Арман Мари Леруа4.4 Для того, чтобы посмотреть, как развивается зародыш, Клеопатра приказывала вспарывать животы беременным рабыням. Сегодня мы знаем о механизмах, которые заставляют одну-единственную клетку превращаться сначала в эмбрион, после - в ребенка, а затем и во взрослого человека, несравненно больше, чем во времена жестокой египтянки, однако многие вопросы по-прежнему остаются без ответов. Один из основных методов исследовать пути формирования человеческого тела - это проследить за возникающими в этом процессе сбоями или, как говорят ученые, мутациями. Именно об этих "неполадках", приводящих к появлению сиамских близнецов, двухголовых ягнят и прочих мутантов, рассказывает в своей увлекательной и порой шокирующей книге британский биолог Арман Мари Леруа. Используя истории знаменитых "уродцев" в качестве отправной точки для своих рассуждений, автор подводит читателя к пониманию сложных законов, позволяющих человеческим телу на протяжении многих поколений сохранять относительную стабильность, оставаясь при этом поразительно многообразным.
Сюзанна Кларк4.3 «Так мог бы выглядеть роман „Мастер и Маргарита“, если бы его написал Диккенс», — полагает Александр Генис, а Нил Гейман называл эту книгу «лучшей литературной сказкой на английском языке за последние семьдесят лет». Здесь Англия — страна древних магических традиций, оставшихся в прошлом, — воюет с Наполеоном, а осторожный мистер Норрелл и его порывистый ученик Джонатан Стрендж мечтают возродить волшебное искусство. Здесь «темная мифология на фоне восхитительной комедии нравов в духе Джейн Остен рождает шедевр толкиновских масштабов» (Time). Здесь невероятные конфликты, человеческие и нечеловеческие, описаны с абсолютной достоверностью, а реалии, стиль, язык ушедшей эпохи воссозданы с размахом и дотошностью «Имени Розы» Умберто Эко.
Роман был переведен на десятки языков, разошелся по миру тиражом свыше миллиона экземпляров и был экранизирован: в 2015 году на экраны вышел одноименный мини-сериал первого телеканала Би-би-си, главные роли исполнили Берти Карвел и Эдди Марсан.
Перевод публикуется в новой редакции, с дополнительными материалами и множеством иллюстраций.
Мэттью Холлис0.0 In this first collection, Matthew Hollis, an editor at Faber, immerses us in the undercurrents of love and loss. His poems are brimming with courage in adversity as well as the promise of renewal, culminating in a powerful sequence about his father's struggle with terminal illness.
Дэвид Безмозгис0.0 A dazzling debut, and a publishing phenomenon: the tender, savagely funny collection from a young immigrant who has taken the critics by storm.
Few readers had heard of David Bezmozgis before May 2003, when Harper's, Zoetrope, and The New Yorker all printed stories from his forthcoming collection. In the space of a few weeks, America thus met the Bermans--Bella and Roman and their son, Mark--Russian Jews who have fled the Riga of Brezhnev for Toronto, the city of their dreams.
Told through Mark's eyes, the stories in Natasha possess a serious wit and uniquely Jewish perspective that recall the first published stories of Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth, not to mention the recent work of Jhumpa Lahiri, Nathan Englander, and Adam Haslett.
Рори Стюарт5.0 In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following.
Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.
Джули Оррингер3.8 The stories in How to Breathe Underwater, Julie Orringer's debut collection, swim with tragedies both commonplace and horrific. A fall from a treehouse, an ailing mother, a near-drowning, a premature baby, a gun--each is the source of a young woman's coming-of-age, which we witness through Orringer's lovely, driving prose. The author possesses an uncanny ability to capture scenes and complex emotions in quick strokes. In "Pilgrims," young Ella is taken to a hippie household for Thanksgiving, where her mother joins several other cancer patients in search of natural remedies: "Some of them wore knitted hats like her mother, their skin dull-gray, their eyes purple-shaded underneath. To Ella it seemed they could be relatives of her mother's, shameful cousins recently discovered." Shame is as omnipresent as water in this collection, sadly appropriate for stories about girls becoming women. Orringer possesses an acute understanding of the many rules of girlhood, in particular the uniquely childish importance of "not telling" (for fear of becoming a traitor, and consequently, an outcast). But though her subjects may take us to the murky depths--submerging us in the cruelties girls and siblings commit against each other--Orringer's nimble writing and subtle humor allow us to breathe.
Зувена «ZZ» Пэкер2.5 With stories in The New Yorker's debut fiction issue and in The Best American Short Stories, 2000, and as the winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, ZZ Packer has already achieved what most writers only dream about-all prior to publication of her first book.
Now, in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, her impressive range and talent are abundantly evident. Packer dazzles with her command of language-surprising and delighting us with unexpected turns and indelible images, as she takes us into the lives of characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong. With penetrating insight that belies her youth-she was only nineteen years old when Seventeen magazine printed her first published story-Packer takes us to a Girl Scout camp, where a troupe of black girls are confronted with a group of white girls, whose defining feature turns out to be not their race but their disabilities; to the Million Man March on Washington, where a young man must decide where his allegiance to his father lies; to Japan, where an international group of drifters find themselves starving, unable to find work.
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking debut-fresh, versatile, and captivating. It introduces us to an arresting and unforgettable new American voice.
Дэвид Мейн0.0 Book Description "Noe says, -I must build a boat. -A boat, she says. -A ship, more like. I'll need the boys to help, he adds as an afterthought. -We're leagues from the sea, she says, or any river big enough to warrant a boat. This
Луиз Дин0.0 After more than half a century of marriage, Dorothy and George are embarking on their first journey abroad together. Three decades younger, Jan and Annemieke are taking their last, as illness and incompatibility bring their unhappy union to an end. At first the luxury of a Caribbean resort is no match for the well-worn patterns of domestic life. Then the couples' paths cross, and a series of surprises ensues--a disappearance and an assault, most dramatically, but also a teapot tempest of passions, slights, misunderstandings, and small awakenings that punctuate a week in which each pair struggles to come to terms with what's been keeping them apart.
A hit with readers and critics alike when it was published, Becoming Strangers is a different kind of love story, in which there's seldom a happy ending but sometimes a chance to redeem a life half-lived.
Longlisted for the Man Booker prize. Winner of The Betty Trask Prize. Winner of Le Prince Maurice. Nominated for The Guardian First Book Award. Longlisted for IMPAC. Named by The Observer and The Independent as one of the best books of the year.
'I have read Becoming Strangers with pleasure and admiration.' J.M.Coetzee.
'Remarkably moving. The first half [of the book] is a fine display of economic writing, never wasting a word and yet revealing a wealth of emotion, history, and desire. It reads like mature Anne Tyler . . . The second half, as the action accelerates, is even better, both page-turning and heart-breaking. This is the sort of book that makes you want to immediately go back to page one and start again . . . One of the best books of the year.'The Independent.
'Quite exceptional . . . There aren’t many first-time novelists I’d dare to compare to Alan Bennett, but Louise Dean has his wicked yet empathetic eye, his ear for pathos, and his almost supernatural talent for observing and measuring the comedy and tragedy of ordinary, heartfelt lives.' The Guardian
‘Very accomplished . . . Dean has a deliciously lucid and seemingly effortless style, as well as the gift of being able to write about each character from the inside, making their motives and actions clear. She has an unerring ear for dialogue, particularly between married couples . . . An exceptionally enjoyable book.’ Daily Mail
‘The best book in its genre that I have read in a long time’ Jenni Murray, Woman’s Hour
‘Both heartbreaking and thrilling. Dean deserves a huge readership’ The Times
‘All her characters are perfectly conceived, their inner dialogues spot on, her observations so sharp they make you wince’ Time Out
‘It’s quite hard to put into words the special qualities of this novel, although you feel these at once when you begin to read it. A very accomplished piece of writing.’ Helen Dunmore
'Breathtaking . . . Dean crafts a gut-wrenching tale of marital recklessness and guilt that is reminiscent of John Updike at his most masterful . . . Becoming Strangers is poignant, authentic, funny and extraordinary. For Dean, it marks the beginning of what promises to be a spectacular career.' San Francisco Chronicle
'Dean peels back the skin of these marriages with an unflinching lack of sentimentality and an immense talent for close observation and evocative, often poetic detail. She can reach straight into a character’s heart . . . The ending is unexpected, yet entirely deserved. Dean has produced an ideal novel.' The Atlantic Monthly
‘I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end, I was so uplifted, I did both’ Julie Myerson
Рэйчел Коэн0.0 Book Description“They met in ordinary ways,” writes Rachel Cohen in her introduction, “a careful arrangement after long admiration, a friend’s casual introduction, or because they both just happened to be standing near the
