Showing titles in World Literature

Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier, the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city, is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

This volume offers a complete translation of the Saṃyutta Nikāya, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, the third of the four great collections in the Sutta Pitaka of the Pāli Canon. The Saṃyutta Nikāya consists of 56 chapters, each governed by a unifying theme that binds together the Buddha's suttas or discourses.

Internationally best-selling novelist Irvin D. Yalom explores the mindsets of two men separated by 300 years. Using his skills as a psychiatrist, he explores the inner lives of Baruch Spinoza, the Jewish 17th-century secular philosopher, and of Alfred Rosenberg, outspoken Nazi ideologue, faithful servant of Hitler, the main author of racial policy for the Third Reich, and a godless mass murderer....

Anthony Opoka and Florence Okori are coming of age in Uganda in the 1990s. Outstanding students, they believe in being good humans before they are kidnapped and forced into the fanatical Lord’s Resistance Army. In a legion of young recruits, no one gets closer than Anthony to powerful messianic warlord Joseph Kony and his darkest secrets. To stay sane as he spirals through chaos, Anthony clings to his childhood lessons about being a good human. Florence’s upbringing grounds her, too, helping her keep her dreams alive even as she’s pulled deeper into the insanity of Kony’s war.

When Nikki takes a creative writing job at her local temple, with visions of emancipating the women of the community she left behind as a self-important teenager, she's shocked to discover a group of barely literate women who have no interest in her ideals. Yet to her surprise, the white dupatta of the widow hides more than just their modesty....

The story of a writer's singular journey - from one place to another, from the British colony of Trinidad to the ancient countryside of England, and from one state of mind to another - is perhaps Naipaul's most autobiographical work. Yet it is also woven through with remarkable invention to make it a rich and complex novel.

A teenager in pre-revolutionary Tehran, Massoumeh is an average girl, passionate about learning. On her way to school she meets a local man and falls in love, but when her family discover his letters, they accuse her of bringing them dishonor. She is badly beaten by her brother, and her parents hastily arrange for her to marry a man she has never met. Facing a life without love and the prospect of no education, Massoumeh is distraught, but a female neighbor urges her to comply: “We each have a destiny, and you can’t fight yours.”

With the summer season on Sandhamn comes an unsettling mystery for Detective Inspector Thomas Andreasson. A bullied young boy has vanished from a sailing camp on neighboring Lökholmen Island. Has the terrorized eleven-year-old run away? Or, in this isolated vacation spot where strangers lurk, is it something more ominous?

In North London, Claudia Rubin is in her heyday. Wife, mother, rabbi – and sometimes moral voice of the nation – everyone wants to be with her at her son Leo's glorious wedding. That is, until Leo jilts his bride, and the gleaming bubble surrounding the Rubins threatens to burst. Frances – Claudia's calm, mature, married daughter – tries to hold the nucleus of the family together, but the stress forces her to re-examine her own life, leading her to make a decision as shocking as Leo's choice to bolt.

Elliot Rosenzweig, a respected civic leader and philanthropist, is attending a fundraiser when he is suddenly accosted and accused of being a former Nazi SS officer named Otto Piatek, the Butcher of Zamosc. Although the charges are denounced as preposterous, his accuser is convinced he is right and engages attorney Catherine Lockhart to bring Rosenzweig to justice.

Elsie is out of options. She's exhausted from being pushed in and out of social housing, she's deflated by debt and she's disturbed by the dark reality of having bailiffs show up at her door. With nowhere to go, there's only one person left to turn to: her best friend, Juliet. She finds friendship and safety in Juliet's flat, but when Elsie loses her bar job and all creative inspiration for her poetry dries up, she hits rock bottom.

Ayckbourn’s celebrated triology The Norman Conquests—three hilarious and poignant plays depicting the same six characters in one house over one weekend, namely Norman and his romantic follies.

A bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto veterinary clinic. Suddenly capable of more complex thought, the pack is torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferring the old dog ways, and those who embrace the change. The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings.

When Cara stumbles across a stash of old postcards in the attic, their contents make her question everything she thought she knew. The story she pieces together is confusing and unsettling, and appears to have been patched over with lies. But who can tell her the truth? With her father sinking into Alzheimer’s and her brother reluctant to help, it seems Cara will never find the answers to her questions. One thing is clear, though: someone knows more than they’re letting on.

Mahmoud’s passion for his wife, Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she’s ever known. But their happy, middle-class world implodes when their country is engulfed in war and the Taliban rises to power. Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister’s family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness.

Rumi's Spiritual Verses is the greatest mystical poem in Islamic culture - and of all time. Rumi examines our human separation from reality, love, and truth. He shows how love - neither erotic nor sentimental but divine, by which the universe is held together - enlightens ignorance and dissolves suffering. The first book of the Masnavi is the key to the whole work: It takes off from simple, amusing tales into realms unimaginable, but wholly familiar to the human heart.

This classic Shakespearean comedy is presented here in a colorful full-cast dramatization, drawn from the complete text and starring Warren Mitchell, Michael Maloney, and Sarah Woodward.

Javid - call him Jay - is a dope dealer living in West London. He goes to mosque on Friday, and he's just bought his pride and joy - a BMW. He lives with his mum, and life seems sweet. But his world is about to turn upside down. Because MI5 have been watching him, and they think he's just the man they need for a delicate mission. One thing's for sure: now he's a long way east of Hounslow, Jay's life will never be the same again.

Max Skinner is a man at the heart of London's financial universe until his employers embark on a little asset-stripping of their own. Himself. Amid the grey London drizzle, there is one potential ray of sunshine: Max's Uncle Harry has left him his estate in his will, an eighteenth-century chateau and vineyard an hour's drive from Avignon.

Gwendolen Harleth gambles her happiness when she marries a sadistic aristocrat for his money. Beautiful, neurotic, and self-centered, Gwendolen is trapped in an increasingly destructive relationship, and only her chance encounter with the idealistic Deronda seems to offer the hope of a brighter future. Deronda is searching for a vocation, and in embracing the Jewish cause he finds one that is both visionary and life-changing.