Empfehlungen basierend auf "The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy"

Thirteen strangely wrought, ingeniously crafted stories make up Nabokov's baker's dozen. In some of these stories shadowy people pass through, cooped up by life, with nowhere to escape to. Their dreams lie stifled, smothered by routine and repetition, and frustrations lurk in all the corners. In others, elusive glimpses of fleeting happiness, which flutter away before they can be snatched, waylay their victims. Like the shimmer of the sea, the gleam of a glass caught by the sun, they sparkle brilliantly only to dissolve again.

The prizewinning, complete and unabridged translation—“the best English-language version we are likely to see for a long time, if ever” (The Guardian)—of a work of unclassifiable genius: the crowning achievement of Portugal’s modern masterEdited, Translated, and with an Introduction by Richard Zenith, the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Pessoa: A BiographyWinner of the Calouste Gulbenkian Translation Prize for Portuguese TranslationA Penguin ClassicFernando Pessoa was many writers in one. He attributed his prolific writings to a wide range of alternate selves, each of which had a distinct biography, ideology, and horoscope. When he died in 1935, Pessoa left behind a trunk filled with unfinished and unpublished writings, among which were the remarkable pages that make up his posthumous masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, an astonishing work that, in George Steiner's words, "gives to Lisbon the haunting spell of Joyce's Dublin or Kafka's Prague."Published for the first time some fifty years after his death, this unique collection of short, aphoristic paragraphs comprises the "autobiography" of Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa's alternate selves. Part intimate diary, part prose poetry, part descriptive narrative, captivatingly translated by Richard Zenith, The Book of Disquiet is one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.“Pessoa is a genius.” —André Aciman

This selection of non-fictional work from the author of Life, a User's Manual, demonstrates Georges Perec's characteristic lightness of touch, wry humour and accessibility.

The whole town got involved with the hunger-artist; from day to day of his starving, people's participation grew; everyone wanted to see the hunger-artist at least once a day; on the later days there were season-ticket holders who sat for days on end in front of his little cage Reading these stories by the master of the absurd is like entering a dreamworld in which nothing, and yet somehow everything, makes sense.

The Glass Bead Game is an ultra-aesthetic game which is played by the scholars, creamed off in childhood and nurtured in elite schools, in the province of Castalia. The Master of the Glass Bead Game, Joseph Knecht, holds the most exalted office in Castalia. He personifies the detachment, serenity and aesthetic vision which reward a life dedicated to perfection of the intellect. But can, indeed should, man live isolated from hunger, family, children, women, in a perfect world where passions are tamed by meditation, where academic discipline and order are paramount? This is Herman Hesse’s great novel. It is a major contribution to contemporary philosophic literature and has a powerful vision of universality, the inner unity of man’s cultural ideals and his search for personal perfection and social responsibility.

'Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately it is within no one's reach.' In The Trouble With Being Born, E. M. Cioran grapples with the major questions of human existence- birth, death, God, the passing of time, how to relate to others and how to make ourselves get out of bed in the morning. In a series of interlinking aphorisms which are at once pessimistic, poetic and extremely funny, Cioran finds a kind of joy in his own despair, revelling in the absurdity and futility of our existence, and our inability to live in the world. Translated by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and critic Richard Howard, The Trouble With Being Born is a provocative, illuminating testament to a singular mind.

All too often, this brilliant novel of thwarted love and revenge miscarried has been read for its political implications. Now, a quarter century after The Joke was first published and several years after the collapse of the Soviet-imposed Czechoslovak regime, it becomes easier to put such implications into perspective in favor of valuing the book (and all Kundera 's work) as what it truly is: great, stirring literature that sheds new light on the eternal themes of human existence. The present edition provides English-language readers an important further means toward revaluation of The Joke. For reasons he describes in his Author's Note, Milan Kundera devoted much time to creating (with the assistance of his American publisher-editor) a completely revised translation that reflects his original as closely as any translation possibly can: reflects it in its fidelity not only to the words and syntax but also to the characteristic dictions and tonalities of the novel's narrators. The result is nothing less than the restoration of a classic.

Twenty-five of the finest science fiction short stories from one of the genre's greatest writers, Isaac Asimov. Isaac Asimov was the Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America, the founder of robot ethics, and one of the world's most prolific authors of fiction and non-fiction. Asimov's short fiction has been enjoyed by millions for more than half a century. Many of the stories in this collection are classics of the genre, including 'Living Space', which looks at the consequences of the existence of parallel universes and what would happen if life on Earth never developed. Always entertaining and thought provoking, these stories display Asimov's mastery of the short story form. He remains supreme as the thinking person's science fiction writer.

The second in a two volume collection of short stories by the acclaimed author of 'Empire of the Sun', 'Crash' and 'Super-Cannes'. The new edition is introduced by Adam Thirwell. With eighteen novels over four decades - from 'The Drowned World' in 1962 to his final novel 'Kingdom Come' in 2006 - J.G. Ballard is known as one of Britain's most celebrated and original novelists. However, during his long career he was also a prolific writer of short stories; in fact, many people consider that he is at his best in the short-story format. These highly influential stories have appeared in magazines such as New Worlds, Amazing Stories and Interzone, and in several separate collections, including 'The Terminal Beach', 'The Venus Hunters', 'Vermilion Sands', 'Low-Flying Aircraft' and 'Myths of the Near Future'. Set out in the original order of publication and frequently the point of conception for ideas he further developed in his novels, these stories provide an unprecedented opportunity to see the imagination of one of Britain's greatest writers at work. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard's works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Robert Macfarlane, Iain Sinclair, James Lever and Ali Smith) and brand-new cover designs from the artist Stanley Donwood.

List of titles included in this boxed set are- Africa's Tarnished Nameby Chinua Achebe An Advertisement for Toothpasteby Ryszard Kapuscinski Create Dangerouslyby Albert Camus Dark Daysby James Baldwin Daydream and Drunkenness of a Young Ladyby Clarice Lispector Death the Barberby William Carlos Williams Fameby Andy Warhol Foodby Gertrude Stein Four Russian Short Storiesby Various Glittering Cityby Cyprian Ekwensi I Have More Souls Than Oneby Fernando Pessoa Investigations of a Dogby Franz Kafka Lanceby Vladimir Nabokov Leaving the Yellow Houseby Saul Bellow Letter from Birmingham Jailby Martin Luther King Letter to My Motherby Georges Simenon Madame du Deffand and the Idiotsby Javier Marias New York City in 1979by Kathy Acker Notes on Campby Susan Sontag Notes on Nationalismby George Orwell Of Dogs and Wallsby Yuko Tsushima Piers of the HomelessNight by Jack Kerouac Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamberby Allen Ginsberg The Black Ballby Ralph Ellison TheBreakthroughby Daphne Du Maurier The Cracked Looking-Glassby Katherine Anne Porter The Custard Heartby Dorothy Parker The Dialogue of Two Snailsby Federico Garcia Lorca The Distance of theMoonby Italo Calvino The Duke in His Domainby Truman Capote TheEndby Samuel Beckett The Fingerby William S. Burroughs The Garden of Forking Pathsby Jorge Luis Borges The Gigoloby Francoise Sagan The Great Hungerby Patrick Kavanagh The Haunted Boyby Carson McCullers The Legend of the Sleepersby Danilo Kis The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's Houseby Audre Lorde The Missing Girlby Shirley Jackson The Problem that Has No Nameby Betty Friedan The Red Tenda of Bolognaby John Berger The Skeleton's Holidayby Leonora Carrington The Survivorby Primo Levi The Three Electroknightsby Stanislaw Lem The Veiled Womanby Anais Nin The Vigilanteby John Steinbeck Three Japanese Short Storiesby Various Till September Petronellaby Jean Rhys Why Do You Wear a Cheap Watch?by Hans Fallada Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computerby Wendell Berry