There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In

There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In
Author :
Publisher : Penguin UK
Total Pages : 132
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780141973142
ISBN-13 : 0141973145
Rating : 4/5 (42 Downloads)

Synopsis There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In by : Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Here are attempts at human connection, both depraved and sublime, and the grinding struggle to survive against the crushing realities of the Soviet system: in Among Friends, a doting mother commits an atrocious act against her beloved son in an attempt to secure his future; The Time: Night examines the suicide of the great Russian poetess Anna Andreevna with heartbreaking clarity; while in Chocolates with Liqueur the struggle for ownership of an apartment between a nurse and a madman turns murderous. With the satirical eye of Cindy Sherman, the psychological perceptiveness of Dostoevsky, and the bleak absurdities of Beckett, Petrushevskaya blends macabre spectacle with transformative moments of grace and shows just why she is Russia's preeminent contemporary fiction writer.

The Girl from the Metropol Hotel

The Girl from the Metropol Hotel
Author :
Publisher : Penguin
Total Pages : 182
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781101993514
ISBN-13 : 1101993510
Rating : 4/5 (14 Downloads)

Synopsis The Girl from the Metropol Hotel by : Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography The prizewinning memoir of one of the world’s great writers, about coming of age as an enemy of the people and finding her voice in Stalinist Russia Born across the street from the Kremlin in the opulent Metropol Hotel—the setting of the New York Times bestselling novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles—Ludmilla Petrushevskaya grew up in a family of Bolshevik intellectuals who were reduced in the wake of the Russian Revolution to waiting in bread lines. In The Girl from the Metropol Hotel, her prizewinning memoir, she recounts her childhood of extreme deprivation—of wandering the streets like a young Edith Piaf, singing for alms, and living by her wits like Oliver Twist, a diminutive figure far removed from the heights she would attain as an internationally celebrated writer. As she unravels the threads of her itinerant upbringing—of feigned orphandom, of sleeping in freight cars and beneath the dining tables of communal apartments, of the fugitive pleasures of scraps of food—we see, both in her remarkable lack of self-pity and in the two dozen photographs throughout the text, her feral instinct and the crucible in which her gift for giving voice to a nation of survivors was forged. “From heartrending facts Petrushevskaya concocts a humorous and lyrical account of the toughest childhood and youth imaginable. . . . It [belongs] alongside the classic stories of humanity’s beloved plucky child heroes: Edith Piaf, Charlie Chaplin, the Artful Dodger, Gavroche, David Copperfield. . . . The child is irresistible and so is the adult narrator who creates a poignant portrait from the rags and riches of her memory.” —Anna Summers, from the Introduction

The Sense of an Ending

The Sense of an Ending
Author :
Publisher : Vintage
Total Pages : 158
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780307957337
ISBN-13 : 0307957330
Rating : 4/5 (37 Downloads)

Synopsis The Sense of an Ending by : Julian Barnes

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

Verity

Verity
Author :
Publisher : Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages : 295
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781538724743
ISBN-13 : 153872474X
Rating : 4/5 (43 Downloads)

Synopsis Verity by : Colleen Hoover

Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Too Late and It Ends With Us. #1 New York Times Bestseller · USA Today Bestseller · Globe and Mail Bestseller · Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.

Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton, An Autobiography

Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton, An Autobiography
Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages : 265
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780871403421
ISBN-13 : 0871403420
Rating : 4/5 (21 Downloads)

Synopsis Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton, An Autobiography by : J. G. Ballard

A final statement from the greatest clairvoyant of twentieth-century literature. Never before published in America, this revelatory autobiography—hailed as “fascinating [and] amazingly lucid” (Guardian)—charts the remarkable story of James Graham Ballard, a man described by Martin Amis as “the most original English writer of the last century.” Beginning with his Shanghai childhood, Miracles of Life guides us from the deprivations of Lunghua Camp during World War II, which provide the back story for his best-selling Empire of the Sun, to his arrival in war-torn England and his emergence as “the ideal chronicler of our disturbed modernity” (Observer). With prose of characteristic precision, Ballard movingly recalls his first attempts at science fiction, the 1970 American pulping of The Atrocity Exhibition—which sprang from his fascination with JFK conspiracy theories—and his life as a single father after the premature death of his wife. “This book should make yet more converts to a cause that Ballard’s devotees have been pleading for years” (Independent).

A Feast of Snakes

A Feast of Snakes
Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Total Pages : 195
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780684842486
ISBN-13 : 0684842483
Rating : 4/5 (86 Downloads)

Synopsis A Feast of Snakes by : Harry Crews

From the acclaimed author of such novels as "Blood and Grits" and "Childhood" comes a wildly weird and breathtakingly original visit to the rural South that reveals the exotic subculture that erupts in all its glory at the Rattlesnake Roundup in Mystic, Georgia. "No number of adjectives in the thesaurus can do full justice to the dazzlingly bizarre nature of Crews' creations".--"Washington Post Book World".

There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby

There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby
Author :
Publisher : Penguin
Total Pages : 225
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781101145012
ISBN-13 : 1101145013
Rating : 4/5 (12 Downloads)

Synopsis There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby by : Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the World Fantasy Award One of New York magazine’s 10 Best Books of the Year One of NPR’s 5 Best Works of Foreign Fiction The celebrated scary fairy tales of Russia’s preeminent contemporary fiction writer—the author of the prizewinning memoir about growing up in Stalinist Russia, The Girl from the Metropol Hotel Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia—or anywhere else in the world—today.

Wildalone

Wildalone
Author :
Publisher : Harper Collins
Total Pages : 310
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780062328045
ISBN-13 : 0062328042
Rating : 4/5 (45 Downloads)

Synopsis Wildalone by : Krassi Zourkova

In this enchanting and darkly imaginative debut novel full of myth, magic, romance, and mystery, a Princeton freshman is drawn into a love triangle with two enigmatic brothers, and discovers terrifying secrets about her family and herself—a bewitching blend of Twilight, The Secret History, Jane Eyre, and A Discovery of Witches. Arriving at Princeton for her freshman year, Thea Slavin finds herself alone, a stranger in a strange land. Away from her family and her Eastern European homeland for the first time, she struggles to adapt to unfamiliar American ways and the challenges of college life—including an enigmatic young man whose brooding good looks and murky past intrigue her. Falling into a romantic entanglement with Rhys and his equally handsome and mysterious brother, Jake, soon draws Thea into a sensual mythic underworld as irresistible as it is dangerous. In this shadow world that seems to mimic Greek mythology and the Bulgarian legends of the Samodivi or “wildalones”—forest witches who beguile and entrap men—she will discover a shocking secret that threatens everything she holds dear. And when the terrifying truth about her own family is revealed, it will transform her forever . . . if she falls under its spell. Mesmerizing and addictive, The Wildalone is a thrilling blend of the modern and the fantastic. Krassi Zourkova creates an atmospheric world filled with rich characters as fascinating and compelling as those of Diana Gabaldon, Deborah Harkness, and Stephenie Meyer.

The New Adventures of Helen

The New Adventures of Helen
Author :
Publisher : Deep Vellum Publishing
Total Pages : 145
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781646051045
ISBN-13 : 1646051041
Rating : 4/5 (45 Downloads)

Synopsis The New Adventures of Helen by : Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

“One of Russia’s best living writers . . . Her tales inhabit a borderline between this world and the next.” —The New York Times At first glance, the stories in The New Adventures of Helen seems simple, even child-like, but a deep reading reveals satire and darkness manifested through classic fairy tale tropes characteristically upended by Petrushevskaya. These “adult fairy tales” ask deep questions about gender, love, history, memory, and the future, taking place in times between history and the now. These stories, quirky but yet inspired by a confident hopefulness, will inspire and provoke English-speaking readers across the globe.

Shadowlines

Shadowlines
Author :
Publisher : Fremantle Press
Total Pages : 455
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781925815627
ISBN-13 : 1925815625
Rating : 4/5 (27 Downloads)

Synopsis Shadowlines by : Stephen Kinnane

A powerful and lyrical work by a writer of vision and imagination, Shadow Lines is the story of Jessie Argyle, born in the remote East Kimberley and taken from her Aboriginal family at the age of five, and Edward Smith, a young Englishman escaping the rigid strictures of London. In a society deeply divided on racial lines, Edward and Jessie met, fell in love and, against strong opposition, eventually married. Despite unrelenting surveillance and harassment, the Smith home was a centre for Aboriginal cultural and social life for over thirty years.