Имя этой преступной организации давно стало нарицательным. Коза Ностра – не просто название, фактически это – криминальный бренд, олицетворение тайной власти, основанной на насилии и кровопролитии. Самая жестокая, самая неуловимая, самая эффективная преступная организация мира – такова сицилийская мафия, широко известная под именем Коза Ностра. Война с мафией, продолжающаяся почти двести лет, создала этой организации ореол неуязвимости, но, как показали события конца XX столетия, мафию все же возможно победить. Как мафия достигла своего могущества, чего она добивается и чьей поддержкой пользуется, каковы ее планы на будущее – обо всем этом рассказывается в уникальном исследовании Джона Дикки. Коза Ностре посвящено немало книг; тем не менее, работа Джона Дикки стоит особняком – до сих пор ничего подобного этой книге еще не было. Впервые под одной обложкой собраны все известные на сегодня сведения о Коза Ностре, все подробности жизни тайного преступного общества Сицилии: от мафиозного кодекса чести и обрядов посвящения до политической коррупции и деловых интересов мафиози, от методов управления этой криминальной организацией до «бизнес-модели», которой она придерживается. Если вы хотите узнать, какой мафия была и чем живет и дышит сегодня, составить представление о ее деятельности на протяжении двух столетий, понять, благодаря чему мафия добилась той степени влияния, которой она ныне обладает, тогда эта книга – для вас

An interesting proposition on the importance of being ugly

Sandeep Sanghavi, the mixed-race son of an Indian businesswoman and a famous American astronomer lives a nomadic albeit mundane life traveling the country with his mother's hotel consulting firm. His life becomes more interesting when various lost objects suddenly begin to reappear. Then a stranger calls and claims responsibility for the returned objects in exchange for an introduction to Sandeep’s astronomer father, the rebellious and eccentric Van Ray, who has no phone, email or qualms about having abandoned his son twenty years ago. Van Ray shows up broke with his pregnant ex-wife astronaut in tow, claiming to have discovered a big secret that will change their lives forever; a new discovery guaranteed to change him from “science famous” to “famous famous.” With his family together for the first time in years, Sandeep must juggle his father’s scientific search, his mother’s failing business and the tension of having family all together for the first time in decades

Franzie’s dimension-spanning hands were worth millions to a ruthless promoter — if he could manage to stay out of them

During the course of these stories Calvino toys with continuous creation, the transformation of matter, and the expanding and contracting reaches of space and time. His characters, made out of mathematical formulae and simple cellular structures, disport themselves among galaxies, experience the solidification of planets, move from aquatic to terrestrial existence, play games with hydrogen atoms, and have a love life. Calvino succeeds in relating complex scientific concepts to the ordinary reactions of common humanity. "A poignant, freewheeling account of Creation itself… [Calvino] raises imagination to its exponential maximum." – Paul West, Book World Italo Calvino's superb storytelling gifts earned him international renown and a reputation as "one of the world's best fabulists" (John Gardner, New York Times Book Review). Born in Cuba in 1923, Calvino was raised in Italy, where he lived most of his life. He died in Siena at the age of sixty-one

Un’astronave stellare da esplorazione spedisce su un pianeta sconosciuto sei moduli di atterraggio e ne vede tornare sette. Su quel pianeta c’и chiaramente “qualcosa che non va”… Ma nelle zone piщ remote e selvagge del Cosmo, si sa, le cose non vanno mai perfettamente lisce e gli esploratori devono sempre stare in guardia, devono sempre aspettarsi di tutto. Giustamente Bob Shaw ha messo in epigrafe alla strabiliante saga dell’astronave “Sarafand” questi memorabili versi di R. L. Stevenson: “Per il Cosmo strano e selvaggio me ne vado, da eterno straniero. Il mio amore sono le tue strade e i brillanti occhi del pericolo”

From Publishers Weekly DeLillo skates through a day in the life of a brilliant and precocious New Economy billionaire in this monotone 13th novel, a study in big money and affectlessness. As one character remarks, 28-year-old Eric Packer "wants to be one civilization ahead of this one." But on an April day in the year 2000, Eric's fortune and life fall apart. The story tracks him as he traverses Manhattan in his stretch limo. His goal: a haircut at Anthony's, his father's old barber. But on this day his driver has to navigate a presidential visit, an attack by anarchists and a rapper's funeral. Meanwhile, the yen is mounting, destroying Eric's bet against it. The catastrophe liberates Eric's destructive instinct-he shoots another character and increases his bet. Mostly, the action consists of sequences in the back of the limo (where he stages meetings with his doctor, various corporate officers and a New Economy guru) interrupted by various pit stops. He lunches with his wife of 22 days, Elise Shifrin. He has sex with two women, his art consultant and a bodyguard. He is hit in the face with a pie by a protester. He knows he is being stalked, and the novel stages a final convergence between the ex-tycoon and his stalker. DeLillo practically invented the predominant vernacular of the late '90s (the irony, the close reading of consumer goods, the mock complexity of technobabble) in White Noise, but he seems surprisingly disengaged here. His spotlighted New Economy icon, Eric, doesn't work, either as a genius financier (he is all about gadgetry, not exchange-there's no love of the deal in his "frozen heart") or a thinker. The threats posed by the contingencies that he faces cannot lever him out of his recalcitrant one-dimensionality. DeLillo is surely an American master, but this time out, he is doodling. From Library Journal Unlike his sprawling masterpiece, Underworld, DeLillo's 13th novel is short and tightly focused, indeed almost claustrophobic. Most of the action takes place inside a "prousted" (cork-lined) stretch limo, as the reclusive financial wizard Eric Packer is chauffeured across Manhattan for a haircut. Thanks to a presidential visit, antiglobalization demonstrations, and a celebrity funeral, this journey takes up most of the day. Stuck in traffic, Packer anxiously monitors the value of the yen on the limo's computer. Using the car as his office, he summons advisors from nearby shops and restaurants. His physician gives him a rubber-gloved physical exam in the back seat as Packer discusses imminent financial ruin with his broker and angry crowds block the streets. This work most closely resembles The Body Artist in its brevity and straightforward narrative flow. However, the earlier novel was written in an uncharacteristically warm, poetic style, promising a new direction for this important writer, while Cosmopolis reverts to the standard DeLillo boilerplate, perceptive and funny but also brittle and cold. This, coupled with the book's dated 1990s sensibility, makes Cosmopolis a step backward rather than an artistic advance

Depuis Hygiène de l'assassin, elle est fidèle au poste! Amélie Nothomb fait donc sa rentrée avec Cosmétique de l'ennemi. Au rythme – soutenu – d'un roman par an, on se demande bien comment elle peut encore nous surprendre. N'ayez crainte, elle y parvient… Coincé dans un aéroport alors qu'il s'apprêtait à embarquer pour Barcelone, l'homme d'affaires Jérôme Angust se voit contraint de supporter, en plus du retard de son avion, la logorrhée d'un étrange individu, bien décidé à lui imposer le récit de sa vie. Qui est donc ce Textor Texel qui le harcèle? Pourquoi ce raseur a-t-il jeté son dévolu sur lui? Le dialogue s'engage pourtant entre l'importun et sa victime, vif, alerte, ponctué de réparties cinglantes, prenant les allures d'une joute de haute tenue, et dévoile la passé trouble de Textor, en même temps que le malaise croissant de Jérôme. Car il se sent cerné, l'homme d'affaires irréprochable, par cet étranger qui semble si bien connaître les tréfonds de sa conscience et dont les crimes font douloureusement écho à un passé qu'il croyait enterré. Étranger, cet ennemi? Pas tant que ça! Et si, finalement, cette rencontre n'était pas tant le fruit du hasard que l'objet d'une préméditation diabolique destinée à l'anéantir? Dans ce dialogue mené tambour battant, Amélie Nothomb s'en donne à cœur joie, faisant preuve une fois de plus de sa virtuosité. La phrase est vive, bondissante, corrosive, pour nous embarquer progressivement, mais sûrement, vers un retournement de situation dont l'auteur de Mercure a le secret. Gageons qu'une fois encore, elle recueillera vos suffrages…

If easy payment plans were to be really efficient, patrons' lifetimes had to be extended!