Madeline Miller4.4 A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly re-imagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, Miller’s debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction’s brightest lights. Fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.
Ali Smith4.2 At a dinner party in the posh London suburb of Greenwich, Miles Garth suddenly leaves the table midway through the meal, locks himself in an upstairs room, and refuses to leave. An eclectic group of neighbors and friends slowly gathers around the house, and the story of Miles is one told from the points of view of four of them: a woman in her forties called Anna, a man in his sixties called Mark, a woman in her eighties called May, and a ten-year-old child called Brooke. The thing is... none of these people knows Miles anything more than glancingly. So how much is it possible to know about a stranger? And what are the consequences of even the most casual, most fleeting meetings we have every day with other human beings?
Brilliantly audacious, disarmingly playful, full of Smith's trademark wit and puns, There But For The is a deft exploration of the human need for separation - from our pasts and from one another - and the redemptive possibilities for connections.
Джорджина Хардинг0.0 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2012
Iasi, Romania, the early 1950s. A nameless man is found on the steps of a hospital. Deaf and mute, he is unable to communicate until a young nurse called Safta brings paper and pencils with which he can draw. Slowly, painstakingly, memories appear on the page.
The memories are Safta's also. For the man is Augustin, son of the cook at the manor house which was Safta's family home. Born six months apart, they grew up with a connection that bypassed words. But while Augustin's world remained the same size Safta's expanded to embrace languages, society - and a fleeting love, one long, hot summer.
But then came war, and in its wake a brutal Stalinist regime, and nothing would remain the same.
Франческа Кэй0.0 Reality or delusion? Fantasy or fact? When word gets out that Mary-Margaret O'Reilly, a slow-witted but apparently harmless young woman, may have been witness to a miracle, religious mania descends on the Church of the Sacred Heart in Battersea. The consequences will be profound, not only for Mary-Margaret but for others too-Father Diamond, the parish priest, who is in the midst of his own crisis of faith, and Stella Morrison, adrift in her marriage and aching for her ten-year old son, away at boarding school. In the same parish Alice Armitage counts the days until her soldier son comes home from Afghanistan, and Mary-Margaret's mother, Fidelma, imprisoned in a tower block, stares out over London with nothing but her thoughts for company. Remembering her early childhood by the sea in Ireland, the bleak institution she was sent to and the boy she loved, she hungers for consoling touch. In the meantime Mary-Margaret's quest grows increasingly desperate. But no one is prepared for the shocking outcome that ensues. The Translation of the Bones is a searingly powerful novel about passion and isolation, about the nature of belief, about love and motherhood and a search for truth.
Эйфрик Кэмпбелл0.0 In the City, everything has a price. What’s yours? At the age of twenty-eight, Dubliner Geri Molloy has put her troubled past behind her to become a major player at Steiner’s investment bank in London, earning $850k a year doing business with a reclusive hedge fund manager in Hong Kong who, in return for his patronage, likes to ask her about Kant and watch while she eats exotic Asian delicacies. For five years Geri has had it all, but in the months leading up to the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991, her life starts to unravel. Abandoned by her corporate financier boyfriend, in the grip of a debilitating insomnia, and drinking far too much, Geri becomes entangled in a hostile takeover involving her boss, her client and her ex. With her career on the line as a consequence, and no one to turn to, she is close to losing it, in every sense. Taut and fast-paced, ON THE FLOOR is about making money and taking risks; it’s about getting away with it, and what happens when you’re no longer one step ahead; ultimately, though, it’s a reminder to never, ever underestimate the personal cost of success.
Стелла Тилльярд0.0 A brilliant debut by a wonderful historian, Tides of War is a sweeping, romantic, panoramic historical novel, set in Regency London and in Spain during the Peninsular War, which shows again the narrative talent of Aristocrats, as well as Tillyards's genius for period, atmosphere, character and description. At its centre stands Harriet, the young, outspoken heroine, on the threshold of adult life. She is newly married, but her soldier husband, James, is about to set off to join Wellington's troops in Spain, accompanied by his friend, a pioneering young doctor, who also falls for Harriet's charms. Left in London, Harriet is taken under the wing of Kitty, Lady Wellington. And while the women plunge into new worlds of politics, finance and science, the men face the bloody reality of the battlefield and the siege of Badajos, testing their endurance to the hilt. James falls fatally for a glamorous Spanish spy, but there are betrayals on both sides and at times it seems their love cannot endure. Their interwoven stories carry us through the tumult of the Regency at home and abroad, and the drama stars a vast cast from the Duke of Wellington and the brilliant money-man, Nathan Rothschild, to a compelling young entrepreneur who brings gas lighting to London, and a down-to-earth sergeant and his exuberant wife. Tides of War is drenched in an unforgettable atmosphere, from the palms, mantillas and tiles of Seville to the glow of gas lights in foggy London, shining through the spikes of winter trees. As Harriet and James pursue their destinies, facing hope and heartache in equal measure, this stunning novel returns us all to the vivid, lost world of the past.
Эси Эдугян3.3 Chip told us not to go out. Said, don't you boys tempt the devil. But it been one brawl of a night, I tell you.The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymous Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, was arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black.Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero's bandmate and the only witness that day, is going back to Berlin. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there's more to the journey than he thought when Chip shares a mysterious letter, bringing to the surface secrets buried since Hiero's fate was settled. In Half Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan weaves the horror of betrayal, the burden of loyalty and the possibility that, if you don't tell your story, someone else might tell it for you. And they just might tell it wrong ...
Anne Enright3.3 If it hadn't been for the child then none of this might have happened.
She saw me kissing her father.
She saw her father kissing me.
The fact that a child got mixed up in it all made us feel that it mattered, that there was no going back.
Cynthia Ozick0.0 Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012.
The collapse of her brief marriage has stalled Bea Nightingale's life, leaving her middle-aged and alone, teaching in an impoverished borough of 1950s New York. A plea from her estranged brother gives Bea the excuse to escape lassitude by leaving for Paris to retrieve a nephew she barely knows; but the siren call of Europe threatens to deafen Bea to the dangers of entangling herself in the lives of her brother's family. Travelling from America to France, Bea leaves the stigma of divorce on the far side of the Atlantic; newly liberated, she chooses to defend her nephew and his girlfriend Lili by waging a war of letters on the brother she has promised to help. But Bea's generosity is a mixed blessing: those she tries to help seem to be harmed, and as Bea's family unravel from around her, she finds herself once again drawn to the husband she thought she had left in the past...
By one of America's great living writers, Foreign Bodies is a truly virtuosic novel. The story of Bea's travails on the continent is a fierce and heartbreaking insight into the curious nature of love: how it can be commanded and abused; earned and cherished; or even lost altogether.
Леа Хагер Коэн0.0 Is keeping a secret from a spouse always an act of infidelity? And what cost does such a secret exact on a family?
The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return to their previous lives. Struggling to regain a semblance of normalcy for themselves and for their two older children, they find themselves pretending not only that little has changed, but that their marriage, their family, have always been intact. Yet in the aftermath of the baby's death, long-suppressed uncertainties about their relationship come roiling to the surface. A dreadful secret emerges with reverberations that reach far into their past and threaten their future.
The couple's children, ten-year-old Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in exquisitely- perhaps courageously-idiosyncratic ways. But as the four family members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives, and they all find themselves growing more alert to the sadness and burdens of others-to the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together.
Moving, psychologically acute, and gorgeously written, The Grief of Others asks how we balance personal autonomy with the intimacy of relationships, how we balance private decisions with the obligations of belonging to a family, and how we take measure of our own sorrows in a world rife with suffering. This novel shows how one family, by finally allowing itself to experience the shared quality of grief, is able to rekindle tenderness and hope.
Эрин Моргенштерн4.0 Цирк приезжает без предупреждения. Без афиш или какой-либо другой рекламы. Он просто появился из ниоткуда. Под шатром в чёрно-белую полоску скрывается совершенно уникальный опыт, полный захватывающих дух и поражающих воображение вещей. Этот цирк называется «Цирк Сновидений» и открывается только в ночное время.
Но за кулисами начинается жесткая конкуренция - соревнование между двумя молодыми магами, Селией и Марко, которые были обучены с детства специально для этой цели, своими инструкторами. Юные маги и не догадываются, что это игра, из которой только один может выйти победителем, так что цирк становится сценой для замечательного боя воображения и сильной воли. Несмотря на их разногласия, Селия и Марко окунаются с головой в любовь, в глубокую, волшебную любовь, которая делает огни ярче и комнаты теплее, всякий раз, когда они прикасаться друг к другу даже кончиками пальцев.
Истинная любовь или нет, но игра должна продолжаться, от этого зависят судьбы всех - от обычных артистов этого необычного цирка до смелых воздушных акробатов.
Написанный насыщенной, соблазнительной прозой, этот магический роман - просто праздник для души и сердца.
Анна Стотхард4.0 A seventeen-year-old London girl flies to Los Angeles tor the funeral of her mother Lib, from whom she had been separated in her childhood. After stealing a suitcase of letters, clothes and photographs from her mum's bedroom at the top of a hotel on Venice Beach, the girl spends her summer travelling around Los Angeles returning love letters and photographs to the men who had known her mother. As she discovers more about Lily's past and tries to re-enact her life, she comes to question the foundations of her own personality.
"The Pink Hotel", Anna Stothard's stunning second novel after the critical and commercial success of "Isabel and Rocco", is a tale about finding love in the most unlikely of places, and how sometimes you tan only know who you are by discovering who you are not.
Рупа Фаруки0.0 “I was once a journalist, a counterfeiter, an internet entrepreneur. I was once a son, a husband, a father. And now I’m a storyteller.” Meet Maqil - also known as Mike, Mehmet, Mikhail and Miguel - a chancer, charmer and charlatan. A criminally clever man who tells a good tale, trading on his charm and good looks, reinventing himself with a new identity and nationality in each successive country he makes his home, abandoning wives and children and careers in the process. He's a compulsive gambler - driven to lose at least as much as he gains, in games of chance, and in life. A damaged man in search of himself.
From the day he was delivered in Lahore, Pakistan, alongside his stillborn twin, he proved he was a born survivor. He has been a master of flying escapes, from Cairo to Paris, from London to Hong Kong, humbled by love, outliving his peers, and ending up old and alone in a budget hotel in Biarritz some eighty years later. His chequered history is catching up with him: his tracks have been uncovered and his latest wife, his children, his creditors and former business associates, all want to pin him down. But even at the end, Maqil just can't resist trying it on; he's still playing his game, and the game won't be over until it's been won.
Эми Уолдман5.0 Ten years after 9/11, a dazzling, kaleidoscopic novel reimagines its aftermath A jury gathers in Manhattan to select a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack. Their fraught deliberations complete, the jurors open the envelope containing the anonymous winner's name-and discover he is an American Muslim. Instantly they are cast into roiling debate about the claims of grief, the ambiguities of art, and the meaning of Islam. Their conflicted response is only a preamble to the country's. The memorial's designer is an enigmatic, ambitious architect named Mohammad Khan. His fiercest defender on the jury is its sole widow, the self-possessed and mediagenic Claire Burwell. But when the news of his selection leaks to the press, she finds herself under pressure from outraged family members and in collision with hungry journalists, wary activists, opportunistic politicians, fellow jurors, and Khan himself-as unknowable as he is gifted. In the fight for both advantage and their ideals, all will bring the emotional weight of their own histories to bear on the urgent question of how to remember, and understand, a national tragedy. In this deeply humane novel, the breadth of Amy Waldman's cast of characters is matched by her startling ability to conjure their perspectives. A striking portrait of a fractured city striving to make itself whole, The Submission is a piercing and resonant novel by an important new talent.
Ann Patchett4.0 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION 2012
There were people on the banks of the river.
Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. Dr Annick Swenson's work is shrouded in mystery; she refuses to report on her progress, especially to her investors, whose patience is fast running out. Anders Eckman, a mild-mannered lab researcher, is sent to investigate.
A curt letter reporting his untimely death is all that returns.
Now Marina Singh, Anders' colleague and once a student of the mighty Dr Swenson, is their last hope. Compelled by the pleas of Anders's wife, who refuses to accept that her husband is not coming home, Marina leaves the snowy plains of Minnesota and retraces her friend's steps into the heart of the South American darkness, determined to track down Dr. Swenson and uncover the secrets being jealously guarded among the remotest tribes of the rainforest.
What Marina does not yet know is that, in this ancient corner of the jungle, where the muddy waters and susurrating grasses hide countless unknown perils and temptations, she will face challenges beyond her wildest imagination.
Marina is no longer the student, but only time will tell if she has learnt enough.
