No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes…

Would you die for the one you love? Nixon Abandonato made his choice. And now he has to pay the price. Tracey is the love of his life, but being with him has made her a target of his family's enemies. The only way to keep Trace alive is convince the world she means nothing to him. Trace Rooks has fallen irrevocably in love with the son of her family's sworn rival, and she knows in her bones nothing can tear them apart. Until Nix suddenly pushes her away and into the arms of his best friend... But Trace isn't ready to give up on a future with Nix--and if he won't fight for them, she will. In the end, a sacrifice must be made. A life for a life. For what better way to cover a multitude of sins than with the blood of a sinner

In his first novel, Elect Mr. Robinson For a Better World, Donald Antrim demonstrates all of the skill that critics have hailed in his subsequent work: the pitch-perfect ear, the cunning imagination, and the uncanny control of a narrative at once familiar and incandescently strange. In Pete Robinson’s seaside suburban town, things have, well, fallen into disrepair. The voters have de-funded schools, the mayor has been drawn and quartered by an angry mob of townsmen, and Turtle Pond Park is stocked with claymore mines. Pete Robinson, third grade teacher with a 1:32 scale model of an Inquisition dungeon in his basement, wants to open a new school, and in his effort to do so he stumbles upon another idea: he needs to run for mayor. Uniquely hilarious, this novel is a horrifyingly insightful tale of a world not so very different from the one in which we live

In the near future, the only thing growing faster than the criminal population is the Electric Church, a new religion founded by a mysterious man named Dennis Squalor. The Church preaches that life is too brief to contemplate the mysteries of the universe: eternity is required. In order to achieve this, the converted become Monks — cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and virtually unlimited life spans. Enter Avery Cates, a dangerous criminal known as the best killer-for-hire around. The authorities have a special mission in mind for Cates: assassinate Dennis Squalor. But for Cates, the assignment will be the most dangerous job he's ever undertaken — and it may well be his last

By the celebrated Oulipo writer, this brilliant and witty novel set in Lisbon explores love, relationships, and the strange balance between literature and life. Journalist, writer, and translator Vincent Balmer moves to Lisbon to escape from a failing affair. During his first assignment there, he teams up with Antonio — a photographer who has just returned to the city after a ten-year absence — to report for a French newspaper on an infamous serial killer’s trial. While walking around the city together to take notes and photos for the article, they visit the places of Antonio’s childhood, swap stories from their pasts, and confide in each other. But the more they learn about each other, the more their lives become inextricably intertwined. With a structure that parallels Homer’s Odyssey, Eléctrico W recounts their nine days together and the adventures that proliferate to form a constellation of successive ephemeral connections and relationships

Vincitore del premio Hugo per il miglior racconto breve (Short Story) in 1983

Now that Gemma holds the key to breaking the siren curse, the stakes have never been higher. At last, a future with those she loves—and a romance with Alex—is close enough to touch...but not if Penn has anything to say about it. Penn is more determined than ever to have Daniel for her own and to destroy Gemma and Harper along the way, and Penn always gets what she wants. Now a final explosive battle is about to begin, and the winner will take everything Gemma holds dear

Quirke – the hard-drinking, insatiably curious Dublin pathologist – is back, and he's determined to find his daughter's best friend, a well-connected young doctor April Latimer has vanished. A junior doctor at a local hospital, she is something of a scandal in the conservative and highly patriarchal society of 1950s Dublin. Though her family is one of the most respected in the city, she is known for being independent-minded; her taste in men, for instance, is decidedly unconventional. Now April has disappeared, and her friend Phoebe Griffin suspects the worst. Frantic, Phoebe seeks out Quirke, her brilliant but erratic father, and asks him for help. Sober again after intensive treatment for alcoholism, Quirke enlists his old sparring partner, Detective Inspector Hackett, in the search for the missing young woman. In their separate ways the two men follow April's trail through some of the darker byways of the city to uncover crucial information on her whereabouts. And as Quirke becomes deeply involved in April's murky story, he encounters complicated and ugly truths about family savagery, Catholic ruthlessness, and race hatred. Both an absorbing crime novel and a brilliant portrait of the difficult and relentless love between a father and his daughter, this is Benjamin Black at his sparkling best

June 28, 1389: six hundred years before Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic called for a new massacre in Kosovo, there took place, on the Field of the Blackbirds, a battle shrouded in legend. A coalition of Serbs, Albanian Catholics, Bosnians, and Rumanians confronted and were defeated by the Ottoman army of Sultan Murad. This battle became the centerpiece of Serbian nationalist ideology, justifying the campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Albanian Kosovars. In three stories resonant with mystery, Ismail Kadare explores the legend and the consequences of that defeat. — A heartfelt and yet clear-eyed lament for a land riven by hatreds as old as the Homeric epics and as young as the latest news broadcast

"The stories in Elegy on Kinderklavier travel around the world and to the moon, and along the way they tell you everything they know. Arna Hemenway writes a fiction whose satisfactions are not merely narrative but musical, and it is a pleasure to listen to his stories as they rise into song." — Kevin Brockmeier Barnes & Noble Summer 2014 Discover Great New Writers Selection The stories in Elegy on Kinderklavier explore the profound loss and intricate effects of war on lives that have been suddenly misaligned. A diplomat navigates a hostile political climate and an arranged marriage in an Israeli settlement on a newly discovered planet; a small town in Kansas shuns the army recruiter who signed up its boys as troops are deployed to Iraq, falling in helicopters and on grenades; a family dissolves around mental illness and a child's body overtaken by cancer. The moment a soldier steps on an explosive device is painfully reproduced, nanosecond by nanosecond. Arna Bontemps Hemenway's stories feel pulled out of time and place, and the suffering of his characters seem at once otherworldly and stunningly familiar. Elegy on Kinderklavier is a disquieting exploration of what it is to lose and be lost. Arna Bontemps Hemenway's fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, A Public Space, the Seattle Review, and Ecotone. Originally from Kentucky, he holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and has received scholarships from the Sewanee Writers' Conference and Truman Capote Literary Trust

El protagonista de esta intensa crónica sobre el paso del tiempo es alguien que descubre la terrible realidad de la muerte en las playas de su infancia, que triunfa en su carrera como publicitario, que fracasa estrepitosamente en sus tres matrimonios y que, en su vejez, reflexiona sobre el deterioro físico, el arrepentimiento y la necesidad de aceptar la inanidad de su porpia existencia

Can immortal man ever outwit the airlines? What if dumb animals could be trained to “appreciate” the communications media of the human world? How does agent Number 38, Zone 11, respond when he sights a U.F.O.? What happens to Slippage City when the Devil decides to think big? These—plus a remarkable sex comedy—are some of the intriguing themes of Element 79, the new Hoyle galaxy that ranges the full scientific spectrum and beyond into the furthest reaches of the imagination. Author Fred Hoyle is an internationally renowned astronomer and much of his fiction is rooted in the realm of what is possible—scientifically and psychologically—on earth and in space, in the present and the future. His vision of his fellow humans is disquieting, hilarious, and sometimes frightening; his social commentary is often etched in acid. In Element 79 Mr. Hoyle steps forward to take a backward glance at our world—deftly balancing his followers between the unreal and the real, between a chuckle and a shudder

Technologically reanimated corpses are frontline soldiers engaged in a neverending war. Agent Nico Wachalowski uncovered a conspiracy that allowed Samuel Fawkes, the scientist who created them, to control them beyond the grave. And now Fawkes has infected untold thousands with new technology, creating an undetectable army that will obey his every command-a living army that just might represent the future of humanity…

Olga Sinjorelli Eleonora Duze Grāmata stāsta par visā pasaulē pazīstamās itāliešu aktrises Eleonoras Duzes dzīvi un darbu, par lielās mākslinieces nemitīgo cīņu par vērtīgu repertuāru un aktiermākslas spēju atklāt cilvēka daudzveidīgo iekšējo pasauli. O. Sinjorelli grāmata būs interesanta visplašākajām lasītāju masām. Ievērojamu Cilvēku Dzīve Izdevniecība «Liesma» Rīga 1978 Sinjorelli O. Si 736 Eleonora Duze (no itāl. vai. tulk. M. Kvelde; Piel. un piez. no krievu vai. tulk. T. Jarmolinska. — R.: Liesma, 1978. — 189 lpp., 12 lp. il. — (Ievērojamu cilvēku dzīve). Olga Signorelli VITA DI ELEONORA DUSE Bologna, Cappelli editore, 1962 Mākslinieks Ādolfs Lielais No itāliešu valodas tulkojusi Maija Kvelde Pielikumu un piezīmes no krievu valodas tulkojusi Tatjana Jarmolinska (g) Tulkojums latviešu valodā, «Liesma», 1978

Set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine The latest from legendary master storyteller Stephen King, a riveting, extraordinarily eerie, and moving story about a man whose mysterious affliction brings a small town together—a timely, upbeat tale about finding common ground despite deep-rooted differences. Although Scott Carey doesn’t look any different, he’s been steadily losing weight. There are a couple of other odd things, too. He weighs the same in his clothes and out of them, no matter how heavy they are. Scott doesn’t want to be poked and prodded. He mostly just wants someone else to know, and he trusts Doctor Bob Ellis. In the small town of Castle Rock, the setting of many of King’s most iconic stories, Scott is engaged in a low grade—but escalating—battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly drops his business on Scott’s lawn. One of the women is friendly; the other, cold as ice. Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face—including his own—he tries to help. Unlikely alliances, the annual foot race, and the mystery of Scott’s affliction bring out the best in people who have indulged the worst in themselves and others. From Stephen King, our “most precious renewable resource, like Shakespeare in the malleability of his work” (The Guardian), Elevation is an antidote to our divisive culture, as gloriously joyful (with a twinge of deep sadness) as “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

It all begins on a Monday, when four people board an elevator in a Manhattan office tower. Each presses a button for their floor, but the elevator proceeds, non-stop, to the top. Once there, it stops for a few seconds, and then plummets. Right to the bottom of the shaft. It appears to be a horrific, random tragedy. But then, on Tuesday, it happens again, in a different Manhattan skyscraper. And when Wednesday brings yet another high-rise catastrophe, one of the most vertical cities in the world — and the nation’s capital of media, finance, and entertainment — is plunged into chaos. Clearly, this is anything but random. This is a cold, calculated bid to terrorize the city. And it’s working. Fearing for their lives, thousands of men and women working in offices across the city refuse leave their homes. Commerce has slowed to a trickle. Emergency calls to the top floors of apartment buildings go unanswered. Who is behind this? What do these deadly acts of sabotage have to do with the fingerless body found on the High Line? Two seasoned New York detectives and a straight-shooting journalist must race against time to find the answers

A terrifying true story of kidnap, torture and dramatic rescue by the FBI and the KGB. Chechen terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda orchestrate a Moscow abduction, holding westerners Yvonne and her husband Danny hostage for $1.6 million they don’t have. It will take enormous courage and an international rescue effort to bring them home. ELEVEN DAYS OF HELL is the chilling true story of kidnap, torture, rape and survival. Yvonne Bornstein relives the trauma that still has the power to make her shake with fear

Lore arrives at the hospital alone — no husband, no partner, no friends. Her birth plan is explicit: she wants no fetal monitor, no IV, no epidural. Franckline, a nurse in the maternity ward — herself on the verge of showing — is patient with the young woman. She knows what it’s like to worry that something might go wrong, and she understands the pain when it does. She knows as well as anyone the severe challenge of childbirth, what it does to the mind and the body. Eleven Hours is the story of two soon-to-be mothers who, in the midst of a difficult labor, are forced to reckon with their pasts and re-create their futures. Lore must disentangle herself from a love triangle; Franckline must move beyond past traumas to accept the life that’s waiting for her. Pamela Erens moves seamlessly between their begrudging friendship and the memories evoked by so intense an experience. At turns urgent and lyrical, Erens’s novel is a visceral portrait of childbirth, and a vivid rendering of the way we approach motherhood — with fear and joy, anguish and awe

In their seventh crime swoop, FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich track down a very elusive murderer. Father Michael Joseph, the twin brother of a FBI colleague, is slain, but the only witness to the crime vanishes. To the double mystery of murder and disappearance is quickly added a third element: Sherlock and Savich discover a connection between Father Michael's killing and one "committed" on an upcoming episode of a trendy new TV series. Is the murderer a copycat killer or a psychic?