Category Archives: Travel Guides
Rilke in Paris
In 1902, the young German writer Rainer Maria Rilke traveled to Paris to write a monograph on the sculptor Auguste Rodin. He returned many times over the course of his life, by turns inspired and appalled by the city`s high culture and low society, and his writings give a fascinating insight into Parisian art and
On the End of the World
In January 1933, on the very day Hitler seized power in Germany, Joseph Roth fled to Paris. There, in what he called the `hour before the end of the world`, he wrote a series of articles. The end he foresaw would soon come to pass in the full horror of Hitler`s barbarism, the Second World
Isolde
“No, I`m no queen,” she repeated. “In fact, I`m very modern. Why do you look at me like that?” Left to her own devices in Biarritz, fourteen-year-old Russian Liza meets an older English boy, Cromwell, on a beach. He thinks he has found a magical, romantic beauty and insists upon calling her Isolde; she is
Vanish in an Instant
`One of the most original and vital voices in all of American crime fiction` Laura Lippman, author of SunburnVirginia Barkeley is a nice, well brought-up girl. So what is she doing wandering through a snow storm in the middle of the night, blind drunk and covered in someone else`s blood?When Claude Margolis` body is found
Days in the Caucasus
`A romantic and gloriously comic account of a heady and turbulent youth spent on the shores of the Caspian` Bryan Karetnyk, SpectatorWe all know families that are poor but `respectable`. Mine, in contrast, was extremely rich but not `respectable` at all…This is the unforgettable memoir of a childhood spent in Azerbaijan in the turbulent early
The Forging of a Rebel
The Forging of a Rebel is an unsurpassed account of Spanish history and society from early in the twentieth century through the cataclysmic events of the Spanish Civil War.Arturo Barea`s masterpiece charts the author`s coming-of-age in a bruised and starkly unequal Spain. These three volumes recount in lively detail Barea`s daily experience of his country
The New Sorrows of Young W.
`I was just a regular idiot, a nutcase, a show-off and all that. Nothing to cry about. Seriously`Edgar W., teenage dropout, unrequited lover, unrecognized genius – and dead – tells the story of his brief, spectacular life.It is the story of how he rebels against the petty rules of communist East Germany to live in
Arturo`s Island
In this little-known classic of Italian literature, young Arturo grows up in near-isolation on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples. His mother died in childbirth and his wayward father, who left him as a child in the care of a servant on the island, returns only sporadically. Cut off from the island
Love in a Bottle
Hungarian Antal Szerb is best known in the West as the author of three extraordinary novels, most notably Journey by Moonlight (1937), and a highly entertaining study of the Ancient Regime in France: The Queen`s Necklace (1942).This selection of his stories and novellas, set variously in mythical times and in the London and Paris of
Late Fame
Winner of the Newbery Honor: the delightful tale of a wandering good samaritan dog, by the author of Shrek!Dominic has decided it is time for a change. So he packs up his hats and his piccolo, and sets off into the unknown. But no sooner does he feel the air on his snout and the
In Search of Lost Books: The forgotten stories of eight mythical volumes
They exist as a rumour or a fading memory. They vanished from history leaving scarcely a trace, lost to fire, censorship, theft, war or deliberate destruction, yet those who seek them are convinced they will find them. This is the story of one man`s quest for eight mysterious lost books.Taking us from Florence to Regency
The Beauties: Essential Stories
Without doubt one of the greatest observers of human nature in all its messy complexity, Chekhov`s short stories are exquisite masterpieces in miniature. His work ranged from the light-hearted comic tales of his early years to some of the most achingly profound stories ever composed, and this variety of tone and temper is collected in
The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat: and other stories from the North
This exquisite anthology collects together the very best fiction from across the Nordic region. Travelling from cosmopolitan Stockholm to the remote Faroe Islands, and from Denmark to Greenland, this unique and compelling volume displays the thrilling diversity of writing from these northern nations.Selected and introduced by Sjon, The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat includes both notable
Deviation
`Sometimes when you go astray and touch bottom, you finally come out on the other side`Lucie was brought up by bourgeois parents as a passionate young fascist. At the age of eighteen, the headstrong protagonist decides to volunteer in the Nazi labour camps in Germany. Wishing to disprove what she sees as the lies that
Bird Cottage
“Bewitching… will make you want to throw away your Oyster pass and move to a remote cottage” The LadyLen Howard was forty years old when she decided to leave her London life and loves behind, retire to the English countryside and devote the rest of her days to her one true passion: birds.Moving to a
No Place to Lay One`s Head
In 1921, Francoise Frenkel – a Jewish woman from Poland – opens her first bookshop in Berlin. It is a dream come true. The dream lasts nearly two decades. Then suddenly, it ends. It ends after police confiscations and the Night of Broken Glass, as Jewish shops and businesses are smashed to pieces. It ends
The Beggar and Other Stories
`Gazdanov is amodernist master` — Irish Times`TheGazdanov revival… is nothing short of a literary event` –TLSIn a Paris underpass, dirtyand dressed in rags, stands a silent beggar. In the evening, he walks thedeserted streets; at night, he sleeps in a small, foetid crate vacated by thedeath of another beggar. He is poor and he is
Land of Smoke
Dazzling, hallucinatory stories by Sara Gallardo, a rediscovered Argentinian contemporary of Garcia MarquezAn old man wakes up one morning to find that his beloved garden, the envy of all his neighbours, is floating away – with him on board; a bored young woman decides to start a new, double life in Buenos Aires – with
Red Dog – Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020Translated from Afrikaans by Michael HeynsIn the eighteenth century, a giant strides the border of the Cape Colony frontier. Coenraad de Buys is a legend, a polygamist, a swindler and a big talker; a rebel who fights with Xhosa chieftains against the Boers and British; the fierce patriarch of
The Heart of a Stranger: An Anthology of Exile Literature
Exile lies at the root of our earliest stories. Charting varied experiences of people forced to leave their homes from the ancient world to the present day, The Heart of a Stranger is an anthology of poetry, fiction and non-fiction that journeys through six continents, with over a hundred contributors drawn from twenty-four languages. Highlights
