Λογοτεχνία

Mykonos in the mid-fifties… On the cosmopolitan Aegean island, destination of the international jet-set, secrets and lies that date back to World War II cast their shadows over the classic holiday scenario. The rich shipowner Taxiarchis, his trusted friend Charalambus, Lilian, Taxiarchis’ young and spoiled niece, the restless Daninos who searches for the truth about his father, the shy but resolute Eleni, the provocative Magda Antonescu and the shadowy Italian Marquis, Montebello Calvini give life to a fascinating plot that will keep the reader in suspense from the first page.

At the centre of Music for Chameleons is Handcarved Coffins, a 'nonfiction novel' based on the brutal crimes of a real-life murderer.Taking place in a small Midwestern town in America, it offers chilling insights into the mind of a killer and the obsession of the man bringing him to justice. Also in this volume are six short stories and seven 'conversational portraits' including a touching one of Marilyn Monroe, the 'beautiful child' and a hilarious one of a dope-smoking cleaning lady doing her rounds in New York.

Now in B-format PaperbackFrom one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, as their friendship, beautifully and meticulously rendered, becomes a not always perfect shelter from hardship. Ferrante has created a memorable portrait of two women, but My Brilliant Friend is also the story of a nation. Through the lives of Elena and Lila, Ferrante gives her readers the story of a city and a country undergoing momentous change. "Nothing quite like it has ever been published."-Guardian"Elena Ferrante has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy-and the world."-The Sunday Times"This is high stakes, subversive literature."-The Telegraph

My Husband Simon tells the story of the married life of Nevis Falconer, a young woman novelist, and Simon Quinn. Temperamentally unsuited, they are only kept together by a mutual physical attraction, in spite of innumerable quarrels. They live this superficial existence for three years, until one day Nevis meets Marcus Chard, her American publisher, who has just arrived in London.

Soon friendship develops into love. Inevitably the problem faces her. Wife or mistress? Nevis finds herself caught in a whirl of circumstances over which she has no control.

Published in 1931 in the immediate aftermath of D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover controversy, Mollie Panter-Downes's book explores the different echelons of the increasingly self-conscious middle class and the ways in which the tensions and nuances of vocabulary, dress, occupation, politics, taste and, ultimately, the literary world contribute to the incompatibility of a marriage.

An exhilarating, brutal, comedic masterpiece--an American classic that will "leave you so giddy you'll go and kick sand in somebody's face" ( Houston Post)

Myriad of a Dictionary Whore is a book of situation, free form poetry showing the many layers of the human and female experience. This book of poetry is also a means to edify the reader and challenge them to expand their vocabulary by using humor, sexuality, and love.Some of this material is raw, edgy and down to Earth experiences drawn from life that some women go thru and feel about delicate situations.

'Knut Hamsun founded the modernist and postmodernist novel at once' writes James Wood in his introduction to this seminal work by a Nobel Prize-winning writer who has been recognised as one of the greatest literary figures of the twentieth century. A young man called John Nagel arrives to spend a summer in a small Norwegian coastal town, a stranger in a loud yellow suit who begins to behave very curiously. He shocks, bewilders and beguiles with his open defiance and erratic self-revelations. Nagel's presence acts as a catalyst for the hidden impulses, concealed thoughts and darker instincts of the townsfolk. Cursed with the ability to understand the human soul, especially his own, Nagel can foresee, but cannot prevent, his own destruction.

Tommy & Tuppence are hired to track down wartime spies at a seaside resort... It is World War II, and while the RAF struggles to keep the Luftwaffe at bay, Britain faces an even more sinister threat from 'the enemy within' - Nazis posing as ordinary citizens. With pressure mounting, the Intelligence service appoints two unlikely spies, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Their mission: to seek out a man and a woman from among the colourful guests at Sans Souci, a seaside hotel. But this assignment is no stroll along the promenade. After all, N and M have just murdered Britain's finest agent...

Thirteen strangely wrought, ingeniously crafted stories make up Nabokov's baker's dozen. In some of these stories shadowy people pass through, cooped up by life, with nowhere to escape to. Their dreams lie stifled, smothered by routine and repetition, and frustrations lurk in all the corners. In others, elusive glimpses of fleeting happiness, which flutter away before they can be snatched, waylay their victims. Like the shimmer of the sea, the gleam of a glass caught by the sun, they sparkle brilliantly only to dissolve again.

Born to drunken parents in the slums of Paris, Nana lives in squalor until she is discovered at the Théâtre des Variétés. She soon rises from the streets to set the city alight as the most famous high-class prostitute of her day. Rich men, Comtes and Marquises fall at her feet, great ladies try to emulate her appearance, lovers even kill themselves for her. Nana's hedonistic appetite for luxury and decadent pleasures knows no bounds - until, eventually, it consumes her. Nana provoked outrage on its publication in 1880, with its heroine damned as 'the most crude and bestial sort of whore', yes the language of the novel makes Nana almost a mythical figure: a destructive force preying on a corrupt society.