La favola di Re Sbrizzio e Suor Caghetta (Distopie, #5)
by Mary Blindflowers
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize and the Kenzaburo Oe Prize, these eleven surreal tales, set in the offices, zoos, bus stops, boutiques, and homes of contemporary Japan "are reminiscent, at least to this reader, of Joy Williams and Rivka Galchen and George Saunders" (Weike Wang, The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice). In the English-language debut of one of Japan’s most fearlessly inventive young writers a housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique, which he...
It’s an unremarkable life, I guess, nothing special. I’m in my thirties, I work part-time in a video store in Stockholm, most of my friends are busy with their families, I live alone. I suppose you’d say I have an ordinary life… But I love this city, and even though my flat is small it suits me, I’m comfortable here. In the summer, the sun shines in through my windows at just the right angle and I can hear all the sounds of summer life down in the street. And there’s a really good ice-cream...
In Willful Creatures Aimee Bender takes us on a journey to a fantastical world in which authentic love blossoms. This is a place where a boy with keys for fingers is a hero, a family of pumpkin heads embrace their ironhead son and potato-children dotingly follow their mother around as she completes her daily chores. With the mix of charm and keenly felt emotion that characterised her New York Times bestseller The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Bender once again proves herself to be a masterfu...
An absurdly dark tragi-comedy of language and literature. Czeslaw Przesnicki is an Eastern-European immigrant writer who survived the long toilet paper lines of communist Poland, the loss of his lover Ernest Hemingway following a passionate affair, and the beatings of the Antarctic literary community for his forays into novel-writing in their native tongue. In The Palimpsests, we find him languishing in a Belgium asylum (a country, we are persistently reminded, that has had no government for the...
Mi hijo no quiere ser youtuber y otros dramas citadinos (La Salsa Llegona)
by Lorenatercon
All three series of the BBC radio sitcom about the people of Marlborough Road, BelfastThe bohemian inhabitants of Marlborough Road lead lives of barely-contained chaos, full of demands, distractions and domestic dramas. Fortunately, they have one person they can count on when things go wrong - Sally, their cleaning lady-cum-therapist.When highly-strung Clare at Number 25 gets in a flap over a dinner guest, or needs a babysitter for her free-range children, Sally steps in. Saffron, the multi-task...
“These stories were my kind of stories--a little weird and magical and bittersweet.” --Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist and Hunger A middle-aged masochist in love with a comatose man. A gay birthday clown lamenting the loss of his beloved dog. An amateur veterinarian keeping watch over his suicidal daughter. And a bikini model with a barnacle stuck to her butt cheek. These are just a few of the characters who populate the quirky, offbeat world of If You Lived Here Y...
Fun and puns mingle with daring make-believe. Larger-than-life characters play out the crucial human questions: How do we live? How do we handle our demons?
Against the urging of his friends and his lover, Franz, a young officer in the Xhystos government, is sent on a mission to the remote and elusive city of Samaris to investigate the disappearance of several of his colleagues. After weeks of travel, Franz reaches Samaris, to find a practically deserted city of enveloping and deceptive architecture. He is immediately bewitched by a mysterious young woman, drawing the suspicion of the other residents. Can Franz escape the impending doom of this spr...
Out on the road, no one speaks, everything talks. Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. She's never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue. As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country,...
Boris Leonidovich, a North American professor who specializes in the history of prison architecture, has been invited to Buenos Aires for an academic conference. He’s planning to present a paper on Moscow’s feared Butyrka prison, but most of all he’s looking forward to seeing his enigmatic, fiercely intelligent colleague (and sometime lover) Ana again. As soon as Boris arrives, however, he encounters obstacle after unlikely obstacle: he can’t get in touch with Ana, he locks himself out of his re...
Learning How to Be Free (Learning How to Be a Hero, #2)
by Taylor Ellwood
A NEW STATESMAN, IRISH TIMES AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR Winner of the Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year 2019 'A masterclass in the short story - bold, irreverent and agonisingly funny' SALLY ROONEY 'Demands repeated reading' JON McGREGOR 'Announces the arrival of a brilliant talent' FINANCIAL TIMES An urgent and unforgettable collection of stories, Show Them a Good Time explores types - men and women, their assigned roles and meanings - in modern society. A young, broke Irish w...
How to Conquer the World on a Shoestring Budget (How to Conquer the World, #1)
by Æ Æ
Witty, inventive, and profound, Where the Wild Ladies Are is a contemporary feminist retelling of traditional ghost stories by one of Japan's most exciting writers. In a company run by the mysterious Mr Tei, strange things are afoot - incense sticks lead to a surprise encounter; a young man reflects on his mother's death; a foxlike woman finally finds her true calling. As female ghosts appear in unexpected guises, their gently humorous encounters with unsuspecting humans lead to deeper question...
