At the age of nine, Juan Salvatierra became mute following a horse riding accident. At twenty, he began secretly painting a series of long rolls of canvas in which he minutely detailed six decades of life in his village on Argentina’s river frontier with Uruguay. After the death of Salvatierra, his sons return to the village from Buenos Aires to deal with their inheritance: a shed packed with painted rolls of canvas stretching over two miles in length and depicting personal and communal history. Museum curators from Europe come calling to acquire this strange, gargantuan artwork. But an essential roll is missing. A search ensues that illuminates the links between art and life, as an intrigue of family secrets buried in the past cast their shadows on the present.

“An existential fable” from the uncompromising Polish author of Killing the Second Dog, known as the James Dean of Eastern Europe (The New York Times). In this novel of breathtaking tension and sweltering love, two desperate friends on the edge of the law—one of them tough and gutsy, the other small and scared—travel to the southern Israeli city of Eilat to find work. There, Dov Ben Dov, the handsome native Israeli with a reputation for causing trouble, and Israel, his sidekick, stay with Ben Dov’s recently married younger brother, Little Dov, who has enough trouble of his own. Local toughs are encroaching on Little Dov’s business, and he enlists his older brother to drive them away. It doesn’t help that a beautiful German widow named Ursula is rooming next door. What follows is a story of passion, deception, violence, and betrayal, all conveyed in hardboiled prose reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, with a cinematic style that would make Humphrey Bogart and Marlon Brando green with envy. “[A] blowtorch of a novel . . . Matchless and prescient.” —Publishers Weekly “A story as bleak and unrelenting as its setting, in which no one escapes the past or themselves. Nihilistic but compelling.” —Kirkus Reviews Praise for Marek Hlasko “Hlasko was an original. His novels were fearless, his vision unsparing, and decades later, his darkly brilliant work has lost none of its power to unsettle. He achieved what few other writers ever have: he turned the literary landscape into a much more interesting place than it was when he found it.” ––Emily St. John Mandel, author of National Book Award finalist Station Eleven

Joyeux Noël: “[An]endearing collection of Christmas stories from ten of France’s most esteemed writers―past and present―skillfully translated.” ―Foreword Reviews This collection brings together the best French Christmas stories of all time, featuring classics by Guy de Maupassant and Alphonse Daudet, plus stories by the esteemed twentieth century authors Irène Némirovsky and Nobel Prize winner Anatole France and contemporary writers Dominique Fabre and Jean-Philippe Blondel. With a holiday spirit conveyed through sparkling Paris streets, opulent feasts, wandering orphans, kindly monks, homesick soldiers, oysters, crayfish, ham, bonbons, flickering desire, and more than a little wine, this collection encapsulates Christmas à la française—delicious, intense and unexpected.

Twenty-year-old Taguchi Hiro has spent the last two years of his life living as a hikikomori—a shut-in who never leaves his room and has no human interaction—in his parents’ home in Tokyo. As Hiro tentatively decides to reenter the world, he spends his days observing life around him from a park bench. Gradually he makes friends with Ohara Tetsu, a middle-aged salaryman who has lost his job but can’t bring himself to tell his wife, and shows up every day in a suit and tie to pass the time on a nearby bench. As Hiro and Tetsu cautiously open up to each other, they discover in their sadness a common bond. Regrets and disappointments, as well as hopes and dreams, come to the surface until both find the strength to somehow give a new start to their lives. This beautiful novel is moving, unforgettable, and full of surprises. The reader turns the last page feeling that a small triumph has occurred.

“A Middle Eastern heart-of-darkness tale that flows like a dream . . . Crackling with razor-sharp humor” (The New York Times). At the dawn of the twentieth century, a young Lebanese explorer leaves the Levant for the wilds of Africa, encountering an eccentric English colonel in Sudan and enlisting in his service. In this lush chronicle of far-flung adventure, the military recruit crosses paths with a compatriot who has dismantled a sumptuous palace in Tripoli and is transporting it across the continent on a camel caravan. The protagonist soon takes charge of this hoard of architectural fragments, ferrying the dismantled landmark through Sudan, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula, attempting to return to his native Beirut with this moveable real estate. Along the way, he will encounter skeptic sheikhs, suspicious tribal leaders, bountiful feasts, pilgrims bound for Mecca, and T. E. Lawrence in a tent—in this “utterly charming” novel that was a recipient of the Académie Française’s François Mauriac Prize (Library Journal). “Renders the complex social landscape of the Middle East and North Africa with subtlety and finesse . . . Yet one doesn’t need to care about the region’s history, or its present-day contexts, to enjoy Moving the Palace.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A sophisticated and urbane novel with a swanky, dapper European setting that is as much Poe and Chandler as Hitchcock and Truffaut . . . A page-turner” (André Aciman, New York Times–bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name). Adrian Weynfeldt is an art expert in an international auction house, a bachelor in his mid-fifties living in a grand Zurich apartment filled with costly paintings and antiques. Always correct and well-mannered, he’s given up on love until one night—entirely out of character for him—Weynfeldt decides to take home a ravishing but unaccountable young woman. The next morning, he finds her outside on his balcony threatening to jump. Weynfeldt talks her down and soon finds himself falling for this damaged but alluring beauty and his buttoned-up existence comes unraveled. As their two lives become entangled, Weynfeldt gets embroiled in an art forgery scheme that threatens to destroy everything he and his prominent family have stood for. This refined page-turner moves behind elegant bourgeois façades into darker recesses of the heart. “Suter . . . leavens the sensationalism of crime fiction with psychological insight and melancholy . . . Comfort food for readers who crave memorable characters, romance, and touching, drawn-from-life scenes.” —Publishers Weekly “Swift, edgy . . . What distinguishes this work is the air of slightly faded existential elegance, which sets off the modern setting splendidly . . . Great for sophisticated suspense fans.” —Library Journal (starred review) “Set in the midst of that vibrant and bizarre organism known as the art world. A captivating read about a memorable protagonist.” —Noah Charney, author of The Museum of Lost Art

"Animal Internet is a most important book. This excellent work could be a strong catalyst for people to rewild, to reconnect and become re-enchanted with all sorts of mysterious and fascinating animals, both local and distant. By shrinking the world it will bring humans and other animals together in a multitude of ways that only a few years ago were unimaginable." —Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, author of Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence "An original book that goes against the trend to stubbornly keep nature and technology divided from one another."—Der Spiegel "Animal Internet is one of the most interesting books that I've read in recent years."—Bavarian Radio "What Pschera describes sounds futuristic but it's already widespread reality . . . Pschera's book is not just popular science: he describes not only the status quo, but also thinks about an ongoing transformation."—Wired.de Some fifty thousand creatures around the globe—including whales, leopards, flamingoes, bats, and snails—are being equipped with digital tracking devices. The data gathered and studied by major scientific institutes about their behavior will warn us about tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but also radically transform our relationship to the natural world. With a broad cultural and historical perspective, this book examines human ties with animals, from domestic pets to the soaring popularity of bird watching and kitten images on the web. Will millennia of exploration soon be reduced to experiencing wilderness via smartphone? Contrary to pessimistic fears, author Alexander Pschera sees the Internet as creating a historic opportunity for a new dialogue between man and nature. Foreword by Martin Wikelski, Director, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology Alexander Pschera, born in 1964, has published several books on the internet and media. He studied German, music, and philosophy at Heidelberg University. He lives near Munich where he writes for the German magazine Cicero as well as for German radio.

This masterful novel represents an epic literary attempt to examine a very troubled Russia.

This murder mystery set in the Parisian cathedral is “a twisted and riveting story . . . Highly original” (Toronto Star). Fifty thousand believers and photo-hungry tourists jam into Notre Dame Cathedral on August 15 to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. The next morning, a stunningly beautiful young woman clothed all in white kneels at prayer in a cathedral side chapel. But when an American tourist accidentally bumps against her, her body collapses. She has been murdered. The autopsy reveals disturbing details. Police investigators and priests search for the killer as they discover other truths about guilt and redemption within the walls of this soaring Paris refuge for the lost, the damned, and the saved. The suspect is a disturbed young man obsessed with the Virgin Mary who spends his days hallucinating in front of a Madonna. But someone else knows the true killer of the white-clad daughter of Algerian immigrants, in this thrilling novel of good and evil that illuminates shadowy corners of the world’s most famous cathedral.

“This powerful book of cultural criticism” by the renowned art historian “shines a harsh light on” a historic city’s destruction in the name of profit (The Washington Post). What is Venice worth? To whom do its irreplaceable treasures belong? This eloquent book by art historian Salvatore Settis urgently poses these questions, igniting a new debate about urban stewardship and cultural patrimony at large. As Venice grows increasingly unaffordable and inhospitable to its own residents, Venetians are abandoning their hometown at an alarming rate. At last count, there was only one local for every 140 visitors. As it capitulates to tourists and those who profit from them, Venice’s transformation into a lifeless shell of itself has become emblematic of the future of historic cities everywhere. In this blend of history and cultural analysis, written with wide-ranging erudition and élan, Settis makes a passionate plea to secure the soul of Venice. “Anyone interested in learning what is really going on in Venice should read this book.” —Donna Leon, author of My Venice and Other Essays and Death at La Fenice