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books tagged “magic realism”
books tagged “magic realism”
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The 158-Pound Marriageby John IrvingISBN 0394484142 (0-394-48414-2)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Annotated Aliceby Martin Gardner, Lewis Carroll, John TennielISBN 0393048470 (0-393-04847-0)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Annotated Alice'Book summary:"What is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations!"
Readers who share Alice's taste in books will be more than satisfied with The Annotated Alice, a volume that includes not only pictures and conversations, but a thorough gloss on the text as well. There may be some, like G.K. Chesterton, who abhor the notion of putting Lewis Carroll's masterpiece under a microscope and analyzing it within an inch of its whimsical life. But as Martin Gardner points out in his introduction, so much of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is composed of private jokes and details of Victorian manners and mores that modern audiences are not likely to catch. Yes, Alice can be enjoyed on its own merits, but The Annotated Alice appeals to the nosy parker in all of us. Thus we learn, for example, that the source of the mouse's tale may have been Alfred Lord Tennyson who "once told Carroll that he had dreamed a lengthy poem about fairies, which began with very long lines, then the lines got shorter and shorter until the poem ended with fifty or sixty lines of two syllables each." And that, contrary to popular belief, the Mad Hatter character was not a parody of then Prime Minister Gladstone, but rather was based on an Oxford furniture dealer named Theophilus Carter.
Gardner's annotations run the gamut from the factual and historical to the speculative and are, in their own way, quite as fascinating as the text they refer to. Occasionally, he even comments on himself, as when he quotes a fellow annotator of Alice, James Kincaid: "The historical context does not call for a gloss but the passage provides an opportunity to point out the ambivalence that may attend the central figure and her desire to grow up." And then follows with a charming riposte: "I thank Mr. Kincaid for supporting my own rambling." There's a lot of information in the margins (indeed, the page is pretty evenly divided between Carroll's text and Gardner's), but the ramblings turn out to be well worth the time. So hand over your old copy of Lewis Carroll's classic to the kids--this Alice in Wonderland is intended entirely for adults. --Alix Wilber [via]
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April Witchby Majgull AxelssonISBN 0375505172 (0-375-50517-2)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Black Heart, Ivory Bonesby Ellen Datlow, Terri WindlingISBN 0380786230 (0-380-78623-0)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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Black Swan, White Ravenby Ellen Datlow, Terri WindlingISBN 0380786214 (0-380-78621-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Black Thorn, White Roseby Ellen Datlow, Terri WindlingISBN 0380771292 (0-380-77129-2)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Black Thorn, White Rose'Book summary:Once upon a time . . . World Fantasy Award-winners Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling compiled an extraordinary anthology of adult fairy tales entitled Snow White, Blood Red. Now, once more, they return us to the realm of myth and the fantastic - with eighteen remarkable tales that remold our most cherished childhood fables into things darker and sexier, more resonant and appealing to grown-up tastes and sensibilities. Here are the wondrous works of masters who cloak the magical fictions we heard at grandma's knee in mantles of darkness and dread. Here are stories strange and miraculous, of rare and haunting beauty - from Roger Zelazny's delightful narrative of a contemporary knight's service to his godfather Death . . . to Peter Straub's blood-chilling examination of a gargantuan Cinderella and her terrible twisted "art." Between these covers Patricia C. Wrede entices and enthralls with a tale of a keep, a curse and a love stronger than death and time . . . while Storm Constantine transforms a charming and timeless fable into a decidedly horrific yarn about a conjured princess too good to be true. Once upon a time . . . the Gingerbread Man ran gleeful and free. Now he flees in terror from the baking pan to the fire. Once upon a time . . . Rampel stillskin was a heinous villain. Now he is a victim doomed to a cruel and tragic fate. Once upon a time . . . there was a childlike innocence. Now there is only the truth. [via]
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Bones of the Moonby Jonathan CarrollISBN 0380706881 (0-380-70688-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Cellophane: A Novelby Marie AranaISBN 0385336659 (0-385-33665-9)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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Cereus Blooms at Nightby Shani MootooISBN 0380731991 (0-380-73199-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Child Across the Skyby Jonathan CarrollISBN 0385265352 (0-385-26535-2)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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The City, Not Long Afterby Pat MurphyISBN 038524925X (0-385-24925-X)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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The Cloud Atlasby David MitchellISBN 0375507256 (0-375-50725-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cloud Atlas'Book summary:Now a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant, and directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer
A postmodern visionary who is also a master of styles of genres, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian lore of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction that reveals how disparate people connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.
[David] Mitchell is, clearly, a genius. He writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine, can evidently do anything, and his ambition is written in magma across this novels every page. The New York Times Book Review
One of those how-the-holy-hell-did-he-do-it? modern classics that no doubt isand should beread by any student of contemporary literature. Dave Eggers
Wildly entertaining . . . a head rush, both action-packed and chillingly ruminative. People
The novel as series of nested dolls or Chinese boxes, a puzzle-book, and yetnot just dazzling, amusing, or clever but heartbreaking and passionate, too. Ive never read anything quite like it, and Im grateful to have lived, for a while, in all its many worlds. Michael Chabon [via]More editions of The Cloud Atlas:
Collected Poemsby Federico Garcia Lorca, Christopher Maurer, Catherine BrownISBN 0374526915 (0-374-52691-5)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Coralineby Neil Gaiman, Dave McKeanISBN 0380807343 (0-380-80734-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Coraline'Book summary:Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house--a house so huge that other people live in it, too... round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers ("We trod the boards, luvvy") and the mustachioed old man under the roof ("'The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.'") Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored--so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that--sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks--opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you're thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you're on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman's Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl's work, it is delicious.
What's on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of... people who pronounce her name correctly (not "Caroline"), delicious meals (not like her father's overblown "recipes"), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her "other mother" and her "other father"--people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin... and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 and older) --Karin Snelson [via]
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Dandelion Wineby Ray BradburyISBN 0380977265 (0-380-97726-5)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dandelion Wine'Book summary:World-renowned fantasist Ray Bradbury has on several occasions stepped outside the arenas of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. An unabashed romantic, his first novel in 1957 was basically a love letter to his childhood. (For those who want to undertake an even more evocative look at the dark side of youth, five years later the author would write the chilling classic Something Wicked This Way Comes.)
Dandelion Wine takes us into the summer of 1928, and to all the wondrous and magical events in the life of a 12-year-old Midwestern boy named Douglas Spaulding. This tender, openly affectionate story of a young man's voyage of discovery is certainly more mainstream than exotic. No walking dead or spaceships to Mars here. Yet those who wish to experience the unique magic of early Bradbury as a prose stylist should find Dandelion Wine most refreshing. --Stanley Wiater [via]
Days Between Stationsby Steve EricksonISBN 0394746856 (0-394-74685-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Death of Vishnuby Manil SuriISBN 0393050424 (0-393-05042-4)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Death of Vishnu'Book summary:The title of Manil Suri's first novel gets right to the point. His protagonist, having purchased the right to sleep on the ground-floor landing of a Bombay apartment house, slips slowly from a coma into death. As this aging alcoholic takes leave of the earth, his neighbors surround him, arguing over who gave Vishnu a few dried chapatis, who called the doctor for him, and who will pay for the ambulance to cart him away. Meanwhile, the hero of The Death of Vishnu is lost in memories. Drifting through increasingly vivid scenes from his past, he recalls his relatively rare snatches of love and joy--and especially his romance with Padmini, a self-involved prostitute. On one particular day, it seems, he stole one of his employer's cars and drove his love interest to the honeymoon town of Lonavala, where he showered her with gifts and finally lifted her veil to kiss her like a bride:
Then the absurdity of the situation strikes him. The preposterousness of his images, the foolishness of his feelings, the comicality of chasing currents that skim across Padmini's face. He thinks how absurd this whole trip has been, how absurd is the presence of the two of them in Lonavala, how absurd is the scenery itself that stretches before them. He thinks of poor, ridiculous Mr. Jalal, waiting back in Bombay for his Fiat, and of how Padmini will react when he asks her to buy them petrol so they can get back.
Vishnu also recalls his secret passion for Kavita Asrani, the beautiful teenage daughter of one of the families for whom he works. Given the protagonist's focus on his hapless love life, the scope of Suri's dazzling debut may appear narrow. However, the apartment house upon whose floor Vishnu spends his final hours functions as a microcosm of Indian society. It helps to know even a smattering about Hindu mythology or India's religious conflicts. But even if you don't, there is plenty to relish in The Death of Vishnu, with its comical, richly drawn characters, loving attention to the details of everyday life, and provocative exploration of destiny and free will. --Regina Marler [via]More editions of The Death of Vishnu:
Diary : A Novelby Chuck PalahniukISBN 0385509472 (0-385-50947-2)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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A Dictionary of Maqiaoby Han Shaogong, Julia LovellISBN 0385339356 (0-385-33935-6)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Dictionary of Maqiao'Book summary:From the daring imagination of one of Chinas greatest living novelists comes a work of startling power and originalitythe story of a young man displaced to a small village in rural China during the 1960s. Told in the format of a dictionary, with a series of vignettes disguised as entries, A Dictionary of Maqiao is a novel of bold inventionand a fascinating, comic, deeply moving journey through the dark heart of the Cultural Revolution.
Entries trace the wisdom and absurdities of Maqiao: the petty squabbles, family grudges, poverty, infidelities, fantasies, lunatics, bullies, superstitions, and especially the odd logic in their use of languagewhere the word for beginning is the same as the word for end ; little big brother means older sister; to be scientific means to be lazy; and streetsickness is a disease afflicting villagers visiting urban areas. Filled with colorful charactersfrom a weeping ox to a man so poisonous that snakes die when they bite himA Dictionary of Maqiao is both an important work of Chinese literature and a probing inquiry into the extraordinary power of language. [via]More editions of A Dictionary of Maqiao:
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Die Verwandlungby Franz Kafka, Marjorie L. HooverISBN 0393095339 (0-393-09533-9)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Die Verwandlung'Book summary:Kafkas bekanntester Text in einer sorgfältig edierten Ausgabe
Als Gregor Samsa eines morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem Ungeziefer verwandelt. Mit seiner Verwandlung in einen Käfer protestiert der Handlungsreisende Samsa gegen seinen Beruf, mit dem er die ganze Familie ernährt, er protestiert gegen Vater, Mutter und Schwester, die auf seine Kosten leben er revoltiert gegen sein ganzes Leben. Aber sein Protest bleibt wirkungslos und führt schließlich zum Tod.
Mit einem Nachwort, einer Zeittafel zu Kafka, einem Stellenkommentar und bibliographischen Hinweisen von Dr. Ewald Rösch.
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Diego Rivera: The Detroit Industry Muralsby Linda Banks DownsISBN 0393045293 (0-393-04529-3)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydeby Robert Louis StevensonISBN 0394847199 (0-394-84719-9)
Softcover, Pendulum Pr
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Faerie Taleby Raymond E. FeistISBN 0385236239 (0-385-23623-9)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Faerie Tale'Book summary:Phil Hastings was a lucky man-he had money, a growing reputation as a screenwriter, a happy, loving family with three kids, and he'd just moved into the house of his dreams in rural of magic-and about to be altered irrevocably by a magic more real than any he dared imagine. For with the Magic came the Bad Thing, and the Faerie, and then the cool. . .and the resurrection of a primordial war with a forgotten people-a war that not only the Hastings but the whole human race could lose.
From the Paperback edition. [via]More editions of Faerie Tale:
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The Fat Man in History, and Other Storiesby Peter CareyISBN 0394510720 (0-394-51072-0)
Hardcover, Random House
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fat Man in History, and Other Stories'Book summary:If, in some post-Marxist utopia, obesity were declared counterrevolutionary, how would a houseful of fat men strike back? If it were possible to win a new body by lottery, what kind of people would choose ugliness? If two gun-toting thugs decided to take over a business -- and run it through sheer terror -- how far would their methods take them?
These are the questions that Peter Carey, author of The Tax Inspector and Oscar and Lucinda, brilliantly explores in this collection of stories. Exquisitely written and thoroughly envisioned, the tales in The Fat Man in History reach beyond their arresting premises to utter deep and often frightening truths about our brightest and darkest selves. [via]More editions of The Fat Man in History, and Other Stories:
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The Fire-Eatersby David AlmondISBN 0385731701 (0-385-73170-1)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fire-Eaters'Book summary:Continuing his tradition of strange and wild novels for young adults, David Almond, in The Fire Eaters, introduces a bizarre character making a sparse living as a self-mutilating, fire-swallowing street performer. McNulty's existence shakes young protagonist Bobby Burns to the core as he contemplates the end of the world (the year is 1962 and the U.S. and Soviet Union seem to be heading toward nuclear war), power, pain, class, and death, as well as friendship. The menace and sweetness in Bobby's life parallels the worlds, big and small, he inhabits. A loving family, seaside home, and good friends form the foundation. But a crack in that wall is spreading: Bobby's father is ill, class differences are separating him from his best friend, and a ruthless schoolmaster is forcing Bobby to understand that everything has a price. McNulty's growled refrain--"Pay! You'll not see nowt till you pay!"--reiterates the lesson for the often bewildered, but ever stronger boy. Readers familiar with Almond's other haunting books, including the award-winning Skellig, will welcome this rich, challenging novel. As always, Almond refuses to shy away from the big topics, resulting in a novel dappled with light and dark, filled with wonder and mystery. (Ages 12 and older) --Emilie Coulter [via]
From a Whisper to a Screamby Samuel M. KeyISBN 0425134679 (0-425-13467-9)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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The Girl in the Flammable Skirtby Aimee BenderISBN 0385492162 (0-385-49216-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Gone for Goodby Mark ChildressISBN 0375400214 (0-375-40021-4)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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Heart of a Dogby Mirra Ginsburg, Mikhail BulgakovISBN 0394623800 (0-394-62380-0)
Softcover, Grove Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Heart of a Dog'Book summary:This hilarious, brilliantly inventive novel by the author of The Master and Margarita tells the story of a scroungy Moscow mongrel named Sharik. Thanks to the skills of a renowned Soviet scientist and the transplanted pituitary gland and testes of a petty criminal, Sharik is transformed into a lecherous , vulgar man who spouts Engels and inevitably finds his niche in the bureaucracy as the government official in charge of purging the city of cats.[via]More editions of Heart of a Dog:
Here on Earthby Alice HoffmanISBN 0425167313 (0-425-16731-3)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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Hopscotchby Gregory Rabassa, Julio CortazarISBN 0394752848 (0-394-75284-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hopscotch'Book summary:Translated by Gregory Rabassa, winner of the National Book Award for Translation, 1967
Horacio Oliveira is an Argentinian writer who lives in Paris with his mistress, La Maga, surrounded by a loose-knit circle of bohemian friends who call themselves "the Club." A child's death and La Maga's disappearance put an end to his life of empty pleasures and intellectual acrobatics, and prompt Oliveira to return to Buenos Aires, where he works by turns as a salesman, a keeper of a circus cat which can truly count, and an attendant in an insane asylum. Hopscotch is the dazzling, freewheeling account of Oliveira's astonishing adventures. [via]More editions of Hopscotch:
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Hopscotchby Julio CortazarISBN 0380003724 (0-380-00372-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hopscotch'Book summary:This is the tragic history of two men and their circle of friends who live in Buenos Aires and Paris. Anticipating the age of the Web with a non-structure that allows readers to take the chapters in any order they wish, the book invites them to be the architects of the novel themselves. [via]
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Illumination Nightby Alice HoffmanISBN 0399132821 (0-399-13282-1)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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In the Penny Arcadeby Steven Millhauser, Alice Quinn, Nina BourneISBN 0394546601 (0-394-54660-1)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Penny Arcade'Book summary:Dalkey Archive Press brings back into print Millhauser's classic and acclaimed stories in their American Literature series. The imagery alone is stunning, but coupled with Millhauser's insights into human flights and foibles, these fictions hold both truth and a surreal, disturbing beauty.
Surely novelist Kirsten Bakis (Lives of the Monster Dogs) and Millhauser in his story "August Eschenburg" had the same dream the same night about their characters. Both are named August, both are creators, and both must confront the troubling issues between what is human and what is humanlike. August Eschenburg creates automatons with such art that they appear to be alive--for very brief performances. His art is copied and subverted by Hausenstein, who builds what the audiences seem to want: automatons whose sexual characteristics are grossly exaggerated in huge rolling hips, leering faces, and large breasts. Art falls prey to popular entertainment when August's benefactor dumps him for--you guessed it--the rosier robot. Like Kafka's "Hunger Artist," August as artist will be drawn back to his art by an urge stronger than mere economics, an urge that applies to artists such as independent press publishers as well! [via]
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Kindergartenby Peter RushforthISBN 039450917X (0-394-50917-X)
Hardcover, Knopf
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Kissing the Beehiveby Jonathan CarrollISBN 0385480113 (0-385-48011-3)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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Kit's Wildernessby David AlmondISBN 0385326653 (0-385-32665-3)
Hardcover, Delacorte Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kit's Wilderness'Book summary:Like David Almond's 1998 Whitbread-winning Skellig, this powerful, eerie, elegantly written novel celebrates the magic that is part of our existence--the magic that occurs when we dream at night, the magic that connects us to family long gone, the magic that connects humans to the land, and us all to each other. As Kit's grandfather puts it, "the tales and memories and dreams that keep the world alive."
It seems fated that 13-year-old Christopher Watson, nicknamed Kit, would move to Stoneygate, an old English coal-mining village where his ancestors lived, worked, and died. Evidence of the ancient coal pit is everywhere--depressions in the gardens, jagged cracks in the roadways, in his grandfather's old mining songs. A monument in the St. Thomas graveyard bears the name of child workers killed in the Stoneygate pit disaster of 1821, including Kit's own name--Christopher Watson, aged 13--the name of a distant uncle. At the top of this high, narrow pyramid-shaped monument is the name John Askew, the same name of Kit's classmate who takes the connection between this monument and life--and death--very seriously.
The drama unfolds as the haunted, hulking, dark-eyed John Askew draws Kit and other classmates into the game of Death, a spin-the-knife, pretend-to-die game that he hosts in a deep hole dug in the earth, with candles, bones, and carved pictures of the children of the old families of Stoneygate. Kit the writer and Askew the artist belong together, Askew keeps telling him. "Your stories is like my drawings, Kit. They take you back deep into the dark and show it lives within us still.... You see it, don't you? You're starting to see that you and me is just the same." Are they, though?
Kit's Wilderness conjures a world where the past is alive in the present and creeps into the future--a world where ancestral ghosts and even the slow-changing geology of the landscape are as tangible as lunch. Powerful images of darkness exploding into "lovely lovely light" filter throughout the story, as Almond boldly explores the dark side and unearths a joyful message of redemption. (Ages 11 and much, much older) --Karin Snelson [via]
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Last Callby Tim PowersISBN 0380715570 (0-380-71557-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Last Call'Book summary:Enchantingly dark and compellingly real, the World Fantasy Award-winning novel Last Call is a masterpiece of magic realism from critically acclaimed author Tim Powers.
Set in the gritty, dazzling underworld known as Las Vegas, Last Call tells the story of a one-eyed professional gambler who discovers that he was not the big winner in a long-ago poker game . . . and now must play for the highest stakes ever as he searches for a way to win back his soul.
[via]
Local Girlsby Alice HoffmanISBN 0399145079 (0-399-14507-9)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Lullabyby Chuck PalahniukISBN 0385722192 (0-385-72219-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lullaby'Book summary:The consequences of media saturation are the basis for an urban nightmare in Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk's darkly comic and often dazzling thriller. Assigned to write a series of feature articles investigating SIDS, troubled newspaper reporter Carl Streator begins to notice a pattern among the cases he encounters: each child was read the same poem prior to his or her death. His research and a tip from a necrophilic paramedic lead him to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who sells "distressed" (demonized) homes, assured of their instant turnover. Boyle and Streator have both lost children to "crib death," and she confirms Streator's suspicions: the poem is an ancient lullaby or "culling song" that is lethal if spoken--or even thought--in a victim's direction. The misanthropic Streator, now armed with a deadly and uncontrollably catchy tune, goes on a minor killing spree until he recognizes his crimes and the song's devastating potential. Lullaby then turns into something of a road trip narrative, with Streator, Boyle, her empty-headed Wiccan secretary Mona, and Mona's vigilante boyfriend Oyster setting out across the U.S. to track down and destroy all copies of the poem.
In his previous works, including the cult favorite Fight Club, Palahniuk has demonstrated a fondness for making statements about the condition of humanity, and he uses Lullaby like a blunt object to repeatedly overstate his generally dim view. Such dogmatic venom undermines the persuasiveness of his thesis about mass communication and free will, but thankfully, Palahniuk offers some respite here by allowing for sympathy and love, as well as through his razor-sharp humor, such as his mock listings for Helen's possessed properties: "six bedrooms, four baths, pine-paneled entryway, and blood running down the kitchen walls...." At such moments, Lullaby casts a powerful spell. --Ross Doll [via]
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Lyra's Oxfordby Philip PullmanISBN 0375828192 (0-375-82819-2)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lyra's Oxford'Book summary:Attention all serious book collectors and fans of Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials. This undoubtedly beautiful packagecloth-bound in a classy red and adorned by numerous illustrations by master engraver and illustrator John Lawrenceis a must-purchase. A pint-sized pocket volume, Lyras Oxford packages together a short story set in the same universe as his famous trilogy, a fold-out map of the alternate-reality city of Oxford, a short brochure for a cruise to The Levant aboard the S.S. Zenobia, and a postcard from the inventor of the amber spyglass, Mary Malone. Pullman, in his introduction, suggests that the peripheral items within "might be connected with the story, or they might not; they might be connected to stories that havent appeared yet. Its difficult to tell."
A very sumptuous and lovingly crafted but tantalizingly brief book , Lyras Oxford begins when Lyra and Pantalaimon spot a witchs daemon called Ragi being pursued over the rooftops of Oxford by a frenzied pack of birds. The daemon heads straight for Lyra (the creature was given Lyras name as somebody who might help) and is given shelter. Together Lyra and Pan try to guide the daemon to the home of Sebastian Makepeacean alchemist living in a part of Oxford known as Jerichobut it is a journey fraught with more danger than they had at first anticipated. (Age 10 and over) --John McLay [via]
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Metamorphosisby Franz Kafka, Stanley CorngoldISBN 0393967972 (0-393-96797-2)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Metamorphosis'Book summary:Franz Kafka's 1915 masterpiece is presented in this Norton Critical Edition in the acclaimed translation by Stanley Corngold based on the definitive German edition.
The novella is fully annotated and is accompanied by selected textual variants. Backgrounds and Contexts introduces readers to The Metamorphosis in the richest possible setting. The links between the author's life and his work are explored through an examination of his personal writings. Kafka's letters and diary entries illuminate the creative process behind his portrait of Gregor Samsa, his family, and their nightmarish ordeal. Criticism collects seven essays from the period 1970-95 representing the most important currents in literary theorysemiotics, feminism, identity philosophy, New Historicism, and post-Freudian cultural psychoanalysis. The essays offer a variety of perspectives on the novella by Iris Bruce, Nina Pelikan Straus, Kevin W. Sweeney, Mark Anderson, Hartmut Binder, Eric Santner, and Stanley Corngold. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. [via]More editions of Metamorphosis:
My Pretty Ponyby Stephen King, Barbara KrugerISBN 0394580370 (0-394-58037-0)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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The New Lifeby Guneli Gun, Orhan PamukISBN 0375701710 (0-375-70171-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The New Life'Book summary:In his native Turkey, author Orhan Pamuk's novel The New Life is a huge hit. Now English-language readers have an opportunity to sample this unusual book for themselves. The New Life begins with the sentence "I read a book one day and my whole life was changed." That book leads the narrator, a young man named Osman, on a wild journey in the company of Janan, a mysterious young woman in search of her lover, Mehmet. He had actually managed to enter--and escape--the world of the book. In the course of their travels, Osman and Janan are involved in a bloody bus wreck from which they emerge with new identities; they meet several "false" Mehmets; Janan mysteriously vanishes; and Osman eventually encounters a family friend who may or may not be the author of the life-changing book and possibly of The New Life itself.
In case you hadn't already guessed, The New Life is strictly postmodernist fare, where plot and character are minimal and time and space tend to bend and warp in unexpected ways. The author's vision is certainly original, his descriptions of violence and Turkish culture particularly strong. [via]
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October Countryby Ray BradburyISBN 0380973871 (0-380-97387-1)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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Paradiseby Toni MorrisonISBN 0375702172 (0-375-70217-2)
Softcover, Random House Large Print
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Possession : A Romanceby A. S. ByattISBN 0394586239 (0-394-58623-9)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Possession : A Romance'Book summary:Winner of the 1990 Booker Prize, this novel describes the romance between two 19th-century poets and the parallel relationship of their two biographers and includes passages of "Victorian verse". [via]
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The River Kingby Alice HoffmanISBN 0399145990 (0-399-14599-0)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Rubicon Beachby Steve EricksonISBN 0394755138 (0-394-75513-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Ruby Slippers, Golden Tearsby Ellen Datlow, Terri WindlingISBN 0380778726 (0-380-77872-6)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears'Book summary:""Once upon a time ..." So begin the classic fairy tales that enthralled and terrified us as children. Now, in their third critically acclaimed collection of original fairy tales for adults, World Fantasy Award-winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling bring us twenty-one new stories by some of the top names in literature today.
Joyce Carol Oates, Gahan Wilson, Gene Wolfe, Tanith Lee, Neil Gaiman -- these are but a few of the accomplished literary sorcerers who have gathered here to remold our timeless myths into more sensuous and disturbing forms. Like the fabled ruby slippers, there is powerful magic here. Rich witches in trendy resorts cast evil spells ... beautiful princesses age and wither in sleeping worlds ... terrible beasts reside beneath flawless skin.
Dark, disturbing, delightful, each story was written expressly for this superb collection of distinctly grown-up fantasy -- a brilliant companion volume to Datlow and Windling's acclaimed anthologies, "Snow White, Blood Red and "Black Thorn, White Rose. [via]
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The Sandman: The Wakeby Neil Gaiman, Edward E. KramerISBN 0380817705 (0-380-81770-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sandman: The Wake'Book summary:There is a dark king who rules our dreams from a place of shadows and fantastic things. He is Morpheus, the lord of story. Older than humankind itself, he inhabits -- along with Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium, his Endless sisters and brothers -- the realm of human consciousness. His powers are myth and nightmare -- inspirations, pleasures, and punishments manifested beneath the blanketing mist of sleep.
Surrender to him now.
A stunning collection of visions, wonders, horrors, hallucinations, and revelations from Clive Barker, Barbara Hambly, Tad Williams, Gene Wolfe, Nancy A. Collins, and sixteen other incomparable dreamers -- inspired by the groundbreaking, bestselling graphic novel phenomenon by Neil Gaiman.
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Second Natureby Alice HoffmanISBN 0425161633 (0-425-16163-3)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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Secret Heartby David AlmondISBN 0385729472 (0-385-72947-2)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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Selected Verseby Federico Garcia Lorca, Christopher Maurer, Jerome Rothenberg, Greg Simon, Cola Franzen, Alan S. Trueblood, Will Kirkland, Francisco Aragon, Catherine Brown, William Bryant LoganISBN 0374523525 (0-374-52352-5)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Selected Verse'Book summary:The work of Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain's greatest modern poet, has long been admired for its emotional intensity and metaphorical brilliance. Few poets take us more directly and memorably to what Lorca described as "the dark root of the scream," the terrain of the duende, where inspiration delivers a new poetic reality and "intelligence" discovers its limitations.[via]
For many years, until the recent publication of FSG's Collected Poems, English readers' view of Lorca has been determined by a few well-known books-The Divan at Tamarit, Poet in New York, The Gypsy Ballads-and by a lamentably small number of poems. Now this Selected Verse, the most complete paperback anthology available in English, draws on FSG's two-volume Poetical Works, providing authoritative versions by outstanding poets and translators: Francisco Aragon, Catherine Brown, Cola Franzen, Will Kirkland, William Bryant Logan, Jerome Rothernberge, Greg Simon, Alan S. Trueblood, John K. Walsh, and Steven F. White. In this bilingual edition, Lorca's poetic range comes clearly into view, from the playful Suites and stylized evocations of Andalusia to the utter gravity and mystery of the final elegies, confirming his stature as one of our century's finest poets.More editions of Selected Verse:
Silver Birch, Blood Moonby Ellen Datlow, Terri WindlingISBN 0380786222 (0-380-78622-2)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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Slaughter House Fiveby Kurt VonnegutISBN 0385333846 (0-385-33384-6)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade'Book summary:Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor. [via]
Snow White, Blood Redby Ellen Datlow, Terri WindlingISBN 0380718758 (0-380-71875-8)
Softcover, Avon Books
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Song Of Solomonby Toni MorrisonISBN 0394497848 (0-394-49784-8)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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The Stolen Childby Keith DonohueISBN 0385516169 (0-385-51616-9)
Hardcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Stolen Child'Book summary:Inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem that tempts a child from home to the waters and the wild, The Stolen Child is a modern fairy tale narrated by the child Henry Day and his double.On a summer night, Henry Day runs away from home and hides in a hollow tree. There he is taken by the changelings-an unaging tribe of wild children who live in darkness and in secret. They spirit him away, name him Aniday, and make him one of their own. Stuck forever as a child, Aniday grows in spirit, struggling to remember the life and family he left behind. He also seeks to understand and fit in this shadow land, as modern life encroaches upon both myth and nature.In his place, the changelings leave a double, a boy who steals Henry's life in the world. This new Henry Day must adjust to a modern culture while hiding his true identity from the Day family. But he can't hide his extraordinary talent for the piano (a skill the true Henry never displayed), and his dazzling performances prompt his father to suspect that the son he has raised is an imposter. As he ages the new Henry Day becomes haunted by vague but persistent memories of life in another time and place, of a German piano teacher and his prodigy. Of a time when he, too, had been a stolen child. Both Henry and Aniday obsessively search for who they once were before they changed places in the world.The Stolen Child is a classic tale of leaving childhood and the search for identity. With just the right mix of fantasy and realism, Keith Donohue has created a bedtime story for adults and a literary fable of remarkable depth and strange delights. [via]
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The Strange Cases of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hydeby Katherine Linehan, Robert Louis StevensonISBN 0393974650 (0-393-97465-0)
Softcover, Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Strange Cases of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'Book summary:The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.
This University of Nebraska Press edition is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a "mythopoetic figure" like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares Stevenson's creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde, and Dickens.
This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings, is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, "I went so far as to have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and, like Stevenson, not show Hyde's face." (Also recommended: the edition of Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster [via]
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The Street of Crocodilesby Simon McBurneyISBN 0413738701 (0-413-73870-1)
Softcover, Methuen Pub Ltd
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Subtle Knifeby Philip PullmanISBN 0375823468 (0-375-82346-8)
Softcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Subtle Knife'Book summary:With The Golden Compass Philip Pullman garnered every accolade under the sun. Critics lobbed around such superlatives as "elegant," "awe-inspiring," "grand," and "glittering," and used "magnificent" with gay abandon. Each reader had a favorite chapter--or, more likely, several--from the opening tour de force to Lyra's close call at Bolvangar to the great armored-bear battle. And Pullman was no less profligate when it came to intellectual firepower or singular characters. The dæmons alone grant him a place in world literature. Could the second installment of his trilogy keep up this pitch, or had his heroine and her too, too sullied parents consumed him? And what of the belief system that pervaded his alternate universe, not to mention the mystery of Dust? More revelations and an equal number of wonders and new players were definitely in order.
The Subtle Knife offers everything we could have wished for, and more. For a start, there's a young hero--from our world--who is a match for Lyra Silvertongue and whose destiny is every bit as shattering. Like Lyra, Will Parry has spent his childhood playing games. Unlike hers, though, his have been deadly serious. This 12-year-old long ago learned the art of invisibility: if he could erase himself, no one would discover his mother's increasing instability and separate them.
As the novel opens, Will's enemies will do anything for information about his missing father, a soldier and Arctic explorer who has been very much airbrushed from the official picture. Now Will must get his mother into safe seclusion and make his way toward Oxford, which may hold the key to John Parry's disappearance. But en route and on the lam from both the police and his family's tormentors, he comes upon a cat with more than a mouse on her mind: "She reached out a paw to pat something in the air in front of her, something quite invisible to Will." What seems to him a patch of everyday Oxford conceals far more: "The cat stepped forward and vanished." Will, too, scrambles through and into another oddly deserted landscape--one in which children rule and adults (and felines) are very much at risk. Here in this deathly silent city by the sea, he will soon have a dustup with a fierce, flinty little girl: "Her expression was a mixture of the very young--when she first tasted the cola--and a kind of deep, sad wariness." Soon Will and Lyra (and, of course, her dæmon, Pantalaimon) uneasily embark on a great adventure and head into greater tragedy.
As Pullman moves between his young warriors and the witch Serafina Pekkala, the magnetic, ever-manipulative Mrs. Coulter, and Lee Scoresby and his hare dæmon, Hester, there are clear signs of approaching war and earthly chaos. There are new faces as well. The author introduces Oxford dark-matter researcher Mary Malone; the Latvian witch queen Ruta Skadi, who "had trafficked with spirits, and it showed"; Stanislaus Grumman, a shaman in search of a weapon crucial to the cause of Lord Asriel, Lyra's father; and a serpentine old man whom Lyra and Pan can't quite place. Also on hand are the Specters, beings that make cliff-ghasts look like rank amateurs.
Throughout, Pullman is in absolute control of his several worlds, his plot and pace equal to his inspiration. Any number of astonishing scenes--small- and large-scale--will have readers on edge, and many are cause for tears. "You think things have to be possible," Will demands. "Things have to be true!" It is Philip Pullman's gift to turn what quotidian minds would term the impossible into a reality that is both heartbreaking and beautiful. --Kerry Fried [via]
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Sulaby Toni MorrisonISBN 0375415351 (0-375-41535-1)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sula'Book summary:In Sula, Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, tells the story of two women--friends since childhood, separated in young adulthood, and reunited as grown women. Nel Wright grows up to become a wife and mother, happy to remain in her hometown of Medallion, Ohio. Sula Peace leaves Medallion to experience college, men, and life in the big city, an exceptional choice for a black woman to make in the late 1920s.
As girls, Nel and Sula are the best of friends, only children who find in each other a kindred spirit to share in each girl's loneliness and imagination. When they meet again as adults, it's clear that Nel has chosen a life of acceptance and accommodation, while Sula must fight to defend her seemingly unconventional choices and beliefs. But regardless of the physical and emotional distance that threatens this extraordinary friendship, the bond between the women remains unbreakable: "Her old friend had come home.... Sula, whose past she had lived through and with whom the present was a constant sharing of perceptions. Talking to Sula had always been a conversation with herself."
Lyrical and gripping, Sula is an honest look at the power of friendship amid a backdrop of family, love, race, and the human condition. --Gisele Toueg [via]
Tent of Miraclesby Jorge AmadoISBN 0380410206 (0-380-41020-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tent of Miracles'Book summary:The Wisconsin edition is not for sale in the British Commonwealth (excluding Canada), the Republic of Ireland, or South Africa. [via]
Things Invisible to Seeby Nancy WillardISBN 0394540581 (0-394-54058-1)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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Things That Fall from the Skyby Kevin BrockmeierISBN 0375727698 (0-375-72769-8)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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Tours Of The Black Clockby Steve EricksonISBN 0380709449 (0-380-70944-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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A Trip to the Starsby Nicholas ChristopherISBN 0385318049 (0-385-31804-9)
Hardcover, Dell Publishing
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Trip to the Stars'Book summary:A Trip to the Stars opens with a kidnapping at a New York planetarium in 1965 and ends exactly 15 years later at a Hawaiian observatory. In the 500 intervening and absurdly readable pages, its two narrators undergo equal parts heartache and discovery--not to mention a fine excess of things astronomical. As Nicholas Christopher's exhilarating third novel begins, 10-year-old Loren reaches for his aunt Alma's hand while the crowd surges around them. Alas, he's in for the first of many jolts:
The woman, who was pulling me hard now to a blue sedan idling at the curb, was not my aunt. Until she opened the rear door and pushed me in, I thought she must have mistaken me for another child. Then, before stepping in after me, she looked me full in the face and betrayed no surprise.
Already twice orphaned, Loren is spirited away from the young woman he considers his only relative and finds himself in a strange building on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Inhabited by "people looking for lost things" and, as he later realizes, "people who had once been lost--like me," the Hotel Canopus is the life work of his uncle, the collector and pomologist Junius Samax. (Let it be known that A Trip to the Stars features the most fanciful monikers this side of Howard Norman's novels.) Now restored to his real name, Enzo, and assured that his aunt has been informed of his fate, the boy is given the sort of home schooling only Nicholas Christopher could dream up--the usual academic suspects enhanced by ancient languages, Zuni wisdom, mnemonics, and, of course, astronomy. (In this novel of multiple stargazers, even Enzo's wolf dog, Sirius, has a head for the heavens.) Meanwhile, Alma, having failed to find her nephew, attempts to rid herself of her past: she changes her name to Mala and, following the most compelling spider bite in all fiction, joins the Navy Nursing Corps and heads for Vietnam.As the author alternates between Enzo and Mala's very separate universes, he packs his book with suspense and arcana. Echoes and parallels prevail, as do demons and eccentrics. The Hotel Canopus is filled with exotic individuals, including an eight-fingered pianist-arachnologist, an art historian in hot pursuit of Adam's navel, and women named Desirée, Della, Dolores, Denise, and Dalia. But it also houses a resentful relative or two. A Trip to the Stars is so grounded that all its magic, coincidence, and mystery seem hyper-real, from a girl who becomes a vampire to Mala's lover, a soldier whose shrapnel wounds mirror the Andromeda galaxy. Despite the intricacy of his novel, Nicholas Christopher has wisely declined to preface it with a family tree or a list of dramatis personae. For this we can be grateful, since much of the book's pleasure comes from watching him weave destinies, miracles, and more than a few blood feuds as he proffers the ultimate celestial fix. --Kerry Fried [via]
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Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmanby Louis De BernieresISBN 0375700153 (0-375-70015-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman'Book summary:With the same ebullient storytelling, luxuriant prose, and irrepressible eroticism he brought to The War of Don Emmanuel s Nether Parts and Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, Louis de Bernières continues his chronicle of Cochadebajo, the Andean village where macho philosophers, defrocked priests, and reformed (though hardly inactive) prostitutes cohabit in cheerful anarchy. But this unruly utopia is imperiled when the demon-harried Cardinal Guzman decides to inaugurate a new Inquisition, with Cochadebajo as its ultimate target.
On his side, the Cardinal has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. The Cochadebajeros have precious little ammunition, unless you count chef Dolores's incendiary Chicken of a True Man, and a civil defense that deems nothing more crucial than the act of love. Part epic, part farce, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman confirms de Bernières's reputation as England's answer to Gabriel García Márquez. [via]More editions of Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman:
Turtle Moonby Alice HoffmanISBN 042513699X (0-425-13699-X)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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The Unseenby Zilpha Keatley SnyderISBN 0385730845 (0-385-73084-5)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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Veronicaby Nicholas ChristopherISBN 0380729180 (0-380-72918-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Veronica'Book summary:When noted magician Albin White vanishes in the middle of a trick, sent hurtling back in time by his jealous apprentice, Starwood, his daughter Veronica, with the help of Leo, who becomes a conduit between father and daughter, past and present, sets out to bring him back. [via]
Willful Creaturesby Aimee BenderISBN 0385720971 (0-385-72097-1)
Softcover, Anchor Books
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