In ISTANBUL, Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk has written a mesmerizing blend of memoir and ode, a book that is simultaneously about Pamuk's adolescence in Istanbul and about the nature of the city itself. Pamuk paints Istanbul as a lovely but melancholic world, a place always yearning to be something other than it is, haunted by its glorious...more
Siddhartha is a brilliant Brahman, the highest caste in the Hindu religion, who had a good life but feels spiritually hollow. He embarks on a journey of self-discovery that tests his faith.
Tariq Ali tells us the story of the aftermath of the fall of Granada by narrating a family sage of those who tried to survive after the collapse of their world. Particularly deft at evoking what life must have been like for those doomed inhabitants, besieged on all sides by intolerant Christendom. "This is a novel that have something to say, and sa...more
You could be excused for thinking that this book is one containing a simple story for young children about a Little Prince. How wrong you would be! This is far from the truth: it is much more. It is a complex story containing lots of ambiguities about a child with golden hair. These are all eruditely discussed before the actual story begins, in a s...more
A great stone bridge built three centuries ago in the heart of the Balkans by a Grand Vezir of the Ottoman Empire dominates the setting of Ivo Andric's novel. A vivid depiction of the suffering history has imposed upon the people of Bosnia from the late sixteenth century to the beginning of World War I, 'The Bridge on the Drina' earned Andric the N...more
When Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist) was a young man, his parents had him committed to mental hospitals three times because he wanted to be an artist--an unacceptable profession in Brazil at the time. During his numerous forced incarcerations he vowed to write some day about his experiences and the injustices of involuntary commitment. In this fable-l...more
Each edition includes:• Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play• Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play• Scene-by-scene plot summaries• A key to famous lines and phrases• An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language• An essay by an outstanding scholar providin...more
A Colombian journalist looks back on a long life and on the women he has known and loved--or at least had sex with. As he celebrates his 90th birthday, he begins what he knows is his last sexual relationship, this time an unconsummated one with a virginal 14-year-old, whom he prefers to see asleep. He describes this strange liaison in his long-runn...more