Nothing in Elias' measured life, in his whole career as a teacher of literature, in his marriage to the 'indescribably beautiful' Eva, foreshadowed the events of that apparently ordinary day. He makes sure he has his headache pills and leaves for work as he has done every morning for the past twenty-five years.He is only too familiar with his pupils' hostile attitude both to his lectures and to himself, but today he feels their impatience, their oafishness, more painfully than ever...

It is Christmas Eve, and 55-year-old Professor Pål Andersen is alone, drinking coffee and cognac in his living room. Lost in thought, he looks out of the window and sees a man strangle a woman in the apartment across the street.Professor Andersen fails to report the crime. The days pass, and he becomes paralysed by indecision. Desperate for respite, the professor sets off to a local sushi bar, only to find himself face to face with the murderer.Professor Andersen's Nigh...

WINNER OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY'S NORDIC PRIZE 2017'He’s a kind of surrealistic writer... I think that’s serious literature' Haruki Murakami‘An utterly hypnotic and utterly humane writer’ James Wood'Without question Norway's bravest, most intelligent novelist' Per Petterson'Dag Solstad serves up another helping of his wan and wise almost-comedy' Geoff Dyer'He d...

The new novel in English from one of Norway’s most celebrated writers.T Singer confronts indomitable loneliness in Solstad’s classic, heartbreaking yet darkly comic style.‘A kind of surrealistic writer… Serious literature’ Haruki Murakami‘Mad, sad and funny… Thrilling’ Geoff DyerSinger, a thirty-four-year-old recently trained librarian, arrives by train in the small town of Notodden ...

New Directions proudly introduces two novels in English by the Norwegian master, who is “without question, Norway’s bravest, most intelligent novelist” (Per Petterson)Armand is a diplomat rising through the ranks of the Norwegian foreign office, but he’s caught between his public duty to support foreign wars in the Middle East and his private disdain for Western intervention. He hides behind knowing, ironic statements, which no one grasps and which change nothing. ...

A brilliant novel by the Norwegian master Dag SolstadBjørn Hansen, a respectable town treasurer, has just turned fifty and is horrified by the thought that chance has ruled his life. Eighteen years ago he left his wife and their two-year-old son for his mistress, who persuaded him to start afresh in a small, provincial town and to devote himself to an amateur theater.In time that relationship also faded, and after four years of living alone Bjørn contemplates an ex...

The masterful second novel in the Martin Beck series of mysteries by the internationally renowned crime writing duo, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck searching Budapest for a well-known Swedish journalist who has disappeared without a trace. With an introduction by Val McDermid: "So many of the elements that have become integral...in the police procedural subgenre started life in these ten novels....Their plots are second to none."Inspector Martin Beck of the Stockholm Homici...

The lightning-paced fifth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck investigating one of the strangest, most violent, and unforgettable crimes of his career.The incendiary device that blew the roof off a Stockholm apartment not only interrupted the small, peaceful orgy underway inside, it nearly took the lives of the building's eleven occupants. And if one of Martin Beck's colleagues hadn't been on the ...

**FINALIST FOR THE 2017 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZEFrom the author of The Door, selected as one of the New York Times "10 Best Books of 2015," this is a heartwrenching tale about a group of friends and lovers torn apart by the German occupation of Budapest during World War II.**In prewar Budapest three families live side by side on gracious Katalin Street, their lives closely intertwined. A game is played by the four children in which Bálint, the promising son of the Maj...

This special introductory offer features some of Encyclopedia Brown's first cases ever: “The Case of the Bank Robber” and “The Case of the Happy Nephew.” These stories are great for readers new to the series and wonderful nostalgia for those who grew up solving mysteries with the boy detective.

As her mother slipped into the darkness of old age, Lisa Appignanesi began to realise how little she knew of the reality behind the tales she had heard since childhood. She had shunned her parents' stories of war-time Poland, but now she set out to find the truth. In her quest she flew to Warsaw - imagining and revisiting a past she never knew.This is the moving story of the Jews who survived outside the camps, but it is also the author's own voyage of self-discovery - a family mem...

Hilmar Klute tells the touching story of how he unexpectedly became a dog owner the day his wife came home with Winston, an English Bull Terrier puppy she finds abandoned in a city cemetery.The new arrival in Hilmar's life is soon peeing on his parquet floor and chewing his glasses, cushions, telephone cable - and pretty much everything in sight! Winston wrecks the apartment and keeps Hilmar awake at night, but the dog also opens up a new world to Hilmar; of which he was previously ...