David Guterson

Ann Holmes seems an unlikely candidate for revelation. A sixteen-year-old runaway, she is an itinerant mushroom picker who lives in a tent. Her past has been hardscrabble. Then one November afternoon, in the foggy woods of North Fork, Washington, the Virgin comes to her, clear as day. Is this delusion, a product of her occasional drug use, or a true calling to God? Gradually word spreads, and thousands converge upon the already troubled town. For Tom Cross, an embittered logger who's been out of work since his son was paralyzed in a terrible accident, the possibility that Ann's visions are real offers a last chance for him and his son. As Father Collins searches both his own soul and Ann's, as Carolyn struggles with her less than admirable intentions, as Tom alternates between despair and hope, Our Lady Of The Forest combines suspense, grit and humour in a story of faith at a contemporary crossroad.

Doktor Ben Givens, třiasedmdesátiletý chirurg ze Seattlu, nedávno ovdovělý a na odpočinku, onemocněl rakovinou střev. Nechce se však stát předmětem soucitu, a proto se rozhodne tuto neblahou skutečnost utajit jak před svou dcerou, tak před vnukem. Ben byl vždycky mužem činu, a místem, kde se rozhodně cítil nejlépe, byla nádherná příroda jeho kraje. Odjakživa se v ní toulával se psy a s puškou, buď jen tak podnikal túry, anebo lovil. Se stejnou výbavou odchází tedy do přírody i teď, avšak jeho úmysly jsou tentokrát jiné... Tam někde daleko od lidí - jen ve společnosti svých dvou loveckých psů - chce doktor Givens skoncovat se životem, aby sebe i své blízké ušetřil utrpení na smrtelné posteli. Sebevražda má vypadat jako obyčejná nehoda, ale osud nakonec rozhodne jinak... Gutersonův román není jen srdceryvným dobrodružstvím muže, bilancujícího dobré i zlé. Je to i óda na jablečnými sady provoněný kraj autorova dětství a mládí, mistrná kresba velkolepé, věčně proměnlivé tváře přírody.

Seattle, 1972: two teenage boys are standing at the start line of an 800m race. Neil Countryman is from the public high school in the north of the city: he slumps at his desk all day and gets high in the park at lunchtime, and wears a moustache that makes him look like the guy in the Camel cigarette ads. John William Barry is from Lakeside, a private academy for the more privileged of Seattle's youth: he is an earnest, fiery young man, and his family background is one of material wealth and emotional deprivation.As John William wins the race by a hair's breadth, their lives collide for the very first time, and it is the beginning of a friendship that is both fraught and intimate. Both boys have a taste for the wilderness, and they explore together the most remote areas of the mountains, the places ignored by guidebooks, where tracks and roads fade to nothing and all that can be seen is an endless unbroken density of trees. But as they grow older, John William's intense intelligence and craving for isolation mark him out as an eccentric, and as Neil begins to accumulate the more conventional comforts - a wife, a steady job - their lives begin to take radically different paths.Eventually, John William is to retreat permanently into his own self-made wilderness, and in doing so presents his oldest friend with a gift which will change his life for ever, bringing them both a notoriety that Neil had neither dreamed of nor hoped for. A moving tale about the mixed blessings that friendship can bring, The Other is an extraordinary novel from a masterful storyteller.

Šestnáctileté Ann, introvertní plaché dívce, která utekla z domova, žije na lesním tábořišti a živí se sbíráním hub, se jednoho dne zjeví Panna Maria. Ann, kterou znásilňoval nevlastní otec, má za sebou dva potraty a pravidelně kouří marihuanu, není zrovna pravděpodobnou kandidátkou na zázračné zjevení. Když však rozhlásí, že vídá v lese bohorodičku, vyvolá řetězec událostí, které k městečku přitáhnou pozornost médií, náboženských fanatiků i katolické církve, a názory kolísají mezi nadšením a skepsí.

A beautiful new limited edition paperback of Snow Falling on Cedars, published as part of the Bloomsbury Modern Classics list He saw the soft cedars of San Piedro Island, its high, rolling hills, the low mist that lay in long streamers against its beaches, the whitecaps riffling its shoreline. The moon had risen already behind the island - a quarter moon, pale and indefinite, as ethereal and translucent as the wisps of cloud that travelled the skies. A fisherman is found dead in the net of his boat off the coast of a North American island. When a local Japanese-American man is charged with his murder, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than one man's guilt. For on San Piedro, memories grow as thickly as cedar trees - memories of a charmed romance between a white boy and a Japanese girl. Above all, the island is haunted by what happened to its Japanese residents during the Second World War, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbours watched.

Šestnáctileté Ann, introvertní plaché dívce, která utekla z domova, žije na lesním tábořišti a živí se sbíráním hub, se jednoho dne zjeví Panna Maria. Ann, kterou znásilňoval nevlastní otec, má za sebou dva potraty a pravidelně kouří marihuanu, není zrovna pravděpodobnou kandidátkou na zázračné zjevení. Když však rozhlásí, že vídá v lese bohorodičku, vyvolá řetězec událostí, které k městečku přitáhnou pozornost médií, náboženských fanatiků i katolické církve, a názory kolísají mezi nadšením a skepsí.

Seattle, 1972: Neil Countryman and John William Barry, two teenage boys from very different backgrounds, are at the start of an 800m race. Their lives collide for the first time, and so begins an extraordinary friendship. As they grow older Neil follows the conventional route of the American dream, but the eccentric, fiercely intelligent John William makes radically different choices, dropping out of college and moving deep into the woods. Convinced it is the only way to live without hypocrisy, John William enlists Neil to help him disappear completely, drawing his oldest friend into a web of secrets and agonising responsibility, deceit and tragedy - one that will finally break open with an unexpected, life-altering revelation.

Seattle, 1972: Neil Countryman and John William Barry, two teenage boys from very different backgrounds, are at the start of an 800m race. Their lives collide for the first time, and so begins an extraordinary friendship. As they grow older Neil follows the conventional route of the American dream, but the eccentric, fiercely intelligent John William makes radically different choices, dropping out of college and moving deep into the woods. Convinced it is the only way to live without hypocrisy, John William enlists Neil to help him disappear completely, drawing his oldest friend into a web of secrets and agonising responsibility, deceit and tragedy - one that will finally break open with an unexpected, life-altering revelation.

Seattle, 1972: Neil Countryman and John William Barry, two teenage boys from very different backgrounds, are at the start of an 800m race. Their lives collide for the first time, and so begins an extraordinary friendship. As they grow older Neil follows the conventional route of the American dream, but the eccentric, fiercely intelligent John William makes radically different choices, dropping out of college and moving deep into the woods. Convinced it is the only way to live without hypocrisy, John William enlists Neil to help him disappear completely, drawing his oldest friend into a web of secrets and agonising responsibility, deceit and tragedy - one that will finally break open with an unexpected, life-altering revelation.