Salman Rushdie3.7 Banned in India before publication, this immense novel by Booker Prize-winner Rushdie ( Midnight's Children ) pits Good against Evil in a whimsical and fantastic tale. Two actors from India, "prancing" Gibreel Farishta and "buttony, pursed" Saladin Chamcha, are flying across the English Channel when the first of many implausible events occurs: the jet explodes. As the two men plummet to the earth, "like titbits of tobacco from a broken old cigar," they argue, sing and are transformed. When they are found on an English beach, the only survivors of the blast, Gibreel has sprouted a halo while Saladin has developed hooves, hairy legs and the beginnings of what seem like horns. What follows is a series of allegorical tales that challenges assumptions about both human and divine nature. Rushdie's fanciful language is as concentrated and overwhelming as a paisley pattern. Angels are demonic and demons are angelic as we are propelled through one illuminating episode after another. The narrative is somewhat burdened by self-consciousness that borders on preciosity, but for Rushdie fans this is a splendid feast. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; first serial to Harper's; BOMC alternate; QPBC alternate; author tour.
Winner of the 1988 Whitbread Award, "The Comforts of Madness" is narrated by a catatonic who never speaks. To the rest of the world he is an inert body and is subjected to a variety of experiments, but his own consciousness is vital and reflective.
Джуди Аллен0.0 Jo’s secret haven is the beautiful garden of the big house nearby – until it is sold to a property developer who plans to cover it with houses and flats. In her efforts to save it she finds herself tangling with a very mixed collection of neighbours, struggling to find her way around the unreasonably big Town Hall, having to deal with the secret problem she thinks of only as It, learning quite a lot about her own family and getting some unexpected help from a long-dead ancestor.
Peter Porter0.0 With this new collection, Peter Porter shows his maturity as a poet and displays his ability to work in a variety of forms. The "oracle" of the title is the English language, with the poet acting as a "priest" bound to carry messages to the outside world. Porter's themes here are childhood, dreams, painting, history, and most important, words and their responsibilities.
Эндрю Уилсон0.0 In this landmark biography of Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, A.N. Wilson narrates the complex drama of the writer's life: his childhood of aristocratic privilege but emotional deprivation, his discovery of his literary genius after aimless years of gambling and womanizing, and his increasingly disastrous marriage. Wilson sweeps away the long-held belief that Tolstoy's works were the exact mirror of his life, and instead traces the roots of Tolstoy's art to his relationship with God, with women, and with Russia. He also breaks new ground in recreating the world that shaped the great novelist's life and art--the turmoil of ideas and politics in nineteenth-century Russia and the incredible literary renaissance that made Tolstoy's work possible. 24 pages of illustrations.
Книга названа КНИГОЙ ГОДА.