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Set in a historical moment of moral crisis, Crossroads - the first instalment of the trilogy A Key to All Mythologies - is the stunning foundation of a sweeping investigation of human mythologies, as the Hildebrandt family navigate the political and social crosscurrents of of the past fifty years.
It's December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless - unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem's sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who's been selling drugs to seventh-graders, has resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.
Jonathan Franzen's novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and their keen-eyed take on the complexities of contemporary America. Now, for the first time, in Crossroads, Franzen explores the history of a generation. With characteristic humour and complexity, and with even greater warmth, he conjures a world that feels no less immediate.
A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense, Crossroads is the story of a Midwestern family at a historical moment of moral crisis, spanning a whole century, casting light forward to our present day. Jonathan Franzen's gift for melding the small picture and the big picture has never been more dazzlingly evident.
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The Short End of the Sonnenallee
Thomas Brussig; Introduction by Jonathan Franzen; Translated by Jenny Watson
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R236
Discovery Miles 2 360
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Thomas Brussig's classic German satire, translated into English for
the first time and introduced by Jonathan Franzen, is a comedic,
moving account of life in East Berlin before the Fall of the Berlin
Wall Thomas Brussig's slim novel, The Short End of the Sonnenallee,
is a satire set, literally, on the Sonnenallee, the famed
"boulevard of the sun" in East Berlin. Within this boulevard lives
Michael, an adolescent who faces daily ridicule whenever he steps
out of his apartment building and comes into view of the
observation platform on the West side. "Look, a real Zonie. Can we
take your picture?" Hopelessly in love with the most beautiful girl
on the street, Michael is batted away in favour of the Western boys
who are free to cross the border. What chance does Michael have,
and how much trouble will he get into by pursuing her?
Laugh-out-loud funny and unabashedly silly, Brussig's novel follows
the bizarre, grotesque quotidian details of life in the German
Democratic Republic. As this new translation shows, the ideas at
its heart - freedom, democracy and life's fundamental hilarity -
hold great relevance for today.
'His best novel yet ... A Middlemarch-like triumph' Telegraph 'A
pleasure bomb of a novel' Vogue 'A true modern master' Independent
It's 23 December 1971, and the Hildebrandts are at a crossroads.
Fifteen-year-old Perry has resolved to be a better person and quit
dealing drugs to seventh graders. His sister Becky, the once
straight-laced high school social queen, has veered into
counterculture, while at college, Clem is wrestling with a decision
that might tear his family apart. As their parents - Russ, a
suburban pastor, and Marion, his restless wife - tug against the
bonds of a joyless marriage, Crossroads finds a family, and a
nation, struggling to do the right thing. 'Funny, moving, crackling
with life, it has what all great fiction should have' Financial
Times 'Intoxicating - a luxuriant domestic drama' Guardian THE
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A GUARDIAN BEST FICTION BOOK OF
2021 * AN INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR * A WHITE REVIEW BOOK OF THE
YEAR * A LIT HUB BOOK OF THE YEAR
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The Corrections (Paperback)
Jonathan Franzen; Edited by Jonathan Galassi
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R556
R426
Discovery Miles 4 260
Save R130 (23%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Thomas Brussig's classic German novel, The Short End of the
Sonnenallee, now appearing for the first time in English, is a
moving and miraculously comic story of life in East Berlin before
the fall of the Wall Young Micha Kuppisch lives on the nubbin of a
street, the Sonnenallee, whose long end extends beyond the Berlin
Wall outside his apartment building. Like his friends and family,
who have their own quixotic dreams--to secure an original English
pressing of Exile on Main St., to travel to Mongolia, to escape
from East Germany by buying up cheap farmland and seceding from the
country--Micha is desperate for one thing. It's not what his mother
wants for him, which is to be an exemplary young Socialist and
study in Moscow. What Micha wants is a love letter that may or may
not have been meant for him, and may or may not have been written
by the most beautiful girl on the Sonnenallee. Stolen by a gust of
wind before he could open it, the letter now lies on the fortified
"death strip" at the base of the Wall, as tantalizingly close as
the freedoms of the West and seemingly no more attainable. The
Short End of the Sonnenallee, finally available to an American
audience in a pitch-perfect translation by Jonathan Franzen and
Jenny Watson, confounds the stereotypes of life in totalitarian
East Germany. Brussig's novel is a funny, charming tale of
adolescents being adolescents, a portrait of a surprisingly warm
community enduring in the shadow of the Iron Curtain. As Franzen
writes in his foreword, the book is "a reminder that, even when the
public realm becomes a nightmare, people can still privately manage
to preserve their humanity, and be silly, and forgive."
"This fascinating, massive, wide-ranging collection that editors
Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes have gathered together into
William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion will soon be recognized
as one of those rare critical books for which that egregiously
overused term 'groundbreaking' is fully justified." -Larry
McCaffery, from the preface of William T. Vollmann: A Critical
Companion The essays in this collection make a case for regarding
William T. Vollmann as the most ambitious, productive, and
important living author in the US. His oeuvre includes not only
outstanding work in numerous literary genres, but also global
reportage, ethical treatises, paintings, photographs, and many
other productions. His reputation as a daring traveler and his
fascination with life on the margins have earned him an
extra-literary renown unequaled in our time. Perhaps most
importantly, his work is exceptional in relation to the literary
moment. Vollmann is a member of a group of authors who are
responding to the skeptical ironies of postmodernism with a
reinvigoration of fiction's affective possibilities and moral
sensibilities, but he stands out even among this cohort for his
prioritization of moral engagement, historical awareness, and
geopolitical scope. Included in this book in addition to twelve
scholarly critical essays are reflections on Vollmann by many of
his peers, confidantes, and collaborators, including Jonathan
Franzen, James Franco, and Michael Glawogger. With a preface by
Larry McCaffery and an afterword by Michael Hemmingson, this book
offers readings of most of Vollmann's works, includes the first
critical engagements with several key titles, and introduces a
range of voices from international Vollmann scholarship.
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Purity (Paperback)
Jonathan Franzen
1
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R330
R264
Discovery Miles 2 640
Save R66 (20%)
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Ships in 5 - 10 working days
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The Sunday Times bestseller from the author of Freedom and The
Corrections Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her
real name is Purity, that she's saddled with student debt and a
reclusive mother, but there are few clues as to who her father is
or how she'll ever have a normal life. Then she meets Andreas Wolf
- internet outlaw, charismatic provocateur, a man who deals in
secrets and might just be able to help her solve the mystery of her
origins.
THE NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'A genuine masterpiece, the
first great American novel of the twenty-first century' Elle
'Funny, moving, generous, brutal and intelligent' Guardian A
brilliantly perceptive and moving novel that announced Jonathan
Franzen as one of our greatest living writers. The Lamberts - Enid,
Alfred and their three grown-up children - are a troubled family
living in a troubled age. After fifty years as a wife and mother,
Enid is ready to have some fun, but her husband Alfred is losing
his mind to Parkinson's. As his condition worsens, and the Lamberts
are forced to face the long-buried secrets and failures that haunt
them, Enid sets her heart on gathering everyone together for one
last family Christmas. 'Compellingly readable, funny and above all
generous spirited' Daily Mail 'A novel of outstanding sympathy,
wit, moral intelligence and pathos, a family saga told with
stylistic brio and psychological and political insight' Financial
Times 'A big-hearted, panoramic American epic, intelligent and wise
but also wildly, stonkingly funny' Independent
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Freedom (Paperback)
Jonathan Franzen
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R568
R448
Discovery Miles 4 480
Save R120 (21%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Crossroads (Paperback)
Jonathan Franzen
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R594
R360
Discovery Miles 3 600
Save R234 (39%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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The climate crisis is here. Our chance to stop it has come and
gone, but this doesn't have to mean the world is ending. 'If you
care about the planet, and about the people and animals who live on
it, there are two ways to think about this. You can keep on hoping
that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or
enraged by the world's inaction. Or you can accept that disaster is
coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope.' The
honesty and realism of Jonathan Franzen's writings on climate have
been widely denounced and just as widely celebrated. Here, in his
definitive statement on the subject, Franzen confronts the world's
failure to avert destabilising climate change and takes up the
question: Now what?
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Purity (Paperback)
Jonathan Franzen
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R557
R435
Discovery Miles 4 350
Save R122 (22%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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As the 1950s close, Peanuts enters its golden age. Linus, who had
just learned to speak in the previous volume, becomes downright
eloquent. Charlie Brown cascades further down the hill to loserdom.
But the rising star is undoubtedly Snoopy. He's at the centre of
the most action-packed episodes. Jonathan Franzen, author of The
Corrections and life-long Peanuts fan, introduces the collection.
Thomas Brussig's classic German satire, translated into English for
the first time and introduced by Jonathan Franzen, is a comedic,
moving account of life in East Berlin before the Fall of the Berlin
Wall Thomas Brussig's slim novel, The Short End of the Sonnenallee,
is a satire set, literally, on the Sonnenallee, the famed
"boulevard of the sun" in East Berlin. Within this boulevard lives
Michael, an adolescent who faces daily ridicule whenever he steps
out of his apartment building and comes into view of the
observation platform on the West side. "Look, a real Zonie. Can we
take your picture?" Hopelessly in love with the most beautiful girl
on the street, Michael is batted away in favour of the Western boys
who are free to cross the border. What chance does Michael have,
and how much trouble will he get into by pursuing her?
Laugh-out-loud funny and unabashedly silly, Brussig's novel follows
the bizarre, grotesque quotidian details of life in the German
Democratic Republic. As this new translation shows, the ideas at
its heart - freedom, democracy and life's fundamental hilarity -
hold great relevance for today.
"This fascinating, massive, wide-ranging collection that editors
Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes have gathered together into
William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion will soon be recognized
as one of those rare critical books for which that egregiously
overused term 'groundbreaking' is fully justified." -Larry
McCaffery, from the preface of William T. Vollmann: A Critical
Companion The essays in this collection make a case for regarding
William T. Vollmann as the most ambitious, productive, and
important living author in the US. His oeuvre includes not only
outstanding work in numerous literary genres, but also global
reportage, ethical treatises, paintings, photographs, and many
other productions. His reputation as a daring traveler and his
fascination with life on the margins have earned him an
extra-literary renown unequaled in our time. Perhaps most
importantly, his work is exceptional in relation to the literary
moment. Vollmann is a member of a group of authors who are
responding to the skeptical ironies of postmodernism with a
reinvigoration of fiction's affective possibilities and moral
sensibilities, but he stands out even among this cohort for his
prioritization of moral engagement, historical awareness, and
geopolitical scope. Included in this book in addition to twelve
scholarly critical essays are reflections on Vollmann by many of
his peers, confidantes, and collaborators, including Jonathan
Franzen, James Franco, and Michael Glawogger. With a preface by
Larry McCaffery and an afterword by Michael Hemmingson, this book
offers readings of most of Vollmann's works, includes the first
critical engagements with several key titles, and introduces the
work of several foreign Vollmann scholars to American audiences.
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Freedom (Paperback)
Jonathan Franzen
1
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R298
R270
Discovery Miles 2 700
Save R28 (9%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'A masterpiece' New York Times
'Stupendous, magnificent, unforgettable, witty and rich. A great
American novel' Spectator From the National Book Award-winning
author of The Corrections comes a darkly comedic novel about
family, now hailed as an American classic. They had been the
perfect family: liberal gentrifiers, the avant-garde of the Whole
Foods generation. But the Berglunds are struggling to live in an
ever more confusing world. Walter, an environmental lawyer and
commuter cyclist, has taken a job with Big Coal. Patty, the ideal
hands-on mother and wife, is growing unhinged in front of the
neighbours' attentive eyes. Their son has moved in with the
Republican family next door, and Richard Katz, outre rocker and
Walter's best friend and rival, has re-entered their lives.
'Writing in prose that dazzles, Franzen has now written the two
novels that best define modern America' Independent 'A masterpiece.
Franzen skewers the particularity of modern life and love like no
one else' Daily Telegraph
Otto and Sophie Bentwood live in a changing neighborhood in
Brooklyn. Their stainless-steel kitchen is newly installed, and
their Mercedes is parked curbside. After Sophie is bitten on the
hand while trying to feed a stray, perhaps rabies-infected cat, a
series of small and ominous disasters begin to plague the
Bentwoods' lives, revealing the fault lines and fractures in a
marriage-and a society-wrenching itself apart. First published in
1970 to wide acclaim, Desperate Characters stands as one of the
most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in
postwar American literature - a novel that, according to Irving
Howe, ranks with "Billy Budd, The Great Gatsby, Miss Lonelyhearts,
and Seize the Day."
A sharp and provocative new essay collection from the award-winning
author of Freedom and The Corrections In The End of the End of the
Earth, which gathers essays and speeches written mostly in the past
five years, Jonathan Franzen returns with renewed vigour to the
themes - both human and literary - that have long preoccupied him.
Whether exploring his complex relationship with his uncle,
recounting his young adulthood in New York, or offering an
illuminating look at the global seabird crisis, these pieces
contain all the wit and disabused realism that we've come to expect
from Franzen. Taken together, these essays trace the progress of a
unique and mature mind wrestling with itself, with literature and
with some of the most important issues of our day, made more
pressing by the current political milieu. The End of the End of the
Earth is remarkable, provocative and necessary.
St. Louis, Missouri, is a quietly dying river city. But that all changes when it hires a new police chief: a charismatic young woman from Bombay, S.Jammu. No sooner has Jammu been installed, though, than the city's leading citizens become embroiled in an all-pervasive political conspiracy. A classic of contemporary fiction, 'The Twenty-Seventh City' shows us an ordinary metropolis turned inside out, and the American Dream unravelling into terror and dark comedy. 'A huge and masterly drama…gripping and surreal and overwhelmingly convincing.' 'Newsweek' 'Franzen has managed to put together a suspense story with all the elements of a complex, multi-layered psychological novel…A riveting piece of fiction that lingers in the mind long after more conventional pot-boilers have bubbled away.' 'The New York Times Book Review' 'Unsettling and visionary. 'The Twenty-Seventh City' is not a novel that can be quickly dismissed or easily forgotten: it has elements of both 'Great' and 'American'. A book of memorable characters, surprising situations, and provocative ideas.' 'Washington Post' 'Franzen goes for broke here – he's out to expose the soul of a city and all the bloody details of the way we live. A book of range, pith and intelligence.' 'Vogue'
Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of strange happenings – earthquakes strike the city, and the first one kills his grandmother. During a bitter feud over the inheritance Louis falls in love with Renée Seitchek, a passionate and brilliant seismologist, whose discoveries about the origin of the earthquakes complicate everything.
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