Beletrie v angličtině

A gripping drama of beauty, destruction, sadness, and suspense, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of the last thirty years of Afghan history, and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, and the salvation to be found in love. Poor, uneducated Mariam is terrified and only fifteen years old when she is shipped off to Kabul to marry a troubled man thirty years her senior. Nearly two decades later, pretty fifteen-year-old Laila finds herself in the same situation when her intellectual parents are killed by a stray Mujahideen bomb. Forced to forget the passionate love of her life, a boy she´s known since childhood, Laila has no choice but to join that same loveless household with shy Mariam and the bitter husband they now share. In time, however, orphaned Lail

Growing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her first husband and that someone had been blackmailing her. Now, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life. But when Roger is found stabbed to death it seems only Poirot can help.

One hot summer night in the house of the Mississippi Delta's richest cotton planter, a family imprisoned by the past is torn apart by the revelations of feelings of lust, greed and envy.

Inspired by DH Lawrence, Chekhov and Hemingway, Bukowski's writing is passionate, extreme and has attracted a cult following, while his life was as weird and wild as the tales he wrote. This collection of short stories gives an insight into the dark, dangerous lowlife of Los Angeles that Bukowski inhabited. From prostitutes to classical music, Bukowski ingeniously mixes high and low culture in his 'tales of ordinary madness'. These are angry yet tender, humorous and haunting portrayals of life in the underbelly of Los Angeles.

On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

His life was like his recurring nightmare: a train to nowhere. But an ordinary life has a way of taking an extraordinary turn. Add a girl whose ears are so exquisite that, when uncovered, they improve sex a thousand-fold, a runaway friend, a right-wing politico, an ovine-obsessed professor and a manic-depressive in a sheep outfit, implicate them in a hunt for a sheep, that may or may not be running the world, and eth upshot is another singular masterpiece from Japan's finest novelist.

New York Times Toru Okada's cat has disappeared and this has unsettled his wife, who is herself growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has started receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.

The War is just over. In Venice, a city elaborately and affectionately described, Richard Cantrell, an American colonel, falls passionately in love with Renata, a young Italian countess who has 'a profile that could break your or anyone else's heart'. Cantrell is embittered, war-scarred old enough to be Renata's father but is overwhelmed by the selflessness and freshness of the love she is offering. But this is no fairy tale. The fighting may be ended, but the wounds of war have not yet healed. And for some, the longed-for peace has come too late.

Hemingway's men are bullfighters and boxers, hired hands and hard drinkers, gangsters and gunmen. Each of their stories deals with masculine toughness unsoftened by woman's hand. Incisive, hard-edged, pared down to the bare minimum, they are classic Hemingway territory.

Paris in the twenties: Pernod, parties and expatriate Americans, loose-living on money from home. Jake is wildly in love with Brett Ashley, aristocratic and irresistibly beautiful, but with an abandoned, sensuous nature that she cannot change. When the couple drifts to Spain to the dazzle of the fiesta and the heady atmosphere of the bullfight, their affair is strained by new passions, new jealousies, and Jake must finally learn that he will never possess the woman he loves.

The book opens on the day Hemingway's close friend Pop, a legendary hunter, leaves him in charge of the camp. Meanwhile, tensions are heightening among the various tribes and news arrives of a potential attack. Hemingway must take on his new role of leader and, of equal importance, assist his wife Mary to pursue the great lion she is determined to kill before Christmas. Passionately detailing the African landscape, the thrill of the hunt, and the heartfelt relationships with his African neighbours, Hemingway, a master of dramatic fiction, weaves a tale that is rich in laughter, beauty and insight.