In Homer’s account in , Penelope—wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy—is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife, her story a salutary lesson through the ages. Left alone for twenty years when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan war after the abduction of Helen, Penelope manages, in the face of scandalous rumours, to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca, bring up her wayward son, and keep over a hundred suitors at bay, simultaneously. When Odysseus finally comes home after enduring hardships, overcoming monsters and sleeping with goddesses, he kills her suitors and—curiously—twelve of her maids.

In a splendid contemporary twist to the ancient story, Margaret Atwood has chosen to give the telling of it to Penelope and to her twelve hanged Maids, asking: ‘What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to?’ In Atwood’s dazzling, playful retelling, the story becomes as wise and compassionate as it is haunting, and as wildly entertaining as it is disturbing

With wit and verve, drawing on the storytelling and poetic talent for which she herself is renowned, she gives Penelope new life and reality—and sets out to provide an answer to an ancient mystery.

Born into a long line of distinguished lepidopterists, scientists who study moths and butterflies, Ginny and Vivien grew up in a sprawling Victorian home. Forty-seven years later, Ginny lives there alone, tending to her moths and obsessions amid the ghosts of her past.

But when her sister Vivien returns to the crumbling family mansion, dark, unspoken secrets rise, disrupting Ginny's ordered life and threatening the family's fragile peace. Told in Ginny's unforgettable voice, this debut novel tells a disquieting story of two sisters and the ties that bind-sometimes a little too tightly.

The editor-in-chief of French Elle, Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered a stroke that resulted in locked-in syndrome when he was 43 years old. He died just two days after the French publication of his book.

Michael Cunningham, Francine Prose, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Jim Shepard, and more than thirty other extraordinary writers celebrate fairy tales in this thrilling new volume. Inspire by everything from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" and "The Little Match Girl" to Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard" and "Cinderella" to the Brothers Grimm's "Hansel and Gretel" and "Rumpelstiltskin" to fairy tales by Goethe and Calvino and from China, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, Norway, and Mexico, here are stories that soar into boundless realms, filled with mischief and mystery and magic, and renewed by the lifeblood of invention. Although rooted in hundreds of years of tradition, they chart the imaginative frontiers of the twenty-first century as powerfully as they evoke our earliest encounters with literature.

She doesn't want her turn on the catwalk-she'd rather be behind the scenes creating fabulous outfits! So when a famous fashionista discovers Emma's designs and offers her the opportunity of a lifetime-a feature in Madison magazine (squeal!)-Emma sort of, well, panics. She has only one option: to create a secret identity.

And so Allegra Biscotti is born.

Allegra is worldly, sophisticated, and bold-everything Emma is not. But the pressure is on. And Emma quickly discovers juggling school, a new crush, friends, and a secret identity might not be as glamorous as she thought.

IOANA BRADEA s-a născut pe 19 octombrie 1975 la Bistriţa. A studiat vioara, timp de opt ani, la Liceul de Muzică „Tudor Jarda”, şi apoi limbi străine la Colegiul Naţional „Liviu Rebreanu” din Bistriţa şi la Universitatea din Bucureşti (Secţia portugheză–franceză). A publicat până acum trei romane: Băgău (Editura Est, 2004), care a primit Premiul pentru debut al Uniunii Scriitorilor din România, Scotch (Editura Polirom, 2010) şi Înalt este numele tău (Editura Humanitas, 2017). A muncit în Bucureşti, într-o piaţă şi apoi la o revistă de scurtă durată, în Bistriţa, prin fabrici şi uzine, ca translator, la un post de radio şi la o cafenea proprie etc. În prezent este căsătorită, are trei copii şi trăieşte la Bistriţa, unde lucrează la un cotidian online.

When Master Drachton Below unleashed a plague of sleep, which ironically claims him as well as his targets, Cley realizes that he will have to journey into his former master's memory to find a solution.

Sent from the Well-Built City to a barren mining town, physiognomist Cley is directed to find the thief who has stolen a supernatural and legendary white fruit that grew in the Earthly Paradise.

John living was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, and he once admitted that he was a “grim” child. Although he excelled in English at school and knew by the time he graduated that he wanted to write novels, it was not until he met a young Southern novelist named John Yount, at the University of New Hampshire, that he received encouragement. “It was so simple,” he remembers. “Yount was the first person to point out that anything I did except writing was going to be vaguely unsatisfying.”

In 1963, Irving enrolled at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, and he later worked as a university lecturer. His first novel, about a plot to release all the animals from the Vienna Zoo, was followed by a comic tale of a man with a urinary complaint, and which exposes the complications of spouse-swapping. Irving achieved international recognition with which he hoped would “cause a few smiles among the tough-minded and break a few softer hearts.”

Copyright © Garp Enterprises Ltd 1981

“A Birthday Candle” Copyright © 1957 by Donald Justice. This poem first appeared in

“On the death of Friends and Childhood” Copyright © 1959 by Donald Justice.

“Love Stratagems” Copyright © 1958 by Donald Justice. This poem first appeared in

“To a Ten-Months’ Child” Copyright 1960 by Donald Justice.

“Tales from a Family Album” Copyright © 1957 by Donald Justice. These poems reprinted from by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

“The Evening of the Mind” Copyright © 1965 by Donald Justice. This poem first appeared in

“The Tourist from Syracuse” Copyright © 1965 by Donald Justice.

“Men of Forty” Copyright © 1966 by Donald Justice. This poem first appeared in These poems reprinted from by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

“I Forgot To Forget” Copyright © by permission of Stanley Kesler; Highlow Music Inc. 639 Madison Avenue, Memphis, Tn. 38130.

“I Love You Because” by Leon Payne Copyright © 1949 by Fred Rose Music, Inc. Used by permission of the Publisher. All rights reserved.

The novelist is indebted to the following works and wishes to express his gratitude to the authors: , by Carl E. Schorske; , by Frederic Morton; , by J. Sydney Jones; , by David Pryce-Jones and the Editors of Time-Life Books; , by Gaetano Donizetti, the Dover Opera Guide and Libretto Series, (introduced and translated by Ellen H. Bleiler); and by Sigmund Freud.

With special thanks to Donald Justice. And with special thanks and special affection—to Lesley Claire and the Sonoma County Rape Crisis Center of Santa Rosa, California.

On July 18, 1980 the Stanhope Hotel on Eighty-first and Fifth Avenue changed management and ownership and became the American Stanhope—a fine hotel currently not beset by the problems of the Stanhope described in this fiction.

John living was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942, and he once admitted that he was a “grim” child. Although he excelled in English at school and knew by the time he graduated that he wanted to write novels, it was not until he met a young Southern novelist named John Yount, at the University of New Hampshire, that he received encouragement. “It was so simple,” he remembers. “Yount was the first person to point out that anything I did except writing was going to be vaguely unsatisfying.”

In 1963, Irving enrolled at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, and he later worked as a university lecturer. His first novel, about a plot to release all the animals from the Vienna Zoo, was followed by a comic tale of a man with a urinary complaint, and which exposes the complications of spouse-swapping. Irving achieved international recognition with which he hoped would “cause a few smiles among the tough-minded and break a few softer hearts.”

Copyright © Garp Enterprises Ltd 1981

“A Birthday Candle” Copyright © 1957 by Donald Justice. This poem first appeared in

“On the death of Friends and Childhood” Copyright © 1959 by Donald Justice.

“Love Stratagems” Copyright © 1958 by Donald Justice. This poem first appeared in

“To a Ten-Months’ Child” Copyright 1960 by Donald Justice.

“Tales from a Family Album” Copyright © 1957 by Donald Justice. These poems reprinted from by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

“The Evening of the Mind” Copyright © 1965 by Donald Justice. This poem first appeared in

“The Tourist from Syracuse” Copyright © 1965 by Donald Justice.

“Men of Forty” Copyright © 1966 by Donald Justice. This poem first appeared in These poems reprinted from by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

“I Forgot To Forget” Copyright © by permission of Stanley Kesler; Highlow Music Inc. 639 Madison Avenue, Memphis, Tn. 38130.

“I Love You Because” by Leon Payne Copyright © 1949 by Fred Rose Music, Inc. Used by permission of the Publisher. All rights reserved.

The novelist is indebted to the following works and wishes to express his gratitude to the authors: , by Carl E. Schorske; , by Frederic Morton; , by J. Sydney Jones; , by David Pryce-Jones and the Editors of Time-Life Books; , by Gaetano Donizetti, the Dover Opera Guide and Libretto Series, (introduced and translated by Ellen H. Bleiler); and by Sigmund Freud.

With special thanks to Donald Justice. And with special thanks and special affection—to Lesley Claire and the Sonoma County Rape Crisis Center of Santa Rosa, California.

On July 18, 1980 the Stanhope Hotel on Eighty-first and Fifth Avenue changed management and ownership and became the American Stanhope—a fine hotel currently not beset by the problems of the Stanhope described in this fiction.

Romanul este mai mult unul „cu go” decât „despre go”. Meijin a fost citit de

obicei ca o elegie pentru lumea pierdută de japonezi pe măsură ce se

modernizau, sau ca expresia confruntării dintre sensibilitatea estetizantă

tradiţională şi raţionalismul ştiinţific occidental. Cele două lumi sunt

concentrate în exponenţii a două generaţii care, întâmplător, îşi dispută o

partidă de go. Iar cei doi protagonişti, deşi au elemente comune, sunt

prezentaţi de autor ca personalităţi total diferite.

"En fait, j'aurais tout aussi bien pu ne pas écrire. Après tout, ce n'est pas une obligation. Depuis la guerre, je suis resté un homme discret; grâce à Dieu, je n'ai jamais eu besoin, comme certains de mes anciens collègues, d'écrire mes Mémoires à fin de justification, car je n'ai rien à justifier, ni dans un but lucratif, car je gagne assez bien ma vie comme ça. Je ne regrette rien: j'ai fait mon travail, voilà tout; quant à mes histoires de famille, que je raconterai peut-être aussi, elles ne concernent que moi; et pour le reste, vers la fin, j'ai sans doute forcé la limite, mais là je n'étais plus tout à fait moi-même, je vacillais, le monde entier basculait, je ne fus pas le seul à perdre la tête, reconnaissez-le. Malgré mes travers, et ils ont été nombreux, je suis resté de ceux qui pensent que les seules choses indispensables à la vie humaine sont l'air, le manger, le boire et l'excrétion, et la recherche de la vérité. Le reste est facultatif."Avec cette somme qui s'inscrit aussi bien sous l'égide d'Eschyle que dans la lignée de Vie et destin de Vassili Grossman ou des Damnés de Visconti, Jonathan Littell nous fait revivre les horreurs de la Seconde Guerre mondiale du côté des bourreaux, tout en nous montrant un homme comme rarement on l'avait fait: l'épopée d'un être emporté dans la traversée de lui-même et de l'Histoire.

Nebula Best Novellette nominee (1990)

"On est volontiers persuadé d'avoir lu beaucoup de choses à propos de l'holocauste, on est convaincu d'en savoir au moins autant. Et, convenons-en avec une sincérité égale au sentiment de la honte, quelquefois, devant l'accumulation, on a envie de crier grâce. C'est que l'on n'a pas encore entendu Levi analyser la nature complexe de l'état du malheur. Peu l'ont prouvé aussi bien que Levi, qui a l'air de nous retenir par les basques au bord du menaçant oubli : si la littérature n'est pas écrite pour rappeler les morts aux vivants, elle n'est que futilité." Angelo Rinaldi." 'Si c'est un homme', occupe une place centrale dans la littérature de témoignage sur l'extermination des Juifs d'Europe et l'univers concentrationnaire."J.-B. Marongiu – "Libération"

Sospesi tra storia e invenzione in un Medioevo che sembra vero, sono qui raccolti in un unico volume tre romanzi di Laura Mancinelli, in cui l'autrice approda a una visione fantastica e affettuosamente ironica della tradizione e della società medioevale: "I dodici abati di Challant", dove, in una cornice di ironia mondana e gaudente, dodici monaci ricevono l'incarico di sorvegliare un feudatario che eredita un castello con la clausola di mantener fede a un maligno obbligo di castità; "Il miracolo di Santa Odilia", immagine della vita che si afferma in chiave religiosa, ma non trascendente, attraverso la storia di due Odilie: la prima devota e pia, la seconda giovane e bella; e infine, conclusione ideale di questa metafora ideale, "Gli occhi dell'imperatore", dove una contessa piemontese, un cavaliere-musico-poeta e l'imperatore Federico II, ormai prossimo alla morte, partecipano a un affascinante percorso di avventure e sentimenti, che è anche un intreccio di entusiasmo, rassegnazione e senso del destino.

"Pixel Juice" is a selection of fifty stories from Jeff Noon's fertile imagination, each one strange, telling, disturbing or sometimes just plain weird. Most of the tales are surprising such as finding an "off" switch for the human body.

The first short story collection by award-winning author Ekaterina Sedia!

One of the more resonant voices to emerge in recent years, this Russian-born author explores the edge between the mundane and fantastical in tales inspired by her homeland as well as worldwide folkloric traditions.

With foreword by World Fantasy Award-winner Jeffrey Ford, showcases singular and lyrical writing that will appeal to fans of slipstream and magical realism, as well as those interested in the uncanny and Russian history.

En los años sombríos del nazismo, desaparecen de un rincón secreto de la prisión de Spandau unas valiosísimas monedas de oro. Casi cincuenta años después, caído el Muro de Berlín, dos personajes oscuros pero poderosos, con un pasado político turbio, contratan cada uno por su lado a dos «antiguos combatientes», Juan Belmonte -el que tiene nombre de torero – y Frank Galinsky. En «paro» laboral e ideológico, ambos deben partir en busca de un botín robado que nadie se atreve en realidad a reclamar oficialmente. Belmonte acepta el encargo por amor a Verónica, Galinsky, por un viejo hábito de obediencia militante cuyo ideal es ahora el de enriquecerse «como todos los demás». Al mismo tiempo, al otro lado del mundo, un viejo humilde y solitario recibe un misterioso mensaje ¿Llegarán a enfrentarse Belmonte y Galinsky? ¿Existe realmente el tesoro? En tiempos implacables como los que vivimos, ¿vencerá el amor o la codicia?

»Ich habe täglich mit toten Menschen zu tun, aber auch mit deren sehr lebendigen Hinterbliebenen. Tote sind friedlich und machen keine Probleme. Mit den Lebenden ist das oft anders – und genau davon möchte ich erzählen.«

Der tote Weihnachtsmann auf der Firmenfeier, die steinreiche, aber furchtbar geizige Witwe oder der traurigste Abschied aller Zeiten – es gibt kaum etwas zwischen Leben und Tod, das Peter Wilhelm in seiner jahrzehntelangen Erfahrung im Bestattungsgewerbe noch nicht erlebt hat. Anrührend und urkomisch nimmt er uns mit in die verborgene Welt von Schaufel, Sarg und Trauerflor.

Peter Wilhelm ist seit 30 Jahren im Bestattungswesen tätig. Schon Ende der 70er Jahre arbeitete er das erste Mal in einem Betrieb des Bestattungsgewerbes. Seither war er außerdem als Sachbearbeiter und Bestatter in einem Bestattungskonzern, als Inhaber eines Bestattungshauses mit mehreren Filialen und als freier Berater in der Bestattungsindustrie tätig. 

Seit dem Jahr 2007 bloggt er regelmäßig als Tom, der Undertaker bei www.bestatterweblog.de.