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Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
One summer before World War I, a young couple escapes on a romantic
weekend getaway to the small German town of Rheinsberg, north of
Berlin, in the midst of a rural landscape filled with country
houses and castles, cobble-stone streets, lush forests, and dreamy
lakes. The story of Wolfie and Claire, told with a fresh, new style
of ironic humor, became Kurt Tucholsky s first literary success and
the blueprint for love for an entire generation. Kurt Tucholsky was
a was a brilliant satirist, poet, storyteller, lyricist, pacifist,
and Democrat; a fighter, lady s man, one of the most famous
journalists in Weimar Germany, and an early warner against the
Nazis. Erich Kaestner called him a "small, fat Berliner," who
"wanted to stop a catastrophe with his typewriter." When Tucholsky
began to write, he had five voices in the end, he had none. His
books were burned and banned by the Nazis, who drove him out of his
country. But he is not forgotten. Rheinsberg is at once a
delightful and a deeply disquieting story. The lovers, Claire and
Wolfie a silly but harmless pair escape the confines of Berlin for
a romantic romp in the countryside. As their brief interlude nears
its end, already consigned to memory, there comes with it an end to
innocence, to frivolity. It was 1912; Kurt Tucholsky s prescience
was uncanny: the holiday is over and soon we will go to war.
--Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of Hester Among the Ruins and The
Scenic Route Once known as Weimar Germany s greatest political
satirist and one of that fabled era s most celebrated literary
figures, Kurt Tucholsky is today virtually unknown in America. Now,
readers have the chance to discover one of his early pieces of
fiction that exhibits the intense wit, charm, and rhetorical verve
for which he earned his reputation. Noah Isenberg, author of
Between Redemption and Doom: The Strains of German-Jewish Modernism
In Rheinsberg, Tucholsky delivers the newness and intensity of
young love, sweet, sometimes strident, with repartee juxtaposed
against the sylvan landscape of rural Germany. Poignant, biting,
tender: a reminder of what love promises and can be. Victoria
Zackheim, playwright, novelist, and anthologist A wonderful and
charming love story, finally rediscovered and brought to America
Claudia Dreifus, Professor of International and Public Affairs at
Columbia University, New York Teachers and students of history and
literature will welcome this collection of texts by Kurt Tucholsky,
an early 20th century master of literary and political criticism,
whose incisive and elegant voice will now be more widely available
in English. Atina Grossmann, Professor of History at Cooper Union
and author of Jews, Germans and Allies: Close Encounters in
Occupied Germany Rheinsberg a short story of two unconventional
lovers in the last carefree days of Germany before 1914. The first
major work by the anti-Nazi journalist and poet Kurt Tucholsky
finally appears in a new translation for English speakers. Ian
King, Professor of German, Chair of the Kurt Tucholsky Society
'A novel you can read in one sitting that will stay with you forever' Karen Russell 'Very funny, very sad, very sharp, and completely delightful' Elif Batuman The Bradford-Shmulkin family is falling apart. A very modern blend of Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP, they love each other deeply but the pressures of life in an unstable America are fraying their bonds. There's Daddy, a struggling, cash-thirsty editor whose Russian heritage gives him a surprising new currency in the upside-down world of 21st century geopolitics; his wife, Anne Mom, a progressive, underfunded blue blood from Boston who's barely holding the household together; their son, Dylan, whose blond hair and Mayflower lineage give him pride of place in the newly forming American political order; and, above all, the young Vera, half-Jewish, half-Korean, and wholly original. Observant, sensitive, and always writing down new vocabulary words, Vera wants only three things in life: a friend at school; Daddy and Anne Mom to stay together; and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom, who will at last tell Vera the secret of who she really is
and how to ensure love's survival in this great, mad, imploding world. Both biting and deeply moving, Vera, or Faith is a boldly imagined story of family and
country told through the clear and wondrous eyes of a child. With a nod to What Maisie Knew, Henry James's classic story of parents, children, and the dark ironies of a rapidly transforming society, Gary Shteyngart's newest novel is among his best and shows why, in the words of Jonathan Safran Foer, he is 'a national treasure'.
When Nomandla is awarded a scholarship to attend the prestigious Cameron House for Girls in Durban, she thinks her life will improve. Instead it falls apart.
Growing up in Ziyabuya township, Nomandla battles poverty, racism, and her own mental health. She is pursued by visions which result in her being hospitalised, and is then made to accompany her father on Saturdays to his gardening job at the home of the Smith family. It is here that she first encounters Casey, a girl who will play a significant role in turning her life upside down, destroying her hope of a better future. Meanwhile, at Cameron House, Nomandla learns that, as a scholarship girl, she is expected to showcase gratitude as well as her culture, being regarded as little more than a display of transformation, unity and acceptance. Unfortunately, the reality is very different.
Andile Cele’s beautiful debut novel considers the complexities around identity, its ties to shame, grief, and to South Africa’s painful history. Braids & Migraines follows Nomandla as she comes to a place of personal understanding and acceptance, without compromise.
Regile is a zama-zama working illegally in an abandoned mine near
Barberton. Being eighteen, Regile has moved up the ranks and is now
paid a salary to keep the other child workers in line. Towards the
end of a three-month stint underground, a fourteen-year-old boy
from Mozambique, Taiba, starts asking questions about their rescue.
Taiba constantly reaffirms his belief that they will be saved: by
the police, by the private security firms that guard the mines, or
maybe even by the mythical Spike Maphosa. Regile knows that such
hope is dangerous.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.
Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.
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Aftertaste
(Paperback)
Daria Lavelle
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R420
R375
Discovery Miles 3 750
Save R45 (11%)
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Ships in 5 - 10 working days
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A food story to binge. A ghost story
to devour. A love story to savour.
When dead-end dishwasher Kostya discovers the ability to summon spirits
through the food he cooks, he embarks on a journey to open a New York
City restaurant that serves closure – something he's craved for as long
as he can remember.
There are just three problems:
1. Kostya has some ghosts of his own.
2. His advancing menu of spirit cuisine is threatening the stability of
the Afterlife itself.
3. He's falling in love with Maura, a party psychic with her own secret
connection to the Afterlife – who also happens to be the one person who
knows he must be stopped.
A bittersweet cocktail of humour and
heart, Aftertaste is an imaginative odyssey through food and love, life
and death: the things that sustain us, connect us, transport us, and
remind us who we are.
'The problems started the day we moved to Hastings...' When Gareth
E. Rees moves to a dilapidated Victorian house in Hastings he
begins to piece together an occult puzzle connecting Aleister
Crowley, John Logie Baird and the Piltdown Man hoaxer. As freak
storms and tidal surges ravage the coast, Rees is beset by memories
of his best friend's tragic death in St Andrews twenty years
earlier. Convinced that apocalypse approaches and his past is out
to get him, Rees embarks on a journey away from his family, deep
into history and to the very edge of the imagination. Tormented by
possessed seagulls, mutant eels and unresolved guilt, how much of
reality can he trust? THE STONE TIDE is a novel about grief, loss,
history and the imagination. It is about how people make the place
and the place makes the person. Above all it is about the stories
we tell to make sense of the world.
'Secrets and stones have settled in Hawden where everything stays
as it is; the past is hidden, or rewritten. Lauren lives with her
dad and Mr Lion after her mother left her when she was three months
old. Her boyfriend Peter is struggling with his identity. When Meg
and her son Richard arrive, both dangerously attractive, and Ali
too, angry and on the run from drug dealers, old stories resurface,
creating new tensions. After seventeen years Lauren's mother comes
back into her life and nothing is quite what it seems any more, but
love, however tainted, can sometimes heal.' TAINTED LOVE is a
modern gothic tale of how old stories can unravel people's lives.
Tommy Mutch is a working-class lad from the slums of West London,
eager to escape the mean streets of Notting Dale. Boxing is in its
1930s heyday and, like many in his position, Tommy sees it as an
escape route from poverty.
Barry Desmond is an only child and his sheltered upbringing leaves
him ill-equipped to cope with life. In middle age, following
redundancy and the death of his parents, he ventures into the world
determined to form relationships and start afresh.
With Twitter and Elon Musk grabbing the headlines lately, and with all the rage about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Chatgpt chatbot, the time for a virtual reality novel has finally arrived.
About ten years ago, then still writing as Koos Kombuis, the author started writing a short story on Twitter, tweet by tweet. It soon turned into a novel... a short novel, but a novel nonetheless! It was a challenge because tweets were limited to 140 digits in those days. It took Joe a few years to complete his story, and it attracted a lot of attention at the time.
This ‘micro-novel’ describes an imaginary future society and the role of social media where people are literally living inside virtual reality to the extent that they are unable to distinguish virtual reality from real life. The story unfolds in the now somewhat archaic terminology of 2013, at a time before Mark Zuckerberg announced his plans to create Meta!
‘Twitter Dawn’ is an evocative, humorous and thought-provoking story which fits right into the present-day debate about all things IT and AI!
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Mr Fox
(Paperback)
Barbara Comyns
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R285
Discovery Miles 2 850
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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