The author recounts her transformative journey in Paris over two decades, starting with minimal resources and evolving into a rich life filled with culinary adventures and cultural experiences. Through vivid storytelling, she shares her love for French cuisine, the friendships forged, and the lessons learned in a city that became her home. The narrative highlights the challenges and joys of adapting to a new culture, ultimately celebrating the beauty of life in Paris.
Cool. Balanced. Modern. The precisions of science, the wild variance of lust, the catharsis of confession and the fear of failure - these are things that happen in the Glass Room. High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel and glass and onyx built specially for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. But the radiant honesty of 1930 that the house, with its unique Glass Room, seems to engender quickly tarnishes as the storm clouds of WW2 gather, and eventually the family must flee, accompanied by Viktor's lover and her child. But the house's story is far from over, and as it passes from hand to hand, from Czech to Russian, both the best and the worst of the history of Eastern Europe becomes somehow embodied and perhaps emboldened within the beautiful and austere surfaces and planes so carefully designed, until events become full-circle.
Early one morning Guido Bruneti, commissario of the Venice Police, confronts a grisly sight when the body of a young man is fished out of a fetid Venetian canal. All the clues point to a violent mugging, but for Brunetti, robbery seems altogether too convenient a motive
Pewnego listopadowego wieczora, zmęczony tygodniami morskiej podróży Richard Smith wreszcie czuje upragniony grunt pod stopami, które poniosły go do kantoru przy ulicy Golden Hill. Wszystko przez weksel na zawrotną kwotę tysiąca funtów. Jego posiadacz niechętnie mówi o swojej profesji. Chętnie za to korzysta z uroków życia młodego i tajemniczego awanturnika. Co w mig wyczuwają córki właściciela kantoru. Szarmancki, ale bezczelny, o iskrzącym się wzroku szybko zdobywa rozgłos, a Nowy Jork, który w XVIII wieku nie był jeszcze metropolią, huczy od plotek. Powieść Francisa Spufforda, zarówno dzięki fabule, jak i językowi, pozwala nam cofnąć się w czasie. Do czasów pełnych przygód, awantur i odkrywania nieznanego. Do czasów wielkich opowieści i wielkich miłości. Do czasów, kiedy wszystko było możliwe.
Ogenschijnlijk leidt Helen O Mara een normaal leven. Ze houdt haar huis schoon, doet aan yoga en past op haar kleinkinderen. Maar in gedachten keert ze voortdurend terug naar haar overleden man Cal. Op Valentijnsdag in 1982 zonk het booreiland waar Cal werkte, tijdens een storm voor de kust van Newfoundland. Alle vierentachtig mannen aan boord kwamen om. Een kwarteeuw later wordt Helen op een late winteravond gewekt door een telefoontje van haar zoon John, die op weg is naar huis. Hij heeft een meisje zwanger gemaakt en wil dat Helen hem vertelt wat hij moet doen. Terwijl John worstelt met het vooruitzicht vader te worden, beseft Helen dat ze haar verdriet een plek moet geven in haar leven.
In her twenties, journalist Sarah Macdonald backpacked around India and came away with a lasting impression of heat, pollution and poverty. So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India—and for love—she screamed, “Never!” and gave the country, and him, the finger.But eleven years later, the prophecy comes true. When the love of Sarah’s life is posted to India, she quits her dream job to move to the most polluted city on earth, New Delhi. For Sarah this seems like the ultimate sacrifice for love, and it almost kills her, literally. Just settled, she falls dangerously ill with double pneumonia, an experience that compels her to face some serious questions about her own fragile mortality and inner spiritual void. “I must find peace in the only place possible in India,” she concludes. “Within.” Thus begins her journey of discovery through India in search of the meaning of life and death.Holy Cow is Macdonald’s often hilarious chronicle of her adventures in a land of chaos and contradiction, of encounters with Hinduism, Islam and Jainism, Sufis, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians and a kaleidoscope of yogis, swamis and Bollywood stars. From spiritual retreats and crumbling nirvanas to war zones and New Delhi nightclubs, it is a journey that only a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love life—and her sanity—can survive.
In a narrative as mysterious as memory itself – at once both shadowed and luminous – Warlight is a vivid, thrilling novel of violence and love, intrigue and desire. It is 1945, and London is still reeling from the Blitz and years of war. 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister, Rachel, are apparently abandoned by their parents, left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and grow both more convinced and less concerned as they get to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women with a shared history, all of whom seem determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all he didn’t know or understand in that time, and it is this journey – through reality, recollection, and imagination – that is told in this magnificent novel
As the world changes, a family navigates the complexities of growing up, aging, and the ebb and flow of love, loss, and resilience. In a cozy Brooklyn brownstone, the facade of domestic happiness begins to crumble. Dan and Isabel, a troubled couple, find themselves both drawn to Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie, a free spirit living in the attic. As Robbie grapples with heartbreak and an online persona, his impending departure threatens to fracture the family. Meanwhile, ten-year-old Nathan takes tentative steps toward independence, while five-year-old Violet tries to ignore the widening chasm between her parents. As the world enters lockdown in 2020, the brownstone feels more like a prison. Violet becomes fixated on safety, fearing the outside world, while Nathan pushes against her rules. Isabel and Dan communicate through thinly veiled frustrations, and Robbie finds himself isolated in Iceland, alone with his thoughts and a secret online life. By 2021, as the family emerges from the crisis, they confront a transformed reality, reflecting on their losses and what they’ve learned. This poignant narrative explores the intricacies of love, loss, and the challenges of family life, revealing how to coexist both together and apart.
"In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist's damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him - and solve the mystery of her husband's disappearances. These three sections are joined in an enthralling and ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can't exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness."--Publisher
