NYRB

Alien Hearts

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Guy de Maupassant.

Maupassant's last completed novel is the story of three lovers bound by bitterness and infatuation. Richard Howard's new English translation of this complex and brooding psychological novel reveals the final, unexpected flowering of the great French realist's art.

The Journal: 1837-1861

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Henry David Thoreau.

To understand Thoreau, one must read his journals—but until now they have never been available in a one-volume reader's edition that draws on the entirety of his 14-volume journal. Here at last is the essence of the great naturalist's thoughts, accumulated over the span of a life time

Everything Flows

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Vasily Grossman.

The final novel from the author of Life and Fate centers a former political prisoner adjusting to freedom after decades spent in a Soviet camps. It is a story of love, survival, honor, and an indictment of the totalitarian state.

The Way of the World

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Nicolas Bouvier.

In 1953 two young men in Geneva hopped in their rusty old Fiat determined to drive their way to the Khyber Pass. Many years later, Nicolas Bouvier reconstructed their travels through Turkey, Kurdistan, Afghanistan in this luminous travel memoir filled with the romance of unbound youth and adventure of self-discovery.

Carbonel & Calidor

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Barbara Sleigh.

When Carbonel's son decides to give up his birthright and apprentice himself to a witch, Rosemary and John must use all the magic within their power to save him.

The Man Who Lost His Head

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Claire Huchet Bishop.

What would you do if your head went missing? Would you replace it with a pumpkin? a parsnip? maybe a block of wood? The man who lost his head tries all of these things, but it takes a brash bold boy to save the day. This delightful tale pairs the author of The Five Chinese Brothers with the creator of Make Way for Ducklings.

No Tomorrow

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Vivant Denon.

"I was desperately in love with the comtesse de —. I was twenty years old and I was naive. She deceived me, I got angry, she left me. I was naive, I missed her. I was twenty years old." So begins this seductive tale of seduction and the endless ambiguities of desire.

Poem Strip

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Dino Buzzati.

Buzzati's pioneering graphic novel relocates the story of Orpheus and Eurydice to a ghostly version of an ultra-mod, hyper-sexy 1960s Milan and shows the influence of his one-time collaborator Federico Fellini.

The Cost of Living: Early and Uncollected Stories

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Mavis Gallant.

An original collection of stories—many originally published in The New Yorker—from a woman widely considered to be one of the most thrilling practitioners of the genre. Gallant's tales of exile and displacement are admired by Margaret Atwood, Deborah Eisenberg, Michael Ondaatje, Russell Banks, and others.

Hard Rain Falling

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Don Carpenter.

A gripping novel of being down and out, but never down for good—a Dostoyevskian tale of crime, punishment, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive redemption.

Memories of the Future

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky.

The first English-language collection of stories from a Soviet writer whose mind-bending tales draw comparisons to the works of Poe, Borges, Kafka, and Capek. "Here a natural storyteller, striking intellect, and deeply creative soul are found all in one—a rare combination."—The Complete Review

Stones of Aran: Labyrinth

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:00:00 -0500

By Tim Robinson.

Robinson's stunning and erudite explorations of Ireland's Aran Islands show what travel writing at its very best can do: inform, inspire, and transform our ideas of place and history. "Robinson has done for the west of Ireland what Ruskin did for Venice, Proust for the voids and vasts of time." —Telegraph