Download or read book Stammered Songbook written by Erwin Mortier and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'What makes me saddest, is the double silence of her being. Language has packed its bags and jumped over the railing of the capsizing ship, but there is also another silence in her or around her. I can no longer hear the music of her soul.' One day, the author's mother no longer remembers the word for 'book'. This seemingly innocuous moment of distraction is the first sign of the slow disintegration of her mind. As Alzheimer's disease sets in and language increasingly escapes her, her son attempts to gather the fragments of what she has become, writing a moving, loving chronicle of the gradual descent into dementia of someone who 'no longer knows who she is, where she is or what will happen'.
Download or read book Spring Garden written by Tomoka Shibasaki and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Akutagawa Prize A sharp, photo-realistic novella of memory and thwarted hope set in modern-day Tokyo—an “unflinching . . . powerful” showcase of the best in contemporary Japanese literature (Shelf Awareness) Divorced and cut off from his family, Taro lives alone in one of the few occupied apartments in his block, a block that is to be torn down as soon as the remaining tenants leave. Since the death of his father, Taro keeps to himself, but is soon drawn into an unusual relationship with the woman upstairs, Nishi, as she passes on the strange tale of the sky-blue house next door. First discovered by Nishi in the little-known photo-book Spring Garden, the sky-blue house soon becomes a focus for both Nishi and Taro: of what is lost, of what has been destroyed, and of what hope may yet lie in the future for both of them, if only they can seize it.
Download or read book War Diaries 1939 1945 written by Astrid Lindgren and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-22 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These personal diaries by the author of Pippi Longstocking chronicle her experiences in Europe during WWII and her astute observations of the conflict. Before she became internationally known for her Pippi Longstocking books, Astrid Lindgren was an aspiring author living in Stockholm with her family at the outbreak of the Second World War. The diaries she kept throughout the hostilities offer her unique perspective—as a civilian, a mother, and an aspiring writer—on the devastating conflict. Lindgren emerges as a morally courageous critic of violence and war, as well as a deeply sensitive and keen observer of world affairs. We hear her thoughts about rationing, blackouts, the Soviet invasion of Finland, and the nature of evil, as well as of her personal heartbreaks, financial struggles, and trials as a mother and writer. Posthumously published in Sweden to great international acclaim, these diaries were called in the Swedish press an “unparalleled war narrative,” “unprecedented.” and a “shocking history lesson.” Illustrated with family photographs, newspaper clippings, and facsimile pages, Lindgren’s diaries provide an intensely personal and vivid account of Europe during the war.
Download or read book Get Well Soon written by Marie-Sabine Roger and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A joyful novel full of humanity from the author of Soft in the Head - a July 2016 Indie Next pick. Saved from drowning in Paris's River Seine, a sixty-something misanthrope finds himself stuck in a hospital bed for six weeks while he recovers. As he looks back on his life, the good and the bad, he makes some unexpected new acquaintances, and just when he thought life had no more suprises in store for him, he finds out he was wrong....
Download or read book Soft in the Head written by Marie-Sabine Roger and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2016-06-28 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: His mother calls him a worthless halfwit while his fellow drunks at the local bar ensure he's the butt of all their jokes. He spends his days whittling wood, counting pigeons and adding his own name to the list on the town war memorial. So how could Germain possibly anticipate what a casual encounter on a park bench with eighty-five-year old Margueritte might mean? In this touchingly comic tale of an unusual friendship, that first conversation opens a door into a world Germain has never imagined—the world of books and ideas—and gives both him and Margueritte the chance of a happiness they thought had passed them by.
Download or read book Messages from a Lost World written by Stefan Zweig and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stefan Zweig was a leading talisman of a united Europe of unfettered movement, of pro-active cultural exchange, humane decency and tolerance, all polar opposites of the Nationalist regimes he loathed, and which came to power in the 1930s. In these poignant essays and addresses, forged in the last years or even months of his life, he shows his profound concern for and dedication to the survival of Europe's spiritual integrity. These essays form the natural accompaniment to Zweig's renowned memoir The World of Yesterday, registering the same themes and evoking the same nostalgia for a world brutally consigned to history. They can be seen as a vital addendum to that major work or as a prefiguration. But perhaps even more so than the prose of the memoir, these essays, few in number but rich in content, reveal the essence of Zweig's thought.
Download or read book Sorrow of the Earth written by Éric Vuillard and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2017-10-31 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fascinating, brilliant and angry: the tale of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and the tragic fate of its Native American participants. Buffalo Bill was the prince of show business. His spectacular Wild West shows were performed to packed houses across the world, holding audiences spellbound with their grand re-enactments of tales from the American frontier. For Bill gave the crowds something they'd never seen before: real-life Indians. This astonishing work of historical re-imagining tells the story of the Native Americans swallowed up by Buffalo Bill's great entertainment machine. Of chief Sitting Bull, paraded in theatres to boos and catcalls for fifty dollars a week. Of a baby Lakota girl, found under her mother's frozen body, adopted and displayed on the stage. Of the last few survivors of Wounded Knee, hired to act out the horrific massacre of their tribe as entertainment. And of Buffalo Bill Cody himself, hamming it to the last, even as it consumed him. Told with beauty, compassion and anger, Sorrow of the Earth shows us tragedy turned into a circus act, history into sham, truth into a spectacle more powerful than reality itself. Could any of us turn away?
Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Aging written by Valerie Barnes Lipscomb and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Man Who Walked Through Walls written by Marcel Ayme and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The excellent Monsieur Dutilleul has always been able to pass through walls, but has never seen the point of using his gift, given the general availability of doors. One day, however, his tyrannical boss drives him to desperate, creative measures — he develops a taste for intramural travel and becomes something of a super-villain. How will the unassuming clerk adjust to a glamorous life of crime? Aymé’s genius lies in imagining the practical unfolding of bizarre and difficult situations. In each story, anarchic comedy is arrested by moments of pathos, only to descend into anarchy and hilarity once more ... Pushkin Collection editions feature a spare, elegant series style and superior, durable components. The Collection is typeset in Monotype Baskerville, litho-printed on Munken Premium White Paper and notch-bound by the independently owned printer TJ International in Padstow. The covers, with French flaps, are printed on Colorplan Pristine White Paper. Both paper and cover board are acid-free and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.
Download or read book Slow Boat written by Hideo Furukawa and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A startling novella from the heir to Haruki Murakami and Gabriel García Márquez Trapped in Tokyo, left behind by a series of girlfriends, the narrator of Slow Boat sizes up his situation. His missteps, his violent rebellions, his tiny victories. But he is not a passive loser, content to accept all that fate hands him. He attempts one last escape to the edges of the city, holding the only safety net he has known - his dreams. Filled with lyrical longing and humour, Slow Boat captures perfectly the urge to get away and the necessity of finding yourself in a world which might never even be looking for you.
Download or read book Life from Elsewhere written by Various and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2016-06-21 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writers in Translation, established in 2005 and supported by Bloomberg and Arts Council England, champions the best literature from around the world. To mark the programme's tenth anniversary, ten leading writers from around the world, many of whom have been supported in their work by English PEN, explore the themes of movement, freedom and narrative. Introduced by Amit Chaudhuri, the collection includes contributions from: Asmaa al Ghul - Palestine resident; originally from Bangladesh - Translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette Mahmoud Dowlatabadi - Iran - Translated from the Persian by Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak Ayelet Gundar-Goshen - Israel - Translated from the Israeli by Sondra Silverston Chan Koonchung - Born in Shanghai; raised in Hong Kong Hanna Krall - Poland - Translated from the Polish by Philip Boehm Andrey Kurkov - Russia - Translated from the Russian by Amanda Love Darragh Andrés Neuman - Born in Argentina; moved to Spain - Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor Alain Mabanckou - Born in Congo; raised in France; lives in America - Translated from the French by Helen Stevenson Elif Shafak - Turkey Samar Yazbek - Syria - Translated from the Arabic by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
Download or read book A Short Life of Pushkin written by Robert Chandler and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A short yet fascinating account of Russia's most celebrated writer. In Robert Chandler's exquisite biography, literary giant Alexander Pushkin, lauded as the Russian Shakespeare, is examined as writer, lover and public figure. Chandler explores his relationship to politics and provides a fascinating glimpse of the turbulent history Pushkin lived through. The book acts as a succinct guide to anybody trying to understand Russia's most celebrated literary figure and also illuminates the wider historical and political context of early nineteenth-century Russia.
Download or read book The Last Ocean written by Nicci Gerrard and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning journalist and author, a lyrical, raw and humane investigation of dementia that explores both the journeys of the people who live with the condition and those of their loved ones After a diagnosis of dementia, Nicci Gerrard’s father, John, continued to live life on his own terms, alongside the disease. But when an isolating hospital stay precipitated a dramatic turn for the worse, Gerrard, an award-winning journalist and author, recognized that it was not just the disease, but misguided protocol and harmful practices that cause such pain at the end of life. Gerrard was inspired to seek a better course for all who suffer because of the disease. The Last Ocean is Gerrard’s investigation into what dementia does to both the person who lives with the condition and to their caregivers. Dementia is now one of the leading causes of death in the West, and this necessary book will offer both comfort and a map to those walking through it. While she begins with her father’s long slip into forgetting, Gerrard expands to examine dementia writ large. Gerrard gives raw but literary shape both to the unimaginable loss of one’s own faculties, as well as to the pain of their loved ones. Her lens is unflinching, but Gerrard honors her subjects and finds the beauty and the humanity in their seemingly diminished states. In so doing, she examines the philosophy of what it means to have a self, as well as how we can offer dignity and peace to those who suffer with this terrible disease. Not only will it aid those walking with dementia patients, The Last Ocean will prompt all of us to think on the nature of a life well lived.
Download or read book Marcel written by Erwin Mortier and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written from the point of view of a ten-year-old boy who lives with his grandmother, Marcel is a striking debut novel describing the vivid history of a family in a Flemish village. The mysterious death of Marcel, the family favourite, has always haunted the young boy. With the help of his schoolteacher, he starts to discover the secrets of Marcel’s ‘black’ past. The story of his death on the Eastern Front for the sake of Flanders, and the shame this brought upon his family gradually become clear. Erwin Mortier unravels this shameful family past in an unusually sensitive and evocative manner.
Download or read book My Fellow Skin written by Erwin Mortier and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My Fellow Skin is a beautiful, affectionate novel told from the point of view of an impressionable young boy. The novel opens before the boy can talk, and we follow Anton’s first, tentative steps on the path to adulthood. He gradually begins to grasp an understanding of time and death, and when he goes to school he falls in love for the first time – not with the schoolgirls his peers are interested in, but with his classmate, Willem. A gentle, protective relationship develops between them, and this gives Anton his own, new identity, his ‘fellow skin’. But their love ends tragically, and Anton ultimately loses not only his love, but also his youth, the protection of his parents, and the old house in the village. He is left desolate.
Download or read book Shutterspeed written by Erwin Mortier and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wonderful, balanced novel about how the remains of the past reverberate in the present, Shutterspeed sensitively and delicately describes the powerful emotions which lie just beneath the surface of the unruffled sheen of village life. Joris’ father died young, and his mother moved to Spain, so he has lived with his aunt and uncle since early childhood. He is quiet and introverted, and his aunt and uncle fear that he harbours a deep resentment for the loss of his parents. The gentle pace of life in the village is suddenly disturbed when a decision is made to remove the cemetery in the centre. For the boy, this awakens various emotionally charged memories of his dead father. The books ends with the death of the boy’s foster parents, marking a definitive end to his youth.
Download or read book While the Gods Were Sleeping written by Erwin Mortier and published by Pushkin Press. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the Gods Were Sleeping is a novel about the magnitude and impact of the First World War, the recollections of which are recorded in the notebooks of the elderly Helena. The young Helena is sent to her uncle’s country house before the war, and from here she witnesses scenes of indescribable horror. But it is also where she meets Matthew again, a British Army photographer who she goes on to marry. This is a story not about spectacular events; rather, Mortier is concerned with writing about war, history and the past with great empathy and engagement, and with a mixture of melancholy, qualification and resignation.