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Barbara
Kingsolver
€ 18,95
Faber & Faber, 2009
It is a cause
for celebration every time a new
book flows from the pen of
Barbara Kingsolver, an American
author whose diversity of prose
and affinity with the lives and
feelings of the man in the
street attest to her literary
talents. Author of many works
of prose, poetry and
non-fiction, Kingsolver’s best
known books remain The Bean
Trees (1988), its sequel
Pigs in Heaven (1993), her
masterpiece The Poisonwood
Bible and Animal,
Vegetable, Mineral, a record
of her family’s year spent
cultivating their own food
(2007).
read more...
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Kamila
Shamsie
Burnt Shadows
ISBN:
9781408800874
Paperback, 384 pages € 16,99
Bloomsbury
In a prison cell in the US, a man
stands trembling, naked, fearfully
waiting to be shipped to Guantánamo
Bay. How did it come to this?
August 9th 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko
Tanaka steps out onto her veranda,
taking in the view of the terraced
slopes leading up to the sky.
Wrapped in a kimono with three black
cranes swooping across the back, she
is twenty-one, in love with the man
she is to marry, Konrad Weiss.
read more...
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The Women
T.C. Boyle
paperback 16,95
464 pages
ISBN 9781440686177
Viking Press
Most of us are familiar with the
work of Frank Lloyd Wright, the most
famous and arguably best-loved
American architect. But as is often
the case, the controversy and
scandals that once surrounded his
colourful personal life have now
faded into the background.
read more...
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Yiyun Li
A Thousand Years of Good
Prayers
Random House
Brilliant and original, A Thousand
Years of Good Prayers introduces a
remarkable new writer whose
breathtaking stories are set in
China and among Chinese Americans in
the United States.
Read more...
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Yiyun Li
The Vagrants
Random House
Brilliant and illuminating, this
astonishing debut novel by the
award-winning writer Yiyun Li is set
in China in the late 1970s, when
Beijing was rocked by the Democratic
Wall Movement, an anti-Communist
groundswell designed to move China
beyond the dark shadow of the
Cultural Revolution toward a more
enlightened and open society.
Read more...
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Anne Michaels
Winter Vault
Paperback € 17,95
Hardcover € 24,95
Publisher:
McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 978-0-7710-5890-5
Anne Michaels’s first work of
fiction in more than a decade, The
Winter Vault is a stunning, richly
layered, and timeless novel that is
everything we could hope for for
Michaels’s second novel — and more.
Set in Canada and Egypt, and with
flashbacks to England and Poland
after the war, The Winter Vault is a
spellbinding love story that
juxtaposes momentous historical
events with the most intimate
moments of individual lives.
Read more...
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Anne Nelson
Red Orchestra -
The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who
Resisted Hitler
Random House
In this
unforgettable book, distinguished author Anne Nelson shares one of the
most shocking and inspiring–and least chronicled–stories of domestic
resistance to the Nazi regime. The Rote Kapelle, or Red Orchestra, was
the Gestapo’s name for an intrepid band of German artists, intellectuals,
and bureaucrats (almost half of them women) who battled treacherous odds
to unveil the brutal secrets of their fascist employers and oppressors.
Read more...
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William
Maxwell
So Long, See you Tomorrow
Publisher
comments:
On an Illinois farm in the 1920s, a man is murdered, and in the same
moment the tenous friendship between two lonely boys comes to an end. In
telling their interconnected stories, American Book Award winner William
delivers a masterfully restrained and magically evocative meditation on
the past.
read
more...
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Linda Grant
The cloths on Their Backs
Paperback | 304 pages
Simon & Schuster
In a red brick mansion block off the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a
sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from both past and present
by her timid refugee parents. Then one morning a glamorous uncle appears,
dressed in a mohair suit, with a diamond watch on his wrist and a girl
in a leopard-skin hat on his arm. Why is Uncle Sandor so violently
unwelcome in her parents' home?
This is a novel about survival - both banal and heroic - and a young
woman who discovers the complications, even betrayals, that inevitably
accompany the fierce desire to live. Set against the backdrop of a
London from the 1950s to the present day, The Clothes on Their Backs is
a wise and tender novel about the clothes we choose to wear, the
personalities we dress ourselves in, and about how they define us all.
Order this
book |
Shortlisted for
The Man Booker Prize
Review in The Guardian
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David Leavitt
The Indian Clerk
Hardcover 485 pages € 24,90
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
The extraordinary true story of the discovery of one of the greatest
mathematicians
January, 1913, Cambridge. G.H. Hardy – eccentric, charismatic and
considered the greatest British mathematician of his age – receives a
mysterious envelope covered with Indian stamps. Inside he finds a
rambling letter from a self-professed mathematical genius who claims to
be on the brink of solving the most important mathematical problem of
his time. Hardy determines to learn more about this mysterious Indian
clerk, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a decision that will profoundly affect not
only his own life, and that of his friends, but the entire history of
mathematics. Set against the backdrop of the First World War, and
populated with such luminaries as D.H. Lawrence and Bertrand Russell,
The Indian Clerk fashions from this fascinating period an utterly
compelling story about our need to find order in the world.
Reviews:
´A loving exploration of one of the greatest collaborations of the past
century, The Indian Clerk is a novel that brilliantly orchestrates
questions of colonialism, sexual identity and the nature of genius’
Manil Suri
‘Leavitt brings to life a world of maths and mysticism’
Observer
‘Impressive … Leavitt plunges us, like Ramanujan, into a world of
academic squabbling and wartime privation’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Excellent … His Hardy is a superb creation … The author also
synthesises huge amounts of engrossing period gossip … the snatches of
backbiting and shop-talk richly convey the anxieties of the intellectual
climate’
Saturday Telegraph
Order this
book |
David Leavitt
G.H. Hardy
Srinivasa Ramanujan |
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Aifric Campbell
The Semantics of Murder
Paperback, 224 blz., € 15,99
Profile Books Ltd.
The Semantics of Murder is a rare treat: a complex,
intelligent murder mystery that is also a great read. Irish writer
Aifric Campbell's first novel is loosely based on the life of the
American linguist Richard Montague, who was found murdered in his home
in 1971.
more
Order this
book |
 |
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David Guterson
The Other
Hardcover, 272 pages, €18,95 en € 20,85
Publisher: Knopf
Two teenage boys, one from an exclusive private school, the other from a
public school, meet at a high school track event and become friends. Set
in Seattle in the 1970s, David Guterson’s new book is wonderfully
evocative of a particular time and place in American history.
more
Order this
book |
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Joseph
O'Neill
Netherland
€ 24,95
ISBN 9780307377043
Fourth Estate
Joseph O'Neill's third novel
is set in post-September 11
New York. The protagonist is
Hans van den Broek, a Dutch
investment banker whose
English wife has left him
and taken their son back to
London, leaving him to fend
for himself in the Chelsea
Hotel. The game of cricket
is the central metaphor of
the book, which echoes the
slow rhythm of the game and
its understated tension.
Read the Review by Kris
Kohlstrand
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Junot Diaz
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
€ 19.99
Riverhead | Penguin Group
Junot Diaz’s first novel has been several years in the making,
but it is well worth the wait. This is a book that reaches out
and grabs you. It is an immigrant family saga about the
Dominican Republic and the Caribbean diaspora in North America.
It is funny, raucous and engaging. But don’t let this fool you:
it is also a chilling account of one of the longest lasting,
most brutal dictatorships of the 20th century, the Trujillo
regime.
One of the best things about this book is the original use of
language. New Jersey ghetto and Dominican slang jostle for
attention in the same sentence. Readers with no knowledge of
Spanish should keep a dictionary at hand because the verbal
fireworks are too good to miss.
The book works on several levels: as an immigrant saga, a love
story, and as political commentary. Above all it is about being
an outsider, the immigrant’s sense of never really belonging
anywhere. Oscar, the book’s unlikely hero is the ultimate
outsider. An overweight, nerdy virgin, he feels just as out of
place in Paterson, New Jersey as he does among the macho males
of Santo Domingo. The brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an
excellent choice for Boekhandel van Rossem’s new BOLD project.
It is indeed a bold book, and recommended reading for people who
are looking for something more than the usual book club fare.
Order this
book
|
Junot Díaz’s fiction has
appeared in The New Yorker,
The Paris Review, and The
Best American Short Stories.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,
was greeted with rapturous reviews,
including Michiko Kakutani in The
New York Times calling it “a
book that decisively establishes him
as one of contemporary fiction's
most distinctive and irresistible
new voices.” His debut story
collection, Drown, published
eleven years prior to Oscar Wao,
was also met with unprecedented
acclaim; it became a national
bestseller, won numerous awards, and
has since grown into a landmark of
contemporary literature. Born in the
Dominican Republic and raised in New
Jersey, Díaz lives in New York City
and is a professor of creative
writing at MIT.
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David Leavitt
The Indian Clerk
Hardcover 485 pages € 24,90
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
The extraordinary true story of the discovery of one of the greatest
mathematicians
January, 1913, Cambridge. G.H. Hardy – eccentric, charismatic and
considered the greatest British mathematician of his age – receives a
mysterious envelope covered with Indian stamps. Inside he finds a
rambling letter from a self-professed mathematical genius who claims to
be on the brink of solving the most important mathematical problem of
his time. Hardy determines to learn more about this mysterious Indian
clerk, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a decision that will profoundly affect not
only his own life, and that of his friends, but the entire history of
mathematics. Set against the backdrop of the First World War, and
populated with such luminaries as D.H. Lawrence and Bertrand Russell,
The Indian Clerk fashions from this fascinating period an utterly
compelling story about our need to find order in the world.
Reviews:
´A loving exploration of one of the greatest collaborations of the past
century, The Indian Clerk is a novel that brilliantly orchestrates
questions of colonialism, sexual identity and the nature of genius’
Manil Suri
‘Leavitt brings to life a world of maths and mysticism’
Observer
‘Impressive … Leavitt plunges us, like Ramanujan, into a world of
academic squabbling and wartime privation’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Excellent … His Hardy is a superb creation … The author also
synthesises huge amounts of engrossing period gossip … the snatches of
backbiting and shop-talk richly convey the anxieties of the intellectual
climate’
Saturday Telegraph
Order this
book |
David Leavitt
G.H. Hardy
Srinivasa Ramanujan |
|
|
Aifric Campbell
The Semantics of Murder
Paperback, 224 blz., € 15,99
Profile Books Ltd.
The Semantics of Murder is a rare treat: a complex,
intelligent murder mystery that is also a great read. Irish writer
Aifric Campbell's first novel is loosely based on the life of the
American linguist Richard Montague, who was found murdered in his home
in 1971.
more
Order this
book |
|
|
|
David Guterson
The Other
Hardcover, 272 pages, €18,95 en € 20,85
Publisher: Knopf
Two teenage boys, one from an exclusive private school, the other from a
public school, meet at a high school track event and become friends. Set
in Seattle in the 1970s, David Guterson’s new book is wonderfully
evocative of a particular time and place in American history.
more
Order this
book |
|
|
|
Joseph
O'Neill
Netherland
€ 24,95
ISBN 9780307377043
Fourth Estate
Joseph O'Neill's third novel
is set in post-September 11
New York. The protagonist is
Hans van den Broek, a Dutch
investment banker whose
English wife has left him
and taken their son back to
London, leaving him to fend
for himself in the Chelsea
Hotel. The game of cricket
is the central metaphor of
the book, which echoes the
slow rhythm of the game and
its understated tension.
Read the Review by Kris
Kohlstrand
|
|
|
|
Junot Diaz
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
€ 19.99
Riverhead | Penguin Group
Junot Diaz’s first novel has been several years in the making,
but it is well worth the wait. This is a book that reaches out
and grabs you. It is an immigrant family saga about the
Dominican Republic and the Caribbean diaspora in North America.
It is funny, raucous and engaging. But don’t let this fool you:
it is also a chilling account of one of the longest lasting,
most brutal dictatorships of the 20th century, the Trujillo
regime.
One of the best things about this book is the original use of
language. New Jersey ghetto and Dominican slang jostle for
attention in the same sentence. Readers with no knowledge of
Spanish should keep a dictionary at hand because the verbal
fireworks are too good to miss.
The book works on several levels: as an immigrant saga, a love
story, and as political commentary. Above all it is about being
an outsider, the immigrant’s sense of never really belonging
anywhere. Oscar, the book’s unlikely hero is the ultimate
outsider. An overweight, nerdy virgin, he feels just as out of
place in Paterson, New Jersey as he does among the macho males
of Santo Domingo. The brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an
excellent choice for Boekhandel van Rossem’s new BOLD project.
It is indeed a bold book, and recommended reading for people who
are looking for something more than the usual book club fare.
Order this
book
|
Junot Díaz’s fiction has
appeared in The New Yorker,
The Paris Review, and The
Best American Short Stories.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,
was greeted with rapturous reviews,
including Michiko Kakutani in The
New York Times calling it “a
book that decisively establishes him
as one of contemporary fiction's
most distinctive and irresistible
new voices.” His debut story
collection, Drown, published
eleven years prior to Oscar Wao,
was also met with unprecedented
acclaim; it became a national
bestseller, won numerous awards, and
has since grown into a landmark of
contemporary literature. Born in the
Dominican Republic and raised in New
Jersey, Díaz lives in New York City
and is a professor of creative
writing at MIT.
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We would like to draw your attention to the
Holliday Newsletter of Politics and Prose, one of
Beth's favorite bookstores in Washington DC. If we don't
have stock of the books discussed, we will be happy to order
them for you. While you are on the World Wide Web, have a look at the
Ten Best Books and the
100 Notable books of 2007
of
You can order by e-mail
or by phone: 020-4707077. |
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