With the same wicked humor, buoyant charm, and optimism that have made her Shopaholic novels beloved international bestsellers, Sophie Kinsella delivers a hilarious new novel and an unforgettable new character. Meet Emma Corrigan, a young woman with a huge heart, an irrepressible spirit, and a few little secrets: Secrets from her mother: I lost my virginity in the spare bedroom with Danny Nussbaum while Mum and Dad were downstairs watching Ben-Hur.Sammy the goldfish in my parents’ kitchen is not the same goldfish that Mum gave me to look after when she and Dad were in Egypt.Secrets from her boyfriend: I weigh one hundred and twenty-eight pounds. Not one eighteen, like Connor thinks.I’ve always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken.From her colleagues: When Artemis really annoys me, I feed her plant orange juice. (Which is pretty much every day.) It was me who jammed the copier that time. In fact, all the times.Secrets she wouldn’t share with anyone in the world: My G-string is hurting me.I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even what it is.Until she spills them all to a handsome stranger on a plane. At least, she thought he was a stranger.But come Monday morning, Emma’s office is abuzz about the arrival of Jack Harper, the company’s elusive CEO. Suddenly Emma is face-to-face with the stranger from the plane, a man who knows every single humiliating detail about her. Things couldn’t possibly get worse — Until they do

Ведение разговора по телефону на иностранном языке требует от обучающегося определенных навыков понимания, восприятия и удержания в памяти услышанного, а также незамедлительной словесной реакции на услышанное. Недостаточное развитие этих навыков является препятствием к тому, чтобы хорошо и уверенно говорить по телефону. Пособие ставит своей целью помочь учащимся овладеть навыками беседы по телефону, пользоваться общепринятой терминологией. Во второе издание (1-е — 1980 г.) внесены исправления редакционного характера. Для лиц, самостоятельно совершенствующих свои знания английского языка

A new collection of short stories from the writer Rick Moody has called “the best prose stylist in America”. Her stories may be literal one-liners: the entirety of “Bloomington” reads, “Now that I have been here for a little while, I can say with confidence that I have never been here before.” Or they may be lengthier investigations of the havoc wreaked by the most mundane disruptions to routine: in “A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates,” a professor receives a gift of thirty-two small chocolates and is paralyzed by the multitude of options she imagines for their consumption. The stories may appear in the form of letters of complaint; they may be extracted from Flaubert’s correspondence; or they may be inspired by the author’s own dreams, or the dreams of friends. What does not vary throughout Can’t and Won’t, Lydia Davis’s fifth collection of stories, is the power of her finely honed prose. Davis is sharply observant; she is wry or witty or poignant. Above all, she is refreshing. Davis writes with bracing candor and sly humor about the quotidian, revealing the mysterious, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasurable within the predictable patterns of daily life

From the acclaimed and prizewinning author of The Right Hand of Sleep (“Brilliant…A truly arresting work”—The New York Times Book Review), an explosive allegorical novel set on the eve of the Civil War, about a gang of men hunted by both the Union and the Confederacy for dealing in stolen slaves. Geburah Plantation, 1863: in a crumbling estate on the banks of the Mississippi, eight survivors of the notorious Island 37 Gang wait for the war, or the Pinkerton Detective Agency, to claim them. Their leader, a bizarre charismatic known only as “the Redeemer,” has already been brought to justice, and each day brings the battling armies closer. The hatred these men feel for one another is surpassed only by their fear of their many pursuers. Into this hell comes a mysterious force, an “avenging angel” that compels them, one by one, to a reckoning of their many sins. Canaan’s Tongue is rooted in the criminal world of John Murrell, as infamous in his day as Jesse James or Al Capone. It tells the story of his reluctant protégé, Virgil Ball, who derives riches, sexual privilege, and power from the commerce in stolen slaves, known only as “the Trade”—and discovers, when he finally decides to free himself from the Redeemer’s yoke, that the force he is challenging is far more formidable than he imagined. It is as old as the river, as vast as the country itself, and it is with us to this day. Canaan’s Tongue is a work of extraordinary narrative and emotional power

Hisako Onoda, world famous cellist, refuses to fly. And so she travels through the Panama Canal as a passenger on a tanker bound for Europe. But Panama is a country whose politics are as volatile as the local freedom fighters. When Hisako's ship is captured, it is not long before the atmosphere is as flammable as an oxy-acetylene torch, and the tension as sharp as the spike on her cello… 'Apocalyptic is the first word that springs to mind to describe this violent and powerful novel in which Banks once again demonstrates his extraordinary dark powers of imagination… impressive' The Times 'Brilliantly crafted' Scotsman 'Currents of dark wit swirl through Banks' writing, enriching its buoyancy… and, like Graham Greene, he can readily open the reader's senses to the «foreignness» of places' Scotland on Sunday 'Extraordinary, brilliant, bloody' Fay Weldon

A single father who yearns to be a family man, Logan O'Donnell is determined to create the perfect Christmas for his son, Charlie. The entire O'Donnell clan arrives to spend the holidays in Avalon, a postcard-pretty town on the shores of Willow Lake, a place for the family to reconnect and rediscover the special gifts of the season. One of the guests is a newcomer to Willow Lake— Darcy Fitzgerald. Sharp-witted, independent and intent on guarding her heart, she's the last person Logan can see himself falling for. And Darcy is convinced that a relationship is the last thing she needs this Christmas. Yet between the snowy silence of the winter woods, and toasty moments by a crackling fire, their two lonely hearts collide. The magic of the season brings them each a gift neither ever expected—a love to last a lifetime

When a married businessman falls for a small-town minx, his obsessive love will spur him to give up anything to have her Jeff Flanders has a nice little job, a nice little wife, and absolutely nothing to get excited about. All that goes down the drain when he meets Candy, a small-town girl who looks as sweet as her name, but is bitter to the core. She offers him her body—the best he’s ever seen—for the bargain price of $1,000, and he can’t refuse. The affair turns Jeff’s world inside out, and he takes to her like she’s a drug, giving up half his paycheck every week for the privilege of taking Candy to bed. But when Candy finds a new keeper on Park Avenue, Jeff’s life spins out of control. His addiction to Candy will drive him to do anything to get her back—even kill. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lawrence Block, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from his personal collection, and a new afterword written by the author. Review “Block is one-up on the alchemists: He can turn base material into literary gold.” —Los Angeles Times “How Block can be so prolific and maintain such a high degree of originality is itself a mystery.” —The Kansas City Star “Block is one of the best!” —The Washington Post

An international literary phenomenon-now available for the first time in English translation-Candy is a hip, harrowing tale of risk and desire, the story of a young Chinese woman forging a life for herself in a world seemingly devoid of guidelines. Hong, who narrates the novel, and whose life in many ways parallels the author''s own, drops out of high school and runs away at age 17 to the frontier city of Shenzen. As Hong navigates the temptations of the city, she quickly falls in love with a young musician and together they dive into a cruel netherworld of alcohol, drugs, and excess, a life that fails to satisfy Hong''s craving for an authentic self, and for a love that will define her. This startling and subversive novel is a blast of sex, drugs, and rock ''n'' roll that opens up to us a modern China we''ve never seen before. – Banned in China -with Mian Mian labeled the ''poster child for spiritual pollution''-CANDY still managed to sell 60,000 copies, as well as countless additional copies in pirated editions. – CANDY has been published in eight countries to date and has become a bestseller in France. *** Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll: ingredients for novels about modern China? Yes, SHANGHAI BABY by Wei Hui (Pocket Books, 2001) showed international readers modern Chinese youth were not immune to the running dogs of Western decadence: Globalization might even include mixing with dissolute foreigners. Following SHANGHAI BABY to English by a few years, Mian Mian now suggests with CANDY the decadence is more likely homegrown, possibly an inevitable side-effect of China's ascension to manufacturing colossus for the world. After this first novel by Shanghainese Mian was banned in China -an "honor" Wei Hui also earned – she was labelled a "poster child for spiritual pollution." The buzz made CANDY an underground bestseller. Whether Mian Mian harvested autobiographical details for her protagonist Hong's drug-plagued odyssey is open to question. She prefaces the novel with a note: "This book exists because one morning as the sun was coming up I told myself that I had to swallow up all of the fear and garbage around me, and once it was inside me I had to transform it all into candy. Because I know you all will be able to love me for it." In a larger context, Hong's story, the characters in her life, often resonate with American stories we've heard of the Old West and Gold Rush days (whether in California or Alaska). She leaves Shanghai to seek her future in the new frontier of the Special Economic Zones the Chinese government created along the south coast in the 1980s, near Guangzhou. Not only did the SEZs permit a laissez faire approach to business-much of the Confucian social rules that apply elsewhere are ignored. In the SEZ thick with fortune seekers and finders, prostitution flourishes, as does alcohol and drug addiction. Hong, only 17, has dropped out of a competitive high school, somewhat dispirited by the suicide of a classmate (an echo of Murakami's NORWEGIAN WOOD), when she leaves for the south. There she meets a young musician Saining and they become lovers, so often hopeless for each other and so often hopeless for their addictions. They survive, slacker-style, largely by the generosity of Saining's mom, who lives in Japan. Hong's love for Saining has compelling moments of violence, promiscuity, and druggy indifference. But the greatest achievement of Hong's story, perhaps, is the honest testimony to the erasure of desire, the great sucking away of soul only addiction can wreak on a love that nonetheless won't go away. From a null point, from a Murakami-esque death in life, Hong goes on to find redemption can be hers.This stark portrait is not without lighter moments. For example, Hong's friend Bug is convinced he has AIDS. The horror of that discovery is brought alive. Page after page: consultation with friends, plans to leave the country, examination by a Beijing AIDS specialist. Finally, the revelation too many OTC drugs to get high had caused the troubling symptoms. Like Murakami's post-consumerist young generation in Japan, Mian Mian suggests the same search for individual authenticity is underway in China. As China 's economic engine gains force, so does disillusionment among the young with the old ways. Hong suggests her ambivalence towards China 's rising star: "The moment the plane left the ground, I fucking burst into tears. I swore I would never come back to this town in the South again. This weird, plastic, bullshit Special Economic Zone, with all that pain and sadness, and the face of love, and the whole totally fucked-up world of heroin, and the late 1980s gold rush mentality, and all that pop music from Taiwan and Hong Kong. This place had all of the best and all of the worst. It had become my eternal nightmare." Hong awakes before the CANDY is gone. Mian's compassion for youth of New China elevates and brings irony to a story lesser writers might have passed off as sensation-ridden heroin chic

Benjamin Thorpe is married, a father, a successful Los Angeles architect — and a man obsessed. Alone in New York City on business, he spends the empty hours of the night in a compulsive search for female companionship. His dizzying descent leads to an early morning confrontation in a mid-town brothel, and a subsequent searing self-revelation

"A breakthrough in prose and poetical writing…This book should be on all readers' and writers' desks and in their minds." — Maya Angelou First published in 1923, Jean Toomer's Cane is an innovative literary work-part drama, part poetry, part fiction-powerfully evoking black life in the South. Rich in imagery, Toomer's impressionistic, sometimes surrealistic sketches of Southern rural and urban life are permeated by visions of smoke, sugarcane, dusk, and fire; the northern world is pictured as a harsher reality of asphalt streets. This iconic work of American literature is published with a new afterword by Rudolph Byrd of Emory University and Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University, who provide groundbreaking biographical information on Toomer, place his writing within the context of American modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, and examine his shifting claims about his own race and his pioneering critique of race as a scientific or biological concept

Detective Lois Commoner has had enough. Deciding to end it all as an escape to ongoing physical agony, she overdoses one night while Star Trek blares in the background. To her amazement, instead of waking up dead, she finds herself in the Sandlands...a startlingly beautiful world whose inhabitants are shape-shifters. An ordinary woman on Earth, Lois is fought over in the Sandlands, where tough, scarred women are prized as highly desirable mates. And it seems like the entire royal family has turned their attention to Lois, including the king, his heir, and the two younger princes. Let the Bridefight begin

This novel takes place in the eponymous Cannery Row, a place made up of ’junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses’. Although there is a narrative trajectory — the desire of Mack and the other boys living at the Palace Flophouse to throw a party for their friend and benefactor, Doc — the plot of this novel is really that plot of land Steinbeck describes so well

Following a major pandemic, the country is in ruins. West of the Mississippi River is a hellzone known as the Deadlands. Here, bioengineered Corpse Worms rain from the blood-streaked sky, reanimating the dead. And here, atomic weapons have created legions of mutants, primeval monsters, and wild chaotic weather patterns. Enter: John Slaughter. Hardcore outlaw biker

First the asteroid would come, slamming into the earth just north of the Montana border, followed by earthquakes, tsunamis, and unending night. And after that… Hell. Astronomer Marty Chittenden is the first to recognize the approaching doom—a discovery that makes him a marked man. Green Beret Jack Forrest knows the catastrophe is inevitable, and begins stockpiling an abandoned missile silo with supplies while gathering together a small community of men, women, and children he prays can survive the apocalypse. Then disaster strikes. In an instant the world they know ends forever, transformed into a nightmare realm of eternal darkness. Soon the few remaining humans are transformed as well, becoming savage things—raping, pillaging, and devouring their own. And the time is approaching when Forrest and his people will have to leave their underground “Noah’s Ark” to face a shattered world and the unspeakable terrors that dwell there—in desperate pursuit of one slim hope of survival… called Hawaii

The Iraq War, two divers, a California family, and within that family an intimacy that open the larger stories more deeply still. Cannonball continues in McElroy's tradition of intricately woven story lines and extreme care regarding the placement of each and every word. A novel where the sentences matter as much as the overall story

Un asesinato es el punto de arranque de esta novela publicada en 1950, la primera de Doris Lessing, autora galardonada con el premio Príncipe de Asturias de las letras. Situada en la Suráfrica segregacionista, Canta la hierba describe la historia de una mujer blanca en el seno de uña sociedad dividida por el color de la piel y en la que imperan la injusticia y la desesperación. Mary Turner, hija de unos pobres granjeros y nacida en África, se convierte en una joven urbana, trabajadora e independiente, hasta el día en que sorprende los cotilleos de sus amigas y decide que debe casarse para silenciarlos. Tras un periodo de angustiosa espera, conoce a un granjero que se enamora perdidamente de ella. Sin embargo, el matrimonio, la rutina de una granja aislada, las convenciones de la comunidad blanca y la relación con los nativos cambiarán su vida hasta límites insospechados

Ideea Evului Mediu postatomic şi a repetării ciclice a istoriei găseşte în romanul de faţă una dintre expresiile sale cele mai puternice şi mai coerente. În momentul începerii povestirii, cu şase sute de ani după catastrofa atomică, mici comunităţi religioase încearcă, la modul cel mai naiv cu putinţă, să conserve ultimele ale ştiinţei străvechi, apărându-le în faţa barbariei

«Canto» (1963) — «культовый антироман» Пауля Низона (р. 1929), автора, которого критики называют величайшим из всех, ныне пишущих на немецком языке. Это лирический роман-монолог, в котором образы, навеянные впечатлениями от Италии, «рифмуются», причудливо переплетаются, создавая сложный словесно-музыкальный рисунок, многоголосый мир, полный противоречий и гармонии

In un mondo senza tempo e senza nome, devastato da una guerra che ha rivelato il fondo barbarico della natura umana, tra cumuli di macerie e colonne di profughi in fuga, si erge un antico castello di pietra. Tra le sue austere mura vive, assieme alla sorella-amante Morgan, Abel, l’ultimo discendente di una famiglia aristocratica. Per i due giovani, quel castello sarebbe un rifugio ideale, se un giorno, a turbare la loro idilliaca «intimità», non sopraggiungesse una banda di soldati irregolari, guidati da un oscuro personaggio femminile. Stregati dal fascino magnetico e perverso di quella donna senza volto e senza anima, Abel e Morgan si trasformano ben presto nelle pedine di un sordido gioco a tre, mentre l’antica dimora diviene teatro di inaudite violenze, eccessi e distruzioni, che porteranno in un crescendo di tensione e di suspense alla catastrofe finale

В рубрике «Другая поэзия» — «Canto XXXYI» классика американского и европейского модернизма Эзры Паунда (1885–1972). Перевод с английского, вступление и комментарии Яна Пробштейна (1953). Здесь же — статья филолога и поэта Ильи Кукулина (1969) «Подрывной Эпос: Эзра Паунд и Михаил Еремин». Автор статьи находит эстетические точки соприкосновения двух поэтов

Эзра Уэстон Лумис Паунд Ezra Weston Loomis Pound 30 октября 1885 — 1 ноября 1972

Para usted, lector español, por fin en directo, esta selección de la obra de uno de-los autores más fascinantes y excéntricos de la mejor literatura argentina: Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill (1941). 0, como él mismo prefiere, Fogwill a secas. (`Probablemente por una especie de megalomanía`, explicaba en una entrevista. `Yo quería ocupar un lugar tipo Sócrates o Hegel. ¿Quién dice Guillermo Federico Hegel?`). Imposible dar aquí cabida al abigarrado currículo de este autor, quien, según declara en la indispensable presentación de sí mismo que antepone a este volumen, ha sido entre otras cosas `publicitario, investigador de mercados, redactor, empresario, especulador de Bolsa, terrorista y estafador -eso consta en mi prontuario de la policía federal argentina-, columnista especializado en temas de política cultural en todo tipo de medios, profesor universitario y consultor de empresas`. Como crítico y editor, Fogwill tuvo en los años setenta una intervención muy activa y polémica en la escena literaria argentina, dando a conocer las obras de Néstor Perlongher y Osvaldo Lamborghini y orientando la lectura de autores como Aira y Laiseca (`los únicos aportes a la literatura argentina que reivindico`). Tanto César Aira y Alberto Laiseca como el propio Fogwill, con Lamborghini a la cabeza (`el mejor maestro que tuvo la literatura argentina`), pertenecen a una facción destacadísima de la narrativa argentina, sin apenas paralelos en el resto del ámbito hispánico. Su actitud irreverente, y a menudo provocadora, no disimula una pasión y una cultura portentosas, refractarias por igual a todo atisbo de solemnidad como de ingenuidad, no sólo en literatura. De César Aira, Mondadori publicó hace unos meses Ema la cautiva y saca estos días un volumen estupendo, Cómo me hice monja-. La publicación ahora de esta antología de Fogwill insiste en llamar la atención sobre determinadas conductas literarias que, más allá de su valía indiscutible, conviene tener presentes en estos tiempos en que la entusiasta y sin duda saludable postulación de una difusión más global de la literatura latinoamericana propicia un espíritu indiscriminatorio que con frecuencia adquiere los ripios provincianamente internacionalistas de un festival de la OTI. Poeta antes que narrador, y autor dotado de un fuerte carisma personal (`la construcción de la figura es hoy parte fundamental del trabajo de un escritor`), el retrato del propio Fogwill con el pelo revuelto y los ojos desorbitados funcionó, en la Argentina de los ochenta, como un auténtico logotipo, que desde la portada de sus libros señalaba la existencia de otras posibilidades para la actitud del creador. Esas posibilidades permanecen hoy todavía abiertas para los jóvenes escritores, que reconocerán en Fogwill el tratamiento precursor y profundamente intencionado de determinados rasgos de estilo que, a modo de tics, menudean en la actualidad. Así, la referencia constante a marcas genracionales, marcas de clase, marcas sociales, calles y locales de moda (`eso que gusta a los tontos y a los chicos posmodernos`),empleados con voluntad documental y -no mimética por parte de quien tiene la impresión de haber sido, en los setenta, `un preposmoderno y un pre-yuppy`. Así la prisa del estilo (`escribo mal, lo reconozco, pero rápido`). Así también la utilización del sexo o de las drogas como elementos estructurales de relatos en los que se explora la percepción del tiempo y del espacio, de la identidad sexual o la del género del narrador, por parte de quien admite intrigado que `con frecuencia imagino que soy una mujer` y lamenta el tiempo derrochado durante los más de diecisiete años en que fue cocainómano. Veinte años después de escrito, un relato como Muchacha punk (1979) conserva frescas toda su acidez y su ironía, Memoria de paso (1979) invierte el tránsito sexual de Orlando y parodia a la vez a Borges y a Virgnia Woolf. La larga risa de todos estos años (1983) engatusa genialmente al lector hasta conducirlo a una amarga reflexión sobre la negra sombra de la dictadura en Argentina. Restos diurnos (1986) reescribe, impregnándolo de cocaína y de una inteligencia lúgubre y feroz, el cortazariano La noche boca arriba. El relato que da título a este volumen, y el más reciente, Cantos de marineros en la Pampa (1997), entona una hermosa y destartalada elegía por la vieja épica guerrera… Pero, entre las 10 piezas, -todas formidables- que componen el volumen, merece mención particular Los pichiciegos, relato visionario y alucinante de la guerra en la nueva era tecnológica. Escrita en sólo tres días, durante el conflicto de las Malvinas, esta novelita traza un cuadro a la vez desopilante y atroz del sacrificio de miles de soldados en una guerra ciega, en la que se peleaba `de noche, con radios, radar, miras infrarrojas y en el oscuro`, y en la que ni siquiera se podía huir `porque atrás de ti, los de tu propio regimiento habían estado colocando minas a medida que avanzabas, y las minas son lo peor que hay`. Los reclutas desertores de Fogwili son adolescentes del extrarradiourbano, idénticos a los que -con la misma sintaxis narrativa- aparecen en las novelas de Ray Loriga o de Félix Romeo, pero arrojados a un infierno de nieve y barro en el que los Harrier británicos hacen las veces de ángeles exterminadores y en el que su condición social subalterna se evidencia brutalmente. Queda por señalar de qué modo el humor, el sentido lúdico, las innovaciones léxicas y el gesto vanguardista de Fogwill adquieren su justa dimensión en el marco de una vivencia ética del hecho literario. Pero para ello lo mejor es traer aquí las palabras de Fogwill en una entrevista memorable: `Escribo para no ser escrito. Viví escrito muchos años, representaba un relato. Supongo que escribo para escribir a otros, para operar sobre el comportamiento, la imaginación, la revelación, el conocimiento de los otros. Quizá sobre el comportamiento literario de los otros. Escribo para conservar el arte de contar sin sacrificar el ejercicio de pensar, un pensar que tiene que ver con la moral… Creo que es mucho más importante pensar que contar, pero para imponer el arte de pensar hay que contar. La razón no se sostiene sin relatos`. Va dicho. Escribir para no ser escrito Antología de uno de los escritores argentinos más fascinantes: Fogwill

After tragedy strikes, Bree Penoyer’s feelings of guilt leave her speechless-literally. Tired of always being the good girl and just letting things happen to her, Bree decides it’s time to take life into her own hands. She dumps her lucrative but uninspiring career and her sweet but boring fiancé, and escapes to her late grandmother’s rustic cabin in South Carolina to find herself again. Her solitude is immediately disrupted by her new neighbor, Hart Manning, a sexy but arrogant rogue who doesn’t seem capable of taking no for an answer. The last thing Bree wants is an affair, especially with a self-proclaimed womanizer like Hart. But she can’t deny he arouses her as no man ever has, and when at last she finds her voice, she’s very ready to say yes!