Алекс Шакар0.0 Fred Brounian and his twin brother, George, were once co-CEOs of a burgeoning New York City software company devoted to the creation of utopian virtual worlds. Now, in the summer of 2006, as two wars rage and the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, George has fallen into a coma, control of the company has been wrenched away by a military contracting conglomerate, and Fred has moved back in with his parents. Broke and alone, he’s led by an attractive woman, Mira, into a neurological study promising to give him "peak" experiences and a newfound spiritual outlook on life. As the study progresses, lines between the subject and the experimenter blur, and reality becomes increasingly porous. Meanwhile, Fred finds himself caught up in what seems at first a cruel prank: a series of bizarre emails and texts that purport to be from his comatose brother.
Moving between the research hospitals of Manhattan, the streets of a meticulously planned Florida city, the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and the uncanny, immersive worlds of urban disaster simulation; threading through military listserv geek-speak, Hindu cosmology, the maxims of outmoded self-help books and the latest neuroscientific breakthroughs, Luminarium is a brilliant examination of the way we live now, a novel that’s as much about the role technology and spirituality play in shaping our reality as it is about the undying bond between brothers, and the redemptive possibilities of love.
"Luminarium is dizzyingly smart and provocative, exploring as it does the state of the present, of technology, of what is real and what is ephemeral. But the thing that separates Luminarium from other books that discuss avatars, virtual reality and the like is that Alex Shakar is committed throughout with trying, relentlessly, to flat-out explain the meaning of life. This book is funny, and soulful, and very sad, but so intellectually invigorating that you'll want to read it twice." — Dave Eggers
"This fascinating, hilarious novel, though set in the past, is the story of the future: technology has outlapped us, reality is blinking on and off like a bad wireless connection, the ones we love are nearby in one sense, but far away in another. Yet at the book’s galloping heart, it’s the story of what one man is willing to go through to find—in our crowded, second-rate space—something like faith. This novel is sharp, original, and full of energy—obviously the work of a brilliant mind.” — Deb Olin Unferth, author of Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War
Эдит Перлман0.0 Tenderly, observantly, incisively, Edith Pearlman captures life on the page like few other writers. She is a master of the short story, and this is a spectacular collection.
Julie Otsuka4.2 Julie Otuka's long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as picture brides nearly a century ago.
In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces their extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where the girls exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women in their homes; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the deracinating arrival of war.
In language that has the force and the fury of poetry, Julie Otsuka has written a singularly spellbinding novel about the American dream.
Майкл Ондатже3.7 Впервые на русском — новейший (выпущенный осенью 2011 года!) роман от автора «Английского пациента», удивительного бестселлера, который покорил читателей всех континентов, был отмечен самой престижной в англоязычном мире Букеровской премией и послужил основой знаменитого кинофильма, получившего девять «Оскаров». Трехнедельное плавание с Цейлона в Европу на лайнере «Оронсей» перевернуло всю жизнь нашего героя, прозванного Майной (говорящий скворец). Усаженный за «кошкин стол» («самое что ни на есть затрапезное место» в судовом ресторане), он знакомится с двумя другими мальчиками, Рамадином и Кассием, и со взрослыми, один другого эксцентричнее: мистер Мазаппа играет в корабельном оркестре и учит их петь блюз; мисс Ласкети швыряет за борт недочитанные детективы и разгуливает по палубе в «голубином» жилете, карманы которого набиты живыми птицами; мистер Дэниелс заведует устроенным в судовом трюме садом и пытается ухаживать за Эмили — красавицей-кузиной Майны. Эмили же куда больше интересует Хайдерабадский мудрец из акробатической труппы «Джанкла». Но главную загадку для всех представляет узник, которого выводят на палубу лишь в полночь и в кандалах...
Joseph O'Connor0.0 Dublin, 1907. A young actress begins an affair with a damaged older man, the leading playwright at the theatre where she works. Outspoken and flirtatious, Molly Allgood is a Catholic girl from the slums of Dublin, dreaming of stardom in America. Her lover, John Synge, is a troubled genius, whose life is hampered by convention and by the austere and God-fearing mother with whom he lives. Their affair, sternly opposed by friends and family, is quarrelsome, affectionate and tender.
Many years later, Molly, now a poverty-stricken old woman, makes her way through London's bomb-scarred city streets, alone but for a snowdrift of memories. Her once dazzling career has faded but her unquenchable passion for life has kept her afloat.
Стивен Кинг4.5 Этот роман безоговорочно признают лучшей книгой Стивена Кинга и миллионы фанатов писателя, и серьёзные литературные критики.
…Убийство президента Кеннеди стало самым трагическим событием американской истории ХХ века.
Тайна его до сих пор не раскрыта.
Но что, если случится чудо? Если появится возможность отправиться в прошлое и предотвратить катастрофу?
Это предстоит выяснить обычному учителю из маленького городка Джейку Эппингу, получившему доступ к временному порталу.
Его цель — спасти Кеннеди.
Но какова будет цена спасения?
Пит Хаутман0.0 A funny, clear-eyed view of the realities of teenage love from National Book Award winner Pete Hautman.
Jen and Wes do not "meet cute." They do not fall in love at first sight. They do not swoon with scorching desire. They do not believe that they are instant soul mates destined to be together forever.
This is not that kind of love story.
Instead, they just hang around in each other's orbits...until eventually they collide. And even after that happens, they're still not sure where it will go. Especially when June starts to pity-date one of Wes's friends, and Wes makes some choices that he immediately regrets.
From National Book Award winner Pete Hautman, this is a love story for people not particularly biased toward romance. But it is romantic, in the same way that truth can be romantic and uncertainty can be the biggest certainty of all.
Патрик Несс4.4 Тринадцатилетний Конор вынужден принять известие о скорой смерти матери. Смириться с этим, пережить все ощущения и прийти к пониманию ему помогает монстр из его снов, старое тисовое дерево, превращающееся в чудовище, когда мальчику особенно плохо… Текст и иллюстрации в книге составляют единое целое так, что книга становится не просто литературным произведением, а настоящим арт-объектом.
Мэл Пит0.0 Clem Ackroyd lives with his parents and grandmother in a claustrophobic home too small to accommodate their larger-than-life characters in the bleak Norlfolk countryside. Clem's life changes irrevocably when he meets Frankie, the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and experiences first love, in all its pain and glory. The story is told in flashback by Clem when he is living and working in New York City as a designer, and moves from the past of his parents and grandmother to his own teenage years. Not only the threat of explosions, but actual ones as well, feature throughout in this latest novel from one of the finest writers working today.
Мэгги Стивотер4.1 Каждую осень, в ноябре, на острове Тисби, лежащем в океане неподалеку от Британских островов, проходят необычные состязания. Наездники седлают водяных лошадей и устраивают бега. Победителя ждут слава и деньги, только мало кто становится победителем. Дело в том, что водяные лошади - своенравные и опасные существа, питающиеся человеческой плотью. И обуздать их может лишь тот, для кого выигрыш - единственная надежда кардинально переменить судьбу. Именно по этой причине готовы рисковать жизнью девятнадцатилетний Шон Кендрик и юная Пак Конноли. Но в том-то и состоит проблема, что они влюблены друг в друга, а в предстоящей им жестокой игре не бывает двух победителей.
Libba Bray3.4 When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.Written by Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.
Ричард Уайт0.0 The transcontinental railroads of the late nineteenth century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating panics in the U.S. economy. Their dependence on public largess drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations rearranged space and time, and remade the landscape of the West. As wheel and rail, car and coal, they opened new worlds of work and ways of life. Their discriminatory rates sparked broad opposition and a new antimonopoly politics.
With characteristic originality, range, and authority, Richard White shows the transcontinentals to be pivotal actors in the making of modern America. But the triumphal myths of the golden spike, robber barons larger than life, and an innovative capitalism all die here. Instead we have a new vision of the Gilded Age, often darkly funny, that shows history to be rooted in failure as well as success.
Джон Алоизиус Фаррелл0.0 Drawing on untapped archives and full of fresh revelations, here is the definitive biography of America’s legendary defense attorney and progressive hero.
Clarence Darrow is the lawyer every law school student dreams of being: on the side of right, loved by many women, played by Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind. His days-long closing arguments delivered without notes won miraculous reprieves for men doomed to hang.
Darrow left a promising career as a railroad lawyer during the tumultuous Gilded Age in order to champion poor workers, blacks, and social and political outcasts against big business, Jim Crow, and corrupt officials. He became famous defending union leader Eugene Debs in the landmark Pullman Strike case and went from one headline case to the next—until he was nearly crushed by an indictment for bribing a jury. He redeemed himself in Dayton, Tennessee, defending schoolteacher John Scopes in the “Monkey Trial,” cementing his place in history.
Now, John A. Farrell draws on previously unpublished correspondence and memoirs to offer a candid account of Darrow’s divorce, affairs, and disastrous finances; new details of his feud with his law partner, the famous poet Edgar Lee Masters; a shocking disclosure about one of his most controversial cases; and explosive revelations of shady tactics he used in his own trial for bribery.
Clarence Darrow is a sweeping, surprising portrait of a legendary legal mind.
Карла Спид Макнейл0.0 What you find isn't nearly as important as what finds you . . .
Since 1996, Finder has set the bar for science-fiction storytelling, with a lush, intricate world and compelling characters. Now, Carla Speed McNeil's Eisner Award-winning series comes to Dark Horse with the original graphic novel Voice.
In a society defined by its intricate network of clans, Rachel Grosvenor has grown up an outcast, straddling worlds. Now, her quest for admission to a highly exclusive clan sends Rachel spiraling into the dark underbelly of Anvard and a paradox that holds the key to her future: How do you find a Finder?
Даниэль Канеман4.2 Наши действия и поступки определены нашими мыслями. Но всегда ли мы кон-тролируем наше мышление? Нобелевский лауреат Даниэль Канеман объясняет, почему мы подчас совершаем нерациональные поступки и как мы принимаем неверные решения. У нас имеется две системы мышления. ""Медленное"" мыш-ление включается, когда мы решаем задачу или выбираем товар в магазине. Обычно нам кажется, что мы уверенно контролируем эти процессы, но не будем забывать, что позади нашего сознания в фоновом режиме постоянно работает ""быстрое"" мышление — автоматическое, мгновенное и неосознаваемое…
Карл Филлипс0.0 A stunning new collection of poems from the author of Speak Low
Comparing any human life to “a restless choir” of impulses variously in conflict and at peace with one another, Carl Phillips, in his eleventh book, examines the double shadow that a life casts forth: “now risk, and now / faintheartedness.” In poems that both embody and inhabit this double shadow, risk and faintheartedness prove to have the power equally to rescue us from ourselves and to destroy us. Spare, haunted, and haunting, yet not without hope, Double Shadow argues for life as a wilderness through which there’s only the questing forward—with no regrets and no looking back.
Сильвия Назар0.0 An instant New York Times bestseller, in a sweeping narrative the author of the esteemed A Beautiful Mind takes us on a journey through modern history with the men and women who changed the lives of every single person on the planet. Grand Pursuit is the epic story of the making of modern economics, of how economics rescued mankind from squalor and deprivation by placing its material fate in its own hands.
A New York Times bestseller, this sweeping narrative from the author of A Beautiful Mind takes us on a journey through modern history with the men and women who changed the lives of every single person on the planet. Grand Pursuit is the epic story of the making of modern economics, of how economics rescued mankind from squalor and deprivation by placing its material fate in its own hands.
Исмет Прчич0.0 Ismet Prcic’s brilliant, provocative, and propulsively energetic debut is about a young Bosnian, also named Ismet Prcic, who has fled his war-torn homeland and is now struggling to reconcile his past with his present life in California.
He is advised that in order to make peace with the corrosive guilt he harbors over leaving behind his family behind, he must “write everything.” The result is a great rattlebag of memories, confessions, and fictions: sweetly humorous recollections of Ismet’s childhood in Tuzla appear alongside anguished letters to his mother about the challenges of life in this new world. As Ismet’s foothold in the present falls away, his writings are further complicated by stories from the point of view of another young man—real or imagined—named Mustafa, who joined a troop of elite soldiers and stayed in Bosnia to fight. When Mustafa’s story begins to overshadow Ismet’s new-world identity, the reader is charged with piecing together the fragments of a life that has become eerily unrecognizable, even to the one living it.
Shards is a thrilling read—a harrowing war story, a stunningly inventive coming of age, and a heartbreaking saga of a splintered family.
