Hailed an immediate classic of Finnish literature on its publication in 1978 and an international bestseller that has been translated into 19 languages, Märta Tikkanen’s verse novel is a haunting, profoundly evocative portrait of one woman’s fraught relationship with her alcoholic husband, inspired by the author's own experience. In language that is as delicate as it is fierce, Tikkanen explores the depths of fear and violence that often accompany addiction and the struggle to reconcile that pain with the deep love and strength necessary to hold a family together through it all. As much a story of resilience as it is suffering, The Love Story of the Century is a bittersweet account of the complexities of addiction, the power of creativity, and the redemption of love.
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Multilayered, subtle, insightful short stories from the inimitable Booker Prize–winning author, with an introduction by Anita Desai Nobody has written so powerfully of the relationship between and within India and the Western middle classes than Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. In this selection of stories, chosen by her surviving family, her ability to tenderly and humorously view the situations faced by three (sometimes interacting) cultures—European, post–Independence Indian, and American—is never more acute. In “A Course of English Studies,” a young woman arrives at Oxford from India and struggles to adapt, not only to the sad, stoic object of her infatuation, but also to a country that seems so resistant to passion and color. In the wrenching “Expiation,” the blind, unconditional love of a cloth shop owner for his wastrel younger brother exposes the tragic beauty and foolishness of human compassion and faith. The wry and triumphant “Pagans” brings us middle–aged sisters Brigitte and Frankie in Los Angeles, who discover a youthful sexuality in the company of the languid and handsome young Indian, Shoki. This collection also includes Jhabvala’s last story, “The Judge’s Will,” which appeared in The New Yorker in 2013 after her death. The profound inner experience of both men and women is at the center of Jhabvala’s writing: she rivals Jane Austen with her impeccable powers of observation. With an introduction by her friend, the writer Anita Desai, At the End of the Century celebrates a writer’s astonishing lifetime gift for language, and leaves us with no doubt of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s unique place in modern literature. "The stories—all of them elegantly plotted and unsentimental, with an addictive, told–over–tea quality—are largely character studies of people isolated, often tragically, by custom or self–delusion . . . Vivid, unsparing portraits are leavened with the kind of humanizing moments that evoke a total world within their compression."—Megan O’Grady, The New York Times Book Review
The Story of the Century is an exciting piece of fiction about two Bohemian immigrants struggling to make their way in world at the start of the industrial revolution in Chicago. The two eventually become entrepreneurs in the burgeoning bicycle industry.Years later, secrets from the cold war begin to leak out including information from the immigrants' families causing major national security issues. The author, the son of an American engineer assigned to the Manhattan project during World War II gives a rather poignant viewpoint regarding nuclear weapons, designed to make the reader really stop and think.
Mankind is such a stupid beast. After starting World War III, Earth has managed to climb back to where it was. Trillionaires still rule the world. There’s a world government, but for no good reason, it has a military-intelligence complex that is out of control. A mining project in the Magaden Peninsula threatens an intergalactic communications network that insures the integrity of the entire Milky Way galaxy. A group of aliens was sent to Earth to repair a transponder that is a vital link in the network, but their galactic overlords discover the threat from the mining project. They think that maybe mankind should be eliminated. In Los Angeles, two people fall in love. Clem Reader is the LA News Chief of ABN, and Saroyan Pashogi is the world’s most famous and beautiful movie star. For some reason, the mysterious conglomerate, Lodestar starts feeding Clem information that the government is suppressing evidence of what it knows about space aliens. And the national security state starts taking action to silence Clem and eliminate everyone who has any knowledge of its secret information. By sheer luck, Clem gets in a position to meet Attu – a space alien assigned to fix the transponder. By what he says to Attu – Clem manages to save the world The Story of the Century is a story about how two ordinary people can have an influence on the world far beyond what anyone could possibly imagine.
A colourful and concise telling of the fascinating story behind Richard Wagner's extraordinary masterpiece, Ring of the Nibelung. The Ring is one of the most epic and compelling stories of the nineteenth century, created by a composer who was, alongside Dickens, Tolstoy and Victor-Hugo, also one of the century's master storytellers. But the story of how Wagner created the work is one full of intrigue and triumphs against unlikely odds - as well as controversy, due to the composer's anti-semitic views and popularity with the Nazi party. In Story of the Century, Michael Downes combines cultural history and biography to offer this accessible and insightful introduction to The Ring and its mythology. He tells the story of how and why this extraordinary masterpiece came into being, why it takes the form it does, why it fascinates and obsesses so many and horrifies others, and why it matters.
In 1966, everyone who was anyone wanted an invitation to Truman Capote's "Black and White Dance" in New York, and guests included Frank Sinatra, Norman Mailer, C. Z. Guest, Kennedys, Rockefellers, and more. Lavishly illustrated with photographs and drawings of the guests, this portrait of revelry at the height of the swirling, swinging sixties is a must for anyone interested in American popular culture and the lifestyles of the rich, famous, and talented.
Ken Follett’s magnificent historical epic begins as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits. . . . An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House. . . . A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy. . . . And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again. . . .
When Hurricane Katrina threatens New Orleans, Louisiana, 14-year-old Ricky Thompson and his family must flee the city. Unfortunately, traffic is backed up for miles, and there's no way out. As a last resort, the family takes shelter inside the Superdome, a football stadium turned into a rescue shelter for thousands of residents.
The “enormously entertaining” (The Wall Street Journal) account of a shocking 1897 murder mystery that “artfully re-create[s] the era, the crime, and the newspaper wars it touched off” (The New York Times) AN EDGAR NOMINEE FOR BEST FACT CRIME • “Fascinating . . . won’t disappoint readers in search of a book like Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City.”—The Washington Post On Long Island, a farmer finds a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys discover a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumble upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. The police are baffled: There are no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era’s most perplexing murder mystery. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus, as their rival newspapers the World and the Journal raced to solve the crime. What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial. The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale—a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that forever changed newspaper journalism.
