the written word, RIDDLEY WALKER is the world waiting for us at the bitter end of the nuclear road. It is desolate, dangerous and harrowing, and a modern masterpiece.
On a day like any other, Kleinzeit gets fired. Hours later he finds himself in hospital with a pair of adventurous pyjamas and a recurring geometrical pain. Here he falls instantly in love with a beautiful night nurse called Sister. And together they are pitched headlong into a wild and flickering world of mystery ... Kleinzeit. In German that means 'hero'. Or 'smalltime'. It depends on whom you ask. 'Russell Hoban is our Ur-novelist, a maverick voice that is like no other' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
He climbs a ladder to reach another man's wife and gives himself up to her beauty, but then Pilgermann descends into a mob of peasants inspired by the Pope to shed the blood of Jews. Alone on the cobblestones, mutilated and unmanned, he cries out to Israel, to the Lord his God, to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He is answered instead by Jesus Christ: 'I'm the one you talk to from now on.' Every day is the Day of Reckoning and the judgement Christ brings is the start of straight action. Pilgermann hears a voice from within and becomes a pilgrim. Through time and war and Death itself, he makes his way along the road to Jerusalem, struggling to find God in the horror that surrounds him.
Two lonely Londoners bond over a plan to free the sea turtles at the city zoo in this touching novel from a cult-favorite author who has drawn comparisons to J.D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut. A wise and touching classic that “crackles with witty detail, mordant intelligence and self-deprecating irony,” from the author of Riddley Walker (Time) Life in a city can be atomizing, isolating. And it certainly is for William G. and Neaera H., the strangers at the center of Russell Hoban’s surprisingly heartwarming novel Turtle Diary. William, a clerk at a used bookstore, lives in a rooming house after a divorce that has left him without home or family. Neaera is a successful writer of children’s books, who, in her own estimation, “looks like the sort of spinster who doesn’t keep cats and is not a vegetarian. Looks…like a man’s woman who hasn’t got a man.” Entirely unknown to each other, they are both drawn to the turtle tank at the London Zoo with “minds full of turtle thoughts,” wondering how the turtles might be freed. And then comes the day when Neaera walks into William’s bookstore, and together they form an unlikely partnership to make what seemed a crazy dream become a reality.
With a new addition to the family, Frances is feeling left out. So Frances decides to run away—but not too far! This new edition of Russell and Lillian Hoban’s beloved classic is perfect for beginning readers.
In honor of Frances’s 50th anniversary, this box includes three of the most beloved Frances titles—Bread and Jam for Frances, Best Friends for Frances, and A Bargain for Frances—now in I Can Read editions!
Tom likes fooling around and is rather good at it, much to the annoyance of his Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong. So one day this fearsome lady decides to teach Tom a lesson and summons Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen to play womble, muck and sneedball. Can it possibly end well for all concerned?
