Новинки Ривки Голчен

The plague is spreading. The hundred year war is beginning. Katharina Kepler is believed to be a witch. Known for her herbal remedies and successful children – among them Johannes, Imperial Mathematician and author of the laws of planetary motion – Katharina’s life is changed by an accusation of witchcraft. Facing financial ruin, torture and even execution, she tells her side of the story.
Witty, engaging and vividly imagined, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch draws on historical documents to illuminate a society undone by collective aggression and hysterical fear – a narrative with true resonance for today.

The plague is spreading.
The Thirty Years’ War is beginning.
Katharina Kepler is believed to be a witch.
An illiterate widow, Katherina Kepler is known by her neighbours for her herbal remedies and the success of her children, including her eldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It's enough to make anyone jealous, and Katharina has done herself no favours by being out and about and up in everyone's business.
So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katharina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katharina of offering her a bitter, witchy drink that has made her ill, Katharina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution, Katharina tells her side of the story.
Provocative and entertaining, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch draws on real historical documents to touchingly illuminate a society, and a family, undone by superstition the state, and the mortal convulsions of history. It is a story of our time – of a community implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear.

The story begins in 1618, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years' War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katharina Kepler is accused of being a witch.

Katharina is an illiterate widow, known by her neighbors for her herbal remedies and the success of her children, including her eldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It's enough to make anyone jealous, and Katharina has done herself no favors by being out and about and in everyone's business.

So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katharina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katharina of offering her a bitter, witchy drink that has made her ill, Katharina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution, Katharina tells her side of the story to her friend and next-door neighbor Simon, a reclusive widower imperiled by his own secrets.

Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which Rivka Galchen is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch will both provoke and entertain. The story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear is a tale for our time. Galchen's bold new novel touchingly illuminates a society and a family undone by superstition, the state, and the mortal convulsions of history.

Фред и ее мама постоянно переезжают. И теперь накануне своего тринадцатилетия девочка остается без друзей в новом городе. Она ссорится с мамой и не хочет праздновать день рождения. Но нечаянно Фред находит китайский фонарь в гостиной и оказывается в необычной стране, где нет времени, нельзя есть любимую арахисовую пасту, а взрослеть и отмечать дни рождения и вовсе запрещено. Для детей среднего школьного возраста.

One August day, a baby was born, or as it seemed to Rivka Galchen, a puma moved into her apartment. Her arrival felt supernatural, she seemed to come from another world. And suddenly, the world seemed ludicrously, suspiciously, adverbially sodden with meaning.

But Galchen didn’t want to write about the puma. She had never been interested in babies, or in mothers before. Now everything seemed directly related to them and she specifically wanted to write about other things because it might mean she was really, covertly, learning something about babies, or about being near babies.

The result is Little Labours, a slanted enchanted miscellany. Galchen writes about babies in art (with wrongly shaped head) and babies in literature (rarer than dogs or abortions, often monstrous); about the effort of taking a passport photo for a baby not yet able to hold up her head and the frightening prevalence of orange as today’s chic colour for baby gifts; about Frankenstein as a sort of baby and a baby as a sort of Godzillas. In doing so she opens up an odd and tender world of wonder.

Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book—a key inspiration for Rivka Galchen’s new book—contains a list of “Things That Make One Nervous.” And wouldn’t the blessed event top almost anyone’s list?

Little Labors is a slanted, enchanted literary miscellany. Varying in length from just a sentence or paragraph to a several-page story or essay, Galchen’s puzzle pieces assemble into a shining, unpredictable, mordant picture of the ordinary-extraordinary nature of babies and literature. Anecdotal or analytic, each part opens up an odd and tender world of wonder. The 47 Ronin; the black magic of maternal love; babies morphing from pumas to chickens; the quasi-repellent concept of “women writers”; origami-ophilia in Oklahoma as a gateway drug to a lifelong obsession with Japan; discussions of favorite passages from the Heian masterpieces Genji and The Pillow Book; the frightening prevalence of orange as today’s new chic color for baby gifts; Frankenstein as a sort of baby; babies gold mines; babies as tiny Godzillas …

Little Labors–atomized and exploratory, conceptually byzantine and freshly forthright–delights.

In one of the intensely imaginative stories in Rivka’s Galchen’s American Innovations, a young woman’s furniture walks out on her. In another, the narrator feels compelled to promise to deliver a takeout order that has incorrectly been phoned in to her. In a third, the petty details of a property transaction illuminate the complicated pains and loves of a family.

Veteran campaigner Dr Barbara Rafferty’s obsessive crusade to save the albatross on the Pacific atoll of Saint-Esprit suddenly gains international support when millions of TV viewers witness the shooting of her young acolyte Neil Dempsey on a foolhardy rescue mission. From the outpouring of support Dr Barbara begins to turn the deserted island into a sanctuary – a remote paradise for eco-enthusiasts, idealists and a growing number of the world’s endangered species.But as this sinister story unfolds it becomes clear that all is not as it seems in the ecological idyll, indeed, some species are much more endangered than others.Brilliantly unsettling in classic ‘Ballardian’ style, this is a novel in which all expectations are upset and all roles reversed.

When Dr. Leo Liebenstein's wife disappears, she leaves behind a single confounding clue: a woman who looks, talks, and behaves exactly like her. A simulatcrum. But Leo is not fooled, and he knows better than to trust his senses in matters of the heart. Certain that the real Rema is alive and in hiding, he embarks on a quixotic journey to reclaim her. With the help of his psychiatric patient Harvey--who believes himself to be a secret agent able to conrtol the weather--his investigation leads him from the streets of New York City to the southernmost reaches of Patagonia, in search of the woman he loves. Atmospheric Disturbances is a "witty, tender, and conceptually dazzling" (Booklist) novel about the mysterious nature of human relationships.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Salon.com Top Ten Book of the Year
A Plain Dealer (Cleveland) Best Book of the Year
A Slate Best Book of the Year