Recommendations based on "The Door in the Wall"

The AlchemistThe Devil and Miss PrymEleven MinutesVeronica Decides To DieThe Fifth Mountain

This celebrated collection of essays from the author of Infinite Jest is "brilliantly entertaining...Consider the Lobster proves once more why Wallace should be regarded as this generation's best comic writer" (Cleveland Plain Dealer).Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person?David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of John McCain's 2000 presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters."Wallace can do sad, funny, silly, heartbreaking, and absurd with equal ease; he can even do them all at once." --Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

This celebrated collection of essays from the author of Infinite Jest is "brilliantly entertaining...Consider the Lobster proves once more why Wallace should be regarded as this generation's best comic writer" (Cleveland Plain Dealer).Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person?David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of John McCain's 2000 presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters."Wallace can do sad, funny, silly, heartbreaking, and absurd with equal ease; he can even do them all at once." --Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

Both Joseph K in The Trial and K in The Castle are victims of anonymous governing forces beyond their control. Both are atomized, estranged and rootless citizens deceived by authoritarian power. Whereas Joseph K is relentlessly hunted down for a crime that remains nameless, K ceaselessly attempts to enter the castle, and so belong somewhere. Both novels may be read as powerful allegories of totalitarian government. In America, Karl Rossman experiences Oedipal and cultural isolation, and finds that “America” is never quite as real as it seems.

In A Distant Universe, Since The Beginning Of Time, Workers Have Spent Their Lives Weaving Intricate Carpets From The Hair Of Women And Girls. But Why? Andreas Eschbach's Mysterious, Poignant Space Opera Explores The Absurdity Of Work And Of Life Itself. 'a Novel Of Ideas That Evokes Complex Emotions Through The Working Out Of An Intricate And Ultimately Satisfying Plot, With Echoes Of Gene Wolfe, Ursula K. Le Guin, And Isaac Asimov' The New York Times Book Review

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.

“Ursula Le Guin is more than just a writer of adult fantasy and science fiction . . . she is a philosopher; an explorer in the landscapes of the mind.” – Cincinnati Enquirer The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and the Pushcart Prize, Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her spare, elegant prose, rich characterization, and diverse worlds. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a short story originally published in the collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters.

This remarkable book by one of the great writers of the twentieth century includes essays on a proposed universal language, a justification of suicide, a refutation of time, the nature of dreams, and the intricacies of linguistic forms. Borges comments on such literary figures as Pascal, Coleridge, Cervantes, Hawthorne, Whitman, Valéry, Wilde, Shaw, and Kafka. With extraordinary grace and erudition, he ranges in time, place, and subject from Omar Khayyam to Joseph Conrad, from ancient China to modern England, from world revolution to contemporary slang.

"I'm not on good terms with the present day," Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky once mused, "but posterity loves me." Virtually unknown during his lifetime and unpublishable under Stalin, he now draws comparisons to Beckett, Borges, Gogol, and Swift. This book presents three tales that encapsulate Krzhizhanovsky's gift for creating philosophical, satirical, and lyrical phantasmagorias. "Stravaging 'Strange'" details the darkly comic adventures of an apprentice magus: lovesick, he imbibes a magic tincture to reduce himself to the size of a dust mote, the better to observe the young lady in question. He stumbles across a talkative king of hearts, a gallant flea, a coven of vindictive house imps, and his romantic rival along the way to a cinematic dénouement. "Catastrophe" wryly parodies Kant's philosophy: an old sage decides to extract the essence from all things and beings in a ruthless attempt to understand reality--and chaos ensues. "Material for a Life of Gorgis Katafalaki," set in Berlin, Paris, London, and Moscow, recounts the absurd trials of an otherworldly outsider of uncertain nationality and unfixed profession with boundless curiosity but scant means. This book also includes excerpts from Krzhizhanovsky's notebooks--aphoristic glimpses of his worldview, moods, humor, and writing methods--and reminiscences of Krzhizhanovsky by his lifelong companion, Anna Bovshek, beginning with their first meeting in Kiev in 1920 and ending with his death in Moscow in 1950.

In sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer dead or living. - H.P. LovecraftTable of Contents:"The Magic of Atlantis: An Introduction" (Editor)Poseidonis* Editor's Note* "The Muse of Atlantis" (prose poem)* "The Last Incantation"* "The Death of Malygris"* "Tolometh" (poem)* "The Double Shadow"* "A Voyage to Sfanomoë"* "A Vintage from Atlantis"* "Atlantis: a poem" (poem)Lemuria* Editor's Note* In Lemuria (poem)* An Offering to the Moon* The Uncharted Isle* Lemurienne (poem)Ptolemides* Editor's Note* The Epiphany of DeathOther Realms* Editor's Note* In Cocaigne (prose poem)* Symposium of the Gorgon* The Venus of Azombeii* The Isle of Saturn (poem)* The Root of Ampoi* The Invisible City* Amithaine (poem)* The Willow Landscape* The Shadows (prose poem)Cover art by Gervasio Gallardo