Penguin Books strana 44 z 485
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Hop-Frog
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Edgar Allen Poe's short stories have lost none of their power to horrify. He remains a destabilizingly terse sketcher out of ideas, a writer who allows the reader to fill in the many ghastly blanks in his narratives of violence, retribution and animalism. It is hard to recommend Hop-Frog wholeheartedly (its original subtitle was: Or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs) as it is such an affront to decency, but you will certainly never forget it.
A Poet Can Survive Everything But a Misprint
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
'All art,' Oscar Wilde once announced, 'is quite useless.' Selected here are some of his finest prose works on the subject of art - useless, illuminating, artificial, uplifting, radical, gorgeous, boring, sublime - and his most brilliant aphorisms on the creative life. Whether lamenting the crass urge to hold art to realist or natural standards or arguing against morality as a guiding principle, Wilde defends the artist while delighting the audience.
The Burial of the Rats
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
The bones were still warm; but they were picked clean. They had even eaten their own dead
This spine-chilling collection from Dracula creator Bram Stoker showcases five haunting tales, including the newly discovered ‘Gibbet Hill’. From ‘Dracula’s Guest’, thought by many to be the original excised opening of Dracula itself, to the sinister ‘The Judge’s House,’ each gripping story will leave you breathless, perhaps afraid to turn out the lights. Dare you explore the darkness?
October Nights
90 Classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
In October Nights, Gerard de Nerval takes us on a gentle meander through nighttime Paris – a dreamlike journey towards getting lost. Also included in this volume is Sylvie, his haunting novella of love and memory, the ‘masterpiece’ that inspired Proust to write In Search of Lost Time. Together, these works by the French poet, visionary and pioneering modernist are a testament to the power of jewelled thinking, and an inspiration for flaneurs and romantics everywhere.
The Chimes
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Trotty Veck, an elderly porter, has read so many newspaper reports about crime and immorality that he believes the working classes are irredeemable. But, on New Year's Eve, summoned to the church tower by a mysterious chiming, Trotty witnesses his own death, and is taken on a ghostly journey that will force him to reassess his conviction. One of Dickens' 'Christmas stories', The Chimes is charming and surprising manifesto for empathy for our fellow man.
Jasmine Tea
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
‘But how sweet a fruit the ‘suppose’ must be, that people will sup and sup on it! A juicy fruit, like a lychee but without the pit, sparkling and light green: a fruit that hides the tart within the sweet.’
In this haunting collection of stories, a young man’s obsession leads to tragedy and a woman’s bitterness poisons a family’s legacy. In delicate, piercing prose, Chang captures a world of quiet cruelties and calamitous desires in pre-revolutionary China.
After Midnight
90 Classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Arrested in Cologne for remarking that the Fuhrer looked sweaty, nineteen-year-old Sanna has fled to Frankfurt. But her troubles are far from over. Her best friend Gerti has fallen for a Jewish boy, her brother writes books that have been blacklisted, and her own aunt could turn her in to the authorities at any moment. Darkly humorous and utterly heart rending, this gripping novel vividly captures the terror and hysteria of pre-war Nazi Germany.
A Confirmed Bachelor
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Following the death of his sister, middle-aged Dr Graesler leaves his winter home in Lanzarote for a health resort in Germany, where he practised medicine for many years. There he meets the Schleheim family, and is particularly drawn to their daughter Sabine. But a simple, stilted courtship soon unravels a web of hushed-up suicide and illicit sexual liaisons. Arthur Schnitzler's tumultuous psychodrama remains as startling now as it did on first publication.
Whatever is Rational is Tolerable
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
‘I must die. But must I die bawling?’
What does it mean to live a virtuous life? How can we rise above pain and anguish? In these teachings from Book 1 of his Discourses, ancient philosopher Epictetus outlines a practical approach to Stoicism that has inspired thinkers for centuries, from Marcus Aurelius to Theodore Roosevelt, offering enduring wisdom on resilience, virtue and the pursuit of meaning.
Horsie
90 Classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
What can you say, when a man asks you to dance with him? I most certainly will not dance with you. I’ll see you in hell first. Why, thank you, I’d like to awfully, but I’m having labor pains.
Acerbic, pithy and vibrant, Dorothy Parker’s writings capture the dizzying decadence of Jazz Age New York. Parker, however, refuses to be swept along: she gleefully deconstructs its hypocrisy, prejudice and taboos with style and precision.
Transformation
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
'He stretched out his two long, lank arms, that looked like spider’s claws, and seemed to embrace with them the expanse before him'
His inheritance squandered and engagement severed, Guido di Cortese stalks the desolate Genoese coast. A monstrous creature, shipwrecked by a ferocious storm, offers him unimaginable wealth to exchange bodies, entwining their fates. Transformation, with two further tales of striking and eerie power here, shows how Mary Shelley haunts us still.
Where Everything is Music
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Rumi’s verses have been a balm for readers’ souls for over eight centuries. This exquisite selection brings together some of the Persian mystic’s most profound, evocative and transcendent works. Exploring passion, heartbreak, friendship, faith and the myriad ways in which we move through the world, these strikingly modern poems are perfect for those looking for inspiration, guidance, or endless delight.
The Drivers Seat
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Muriel Spark claimed The Driver’s Seat to be her best and creepiest novel. Once you have met her heroine Lise – heading for the holiday of a lifetime in an extraordinarily garish dress and with violence on her mind – you will understand why.
The Story of an Hour
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name
Nuns, maidens, adventurers - with electricity, The Story of an Hour brings together stories of female freedom, as Kate Chopin asks the question: what will emancipation feel like for women, looking at the horizon and the future, to the frontier?
Rescue
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Collecting two of his most celebrated works – Rescue, written in Warsaw in the shadow of Nazi occupation, and A Treatise on Poetry – a momentous history of Poland, told in four cantos – here lie the sharpest fruits of one of the greatest poets of the 20th century: the Nobel Laureate who narrates the rise and fall of nations, who ‘voices man’s exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts’.
Tristessa
90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books
Tristessa is a strange fever-dream of morphine sickness and belly-deep sadness. Or, in the words of Allen Ginsberg: 'a narrative meditation studying a hen, a rooster, a dove, a cat, a chihuahua dog, family meat, and a ravishing, ravished junky lady, first in their crowded bedroom, then out to drunken streets, taco stands, and pads at dawn in Mexico City slums'.