Nobel Prize Winners The central crisis of the Modern Age is the crisis of faith, the failure of our belief in God. Our disbelief is an inevitable outgrowth of increased scientific understanding of the world around us, particularly in the realms of Physics and Evolutionary theory. It is a predictable corollary of the individualistic political and economic doctrines we have adopted with such success. And to a little appreciated degree, it is a function of the material comfort that we enjoy. Taken together, all of these factors have removed ignorance, superstition, subservience and desperation as reasons to believe in religion. Since Reason would require proof of God's existence, which it is probably impossible to provide, all that's really left is simple faith and, from what we've seen this past century, faith is not enough. There is much that is good about this liberation, the freeing of man from God, but there are also some terrible consequences. The most important consequence is the removal of metaphysical standards of Right and Wrong, of Truth and Beauty, and the resulting disastrous slide into moral relativity. The other main consequence is the sort of inchoate longing that, even if you haven't experienced it personally, is so readily apparent in things like the Psychiatric, Environmental, New Age and Wicca movements. Absent God and his laws, what is there to give our lives meaning and direction? What are we doing here? Do we have a purpose or are we, individually and as a species, as insignificant as science has made us seem? The difficulty of answering those questions lies at the heart of the soul sickness that human society suffers. This inability to attach meaning or value to ourselves and our actions has left an enormous void at the core of our beings and, thus far, science has offered us nothing to fill the vacuum. Given the tremendous difficulty that even we have reconciling our skepticism with our desire for certitude, separated as we are by two thousand years from the Biblical age, imagine how much more difficult it would have been to struggle against belief if you were a contemporary who witnessed the living Christ and encountered evidence of his miracles. Imagine further that you are not just any man, but are actually the criminal who was spared from the cross when the mob was offered the choice of setting Jesus or one of his fellow prisoners free, that the innocent Christ quite literally died for your sins. This is what Par Lagerqvist has done in this beautiful and moving novel. Barabbas is set free but not before seeing the luminescent figure of Christ and hearing him plead that Barabbas be spared and not himself. Barabbas then feels compelled to follow Christ to Golgotha, where he witnesses the Crucifixion and sees the darkness fall as Christ dies. Through the rest of his life, Barabbas's path intersects with the disciples and followers of Christ. Always he resists their belief-how after all can one believe in a Savior who allows himself to be crucified-but looks for some irrefutable proof from them that Jesus was the Messiah. His ambivalence comes to represented on a medallion that he wears. On the front it says that he is property of the Roman State-it is placed on him while he is enslaved in the mines-but he has a Christian acolyte scratch the symbols on the back that show him to be a follower of Christ. Still later he scratches this out. Ultimately, while living in Rome, he hears rumors that the Christians have set the city aflame and, taking up a burning brand, he proceeds to start the fires that he hopes will signal the return of the Messiah. In the final scene, he is crucified along with Peter and the other Christians accused of arson: When he felt death approaching, that which he had always been so afraid of, he said out loud into the darkness, as though he were speaking to it: – To thee I deliver up my soul. And then he gave up the ghost. These lines concisely capture the human dilemma. The darkness reappears, recall it descended as Christ died, and Barabbas calls out "as if" he were speaking to it. Does his addressing the darkness mean that in the end he believes it is God? Or does the "as if" imply that he dies doubting? And though he delivers his soul, he gives up the ghost-is he in fact imbued with a divine spark which he can surrender to God? I found the following story in one of the sermon's below: Par Lagerkvist, in his short story, My Father and I, tells of an experience he had as a small boy when he and his father went for a walk one Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful day when their walk began, but suddenly night came and they were engulfed in darkness. In order to find their way home, they followed the familiar railroad tracks. The boy was filled with great fear at the encroaching darkness, though the father walked calmly along. The boy tried to walk closer to his father. He confesses to his father that the darkness is terrifying him and the father replies: "'No, my boy, it's not horrible,' he said, taking me by the hand. 'Yes, father, it is.' 'No, my child, you mustn't think that. Not when we know there is a God.' I felt so lonely, forsaken. It was so strange that only I was afraid, not father, that we didn't think the same. And strange that what he had said didn't help me and stop me from being afraid. Not even what he said about God helped me… We walked in silence, each with his own thoughts. My heart contracted, as though the darkness had got in and was beginning to squeeze it. Then, as we were rounding a bend, we suddenly heard a mighty roar behind us! We were awakened out of our thoughts and alarmed. Father pulled me down onto the embankment, down into the abyss, held me there. Then the train tore past, a black train. All the lights in the carriages were out, and it was going at frantic speed. What sort of train was it? There wasn't one due now! We gazed at it in terror. The fire blazed in the huge engine… sparks whirled out into the night. It was terrible. The driver stood there in the light of the fire, pale, motionless, his features as though turned to stone. Father didn't recognize him,… the man just stared straight ahead, as though intent only on rushing into the darkness, far into the darkness that had no end. … I stood there panting, gazing after the furious vision. It was swallowed up by the night. Father took me onto the line; we hurried home. He said, 'Strange, what train was that? And I didn't recognize the driver.' Then we walked on in silence. My whole body was shaking. It was for me, for my sake. I sensed what it meant: it was the anguish that was to come, the unknown, all that father knew nothing about, that he wouldn't be able to protect me against. That was how this world, this life, would be for me; not like father's where everything was secure and certain. It wasn't a real world, a real life. It just hurdled, blazing, into the darkness ahead." (Par Lagerkvist, "My Father and I," The Marriage Feast, 1954) This story relates to Barabbas in a couple of illuminating ways. First, there is the use of darkness as a metaphor for the unknown, the abyss. Second, the name "Barabbas" itself means "son of the father"-Christ, of course, referred to himself as the "Son of Man." Though this is a historical novel, Barabbas is the quintessential modern man. Where our fathers (fathers broadly, not yours or mine) were blessed (cursed?) with an unquestioning faith which made sense of their world, we must wrestle with doubt and accompanying confusion. No book better captures this internal struggle than Par Lagerkvist's haunting novel Barabbas

Angry and hilarious, this collection of satirical essays about Barack Obama confronts the racial tensions that have dogged the president during his campaign and first year in office. Some of the pieces include "Ma and Pa Clinton Flog Uppity Black Man," "Crazy Rev. Wright," and "Obama Scolds Black Fathers, Gets Bounce in Polls." Previously unpublished material also addresses the controversies around Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Tiger Woods

Barakosa, barakosa JĀNIS ZILE

Breeds -11.5

A fresh, honest, and darkly funny debut collection about family, friends, and lovers, and the flaws that make us most human. Fearless, candid, and incredibly funny, Lauren Holmes is a newcomer who writes like a master. She tackles eros and intimacy with a deceptively light touch, a keen awareness of how their nervous systems tangle and sometimes short-circuit, and a genius for revealing our most vulnerable, spirited selves. In “Desert Hearts,” a woman takes a job selling sex toys in San Francisco rather than embark on the law career she pursued only for the sake of her father. In “Pearl and the Swiss Guy Fall in Love,” a woman realizes she much prefers the company of her pit bull — and herself — to the neurotic foreign fling who won’t decamp from her apartment. In “How Am I Supposed to Talk to You?” a daughter hauls a suitcase of lingerie to Mexico for her flighty, estranged mother to resell there, wondering whether her personal mission — to come out — is worth the same effort. And in “Barbara the Slut,” a young woman with an autistic brother, a Princeton acceptance letter, and a love of sex navigates her high school’s toxic, slut-shaming culture with open eyes. With heart, sass, and pitch-perfect characters, Barbara the Slut is a head-turning debut from a writer with a limitless career before her

The Federation has endured for hundreds of years, but as corruption and decadence wear away the core of human unity, rogue admirals rise in rebellion. As the Federation struggles for survival, two officers, an old Admiral and a newly-minted Lieutenant, may be all that stands between the Federation and destruction

**'With his customary literary flair and capacity to master and mobilize very many and varied sources, Jonathan Dimbleby gives us the best single-volume account of the Barbarossa campaign to date'** Andrew Roberts, author of *Churchill: Walking with Destiny* ** 'Like a fast-moving juggernaut of horror, Dimbleby's** Barbarossa **is a page-turning descent into Hell and back. Part warning, part fable, but all too true, this fresh and compelling account of Hitler's failed invasion of the Soviet Union should be on everyone's reading list for 2021'** Dr Amanda Foreman, author of *A World on Fire* ____ **___** Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of Russia in June 1941, aimed at nothing less than a war of extermination to annihilate Soviet communism, liquidate the Jews and create Lebensraum for the German master race. But it led to the destruction of the Third Reich, and was cataclysmic for Germany with millions of men killed, wounded or registered as missing in action. It was this colossal mistake -- rather than any action in Western Europe -- that lost Hitler the Second World War. Drawing on hitherto unseen archival material, including previously untranslated Russian sources, Jonathan Dimbleby puts Barbarossa in its proper place in history for the first time. From its origins in the ashes of the First World War to its impact on post-war Europe, and covering the military, political and diplomatic story from all sides, he paints a full and vivid picture of this monumental campaign whose full nature and impact has remained unexplored. At the heart of the narrative, written in Dimbleby's usual gripping style, are compelling descriptions of the leaders who made the crucial decisions, of the men and women who fought on the front lines, of the soldiers who committed heinous crimes on an unparalleled scale and of those who were killed when the Holocaust began. Hitler's fatal gamble had the most terrifying of consequences. **Written with authority and humanity,** Barbarossa **is a masterwork that transforms our understanding of the Second World War and of the twentieth century.** ____ **___** **'Superb. . . stays with you long after you have finished'** Henry Hemming, bestselling author of *Our Man in New York* **'A chilling account of war at its worst'** Bear Grylls **

Spanish and Catalan writers enter boldly and unapologetically into the Akashic Noir Series arena

Being an Account of the Strange Wooing pursued by the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol; Marquis of Bardelys, and of the things that in the course of it befell him in Languedoc, in the year of the Rebellion

"Irreducible to any single literary genre, the Volodinian cosmos is skillfully crafted, fusing elements of science fiction with magical realism and political commentary." — Nicholas Hauck, Music & Literature One of Volodine's funniest books, Bardo or Not Bardo takes place in his universe of failed revolutions, radical shamanism, and off-kilter nomenclature. In each of these seven vignettes, someone dies and has to make his way through the Tibetan afterlife, also known as the Bardo. In the Bardo, souls wander for forty-nine days before being reborn, helped along on their journey by the teachings of the Book of the Dead. Unfortunately, Volodine's characters bungle their chances at enlightenment, with the recently dead choosing to waste away their afterlife sleeping, or choosing to be reborn as an insignificant spider. The still-living aren't much better off, making a mess of things in their own ways, such as erroneously reciting a Tibetan cookbook to a lost comrade instead of the holy book. Once again, Volodine has demonstrated his range and ambition, crafting a moving, hysterical work about transformations and the power of the book. Antoine Volodine is the primary pseudonym of a French writer who has published twenty books under this name, several of which are available in English translation, such as Minor Angels, and Writers. He also publishes under the names Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger. J. T. Mahany is a graduate of the Master of Arts in Literary Translation Studies program at the University of Rochester and is currently studying for his MFA at the University of Arkansas

Surrounded by the bandit horde of smooth Ayala and the lustful “Wolf,” the unarmed Americans were helpless — save for Dan Harder’s bare hands

Emma Willis never saw herself as a model-especially for a sensual fantasy calendar-until she has to do a photo shoot in her twin sister's place. When Emma puts on barely-there lingerie in front of the photographer, hottie Rafe Delacantro, she feels sexy…and more uninhibited than she's ever been. Before she knows it, she's enticing him to let off a little steam with her! The minute Emma shows up, Rafe knows she's not the model he's expecting. She's too fascinating, too tempting for him to resist. Fine. They'll share a steamy fling that will end when the shoot is finished. But the more time he spends in Emma's seductive presence, the more involved he gets…and the more he wants of her. He now has to convince her that their affair can last after the camera is put away…

Our journey began in fire… Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness-beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white-hot. I was drawn to him as I'd never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me. I was flawed and damaged, and he opened those cracks in me so easily… Gideon knew. He had demons of his own. And we would become the mirrors that reflected each other's most private wounds… and desires. The bonds of his love transformed me, even as I prayed that the torment of our pasts didn't tear us apart…

High heels and high earnings-or barefoot and beloved? Alice Gunning thinks she has a perfect life. She loves her job and her swanky city apartment, and she's about to get engaged. Until one day her boyfriend leaves her, she's fired-and her lottery numbers come up! Alice heads for a tropical paradise to work out her future. On a sun-drenched beach she encounters Will Paxman- her gorgeous old flame! When Alice is offered the job of a lifetime back in the city, it's time to choose between her old life-or a future with Will!

When you think you know your heart's desire . . . Tessa Galloway is a gifted nurturer-her verdant garden at Barefoot Bay's new resort is living proof. If only the woman who can grow anything could grow what she wants most: a baby. Her friends think the right guy will come along, but Tessa doesn't want to wait. All she needs is the perfect donor to make her dream come true. Then John Brown is hired at the resort. If anyone could make beautiful babies, it's this gorgeous, mysterious man. So why does Tessa suddenly find herself wanting so much more? Can you give up all your dreams for love? It's been three long years since John Brown had to leave his old life. Forced into the witness protection program, he's desperate to be reunited with his toddler twins. When he gets that chance, there's a catch-he must prove he's got a steady job and a new wife. Landing a gig as a chef in Barefoot Bay is easy enough. And falling for lovely Tessa is even easier. The hard part? Can he win the heart of a woman who prizes honesty-when the truth may shatter it?

Under the tutelage of Stone Barrington, Herbie Fisher has transformed from a bumbling sad sack into the youngest partner at the white-shoe law firm Woodman & Weld, and a man whose company is in high demand both because of his professional acumen and his savoir faire. But even his newly won composure and finely honed skills can’t prepare him for the strange escapade he’s unwittingly pulled into, and which — unbeknownst to him — has put him at the center of a bull’s-eye. In the city that never sleeps there are always devious schemes afoot, and Herbie will have to be quick on his feet to stay one step ahead of his enemies... and they’re closing in

In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Fitzwilliam Darcy learns of the debacle involving Elizabeth Bennet's sister several months after he was rejected by Elizabeth, and volunteers to help find her sister, of his own accord. But what if Miss Elizabeth had requested Mr. Darcy's aid in just a few days after the disastrous proposal at Hunsford, and he was still very angry with her refusal? What if he decided to be ungentlemanly, and demanded a very particular reward from her in exchange for his assistance? This steamy, funny Pride and Prejudice what-if short story explores that scenario with wit, emotion and intriguing plot twists that take this perennial favorite to another direction

In these eight masterful stories, Lorrie Moore, in a perfect blend of craft and bewitched spirit, explores the passage of time, and summons up its inevitable sorrows and hilarious pitfalls to reveal her own exquisite, singular wisdom. In "Debarking," a newly divorced man tries to keep his wits about him as the United States prepares to invade Iraq, and against this ominous moment, we see-in all its irresistible hilarity and darkness-the perils of divorce and what can follow in its wake…In "Foes," a political argument goes grotesquely awry as the events of 9/11 unexpectedly manifest at a fund-raising dinner in Georgetown…In "The Juniper Tree," a teacher, visited by the ghost of her recently deceased friend, is forced to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in a kind of nightmare reunion…And in "Wings," we watch the unraveling of two once-hopeful musicians who neither held fast to their dreams nor struck out along other paths as Moore deftly depicts the intricacies of dead ends and the workings of regret… Gimlet-eyed social observation, the public and private absurdities of American life, dramatic irony, and enduring half-cracked love wend their way through each of these narratives in a heartrending mash-up of the tragic and the laugh-out-loud-the hallmark of Lorrie Moore-land

Ed McBain is a pen name of Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Evan Hunter, who wrote the screenplays for Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and “Strangers When We Meet,” and the novel The Blackboard Jungle. As Ed McBain, he has written fifty 87th Precinct novels, the blueprint series for every successful police procedural series. This original collection of eleven short stories takes you onto the gritty and violent streets of the city, and into the darkest places in the human mind. “First Offense” is narrated from behind bars by a cocky young man who stabbed a storeowner in a robbery attempt. In “To Break the Wall,” a high school teacher has a violent encounter with several punks. And a Kim Novak look-alike blurs the line between fantasy and reality in “The Movie Star.” These and eight more stories showcase the mastery for which the San Diego Union-Tribune dubbed McBain “the unquestioned king.”

Angela Martin was expecting to have a normal, uneventful week in the small town of Willow Bay. The universe, however, had other ideas. When a local gossip is murdered while walking her dog, Angela knows she needs to find Sprinkles, who ran away during the murder. After all, being a witch who can talk to animals, finding Sprinkles might be the only way to find the murderer. Especially since the victim had more enemies than most people have Facebook friends. But she has to investigate without the police chief suspecting anything, she has to deal with Bee's jealousy about a dog getting attention, and she has to try and get along with Sophie's mom's new boyfriend. And just to complicate things even further, the infuriating but crazy hot Jason Black is back in town, and this time, it sounds like it's for good. Angela is pretty sure she can handle all this crazy in her life. But what she doesn't realize is just how dangerous the murderer really is... Barking up the Wrong Tree is the second book in the Willow Bay Witches series of paranormal cozy mysteries. It's a full-length novel full of funny and sarcastic best friends, a touch of magic, a snarky talking cat and a little bit of romance

From Annie Proulx — the Pulitzer Prize — and National Book Award-winning author of The Shipping News and “Brokeback Mountain,” comes her masterwork: an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about the taking down of the world’s forests. In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord, a “seigneur,” for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters — barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet, crafty and ruthless, runs away from the seigneur, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business. Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred years — their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand, under stunningly brutal conditions — the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, and cultural annihilation. Over and over again, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse. Proulx’s inimitable genius is her creation of characters who are so vivid — in their greed, lust, vengefulness, or their simple compassion and hope — that we follow them with fierce attention. Annie Proulx is one of the most formidable and compelling American writers, and Barkskins is her greatest novel, a magnificent marriage of history and imagination

Barley Patch takes as its subject the reasons an author might abandon fiction — or so he thinks — forever. Using the form of an oblique self-interrogation, it begins with the Beckettian question “Must I write?” and proceeds to expand from this small, personal query to fill in the details of a landscape entirely unique in world letters, a chronicle of the images from life and fiction that have endured and mingled in the author’s mind, as well as the details (and details within details) that they contain. As interested, if not more so, in the characters from his books — finished or unfinished — as with the members of his family or his daily life, the narrator lays bare the act of writing and imagining, finally giving us a glimpse of the mythical place where the characters of fiction dwell before they come into existence in books

Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel fathers and sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters and Protestants clash with Catholics on the streets. And, as London erupts into riot, Barnaby Rudge himself struggles to escape the curse of his own past. With its dramatic descriptions of public violence and private horror, its strange secrets and ghostly doublings, Barnaby Rudge is a powerful, disturbing blend of historical realism and Gothic melodrama

When Dr. Owen Orient is asked to investigate a young man’s sudden disappearance, he reluctantly agrees. What begins as a missing-person case quickly morphs into murder, and before long, Orient is thrust into an international manhunt that takes him from Manhattan’s sado-maso (BDSM) underground to the heart of Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza and... into horrible occult mysteries. After years of dedicated study in Tibet, Dr. Orient has honed his telepathic skills to become a formidable psychic investigator. But he finds himself the target of a powerful Nazi cult and becomes involved with a beautiful woman whose concept of sexual loyalty is slippery at best. With the help of his assistant, Sordi, Dr. Orient faces hostile cops, psycho Nazis wielding massive occult powers, and a hot war in Egypt in a case that races from drug and sex parties at a fabulous Hamptons mansion to the secrets of the ancient world. But will this adventure of a lifetime steal his soul?

Doctor Orient: Fiction series. Occult Esoteric Mystical NOVEL When Dr. Owen Orient is asked to investigate a young man’s sudden disappearance, he reluctantly agrees. What begins as a missing-person case quickly morphs into murder, and before long, Orient is thrust into an international manhunt that takes him from Manhattan’s sado-maso (BDSM) underground to the heart of Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza and... into horrible occult mysteries. After years of dedicated study in Tibet, Dr. Orient has honed his telepathic skills to become a formidable psychic investigator. But he finds himself the target of a powerful Nazi cult and becomes involved with a beautiful woman whose concept of sexual loyalty is slippery at best. With the help of his assistant, Sordi, Dr. Orient faces hostile cops, psycho Nazis wielding massive occult powers, and a hot war in Egypt in a case that races from drug and sex parties at a fabulous Hamptons mansion to the secrets of the ancient world. But will this adventure of a lifetime steal his soul?

Как жить с тем, что твои родители погибли в страшном пожаре? Как жить с тем, что только при звуке твоего имени многие хотят тебя убить? Как жить с тем, что твой родной брат по крови пытается убить тебя? Для того чтобы противостоять силам врага и защитить свою жизнь и своё королевство, тебе надо не только быстро научиться выживать в таких условиях, но и обзавестись союзниками, рискуя умереть

The Barrack-Room Ballads are a set of martial songs and poems by Rudyard Kipling originally published in two parts: the first set in 1892, the second in 1896. Many have become classic military ditties, still well known, and are closely linked to British imperialism in many minds, particularly Gunga Din, Tommy and Danny Deever

Fourteen-year-old Daniel Kelly is special. Despite his upbringing in working-class Melbourne, he knows that his astonishing ability in the swimming pool has the potential to transform his life, silence the rich boys at the private school to which he has won a sports scholarship, and take him far beyond his neighborhood, possibly to international stardom and an Olympic medal. Everything Danny has ever done, every sacrifice his family has ever made, has been in pursuit of this dream-but what happens when the talent that makes you special fails you? When the goal that you’ve been pursuing for as long as you can remember ends in humiliation and loss? Twenty years later, Dan is in Scotland, terrified to tell his partner about his past, afraid that revealing what he has done will make him unlovable. When he is called upon to return home to his family, the moment of violence in the wake of his defeat that changed his life forever comes back to him in terrifying detail, and he struggles to believe that he’ll be able to make amends. Haunted by shame, Dan relives the intervening years he spent in prison, where the optimism of his childhood was completely foreign. Tender, savage, and blazingly brilliant, Barracuda is a novel about dreams and disillusionment, friendship and family, class, identity, and the cost of success. As Daniel loses everything, he learns what it means to be a good person-and what it takes to become one

Admiral Lord Gilbert Anthony and his brother Lieutenant Gabriel Anthony, fighting for the Crown during the American Revolution, find adventure, daring privateers, and a ghost ship. The ghost ship Barracuda plies the waters off the coast of Saint Augustine in 1777. The Barracuda takes no prize and leaves no one alive. Tracking down the Barracuda is only one of the many challenges and battles the brothers face when assigned to protect Florida loyalists. Facing the privateers, who know the surrounding inlets and rivers, affords a series of dangerous missions for the crew and costs them many men and a few good ships. As the war takes its toll, Gil yearns to return to England, while Gabe steals the hearts of local women

Cordelia Naismith ist mit einem Lord aus der regierenden Familie des Planeten Barrayar verheiratet. Ihre Stellung als Kommandantin gibt sie auf, als sie ein Kind erwartet. Da droht nach dem Tod des Herrschers auf Barrayar ein Bürgerkrieg auszubrechen. Cordelia stimmt nur schweren Herzens zu, als der Lord die Regentschaft übernehmen soll. Ahnt sie, was auf sie und ihr ungeborenens Kind zukommen wird?

Попытка покушения на Эйрела Форкосигана при помощи ядовитого газа не удалась, но при этом пострадала беременная Корделия. У новорожденного Майлза Форкосигана вечно ломаются кости и множество других медицинских проблем. Он вырастет низкорослым

In David Sedaris's world, no one is safe and no cows are sacred. A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Leibowitz and the National Enquirer, Sedaris's collection of essays is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; a bitter Santa abuses the elves. David Sedaris made his debut on NPR's Morning Edition with "SantaLand Diaries," recounting his strange-but-true experiences as an elf at Macy's, and soom became one of the show's most popular commentators. With a perfect eye and a voice infused with as much empathy as wit, Sedaris writes stories and essays that target the soulful ridiculousness of our behavior. Barrel Fever is a blind date with modern life, and anything can happen

Although largely, and unjustly, neglected by a modern audience, Bayley was a hugely influential figure to some of the greats of British SF, such as Michael Moorcock and M. John Harrison. He is perhaps best-known for THE FALL OF CHRONOPOLIS, which is collected in this omnibus, alongside THE SOUL OF THE ROBOT and the extraordinary story collection THE KNIGHTS OF THE LIMITS. The Soul of the Robot Jasperodus, a robot, sets out to prove he is the equal of any human being. His futuristic adventures as warrior, tyrant, renegade, and statesman eventually lead him back home to the two human beings who created him. He returns with a question: Does he have a soul? The Knights of the Limits The best short fiction of Barrington Bayley from his New Worlds period. Nine brilliant stories of infinite space and alien consciousness, suffused with a sense of wonder… The Fall of Chronopolis The mighty ships of the Third Time Fleet relentlessly patrolled the Chronotic Empire’s thousand-year frontier, blotting out an error of history here or there before swooping back to challenge other time-travelling civilisations far into the future. Captain Mond Aton had been proud to serve in such a fleet. But now, falsely convicted of cowardice and dereliction of duty, he had been given the cruellest of sentences: to be sent unprotected into time as a lone messenger between the cruising timeships. After such an inconceivable experience in the endless voids there was only one option left to him. To be allowed to die

An historian who speaks with the dead is ensnared by the past. A child who feels no pain and who should not exist sees the future. Between them are truths that will shake worlds. In a distant future, no remnants of human beings remain, but their successors thrive throughout the galaxy. These are the offspring of humanity's genius-animals uplifted into walking, talking, sentient beings. The Fant are one such species: anthropomorphic elephants ostracized by other races, and long ago exiled to the rainy ghetto world of Barsk. There, they develop medicines upon which all species now depend. The most coveted of these drugs is koph, which allows a small number of users to interact with the recently deceased and learn their secrets. To break the Fant's control of koph, an offworld shadow group attempts to force the Fant to surrender their knowledge. Jorl, a Fant Speaker with the dead, is compelled to question his deceased best friend, who years ago mysteriously committed suicide. In so doing, Jorl unearths a secret the powers-that-be would prefer to keep buried forever. Meanwhile, his dead friend's son, a physically challenged young Fant named Pizlo, is driven by disturbing visions to take his first unsteady steps toward an uncertain future

Bartleby y compañía trata de todos aquellos no escritores o escritores interruptus que han existido. Aquellos que, como Rimbaud o Rulfo, dejaron de escribir tras la publicación de sus obras maestras. Aquellos que nunca escribieron, como Sócrates o como Clément Cadou, que tras conocer a Witold Gombrowicz (a quien admiré mucho en mis juveniles años), decidió no escribir nunca y sólo fue autor de su epitafio, que pasó así a ser su opera omnia. Bartleby y compañía, nos remite a esos escritores del `No`, como él los llama, a los que han renunciado a la escritura (con pretexto o sin él) y también a la posibilidad de que esos libros en realidad no escritos, floten o estén en estado latente en el mundo, hasta que alguien los encuentre y los escriba. Habla también Vila-Matas de una biblioteca de libros no publicados en Burlington, Vermont (USA), en donde aquellos libros escritos, pero no leídos, son mimados, guardados y cuidados con esmero, a la espera de lector

Bartleby the Scrivener (1853), by Herman Melville, tells the story of a quiet, hardworking legal copyist who works in an office in the Wall Street area of New York City. One day Bartleby declines the assignment his employer gives him with the inscrutable "I would prefer not." The utterance of this remark sets off a confounding set of actions and behavior, making the unsettling character of Bartleby one of Melville's most enigmatic and unforgettable creations.  Herman Melville towers among American writers not only for his powerful novels, but also for the stirring novellas and short stories that flowed from his pen. Two of the most admired of these - `Bartleby` and `Benito Cereno` - first appeared as magazine pieces and were then published in 1856 as part of a collection of short stories entitled `The Piazza Tales`. `Bartleby` (also known as `Bartleby the Scrivener`) is an intriguing moral allegory set in the business world of mid-19th-century New York. A strange, enigmatic man employed as a clerk in a legal office, Bartleby forces his employer to come to grips with the most basic questions of human responsibility, and haunts the latter`s conscience, even after Bartleby`s dismissal. `Benito Cereno`, considered one of Melville`s best short stories, deals with a bloody slave revolt on a Spanish vessel. A splendid parable of man`s struggle against the forces of evil, the carefully developed and mysteriously guarded plot builds to a dramatic climax while revealing the horror and depravity of which man is capable. Reprinted here from standard texts in a finely made, yet inexpensive new edition, these stories offer the general reader and students of Melville and American literature sterling examples of a literary giant at his story-telling best

Ve světě, který leží na krunýři obrovské želvy, se vydává na cestu rozverná, temperamentní a neuvěřitelně výstřední výprava. Setkáte se s lakomým a naprosto neschopným čarodějem Mrakoplašem, naivním turistou Dvoukvítkem, jehož Zavazadlo za ním běhá jako pes na stovce malých nožiček, s draky, kteří existují, pokud na ně opravdu věříte, a samozřejmě dojdete až na okraj této podivné planety