Edgewood is many houses, all put inside each other, or across each other. It’s filled with and surrounded by mystery and enchantment: the further in you go, the bigger it gets. Smoky Barnable, who has fallen in love with Daily Alice Drinkwater, comes to Edgewood, her family home, where he finds himself drawn into a world of magical strangeness. Crowley’s work has a special alchemy—mixing the world we know with an imagined world which seems more true and real. Winner of the World Fantasy Award, Little, Big is eloquent, sensual, funny and unforgettable, a truly Fantasy Masterwork.

Nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and BSFA awards in 1982.

Won World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1982.

Wielopokoleniowa saga rodziny Drinkwaterów i ich kuzynów, mieszkających w Edgewood i okolicach. Wszyscy wierzą, że obok naszego, realnego świata, istnieje drugi, w którym magia jest możliwa, ryby mówią ludzkim głosem, a las zamieszkują wróżki, gnomy i inne stworzenia. Drinkwaterowie są z tym światem nierozerwalnie związani i chronieni, jednak z czasem – wskutek upływu czasu i zapomnienia – ta więź słabnie i na rodzinę spadają kolejne nieszczęścia. Również świat ogarnia powoli szaleństwo.

Aby przywrócić równowagę światu bohaterowie powieści podejmują próbę ponownego zawiązania tej więzi.

Review

From the prize-winning author of Empires of the Sea comes an epic work of narrative maritime history.

Product Description

A magisterial work of gripping history, City of Fortune tells the story of the Venetian ascent from lagoon dwellers to the greatest power in the Mediterranean – an epic five hundred year voyage that encompassed crusade and trade, plague, sea battles and colonial adventure. In Venice, the path to empire unfolded in a series of extraordinary contests – the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, the fight to the finish with Genoa and a desperate defence against the Turks. Under the lion banner of St Mark, she created an empire of ports and naval bases which funnelled the goods of the world through its wharfs. In the process the city became the richest place on earth – a brilliant mosaic fashioned from what it bought, traded, borrowed and stole. Based on first hand accounts of trade and warfare, seafaring and piracy and the places where Venetians sailed and died, City of Fortune is narrative history at its finest. Beginning on Ascension Day in the year 1000 and ending with an explosion off the coast of Greece – and the calamitous news that the Portuguese had pioneered a sea route to India – it will fascinate anyone who loves Venice and the Mediterranean world.

From Booklist

MGM's sf thriller Forbidden Planet (1956), about the search for an expedition lost on a hazardous planet, has been the model for a cottage industry's worth of TV series and movies. Any show featuring a starship, a captain, and crew--particularly Star Trek and its many spin-offs--owes a debt to the Shakespeare-inspired motion picture. For the fiftieth anniversary of the movie's premiere, editor Crowther solicited 12 new stories set on other treacherous planets humans would have more wisely avoided. Ray Bradbury introduces the volume with the twin revelations that he declined writing FP's screenplay and would have exterminated its famous robot, Robby, if he hadn't. Jay Lake's story offers an alternate "forbidden" plotline based on King Lear instead of the movie's template, The Tempest, while Matthew Hughes' dissects a forbidden and deadly alien plant instead of a planet. Other notable contributions come from Ian McDonald, Michael Moorcock, and space-opera specialist Stephen Baxter, who gives a penetrating analysis of the film's enduring influence on his own work as well as his chosen genre. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 9 Up—Two voices alternate chapters in this aptly titled, lyrical Australian novel of unexpected friendship and self-acceptance. Charlie, a shy and lonely Melbournian, keeps her songwriting private and her thoughts to herself when spending her 16th summer in her grandfather's small town. She's always tried not to notice the snubs from the girl next door, Rose; her boyfriend, Luke; and their friend, Dave, who, Charlie notes, "hangs behind…like the backbeat to a song." This summer, however, Rose is bored and looking for a way to get to the city, and befriending Charlie might be her ticket. And then there's Dave, to Charlie, "a guy worth writing songs about." To readers he is indeed the perfect boy, ideal for a summer romance. Charlie's voice is unforgettable: every page sings with a music-related insight or metaphor: kissing him, "the stars sound like harmonicas." Rose's chapters initially are near-straight dialogue, her blunt locution showcasing her anger and ennui. But as she opens herself up to Charlie, they gain introspection and poetic phraseology: "the sky explodes around the two of us. The world is fat with color." The teens' language is also raw, but totally realistic. Give this incredible, satisfying book to fans of Sarah Dessen, Karen Foxlee, Melina Marchetta, Ellen Wittlinger—actually, give it to any teen girl who longs a little and feels too much—Australian or not.—Rhona Campbell, Washington, DC Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Crowley’s tale of love, loss, and betrayal in small-town Australia is built around music as a means of communication. In alternating chapters, city-girl Charlie Duskin and country-girl Rose Butler reveal their thoughts, desires, and plans. Charlie is a painfully shy but talented singer-songwriter who never performs for anyone and has always wanted to be part of Rose’s circle during her frequent visits from the city. Rose longs to get away from the stifling small-town atmosphere and has won a scholarship to a prestigious high school in the city to study science. Rose sees Charlie as a ticket to a new life, while Charlie sees Rose as a friend, something she desperately needs in her dysfunctional family. Charlie’s songs augment the text throughout, enhancing the already lyrical prose. Crowley captures quiet moments with aching beauty and tenderness; her empathy for teen girls recalls Deb Caletti and Sarah Dessen. Music-loving teens will appreciate Crowley’s eloquent descriptions of performing and enjoying music, and how it becomes the means to express difficult messages. Grades 8-12. --Debbie Carton

Review

“John Crowley is an abundantly gifted writer.”

Product Description

A master literary stylist, John Crowley has carried readers to diverse and remarkable places in his award-winning, critically acclaimed novels -- from his classic fable, Little, Big, to his New York Times Notable Book, The Translator. Now, for the first time, all of his short fiction has been collected in one volume, demonstrating the scope, the vision, and the wonder of one of America's greatest storytellers. Courage and achievement are celebrated and questioned, paradoxes examined, and human frailty appreciated in fifteen tales, at once lyrical and provocative, ranging fromthe fantastic to the achingly real. Be it a tale of an expulsion from Eden, a journey through time, the dreams of a failed writer, ora dead woman's ambiguous legacy, each story in Novelties & Souvenirs is a glorious reading experience, offering delights to be savored ... and remembered.

Product Description

The Deep

In a twilight land, two warring powers -- the Reds and the Blacks -- play out an ancient game of murder and betrayal. Then a Visitor from beyond the sky arrives to play a part in this dark and bloody pageant. From the moment he is found by two women who tend to the dead in the wake of battles, it is clear that the great game is to change at last.

Beasts

It is the day after tomorrow, and society has been altered dramatically by experimentation that enables scientists to combine the genetic material of different species, mixing DNA of humans with animals. Loren Casaubon is an ethologist drawn into the political and social vortex that results with Leo -- a creature both man and lion -- at its center.

Engine Summer

A young man named Rush That Speaks is growing up in a far distant world -- one that only dimly remembers our own age, the wondrous age of the Angels, when men could fly. Now it is the "engine summer of the world," and Rush goes in search of the Saints who can teach him to speak truthfully, and be immortal in the stories he tells. The immortality that awaits him, though, is one he could not have imagined.

About the Author

John Crowley lives in the hills of northern Massachusetts with his wife and twin daughters. He is the author of ten previous novels as well as the short fiction collection, Novelties & Souvenirs.