Зарубежная классика
Различные книги в жанре Зарубежная классикаWelcome to Lagos
An Official Belletrist Book Pick An American Booksellers Association Indie Next Pick Selected to Best of Summer Reading Lists by Parade , Elle , NYLON , PopSugar , The Millions , PureWow , Women.com, Hearst Media, Bitch Media, Read it Forward “Storylines and twists abound. But action is secondary to atmosphere: Onuzo excels at evoking a stratified city, where society weddings feature ‘ice sculptures as cold as the unmarried belles’ and thugs write tidy receipts for kickbacks extorted from homeless travelers.” — The New Yorker When army officer Chike Ameobi is ordered to kill innocent civilians, he knows it is time to desert his post. As he travels toward Lagos with Yemi, his junior officer, and into the heart of a political scandal involving Nigeria’s education minister, Chike becomes the leader of a new platoon, a band of runaways who share his desire for a different kind of life. Among them is Fineboy, a fighter with a rebel group, desperate to pursue his dream of becoming a radio DJ; Isoken, a 16-year-old girl whose father is thought to have been killed by rebels; and the beautiful Oma, escaping a wealthy, abusive husband. Full of humor and heart, Welcome to Lagos is a high-spirited novel about aspirations and escape, innocence and corruption. It offers a provocative portrait of contemporary Nigeria that marks the arrival in the United States of an extraordinary young writer.
The Life to Come
de Kretser is a master of immersive detail; she tells her story as much through a series of intimately recalled, gorgeously memorable images as she does her charming cast of characters The Life to Come weaves together the loosely connected lives of characters, roaming widely across the globe (from Australia to France to Sri Lanka) and between the present and memories of shared (and hidden) pasts The Life to Come is peppered with delightfully smart and funny observations about culture, human behavior and relationships, while remaining sensitive to resonant issues like immigration, class, and women's critical reception in the arts A strong choice for libraries, book clubs, and reading groups; ideal for National Reading Group Month Catapult published de Kretser's novella, Springtime , in Spring 2016, to critical acclaim in the NYTBR , Star Tribune , Toronto Star , and more; we expect similar critical attention for her new novel
Neon in Daylight
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice [b]"A radiant first novel. . . . [ Neon in Daylight ] has antecedents in the great novels of the 1970s: Renata Adler’s Speedboat , Elizabeth Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights , Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays . . . . Precision—of observation, of language—is Hoby’s gift. Her sentences are sleek and tailored. Language molds snugly to thought." —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times [/b][b] "What do you get when a writer of extreme intelligence, insight, style and beauty chronicles the lives of self-absorbed hedonists— The Great Gatsby , Bright Lights, Big City , and now Neon in Daylight . Hermione Hoby paints a garish world that drew me in and held me spellbound. She is a marvel." —Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth [/b] New York City in 2012, the sweltering summer before Hurricane Sandy hits. Kate, a young woman newly arrived from England, is staying in a Manhattan apartment while she tries to figure out her future. She has two unfortunate responsibilities during her time in America: to make regular Skype calls to her miserable boyfriend back home, and to cat-sit an indifferent feline named Joni Mitchell. The city has other plans for her. In New York's parks and bodegas, its galleries and performance spaces, its bars and clubs crowded with bodies, Kate encounters two strangers who will transform her stay: Bill, a charismatic but embittered writer made famous by the movie version of his only novel; and Inez, his daughter, a recent high school graduate who supplements her Bushwick cafe salary by enacting the fantasies of men she meets on Craigslist. Unmoored from her old life, Kate falls into an infatuation with both of them. Set in a heatwave that feels like it will never break, Neon In Daylight marries deep intelligence with captivating characters to offer us a joyful, unflinching exploration of desire, solitude, and the thin line between life and art.
A Loving, Faithful Animal
Market Smart, literary-inclined readers who voraciously read and recommend books Book clubs, particularly those focused on family relationships, travel, and Australian history Groups or organizations centered around Vietnam War history, veterans’ lives
Riddance
Finalist for the Believer Book Award for Fiction Named a Best Book of Fall by Vulture , New York Magazine , and more "A ravishing novel charged with the idea of the incommunicable." — The New Yorker Eleven-year-old Jane Grandison, tormented by her stutter, sits in the back seat of a car, letter in hand inviting her to live and study at the Sybil Joines Vocational School for Ghost Speakers & Hearing-Mouth Children. Founded in 1890 by Headmistress Sybil Joines, the school—at first glance—is a sanctuary for children seeking to cure their speech impediments. Inspired by her haunted and tragic childhood, the Headmistress has other ideas. Pioneering the field of necrophysics, the Headmistress harnesses the “gift” she and her students possess. Through their stutters, together they have the ability to channel ghostly voices communicating from the land of the dead, a realm the Headmistress herself visits at will. Things change for the school and the Headmistress when a student disappears, attracting attention from parents and police alike. Set in the overlapping worlds of the living and the dead, Shelley Jackson’s Riddance is an illuminated novel told through theoretical writings in necrophysics, the Headmistress’s dispatches from the land of the dead, and Jane’s evolving life as Joines’s new stenographer and central figure in the Vocational School’s mysterious present, as well as its future.
Animal Farm
Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. Ultimately, however, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state as bad as it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. According to Orwell, the fable reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union. Orwell, a democratic socialist, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and hostile to Moscow-directed Stalinism, an attitude that was critically shaped by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union, he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin («un conte satirique contre Staline»), and in his essay «Why I Write» (1946), wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, «to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole». The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, but U.S. publishers dropped the subtitle when it was published in 1946, and only one of the translations during Orwell's lifetime kept it. Other titular variations include subtitles like «A Satire» and «A Contemporary Satire».Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for «bear», a symbol of Russia. It also played on the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques. Orwell wrote the book between November 1943 and February 1944, when the UK was in its wartime alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and the British people and intelligentsia held Stalin in high esteem, a phenomenon Orwell hated. The manuscript was initially rejected by a number of British and American publishers, including one of Orwell's own, Victor Gollancz, which delayed its publication. It became a great commercial success when it did appear partly because international relations were transformed as the wartime alliance gave way to the Cold War.
Милочка Мэгги
В детстве Маргарет Роуз Мур, девчушку, рожденную в семье ирландских эмигрантов в Бруклине, прозвали Милочкой Мэгги за ее непоседливый и веселый нрав. Но жизнь не пощадила Мэгги – в шестнадцать в двери постучалась беда, и ей пришлось бросить школу и целиком посвятить себя дому, отцу и новорожденному брату. Когда же наконец Мэгги встретила Клода, любовь всей своей жизни, он оказался совсем не из тех, с кем просто стать счастливой. Однако Милочка Мэгги всегда черпала силы в том, чтобы быть полезной другим, поэтому она, подобно стойкой тростинке на ветру, ни за что не сдастся под ударами судьбы.
Фунты лиха в Париже и Лондоне
«Фунты лиха в Париже и Лондоне» – это первое крупное произведение, которое начинающий литератор Эрик Блэр выпустил под псевдонимом Джордж Оруэлл. По сути – автобиографическая повесть, написанная им через пару лет после завершения службы в полиции Бирмы. Это история о том, как Оруэлл решил попытать счастья в Париже, в качестве преподавателя английского языка. К сожалению, с карьерой учителя не сложилось, и вчерашний преуспевающий офицер оказался в своеобразном антимире, где царили голод и нищета, где каждый выживал как мог, а за кусок хлеба запросто можно было лишиться жизни. Крошечная комнатка в трущобах, семнадцатичасовой каторжный труд и отсутствие нормального питания подорвали и без того не особо крепкое здоровье Оруэлла. Спустя несколько лет совершенно больной и подавленный он возвратился в Лондон. Но и здесь ему оказались не особенно рады.
Дорога на Уиган-Пирс
В 1936 году, по заданию социалистического книжного клуба, Оруэлл отправляется в индустриальные глубинки Йоркшира и Ланкашира для того, чтобы на месте ознакомиться с положением дел на шахтерском севере Англии. Результатом этой поездки стала повесть «Дорога на Уиган-Пирс», рассказывающая о нечеловеческих условиях жизни и работы шахтеров. С поразительной дотошностью Оруэлл не только изучил и описал кошмарный труд в забоях и ужасные жилищные условия рабочих, но и попытался понять и дать объяснение, почему, например, безработный бедняк предпочитает покупать белую булку и конфеты вместо свежих овощей и полезного серого хлеба. В конечном итоге эта книга привела к разрыву автора с прогрессивным издателем. Социализм, о котором там горячо толкует Оруэлл, оскорбил правоверного западного социалиста насмешками над теорией марксизма и практикой сталинизма, поскольку оруэлловский социализм – это просто-напросто человечность и ничего другого.