Зэди Смит3.6 Два незадачливых ветерана Второй мировой войны становятся, несмотря на все различия между ними, лучшими друзьями на всю жизнь. Арчи Джонс, чистокровный британец, берет себе в жены молодую крупную девушку с Ямайки. Самад Икбал вступает в брак по договоренности и вынужден ждать, пока его жена появится на свет. И если бы обоих друзей ждало счастливое будущее! Дети приносят головную боль, прошлое наступает на пятки, и никому нет покоя в этом многослойном романе.
Марк Z. Данилевский3.9 Роман ужасов о стремительно расширяющемся доме; история о силе любви; сатира на псевдонаучные спекуляции; фундаментальное исследование о фильме, которого не существует, сделанное слепым стариком; записки из лабиринтов подсознания; сентиментальное блуждание по инфернальным кругам жизни - все это в бесконечном переплетении создает единый сюжет "Дома листьев".
Дэйв Эггерс3.5 Книга современного американского писателя Дэйва Эггерса — душераздирающее творение ошеломляющего гения, история новейших времен и поколения X глазами двадцатилетнего человека, попавшего в крайне тяжелое положение.
Одно из величайших произведений современной мировой литературы в 2001 году было номинировано на Пулитцеровскую премию. Ни одно произведение последних сорока лет после книг Дж. Д. Сэлинджера не вызывало такую бурю откликов во всем мире.
Наоми Кляйн4.1 Это одновременно серьезное экономическое и культурологическое исследование, политический манифест, научная монография и увлекательное журналистское расследование, критикующее глобализацию, неолиберализм и современный экономический порядок, при котором мир, опутанный сетями глобальных брэндов, лишен возможности свободного выбора и не может полноценно развиваться.
Тэд Кархарт3.0 Walking his two young children to school every morning, Thad Carhart passes an unassuming little storefront in his Paris neighborhood. Intrigued by its simple sign — Desforges Pianos — he enters, only to have his way barred by the shop's imperious owner.
Unable to stifle his curiosity, he finally lands the proper introduction, and a world previously hidden is brought into view. Luc, the atelier's master, proves an indispensable guide to the history and art of the piano. Intertwined with the story of a musical friendship are reflections on how pianos work, their glorious history, and stories of the people who care for them, from amateur pianists to the craftsmen who make the mechanism sing. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is at once a beguiling portrait of a Paris not found on any map and a tender account of the awakening of a lost childhood passion.
Praise for The Piano Shop on the Left Bank:
[Carhart's] writing is fluid and lovely enough to lure the rustiest plunker back to the piano bench and the most jaded traveler back to Paris. San Francisco Chronicle
Captivating . . . [Carhart] joins the tiny company of foreigners who have written of the French as verbs. . . . What he tries to capture is not the sight of them, but what they see. The New York Times
Thoroughly engaging . . . In part it is a book about that most unpredictable and pleasurable of human experiences, serendipity. . . . The book is also about something more difficult to pin down, friendship and community. The Washington Post
Carhart writes with a sensuousness enhanced by patience and grounded by the humble acquisition of new insight into music, his childhood, and his relationship to the city of Paris. The New Yorker
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
Trezza Azzopardi0.0 A scalding, thrilling book - Observer . Set in the Maltese community of Tiger Bay, and peopled with sharp-edged, luminously drawn characters, The Hiding Place is the story of Frank Gauci, his wife Mary, and their six daughters. Through the eyes of Dolores, the youngest daughter, we see the underworld of 1960's Cardiff, a life of gaming rooms and cafes, of crumbling houses and burning secrets which tear this family apart. Thirty years on, a reunion with her estranged sisters brings Dolores face to face with the betrayals which have haunted her past, where the truth is finally and tragically played out. An extraordinarily instinctive write with a delicate feel for language...Azzopardi has written a scalding, thrilling book about the havoc and despair it is possible to wreak inside a family - Observer . The Hiding Place manages to be heart-breaking without being sentimental. Fans of Kate Atkinson and Andrea Ashworth will love this Read and weep - Mirror . The Hiding Place is an accomplished and courageous debut...In its sheer strangeness and poetic charge, the novel sometimes recalls other literary one-offs such as Wuthering Heights . - Times Literary Supplement . A gripping tale, horrifying and often funny. This relationship between girls, who must fight to survive, is brilliantly evoked . - Marie Claire, Book of the month .
Раджив Баласубраманьям0.0 In Beautiful Disguises tells the story of a sixteen-year-old girl living in a small town in South India. Life is not easy, especially when she's been blessed with a family that includes a brother who watches TV as an occupation; a father who drinks and regularly bullies his family in alcoholic rage; and a silent, all-suffering mother. Insulated by her dreams of becoming Audrey Hepburn (and daily trips to the local cinema), she observes her family with critical detachment. But her inner world begins to crumble when the inevitable marriage is arranged for her and she runs away to Delhi to work as a maid. There, she falls in with the misfit members of her new household; Raju, the servant with the heart of a revolutionary, Maneka the maid who mysteriously disappears every night, and the seductive but arrogant Armand. But even as she embraces this brave new world she realizes that she can't run forever.
Balasubramanyam writes with an effortless air and a strong sense of mischief, but this lightness is shot through with intelligence and a compassion for human frailty. He has created an unforgettable heroine--childlike but determined, naïve yet shrewd--whose delightful voice resonates through the book.
Эндрю Х. Фам0.0 Catfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey—a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam—made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland.
Andrew X. Pham was born in Vietnam and raised in California. His father had been a POW of the Vietcong; his family came to America as "boat people." Following the suicide of his sister, Pham quit his job, sold all of his possessions, and embarked on a year-long bicycle journey that took him through the Mexican desert, around a thousand-mile loop from Narita to Kyoto in Japan; and, after five months and 2,357 miles, to Saigon, where he finds "nothing familiar in the bombed-out darkness." In Vietnam, he's taken for Japanese or Korean by his countrymen, except, of course, by his relatives, who doubt that as a Vietnamese he has the stamina to complete his journey ("Only Westerners can do it"); and in the United States he's considered anything but American. A vibrant, picaresque memoir written with narrative flair and an eye-opening sense of adventure, Catfish and Mandala is an unforgettable search for cultural identity.
