Engelstalig

A contemporary Englishman's attempt to see himself in the mirrors of his past and his present.

Putting the sex back in Pleasure, here is the first new English translation since the Victorian era of the great Italian masterpiece of sensuality and seduction
 
Like Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray, Andrea Sperelli lives his life as a work of art, seeking beauty and flouting the rules of morality and social interaction along the way. In his aristocratic circles in Rome, he is a serial seducer. But there are two women who command his special regard: the beautiful young widow Elena, and the pure, virgin-like Maria. In Andrea’s pursuit of the exalted heights of extreme pleasure, he plays them against each other, spinning a sadistic web of lust and deceit.

This new translation of D’Annunzio’s masterpiece, the first in more than one hundred years, restores what was considered too offensive to be included in the 1898 translation—some of the very scenes that are key to the novel’s status as a landmark of literary decadence.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

"Betty Miller wrote this, her fourth novel, in 1935. But her publisher, Victor Gollancz, ‘turned the book down flat,’ wrote Neal Ascherson in The New York Review of Books. ‘It seems most likely that he saw it as terrifyingly provocative, not only an attack on the solid English assimilation of his own family but a tactless outburst against the English at precisely the moment, two years after Hitler's assumption of power, when their tolerance and hospitality were most needed.’ In the novel Alec Berman escapes from his restrictive Jewish family in Brighton, and although he has a successful career as a film-maker (perhaps modelled on that of Alexander Korda) and marries the very English Catherine, he always feels a ‘Dago: Jew: Outsider.’ ‘Yet,' continued Neal Ascherson, ‘the rejection is not really the refusal of a snobbish Gentile world fully to accept him. The rejecting force comes from within himself.’ ‘A thought-provoking insight into anti-semitism between the wars,' wrote the Guardian, 'not the violent prejudice of Mosley's fascists, but the discreet discrimination of the bourgeoisie.’" -- Provided by publisher.

'In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned to this country and is once more active. It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord - well, you know who I mean - is alive and among us again, said Fudge.' These dramatic words appeared in the final pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In the midst of this battle of good and evil, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince takes up the story of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with Voldemort's power and followers increasing day by day

The story of Constantine Stassos, a Greek immigrant. He marries an Italian girl, they have three children and he becomes a rich construction boss. After which it's downhill all the way: drugs, sex and the generation gap. The parents divorce, a son becomes a homosexual, the daughter has an illegitimate black baby. By the author of A Home at the End of the World.

A group of college friends find themselves marooned at a luxurious hotel on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. While their boat is being repaired, they can't help but observe the daily routine of a fellow hotel guest - a mysterious, white-bearded stranger who sits on the veranda each night and smokes one cigarette, sometimes two. When the group decides to invite the elegant traveller to lunch with them, they cannot begin to imagine the miraculous abilities, strange wisdom, and a life-changing story he is about to impart to one of the friends in particular...

Nathan Glass has come to Brooklyn to die. Divorced, estranged from his only daughter, the retired life insurance salesman seeks only solitude and anonymity. Then Nathan finds his long-lost nephew, Tom Wood, working in a local bookstore - a far cry from the brilliant academic career he'd begun when Nathan saw him last. Tom's boss is the charismatic Harry Brightman, whom fate has also brought to the "ancient kingdom of Brooklyn, New York." Through Tom and Harry, Nathan's world gradually broadens to include a new set of acquaintances - not to mention a stray relative or two - and leads him to a reckoning with his past life.

Shy Carla Holt is a weaver of tales, romantic stories that fulfil her dreams and allow her to escape reality. Yet her publishing success does little to dispel her growing sexual frustration, and a sense of inadequacy fostered by a rather superior boyfriend. Carla, however, is soon commissioned to ghost-write the biography of the world famous tenor, Angelo Lorenzo, about whom she has often fantasised. She tracks him down to a secluded villa in the Greek islands, and finds that fantasy becomes reality on the Isle of Desire... Erotic Novel.

On a sunny day in June, Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is getting ready for a party and exulting in the vibrant swell of London. As Clarissa's preparations take her from the golden morning to the glittering evening, she muses on the choices she made as a young woman, the romances that have enriched her life, and the passage of time. In another part of London, war hero Septimus Smith is suffering from shell shock - what we would now term PTSD - and is haunted by the death of his friend. He finds himself teetering on the brink of madness, unable to leave his wounds behind. Over the course of a single day, the lives of Clarissa and Septimus will interweave and finally converge as the party reaches its climax.

Do you know why we call a book of maps an "atlas"? Or why you don't ever want to be "tantalized" again? And would you still avoid that sticky almond candy "ambrosia" if you knew it could make you immortal? You'll cry "By Jove!" when you discover the answers to these and other questions in this follow-up volume to Michael Macrone's Brush Up Your Shakespeare! and It's Greek to Me! Both an entertaining handbook to classical mythology and a revealing catalogue of divinely inspired word origins, By Jove! recounts great stories in a fresh, new way, offering concise synopses while exploring the odd twists these tales have taken during the ages. As you make your way through the magical places of myth, you'll meet all the major gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, and beasts and monsters who have lent their names to our language, and their stories to our tradition. By Jove! will pique your imagination and supply you with a store of fascinating details to impress friends and nemeses alike - including the tale of the original "nemesis". You'll discover which goddess lent her name to money, why you don't want to lie on a "Procrustean bed", and why the mythical Adonis was no muscle-bound he-man. And if someone pops you a "trivia" question on classical mythology, you will be sure to find the answer in this illuminating "cornucopia" - including the interesting origins of "trivia" itself. Whether you love mythology, language, or both, you will find By Jove! indispensable. And if you didn't know how amusing myths and words could be, this book will acquaint you with their pleasures.

Fall in love with one of the bestselling novels of all time -- the legendary love story that became a beloved film starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep.
If you've ever experienced the one true love of your life, a love that for some reason could never be, you will understand why readers all over the world are so moved by this small, unknown first novel that they became a publishing phenomenon and #1 bestseller. The story of Robert Kincaid, the photographer and free spirit searching for the covered bridges of Madison County, and Francesca Johnson, the farm wife waiting for the fulfillment of a girlhood dream, The Bridges of Madison County gives voice to the longings of men and women everywhere -- and shows us what it is to love and be loved so intensely that life is never the same again.

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy - the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.

When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, he greeted her as "the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war." He was exaggerating only slightly. First published in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin sold more than 300,000 copies in its first year and brought home the evils of slavery more dramatically than any abolitionist tract possibly could. With its boldly drawn characters, violent reversals of fortune, and unabashed sentimentality, Stowe's work remains one of the great polemical novels of American literature, a book with the emotional impact of a round of cannon fire.
For almost thirty years, The Library of America has presented America's best and most significant writing in acclaimed hardcover editions. Now, a new series, Library of America Paperback Classics, offers attractive and affordable books that bring The Library of America's authoritative texts within easy reach of every reader. Each book features an introductory essay by one of a leading writer, as well as a detailed chronology of the author's life and career, an essay on the choice and history of the text, and notes.
The contents of this Paperback Classic are drawn from Harriet Beecher Stowe: Three Novels, volume number 4 in The Library of America series. That volume also includes The Minister's Wooing and Oldtown Folks.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. As the death toll climbed, the FBI took up the case. But the bureau badly bungled the investigation. In desperation, its young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. Together with the Osage he and his undercover team began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

This comedy of manners in set in Trinidad and is written by the author of "The Mystic Masseur", "The Middle Passage", "The Return of Eva Perron", "Mr Stone and the Knights Companion" and "A House for Mr Biswas"

Niccolo Machiavelli's 'The Prince' is widely regarded as one of the most influential books on politics, especially on the acquisition, perpetuation and use of political power. Despite being written in 1513, the theories expressed are still considered shrewd and insightful."

A sweeping historical novel about the roles played by two remarkable men in the American Revolution: George Washington and Caesar -- Washington's ex-slave who escaped to fight for the British against his former master. In 1773, a new slave arrives at the Virginia estate of farmer George Washington and is given the name Julius Caesar. Within months, slave and master will be fighting on opposing sides in the American Revolution: Washington as commander of the Continental army, Caesar as a member of a corps of black soldiers that will be one of the most decorated Loyalist units of the war. For Caesar, the long journey from slave to British soldier will be filled with danger. After leading a mass escape, he must fight off hunger, disease and slave-takers before finding a way through enemy lines to claim the freedom on offer to any slave whose master stands against the King. Washington, meanwhile, faces his own challenges. Having won command of the rebel forces, he has to turn a makeshift collection of inexperienced volunteers into a disciplined force capable of defeating one of the world's most powerful professional armies. The war will bring great victories and devastating losses for

This novel is focusing on the complex relationship between Elena, a woman navigating personal and societal expectations, and the turbulent backdrop of Detroit in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The title, resonating with the legal plea "nolo contendere," highlights Elena's struggle for self-definition amidst societal pressures and her eventual acceptance of her own choice

Lady Constance Chatterley is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who is impotent. Oppressed by her dreary life, she is drawn to Mellors the gamekeeper. Breaking out against the constraints of society she yields to her instinctive desire for him and discovers the transforming power of physical love which leads them towards fulfilment.